I must preface this post by clarifying that I have no "dog in this race" - from my point of view (as an atheist) all theistic religions, including Hinduism and Islam, are complex, many-headed beasts that contribute both positively and negatively to the world. I am aware that the onus is upon me to prove myself free of any bias (though in an ideal discussion such bad faith should not be assumed), so I will try to quote sources where I can.
Also, this post - a vague overview of the agenda of an average radical Hindu - is in no way justifying their actions. Dreams of ethnic genocide, or of achieving "racial purity", should all be condemned regardless of their origins. With this post I am merely to trying to discuss possible self-justifications of a Hindu fundamentalist.
Finally, I don't live in India and am not an Indian citizen (I am merely of Indian origin), so apologies if I get my geography/history wrong. I am merely a budding anthropologist and sociologist but like most things in life, I suck at them, so mistakes in my logic should be expected.
Downvote not because of you disagree, but only if you feel this discussion brings nothing new to the table.
Now, on to the meat:
Most sources (especially international) that discuss the Partition often mention that it was the result of a series of wrong decisions made by powerful people; that the average Hindu and the average Muslim on the street considered each other equals despite all their differences. Any historian worth their salt should be able to see beyond such claims, into a valley of violence forged over a thousand years between these two groups. A good source would be Ambedkar, who makes some fine points in his treatise on the Partition. Speaking of the deep-rooted animosity between the two religions, Ambedkar explains that starting with the very first invasion of India by the Muslim invaders from the north-west, the hatred between the two has only kept on increasing. The natural consequence of these events was that by the time we get to the Partition era, Hindus and Muslims did not look upon each other as friends:
The methods adopted by the invaders have left behind them their aftermath. One aftermath is the bitterness between the Hindus and the Muslims which they have caused. This bitterness between the two is so deep-seated that a century of political life has neither succeeded in assuaging it, nor in making people forget it. As the invasions were accompanied with. destruction of temples and forced conversions, with spoliation of property, with slaughter,, enslavement and abasement of men, women and children, what wonder if the memory of these invasions has ever remained green, as a source of pride to the Muslims and as a source of shame to the Hindus? But these things apart, this north-west corner of India has been a theater in which a stern drama has been played. Muslim hordes, in wave after wave, have surged down into this area and from thence scattered themselves in spray over the rest of India. These reached the rest of India in thin currents. In time, they also receded from their farthest limits; while they lasted, they left a deep deposit of Islamic culture over the original Aryan culture in this north-west corner of India which has given it a totally different color, both in religious and political outlook. The Muslim invaders, no doubt, came to India singing a hymn of hate against the Hindus. But, they did not merely sing their hymn of hate and go back burning a few temples on the way. That would have been a blessing. They were not content with so negative a result. They did a positive act, namely, to plant the seed of Islam. The growth of this plant is remarkable. It is not a summer sapling. It is as great and as strong as an oak. Its growth is the thickest in Northern India. The successive invasions have deposited their 'silt' more there than anywhere else, and have served as watering exercises of devoted gardeners. Its growth is so thick in Northern India that the remnants of Hindu and Buddhist culture are just shrubs. Even the Sikh axe could not fell this oak. Sikhs, no doubt, became the political masters of Northern India, but they did not gain back Northern India to that spiritual and cultural unity by which it was bound to the rest of India before Hsuan Tsang. The Sikhs coupled it back to India. Still, it remains like Alsace-Lorraine politically detachable and spiritually alien so far as the rest of India is concerned. It is only an unimaginative person who could fail to take notice of these facts or insist in the face of them that Pakistan means breaking up into two what is one whole.
Some historians argue that the deeper Hindu-Muslim divide - the kind that has manifested itself in riots against Muslims, for instance - is a consequence of the British invasion and the nationalism it sowed. Romila Thapar, for example, claims that Ghazni's invasions of India and the subsequent destruction of Indian temples by his hand should not be considered an instance of 'Hindu-Muslim enmity', because he punished Muslim heretics just as he did the Hindus, but that makes no difference to the average Hindu - as far as he is concerned, Islamic conquerors made an attempt to wipe out the history and religion of a land that never made any efforts to disturb other nations. And so in his mind, the religions simply cannot get along after all that has transpired between them. In thinking so he would find the Muslims agreeing as well: they themselves were of the opinion that the two religions were fundamentally incompatible; like two immiscible fluids they'd try to fight to get on top of each other and eventually settle to a compromise. According to MJ Akbar, even the so-called "Muslim reformers" - such as Sir Syed Ahmad Khan - were "addressing the native Hindus as apes as late as the 1870". Khan was the first figure in the history of modern India who propounded the theory that Hindus and Muslims practiced incompatible religions. He, in turn, was influenced by great Muslim thinkers such as Shah Wali Ullah, who was preaching the Muslims about the "dangers of living with Hindus" in the 18th century, and made public his hopes for renewed Islamic dominion over the Hindus.
