Shashi Tharoor Doesn’t Understand Islam; The Path Ahead Is To Reject Perpetual Victimhood

By Junaid Jahangir, New Age Islam

3 April 2022

Dr. Shashi Tharoor’s book, Why I am a Hindu, showcases the narrative of an Indian politician and public intellectual, who goes to length to distinguish his Hindu faith, of which he is quite proud, from the Hindutva ideology, which he categorically rejects. This approach should be reminiscent for those Muslims, who have repeatedly projected the difference between their Islamic faith, which they love, and the Islamist agenda of terrorist groups, which they have been categorically condemning especially since 9/11. Indeed, Tharoor’s showcases how the teachings of a great faith can be so perverted as to lead towards cow vigilantism, murder, and mayhem in the name of the Sacred. The book allows readers to understand the genesis of Hindutva, the principal ideas, the perceived grievances and how all that stands in stark contrast to a faith that teaches multiple paths to truth and acceptance of all humankind.

Why I am a Hindu

By Shashi Tharoor

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 9386021102

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Aleph Book Company; First edition (19 January 2018)

Language ‏ : ‎ English

Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 320 pages

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9789386021106

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9386021106

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The Parallels Of Hinduism And Islam

Tharoor teaches us that the word “Hindu” is a foreign construct, and that many of his co-religionists would prefer the word “Sanatana Dharma” (eternal faith) for their faith. He indicates that this faith embraces a diverse range of views from pantheism to agnosticism, that there are “no binding requirements to being a Hindu”, that religion is a personal matter, and that not even belief in God is essential as such. He continues that the “wisdom of the ages cannot be confined to a single sacred book”, that this religion is “without an established church or priestly papacy”, that one is free to reject its “rituals and customs”, that “there is no such thing as a Hindu heresy”, and that “there can be no Hindu Inquisition”. He proudly asserts that he belongs “to the only religion in the world that does not claim to be the only true religion”.

However, he briefly states that in contrast Islam denies “unbelievers all possibility of redemption, let alone salvation or paradise”. This is an unfortunate position. It is true that the Islamic temperament and generally that of the Abrahamic faiths is different from that of the Dharmic faiths. But it is equally true that both Islam and Hinduism, especially in its Vedantic form, share much in common. For instance, by admonishing taking monks and scholars as lords besides Allah, Islam rejects having a clerical class. Similarly, by asserting that there is no compulsion in religion and by emphasizing that unto you your religion and unto me mine, it rejects heresies and inquisitions. Additionally, by depicting sharia as a broad path, and by acknowledging the different sharia (paths) of different people, it emphasizes multiple paths to truth as evident in the nascent Ummah (community) of Medina which included Jews, Christians and others who joined Muslims in common cause. Indeed, Muhammad Iqbal (d. 1938) opined that Turkey post Ataturk remained Muslim even if it stripped away every Islamic symbol save “La Ilaha Illallah” (there is no god but God), which alludes to the Brahman, which as Tharoor writes is “the sole reality” in contrast to everything else that is “transient”.

Tharoor states that “there is much in the religious texts that contradict themselves, and each scholar can find scriptural justification for a point of view diametrically opposed to that of another scholar”. This too is similar to Islam where a conduct deemed prohibited by some is considered permissible by others, such as women leading congregational prayers. Thus, the Hinduism projected by Tharoor is an Islam that is projected by progressive Muslims, who embrace atheists, agnostics, and religious seekers universally, who emphasize gender equality, affirm LGBTQ individuals, and uphold environmental sustainability. So just as Tharoor states that “there are as many Hinduisms as there are adherents”, progressive Muslims claim that there are 1.9 billion Islams, alluding to the unique path of every Muslim adherent of Islam. Additionally, Tharoor states that “ultimately the nature of any religious faith is not determined by its scholars, theologians and scriptural exegetes” but its “ordinary believer”. In Islam, this position is analogous to that of Dr. Sa’diyya Shaikh who refers to the “Tafsir of Praxis: the experiential and everyday modes of understanding Quranic teachings”.

However, it is also true that there are aspects of any faith that are perverted towards grotesque objectives and propagated through a narrative of perpetual victimhood. This much is true of both Hinduism and Islam, whose perverted forms arise through Hindutva and Islamism. The difference, however, arises through the fact that where Hinduism was not associated with expansionism, both Islam and Christianity were connected to imperial power and Empire. Although, where Muslim reformers are trying to dissociate religion from past Empires, Hindutva proponents are trying to resuscitate past grievances to chart their future path.

