Can There Be An Indian Future Without Muslims?
By Arshad Alam, New Age Islam
6 December 2022
Those In India Wishing To Obliterate Muslims
Need To Learn From History And Give Up This Pointless Fetish
Main Points:
1.
Every
week, there is some video singling a Muslim who is praying in a mall, hospital
or a train
2.
Sections
of Hindus circulate the video with a malicious motive, expressing horror, as if
this is a new thing in India
3.
Hindu
religious functions too are celebrated in public; in a sense all Indian
religions resist privatization
4.
Why
then, this attempt to single out Muslim ritual practice? Is it an orchestrated
attempt to push Muslims and their religion to invisibility?
5.
But
even if this happens, will the Muslim presence be truly gone from the artistic,
cultural, linguistic and sartorial common sense that defines India?
------
Namaz By Patient's Attendant At
Hospital Goes Viral, Police Say Probe On/ Photo: NDTV
----
It is as if being a Muslim has become a
crime in India. Not a week passes when we don’t hear the news of some Muslim
being hounded simply because he or she was praying in a corner of a hospital,
mall or within a train compartment. This is not to say that I am fine with
Muslims blocking highways and disturbing traffic for Friday prayers, or at
other occasions. In fact, I have written against it and will continue to do so
in the future. If the issue is of limiting public presence of religious
rituals, then I am all for it.
The Gigantic Puja Pandal In Baramunda,
-----
But in India, Muslims are not the only
community who want to display their religiosity. Hindus and other religious
communities are probably better at orchestrating this feat. The various pujas
which hold any city to ransom being just one example. If we include the
night-long high-decibel Jagrata (night vigil) that gets organized
routinely in all neighborhoods, then it will not be an exaggeration to say that
Hindu display of religiosity is a round-the-year affair. Such displays and the
occupation of public space hardly gets any negative attention, while a lone
Muslim praying at the corner of a pavement does have to put up with disdain.
Chances are that someone will make a video of this Muslim and post it on the
internet so that he gets condemned by a very organized cabal of right-wing
Hindus. How does a Muslim man praying in some corner of a train or road, or a
hospital, disturb the public at large? If anyone catches a train from Delhi to
Aligarh, they will find daily commuters singing loud Bhajans but I am
yet to see any such video being circulated.
The lesson is very clear and it is not
about lessening the public presence of religions. Rather it is simply about
being discomfited by the public presence of Muslims. It is clear that a section
of Hindus increasingly has a problem with the public presence of Islam and
Muslims. This explains the alacrity with which the police swing into action at
any such reported instance of Muslim religious display. And we certainly know
that the police don’t act so swiftly without the approval of the government of
the day. Many of these state governments have in fact advised Muslims to pray
inside their homes and mosques (not on roads) but have been silent on similar
transgressions from Hindus. These things were unthinkable some decades ago; but
it appears that as we continue to move in this direction, perhaps Hindus will
start to have problems with routine Muslim religious practices, like Eid
prayers, which have always been held in public.
This is nothing but a desire to domesticate
Islam, a religion which due to its very character has always been public since
its inception. It refuses to be domesticated, even within Muslim countries like
Turkey and Algeria, despite top-down attempts to do so. But today in India, we
seem to have reached a stage where calls to its domestication are not enough;
there are sections within the country who would be very pleased to have
dispensed with the religion altogether. How else do we understand the alacrity
with which such videos are being shared. The sole reason perhaps is to make
Muslims uncomfortable performing their rituals in public. In other words, the
very public presence of Muslim rituals is making a section of Hindus go
ballistic.
Let us imagine a possibility where this
section succeeds in making Muslims invisible from the public square. Imagine
that there are no sartorial markers or beards or burqa on the Indian street.
Imagine that every Muslim only prays either inside his house or inside a
mosque. Imagine even Eid and Muharram festivities have been confined to
designated spaces. Would this section of Hindus be happy then? Perhaps not.
Then they might have a problem with the very presence of Muslims in the
country. What if they start demanding that all physical structures of the
Islamic faith be demolished? That all mosques and Dargahs should be demolished?
What if they start demanding that Muslims have no place in this country; that
they should simply leave India and migrate.
Now imagine that they have succeeded in
achieving this feat. There are no physical markers of Muslim presence in India;
there are no Muslims to be seen around. Would that make this country
Muslim-free? Certainly not. What are these Hindus going to do about hundreds of
years of Muslim history: a history which has been instrumental in weaving the
fabric of this country in many ways. What are they going to do about language,
which has words that can be traced to Urdu or Persian or Arabic or Turkish.
Would these Hindus stop uttering the word sabun (soap), which is Persian in
origin and hence associated with Muslim? Would those who grace the Indian
Parliament stop wearing the traditional Kurta-Sherwani and revert back to being
bare bodied, as practiced by Gandhi? Would they stop using spices, many of
which were sourced from Muslim lands? Arguably the only good vegetable
authentically Indian is brinjal; are they willing to base their feasts on that?
More importantly, what will they do about time? Will the Hindu civilization
revert back to its cyclical notion of time and devise a unique calendar to
carry on the business of the state?
One country in the world tried that. Spain
tried to get rid of its Muslim past. It failed. Despite its best efforts, they
could not expel the Muslim presence from within their midst. Their language is
heavily indebted to Arabic, their cuisine more so. Ferdinand and Isabella might
be heroes to the evangelicals, but Spain today is not just about the marriage
of these two but much more; it is about the confluence of European and Muslim cultures
that can be witnessed in their art, culture, cuisine and language.
Those in India wishing to obliterate
Muslims need to learn from history and give up this pointless fetish. Centuries
of acculturation do not get washed away; they become part of the habitus of a
culture, a civilization. The Muslim is inside every Hindu, as is a Hindu inside
every Muslim. Hatred against Muslims is nothing but hating one’s own self.
Sections of Hindus need to stop and think about the source of this self-hate
and find ways to heal itself.
The Muslim presence in India will continue
even without the physical presence of even a single Muslim.
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A regular contributor to NewAgeIslam.com,
Arshad Alam is a New Delhi based independent researcher and writer on Islam and
Muslims in South Asia.
URL: https://newageislam.com/interfaith-dialogue/indian-muslims-namaz-pandal-jagrata/d/128568
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