This is where your average 'sanghi' or 'bhakt' in the Partition era drew motivation from: his genuine fear that the religion that had pillaged and looted its way across their country for over half a millennium would reign over him once again. The historic wrong made against their religion that was content on living and dying on its own piece of land deserves to be rectified. The Hindu way of life, complete with its culture and other pieces of its identity (language, festivals, cuisines) must not die out after having endured for over two thousand years; instead, it should be restored to its glory before the Islamic invasions. The Muslim, given the chance, wastes no time in aggressively preaching and spreading the word of Islam; the Hindus should do the same in the name of their religion. The decades after the Partition saw yearly riots and strained relations between the two groups. Notably, the '64 Kolkata riots and the '69 Gujarat riots led to widespread loss of property and lives and established the RSS as "Hindu protectors". Things took a turn for the worse in 1971, when during the Bangladesh Liberation War, Hindus and Buddhists became the targets of extreme violence and threatened the state of Hindu-Muslim relations in the country. The Kashmiri exodus made matters worse and finally, India and Pakistan fought an all-out war in 1999 where many radical Hindus hoped that their neighbor's forces would be vanquished once and for all. By this time, nationalist parties had already made their presence felt across the country and many political figures had publicly made known their allegiance to Hinduism. But the visions and ideas of these fundamentalists mutate into something more radical as we enter the 21th century.
Islam, for all its religious dogma and intolerance (against homosexuals, women's rights, freedom of religion, etc.) ends up becoming a darling of the West in the by the end of the 20th century. Plenty of countries style themselves as 'Islamic Republics' and proudly advertise their rich history of conquest and murder. Citizens of these countries were forced to live under the shadow of Islam regardless of their opinions, are forced to study their religion and embrace it in all its glory. Before migrations from the middle-east to European countries became a major phenomenon, the average Indian view was that the citizens of such states actually didn't mind these theocracies. And while Islamophobia was certainly a thing in the West, the radical Left started making noises about this supposed discrimination and made it an object of public discussion. In 1988, after Rushdie's Satanic Verses made headlines because of the fatwa issued against him, we saw a few loud voices actually defending the horrific treatment that was being meted out against him. Yasmin Alibhai Brown, a self proclaimed 'anti-racist' Muslim, had this to say about the reaction to Rushdie's book:
I felt quite comfortable within the liberal camp until the Salman Rushdie affair. I thought those who believed in religion were backward. The Rushdie affair changed all that. I was shocked by the way that the liberals, who proclaimed their belief in freedom of thought and expression, were completely unwilling to listen to the voice of very powerless people who felt offended by the book [...] My liberal associates were talking about them (the people against Rushdie) in terms of pure hatred. But it was not just the hatred which angered me. It was also the way the liberals totally misunderstood people's continuing need for religion, particularly among members of Muslim groups who are still finding it hard to find their place in British society.
By 1998, Islamophobia had become a genuine synonym for racism and quite a few Western governments found themselves fighting against it (see the Runnymede report for an example). In stark contrast Hinduism had few voices "speaking out" for its defense against racism (which basically meant its interactions with Islam), which irked the radicals - while it was true that they craved a homogeneous Hindu nation, at the very least they were not violently overthrowing sovereign governments (Afghanistan) or waging wars against their neighbors (Pakistan-funded militants). No sir, they were content with fighting for their land (remember, all violence towards the Muslims was justified in one way or the other); and if the world could turn a blind-eye to the Taliban doing the same thing (hell, Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi of the Taliban was even invited to the US to meet the President!), what right did they have to chastise the Hindu fundamentalists who 'merely' wanted to purge their own lands? With the fight against Islamophobia raging around them, they feared that the Western governments would see their innocent, justified actions against Muslims as acts of genocide, which would bolster Islam's standing in the world. And more glory to Islam, compounded by their higher growth rate (29.5% vs 19.5% for the Hindus), could once again lead to a situation where Muslims would rule over their Hindu counterparts.