Hindutva: Savarkar, Golwalkar, and Upadhyaya

Tharoor states that V.D. Savarkar, one of the leading figures of Hindutva, defined it as the cultural identity of “all those who belong to ‘Bharatvarsha’, the ancient land of India”. His vision was for a “Hindu Rashtra (Hindu Nation)” in an “undivided India (‘Akhand Bharat’)”. Based on his definition, both Hindus and Christians are excluded, even if they were born in India, as their ancestors came from elsewhere, their holy places do not belong to that land, and they don’t share “common history, common heroes, … a common law, common fairs and festivals” with the Hindus. Thus, the “best they could hope for” would be some “sort of second-class citizenship”. Savarkar also “wrote the foreword to a book by Nazi sympathizer and European-born Hindu revivalist who called herself Savitri Devi” and “who considered Adolf Hitler an avatar of Vishnu”. Interestingly, as Savarkar is valourized, his obsequious letter of apology to the British is ignored where he wrote that “I am ready to serve the government in any capacity” and that “where else can the prodigal son return but to the parental doors of the government”. It is such figures that the Hindutva brigade lionizes.

Another leading figure of Hindutva, M.S. Golwalkar, was fascinated by Nazi Germany. He wrote that “Germany has shown how well nigh impossible it is for Races and culture, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by”. On the other hand, he viewed “Parsis and Jews in India as model minorities who knew their place and did not ruffle any Hindu feathers”. In contrast, such proponents of Hindutva argue that “Muslims had cut themselves off from Hindu culture”, that they could be forced to abandon “external allegiances (rather as the Jews were forced to adopt outward signs of adherence to Christianity)”, and that “to remain in India, Muslims would have to submit themselves to Hindus”. Indeed, Golwalkar wrote that foreign races in India “must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture”. Additionally, it is in his writings that we find the depiction of Muslims as those who want to desecrate temples, eat cows, and molest women. Such stereotypes abound today, as the Hindutva brigade engages in Islamophobic tropes by painting all Muslims as “madrassa chaaps” and “Jihadis”.

Having delineated the thoughts of Savarkar and Golwalkar, Tharoor delineates the thoughts of the relatively moderate D.D. Upadhyaya, according to whom “Muslim communalism” worsened when the “Congress leaders bent over backwards more and more to accommodate them”. Indeed, the current Hindutva rejection of the Congress Party as “Khangress” goes back to such ideologues. However, according to Tharoor, this appeasement of Muslims is problematic, as “one looks at the statistical evidence of Muslim socio-economic backwardness and the prevalence of discrimination in such areas as housing and employment”. He adds that “Muslims are under-represented in the nation’s police forces and over-represented in its prisons”. This facilitates the question if Muslims are the blacks of India, who suffer systemic racism and discrimination?

Nonetheless, like the others, Upadhyaya was clear that “Muslims sought ‘to destroy the values of Indian culture, its ideals, national heroes, traditions, places of devotion and worship”. However, he softened the Golwalkar position by asserting that “no sensible man will say that six crores of Muslims should be eradicated or thrown out of India”. Instead, he preferred “to ‘purify’ or ‘nationalise Muslims’ – to ‘make Muslims proper Indians’”.  He also projected that unlike Muslims, “Hindus had never shed the blood of other peoples or perpetrated atrocities on other countries” and that “Hindus had, instead, always given a warm welcome and shelter to refugee groups like the Parsis and the Jews”. Additionally, “he rejected the notion that the Hindu Rashtra would have to mean ‘a theocratic State propagating the Hindu religion’”. While he mentioned that “Muslim generals had fought in the armies of Shivaji and the Peshwas”, and praised a few Muslims like M.C. Chagla Hamid Dalwai, and Ashfaqullah Khan, he also “assumed a monolithic ‘Muslim community’”. Indeed, Hindutva proponents do not view “quoting a few rare examples of good persons” as solving the problem, which would require Muslims “to own up to the ancient traditions of India, to look upon Hindu national heroes as their national heroes, and to develop devotion for Bharat Mata”. In other words, the Hindutva brigade wants “Hindu Mohammadans”.

