The Race Of Fanaticism

I have great admiration and respect for Hinduism, because I regard the principles of Hinduism as some ofthe best the human race could have invented and put into practice. The theory of Dharma and Karma and theirimportance in seeking Nirvana are unique and represent understanding at a very high level of human intellect.

But just as Islam has been hijacked by a few radicals who did not understand the humanity and morecompassionate elements of their religion, Hinduism is being hijacked by a few Hindus who have been workingvery hard at the grass-root levels for decades in what they believe are their efforts in reviving Hinduism,because they see Hinduism as a decaying ideology under threat. A closer analysis of these awakened Hindus,their fascist ideology, extreme agenda and radical mind set reveals only a suppressed psyche which promotes amessage of hate painting an apocalyptic picture of Hinduism, everything that this great philosophy, orreligion, if you will, is not.

They [radical Hindus] say that historically Hindus have been suppressed. No one can deny that. Hindus havebeen suppressed and ruled by several foreigners, including Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Mughal and Britishinvaders. Although some of the legacy of those foreign rules in terms of architecture and administration wasgood and desirable, one of its unfortunate effects was that in one way or the other, elements of that rulestill continue in some of our hearts and minds. Unless we understand how it became possible for those invadersto defeat us and rule, we will never be able to strengthen ourselves enough to come out of that slavish psycheor mind-set. Simply blaming others or acquiring revengeful attitude toward other faiths and beliefs will notsolve our problem.

The biggest mistake our ancestors made [the ancestors of today's Hindus and Muslims of the Indiansubcontinent are the same-- that is Hindu] was the creation of caste system. With that they created severalapparently conflicting and mutually hateful groups amongst the followers of the same faith [Hinduism],injecting a mostly suppressive and resentful mechanism. Even before the invaders came from outside, we wereactively suppressing our own people resulting in weakening ourselves. In fact with that infighting, it waseasier for the outsiders to conquer us, dominate us, collectively suppress us, even force us into foreignfaiths and beliefs. It was our own indigenous policy of the past that weakened us and had allowed us to beruled by external forces.

The very fact that the awakened Hindus of today continue not only to dodge that basic issue but evencondone it by putting one or the other positive spin for its justification and utility even in present times,and do nothing about the urgent requirement of integrating all Hindus regardless of their caste, creed and theorigin, shows that their objective is not to reform the religion and help Hinduism by taking it out of theclutches of divisive forces from within. Rather, their motivation is something else. Their true agenda onlyappears to spread hate against certain communities; to punish the people of those foreign faiths for theexcesses of their ancestors; to cleanse the society of those people. An agenda that has all the elements offascist ideology, a failed ideology that continues to impress only those sick minds which have otherwisefailed to make a difference in the world through progress or through strength of their principles.

As a Muslim, I have no doubt in my mind that Muslim invaders, even if some of those integrated well withour Indian culture and contributed immensely to our history and pride, have committed despicable crimes andexcesses against Indians in general and Hindus in particular. But today what we need to understand andappreciate is that the present day Muslims have nothing to do with that and that they can not and should notbe held responsible to receive the punishment for the crimes of their ancestors.

It reminds me of an experience as a six year old on one of our train journeys -- as the train started tomove, someone from the front compartment spat out. The spit came on my hand. Angry and wanting to punish theguy who spat on me, I spat right back. But my spit fell on someone behind me. The Hindu reformists must riseabove a six year old intellect.

While I do not discount the past excesses of Muslims on the Hindus, those excesses had nothing to do withme and asking me to pay for those is simply ludicrous, just as asking upper caste Hindus of today to pay forthe atrocities their ancestors committed on the Harijans, or the present day white people for the past slaveryof blacks by their ancestors.

I will, however, agree that in present times there are several factors those remind Hindus of the pastMuslim excesses and atrocities, some of which include Ayodhya, Kashmir, Muslim Personal Law (MPL) andantinational activities of some Muslims -- an oft repeated example being that many Muslims celebrate Pakistanvictories in cricket matches.

But many of these complaints or concerns are overtly exaggerated and politically motivated. Let us try andanalyze these complaints a little more rationally and without bias:

Ayodhya
This was the biggest blunder of the Muslim leadership. They failed the Muslims of India on this issue. Theyhad a chance to build the bridge of understanding and cooperation with Hindus, through yielding on this issue.Besides, it was just a little price to pay towards compensating some of the past atrocities of theirancestors, even if the claim of VHP and other radical organizations on the existence of Ram temple at the siteduring pre-Babar era was wrong. Plain and true, they missed the opportunity. Good news is that they still havetime to act. Mr. Shahabuddin, are you listening?

Kashmir
This issue is a little more complex. I don't think Kashmir is a problem created by the Kashmiri Muslims. Muchof the bad work is done by those from across the border for which the locals and their community get blamed.There is also some resentment amongst Kashmiris because our union failed to integrate them in the mainstreammaking them partners in progress. That is why it was relatively easy for ISI to foment trouble in the region.

It would be wrong for us to call it a religious issue. A similar resentment and break-up effort was enactedin Punjab. But we did not bring in religion there. Rightly so. Keeping the religious sentiments away, despitestrong temptation to do so, alone will help evolve a potential solution to the problem in Kashmir. Of coursemy heart goes out for those Kashmiri Hindus who have been killed and driven out of their homeland. My heartalso goes out for those Kashmiri Muslims killed and displaced who are no less in number over the same period.We need to find a political solution to this problem. The sooner, the better.

