M D Nalapat
98% of Muslims have the same societal impulses as the rest of the population.
Across the world, a perception is being spread that Muslims are
different, “they are not like the rest of us”. Several of those holding
on to such a view are themselves friends of members of a community that
has crossed a billion in number globally. Such friends would prove that
98% of Muslims (as indeed, 98% of Hindus) have the same societal
impulses as the rest of the population. India’s Muslims want adequate
standards in shelter, food, health and employment. While in states such
as Kerala, Muslim women are being educated to a level not seen in many
other states in India, these days—across the country—girls from the
diverse strands of the Muslim community are demanding the right to get
educated to the same level as their brothers. The backwardness of a
territory is in inverse proportion to the empowerment of women, and this
reality can be witnessed all over India, especially in places where
women (no matter the faith they profess) are regarded as “children of a
lesser god”. It is no accident that the quality of life in low-income
Kerala stands comparison to countries in Europe with far higher per
capita incomes, for women in that state are moving close to equality
with men in access to employment and education. Returning to the issue
of why Muslims are being singled out as exclusivist, the explanation may
vest in the fact that society (even including the Muslims themselves),
in effect, acts as though the 2% of the community that are exclusivist
and medieval are genuinely representative of the wider population.
Whether it be in the fashioning of policy or in allocating talktime in
television studios, those belonging to the 2% fringe get a hugely
disproportionate share of the access and attention given to members of
the community.
Rajiv Gandhi was a modern individual, as much at ease in London or
New York as in Mumbai or Bangalore. However, in 1986 he brushed aside
Arif Mohammad Khan in favour of those who sought to perpetually keep
women in check through repressive laws and practices. Ironically, the
then Prime Minister himself revealed to this columnist the names of the
Muslims known to him who were adamant that the Supreme Court’s verdict
in defence of the rights of Muslim women should be overturned. They
included more than a few who were as cosmopolitan as Rajiv was, but who
so misread their own community that they portrayed to the then PM the 2%
fringe as being representative of the entire community. The Muslim
Women’s Bill was the turning point in the political career of an
individual who had till then the potential to transform the country into
a 21st century phenomenon. Of course, Rajiv Gandhi was not the first
leader of the Congress Party to mistake the Muslim fringe as the
mainstream. During 1919-1922, Mahatma Gandhi embraced the Ali brothers
and their revivalist cause of bringing back the Turkish caliphate, a
decision by the Mahatma that vastly increased the power of the fringe
within the Muslim community. Partly because of attitudes from outside
the community, Muslims have overwhelmingly remained silent in the face
of the takeover of leadership by the fringe. There were practically no
protests when Shah Bano and other women similarly placed got deprived of
their rights by a new law passed explicitly to nullify the apex court
verdict in Shah Bano’s favour, while a series of staged protests took
place when the Supreme Court verdict was announced. Empowering the 98%
of Muslims who are modern and moderate to take on the 2%, just as has
taken place in the case of other communities, was dealt an early blow
after India became free, when Jawaharlal Nehru avoided legislation to
ensure reforms in some longstanding practices of Muslims in India, while
going ahead from 1951 onwards with the Hindu Code Bills. This was again
a case of a liberal acting in accordance with the myth that in the case
of Muslims, the small minority that are medieval represent the
overwhelming majority of those born into the faith. Had Nehru gone ahead
with ensuring needed changes to such Muslim practices as multiple
marriages or triple talaq, the social chemistry of India would have been
altered in a beneficial way. Instead, there have been serial
genuflections by policymakers in India to the Muslim fringe. Not
surprisingly, such solicitude has energised the Hindu fringe, so much so
that these days, many policymakers are confusing the fringe’s
exclusivist and medievalist views on matters such as diet or lifestyle
to represent the mind of Hindus as a whole. A competition in appeasement
of the fringe of both faiths is taking place among political parties in
India, that cannot end well for the country if continued.
This columnist comes from a family which had to flee from their homes
to save themselves from Tipu Sultan, so he may be pardoned for not
sharing the enthusiasm of Congress president Rahul Gandhi for the former
ruler of Mysore. That Rahul talks of Tipu as “secular” is indicative of
the misreading of the term that has so skewed policy in India, and
which the new Congress president needs to walk away from. He needs to
move away from the toxic legacy of appeasement of the minority fringe, a
line of action that was carried to such levels by the Manmohan Singh
government that it proved disastrous for the Congress Party. While Rahul
has been visiting temple after temple, such sojourns will carry more
conviction if he also supports the building of a Lord Ram Complex at
Ayodhya. Such a complex, especially if complemented by the restoration
of the ancient Kashi Viswanath temple in Varanasi and the creation of a
Krishna Janambhoomi Complex at Mathura, would ensure that the Hindu
fringe would find itself unable to mislead others in the community into
regarding Muslims as the hostile “Other”. Kapil Sibal has created a
perception that the Congress is against a Lord Ram Complex at Ayodhya.
Unless Rahul Gandhi ignores the veto of a scant 2% of the Muslim
community about a historic compromise between the two communities that
would pave the way for a grand gesture of reconciliation between Hindus
and Muslims at Ayodhya, Mathura and Varanasi, his party will continue to
undershoot its potential as a national party. In any democracy, 98% is
way bigger than 2%, and both the Congress Party as well as the BJP need
to understand such simple mathematics rather than continue to indulge
their respective fringes in a manner that is demonstratively harmful to
the future of India.
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