By
Hassan N. Gardezi
On
the surface it appears that Pakistan's Islamists (the right-wing Islamic
political parties and their followers) and India's Sangh Parivar (a
"family" of right-wing Hindu political organizations) work at
cross-purposes with antithetical ideologies and political objectives. In
reality they complement each other and facilitate the realization of common
goals, with a remarkable coincidence of strategic designs. Their shared
conviction that Hindu Muslim differences amount an irreconcilable civilization
conflict that is to be fought to the end is both an ideological concurrence
and a rationalization for driving the two communities apart.
At the heart
of their common endeavors and identities of outlook lies the consuming project
of maintaining a perpetual state of enmity between India and Pakistan, the two
nation states conceived as embodiments of implacably hostile forces of
Hinduism and Islam. In order to sustain this overriding project they employ
ideological constructs and modes of action, which overlap substantially,
differing only in specifics.
Nationalism
and Religion
The
ideological consensus of the Islamists and Sangh Parivar centers on
conceptualizing nationhood of their respective states exclusively on the
foundations of religion. Both draw on the partition of the subcontinent in
1947 as a critical event that formally established the separate national
identities of Muslims and Hindus.
After independence the Islamists of Pakistan took the
lead in systematically and aggressively
constructing an Islamic national identity and grounding all politics in the
consciousness so generated, whether real or false. They expediently hijacked
the so-called two nation theory of the Muslim League to build around it an
elaborate rationale for transforming Pakistan into a theocratic state. Maulana
Maududi, an erstwhile opponent of a separate state for the Muslims of
India, arrived in Pakistan soon after partition to set himself up as
the chief ideologue of the Islamists and their political agenda. Wielding the
apparatus of his tightly controlled religio-political party, the
Jamat-e-Islami (JI), and a prolific pen quoting Qura'n
and Hadith (the Prophetic tradition), he claimed authority on defining the
purely slamic brand of Pakistan's nationhood and adjudicating how the affairs
of this nation state shall be run according to Islamic law. The Muslims of
undivided India, he claimed, had "trampled the Congressite one nation
theory under their feet...which was intended to weld all the communities
inhabiting Hindustan into one nation" (Abula'la Maududi, Islamic
Law and Constitution, Lahore, 1960). Pakistan, according to the Maulana,
had emerged not as a Muslim state but an Islamic state in which the
"ideology of Islam" is the only criterion of nationhood and full
citizenship. There is no concept of a "territorial state" in Islam
where all religious communities participate equally and enjoy equal rights to
form a single nation. The Islamic state is an "ideological state" in
which non-Muslims have a choice to embrace Islam as ideology in order to
become full citizens or live as "zimmis" with specified rights and
privileges (Ibid., pp. 140-141). Needless to say that although all other
Islamists parties have essentially concurred with this conception of
Pakistan's nationhood and a long line of the country's authoritarian regimes
have found it expedient to legitimize their rule by recourse to "Islamic
ideology," the people of Pakistan have never blessed it with their
electoral endorsement.
On the other side, the Indian leaders of the independence
movement made a conscious choice in 1947 in favor of a secular, pluralist
state and enshrined the concept of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious nationhood
in the constitution of independent India.But with the weakening of the ruling
Congress party, due mainly to its failure to solve the problem of persistent
poverty and socio-economic inequalities, the marginal Hindu communal parties
began to gain strength and push their exclusionist political agendas more
stridently. The imposition of emergency by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in
1975 became a turning point, which led to a situation conducive to the
politics of communal mobilization based on religion.
The 1980s
and 1990s saw the rapid growth of Hindu nationalism on lines similar to the
Islamic nationalism of Pakistan as the Sangh Parivar combine stepped up its
activities to an unprecedented level. Endorsing the view of the Islamists that
Hindus and Muslims living in the subcontinent were not just two religious
communities, among others, but two distinct nations, they intensified their
campaign to transform India into the Hindu rashtra (nation) of their vision.
