By Alsaba Bin Yamin
Muslims in India can never be unsecular. There is no scope. If they do so, that would tantamount to inviting the apocalypse. Whereas, the fellow Hindu citizenry has that scope and enjoys it for sometimes now.
I am pacified by the fact that a grand Ram temple is impatiently awaiting its inaugural ceremony. Like me, Muslims in Ayodhya have also overcome their emotions attached to the old “three-dome building”. By doing so, I am depositing my faith in the Indian judiciary. I am at a loss for options but respecting the law of the land. However, can Indian courts assure me that there will not be any ‘Ayodhya-like’ incident in the future?. The answer will help in eliminating my fear of an aggressive crowd. One that can potentially dismantle my faith and structures like mosques, churches, etc.
My fear is valid, as my ears are filled-up with outcries like “Ayodhya to Jhanki hai, Kashi-Mathura Baaki hai”, coupled with frequent demolition of mosques and dargahs across the country. Even more frightening is the way such acts are normalised and justified by addressing Muslims with pejorative synonyms—Babar ki Auladein (Children of Mughal Emperor Babar), termites, illegal infiltrators, and the most lethal one—a second-class citizen. It is definitely not the India my forefathers were promised by its ‘fortune-makers’. It is also a betrayal of Jawaharlal Nehru’s vision of rationality, secularism, and a scientific approach as the true means of progress, and that the destruction of religious superstition by secularism was the only means to a peaceful India.
The Indian version of secularism demands the state be ‘neutral’ in dealing with state affairs, provided all expressions of religion are manifested equally, with support from the state. The neutrality position, however, raises questions. Like, the person holding the fulcrum determines whether a weighing scale is balanced or not. Here, the state is holding the fulcrum, and the scales are not levelled off. Ironically, the overseer is overlooking the case. Or lacks the audacity to utter the wrong. For me, the overseer is the Indian judiciary, as people’s collective consciousness about justice is reflected in the judicial luminance of judges sitting at different levels in the judicial hierarchy.
To get to the root of whatever is happening, one should do a deep dive into Indian society. I say so because I did so. And here is what I ascended with. There is a triad comprising communalism, majoritarianism, and populism. They seldom give me sleepless nights and restless days. They are neither nightmares, as I have learned to convince my soul to have good faith in the ‘Idea of India’. The idea rejects the idea of a theocratic state. One that considers scientific temperament its touchstone.
I do get nightmares, though, in which Mohammad Ali Jinnah, accompanied by someone (I will reveal who later), is holding his ‘Craven A’ cigarette and lampooning at me or my grandfather’s decision to give precedence to India over Pakistan. I have no idea why he does so. I just know that had my grandfather wished, he could have easily managed to shift to Pakistan. My misfortune does not allow me to ask him the reason for not doing the same, as he is no longer in this world.
I have long wondered about India that a society, too fertile to mother plurality, ever needed a concept like secularism at its table of discussion. Wasn’t it a land where Buddhism and Jainism, both at the time, were extremely critical of the majority Hindus’ scriptures and practices? Or even Charavakas who were agnostic to any prevailing faiths?.
I got the answer from British colonialism. It introduced the same ailment into Indian society that had crippled Europeans for the longest period. Yes, it was communalism. As if they knew how to infect a flourishing land of faiths.
While concluding the Constitution-making process, two great thinkers of modern Indian history, Jawaharlal Nehru and BR Ambedkar, resisted the incessant proposals of KT Shah to make the word secular a part of the final draft of the Constitution. Ambedkar said,” All that a secular state means is that this Parliament shall not be competent to impose any particular religion upon the rest of the people”. As if he were reminding us of the ‘goodness’ ingrained in Indian society, which would prize diversity and embrace plurality.
For him, secularism was not a concern. It was the threat emanating from majoritarianism that worried him more. His fear of Hindu majoritarianism became apparent during his participation in round-table conferences where he introduced his constitutional proposals. And that eventually led to several developments in the Constitution, including justiciable fundamental rights. For which minorities in India will always be grateful to him.
