Why India may be best placed to modernise Muslim life and thought
November 18, 2015, 5:34 AM IST TK Arun in Cursor | India | ET
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It is easier to bomb the Islamic State to smithereens than to kill the appeal of jihadi ideology. To defeat fundamentalist Islam, the Muslim world needs to undergo the equivalent of Europe’s Reformation and Enlightenment. The likelihood of that happening is the highest in India— if only it is permitted to realise that potential, instead of being hounded into defensive retreat by majoritarian politics.
Pre-modern Christianity was an oppressive, obscurantist and intolerant religion. Unconventional women were burned as witches. Want and poverty, when made worse by war or famine, made those who practised moneylending routine targets of mob violence. Pogroms against the Jews, thus, were more frequent in Christendom than, say, in Iran. The Spanish Inquisition skewered lives by the thousand but did not prick the conscience of the Church.
An Enlightenment…
Renaissance and Reformation altered everything. Religious precepts changed. The clergy’s authority to impose its writ on an unquestioning populace dissolved. Reason was liberated from the chains of theology. A revolution took place in science and rational thought. Humanism flourished and prepared the ground for the idea that all mankind deserved liberty, equality and fraternity Progress in science and commerce led to the industrial revolution, and its potent fruit, superior logistics and armament, which made Christendom masters of the universe. When Napoleon’s army conquered Egypt, the excitement of the Muslim world’s exposure to new thinking in politics, philosophy and law was circumscribed by political subordination to a superior power. That has thwarted all stirrings of Muslim modernity, ever since.
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In Egypt, Iran, Turkey, India and Indonesia, Muslim scholars and clerics began to rethink their religion and its laws. Some were radical, going as far as to question the eternal validity of any scripture, some were pragmatic, all wanted change.
The two world wars, struggle for dominance within the national coalitions striving against colonial rule and the allure of past glory offered by the forces of conservatism, all worked against substantive reform in the Muslim world. Specifically, after World War II, organised efforts at modernity in Muslim countries got drowned in the Cold War. Communists and socialists were at the forefront of those seeking democratic change and were supported by the Soviet Union. The US torpedoed these movements and installed autocrats like Saddam Hussein, the Shah of Iran and Suharto, who killed thousands of leaders of modernity in the Muslim world.
The US and the west also supported authoritarian regimes in West Asia and North Africa that suppressed political protest and left religion as the only viable avenue of resistance to oppression. The Islamic Revolution of Iran was the archetypal result, al Qaeda and the Islamic State represent toxic byproducts. What is the way forward? The Arab Spring offered false promise, although Tunisia might yet set an example for other Arab nations. But reform of a dominant paradigm of ideas does not take place purely at the level of thought. Handsome is as handsome does. That goes for ugly too. Life as it is lived for the vast majority of a populace has to turn modern for its thinking to become modern. For this reason, India offers the best prospects for Islamic modernity.
…That India Could Yield
Iran is certainly richer, more educated and, after the sanctions are lifted, poised to grow fast. Yet, the Ayatollahs rules the roost and Iran’s status as a Shia power will preclude it serving as an exemplar for the majority Sunnis of the Muslim world. Why not Indonesia, numerically large and economically dynamic? Indonesia is far removed from the cultural imagination of the core Islamic countries. Indonesia is seen as a recipient of cultural and philosophical influences, not as their originator.
That leaves India, the fastest growing large economy of the world in the medium term. Yes, India’s Muslims are a backward community, just above the Dalits in terms of socioeconomic indicators — the Muslim population’s decadal growth rate (24 per cent) is the high, beaten only by Bihar (25 per cent), India’s most backward state. But the direction of change is hugely optimistic. The population growth rate is falling for all sections in India, but most rapidly for Muslims.
Their exclusion from organised sector jobs, both because of lack of education and of discrimination, has made them turn to industry and trade, the most dynamic sectors in the economy. Despite what the so-called leaders of the community say on TV, the vast majority of Muslims are focused more on improving their lives than on matters of identity. Financial inclusion, Digital India, skill development and other elements of the programme of inclusive growth set in motion since 1991 will help every section, and, in particular, Muslims.
The only thing that can hold Muslim modernisation back in India is divisive, sectarian politics that seeks to take India away from its multicultural tradition of live and let live. Is that too much to ask for?