Who wants a martyr in Osama? Certainly not the aam Muslim.
In fact, the US execution of its arch enemy has stirred a complex and varied emotional response in Muslim neighbourhoods across India, in which the gloating executioner’s tone weighs more than the death of Osama. For Osama’s rhetoric had only touched Kashmir and never the concerns of other Indian Muslims, yet America’s wars in Muslim lands, wreaking havoc on their inhabitants in the name of punishing Osama and Al Qaeda, had never gone down well with Muslims here. As an example of the nuanced reaction to Osama’s death, I would like to share a maulvi’s words, “In President Obama’s opinion, the victims of 9/11 have got justice with bin Laden’s death. But what about justice to the millions whose lives were destroyed in Iraq and Afghanistan?” Words probably harsher than even that of the Egyptian Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen (Muslim Brotherhood), which wants the US and Western troops to withdraw from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan since their arch foe is finished, but certainly more reasonable than that of the Hamas, which has hailed Osama unequivocally as a martyred holy warrior of Islam. Ironically, or perhaps more motivatedly than ironically, officials in the Israeli embassy in New Delhi seem more active in propagating the Hamas’s extreme view among Indian Muslims than Hamas itself. Urdu journalists have received an e-mailed communique from an Israeli embassy official containing the statement made by Hamas. Actions like these, as also the hasty burial at sea and circulation in the media of a fake photo of Osama’s body, seem to upset Indian Muslims and give birth to conspiracy theories and urban legends in Muslim neighbourhoods and on the internet circuit. One such legend is that Osama didn’t fall to an American bullet but killed himself heroically to avoid the ignominy of being taken alive by the Americans. Another one: the Americans killed him several years ago, but they kept alive his fiction in order to justify their wars, which were undertaken for oil or for subjugating Muslims. Of course, there is also an extremist fringe among Indian Muslims that would like to capitalise on conspiracy theories and legends doing the rounds. There is some concerned buzz among enlightened Muslims about fundamentalists preparing a booklet for distribution about Osama’s ‘heroic deeds in the service of Islam’ and muted concerns also about the recently increased traffic to Deoband from Pakistan.
For many Indian Muslims, Osama and Al Qaeda have always been a creation, even if they physically existed, of the intelligence czars of the CIA and the Mossad of Israel to fight wars, first against the Soviets and then against Muslim nations. This view finds echo even in the aam Indian Muslim’s reaction to Osama’s death at American hands. It has been expressed resoundingly by a Lucknow-based Urdu daily, Waris-e-Awadh, which headlined its lead story on Osama’s death, ‘America ne Khud ka Tarasheeda But Tod Dala (America Destroys the Idol it had Itself Fashioned).’ Talking of Urdu newspapers, it is interesting to note the difference in tone between prominent dailies based in the North and those from the South. Most prominent dailies in the North, like Urdu Sahara, Sahafat, In Dinon, Aag and Awadhnama are owned, controlled, edited or influenced by Shias. They have covered the event extensively but in rather neutral tones. They also underplayed the Shahi Imam’s rhetoric. Most prominent Urdu dailies from the south, on the other hand, are controlled by Sunnis—like the Inquilab, Urdu Times, Siyasat, Munsif, Rehnuma-e-Dakkan and Salar. Their coverage is even more extensive, the headlines and reporting more charged and loaded against US, and their portrayal of Osama is tinged with a bit of sympathy. All said, I have yet to meet an Indian Muslim who approves of bin Laden’s violent methods or hear about an Urdu publication supportive of them.