Modi-ji, here is guidance for you to restore India to her greateness

Modi-ji,

India ko Langda na karo. Nehruji, Gandhiji, Patelji, Azadji, Ambedkarji aur kayee freedom fighters aap say kehte hain, "Hum laye hain toofan say kishti nikal ke, es desh ko rakhna mere baccho sambhal ke" They gave a great India in your hands, please don't cripple it. Let every Indian feel secure! All you have to do is speak up and tell your party members that you will not tolerate any Indian to be harassed by them. 

Caution:

This article, “How did Hindus become Hindu” is a very long article but worth reading as it offers solutions to the conflicts that Indians face.  No nation will prosper and stand firmly on the ground if it’s social and economic structures are not firmly rooted. They are two legs of a nation, both need to work in tandem, one will not stand without the other.  We need to fix the current policies, otherwise we will end up with a Langda India, that will make each one of us handicapped uploaded with distrust, ill-will and hatred for each other.

The author rightfully writes, “ It is not a religious idea, but a far-right political ideology, just as Zionism is the far right political ideology of Judaism.” To which I will add, Islamism is the far right political ideology of Islam, like Neocons of Christianity, Khalsa in Sikhism and of course Buddhism has one too. They are political groups fighting for their rights in the wrong way creating more divide than the intended harmony. We the people, the moderate majorities of each group have to make full blown effort for the common man to understand that these groups do not represent the beautiful religions they claim to represent.

A few days ago, I wrote the following and am glad to see someone was thinking along the same lines and wrote this article at Daily O.  What I see is the author has made people think and deliberate their actions.  

What I wrote:

The greatest task in front of Indians is to save the Democratic form of Governance where every Indian is respected and treated with dignity.  No one should have more privileges than the other, and everyone should expect and get justice, that is when we can sustain peace and harmony for everyone, yes every one.

In almost every conflict we’ve seen in India, the following revengeful references have been thrown: Babar ki Aulad, Aurangzeb, Somnath, Guru Gobind Singh and the likes. There are a lot of myths out there that need to be brought into open and demystify them.  We (all Indians who care for an India where every Indian feels secure) cannot change the hard core men and women, but strengthen the majority who sits on the fence and earn their support with facts. It is a long term effort to build a cohesive India where no Indian has to live in apprehension or fear of the other. Indeed, that was unstated goal of Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism and all religions.

There is a thought worth exploring; the baseness (animal) in human beings always seeks a target to attack or hate to dump their inexplicable anger on someone, to seek false security by creating chaos and fear among the targets.   

Until the British directed the manufactured ire of Hindus towards Muslims as a part of divide and rule, their hate and denigrations was directed at the Dalits for several centuries, now it is against Dalits, Muslims and Christians. We need to find channels to direct their anger and bring a sense of security to them. Please remember it is not about Muslims and Hindus, it is about the radicalized among us. 

Should Muslims defend the bad deeds of the Kings in the past who happened to be Muslims? Should Hindus take their anger out on Muslims of independent India who have nothing to do with those kings?  

Part of the reconciliation includes summary from our historians to put a brief history of kings, all kings including Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Buddhist, Sikhs, Zoroastrian and others. Wasn’t their agenda to loot and rob the next door land? Plunder the wealth of the weak? Don’t we find good and bad kings among all traditions? Was it their lust for power that drove them insane rather than their religion?  What has religion got to do with their greed?

Courtesy of  Daily O, India
 @devdanchaudhuri

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May we never hate each other.

The Katha Upanishad

The aim of this essay is to recover the true history and real meaning of key words, which have got muddled in the time of aggressive political and cultural propaganda.

How did Hindus become Hindu

It was the imperial British who demarcated on basis of religious beliefs – before that all major religious beliefs and practices, which originated in India, were termed together as Hindu – a word coined by the Persians to denote the land beyond the Sindhu or Indus river – after whom India has been named.

The name Indica has been used by the Greeks to name India since the time of Herodotus and Megasthenes. Two works with the same title Indica – by Megasthenes and Arrian – described the Indian subcontinent.

So the name of India got linked to the Indus River. The Persians followed the Greeks and named India after the river. But they followed the original Sanskrit name for Indus, and derived Hindu from Sindhu. In old Persian, “s” sounded like “h”.

