Getting to Know India

Do Indian Hindus Hate Muslims?

 By Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai, India

After Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's open season on Muslims and Islam, the first for any leader of any nation in the world in recent memory, that gets the honour to directly target Muslims and Islam, as world's pariah number one, Indian Muslims do not need any further evidence to know that they are a hated lot. It is time for them to reflect and introspect as to why they became the prime target of Gujarat mob attacks that took the ominous shape of 'ethnic cleansing' and genocide in India, widely believed to be under direct state sponsorship, as amply proved by the constant defiant and unrepentant tone of all the officials who were constitutionally bound under their oath of office to protect the lives and properties of all the citizens of the country.

However, before we proceed any further, we must define the word 'Hindus'. The word Hindu has acquired a gross representation to mean all diverse castes and regional groups that are generally and even legally referred to as 'Hindus'. In fact, different castes, like Brahmins, Thakurs, Baniyas and the rest have acquired different social and political equations with Muslims in the aftermath of work of the Mandal Report on reservation in educational and employment opportunities for the low castes. However, the predominant ideological confrontation with Muslims continues to be spearheaded by upper castes, specially the Brahmins. They see themselves as the leaders of all non-Muslim communities vis-à-vis the Muslims, given the high status accorded to them by socio-religious order commonly known as Manuvad.

It would be appropriate to stress that even without Muslims coming into the picture, the caste hierarchy had remained a source of constant friction, all through thousands of years of recorded history in India; mainly due to inherent or assumed injustices meted out to each other in the name of religiously ordained caste groupings. As rights and responsibilities of each of such groups and sub-groups were spelled out by scriptures and underpinned by local traditions and common practices. The interaction between all such groups, though part of that greater identification as Hindus vis-à-vis Muslims, always remained controversial and a focal point of politics during the British Raj.   

After independence, the Brahmins emerged as the ruling group, not on the basis of their numerical strength (they are around 4% of the 85% non-Muslim population of India), but on the basis of caste superiority, and ‘intellectual and professional merit’ acquired over a period of time. Although it is not publicly acknowledged, the Brahmins consider themselves to be superior being Aryan who came to India thousands of years back from Central Asia. They are a distinct race as could be made out by their appearance - light skin and Caucasian features. They brought with them a language that still shares very broad but basic similarities with other language groups in north Asia and Europe. They also brought with them a set of spiritual traditions that were transformed by the impact of their new abode in the Indian sub-continent which later crystallised into beliefs and rituals that had been referred to as Sanatan Dharam until the British Raj called it the Hindu faith.   

There is a new trend born of political considerations of self-preservation as well as competition with the 'invader Muslims' to evolve theories that declare Aryan-Brahmins as indigenous people. Spurious findings and elaborate theorising has not yet established that they ' belong eternally to India' as one further basis to assume the role of 'legitimate' rulers of the numerous and diverse communities and ethnicities. But the campaign borne of deep-rooted insecurity is even promoted at State level. The revision of the Indian history that was undertaken again by the BJP Government is a part of the same obsession. The difficulty in accepting Italian born Sonia Gandhi as the Prime Minister of India too is directly related to the constant attempt at reviling Indian Muslims as foreigners and therefore without any legal rights per se to be counted as Indian citizen.

Throughout India's 59 years of independence, especially during the Congress rule, the Muslims have been completely sidelined from the national mainstream. But they were never-the-less exploited by the Congress as its captive ‘vote bank’. Congress nourished the Muslim vote bank, not through any perks of office, employment, economic uplift or land grants etc; it had its own unique view of secularism that castigates all those who keep faith with their faiths. Demonising propaganda combined with occasional crack of the communal whip through anti-Muslim riots kept the Muslim community in fear and in its stranglehold. This spurious 'appeasement' ensured that Muslims could not demand ‘rights or reservations’ which helped the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Castes (OBCs) to get their share in education and employment. They could not jilt the Congress because the alternative was to embrace trishul waving parties whose agenda was Hindutva.

After 40 long years in opposition, Sangh Parivar led by the RSS, obsessed as they were with their cherished dream of Hindu Rashtra, realised that they could never come anywhere near the seat of power, as long as Muslims keep faith with the Congress Party. This long spell of frustration crystallised a deep hatred for the Muslims, also for democracy and secularism. They invented ‘Hindutva’ as the new polity for India to replace both. 

It is ironical that both the polities that are competing to put their stamp on the Indian socio-political structure and the system of governance, were organised and promoted by Aryan/Brahmins themselves, as the sole intellectual leaders of the new nation. The only difference was that Nehruvian democracy and socialism were 'handicapped' as it needed the Muslim votes to prop up its absolute majority. In the case of Hindutva, they had determined to write off Muslims altogether; so much so that even Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee did not flinch in throwing an open challenge to Muslim voters during an assembly elections in the UP that their party will win without Muslim votes.

