A Voice Against Hindu-Muslim Communalism

Communalism is an ideology which survives on certain myths and false notions. Since it is an ideology, it has to be fought on an ideological plane because no force can crush an ideology. Communalism is not only a feeling which is possessed by certain misguided elements but it thrives on certain attitudes and prejudices which is present in most ordinary people like us. We'll start by analyzing certain myths. Myth No: 1 : Hindus are the natives of India while Muslims are foreigners.
This is false because the majority of the ancestors of Indian Muslims were living in India before the advent of Islam. Most of them were converted to Islam by Sufi Saints by peaceful means. Even the minority of Muslims who came from Central Asia are not 'foreigners' because if they are foreigners , are not the Aryans who came from Central Asia, the Huns from Central Asia who constitute the ethnic ancestors of most of the current Gujaratis and Rajputs and the Dravidians who came from the Mediterranean region foreigners? Man evolved from ape in Central Africa and then migrated to all parts of the world. So going by that, apart from the inhabitants of central Africa, all of us are 'foreigners'. Why can't we accept a people who have been living here for a minimum of 1000 years as natives of India? Myth No: 2 : Islam is a regressive religion compared with Hinduism In the 7th century AD, when we Hindus in India were burning our young widows in the name of 'Sati', Mohammed the Prophet himself married a widow. According to the Manu Smriti, there is no provision for divorce open to a woman. She has to live (and possibly die) with her husband. But this provision is there in Islam for a Muslim women. Moreover, theoretically Islam recognizes only one god ‘Allah’ before whom all are equal. But in Hinduism we have different gods for different castes, the status of the god increasing with the status of the caste. In Kerala, until recent times a man belonging to the 'Pulayan' caste had to maintain a distance of 64 feet from a 'Nambhoodri Brahmin' else he ' pollutes' him. These sort of obnoxious practices of untouchability were sustained on the basis of 'Varnashrama Vyavastha' or the doctrine of Theological Determinism. The caste system is definitely a blot on Hinduism, the remnants of which are still lingering well into in the 21st century. Seeing all this, how can we claim that we are following a more progressive religion than Islam? If the Taliban type of Islam is taken to represent the essence of Islam, then the Hinduism advocated by the killers of Graham Staines can be taken to be the essence of Hinduism. Both are virulent forms of Islam and Hinduism respectively and don’t represent the ‘Ideal type’ of either religion.Myth No: 3 : Muslims and other minorities enjoy some ‘privileges’ which the majority Hindu community does not enjoy. The percentage of Hindus in India who are below the poverty line is around 26%. This figure for Muslims is around 46 %. Muslims form 12% of India's population. But in no sphere of economic, social or political importance like say the number of MPs in Parliament, the number of IAS officers, the number of millionaires etc is the Muslim representation equal to this 12%. It is always less. If Muslims are enjoying special privileges, how come this is possible? The differential laws which Muslims have are related to the issue of marriage, divorce etc. Let us take the famous issue of the ‘Triple Talaq’ system of divorce allowed for Muslims. Because of this law, Muslim men are able to exploit Muslim women more than the extent to which Hindu men are able to exploit Hindu women. But if we come to a conclusion that due to this law, Muslims are dominating Hindus, then we are taking a tragically erroneous leap of logic and morality. These issues have to be debated and solved from other angles like Gender relations etc and not from the communalistic angle. The point to be noted here is that the average Muslim of India is worse off economically, socially and politically than the average Hindu of India. Myth No : 4 : Muslims were ‘foreign invaders’ of the Indian nation Now we have to define the term 'foreign invader'. We can have a concept of a 'foreign invader’ only when we have a concept of what is the ‘native country’.We were not a single nation when Muslims invaded India. We were divided into numerous countries each fighting with each other. And even if we assume that India was invaded by Muslim conquerors 1000 Years ago, how can we forget the fact that India was also ‘invaded’ by the ‘foreign’ Hindu Aryans 3500 years ago? So nobody is a ‘foreign invader’. Myth No: 5: Muslims are basically of a violent mindset and are more prone to acts of ‘Terrorism’. Presently we read about ' Islamic terrorists '. But before September 11 WTC attacks the terrorist group which was first in the list of terrorist groups (if the word ‘terrorist’ can be used here) drawn up by the US State department was the LTTE. The LTTE conducts pujas in temples on its leader's B'day. So it is as Hindu as any Hindu organisation can be. No only the LTTE, the ULFA, Bodo militant groups of Assam are Hindus, the Naga militants are christians. In Southern Sudan we have Christian fundamentalist militants or terrorists. One may ask that on an international level, it is Islamic terrorism which is in the news and not Hindu or any other religion’s terrorism. This is because Muslims form a considerable proportion of the population in 90 countries of the world stretching right from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific whereas Hindus are found only within the Indian sub-continent. So Hindu fundamentalism is localized and contained while Islamic fundamentalism is internationalized. So we cannot associate terrorism with any single religion. And even if a particular religious group turns violent, the root causes of terrorism have to be located in socio-economic factors rather than in religion per se. So the average Muslim is as violent / non-violent as the average Hindu or The average Christian. Myth No: 6 : About Muslims invaders destroying Hindu temples This is a fact in the sense that Muslim invaders did destroy Hindu temples. But any invader in those crude historical times would definitely have attacked Hindu temples because those temples were like treasuries which housed all kinds of precious items. Any invading army whether it is the army of Ghazni Muhammed attacking Somnath or the army of Hindu King Krishna Deva Raya attacking the neighbouring Muslim Bahmani Kingdom would ransack the host country. For this we cannot blame the Muslim invaders alone. The sad fact is that a considerable section of India seems to believe that most of India's problems is because somebody destroyed a temple 500 years ago. Myth No : 7 : India was ruled by Muslims This is the greatest myth. India was never ruled by Muslims but only by Muslim rulers. What is the difference? A world of difference is there. When we say that Muslims ruled India for 750 years, we mean that during those 750 years, Muslims as a whole were ruling and dominating over Hindus, Sikhs, Jains etc of India. That was not at all the case. It was only a tiny fraction of the Muslim community called the Ashraf Muslims which constituted the Muslim ruling class. The point is even when the Muslim rulers were ruling India, the average Muslim was worse off in the socio-economic sense than the average Hindu. So, inspite of India being ruled by Muslim rulers for nearly 750 years, the Muslim rulers, were not able to convert their political dominance into social and economic dominance for all Muslims and perpetuate it. So, the average Muslim continues to be in a marginalized state even now.

