Title: Unresolved issues
of Indian Islam
Author: Meenakshi Jain
Publication: The Weekend
Observer
Date: January 15, 2000
Two recent, apparently
unconnected events, the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane IC 814 by
Pakistani nationals, and the attack on The New Indian Express in Bangalore
by agitated members of a minority community, have brought into sharp focus
some fundamental issues that have bedevilled Islam since its advent in
the subcontinent. It is a matter of regret that despite the intervening
centuries, we are as far away from a resolution of these problems as when
they were first articulated.
When Muslim rulers occupied
the throne of Delhi way back at the beginning of the last millennium, they
were immediately confronted with the question of the status to be accorded
to their new subjects. Were they, according to Islamic terminology,
to be categorised as kafirs (infidels) or dhimmis (people of the book)?
There is a critical difference between the two terms. The former
enjoined the rulers to wage a holy war against their subjects in conformity
with the Quranic injunctions, while the latter obliged them to provide
physical protection in return for payment of poll tax.
Among other factors,
the very size of the native population vis-a-vis the new rulers inhibited
the evolution of a definitive statement on the subject. So Hindus
alternated between being kafirs and dhimmis right through the Muslim period.
Mostly persecuted, but sometimes treated as second class citizens, they
were in either case, way below their rulers. This equation became
firmly ingrained in the psyche of the rulers.
Besides the momentous
decline in the status of Hindus, India in this period alto saw the concept
of the Muslim umma, which served to further bolster the position of the
political elite. The Islamic faith recognised no national boundaries
and regarded Muslims everywhere as constituting one brotherhood.
Accordingly, the rulers
of India kept open ail channels of communication with their wider community.
While the Caliphate at Baghdad existed, Muslim rulers devoutly paid obeisance
to it. The steady flow of Muslims, who came to India, also provided
a critical link with the "values and ideas generated elsewhere in the world
of Islam". Muslim scholars and religious divines closely monitored
developments in the universal community.
The religious preoccupations
of the outside Muslim world became their preoccupations; "...controversies
that wrecked the general Islamic world wrecked also the South Asian Muslim
world." Pan-Islamism became an active and living force in the subcontinent
from the time of the first Muslim conquerors. Not to mention the
Delhi Sultans, even a ruler of-the stature of Akbar valued such connections.
When Muslim power came
under siege in the eighteenth century, leaders of the community unhesitatingly
turned to their brethren across the border for succor. In the face
of the rising Maratha power, Shah Waliullah solicited the intervention
of the Afghan ruler, Ahmed Shah Abdali.
Likewise in the nineteenth
century, Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan advised his CO-religionists in India not
to feel helpless. In the event of a British withdrawal, he said,
"our Mussalman brothers, the Pathans, would come out as a swarm of locusts
from their mountain valleys, and make rivers of blood to flow from their
frontier in the north to the extreme end of Bengal."
In a similar vein, in
the 1920s, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad said that the Sultanate-Caliphate in
Istanbul was a valued potential support centre against the huge Hindu majority.
In 1921, Mohammad All told the British that if the Amir of Afghanistan
urged Jihad against the British and approached India, the Muslims of this
country should join him.
What is relevant for
us today is that on the two issues of pan-Islamism and the status of Hindus,
Muslims of the, subcontinent had not altered their position in the run-up
to partition. Perceptive scholars have noted that this was the ijma
(consensus) of the community.
It is true that a certain
amount of adjustment between Hindus and Muslims had taken place in the
successor states that arose on the debris of the Mughal Empire but that
had not fundamentally altered the power-equations.
Since an alternative
line of thinking had not developed, Muslims were unprepared, for the changed
reality when they became citizens of independent India in 1947. Questions
that had dogged them in the past acquired an added urgency while equally
critical new issues arose to confound them. Was India under its new
dispensation Dar-ul-Islam (land of peace) or Dar-ul Harb (land of war)?
What was the correct Muslim response to citizenship in a non-Muslim state?
How were pan-Islamic bonds to be reconciled in the age of national boundaries?
Since the bulk of the
Muslim political leadership had migrated to Pakistan, the Ulema (religious
divines) inevitably stepped into their place. Their immediate concern
was to keep their flock together and ensure that the Muslim identity remained
firm in the new setting. This made them wary, if not outright distrustful,
of fresh thought or change. By and large they kept the Muslims on
the old and tested path, unable to come to grips with the vastly changed
scenario.
The community pushed
itself into a corner, and felt itself trapped. It could, however,
equally well be argued that the ijma of the community had voted against
ijtehad (innovation), and that the ulema was merely voicing its sentiments.
The widespread outrage
at the Supreme Court verdict in the Shah Bano Case lends credence to this
view, as does the near-absence of internal debate on the need to review
age-old categories of thought in the light of present requirements.
The community's, extreme sensitivity to even the most restrained external
comments, as witnessed most recently in the reaction to an article by seasoned
journalist TJS George in The New Indian Express, also points to a similar
conclusion.
But the hijacking crisis
has brought to a flashpoint the very issues that Islam's advent in the
subcontinent had originally raised. The fact that at the height of
the crisis the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, appealed to Indian
Muslim leaders to use their connections with Islamic organisations, the
world over, to press the Indian point of view, is proof of the pull of
the umma even today (for details of meeting see The Pioneer, 6 January).
The suggestion of some
Muslims that the Indian government use them to explain the Indian position
on Kashmir and to counter the Pakistani propaganda that they were living
under a hostile Hindu regime, shows that the prospect of Muslims as subjects
under non-Muslim rule is still unacceptable to the Islamic world.
Finally, the Prime Minister's call for a meeting of leading Muslim organisations
to discuss Hindu-Muslim relations and the situation in Kashmir demonstrates
the inability of the Indian Muslims to grapple with the meaning of partition.
Clearly India is at a
crossroads. If she is to make headway in the new millennium she has
to confront head-on and bring to a resolution issues that have dogged her
for centuries. Her minority population needs to re-examine inherited
modes of thought and reopen the doors of ijtehad. Jihad in its myriad
modem manifestations has to be declared out of tune with the spirit of
the times.
Hinduism must be recognised
and declared a religion as valid as Islam. The sanctity of international
borders must be acknowledged. Man's political loyalties can no longer
be a mere extension of their religious commitments. One hopes the
Prime Minister's initiative vis-a-vis Muslim leaders does not turn out
to be an exercise in escapism.
(The author is reader,
Delhi University)
