Inheritance Laws: A Theory Why India’s Muslims Lag

How ancient marriage and inheritance customs shape modern society.

Hate The Muslim Woman cartoon by Khalil Bendib.

Anomalies

Why are the populations of Saudi Arabia (2.81 crores – 2011), Jordan (0.62 crores – 2011), Syria (o.23 crores – 2011), Iraq (3.3 crores – 2011), Iran (7.48 crores – 2011) so low?

Say, compared to other Islamic countries like Pakistan (17.7 crores – 2011), Bangladesh (15.1 crores – 2011), Indonesia (24.2 crores – 2011) – even Malaysia (28.9 crores – 2011).

To get a perspective, population of Maharashtra is 11.24 crores (2011).

Part of The Answer

The answer is late marriages in the Arab world-Middle East due to meher.

Since meher system is not strictly followed outside the Arab world-Middle East, early marriages are common. Marriage itself as an element is more common outside the Arab world-Middle East. Marriage in the Arab world-Middle East is a sign of rank and status.

Meher also drives the system of multiple wives – ‘If she is worth US$100,000, then I am good for at least US$75,000’ kind of thinking operates among women.

Dowry on the other hand helps to push-start the young to start a family – which improves population growth.

Could it be that the poor performance on economic and social indicators by India’s Muslims today doesn’t just reflect current disadvantage and deprivation, but also has far deeper historical, cultural, and religious roots?

Timur Kuran, an economics professor at Duke University, together with Anantdeep Singh, a researcher at the University of Southern California, in a new study have argued that the roots of Muslims’ lagging performance may be attributed to institutional differences that go back to the British colonial period. In doing so, they discount conventional explanations including the supposed “conservatism and insularity” of Islam, the supposed “demoralization” of the Muslim community after the fall of the Mughal empire, and the supposed animosity of the attitude of British colonizers against the Muslims and in favor of the Hindus.

Instead, Mr. Kuran and Mr. Singh argue that the real culprit is the Islamic inheritance system, which the British codified and enforced after coming to power in India. They suggest that the typical Muslim form of saving across generations, family trusts known as Waqfs, were not well suited for the pooling of capital across families, nor were they well suited to pursuing profit-making enterprises. What they were good at, though, was providing a safe way for an individual family to save its wealth over time.

By contrast, more flexible Hindu inheritance practices were much better suited to capital accumulation within a given family, the pooling of resources within extended family and clan networks, and the preservation and growth of wealth across generations. What is more, Hindus tended to do business within family run enterprises that were able to transition to modern corporate setups in the 20th century, whereas Muslims tended to rely on transitory and short-lived business partnerships with other Muslims that were difficult to translate into the structure of a modern corporation.

While it’s obviously true that Islamic inheritance practices predate British rule, the study documents that these laws were only loosely enforced during the late Mughal period and many Muslims, especially converts, continued to live by non-Islamic customs including inheritance practices. However, the British, who set up common law courts, more rigorously applied the distinct inheritance laws of different communities. Crucially, as Mr. Kuran and Mr. Singh argue, the British, being unfamiliar with Indian traditions, institutionalized a more “classical” or Arabic form of Islamic law than the more flexible practices derived from Persian and other sources that had existed under the Mughals.

The end result was that in practice many more Muslims became subject to a stricter enforcement of Islamic laws. Tellingly, the Muslims who’ve fared best economically come from small ”nonconforming” communities that converted from Hinduism – the Khojas, Bohras, Memons and Girasias – who as it happens were allowed by the British to retain their original inheritance practices. Azim Premji, India’s richest Muslim and the only Indian Muslim on the Forbes list of billionaires, is a Khoja.

via Economics Journal: A Theory Why India’s Muslims Lag – India Real Time – WSJ.

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India At War: For 1200 years Desert Bloc Has Been At War With India

India has been is at the forefront of 1200-year aggression by Desert Bloc spear-headed by multiple religious factions.

Indian & Foreign Corporations are colluding to increase their power against We, the People | Cartoonist Adam Zyglis in 2010; source & courtesy – cagle.com

The War of 1200 Years

How does India defeat मायावी mayaavi religions – without becoming intolerant, or persecution and suppression of dissent?

