Anti-Islamophobic Movement - Concept Of Islamophobia Has Rarely Come In Indian Public Discourse
By Asim Ali
23.01.21
As the last
year winded towards its end, two sets of events defined the state of the
country. One was the series of attacks on mosques in Madhya Pradesh, where
Hindutva mobs set out to terrorize Muslim communities encouraged by a tame
police force. The second was the ‘love jihad’ law passed by the Uttar Pradesh
government that was followed by scores of arrests of young Muslim men on flimsy
charges. At their base, both are products of the pervasive Islamophobia that
has reached epidemic proportions in our country.
The reason the Bharatiya Janata Party finds it politically beneficial to ramp up its anti-Muslim campaign and Opposition parties are meek to challenge it is that Islamophobia has gained popular acceptability. The constant drib of Islamophobia injected in our societal bloodstream since, at least, the Ramjanmabhoomi movement has now become an ever-accelerating spurt, spread by a formidable apparatus composed of the dominant political party, the mainstream media, social media, and millions of Sangh Parivar Karyakartas. To counter it, the moment requires us to go beyond op-eds and social media posts and build an anti-Islamophobic movement. In the absence of any serious countervailing force to check it, rising Islamophobia will not only lead to the further brutalization of Muslim citizens but also serve as the fuel to eat away at the remains of our democratic freedoms.
Yet, unlike
an anti-caste movement, we have never had an anti-Islamophobic movement. The
Ambedkarite movement has transformed our political culture over many decades to
the extent that every political party is pushed to swear by Ambedkar and take
rhetorical positions against the oppression of Dalits. But there has never been
a similar programme to reverse anti-Muslim prejudice, with its own tools,
vocabulary and iconography. This partly explains why even the anti-CAA
movement, although it did take some hesitant steps to address Islamophobia,
often fell back on Ambedkarite and nationalist symbols — with resistance
articulated through cries of ‘Jai Bhim’ and the ubiquitous portraits of
Ambedkar on the one hand and the national flag and the Constitution on the
other.
Even the
concept of Islamophobia has rarely made an appearance in our public discourse,
couched under the broader rubric of communalism. The stated answer to
communalism has historically been a staid secularism, guarding the encroachment
of strident religion into the public sphere, while largely leaving society
alone to its prejudices. To the extent society is addressed, it is in the form
of glib bromides about being ‘Indian first’ and Indians being ‘brothers and
sisters’. This passive, anodyne, largely elitist concern for secularism has
been shown to be impotent to halt the steady march of Hindutva and anti-Muslim
prejudice. In the same way an orientation of caste agnosticism can never be the
answer to casteism, which requires an active stance of anti-casteism, an inert
secularism cannot be an answer to the all-pervasive Islamophobia. Hence, an
anti-Islamophobic movement becomes necessary.
What will
such an anti-Islamophobic movement look like? For one, the article calls for a
movement more of the civil society than of political parties. Opposition
political parties will always be constrained by the logic of votes until
anti-Muslim prejudice starts to wane in society. Fundamentally, Islamophobia is
based on a bundle of stereotypes and prejudices against Muslims that have
established deep roots in our culture. To reverse this, one would require
concerted participation of prominent members of the Hindu civil society that
shapes culture — journalists, academics, lawyers, writers, intellectuals, and
artists. There are six steps secular civil society actors can take to build the
foundation of an anti-Islamophobic movement.
First,
recognize the extent of India’s Islamophobia problem, its deep roots, and
discard the myth of a uniquely tolerant Hinduism. In her book, My Son’s
Inheritance: A Secret History of Blood Justice and Lynchings in India, the
historian, Aparna Vaidik, argues that many Indians (including liberals) are
indifferent to Hindutva violence against Muslims and Dalits because their
privilege prevents them from seeing it. “This violence is invisibilised because
it comes secretly embedded in our myths, folklore, poetry, literature, and
language. Moreover, what keeps us from seeing the violence, especially caste
violence and the abuse of minorities, is our privilege,” Vaidik pointed in a
recent interview. In place of the narrative of minority appeasement, which even
many secular intellectuals have lent credibility to, civil society actors need
to bring ‘Hindu privilege’ and the issue of intolerance in the Hindu community
to the front and centre of the public discourse along with a belated
recognition that Hindutva is not a fringe movement and that it is now the
mainstream Hindu political philosophy.