So Hindu originally had a geographical connotation – from the Persian perspective – to denote “the land beyond the Sindhu”; the term wasn’t coined to denote any religious meaning. The suffix “stan” – indicative of a geographical place – was added to form “Hindustan”.

Sindhu in Sankrit also means river. India is that ancient river which is flowing since 5,500 years, or according to a recent archaeological discovery that happened in 2016, for 8,000 years.

That’s why the word “Hindu” doesn’t appear in the four Vedas, the Upanishads and the Buddhist scriptures. Even Adi Shankaracharya – who is known to have revived “Hinduism” in the 8th century after centuries of Buddhism – didn’t have the word “Hindu” in his consciousness or vocabulary. He introduced the esoteric “Advaita” philosophy for the learned, while he simultaneously revived the worship of gods and goddesses for the masses.

Adi Shankaracharya also established the famous four peethas at Sringeri (South), Joshimath (North), Puri (East) and Dwarka (West). But he never used the word “Hindu” in any of his works of philosophy, commentary and spiritual poetry.

But Buddhism didn’t completely vanish from India. The Buddhist Pala dynasty ruled Eastern India – including Vanga – from 750 CE to 1174 CE during which the proto-Bengali language was developed along with the early “Bengali” culture.

The word “Hindu” doesn’t appear in any ancient text of Sanatan Dharma – of all sub-religions and sub-cultures – before few Sanskrit texts started to use the word after 12th century.

The various traditions used their philosophical and spiritual practices such as Vaishnavs, Shakta, Mahayana, Vajrayana, Advaita etc – to identify themselves. But no one called themselves Hindus.

5000 Year old Culture

India is that ancient river which is flowing since 5,500 years, or according to a recent archaeological discovery that happened in 2016, for 8,000 years.

The Punjab region – Sapta Sindhava of the Vedas – has been called Hapta Hindu in Zend Avesta. A 6 BCE stone inscription of Persian King Darius I mentioned the land of Hi(n)dush – referred to North-Western India. The people of India were also referred as Hinduvan and Hindavi in the 8th century Persian text Chachnama. As pointed out earlier, the word “Hindu” is an ethnographic geographical word and didn’t denote any religion. Al-Biruni’s 11th century text Tarikh Al-Hind and also the texts of the Delhi Sultanate used the word “Hindu” to denote all non-Islamic people of India, and it remained ambiguous about whether Hindu denoted a region or a religion.

In the late 12th century, Prithviraj Raso by Chanda Bardai – that some scholars say was written later than 1192 – documented the defeat of Prithviraj Chauhan at the hands of Muhammad Ghori. That text is full of references to “Hindus” and “Turks”.

Here as well geographical meaning was used – it was a battle between “Hindus and Turks”; not Hindus and Muslims.

The Indian invaders didn’t come from Persia – the seat of Islamic high culture represented by modern day Iran – but they came from Central Asia and they were mostly Turks.

The main religion of ancient Persia was Zoroastrianism. That was transformed by the Arab Conquest of Persia in 651 CE that expanded the Islamic Caliphate.

King Darius I of the Zoroastrian Persia annexed parts of the Indus Valley in the north in 515 BCE, when the rest of ancient India was dominated by sixteen Mahajanapadas (great countries in Sanskrit) that included Magadha in the East – from where the Maurya and the Gupta Empires evolved and spread.

The Muslim Persian never tried to conquer India throughout its history. They never sent out an army towards Hind to annexe it with the Persian Empire and their scholars translated countless Sanskrit texts into Persian.

So what is being viewed as “Muslim invasions” in present India in context of our history wasn’t viewed as such in the medieval times of the invasions. The invaders were Central Asian Turkish warriors who were exceptionally skilled as horsemen. The first Mughal emperor Babur was a Central Asian Uzbeg. He was born in Andijan, Timurid Empire that is present day Uzbekistan.

Even the Lodhi Sultanate Dynasty that Babur dethroned in Delhi originated from Afghan Pastun dynasty that was ruling North India since 1451.

Muhammad of Ghazni, Muhammad Ghori and the Khilji dynasty – all originated from modern-day Afghanistan.

One has to keep in mind that the great empires of ancient India – such as the Mauryas and the Guptas – had extended beyond Afghanistan into Central Asia. Many of the Turks and Afghans who are now seen as “invaders into India” came from regions which were once part of the ancient empires of India.