BJP came to power on the promise of scrapping Article 370 in Kashmir. I supported that. It is more than 4years since they are in power and have done nothing about that yet. One wonders why --  do they lack thepolitical will, or was it just a convenient issue to whip religious sentiments and derive mileage?

Muslim Personal Law (MPL)
Muslim leadership has failed their subjects here as well. Muslim in general do not oppose a Uniform Civil Code(UCC), but they get the rap for the apathy shown by their leaders in exaggerating the importance of MPL.Muslims living in every developed nation -- UK, US, Germany, France --  follow that country's civil codewithout insisting on Muslim Personal Law. Then why the opposition to bring in a UCC in India? Had they had alittle foresight, they would have challenged the proponents of UCC to do just that.

There are other complications in bringing UCC in India, some of which are properly integrating variousexisting Hindu laws and benefits provided to different castes and tribes under existing laws. But again,Muslim leadership has just provided them an excuse to put the blame squarely on MPL and get away with it.

Despite all the noise these Hindu activists make, the fact is that the demography of India has not changedover the last 50 years despite ballooning of Indian population. I don't know of any Muslim who has, or wantsto have, four wives and dozens of children. The percentage of population with large families (more than 6)also does not show any significant religion bias. So why has Muslim leadership allowed the blame pinned on ourheads for nothing? Ignorance. Wake up Shahabuddins!

Support for Pakistan
In justifying the Gujarat carnage, many of my intellectual Hindu friends reminded me that Muslims areanti-national: "they celebrate Pakistan victories during India-Pakistan cricket matches." I don'tagree with that. Because if this is the qualification for being anti-national, then I have known thousands ofIndians living abroad, Hindus and Muslims, who at the very first opportunity renounce their Indian passportsand nationality to become American, or British, or Canadian, even Ugandan or Kenyan. Are they anti-nationals?

It is said that America lost the Vietnam war first in the United States. People were against that war. Andthey had the freedom to express their views. They were not anti-national. There are many Americans who burntheir own flag. Who dares call them anti-national? That is what the freedom is all about.

But realistically, not all Muslims root for Pakistan. In fact, I have not known any one who does. So why dowe succumb to such stereotyping? Because politically it helps. Because power politics can not survive withoutidentifying and out-lining differences. You need villains to project yourself as hero. That is what thisrhetoric is all about.

Every society has some bad elements. Muslim society has it. Hindu society has it. Christian society has it.But those bad elements don't define the society. Good elements do. Just because some of those bad elements dowhat we perceive as antinational activities, we can not ask them to leave India. They are also Indiannationals who have every right to live in India. All of their ancestors were Indian, even if at some stagethey chose to accept Islam. No one has a right to ask them, or force them to leave India.

There are thousands of Indian Americans who regard themselves Americans. Imagine if tomorrow there isunrest in the US on unemployment issue and Americans ask them to leave because they are taking up their jobs.How would they feel? Especially those who are born and brought up there, who have not known any other countryas homeland except the US?

That is the state of most Indian Muslims who are often asked to leave India just because somebody paintsthe entire community antinational based on a few such bad elements.

During Gujarat riots, VHP targeted and killed my father-in-law, the former M.P. Ahsan Jafri, just becausehe was a Muslim. Ahsan Jafri was neither a terrorist, nor a fundamentalist, nor even an antinational. Heserved his country and its citizens, regardless of their ethnic background, race, or religion, for 50 yearswith pride and distinction. His poems full of strong nationalism and his teachings constant with human valuesand communal tolerance are a testimony to his deep roots in the Indian culture and respect for all faiths,which those who targeted and killed him did not understand or appreciate. Of course, Jafri family did notblame the entire Hindu society for killing their loved one. Because they know that a few bad elements of asociety do not represent the entire society.

Muslim-pampering and pandering by political bodies, however, has been a reality in India. That has been oneprime factor which has been largely responsible for the state of Indian Muslims today. The vote-bank politics,following independence, has kept the Indian Muslims mostly unchanged in terms of education, development, orprogress. A strong Muslim leadership is mostly absent. I fully agree that without this pampering, IndianMuslims could have done much better if a level-field without faith-based discrimination, or intimidation couldhave been ensured. But the sad fact is that although BJP blamed Congress for such vote-bank politics, it isdoing exactly the same thing. Of course it does not appease Muslims, instead it appeases VHP, Bajrang Dal andRSS who show exactly the same mind-set as the Muslim fundamentalists.

Kathopanishad says, "those who dwell on yesterday's mistakes are condemned to repeat themtomorrow." Let the intellectuals not fall for the divisive agenda of activists disguised as patriots orIndian nationalists. Let us not become pseudo-intellectual and pseudo-seculars just because we are repeatedlychallenged by such rhetoric. Let us recognize that an Indian is an Indian regardless of his color, race, orreligion; that he/she has a right of freedom, expression, and faith. Despite all expressed apocalyptic fears,Hinduism can not be destroyed or weakened. Nor can the Indian Muslims.