Hindu Pakistan

Tharoor states that “Hindutva actually works by replacing hatred for the British with hatred for a minority”. This hatred against Muslims has manifested in India in nefarious ways through riots, cow mob lynching, attacks on Muslim families, “horrific rapes, mutilations and burning people alive”. Tharoor references statements by Hindutva ministers in power who have asserted that “those who don’t vote for Modi should move to Pakistan” or that “people are either followers of Rama or bastards”. He also mentions an MP who “shoved food down the throat of a fasting Muslim during Ramzan” and how the “mass conversion of fifty-seven bewildered Bengali Muslims in Agra” took place through “a mix of intimidation and inducement”. And yet, the Hindutva narrative paints Hindus as the eternal victims! Tharoor reiterates that the “Hindutva movement is ‘classically fascist’” based on “its attempt to create a unified homogenous majority”, “its sense of grievance against past injustice”, and “its sense of cultural superiority”. Additionally, what is concerning is that “the ascent of Hindutva supporters to the pinnacle of political power in India has occurred, significantly, under India’s secular constitution, and through entirely democratic and legal means”.

Tharoor states that “Hindutva adopts the Hindu religion not as a way of seeking the Divine but as a badge of worldly political identity” and that “it is a twentieth-century idea, born of twentieth-century forms of political thinking”. He juxtaposes Hindutva ideologies with “twentieth-century Muslim modernists” on the basis of “their conception of the glorious past, their imagining of a fallen intermediary time”, “their negative appraisal of ‘Western’ values and Westernization’, and their fervent desire for the political unity of a religious community”. In doing so, Tharoor isn’t exactly wrong, especially in the case of those Muslims who clamour for an Islamic state or a Caliphate. In short, Hindutva and Islamism appear to be two sides of the same coin.

The Problematic Hindutva Narrative

The Hindutva position is problematic, as Hinduism has shares elements of Islam through syncretic movements like Sikhism, the Bhakti movement, and Brahmo Samaj, which rejected idolatry. Islamic influence through the Bhakti movement during Mughal rule emphasized staunch monotheism and shunned caste distinctions by fostering social equality and brotherhood. Thus, Hindu philosopher, Swami Vivekananda, argued that “there is no polytheism in India” and that idolatry “is the attempt of undeveloped minds to grasp high spiritual truths”.  Likewise, Sufi manifestation of Islam has elements of Hinduism when the Sufis immerse themselves in what Tharoor refers to as “the indissoluble union of the true Self (atman or soul) with the highest metaphysical Reality (Brahman)”. Similarly, his quote from the Upanishad “when a man knows God he is freed from all fetters” is reminiscent of Iqbal’s verse “that a single prostration frees a human being from a thousand other prostrations”. Thus, the inextricable connection between Hinduism and Islam does not allow for Savarkar’s narrative of exclusion.

Tharoor alludes to historical events that underlie the Hindutva awakening. These include the raids of past invaders like Mahmud of Ghazni and Muhammad Ghori among other Muslim warlords, who attacked temples for their treasures, demolished them as seats of idolatry, raped and kidnapped Hindu women, expressed contempt for pluralist and pantheistic beliefs, took many lives and left deep scars. He continues that such oppression led to rigidities in Hindu practice like child marriages and sati (burning of widows) as measures of self-defence, which later “devolved into pernicious social practices”. Tharoor also adds that most of the population in Kashmir “converted en masse to Islam, mostly under duress during the reign of Sultan Sikander”.

However, should modern Muslims be held responsible for the loot, rape, and mayhem by long dead warlords from Persia, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, whose objective was conquest in the Age of Empires? Indeed, the Hindutva trope of blaming modern Muslims for the ills of long dead warriors is as Islamophobic as essentializing Muslims and blaming them for the terrorist activities perpetrated by groups like ISIS thousands of miles away. This is especially so as South Asian Muslims have more in common in terms of culture with South Asian non-Muslims than they do with Arab, European, Latino, or African Muslims. Thus, when Muslims in the Indian subcontinent are barely cognizant of Persian and Turkic cultures and languages, let alone the historical manifestations of these cultures and languages, is there any merit in the Hindutva narrative except guilt by association?

Changing the Script: Muslim Integration

The script needs to change. Muslims cannot always be on the defensive reacting and responding to Hindutva narrative of perpetual victimhood and Islamic oppression. Indeed, where there were invasions by Muslim conquerors, it is equally true that they integrated into Indian culture. Tharoor writes that a Muslim warrior, Ghazi Miyan, was worshipped “as a saint by Hindus”, just as they worshipped “Nizamuddin Auliya, Moinuddin Chishti, Shah Madar and Chiragh-i-Dilli”. He continues that Bibi Nanchira, the second wife of Lord Balaji (a reincarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu) was Muslim, and “a Muslim goddess, Bonbibi, is worshipped in idol form as the protector of the mangrove forests”. Apart from Muslim deities, there are Muslim devotees, like “Vavar Swami”, the Muslim disciple of Lord Ayyappa (son of the Hindu god Vishnu), who has his own shrine where “keeping with Muslim practice, there is no idol”, but “merely a symbolic stone slab, a sword (Vavar was a warrior) and a green cloth, the colour of Islam”. Such is the extent of Muslim integration that, according to Tharoor, there’s even a Muslim chieftain, Muttaal Raavuttan, “who protects Draupadi in the Mahabharata” in “post-Islamic retellings”.