*

The Persian “Hindu” slowly caught on among the people of India and they started to use that word to denote the difference between them and the Turks. Certain 16th-18th century Bengali Gaudiya Vaishnava texts started to use the word Hindu to contrast themselves with Yavanas (foreigners).

Chaitanya Charitamrita (16th century) and Bhakta Mala (17th century) – both in Bengali – used the phrase “Hindu dharma”.

There are countless more examples. But the essential truth is that the people of India started to think themselves to be “Hindus” slowly over several centuries, after 12th century. This happened because of the Central Asian invasions that slowly popularised the Persian word among the populace. And the Imperial British added “ism” to Hindu in the early 19th century in order to execute its divide and rule strategy.

All the three words: Hindus, Hindustan and Hinduism have no connection with ancient India, prior to 12th century. They began to get accepted gradually after 16th century by a larger populace.

The recent DNA genealogy studies – from multiple sources – suggest: India has been populated primarily by three waves of ancient migrations. The last two waves from Central Asia, Caucus region and southern Siberia – around 12,000-15,000 years and 4,500-3,500 years ago – have given birth to India of now, in terms of “Hindu” population.

Hindus are also the descendents of “invaders” into India; our world has been formed by migrations, and continues to be formed by migrations.

But the Hindutva ideology thinks India as a “pure land” for “pure Hindus”. The ideology staunchly identifies with the three crucial words – “Hindu” and “Hindustan” coined by the Persians and “Hinduism” coined by the British – which are at the heart of its nationalistic narrative and worldview.

The three words – Hindu, Hindustan and Hinduism – were coined and popularised by Muslims and Christians – whom the Hindutva ideology identifies as “invaders”.

The irony of this truth is astonishing.

All the diverse philosophical traditions and the sub-traditions which originated in India are part of Sanatan Dharma that translates to “Eternal Law” or “Eternal Way of Things” or “Eternal Order”. What are now called Hinduism, Buddhism or Jainism were the sub-cultures (with sub-sub-cultures) within the larger culture of Sanatan Dharma.

Sanatan Dharma has to be seen like a Great Wheel whose spokes are the diverse thoughts and belief systems which originated in India. Most of the major systems also imbibed aspects from the other systems of thoughts – ideas were mixed with other ideas to create more ideas. So the flow of Sanatan Dharma over time was like a braided stream.

Plurality and syncretism were the essential part of Sanatan Dharma; this is reflected in the diversity of modern India.

S Radhakrishnan’s Indian Philosophy and Surendranath Dasgupta’s A History of Indian Philosophy record the progression of all the major schools of thought which have shaped our history and culture. All the traditions and sub-traditions of all the religions under Sanatan Dharma stem from the major schools of Indian thought: the Vedas, the Upanishads, Buddhism, Jainism, Samkhyas, Advaita, Kashmir Shaivism and so on. They have got mingled with myths, legends, folklore, epic literature, passage of history and regional propensities to produce the diversity of religious and spiritual practices of India.

So where does Hindutva fit within this scheme of things? From where did the word come into our consciousness?

Hindutva is not Hinduism

I have observed that books which have been written while the author is incarcerated tend to have a lasting impact in some sphere or the other.

In 1923, while being incarcerated in Ratnagiri, VD Savarkar wrote his manifesto Essentials of Hindutva. He coined the word Hindutva to frame his far-right political philosophy that uses nationalism and religious identity. Hindutva was ideated by Savarkar, not the spiritual sages of India. In the essay Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? Savarkar himself wrote, “Hindutva is not identical with what is vaguely indicated by the term Hinduism.” His aim was the political mobilisation of all those with “Hindu” identity to form a nation of militant nationalists.

By this time Savarkar was already a political person. In 1915, he had founded the right wing political party Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha.

VD Savarkar coined the word Hindutva to frame his far-right political philosophy.

Dr KB Hedgewar read Savarkar’s Essentials of Hindutva and was greatly inspired by the ideas. He severed his association with Indian National Congress and founded the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1925.

The Sangh Parivar started its journey when Hindu Mahasabha joined forces with RSS, and the Parivar adopted Savarkar’s Hindutva to frame their essential far-right ideology that was also influenced by MS Golwalkar – the second sarsanghchalak or the second supreme leader of the RSS.