They too rejected the concept of a multi-religious, multi-ethnic state as a
Congressite folly to be replaced by majoritarian Hindu rule.
Sangh
Parivar, like its Pakistani counterpart, is bent upon converting India into an
"ideological state." Hindutva or Hinduness, as the ideology of the
Indian state is to determine who is an authentic citizen and who in not. With
some semantic juggling Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs are included in the Hindutva
fold but Muslims and Christians remain outsiders with their loyalties to the
Indian State ever so suspect. At the same time there is no end to ingenious
suggestions floated to resolve the problematic national identity of so many
"outsiders" who have inhabited India for ages, there being as many
Muslims in India as in Pakistan. A particularly imaginative Hindutva advocate
has recently suggested that in order to acquire a homogenized Hindu national
identity, Indian Christians and Muslims should be reclassified as Christi
Hindus and Ahmedia Hindus.
In their
zeal to tarnish the allegiance of Indian Muslims to their state, the Hindu
nationalists are delighted to hear from Pakistan's Islamists that
"Muslims in India are forced to serve kufr (infidelity) for their
livelihood" (Brig. Retd. Usman Khalid, Frontier Post, Peshawar, March 10,
2000). Such statements unmistakably find resonance
in the chants of "Baber ki santan, jao Pakistan (the
children of Baber, go to Pakistan)," whenever the Sangh Parivar fanatics
go on frenzied communal riots.
The Rewriting of History The denial by Hindutva
ideologues and their Islamists counterparts
of the multi-religious, multi-ethnic roots of their respective national
formations inevitably calls for a great deal of distortion and falsification
of history. The Islamists must sanitize the history of Pakistan of its
non-Muslim heritage, and the Sangh Parivar must likewise purge their Hindu
rashtra of its non- Hindu antecedents. Here again the Islamists have a lead
over their Indian counterparts. In alliance with the authoritarian regimes of
Pakistan they have acquired a firm hold on devising of syllabi and teaching of
history, and other cognate subjects, at all levels of education. Thus a
student receiving formal
education in Pakistan learns that the history of Pakistan's nationhood begins
with
the conquest of Sindh and southern Punjab by Muhammad bin
Qasim in 711 AD which inaugurated the spread of Islam in the region through a
heroic war against the infidels. Thereafter, Muslim invaders from the
northwest such as Mahmud of Ghazni, the great destroyer of Hindu temples, and
kings such as Aurangzeb, a devout Muslim who tried to rule India by shari'a
laws, loom large in the pages of Pakistan's history books.
Centuries of the region's ancient history covered by the
Harrapan-Indus Valley civilization as well as long periods of Buddhist and
Hindu rule are obscured by a strategy of silence. When it comes to the
post-independence history of Pakistan, the Islamist version takes a more
bizarre turn. Maulana Maududi figures among the founders of Pakistan, Hindus
of East Pakistan are blamed for engineering the anti-Urdu demonstrations and
sowing the seeds of hatred, Pakistan is credited with defeating the Indians on
every front during the 1971 war, Gen. Ziaul Haq is said to have been chosen by
destiny to start an Islamic revolution, and so on (K. K. Aziz, The Murder of
History, Lahore, 1999).
The Indian Historians, among them a number of eminent
Muslims, have been able to maintain a long and robust tradition of objective,
critical historiography, affirming the composite nature of India's culture and
national heritage. But over the last few decades this tradition has come under
siege by Sangh Parivar's Hindutva ideologues who have made the writing and
teaching of history a battleground for defining India's national identity.
They tend to particularize the same historical events and figures that their
Islamist counterparts constantly dwell upon, with the difference that the
heroes of the one are villains of the other. While the Islamists lionize
Mahmud of Ghazni as the fabled destroyer of the great temple of Somnath, the
Parivar historians invoke his memory as the archetype of evil Muslim invaders
persecuting the "native" Hindus. The intent is the
same, i. e., to raise consciousness of religious identities and
collective selfhood through
revival of historical memories, whether flattering or
traumatic. Such was the case when in 1999 L. K. Advani, then President of the
BJP, chose Somnath, the symbol of Hindu persecution by Muslim invaders, as the
starting point of his rath yatra (chariot march), to Ayodhiya where a medieval
mosque was to be destroyed and replaced with a temple.