Tharoor assembles instance after instance of Muslim integration in India. He references Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, who “personally directed a Krishna Leela performance in which he asked his Begums to dance the parts of the gopis”. He refers to “Muslim Patua painters” in Bengal, who “specialised in painting the Hindu epics on long pieces of craft paper”. He states that “Muslim musicians played and sang Hindu devotional songs”, “Muslim artisans in Benares made the traditional masks for the Hindu Ram-Leela performances” and he alludes to the “‘Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb’, a syncretic culture which melded the cultural practices of both faiths”. Continuing with this, he mentions “poets who were born Muslim but worshipped Hindu deities, notably Sayyad Ibrahim, popularly known as Raskhan”, and notes how the Mughal court “became the most impressive patron of the translation of many Sanskrit religious texts into Persian”.

Changing the Script: Holy Cows

The problem of Hindutva is binary thinking which they have perfected through a “cottage industry born of RSS-inclined historians” and through Hindutva acolytes appointed to research professorships”. They lay the blame on Muslims without considering the poor socio-economic conditions of Muslims in India. But whereas Muslims in India may need internal reform, it is equally true of educated people within the Hindutva brigade. For instance, Tharoor states that people like “Justice Mahesh Chandra of the Rajasthan High Court, reportedly a science graduate himself”, suggested that “cow slaughter be punished with life imprisonment” and that “the peacock, “is a lifelong celibate” who “does not indulge in sex” but impregnates the peahen by shedding a tear”. 

Offering a counter narrative, Tharoor states that “goats are routinely sacrificed at the Kalighat temple in Kolkata and other animals at Kali temples across the land”. He adds that his “children’s mother is half-Bengali, half-Kashmiri, descended from a long line of carnivorous Brahmins”. Additionally, he refers to the Vedas, “in which animal sacrifices including those of cattle, were offered to the gods” and this includes “at least one reference to the slaughter of cows”.  He continues that “the adoption of vegetarianism” and ahimsa (non-violence) are Buddhist and Jain contributions to Hinduism for in Vedic times, beef was permissible, as the Rig Veda states “Taittiriya Brahmana (verily, the cow is food)”. Tharoor adds that ancient lawgivers like Manu granted sanction for the slaughter and consumption of cow meat and that Yajnavalkya of the Upanishads is quoted as “I, for one, eat it, provided that it is tender”.

Changing the Script: Muslim oppressors

Even on warfare, Tharoor pushes back at the Hindutva narrative by writing that “Muslims served in the army of the Maratha (Hindu) warrior king Shivaji, as did Hindu Rajputs in the forces of the fiercely Islamist Aurangzeb”. He adds that “it was a pious Hindu, Raja Jai Singh of Jaipur, who led Aurangzeb’s armies against the Hindu warrior-hero Shivaji, just as the Hindu General Man Singh had led Akbar’s forces against the Hindu hero Rana Pratap, whose principal lieutenant was a Muslim, Hakim Khan Sur”. Thus, Tharoor confirms the point that Empires were predominantly about conquest not religion. Even in the case of the much maligned Aurangzeb, he writes that “historical evidence suggests that Aurangzeb did not destroy thousands of Hindu temples as is claimed and that the ones he did destroy were largely for political reasons; that he did little to promote conversions”, “that he increased the proportion of Hindus in the Mughal nobility by co-opting a number of Maratha aristocrats from the Deccan” and “that he gave patronage to Hindu and Jain temples and liberally donated land to Brahmins”. In writing so, Tharoor breaks the false binaries of the “Hindutva-centred view” that “all Muslim rulers are evil and all Hindus are ever valiant resisters”.

Tharoor underscores how the Hindutva brigade is uncritically venerating “Hindu heroes like Rana Pratap” but ignoring “universalist religious reformers like Rammohan Roy”. Indeed, victimhood sells where critical introspection is hard. Additionally, Tharoor mentions Hindutva “campaigns being waged against heterodox interpretations of Hinduism itself” where “serious scholars like Wendy Doniger” “have been sued, and publishers intimidated”. This much is true in the West as well where a conference on the perils of Hindutva came under attack in 2021 with death threats by Hindutva activists in India and the U.S. Indeed, Hindutva trolls are out on the loose on social media issuing threats behind the anonymity of locked Facebook profiles and other social media accounts. And yet somehow, they also milk the “jihadi Muslim” stereotypical narrative.