Veer Savarkar

Golwalkar

So Hindutva took birth as a political ideology and has little connection with the esoteric philosophical and spiritual ideals of Hinduism/Sanatan Dharma. It has always linked itself with patriarchal conservatism and ritualistic religion which they framed as “Hindu culture” and “Indian culture” while neglecting the plural and secular traditions of the broader and more diverse Hinduism/Sanatan Dharma.

The RSS also campaigned for Manusmriti as the Indian Constitution. Its inherent ultra-orthodox worldview always opposed liberal and progressive principles. They still dream to alter the Indian Constitution and change the Indian Tricolour to saffron.

They also tend to think that the “Hindi-Hindustani” version of Hinduism is superior to the other kinds of Hinduism that are practised, especially in the South and Eastern India. They look down upon plurality as a sort of “religious and cultural” distortion.

India never had a single all-powerful Church-like organisation to define the practices of Hinduism/Sanatan Dharma. This allowed multiple orthodox and unorthodox traditions and sub-traditions to take birth and flourish in India.

Respecting the freedom of the human spirit to seek, interpret, develop and pursue religious and spiritual activities as per one’s own will and preference is an unsung hallmark of Indian civilisation. Plurality is not only the reality of modern of India, but it is also the essential “civilisational spirit” of our land.

*

In reality, when one looks behind the symbolisms, tokenisms and propaganda, one can assess that the ideals and principles of “Hindu Rashtra” resemble Hindutva Rashtra. More than “Hindu” interests, they represent Hindutva interest.

The far-right ideology was also influenced by MS Golwalkar – the second sarsanghchalak.

Looking at our times, I am not sure, whether the Hindutva leaders and supporters believe in any of the prime concepts of Hinduism/Sanatan Dharma: truth, non-violence and karma.

So one shouldn’t confuse Hindutva with Hinduism/Sanatan Dharma; Hindutva is not a religious idea, but a far-right political ideology, just as Zionism is the far right political ideology of Judaism.

The essential aim of any political ideology is to seek political power. The far right ideologies tend to exploit religion in a way that other moderate, liberal and progressive ideologies don’t.

By supporting or opposing Hindutva, one doesn’t necessarily support or oppose Hinduism.

By supporting or opposing the government, one doesn’t necessarily support or oppose India.

Democracy gives the power to the people to rightfully oppose those who are in power; when this power of the people is diluted, then democracy turns into anti-democratic authoritarianism.

The government is not the nation; neither Hindutva is Hinduism.

The “politically-motivated” practice to call those who oppose the BJP government or the Hindutva ideology as “anti-nationals” and “anti-Hindus” is absurd. It’s a manufactured polarisation and a psychological operation to divide people for the sake of political power.

The “non-Hindutva Hindus” in our country are not “lesser Hindus” as the far-right would want their supporters to believe. The “non-Hindutva Hindus” are being derided as “sickulars”, “libtards”, “leftists” and so on.

The Hindutva brigade is aggressively fighting the fellow citizens of one’s own country and all the fellow Hindus who don’t ascribe to its ideology. They have made “enemies” out of people, who simply don’t agree with them.

Hinduism/Sanatan Dharma is so vast and diverse, that no single definition of Hinduism can exist or be imposed upon India. That’s why the Supreme Court of India defined Hinduism as a “way of life”.

The socio-cultural engineering mission of the Hindi-Hindustan-Hindutva brigade to “convert” all the Hindus of India with their practices, worldview and angst-ridden ideals, is doomed to flounder.

India is syncretic, multi-lingual, multi-cultural and diverse. When a single political party, religious organisation or a linguistic cultural group self-select themselves as the sole custodian of Hinduism, and wish to impose their ways on the rest, then they not only cause regional anxieties and stressful fissures in the wider social fabric, but they also violate the traditional “civilisational spirit” of our land.

Theocracy-infused nationalism or ‘theo-nationalism’ that supplants humanism cannot also define patriotism in the 21st century when our collective progress is deeply inter-connected with the world.

One also doesn’t need to hate targeted groups of fellow citizens to display love for one’s nation. Social, cultural and communal tensions in the time of a severe economic downturn will only peg back India.

Those who are misunderstanding Hindutva as Hinduism and Hindutva nationalism as Indian nationalism should examine the nature of the ideals, values and actions which they are unwittingly supporting, and contrast them with the essential spiritual and philosophical principles of Hinduism/Sanatan Dharma.