Now, one could accuse them of exaggeration here, but they'd need to be careful: while it is true that numbers-wise India would retain a Hindu majority until 2050 (and beyond), the "Hindus" that the fundamentalists hope will populate the nation are the ones who actually follow the religion, rather than just being born into it (atheists were probably none of their concern: a growing number of people started abandoning religion at the beginning of the 21st century, but this number is minuscule - less than a percent of the nation's population). The truth on the ground was that while Islam enjoyed status as a 'state religion' in several densely populated countries of the world, 'Hinduism' enjoyed no such privileges. Mythological stories were not being taught across middle-class schools, the Vedas were not being studied by eminent scholars in clerical universities; instead, a 'pop' version of the religion was flourishing through TV shows and movies. Your average Hindu was certainly pious - they'd go to the temple, not eat meat on certain days, not cut their finger-nails in the evenings, etc. - but they weren't advertising their religion, they weren't truly embracing the culture that came along with it. And how did they reach this conclusion? Surely, even they could see the ever-growing crowds of people at religious festivals across the country or the number of people tuning in to watch B.R. Chopra's epics on the TV? Yes they could, but what was most necessary for a Hindu, according to them, was to always defend their religion against the ever-present threat of Islam. Why weren't they advocating for the study of religious texts in schools? Why weren't they rallying to make cattle-slaughter illegal? Their fervor ended at the doorsteps of their houses and they did not truly carry the zeal for Hinduism in their hearts, their actions were merely byproducts of the culture around them, which was slowly but surely declining.
But they had a solution! Once Hinduism pervaded every aspect of life - like it had in the days before Islam or in the Hindu kingdoms such as those of Shivaji - the general populace would undoubtedly notice the richness of this religion. So the 2000s come and goes - Gujarat burns again, the BJP's agenda turns ominous after Vajpayee's term ends, social media takes off and the left starts making itself heard. Islamophobia surges once again after 9/11, but saner voices prevail in the end (for the most part), and those disgusted by the mistreatment of Islam speak out loudly. Hindu radicals don't back down, of course; they double up and start an information war against the extreme liberals that advocate for greater protection for minorities. Why do they need protections, after all; Hinduism is the religion under threat, not Islam! The Hindu culture is slowly diluting and if the left can't speak out against the atrocities of Islam - of its brutal culture against LGBT people, treatment of women, etc. - then why does it pester the Hindus who merely act out in the defense of their culture? How could a religion that instructs its followers to kill all non-believers ever be in need of further protection? And this brings us to the crux of this post: in a warped sense, their thinking is actually understandable.
Yes, the media generally never chastised Islam for its toxicity until very recently.
Yes, the Muslim population really was rising significantly faster than the Hindu population.
Yes, Islamic countries often tend to be based around religion (and a religion which punishes atheism probably does exhibit slightly "more devout" followers).
Yes, it is OK to feel a deep attachment to your religion and believe in your connection to a higher power through it.
Yes, it is perfectly alright to want to preserve and grow your religion and its culture (languages, art, stories, etc.).
And yes, ultimately, it is understandable to want to return your religion to its "former glory", if you really feel it's been harshly treated for the past millennium. And your average student of history - who has at least once encountered an act of Islamic barbarity in Indian history - probably feels that way too, not just your right-wing nutjobs.
So the question "do the ends justify the means?" carries no weight to the fundamentalist, be they Islamic or Hindu. Of course they do, it's our basic "us-vs-them" instinct that's been honed over a 100,000 years or so. For radical elements on either side of the divide, the fear of having their cultural identity rooted-out from a region has always been a potent rallying cry, capable of garnering support for violence even in the darkest times. But we aren't justifying or dissecting the Islamic fundamentalist POV here - we are digging into the motivation behind "saffron terror" (although that somehow ties radicalism with the RSS, which is partly incorrect in my opinion), and deep down, like perhaps all conflicts in history, it is rooted in blood.
Submitted August 09, 2019 at 07:28PM by BambaiyyaLadki https://ift.tt/2OPeg1f
No comments:
Post a Comment