Second,
since Islamophobia is a problem of image, its antidote lies in Muslim
visibility. In order to present a real image of Muslims, the country requires
more Muslims in leadership positions in civil society organizations. In
academia, media, NGOs, publishing, art houses, there needs to be an active
effort, including affirmative action, to diversify these spaces by including
more Muslims. In place of words eulogizing secular India, there needs to be
concrete actions to ensure that Muslims get a seat at these tables
proportionate to their numbers and have a voice in how they are run. A
preference can be given to backward class and caste Muslims to ensure that
these benefits are not monopolized by elite Muslims.
Third, the
representation of Muslims in art needs to undergo a fundamental transformation.
Movies and literature need to junk hackneyed tropes like the ‘good Muslim/bad
Muslim’, ‘nationalist/traitor Muslim’, ‘skullcap wearing Muslim fundamentalist/terrorist’.
These tropes serve to underscore the insidious tension between the Indian
nation and Muslim identity. Along with it, the tokenistic and stereotypical
portrayal of the ‘Muslim shayar’, the ‘hot-headed Muslim friend’ and the
‘Muslim criminal’ need to be replaced by a realistic portrayal of ordinary
Muslims. In the America of the 1990s, particularly with films of black
directors such as Spike Lee, a realistic picture of the Black experience was
provided to a mainstream audience of millions of Americans who had, heretofore,
only seen them through the prism of crime, drugs and violence. Similarly,
literature around the everyday experiences and challenges of Indian Muslims
needs to be encouraged and translated into local languages. If Premchand’s
“Idgah” is all that most Hindi-speaking Indians are acquainted with in terms of
Muslim characters, it’s a problem.
Fourth, the
much-diminished liberal end of journalism needs to adopt an anti-Islamophobic
stance in presenting news of crimes against Muslims. In the case of ‘love
jihad’, the media-fuelled the myth by not explicitly presenting it as a
concoction of the right-wing. In beef-lynchings, even the supposedly liberal
media harp on the alleged crime of Muslims — whether or not they ate/transported
beef, rather than presenting it as an unequivocally shameful act of terror.
Fifth,
secular Hindus must not merely proclaim the virtues of secularism in their echo
chambers; they can start working on their families, and then maybe their
neighbourhoods. Hindutva is not a Hindu-Muslim problem; it is a Hindu problem
that needs to be fought in Hindu spaces. Starting points can be the family and
neighbourhood WhatsApp groups that are rife with Islamophobia. Even decent
people baulk at contesting Islamophobic messages on message groups to avoid
‘pointless’ confrontations. One of the reasons Islamophobic prejudice has
skyrocketed in the public sphere is because it has broken free of the shame
associated with it. This shame can be reconstructed, one courageous intervention
— digital or face-to-face — at a time.
Sixth, a
new Muslim intelligentsia must emerge, and must be encouraged to emerge, which
can define the vocabulary and iconography of resistance to Islamophobia. We saw
the seeds of this younger, more assertive, intelligentsia during the anti-CAA
movement where young students and activists faced down the apparatus of State
repression to organize an unprecedented nation-wide movement. Now, many of
these students and activists find themselves in jail. We don’t find civil
society clamouring for their release in the way it has got behind the ‘safer’
movement of farmers. If we are serious about fighting Islamophobia, the first
order of action would be to tirelessly work for their release.
The
reversal of Islamophobia is not just in the interest of Muslims; it is in the
interest of all Hindus who are invested in the democratic freedoms of this
country. However, merely participating in conclaves about secularism in elite
spaces and harkening back to an imagined secular India won’t reverse
Islamophobia. It would require concrete actions. The aforementioned steps can
be a start.
-----
Asim Ali
is a political columnist and research associate with the Centre for
Policy Research, Delhi
Original Headline: Resistance map
Source: The Telegraph India