# # # #

India’s Thaali on her 69th Anniversary of Freedom.

Happy Independence day to Indians | MikeGhouseforIndia.blogspot.com

My dear Fellow Indians, 

As we proudly celebrate the 69^th anniversary of our independence, we must have a full Thaali in front of us to know our motherland sufficiently. It must have every ingredient in it from khatta, meetha, peekha, teekha, khara, patla, gada, sukha, kuchcha and kadva. 

Thaali is a balanced plated meal with every ingredient in it; Sour, Sweet, saltless, tasteless, hot, liquidy, pasty, dry, wet and bitter respectively as the words in Hindi-Urdu or Urdu-Hindi translate it.

What does that mean? It simply means we have to live with good, bad and the ugly in each one of us in different proportions.

First, let’s deal with the good.  Like all of you, I am proud of my motherland India, and my homeland America, both are God’s own countries, let me tell you why.

We are a full representation of the universe. As a nation we are made up of Adivasis, Atheists, Bahais, Bos, Buddhists, Christians, Dalits, Hindus, Jains, Jewish, Muslim, Sikhs, Tribal’s, Zoroastrians and every possible grouping.

 
Our Motherland is represented by every race, nationality, ethnicity, language, culture and religion. We see God as one, none and many; and in every form; male, female, genderless and non-existent, being and non-being, nameless and with innumerable names.

We are proud of our nation, it’s a beacon of freedom to the third world, where people mind their own business and live their own lives with free will.

We have to be grateful to our founding fathers, each one of them for going to jail and getting beat up, but worked for creating a better world for us. 

Every day when I open my blog about India, I salute their utterly unselfish valor. I am not listing their names deliberately, as I don’t want to miss any, there were so many of them, but I request you to write the names that come to your mind in the comment section below, by next year, I hope we will have a complete list to work from. Believe me, I can write the names, I have passed my IAS and I know my India well. 

After the independence, we were blessed with a visionary leader Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru for nurturing and delivering a pluralistic India to our generation (born after independence). Dr. Ambedkar gave us a solid constitution that will carry us far out into the next millennium; Maulana Abul Kalam Azad laid a great foundation for education with the IIT’s that India is cherishing now. Sardar Patel, the iron man kept the nation together.  I shudder at the thought of so many other nations that have gone haywire. Despite Gandhi being shot by an extremist, we did not run amuck, and did not go the wrong way; thanks to Nehru and Patel for saving the nation and putting it on the right path.  The two legged balanced path of social cohesion and economic prosperity.  I salute all the four and others who have shaped India. 

Please remember this cycle; Nehru sought help from America to upgrade the steel plants and our infrastructure, at that time, the Americans thought we were not capable of handling the new technology.  That is when the Soviet Union jumped in and became a partner in our progress. When the Union broke, America was ready to accept India as equal partner and here we are today. Prime Ministers Morarji Desai, Rajiv Gandhi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh have delivered a capitalistic, ready to flourish India to Prime Minister Modi.

Modi gave a lot of hope for change and I hope we realize that, however, his eerie silence on issues is tearing the social cohesion apart, causing the nation to be a one legged nation.  We cannot be blind to it, we must acknowledge it, and all of us must join together and ask him to restore the social dharma back again. If Modi speaks, people will listen. He needs to speak tough and take us back to  “live and let live” philosophy of India.

My request to Modi is to watch for the chumchas, those who assure him that everything is alright, but everything is not alright, true followers will tell him like it is and not let him fall in to the abyss.

If you are a genuine supporter of Modi, become his critic, tolerate criticism from others, and help him fix the problems rather than bulldoze them or remain silent. Demand the release of Teesta Salvad, a great patriot of India. I would praise Modi, if he stops his chumchas from shutting a critical voice of the nation. I will guarantee you this, without the voices of Teesta, democracy will be the loser and our freedom would be the victim.  Remember Emergency rule?

We must commit ourselves to genuinely free ourselves from pettiness, free ourselves from our prejudices towards fellow beings, free ourselves from treating a fellow Indian less than ourselves and we must certainly shelve the arrogance that God favors us and not others. 

We must also commit to defend the freedom of others, we must cherish the otherness of others and let everyone freely breath, drink, eat, wear or believe whatever suits them, and crush the thoughts of forcing others to behave the way we want them to behave. No one shall be a slave in free India.

An Indian is an Indian is an Indian, period.

