The expression -- Muslim Identity is widely in vogue. It was not just the central plank of M.A. Jinnah's polemical two-nation theory, but is constantly pressed into service to devise communitarian strategies, advance religio-political claims and nurture the vision of a unified Muslim community. The post-colonial Indian state has lent credence to notions of Muslim identity without examining its implications and consequences.

The idea of a pan-Indian Muslim identity stems from the belief that Islam as such provides a complete identity, explanation and moral code for Muslims, and the mere fact of people being Islamic in some general sense is conflated with that of their adherence to beliefs and policies that are strictly described as `Islamist' or `fundamentalist'. In the terms of a typical Orientalist cliche, Islam was not just a religion but a complete way of life.

This approach is untenable. A Muslim, like his counterpart in any other religious group, has many acts to perform and roles to play. He identifies in varying degrees with different sets of individuals and groups based on ethnicity, language, region, profession and so on. In other words, at no time is one boundary the sole definer of his identity, although at any one time and for any one issue one boundary may become more prominent and define the us-them divide.

This is not all. A Muslim, like a Hindu or a Sikh, has multiple identities. Should we then harp on his Muslim/Islamic identity and ignore everything else, including the `secular' terms in which he relates to more immediate and pressing socio-economic needs and his wide-ranging interactions with his class and not just his Muslim brethren? Some may dispute the depth and nature of this interaction, but that does not justify a discussion in terms of an absolute Muslim/Islamic consciousness.

If, as we are told by scores of writers, centuries of common living and shared experiences could not create composite solidarities, how could a specifically Muslim identity emerge out of their multiple and diverse experiences? Consider the following points.

First of all, it is important to avoid the `reification' of Islam in the realm of political ideas, instead, we need to consider what political ideas any particular group of Muslims holds, and the relations between these and their social conditions and practice. Within this framework, ordinary Muslims from Kashmir to Kanyakumari would emerge not as members of a monolithic community sullenly apart, but as active participants in regional cultures and traditions whose perspective they share.

If you are still not convinced, please turn to scores of local and regional studies which clearly reveal that Indian Muslims are better integrated with fellow-countrymen of other religious beliefs, and that their views and responses are more diverse and complex than the statements found within the corpus of received opinions on the subject.

They also illustrate the disjunction between the formal ideology of Islam and the actual day-to-day beliefs and practices of Muslims. Above all, they identify those regional local traditions and cultural features of Indian Islam that were components of, and contributions to, what the liberal and secular nationalists meant by the concept of a composite culture.

Consider another point. One wonders why the debates on such themes are almost exclusively based on writers and publicists who are known to stress the elements of discord and separation. If one is interested in a balanced, objective and rounded view, it is necessary to consider other explanations as well, especially those constructed around secular and pluralist conceptions and counterpoised to an essentialist view of Indian Islam.

To begin with, try exploring the largely unfamiliar world of those Muslim scholars, artists and creative writers who contested the definition of Muslim identity in purely religious terms and refuted the popular belief that Islamic values and symbols provide a key to understanding the `Muslim world-view'.

We may well discover that they, more than anybody else, unfolded our past to discover elements of unity, cohesion and integration, sensed the awful consequences of political solidarity being built on religious ties, and questioned the conviction (or myth) in certain Muslim circles that the future of Islam in India was endangered by Hindu nationalism.

Their notable contribution in providing historical legitimation for multi-culturalism and religious plurality should not go unnoticed. And their sane and sober voices must not be stifled by the weight of Muslim orthodoxy or Hindu revivalism.

The intelligentsia create mirrors through which we see ourselves and windows through which we perceive reality. It is these mirrors and windows that define the boundaries of ideas and institutions. The intelligentsia's role -- both as creators of a cultural outlook and the product of the milieu -- is central to this writer's view of what happened in India generally and among certain Muslim groups in particular.

So, what does one make of Muslim identity in contemporary India? It is doubtless true that economic discontent, coupled with communal violence, lends weight to notions of identity and acts as a catalyst to communitarian strategies. Yet Muslim scholars and activists often take recourse to a definition that rests uneasily on the Islamic concept of a unified millat, and which will always be problematic.

So too its projection in the political arena. To identify and locate a set of unified communitarian interests in a mixed and diverse population is politically inexpedient and empirically hard to sustain. Hence the importance of drawing a sharp distinction between political polemics and actual ground realities.

If so, what does one make of the self-image of a minority, religious or otherwise? In a nutshell, the language and vocabulary of communitarian politics need decoding because the dominant priest-politician combination has, for its own reasons, projected a certain image of itself and the `community' it purports to represent.

As if this was not enough, the Indian state has legitimised their status without questioning their credentials as the spokesmen of their community.Who does Syed Shahabuddin or Salman Khurshid represent? Rajiv Gandhi should have posed this question to them during the Shah Bano controversy when they were busy mobilising the Muslims against the Supreme Court judgment and defending a retrograde piece of legislation.

He did not do so. Let us now settle the issue in this fiftieth year of our independence through a nationwide referendum. Let us, once and for all, decide who represents whom. Otherwise, a number of Muslim politicians, many of whom have been repeatedly humbled by the electorate, would continue to act as the self-proclaimed conscience of Muslim interests.

Their bluff should be called by all those who have a genuine stake in the future of our secular polity.

Bana hai sheh ka musahib phire hai itrata. Wagar na shaehr me Ghalib ki aabroo kya hai (Struts about so brashly because he is the Sheikh's flunkey, Otherwise, what is his worth in this city, who cares for him.)

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.