Although stopped short of his destination, Advani
succeeded well in arousing Hindu religious fervor as evidenced from the trail
of bloody communal riots left behind by his caravan.
The Harrapan-Indus valley civilization also fares no
better in the historical schemes of the Parivar Hindu nationalists. While the
Islamists negate the distinct character and existence of this ancient
civilization through a strategy of silence, their counterparts use the
strategy of appropriation to achieve a similar objective. They take pains to
substitute the widely accepted theory of the Vedic Aryan migration into India
around 1500 B. C. with accounts of their native origins traceable as far back
as 3000 B. C. Accordingly, they claim, that the Harrapan-Indus valley
civilization was not a Dravidian creation, but simply a precursor of more
recent Hindu culture, complete with prototypical Sanskrit script, sacrificial
alters, Vedic hymns and domesticated horse. These excursions into history and
archaeology enable the Parivar's leading lights to authoritatively categorize
all Indians as outside invader except the Aryan Hindu "race" or
those absorbed into the Hindutva fold.
The most elaborate piece of history fabricated by the
Parivar chroniclers has to do with the existence of a 84 pillar Ram temple
under the Babri Mosque in Ayodhiya. It is claimed that 340,000 devotees of
god Rama lost their lives in their attempts to restore the temple since
it was destroyed by Baber, the founder of the Moghal empire and replaced
by the mosque bearing his name. After several attempts
the Mosque was finally demolished by the Sangh Parivar mobs in 1992 touching
off massive communal riots throughout the subcontinent. Not to be outdone by
their counterparts in India, Pakistan's Islamists set out immediately to
demolish any Hindu temple they could lay their hands
on. In Multan, the hometown of this writer, the famous Parahalad Mandir,
standing in its
quiet greying majesty was razzed to the ground by mobs
belonging to Maulana Noorani's JUI. Little did these zealots know or care that
enshrined in the inner solitude of this temple was a great historical legend
that had given birth to the universal Hindu festival of lights, devali.
Institutional Control
Another identical strategic asset at the disposal of the
two sides of soulless religious politics is the vast infrastructure of
organized religion. In addition to the Temples and
Mosques, both the Parivar and Islamist parties run thousands of
religious schools in India
and Pakistan under different denominations which serve
the purpose of ideological indoctrination and promotion of hatred against
internal minorities and external enemies." Both control networks of
vernacular newspapers and specialize in vituperative
journalism. However, Sangh Parivar controls a much wider diversity of
cultural institutions, drama and music clubs, literary associations, study
circles, audio and video productions, publishing houses and service
organizations. This versatility has enabled the Parivar combine to translate
its activities into political support and electoral votes far beyond the reach
of their counterpart across the border.
In addition Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the mother
organization of Sangh Parivar has for long run drill camps to regiment
thousands of Hindu youth in every corner of India. Some Islamist parties, on
the other hand, have organized armed commando training camps since the 1980s
when they got involved in the US-Pakistan sponsored jihad or holy war against
the Soviet army in Afghanistan, shifting their sphere of action to the Kashmir
front in due course.
More recently, Shiv Sena, the ultra-militant ally of the
Parivar has also started armed training camps by the name of "Hindu
Rashtriya Mukti
Army" to fight terrorism" in Kashmir (The Times
of India, 29 September 2000).
Fascination with Power
Nothing harmonizes the politics of Islamist and Parivar
camps more than the display and use of sheer physical power against internal
and external "enemies." Internally, verbal and physical assault on
minorities has been the common practice on both sides. Pakistan lost almost
all of its non-Muslim population through emigration and secession of
Bangladesh as a result of which one would have expected a future Free from
communal violence. But that was not to be the case. The Islamists have never
ceased to pick on existing Muslim sects to brand them non-Muslims and kafirs.