For over 5000 years, India has been a beacon of pluralism - it has embraced Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Baha’i and Zoroastrianism to include in the array of the indigenous religions; Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism.  

We may want to consciously start thinking and acting as one people, one people within a nation and a community and one people globally.

Our combined philosophies believe in one world; Hinduism describes the world as Vasudhaiva Kutumbukum, the whole world is one family, the idea of Ek Onkar (one) in Sikhism, and idea of one family that we are all created from the same couple as Quran puts it and Jesus embraced every one regardless of who any one is... similar philosophies are grounded in all our religions.  

A few don't follow their own heritage and resort to thievery, loot, murder, terrorism, rioting, rapes, infanticide and other evils that destroy the fabric of the society,  but a majority of every group goes about their own way, living their life with struggles and ease and don't even bother others. We should build upon the 99% of population and not on the less than 1% that does not follow any principles.

On this day, and every day from here forward, make a pledge to yourselves to talk about in terms of us Indians - and not Malyalee, Gujarati, Bengali.... or Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Isaee. Don't expect others to jump and say the same, give them the time and if you are consistent for at least a year, you will see others emulating you.

Indian democracy is a shining example to the world, where the people have peacefully transferred the powers.
 
Through the years we have expressed the highest degree of maturity on handling extreme situations; the more divergent opinions we hear, the larger our heart grows, the bigger our embrace would be and we can cushion more differences. Let’s continue to honor the concept that there is always another side to the story, as finding the truth is our own responsibility. I am proud of my heritage and am proud to be an Indian-American.

Click and enjoy:

 

Our National Anthem National Anthem 2 Twenty Patriotic songs on click India's Map

Jai Hind

Mike Ghouse

http://mikeghouseforindia.blogspot.com/

Mike is a speaker, thinker, writer, pluralist,  TV-Radio commentator and a human rights activist committed to building cohesive societies and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. His info in 63 links at MikeGhouse.net and writings at TheGhouseDiary.com

PATRIOTIC SONGS

• Apni Azaadi ko hargiz hum
• Vande Mataram - AR Rahman
• Vande Mataram
• Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna ab
• Saray jahan say achha -1
• Saray Jahan say achha - lata
• Mere Desh Ki Dharti
• Mera rangde basanti chola
• Kar chalay hum fida,
• Jahan Daal Daal par sone
• Hum laye hain toofan say kishti
• Hai preet jahan ki reet sada
• Ganga Meri Maa ka Naam
• ai watan ai watan, tujh ko
• Ai mere pyaare watan,

• Aao bachcho tumheien sire
• A jo des hai tera - Shahrukh
• A desh hai veer jawanon ka

India's sacred text

A Page from India’s constitution – every time I look up our constitutions (India and America), a sense of reverence and admiration for the founding fathers emerges, and I thank them for this sacred document, as always, I take a few minutes to thank Nehru, Ambedkar, Patel, Azad and of course the Mahatma.  Mike Ghouse

I think of the song

Hum laye hain toofan saykishti nikal kay
es desh ko rakhna mere bachho sambhal kay

Tum hi bhavish ho mere Bharat vishaal kay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgax5HQoJ6k&feature=related

Click the picture to enlarge it. Can you identify who they are? please write in the comments. 

Mike Ghouse is a public speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism and building cohesive societies. More about him in 63 links at www.MikeGhouse.net 

A Gandhian Insight Into Muslim Mind – Aijaz Zaka Syed

Site: http://MikeGhouseforIndia.blogspot.com 
Llink: http://mikeghouseforindia.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-gandhian-insight-into-muslim-mind.html


A good thoughtful piece. I am with the writer, when he concludes, "All said and done, the Partition is a reality. What really matters today is what India, Pakistan and Bangladesh can do to ensure that their future is better than their past." and "If the subcontinent’s tragedy can be summed up in one word, it’s this: Selfishness.

Our problem, meaning the the right wingers among us are stuck up with the past, they need to let it go. Here is a good story for them. Naked woman on the man's back.

Mike Ghouse

# # # 

Aijaz Zaka Syed is an award winning journalist and commentator on Middle East and South Asian affairs. For feedback, write to aijaz.syed@hotmail.com. Follow him on twitter.com/aijazzakasyed

The Partition of the subcontinent saw history’s biggest migration and marked unprecedented bloodshed and chaos on both sides.