The results proved that the vote of the Muslims did make a difference in the eventual low ranking of the BJP. Many believe that the origin of Gujarat riots were a revenge for BJP's defeat in UP, which the BJP considered its fortress.  However, the Gujarat riots also exposed a more sinister long term agenda of the BJP and Sangh Parivar to ‘deal with the Muslim problem’ by a direct action. They view that the Muslims are the main cause of their misfortune even after the partition in 1947. The hate is institutionalised; it the main factor for uniting ALL Hindus including SCs, STs and OBCs wherever BJP has influence or power. But the fact cannot be kept hidden forever; the majority of the ‘Hindus’ are not of Aryan descent and they find the claims of congenital superiority of Brahmin untenable in this egalitarian age.

In the wider perspective, Aryan/Brahmins being at the head of caste hierarchy had appropriated to themselves a host of privileges for presiding over widely accepted rituals and traditions. All the caste groups had to abide by the descending order of servility. The shudras, who are the lowest of the low in the Manu-ordained hierarchy, outnumber the Brahmins by a ratio of three to one. Any rebellion by them at any level was immediately put down often by physical violence. In fact, the preferred mode of telling an uppity group their place was physical violence. These traditions have a very long history.

In a democratic set-up based on universal adult franchise, the numbers matter. Though Aryan/Brahmins have been able to conjure up majorities by marshalling all 'Hindu' castes against the 'foreign invaders', the Muslims - the progeny of Babar - the attempt requires constant efforts. The Aryan/Brahmins cannot keep their ruling privileges, if they relent anytime and let the Muslims consolidate themselves or unite with other lower caste groups thus threatening their natural constituencies.

All their attempts to absorb the egalitarian Muslims into their caste social order have failed. The Muslims are a universal community whose identity is founded on their religion - Islam - that provides them worldwide links. In fact, the Muslim identity in India has become sharper and more distinct as anti-Muslim riots have become more deadly with genocide as the objective. The heightened tension with Muslims cannot be sustained without in fact creating more dispersion in their own caste order.

Muslim Umma

The Muslims constitute a challenge because they cannot accept Aryans/Brahmins to be naturally or religiously superior according to the teachings of Islam. Their pride and independence based on rejection of Manu-order, their own personal law and their preferred associations with their brothers in Islam across the world, is a permanent problem. In their frustration, they think of the 'final solution' that Hitler conceived for the Jews, which led to the destruction of the powerful Third Reich. Beside being believers of a 'foreign' religion, 'Muslims' have ruled India for close to a millennium. This history gives the group a sense of superiority, whether felt or lived at grass-root level or not, but deeply reacted to by the current ruling class. They feel that Muslims are still a threat and can always make a come-back. Despite wholesale migration of the Muslim to Pakistan and the oppressed social and economic conditions of Muslims, the paranoia persists.

The gist of Hindutva philosophy that was formulated by Hedgewar and Golwalker in the dying years of British colonial rule, to forestall the Muslims coming to power of again, is to divide and destroy Muslims of the subcontinent in a very sophisticated, multi-pronged and structured manner to 'liberate' India for the exclusive and unchallenged rule of Aryans/ Brahmins. Hindutva implies that the Muslims may live in India, but not as Muslims, or rulers, or high castes, but as shudras owing allegiance to Aryan/Brahmins and obeying their diktat owing their very survival to the pleasure of the Aryans/Brahmin - the unchallenged spokesmen of a contrived majority.

What is ignored generally is the fact that Muslims are not poised to challenge the supremacy of Aryans/Brahmins in any thought out strategies. The Muslims are not offering competition in any leadership contest, simply because they lack motivations and ambitions; and are not really the progeny of 'Babar' as is erroneously made out. In fact, majority of them are the real sons of the soil. However, as Muslims, they are not prepared to change their religious and psycho-social sense of identities anytime soon. The more they are subjected to Gujarat like pogroms, the more they will be forced to mobilise their faculties to secure a safe place in the polity but that could never be at the cost of their allegiance to Islam and their aspiration to remain part of the international brotherhood of Muslim Umma.

The ruling class could have come to terms with the Muslim and could positively co-opt them. As it did not, the Muslims in India feel insecure. The tension is palpable; the atmosphere feels like calm before the storm.  The storm could lead to a change in the ruling class. The new rulers could co-opt the Muslims. But the Muslims are not holding their breath waiting. Their global lines of communication in this age of globalisation are an asset. Being intellectually resilient and flexible, they have not lost hope. With right leaders, cool heads and wise policies, the Muslims could help India relieve the debilitating tension that undermines India in all its endeavours. The Muslims could be India's biggest asset.