As self-appointed guardians of the purity of Islamic beliefs, they are not
just content with instigating sectarian violence.
Gen. Zia's dictatorial regime put another powerful weapon
in their hands in the form of an expanded and ill defined blasphemy law which
they have used with increasing frequency to destroy the lives of individual
members of religious minorities and dissenting intellectuals in general.
A simple procedure of registering a police report on
flimsiest of grounds can throw their targets at the mercy of fanatic lynch
mobs.
When it comes to their perspective on external relations,
the Islamists picture their state as the citadel of Islam, in conflict not
only with "Hindu" India but the entire world of non- believers,
alam-e-kufr. That explains their obsession with extolling the martial image of
their nation and virtues of amassing modern armaments, including that ultimate
weapon of mass destruction, the atom bomb. They were in the forefront of
euphoric street celebrations when Pakistan detonated its nuclear devices in
reaction to India's May 1998 atomic blasts, and now they are the main force
against the signing of any test ban treaties.
The Sangh Parivar and its followers are equally thrilled
by sensations of raw physical power over their perceived internal and external
enemies. But unlike their Islamist counterparts prone to revel in the virile
imagery of a distant past, they start by recovering from the long and
checkered history of the subcontinent, narratives of persecution and
humiliation suffered by Hindus as a religious community at the hands of
"outsiders." This brings an element of self-righteousness to the
project of defining their enemies who must atone for the sins of their
forefathers. It is therefore not surprising that a quantum jump in the
political fortunes of the Sangh Parivar during the closing decades of the 20th
century coincided with a sharp escalation of violence against religious
minorities. By the 1990s the intensity of this violence reached levels unseen
since the partition riots of 1947, first targeting the Muslims and then
Christians held accountable for the downfall of the great Hindu rashtra.
Consistent
with re-cultivating the image of a powerful and aggressive Hindu nation is the
obsession of Hindutva ideologues with exorcising all signs of
"weakness" and pacifism from India's body politic. Vishva Hindu
Parishad (World Hindu Council), operating
internationally on behalf of the Parivar, has been
valiantly engaged in erasing the non-violent, pacifist image of India
projected abroad by post-independence leaders such as Gandhi and Nehru.
Gandhi, the apostle of non-violence or ahimsa was indeed assassinated by one
of the RSS fanatics for demeaning the manliness of the Hindu rashtra by
preaching the gospel of peace.
The ascendant dogma of Sangh Parivar is that only the
strong command respect in the arena of world politics and only powerful
weapons empower nations. It therefore should not have come as a surprise that
the BJP coalition government wasted little time after its inauguration in 1998
to declare India a defacto nuclear weapons state by commissioning the atomic
tests that sent shock waves around the world.
If there was any ambiguity about the motives behind these
tests, it soon became pitifully
clear in their aftermath. The VHP announced plans to erect a monument to
national virility at Pokhran, the site of the atomic blasts and consecrate the
rest of India with the sands from the ground zero. Others boasted of India's
elevation to the status of a big power.
With BJP still in office, there is little hope that CTBT,
a test ban treaty that India itself had proposed in its earlier gentler,
kindlier incarnation, is going to be signed in the foreseeable future.
Consequences and Prospects
To conclude, a few words on the consequences of the
ascendance of religious politics in Pakistan and India, and the prospects that
lie ahead. In Pakistan where the dominance of Islamist parties and their
control of the national political agenda has a longer and
continuous history, the ideal of a tolerant, liberal, progressive and
peaceful society has become merely a dream. Nothing illustrates this more
clearly than General Musharraf's quick backtracking after displaying his
preference for liberal reforms at the time of his October 1999 military coup.