If the subcontinent’s tragedy can be summed up in one word, it’s this: Selfishness. Almost every fabled giant is exposed to have the feet of clay. Tunnel vision defined those troubled times. A little magnanimity by leaders on either side would have perhaps averted the all-consuming madness that marked the eventual parting of ways after nearly a thousand year of co-existence.  What’s more, the violent split in 1947 continues to eclipse the region even today as the nuclear neighbors remain locked in a perpetual duel

AIJAZ ZAKA SYED

Who was really responsible for the Partition? Jinnah and his Muslim League, the Congress led by Nehru and Patel or the retreating British? Could the catastrophic carnage that followed the violent separation have been averted if the leaders on both sides had demonstrated greater maturity and flexibility?

Did the Quaid-e-Azam, as he came to be known, really want a homeland for Muslims or was the demand merely a bargaining chip to protect the future of the ‘qaum’?

These are questions that have been visited and revisited ad infinitum by South Asian and international scholars and historians since 1947.

Yet the questions and the larger issues that they raise about the troubled legacy of the Partition and its continuing shadow over the present and future of the region remain as riveting as ever. And when they are raised and addressed by the grandson of Gandhi, the man who successfully steered the freedom movement and had been at the heart of all the action, they lead to a book as fascinating as ‘Understanding the Muslim Mind’. I cannot thank my friend enough who gifted this invaluable book by Rajmohan Gandhi, originally published in 1986 by Roli Books and later by Penguin and the State University of New York Press.

As the author puts it, this is a personal quest to understand the Hindu-Muslim question, “which has broken hopes, hearts and India’s unity”, and an exercise undertaken with the hope that it might “inform us of times when the other side too was large-hearted, and of other times when our side also was small-minded.”

He chooses an unusual approach to explore the psyche of the South Asian Muslim and the larger question of Hindu-Muslim relations. ‘Understanding the Muslim Mind’ examines the lives of eight Muslim leaders and intellectuals who did not merely leave an indelible imprint on their followers, they have been responsible for the way things have turned out for the region, at least for its nearly 600 million Muslims.

Gandhi aptly begins his pen sketches with Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan (1817-1898), perhaps the earliest and most influential of political and social reformers in India and the pioneer of the Aligarh movement. Although a firm believer in Hindu-Muslim amity, Sir Sayyid opposed the Congress in its nascent stage, fearing as Jinnah and others did later that it would lead to a majoritarian polity. No wonder many in the Pakistan movement identified with Sir Sayyid.

Next in the spotlight is the legacy of the incomparable Muhammad Iqbal (1876-1938), seen by many as the ideological architect of Pakistan although the poet philosopher did not believe in the concept of nation state or man-made borders. A passionate believer in pan-Islamism, he died long before the idea of Pakistan acquired a distinct, tangible shape.

However, the bard who sang the soul-stirring ‘Saare Jahan Se Accha Hindustan Hamara’ did in 1930 talk of a single Muslim state comprising the Punjab, Northwest Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan. Gandhi devotes considerable time and space to Iqbal and rightly so. The poet’s influence on Muslims of the subcontinent and beyond remains formidable.

Also judiciously handled are Muhammad Ali Jauhar (1878-1931), the champion of the Khilafat movement and Hindu-Muslim unity, Bengal tiger Fazlul Haq (1873-1962), Congress leader and India’s first education minister Abul Kalam Azad (1888-1958), Pakistan’s first premier Liaqat Ali Khan (1895-1951) and the educationist responsible for the success of Jamia Millia Islamia and later Indian president Zakir Hussain (1877-1969).

However, it is Jinnah who remains at the center-stage throughout the book even when other dramatis personae are being profiled. The founder of Pakistan is dealt with in exhaustive detail offering interesting insight into his strong personality, leadership and existential struggle for the idea of Pakistan that eventually became a reality against great odds and at a colossal cost.

Interestingly, what is common among the eight luminaries is the fact that they had all been great believers in India’s syncretic heritage and diversity. At least, they began as such. Sir Sayyid, the founder of Aligarh Muslim University, described by Sir Hamilton Gibb as the first modernist institution in the Islamic world, who would describe Hindus and Muslims as the two eyes of the beautiful bride that is India, had come to despair of their peaceful coexistence in his twilight years.