Despite Ambedkar’s admonishing stand over majoritarianism, ’my grandfather’ did so much to prepare himself mentally and gambled on majority Hindus. It was the same ‘goodness’ of Indian society that appeased him to do so. He was so craving to taste the new-born India that he even consciously dodged the spat between Jinnah and Mahatma Gandhi over the majority and minority issues. In an attempt to prove himself rightful, Jinnah not only rebutted Gandhi’s claim that both Hindus and Muslims are politically equal but also took a jibe at Gandhi, saying, The only difference is that brother Gandhi has three votes and I have one”.
Another incident that my grandfather overlooked was the result of the 1937 elections. It won the Congress a majority. Again, Jinnah, being a pessimist, said that the majority that has formed and is maintaining the government is not democratic; rather, it is an irreversible Hindu majority that is unaffected by change of any kind. Nevertheless, my grandpa is no longer with us to witness today’s India. He would have felt betrayed otherwise. As a fatalist, I am grateful to destiny for being merciful by not allowing him more breaths to experience today’s vileness.
The vileness is borne by an ideology that has infiltrated the state apparatus and formal institutions. Its activists are using violence, vigilante groups, and cultural policing to exert control over civil society.
But one thing that remained obscure for both my grandpa and Ambedkar was the expression of populism (since it resists generalisation; I prefer to call it political populism precisely) in Indian politics. In politics, populists dislike their alternatives. It happens when so many people’s faith and aspirations concentrate on a focal point. It was initially felt in India in the 1970s, when the phrase “India is Indira” (referring to then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi) gained widespread recognition among Indians. After a decade or so, the majority community (Hindus) was mobilised by Hindu nationalism against Muslims and Christians. For some years now, it has acquired the same vigour. It asserts the same way, but with a brand new rhetoric: “If you are not with Modi, you are anti-India.” Under the circumstances described, a populist gains more clout than democratic procedures and practices.
My protest is not against populists, for the reason being obvious and told by a German historian, Jan Werner Muller. He observed, “Populism is based on fiction, but it is not fictional politics; there are real citizens supporting it”. Now, let me tell you the name of the person who accompanies Jinnah in my nightmares. He is Adolf Hitler. Reprimanding me for being a part of parliamentary democracy and arguing that no man of intellect can be born out of ballet as the masses are antipathic to genius.
I am aware that not everything is working smoothly around me. And one day, the culmination of my patience in instilling faith in the system will occur. But then I am a fatalist too, like any other Muslim. If it is pre-written, I have to endure it. When Muslim friends make fun of me for my patience, this endurance hurts much more. They are disenchanted with democratic practices. There are moments when they count the benefits of the erstwhile Caliphate regime. I worry that this may lead them to pursue Islamism.
To counter their argument, I need to remind them of our status as a minority in a democracy. And that it guarantees a set of fundamental rights to us, unlike an authoritarian regime. If Indian Muslims have any imagination of an ‘Islamic nation’, they must decontaminate their minds because it will be a direct confrontation with ‘Hindu Rashtra’, still an imagination, but could materialise in the near future by accumulating the support of secular Indian Hindus. The only alternative to secularism is communalism, which would be nothing but the endangerment of the Muslim community itself. At that point, you will bear the brunt of your evil.
I have two messages. One for secular Hindus and the other for Hindu extremists. For the former, your symbolic resistance and calculated silence in our support are insufficient to change our condition. It was you that my forefathers gambled on. This may not be fruitful for you if you are expecting anything. You need to stand selfless and ready for wounds. For later, it is no bravery to scapegoat a minority for every wrong that happened to you. And as Hemant Goswami writes, “People are supreme, their interests are supreme, if religion is to be sacrificed for common good, it must go to the altar. It must be always remembered that, God is only a possibility and man a reality”.
Very relevant concerns
Secular word may very
Soo be removed from the Constitution