Bridging the Hindu-Muslim divide - the centuries old tolerant milieu of India

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Bridging the Hindu-Muslim divide

 

Modern India is a land not of a solitary religion but of diverse

religions. The state does not sponsor or foster any one religion at

the expense of others. This is in keeping with the greatness of

India, which through times immemorial has been the cradle of

composite culture.

 

Sufi texts record that after saint Kabir - the inspired poet-weaver

of northern India - died, his lovers and the connoisseurs of

his 'dohas' (couplets), both Hindus and Muslims, fought for the

claim of cremating or burying his last remains. As the quarrel

started to rouse communal passions, an elderly gentleman requested

both communities to cover the saint's body and wait till next

morning.

 

Astonishingly, when the sheet was taken off, the warring communities

found that in place of the body, two heaps of flowers were kept. The

Hindus cremated the tulsi flowers while the Muslims buried the

jasmine heap, and the problem was sorted out. The moral of the story

is that the two diverse cultures of Muslims and Hindus are

inseparable and need to run like the parallel lines of a railway

track - always together socially but also retaining their religious

identities that are separate.

 

The minority community needs to be led by an unquestioned leadership

of deeply religious persons who will stamp out any chances of

flaring communal flames. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was a deeply

religious Muslim leader, a renowned Islamic theologian like Maulana

Maududi, but communal harmony was dearest to him. He never stirred

Muslims to political action through their faith.

 

Former president Zakir Hussain, who devoted his life to Jamia

Millia, did not take that platform to espouse a communal cause; nor

was another former president, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, that sort. Today

the Azads, Fakhruddins and Hussains would have been needed to

counter inflammable propaganda.

 

Just before the dismemberment of the subcontinent, the Muslim

peasant in Bengal participated as joyously in the village Durga Puja

as his Hindu neighbour. In Bangladesh, Hindus celebrated Eid. If

entire Muslim villages in Malaysia can watch the Ramayana performed

on stage, there is no reason why they cannot do the same in India or

include Hindus in tazia processions and Karbala enactments.

 

Meena Kumari, Nargis, Waheeda Rehman and Mumtaz played the role of

the devoted Hindu wife with sindoor on the forehead umpteen number

of times. What about bhajans sung in Muhammad Rafi's sonorous voice?

Should we ban his cassettes? Should we stop seeing a Dilip Kumar or

an Aamir Khan or a Salman Khan film?

 

Likewise, after namaz when the Muslims stepped out of the mosques,

in almost all the walled city locales of India, one could observe

Hindu men and women standing with their sick children to be blessed

after the prayers. A maulvi sahib used to wake up a panditji for his

morning ringing of the temple bells or for sounding the shankh. Our

composite culture has been the way Sir Syed once described India - a

beautiful bride whose two bewitching eyes were the Hindus and the

Muslims!

 

According to " Muraqqa-e-Delhi " of Nawab Dargah Quli Bahadur, Mughal

emperors consumed only Gangajal. Their celebration of Holi, Diwali

and Dussehra is well known. If the rulers were Muslim, the economy

was run by Hindu administrators and officers. Muslim monarchs

trusted Hindu accountants. In the military field if Aurangzeb had

brave Rajput generals, Shivaji trusted only Muslim generals.

 

The Sufi saints like Sheikh Muinuddin Chishti, Hazrat Nizamuddin

Aulia, Khwaja Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki and other pirs like Haji

Malang in Mumbai are highly revered by all Indians irrespective of

the faiths they follow. The rath percolated in the Muslim society as

the tazia. The Lord of the Seven Hills of Tirupati was given a

Turkish wife - Thuluka Nachiyar in the temple of Srirangapatnam. How

long will the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishwa Hindu

Parishad (VHP) and the Shiv Sena deny this history?

 

There is no danger of India becoming a Hindu theocratic state so far

as we have secular and peace-loving Hindus, and fortunately they

outnumber the 10 percent or less bigoted and rabid ones. One hopes

the Hindu majority will prevail. Likewise, the Muslim leadership has

to interpret its sacred texts to explain the role of a Muslim

citizen as a useful, participating minority member of a state. The

distinction between the mosque and the state or theology and

religion needs to be clarified so that it can be understood by the

meanest intellect.

 

What hurts Indian Muslims is that in spite of the community having

repeatedly asserted its identity as Indians, it finds its patriotism

being suspected. In fact, during the Afghan war and the jehad call

after that not one Indian Muslim went to Afghanistan to fight there,

though there were many from Pakistan and even Bangladesh. Despite

umpteen Muslim leaders, ulema and commoners having sacrificed for

the nation, their allegiance is in question. Every time there is a

communal divide, Indian Muslim have to get their certificate of

loyalty renewed!

 

About a decade ago while in London, I reacted vociferously as an

Indian to the telecast of the Babri Masjid demolition while a

Guardian (December 7, 1992) headline declared: " Hindu terrorism! "

 

I maintained that just because a rowdy section of the Hindus had

demolished the mosque and indulged in an orgy of violence and

rioting, the entire community could not be generalised as

terrorists. The truth is that more than 80 percent Hindus are

secular. Had these level-headed Hindus gone the VHP way, not even

one Muslim would have survived in India.

 

When lip-serving and self-serving Muslim politicians start indulging

in pseudo-secularism, it boomerangs and a chain reaction is

triggered. Hindus are made to believe the myths that the " rabbit-

like " breeding Muslims will one day outnumber them and that the

popularity of the ghazals of Ghalib, qawwalis of the Sabri brothers

and poetry of Mir, Zauq, Iqbal and Faiz are dangerous signs of the

coming social and political domination of Muslims.

 

Muslims are told on the other hand that rituals like applying tilak

in a state ceremony will defile their religion in the same manner as

the use of coconut and diya during important ceremonies. Once in a

while, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was smeared with tika at a national

ceremony, and Dawn of Karachi printed the photograph with the

caption saying that likewise one day Azad would be proselytised into

Hinduism! But neither Ghalib nor his ghazals are compulsorily

Islamic nor tilak or diya necessarily Hindu. These are all part of

an Indian ethos, a result of the conglomeration of multifarious

faiths and cultures. For centuries, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and

Christians in India have shared common customs like those on the

occasion of a birth, a death or a marriage.

 

The responsibility to stop communalists and pseudo-secularists, who

are present in equal measure in the majority and minority

communities, lies with all of us. Muslims should take care of their

rabble-rousing elements, shake up their leadership and substitute it

with devoted, pragmatic and sincere leaders willing to solve the

real problems of the community without mobilising them on emotional

and religious lines. In the same manner, balanced Hindus too must

not give more rope to the likes of the VHP or the RSS as these

organisations have no right to speak on behalf of the entire Hindu

community.

 

Secular Hindus should realise that their overwhelming advantage in

the power structure - an 80 percent majority in the electoral base -

has ensured that their cultural interests are never to be threatened

by any combination of forces or the so called jehad. They should

realise that some of their leaders who spread communal hatred will

take them backwards by aggravating ethnic, clan, caste and regional

rivalries. They should realise that the centuries old tolerant

milieu of India is the creation of Hindu sages in ancient times,

which predates the arrival of Muslims and the birth of Sikhism in

India. It is the prized legacy of us all that is in essence Indian.

 

Bridging the Hindu-Muslim divide

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