Mohammed Ali Jauhar, who had been among the first leaders to welcome and embrace Gandhi on his return from South Africa and who travelled the length and breadth of the country with the Mahatma as part of the freedom struggle and Khilafat movement that saw Hindu-Muslim amity at its peak, died a bitter man far away from India, in Jerusalem.

Even Jinnah, the man routinely panned as the architect of the Partition, had been, in the words of Sarojini Naidu, the ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity. Indeed, he had been the tallest leader of the Congress before Gandhi arrived on the scene. However, with the exception of Azad and Zakir Hussain, nearly all of them abandoned their hope and faith in the common destiny of Hindus and Muslims.

Poet philosopher Mohammed Iqbal (left) and Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah

The question is why. The answer, not simple or straight by any means, stares you in the face throughout the eminently readable book. Rajmohan Gandhi blames the arrogance and partisanship of the Congress, over and covert exploitation of religion and the increasing insecurity of the Muslims in addition to personality clashes between leaders like Gandhi and Jinnah for the conflict and eventual rift.  He cites the “ungenerous” attitude of the Congress to accommodate and share power with Muslim League in provinces in 1937 and inflexibility of Jinnah as the defining turning point that paved the way for the Partition.

Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel

A liberal like Nehru, later the first prime minister of India, refused to accept even two Muslims in the coalition eventually forcing the League out and strengthening its demand for Pakistan.

To be fair to Gandhi, he does not shy away from shining the light on the failings of the Congress leadership, including his own grandfather, that drove Jinnah out of the Congress and alienated a significant population of Muslims, including their top leaders like Mohammad Ali.

“In May 1937, when it was plain that Congress had scored huge victories, Jinnah sent a private verbal message to Gandhi; the communication urged Gandhi to take the lead in forging ‘Hindu-Muslim unity,” writes the Mahatma’s grandson, suggesting that Jinnah  had in mind a Congress-League settlement involving, among other things, power-sharing. In response, the Mahatma wrote: “I wish I could do something but I am utterly helpless. My faith in unity is bright as ever; only I see no daylight…”

Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson Rajmohan Gandhi and author of ‘Understanding the Muslim Mind’

The author goes on to note that “it is the view of many scholars and public figures alike that the Congress’s failure in 1937 to share power with the League turned the ‘qaum’ in the direction of Pakistan. Pyarelal, Gandhi’s secretary and biographer, calls it a ‘tactical error of the first magnitude.’”

He quotes veteran journalist Frank Moraes who noted that “had the Congress handled the League more tactfully after the 1937 elections, Pakistan might never have come into being.” Penderel Moon, a Briton who served the ICS before and after Independence, describes the Congress’s failure to cooperate with the League in 1937 as the ‘prime cause for the creation of Pakistan’.

He is equally forthright in assessing the Muslim leadership and its many flaws and narrowness of the vision. He notes with amusement how Muslim leaders remained obsessed with the Caliphate and Ottoman Empire when it was being rejected by Turkey’s new leadership like Mustafa Kemal.  Or how in demanding and settling for a ‘moth-eaten’ Pakistan, the League leadership which claimed to speak on behalf of the subcontinent’s Muslims ignored the fate of the vast population of Muslims left behind in India, accounting for more than 40 percent.

Indeed, as one has argued before, Indian Muslims have been the biggest losers in this battle of egos and game of one-upmanship between great men.

If the subcontinent’s tragedy can be summed up in one word, it’s this: Selfishness. Almost every fabled giant is exposed to have the feet of clay. Tunnel vision was the characteristic of the time. A little magnanimity by leaders on either side would have perhaps averted the all-consuming madness that marked the eventual parting of ways after nearly a thousand year of co-existence.  What’s more, the violent split in 1947 continues to eclipse the region even today as the nuclear neighbors remain locked in a perpetual duel.

All said and done, the Partition is a reality. What really matters today is what India, Pakistan and Bangladesh can do to ensure that their future is better than their past.

Citing the Congress-League tussle and the convenient use of religion and religious discourse that led to the split, Gandhi calls for a ‘national idiom’ to be developed in India, to tolerate the other man’s beliefs and convictions. The advice is indeed valid for both India and Pakistan, beset by rising intolerance.

The same should apply to the India-Pakistan equation as well. Today, more than ever, the neighbors need to listen to each other and be more tolerant of each other’s perspective. They need to learn from history, not remain handcuffed to it forever.