Bridging the Hindu-Muslim divide

Modern India is a land not of a solitary religion but of diverse religions. The state does not sponsor or foster any one religion at the expense of others. This is in keeping with the greatness of India, which through times immemorial has been the cradle of composite culture.

Sufi texts record that after saint Kabir - the inspired poet-weaver of northern India - died, his lovers and the connoisseurs of his 'dohas' (couplets), both Hindus and Muslims, fought for the claim of cremating or burying his last remains. As the quarrel started to rouse communal passions, an elderly gentleman requested both communities to cover the saint's body and wait till next morning.

Astonishingly, when the sheet was taken off, the warring communities found that in place of the body, two heaps of flowers were kept. The Hindus cremated the tulsi flowers while the Muslims buried the jasmine heap, and the problem was sorted out. The moral of the story is that the two diverse cultures of Muslims and Hindus are inseparable and need to run like the parallel lines of a railway track - always together socially but also retaining their religious identities that are separate.

The minority community needs to be led by an unquestioned leadership of deeply religious persons who will stamp out any chances of flaring communal flames. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was a deeply religious Muslim leader, a renowned Islamic theologian like Maulana Maududi, but communal harmony was dearest to him. He never stirred Muslims to political action through their faith.

Former president Zakir Hussain, who devoted his life to Jamia Millia, did not take that platform to espouse a communal cause; nor was another former president, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, that sort. Today the Azads, Fakhruddins and Hussains would have been needed to
counter inflammable propaganda.

Just before the dismemberment of the subcontinent, the Muslim peasant in Bengal participated as joyously in the village Durga Puja as his Hindu neighbour. In Bangladesh, Hindus celebrated Eid. If entire Muslim villages in Malaysia can watch the Ramayana performed on stage, there is no reason why they cannot do the same in India or include Hindus in tazia processions and Karbala enactments.

Meena Kumari, Nargis, Waheeda Rehman and Mumtaz played the role of the devoted Hindu wife with sindoor on the forehead umpteen number of times. What about bhajans sung in Muhammad Rafi's sonorous voice? Should we ban his cassettes? Should we stop seeing a Dilip Kumar or an Aamir Khan or a Salman Khan film?

Likewise, after namaz when the Muslims stepped out of the mosques, in almost all the walled city locales of India, one could observe Hindu men and women standing with their sick children to be blessed after the prayers. A maulvi sahib used to wake up a panditji for his morning ringing of the temple bells or for sounding the shankh. Our composite culture has been the way Sir Syed once described India - a beautiful bride whose two bewitching eyes were the Hindus and the Muslims!

According to "Muraqqa-e-Delhi" of Nawab Dargah Quli Bahadur, Mughal emperors consumed only Gangajal. Their celebration of Holi, Diwali and Dussehra is well known. If the rulers were Muslim, the economy was run by Hindu administrators and officers. Muslim monarchs trusted Hindu accountants. In the military field if Aurangzeb had brave Rajput generals, Shivaji trusted only Muslim generals.

The Sufi saints like Sheikh Muinuddin Chishti, Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia, Khwaja Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki and other pirs like Haji Malang in Mumbai are highly revered by all Indians irrespective of the faiths they follow. The rath percolated in the Muslim society as the tazia. The Lord of the Seven Hills of Tirupati was given a Turkish wife - Thuluka Nachiyar in the temple of Srirangapatnam. How
long will the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Shiv Sena deny this history?

There is no danger of India becoming a Hindu theocratic state so far as we have secular and peace-loving Hindus, and fortunately they outnumber the 10 percent or less bigoted and rabid ones. One hopes the Hindu majority will prevail. Likewise, the Muslim leadership has to interpret its sacred texts to explain the role of a Muslim citizen as a useful, participating minority member of a state. The
distinction between the mosque and the state or theology and religion needs to be clarified so that it can be understood by the meanest intellect.

What hurts Indian Muslims is that in spite of the community having repeatedly asserted its identity as Indians, it finds its patriotism being suspected. In fact, during the Afghan war and the jehad call after that not one Indian Muslim went to Afghanistan to fight there, though there were many from Pakistan and even Bangladesh. Despite umpteen Muslim leaders, ulema and commoners having sacrificed for
the nation, their allegiance is in question. Every time there is a communal divide, Indian Muslim have to get their certificate of loyalty renewed!

About a decade ago while in London, I reacted vociferously as an Indian to the telecast of the Babri Masjid demolition while a Guardian (December 7, 1992) headline declared: "Hindu terrorism!"

I maintained that just because a rowdy section of the Hindus had demolished the mosque and indulged in an orgy of violence and rioting, the entire community could not be generalised as terrorists. The truth is that more than 80 percent Hindus are secular. Had these level-headed Hindus gone the VHP way, not even one Muslim would have survived in India.

When lip-serving and self-serving Muslim politicians start indulging in pseudo-secularism, it boomerangs and a chain reaction is triggered. Hindus are made to believe the myths that the "rabbit-like" breeding Muslims will one day outnumber them and that the popularity of the ghazals of Ghalib, qawwalis of the Sabri brothers and poetry of Mir, Zauq, Iqbal and Faiz are dangerous signs of the coming social and political domination of Muslims.

Muslims are told on the other hand that rituals like applying tilak in a state ceremony will defile their religion in the same manner as the use of coconut and diya during important ceremonies. Once in a while, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was smeared with tika at a national ceremony, and Dawn of Karachi printed the photograph with the caption saying that likewise one day Azad would be proselytised into Hinduism! But neither Ghalib nor his ghazals are compulsorily Islamic nor tilak or diya necessarily Hindu. These are all part of
an Indian ethos, a result of the conglomeration of multifarious faiths and cultures. For centuries, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Christians in India have shared common customs like those on the occasion of a birth, a death or a marriage.

The responsibility to stop communalists and pseudo-secularists, who are present in equal measure in the majority and minority communities, lies with all of us. Muslims should take care of their rabble-rousing elements, shake up their leadership and substitute it with devoted, pragmatic and sincere leaders willing to solve the
real problems of the community without mobilising them on emotional and religious lines. In the same manner, balanced Hindus too must not give more rope to the likes of the VHP or the RSS as these organisations have no right to speak on behalf of the entire Hindu community.

Secular Hindus should realise that their overwhelming advantage in the power structure - an 80 percent majority in the electoral base - has ensured that their cultural interests are never to be threatened by any combination of forces or the so called jehad. They should realise that some of their leaders who spread communal hatred will take them backwards by aggravating ethnic, clan, caste and regional
rivalries. They should realise that the centuries old tolerant
milieu of India is the creation of Hindu sages in ancient times, which predates the arrival of Muslims and the birth of Sikhism in India. It is the prized legacy of us all that is in essence Indian.

Bridging the Hindu-Muslim divide
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