Desert Bloc has used religions (there are only 3 religions – Judaism, Christianity, Islam) against India now for 1200 years.

Indian polity, भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra based on the four freedoms – धर्म (dharma – justice), अर्थ (arth – wealth and means), काम (kaam – human desires) मोक्ष (moksha – liberty) has a unique challenge.

With some degree of success

An easy marker of Desert Bloc success is if we begin to think any religion as ‘better’ or worse.

The self-congratulatory claim of the Christian West to represent freedom of speech as opposed to the supposed tyranny of silence imposed by Islam doesn’t stand the scrutiny of history. The Inquisition, under pain of torture, silenced Galileo’s ‘heresy’ against the Christian belief that it was the sun that moved around the earth, and not vice versa. The Vatican’s list of prohibited books still includes many world classics, and a number of American schools partly or totally ban Darwin’s theory of evolution in favour of the church-approved doctrine of ‘intelligent design’.

Perhaps the problem is not what fundamental Islam and fundamental Christianity don’t have in common, but what they do have in common. And that is that both are assertively proselytising faiths which actively, often aggressively, seek converts.

When my faith enjoins me to get you to change your faith, and your faith enjoins you to do the same with me, confrontation becomes inevitable. Proselytisation implies not just the superiority of my faith to yours; it totally denies the validity of your faith and narrows the scope of dialogue or even peaceful coexistence in mutual tolerance.

Ironically, Judaism, Christianity and Islam all come from the same semitic source. Indeed, Islam has always considered Jews and Christians to be ‘people of the Book’, referring to the overlap between the Old Testament and the Quran and, as such, not to be seen as adversaries. Over the centuries, the material and technological dominance of the West has upset this equilibrium, and pitted the ‘free’ West against an ‘unfree’ Islam.

via Juggle-Bandhi : Jug Suraiya’s blog-The Times Of India.

Faced with: –

1. Well-funded armies that invested in more cannons and expensive horses.
2. An Islamic leadership that could build impressive monuments (Taj Mahal, Qutub Minar)
3. State-funded intellectuals who were retained by the State to wage a propaganda war (maya); promote official agenda (Akbar’s nav-ratan).

Indian leadership had a unique challenge in front of itself. How could India: –

1. Sustain its system of 3-Rights – ज़र (jar – gold), जन (jan – human ties) and जमीन (jameen – property)
2. Retain a thin State (with no monuments)
3. Maintain guarantees of four essential freedoms (dharma, moksh, kaam, arth).

The Bhakti saints and reformers promoted the ideological structure of

1. How the guru can be more important than god
2. As the guru leads you to god.
3. Different people can have different gurus.

Guru Nanak went ahead and reduced the need for ‘One’ holy book – by extracting from the writings of many gurus – including from the Koran.

After Independence, India bought peace with the Western world by adopting Western standards of democracy, laws, currency, human rights etc.

Not that it happens anywhere in the world, but additionally Indians also had to prove that we could ‘protect’ minorities.

Sixty years after the Indian Republic, we need to understand modern realities.

Better.

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What is Bharattantra

Unlike, भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra

भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra is the Indic political system that guarantees four freedoms – धर्म (dharma – justice), अर्थ (arth – wealth and means), काम (kaam – human desires) मोक्ष (moksha – liberty) and ensures three rights – ज़र (jar – gold), जन (jan – human ties) and जमीन (jameen – property) for all.

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Why Pakistan Never Became Democratic

For every beneficial outcome, modern India’s commentariat, is  in a motivated hurry to credit British (and the West in general) and blame Indian leadership for every injurious development.

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 | Muhammad Zahoor’s CARTOON | via Daily Times | Click for image.

Bad Sector

From August 15th, 1947, till January 26th, 1950, India had no constitution, laws, or an elected government. Thus for a brief period, short of 30 months, India Government ruled by decree.

Consensus prevailed.

Going by contemporary narratives, Nehru drove the pace of constitution building. Known detractors of the Indian nation, like Homi Mody were invited into the Constituent Assembly – itself headed by a leader of the dispossessed, Dr.Ambedkar.