Myth No: 8: Muslims are getting the advantage of “Minority appeasement” which is against the interests of the majority community

For this first we have to define what we define as a “Minority”. A South Indian who does not know Hindi properly will be part of a miniscule minority in North India. A lower caste boy in most elite educational institutions of India dominated by upper castes will be part of a minority. A professionally successful woman will be part of a minority in most professions which are male-dominated. A poor chap who enters a mall meant for the rich poor chap will be a minority in that space. So, judging by these standards the vast majority of Indians will be a part of some minority or the other. So, how a nation and society views and treats its different minorities reflects the progressive and liberal character. Hence a pro-muslim perspective and policy will only strengthen the moral character of the majority community as well as liberal ethos of the Indian state.

It might seem that here an anti-Hindu, pro-Muslim stance has been taken. But that was not the objective. We are now living in a country in which majoritarian fundamentalism parades under the name of ‘Nationalism’ while minoritarian fundamentalism is always condemned as ‘Terrorism’. So it is necessary to know the other side of the story to get the complete picture of the truth. Islamic fundamentalism is not an answer to Hindu fundamentalism neither is Hindu fundamentalism an answer to Islamic fundamentalism. The answer for irrational communalism is rational humanism. We are humans prior to being the adherents of specific religious denominations. So it behooves that we shouldn’t lose our humanistic and rational faculties in a communalistic stupor.