The collapse of democracy and increasing economic
hardship has left the masses of working poor too alienated to resist the power
of the divine conglomerate. Although the middle class aspires for a
prosperous, secure and progressive social system and would like to live in
peace with India and rest of the world, it feels too intimidated to raise its
voice against the stranglehold of the mullahs on civil
society.
Psychologists in Pakistan speak of an epidemic of
clinical depression and rising suicide rates among sections of this class,
especially women and persons in the prime ages of 15 to 40. Most discouraging
for the prospect of progressive change is the denigration of the liberal and
secular-minded intelligentsia. With the exception of a few brave souls in the
English media, higher education and legal profession, they have been silenced,
coopted or driven into exile voluntarily or otherwise.
The
religious minorities, of course, bear the greatest brunt of the tide of
Islamist intolerance and persecution, irrespective of class affiliation. Far
from being the equal and full citizens of Jinnah's vision, they have been
virtually disfranchised by the system of
Separate electorates and persecuted by blasphemy laws.
The Ahmedias, once a vibrant and highly educated community, capable of
contributing significantly to the cultural, economic and scientific
development of Pakistan, are reduced to an anguished and demoralized entity
since being legislated out of the pale of Islam and legally prohibited from
observing such religious rites that may suggest that they are Muslims.
The Shia community seems to be next in line to suffer a
similar dispensation. Venting their wrath on an ever-widening circle of
designated non- Muslims is the tonic on which the monolithic nationalism and
patriotism of the Islamists is nourished.
There is an
interesting difference on this last point between the Islamists and the Sangh
Parivar. The Hindutva ideology of the latter is at its core a Brahman faith
with a hagiology, which is not shared by a large section of Hindus,
particularly the masses of Dalits. Yet, the Hindutva ideologues go out of
their way to claim not only the Dalits,
but also Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs and tribal people with
animistic faiths into their in-group. Only the Muslims and Christians are
strictly defined as the out-group.
From an overall perspective, India is still better placed
to reconstruct a socially regressive and peaceful society. It has a
constitution that recognizes the cultural diversity of the nation, and affirms
explicitly that the state by itself shall not espouse or establish or practice
any religion. The Sangh Parivar fanatics no doubt use their street power to
unleash terror against the minorities. But their ascendancy in the long run
depends on their success in holding on to state power through the
constitutionally sanctioned electoral process. No one knows this better than
the BJP Prime Minister Vajpayee who heads a minority coalition government. The
reality of electoral politics has forced him to tone down his communal
rhetoric and to vacillate on his party's insistence to build the Ram temple at
the site of the demolished Babri Mosque. The BJP has even elected a Dalit,
Bangaru Laxman, as its president who took office by announcing that
"Muslims are our flesh of flesh and blood of blood."
The BJP's
Hindutva agenda also faces a stiff and increasingly organized resistance from
a secular cultural intelligentsia which has a strong presence in the
institutional structure of the Indian society and functions in an environment
relatively free from intimidation. The main challenge before this
intelligentsia is to re-appropriate the public space lost to Hindutva
ideologues under the patronage of the BJP government, and to reassert India's
secular, richly multi-cultural, democratic and pacifist identity.
Paradoxically,
the parallels in the retrogressive politics of religion in India and Pakistan
have also generated a new silver lining.
People in both countries have become aware as never
before of the destructiveness of internal bloodshed and senseless enmity
between the two countries. Recent dramatic increase in the cross-border
contacts between civilian individuals and groups representing social movements
of peace, justice and human rights has opened up new possibilities of
wresting the agenda of nation building and international
relations from the hands of those who have kept the great people of South
Asian subcontinent shackled to primordial conflicts and prejudices, ignorance
and poverty. But this is no doubt a task that will require a great deal of
perseverance and moral courage.
Note: This
paper was written for the joint session of Pakistan Council of Social
Sciences, Islamabad Cultural Forum and Islamabad Social Science Forum on
January 5, 2001.
"As for those who divide their religion and break up
into sects, you (Muhammad) have no part in them in the least." (6:159,
Noble Qur’an)