RK Laxman’s cartoon celebrating India’s Constitution writing and implementaion, while the world was busy writing off India …

Talking heads of the Y2K generation claim that the Indian nation, constitution, parliamentary notions, democratic mechanisms were all a gift of the British.

Merits of the British Raj

First, if the British were so good, why have they not been able to save their home economy?

Care to remember that British ideas of democracy, freedom, were all for show to the subject races? Indian subjects had no representation, redress, were inveigled into sham consultations, as the Indian economy sank into a morass of debt, stagnation, poverty, disease and famines.

This was the true inheritance from the British.

Even though some reports suggest that this was a 1950’s cartoon, it was probably before January 26th 1950, when the Indian Constitution was adopted by the Indian Constituent Assembly. ToI suggests that this was a 1948 cartoon. | Copyright – Children’s Book Trust; source and courtesy – outlookindia.com | Click for source image.

KM Munshi, India’s food minister travelled the world over, seeking food aid. In New York, he described India’s precarious situation as ‘ship-to-mouth.’ Indian Railway infrastructure was in tatters. Ghastly accidents occurred with numbing regularity. India built the entire system of Railways that we see today, over the next 40 years.

MN Roy (founder of Indian Communism), Homi Mody (industrialist) represented realism of the time.

At that time in history, it seemed pragmatic to support the Raj.

A little further

While on the subject of British legacies and inheritances, next door Pakistan had exactly the same inheritance as India.

The Pakistani experience on constitution writing is illustrates the ‘value’ of the British legacy.

There will be many commentaries, to explain Pakistan’s lurch from crisis to crisis, dictatorship-to-dictatorship.

A recent article in Pakistan’s The Dawn makes for interesting reading.

Cartoon by Zahoor

Prime Minister Liaqat Ali is accredited with a number of ground breaking contributions. He decided to ally with the US in the Cold War divide; quashed a coup attempt by communists; promoted General Ayub to the highest rank and fought a war with India over Kashmir to name just a select few. His government ruled on ad hoc basis under temporary laws as it could not formulate and build a consensus on a constitution for the country

They could not dig out a monarchy to rule the country nor could they install a Caliph. The constitution has to be based on democracy. But the problem was that Meerut was now in India. The most powerful Prime Minister serving for one of the longest periods in the history of Pakistan had no constituency in the country to contest elections from. A committed democrat and an active parliamentarian, he knew well that he and his political class had no, or at best a very shaky, future under a democracy. In contrast, Bacha Khan’s was a completely secure political position. It was impossible to democratically uproot him from his constituency. He had voters, volunteers and diehard loyalists.

The ad hoc powers were thus used to change the rules of the game.

Six months after the death of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan moved the Objective Resolution in the Constituent Assembly that introduced Islam as the raison d’être of the new country. Religion was pitched against ones linguistic and cultural identity and faith was made to rival political interests. Those loving their culture, defending their language and demanding their democratic and political rights on these bases became heretics conspiring against the last citadel of Islam in the Subcontinent. Ideological boundaries of the country became more important than the limits of electoral constituencies and principles of democracy were contrasted to injunctions of Islam as defined by the select ulema.

Bacha Khan who enjoyed a hard earned and unflinching popular support in a vast constituency went down in our official gazettes as an anti-Pakistan traitor. Red Shirts were hounded and hunted. Politicians were jailed and elections were rigged.

By declaring the entire country as one constituency and setting ones perceived Islamic credentials as the only qualification, Liaqat Ali Khan tried to create a constituency for his class – the politically insecure Muslim elite that had migrated from the Muslim minority provinces of India. But ironically, they could not sustain their hold on this constituency for long. Within a decade they were outdone by the Army in the game they had pioneered. They were declared incapable of defending the citadel of Islam. The army took over the ‘responsibility’ of keeping the country united in the name of Islam and secure from the conspirators who had strong democratic constituencies in the country.

via The Two-Muslim theory | DAWN.COM.

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Brown Man’s Burden

On what basis is a Brown Man’s burden being imposed on India?

