Reflections on India and the Muslims

As evening approaches, my mother along with my sister takes hold of the only TV set we have. But for the past few weeks, she has been following every news intently. This is rather unusual since she rarely misses her TV soaps. My mother is not naivete, but politics for her is unbearable. However, I personally feel that two more weeks of news would certainly make her choices quite difficult. 

Few weeks back, I called her. She was sounding alarmed. She told me that she had heard that we might have to leave our country if Modi wins. I laughed and tried to ease her. I told her that this is not possible in India. It calmed things down but not before she added that the prospects of communal riots would be higher. 

This was before the results. The day results were all over the place and all news channels were showing a near saffron Indian map, her despair grew. She said quite explicitly on the phone that now the Muslims would not walk honorably on the road. There slightest of mistakes can be made a flash point for reprisals. I did not quite disagree but I did my bit to soothe things down. I advised her to get back to her old ways - watch soaps, read her books. She then added that it is not just these riots. There might come laws in the name of national security that may make Muslims helpless at the whims of the security apparatus. Again I could not find anything disagreeable. But I reminded her that innocent people were framed even during the times of UPA. I tried my best to calm her frayed nerves which were made even more frayed by our pervasive news channels. Obliquely she also mentioned that how a great Mughal monument like the Red Fort would be used by someone whose ideology sees the Mughals as foreigners. Here she got overwhelmed and said how lovingly the ancestors made home of this land. And, how they say to us that we would be sent to our neighboring country?    

Through news channels she has come to believe that this election was a mandate on Hindu and Muslim relationship, which everyone would agree that such a thing is beyond politics. Even the politics of 1947 failed to dislodge a Muslim from a Hindu's heart and vice-versa. This nation had withstood that. For her I would like to quote few lines from "A Passage to India" by E.M. Forster:

"In her ignorance, she regarded him as "India", and never surmised that his outlook was limited and his method inaccurate, and that no one is India."

"Nothing in India is identifiable, the mere asking of a question causes it to disappear or to merge in something else". 

I think these lines would certainly bring comfort to all those who love India and feel dismayed at the ascendance of any one particular ideology. As history has proved and sages have said nothing abhors uniformity more than our own beloved Mother India. To be of one hue is not in her nature. Moreover, India is not governed by parties or individuals but by the Constitution and its related institutions. The Prime Minister is less of an individual and more of an institution in itself. An institution that is responsible to each and every Indian. There would not be a better time to repose one's faith in the idea of India. The founding principles of India edify anyone who takes up the chair.

It is beyond reproach that the Muslims in India faces serious crisis  to their share in these institutions. The community that has far more lower representation in executive and judiciary, has sunk to its lowest representation in legislature. But the only way forward is not holding oneself back but by an active participation at every level.

The Prophet established and prospered Islam in a far more adverse situation than the Muslims find themselves today. Even then he never held himself back from engagement and negotiations. He always insisted on the middle path. And, the middle path, the Muslims today should take.

If we pay attention to the early days of Islam, we find a spirit of constant engagement and forgiveness helped Islam to sway over the hearts and souls of the people. Just to cite a case, the story of Khaled bin Walid is relevant here. At the battle of Uhud, Khaled bin Walid massacred hundreds of Muslims. So much so it is said that had it not been for Khaled bin Walid, the Muslims would have taken the victory home at Uhud. But, it was the same person who in all his glory and power came filled with guilt to the Prophet. He then accepted Islam. But it is even more interesting to know that why a person who was in prime of his power came to accept Islam even though he had killed with passion hundreds of believers on the battlefield. He said to the public gathering that I killed your brothers, fathers, sons and husbands but you always sought forgiveness for me. You offered me food and water whenever I was keeping an eye on your activities. You offered me shelter in such times. I now know the faith you are following is the true faith. 

The incident tells a lot about a Muslim's faith in the impermanence of this world and permanence of human relationships here and after. It also stresses that in following faith one should offer more to the non-believers than religion has to offer to the believers. In fact the truest measure of a faith lies indeed in what it offers to the non-believers than to the believers. Most of all, it asks the Muslims to forgive, for the God is merciful and He loves mercy as the highest of virtues.

Today, the Muslims to keep pace with the rest of the country and to contribute most to the nation, must put all its energy in getting education. The God says in the Quran that when there was darkness in the universe, He created faith. And, it is repeatedly told in the Quran and the Hadith that ilm or knowledge dispels all the darkness. Getting education, therefore, is an article of faith. I would wish that the educated Muslims take it upon themselves and sponsor the education of at least one disadvantaged child in their lifetime.

Lastly, the Muslim cultural heritage does not exist in isolation. Art, culture, literature are the means by which people cross over the barriers that separate them. Destruction of any one heritage is a threat to others as well. Eliminating one will not simply make it disappear, but it would make the adjoining interacting cultures to loose their voices, their own unique ways of interacting with someone of the other kind - the one that faces annihilation. It will only make India poorer and our cultural landscape horridly dry and unbearable. Our national and cultural fabrics are so intricately interwoven that the beginnings and the ends of various strands are not discernible. Pulling out few threads may cause the whole fabric to look ugly. It should be indeed the prerogative of every concerned citizen that the idea of India is not mauled, most importantly culturally. Our culture is beautiful. And, as Dostoevsky puts it very succinctly -"Only beauty will save the world". It is not a mere phrase. It conveys a very deep conviction that in the face of all disintegration, political or otherwise, it is the beauty of art that will tame the coarsest of hearts. It is this beauty that brings together the strongly opposed of hearts. And, in this beauty lies our nation. Let us sustain it.