Changing The Script: Muslim Artists

Tharoor comes to a strong defence of the late M.F. Husain for painting the goddesses in the nude. He states that “the goddess is routinely portrayed topless in posters throughout the city” at the “annual Attukal Bhagvathy festival”, and references the erotic sculptures of Khajuraho, and past Hindu poets like Ladahachandra or Bhavakadevi, who praised the female breast. He asserts that not painting Muslim figures “in the nude is a red herring” as “Islam prohibits any visual depiction of the Prophet, whereas visualizing our gods and goddesses is central to the practice of Hinduism”. Similarly, he highlights how a Hindutva minister like Yogi Adityanath has called “India’s most beloved film star (the Muslim Shah Rukh Khan) a terrorist, and has urged his party’s government in New Delhi to emulate Donald Trump’s travel ban on Muslims”. Since Tharoor’s book, Muslim Indian film stars, who are the most liberal and integrated in India with non-Muslim spouses, have increasingly been dehumanized as “jihadis” and “terrorists”. Yet, despite inflicting vulgar stereotypes and fascist terrorism of their own, the Hindutva project themselves as eternal victims. No wonder, Tharoor quotes a fellow Hindu who views terrorism (perpetrated by Islamist fanatics) and communal riots (perpetrated by Hindutva fascists) as two sides of the same coin.

The Beauty Of Hinduism Versus The Ugliness Of Hindutva

Tharoor rightly points out that “Hinduism is almost the ideal faith for the twenty-first century: a faith without apostasy”, one that “responds ideally to the incertitudes of a post-modern world”, and “the only major religion in the world that does not claim to be the only true religion” which culminates through the phrase Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the whole world is one family). He adds that “Hinduism does not seek to proselytize” and that “unlike the Abrahamic faiths it manifests no desire to universalize itself”. Yet, alluding to the perpetual victimhood of the Hindutva, Tharoor explicates that “Hindutva reassertion is a reflection of insecurity rather than self-confidence”, and that “it is built on constant reminders of humiliation and defeat, sustained by tales of Muslim conquest and rule”. He adds that the Hindutva movement is a “backlash against cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism and secularism in the name of cultural rootedness, religious or ethnic identity and nationalist authenticity” and that it “draws from the same wellsprings as Islamist fanaticism and white nationalist Christian fundamentalism”.

However, delving deep into his Hindu faith, Tharoor pushes back at Hindutva. He cites the “Maratha warrior-king Shivaji” who “made it a rule that his followers should do no harm to mosques, the Qur’an or to women”. He goes further to question why “are the voices of Hindu religious leaders not being raised in defence of these fundamentals of Hinduism against those who would violently pervert it?” Moreover, just like the Sikh rejection of Mughals but not Muslims, Tharoor writes that he does not extend his dislike of Tipu Sultan towards Muslims, and that the past cannot be used to justify bigotry in the present.

Tharoor reminds us that the Hindutva “despise the secularists” for “they see such Hindus as cut off from their own culture and heritage”. (This sounds very similar to the Pakistani harangues against the “seculars” and the “liberals”). He adds that “they seek to make Hinduism more like the Semitic religions they resent but wish to emulate”. He passionately writes that, “I am not proud of my co-religionists attacking and destroying Muslim homes and shops. I am not proud of Hindus raping Muslim girls, or slitting the wombs of Muslim mothers. I am not proud of Hindu vegetarians who have roasted human beings alive and rejoiced over the corpses”. Indeed, he turns the table by calling out the Hindutva for their fascism that lurks beneath their projected victimhood.

In essence, Tharoor’s book shows the readers both the beauty of Hinduism and the grotesque fascism of Hindutva. It shows that Hindutva is the mirror image of Islamist fanaticism. To conclude, the biggest lesson of Tharoor’s book is to reject perpetual victimhood and to work constructively towards building the nation.

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Junaid Jahangir is an Assistant Professor of Economics at MacEwan University. He is the co-author of Islamic Law and Muslim Same-Sex Unions. With Dr. Hussein Abdullatif, a paediatric endocrinologist in Alabama, he has co-authored several academic papers on the issue of same-sex unions in Islam. He contributed this article to NewAgeIslam.com.

URL:    https://www.newageislam.com/books-documents/shashi-tharoor-islam-perpetual-victimhood/d/126713

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