The West has stopped killing in the name of Christ - and now kills for progress, democracy, freedom. Islam kills in the name of Islam and Allah. Little difference. | Cartoonist Andy Davey; source & courtesy - thesun.co.uk | Click for image.

Indian burden …?

Irfan Ahmad, an Indian-Bihari, earlier at JNU, now with an Australian University, has now come out with a new version of White Man’s Burden.

Specially for India. Call it The Brown Man’s Burden.

Promoting the cause and interests of the Islāmic ‘world’, Irfan Ahmad writes how

West’s claim of spreading democracy in the Middle East is bogus. Against the West’s claims, it continually de-democratised one country after another. Like India, the world’s largest democracy which is largely disinterested in – and indirectly hostile to – democratic movements in Bhutan and Burma, the West has been largely hostile to genuine democracy in the Middle East so as to nurture its interests – geopolitical and strategic – by keeping the Mubaraks and the Shahs “stable”. (via How the West de-democratised the Middle East – Opinion – Al Jazeera English).

While Najib Mubarki works on inducing White Man’s Burden (and guilt), Irfan Ahmed has taken on himself to impose a Brown Man’s Burden.

For instance, Irfan Ahmad pushes the idea that it is Indian ‘Hindu’ responsibility to protect Lebanese Muslims from racist attacks in Christian Australia.

Big Brother know best

Surprising, that Irfan Ahmad cannot see that the problems of West Asia are a direct result of West’s assumption of White Man’s Burden in West Asia – as the ‘keeper’, saviour, benevolent authority.

Irfan Ahmad is wrong when he promotes the idea of India’s ‘responsibilities.’

Since when has it become India’s responsibility to be interested in or nurture democracy anywhere, as Irfan Ahmad tries to impute. India’s avowed and stated foreign policy goal has been non-interference.

Why assume that India Government knows best about what is good for Bhutan or Myanmar? There are some in India that believe that the Indian Government does know what is good for India itself! So, why impose, influence, direct, promote agenda in other countries.

To equate India with the West, on a campaign to keep West Asia unstable for the last 100 years, is at best, laughable.

Irfan’s two legs

The other leg of Irfan Ahmad’s thesis is the idea of ‘Hindu’ Burden as Keeper of Muslims in India.

Explaining reasons for radical Islam, Irfan Ahmad argues that ‘when secular democracy is responsive to the traditions and aspirations of its Muslim citizens, Muslims in turn embrace pluralism and democracy. But when democracy becomes majoritarian Muslims turn radical.’

In effect, Irfan Ahmad claims that it is Indian ‘Hindu’ responsibility to provide ‘democracy responsive to the traditions and aspirations’ of Indian Muslims.

Otherwise …

I thought that the Partition of India made it clear that Indians Muslims will be their own keeper. So, where is the question of providing ‘democracy is responsive to the traditions and aspirations of its Muslim citizens’.

Or of ‘Hindu’ majoritarianism that Irfan Ahmad talks of?

‘Hindu’ Keepers

Even though there are ongoing attempts to make the India State interfere in religious matters, as a country India is not a theological State. Hence there cannot be a role of the Indian State to care for Muslims, ‘Hindus’, etc.

India will take care of all Indians – and any criticism of India to take care of Indians is welcome. But Irfan Ahmad’s attempts to ‘impose’ a burden of Muslims on the Indian State are neither logical or acceptable.

Those who define that burden, can carry it.

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Among The Unbelievers

Tom-tomming truimphalist growth of Christianity in India, coupled with a huge increase in NGO funding from Christian West, a grim picture of a ‘Hindu’ India under siege is being painted.

The Church retains its hold over the masses by inducing guilt. | Cartoon By Rex F. May; Uploaded on February 02, 2011; source & courtesy - toonpool.com | Click for larger source image.

The Church In India

Missionary propaganda in the last few years has painted a picture of truimphalist growth of Christianity in India. Coupled with a huge increase in NGO funding from the Christian West, a grim picture of a ‘Hindu’ India under siege is being painted.

Kill in the Name Of Christ

The bigger problem with Christianity is not the worship of Christ – but murder, war, genocide in the name of Christ.

