If social peace and economic progress are a society’s goals, then it must turn to social sciences to show us the way. Society entrusts its professors, its gurus, its ustaads and the experts to show how to do anything, whether it is Mars exploration or cancer research, personal well-being — or the rules of civic behavior and social cohesion.
Knowledge of society is a specialized field of study with a body of research-based literature. An IT professional or mechanical engineer cannot be a social thinker, not usually, anyhow. It’s a fact, nonetheless, that much of China’s modern leadership came from the ranks of civil engineers, with their one-right-answer-to-every-problem approach to development. Chinese leaders couldn’t survive in a democracy. Their political system has been top-down for millennia, whereas India has been an open society, stupidly called a “functioning anarchy” by an American ambassador to India in the 1960s. He didn’t know that so is every single democracy, a functioning anarchy, and America is no exception. It’s a matter of perspective. At least a democratic India never invaded another country, as did the United States whose military ranks among the most barbarous in history.
Professor Ashutosh Varshney, who specializes in Indian history and politics, is the author of Ethnic Conflict & Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India, Yale, 2002. Dr. Varshney’s method of research was to study relations between Hindus and Muslims in six Indian cities. He points to a puzzling fact that data shows different cities or towns may have similar percentages of ethnic groups, but in some places social peace reigns, whereas other similar places are wracked by communal violence. Why? He wanted to know.
The first pair of cities was Aligarh in the north and Calicut in the south. The second was Lucknow and Hyderabad, and the third pair was Ahmedabad and Surat. The Gujarati cities share history, language and culture, but not frequent communal violence. All of these cities had populations exceeding five lakhs.
Muslim population sizes are closely associated with communal violence. According to the author, BJP considers the way Muslim voters are concentrated across the country “makes them critical to electoral outcomes in India.” Furthermore, “Muslims constitute 20 percent of the electorate in 197 of the 545 parliamentary constituencies in India.” Since 30 to 35% of the vote is enough to win, the Muslim vote can be decisive.
That was the argument until this year’s general elections, won by the BJP without having to divide the population along Hindu-Muslim lines, except in some areas. Thus, reassuring their billionaire supporters that BJP won’t cause economy-damaging communal riots. Of course, its long-term social agenda and the pursuit of its own controversial vision of Vedic life will go on, pretty much openly, with open hostility against Muslims shown by union ministers, of whom everyone knows were the street thugs and gang leaders until yesterday. It’s a vision that violates fundamental Vedic values of total acceptance of diversity in matters of faith.
Back to Dr. Varshney’s book, he found that civic networks are linked to ethnic conflict in two ways. “First, by promoting communication between members of different religious communities, civic networks often make neighborhood-level peace possible. Routine engagement allows people to come together and form temporary organizations in times of tension.” These associations become significant in calming people. The effect lingers.
The foundations of Hindu-Muslims relations, good or bad, were laid in the 1920s, the professor says. Aligarh with its pre-Partition support for Pakistan ruined amity in the entire region. But it did not touch Lucknow, which is far less polarized than Hyderabad. In the 1920s Calicut, attempts to create Hindu-Muslim tensions had failed. The tradition of amity, mutual trust, and common membership in civic groups, such as political parties and unions, has promoted familiarity and thus peace. But unlike Hyderabad, where economic life is far less integrated, Lucknow is relatively peaceful because of daily interactions between members of ethnic communities. Clearly, that prevents hostilities from breaking out.
The ghettoization of Muslim communities, whether in Delhi’s Zakir Nagar or Hyderabad’s Nampally and Mehdipatrnam, is a dangerous development in the past few decades. Aside from protesting and playing politics, civil leaders, pundits and maulanas, need to create bonds across their religious identities, attend each other’s gatherings and functions, break bread together. As one who has eaten with Brahmins, a quite ordinary nonevent among the Anglicized or secular-looking people, I can say that dietary inhibitions are more apparent than real. The taboos need examination on a continuing basis.
Is it, then, not reasonable to ask of Muslim leaders, such as they are, whether they are doing everything possible to lower the barriers between communities? Rather than raise them higher and higher? Do we know what they are doing in the name of all Muslims? What do they say when they speak through a microphone? Anything that helps, or their speeches are nothing more than slogans and loud complaints?
Economic competition is fierce, pitiless, and progress comes with a price. Which segment of society will pay the highest cost? Do they have any options? Yes, one is to turn away from reality, escape. The other is to do something about a bad situation. Whatever one can.
To begin with, as professor Varshney has suggested, interactions between Muslims and Hindus must happen on a daily basis in order for people to overcome mutual suspicions, misunderstandings, and long held prejudices. These interactions should happen in the market, at the barbershops, at school parent-teacher meetings, and at resident association meetings (one Muslim resident among 50 others would make an impact.) Panchayat-level involvement on common issues brings people together, and non-involvement widens the culture gap.
Schoolteachers who command some respect in society, and perhaps the imams at local mosques, are best suited to take the initiative in this regard. It can become a movement.