A mantra for Indian Muslims

A mantra for Indian Muslims
Saeed Naqvi

The Prime Minister deserves to be applauded for the candour with which he has spelt out his appraisal of Ayodhya, Kashmir and Pakistan. It has been my belief that Hindu-Muslim, Srinagar-New Delhi, India-Pakistan are actually one complex of issues. If you tinker with one of the three equations, the impact will be felt on the other two. A government that knows its mind can proceed on all three tracks simultaneously but the script in hand has to be finely tuned. What is required is a complete measure of the triangle.

For example, any dialogue with the Kashmiri leadership will be easier to conduct if there is harmony on the internal front. Front page photographs of the ornate columns of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, in an atmosphere of contention, would not make me feel very comfortable were I to sit across the table with Kashmiri leaders (not the Hurriyat alone) and give them my secular line. I am personally convinced of the mantra I always recite: Indian secularism protects, among a billion others, the world's second largest Muslim population, greater than the population of Pakistan, and all issues, including Kashmir, must be addressed in a way that this fabric is not ruptured. I shall always abide by this dictum because I know my country.

But this conviction of mine is not shared by folks in Kashmir nor appreciated by the ruling class in Pakistan. Even lurking fears of disharmony in India will evoke different responses in the Valley and among the Pakistani ruling elite. Kashmiris will flinch from a disharmonious India; the Pakistani ruling elite will gloat over it.

And yet, the irony is that nobody who claims Indian civilisation as his own can deny that a temple to Ram in the territory of Raja Dasarath should be a matter of national celebration. Yes, that would be the national sentiment, not just for the Hindus, but all Indians, provided the air were not so charged with suspicion and confrontation. Maryada Purushottam would have been pained that a memorial to him should be so precariously placed in the vortex of divisive politics.

As Mir Taqi Mir said, òf40óDil dhaye ke jo kaaba banaya/ to kya kiya? (What kind of Kaaba is it that its construction entails breaking of hearts?)

The Prime Minister has put it elegantly: Medieval wrongs cannot be corrected by contemporary folly. This statement might do with a degree of elaboration. In medieval times all sorts of things happened. Somnath was sacked by Muslim invaders for its wealth. Elsewhere, in Ayodhya, Mathura and Kashi, Muslim rulers sought to subjugate their subjects by imposing mosques on their places of worship. And it was not just India that suffered this fate.

The crusades were accompanied by cruelty and desecration. Likewise, the Ottoman arrival in Anatolia brought in its train some of this desecration. That Hindu rulers kept regular armies to loot the wealth of temples does not help the argument one way or the other. The fact is that was the medieval ethos, and Indian Muslims should not be held accountable for ``medieval follies''. But surely there is something that Indian Muslims can do?

We must internalise the following truth and find ways to articulate it: We are not responsible for medieval foolishness nor can we ever be proud of anything that hurts our fellow human beings. ``Drink wine, set fire to religion if need be,'' said Hafiz, ``but do not hurt a fellow human being.''

Then visit the three Hindu holy places in question, Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura. You will see that the mosques in the three places were placed in a primarily Hindu ambience and could, particularly the one in Kashi, hurt our Hindu friends. But to soften the hurt I can place before my Hindu audience reams of poetry, by Muslim poets, describing Ram as ``Imam'' of Hindustan, Kashi as the Kaaba of Hindustan and Lord Krishna as an incarnation of the Divine.

When the Ottomans transformed the St Sophia Church in Constantinople, all of Europe sat up. The great Mustafa Kemal Ataturk realised that it would continue to hurt the Christian world next door. He discontinued the mosque and made it into a museum. Alas, there is no Ataturk around even to contemplate such steps. All I can suggest is to make it known that any act of medieval desecration that hurts a fellow Hindu hurts us quite as much.

The Prime Minister has already announced the government's resolve to abide by the law. But the next step he recommends, that of negotiations, is problematic because there is no Pope among Muslims or Hindus who can negotiate on behalf of the major communities. All we can do is to help bring down the communal temperature by simple sensitivity to each other's hurt. Is there, for instance, any real need for that loud structure that has sprung up in the last decade which obstructs the view of Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia? I just want a good Hindu to tell me that it is unfortunately located.

Only when we are in perfect harmony at home can we proceed with confidence on the other two diplomatic tracks. Anyone who creates disharmony in the country is, without his knowing it, in cahoots with those hardliners in Pakistan who gloat over our discomfiture.

Make it known that acts of medieval desecration that hurt fellow Hindus hurts us as much