Author: Prafull Goradia
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: February 12, 2003
As usual, Mr Francois Gautier has
come out with an intellectually stimulating article, 'Under Western eyes'
(February 5). He traces the ignorance of Indians about their own culture
to the education system introduced by Macaulay. But while this analysis
is valid, it goes neither deep nor wide enough. The fact many members of
the intelligentsia look down upon their culture, as stated by Mr Gautier,
is an indication. Macaulay had prescribed what the Indians should study.
He had not asked them to denigrate their own ethos. Herein lies the clue.
Many members of the intelligentsia
suffer from a kind of masochism, deriving pleasure from self-inflicted
pain through curses or injuries. The root of this perversion can be traced
to their dread of other people. Indians have often accused themselves of
a slave mentality. The joke about Indian crabs not needing a lid on their
container is common. Unlike other crabs, those of the Indian variety pull
each other down from time to time, not allowing them to move upwards. In
some ways, this illustrates a slave mentality. A slave has no hope of becoming
the master. But he has an ego he satisfies by keeping other slaves down.
Masochist, crab or slave, the Hindu
has historically dreaded the Muslim. The root of the trauma is his reluctance
to kill. The Hindu-Muslim contest over centuries was rather like that between
a horse and a leopard. While the horse has many virtues, he does not have
the wherewithal to get back at the leopard. The Hindu was thus repeatedly
defeated, humiliated and enslaved. He was subjected to the payment of the
jizya, a signal that he was a zimmi.
Zimmi status was subhuman. It was
first defined in a contract between Khalifa Omar II and the Jews and Christians
of Arabia. The zimmi began as an object of plunder in war and proceeded
to be the property of the Muslim conqueror who would reduce him to slavery.
An exception could be made if the zimmi agreed to pay jizya or a poll tax
regularly.
The tax was not the only vexation.
The zimmi could not ride on a saddle, nor carry weapons. He had to clip
the forelocks on his head. He could not build a house higher than those
of Muslims in the city. He had to keep the gates of his home wide open
and feed any Muslim passerby without payment for upto three days. The forerunner
of the Khalifa Omar contract was that of Prophet Muhammad himself, when
in AD 628 he arrived at an agreement (zimma) with the Jews of Khayber situated
140 kms away from Mecca. That was the first time Jews paid jizya.
Zimmis were often so badly humiliated
that the trauma lasted long. Dr P Saran's book, Studies in Medieval Indian
History (Delhi, 1952), is introduced by the well-known Professor of history
and politics, Mohammad Habib. On page 123 is a description of the way jizya
had to be paid: "The schools of Al Shafe'l and Malik agree ... that when
the zimmi comes to pay the jizya, he should keep standing while the collector
is seated, and ... wear the distinctive dress prescribed ... During the
process ... (he) is to be seized by the collar and vigorously shaken and
pulled about." On page 141: "Qazi Mughisuddin of Bayana stated that the
Hindu, khirajguzar or payer of jizya is he who, should the collector choose
to spit into his mouth, opens the same without hesitation so that the official
may spit into it."
If this comes anywhere near describing
the scale of suffering the Hindu had to undergo for centuries, is it any
wonder he suffers from 'zimmitude' and many members of his intelligentsia
derive satisfaction from masochistic excess?