Or in modern times, murder, war, genocide by the Christian West in the name of progress, democracy, freedom, etc.

The State and the Church

There are studies that point this growth in Christian numbers and funding started at the behest of George W.Bush. Yet there is another reality.

The Devil in Priest's clothing | Cartoon By Constantin Ciosu - Romania; Source & Courtesy - toonpool.com; uploaded on July 06, 2008 | Click for larger source image.

Most of the Christian West has lost faith in the Church – and what the Church gains in India, it loses in the West. The Church also needs to tom-tom its success to keep the cash spigots open. Thus the ‘success’ of the Church leaves a lot open to questions.

Many questions.

And one concern

Since Judaism, Christianity and Islam share common Desert Bloc roots, it is also not surprising that the Evangelical Church also reflects concepts similar to the Darul Islam (Islamic lands), Darul Harb (Non-Islamic Lands at War with Islam), Darul Aman (Lands at Peace with Islam).

It is another matter that the worst wars in Islam were between Darul Islam or Darul Aman kingdoms.

A recent evangelical report extracted below highlights how ‘India’s Christians live among one billion Hindus.’ And why or what is the problem with that?

India’s church has grown and is getting larger. It now comprises over 70 million members, according to Operation World. That makes it the eighth largest Christian population in the world, just behind the Philippines and Nigeria, bigger than Germany and Ethiopia, and twice the size of the United Kingdom. Unlike believers in those countries, however, India’s Christians live among one billion Hindus.

Operation World counts 2,223 unreached people groups in India, over five times as many as there are in China, the next most unreached nation.

Across the vast nation, a visitor hears of unprecedented numbers of people turning to Christ. Operation Mobilization, one of India’s largest missionary groups, has grown to include 3,000 congregations in India, up from 300 in less than a decade.

A hospital-based ministry in north India has seen 8,000 baptisms over the past five years after a decade of only a handful. Operation World‘s detailed statistics show that the Indian church is growing at a rate three times that of India’s Hindu population.

The 2001 Indian census placed Christians at just over 2 percent of India’s population. But currently, Operation World puts the figure near 6 percent and notes that “Christian researchers in India indicate much higher results, even up to 9 percent.”

No one can be certain of such trends in this vast and complicated country. Religion statistics are poor, and enthusiastic reports from mission organizations may reflect only local conditions.

Todd Johnson, director of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary’s Center for the Study of Global Christianity, says he has opted for more conservative estimates than Operation World‘s. The center’s Atlas of Global Christianity estimates 58 million Indian Christians, not 70 million. Most of the difference lies in Operation World‘s “unaffiliated” category. The unaffiliated may be part of independent fellowships, or be “insider” Hindu or Muslim followers of Christ. (via India’s Grassroots Revival | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction).

India’s belief in the benign West, if it is not a tragedy, is definitely a comedy,

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Oil was not well in Hyderabad

Middle East oil riches moved Indians Muslims also towards ‘purer’ Islam.

The fig leaf of oil riches covered the intellectual bankruptcy of the Middle East. (Cartoon by Bob Gorrell; 2009; source and courtesy - time.com). Click for larger image.

Growing up in Hyderabad

A burkha (hijab) in Hyderabad (earlier capital of the Nizam State; India’s largest non-British city; with 40% Muslim population) was a rare sight till the early 70’s. From mid-70s, burkha (hijab) usage started gathering steam. Used to modern Western discourse based on Islamic demonization, it may appear far-fetched, but the Hyderabadi Muslim of 1960’s was more ‘modern’ and ‘liberal’ than today’s ‘Hindu’ – a development with many nuances and qualifications.

If one dusts a few Urdu periodicals from more than a century ago, several episodes of women’s rights movement can be found having roots right here in Hyderabad.

A debate on women’s liberation was raging in Hyderabad in the 1880s, reveals noted scholar on Islamic affairs Anwar Moazzam. The first Urdu journal on women, ‘Mu‘allimi-Niswan,’ published from Hyderabad, had initiated a heated discussion on the subject which was followed by an agitation on the issues of pardah (veil) and rights for Muslim women. There were several voices raised against the practise of pardah. The other magazines that carried forward the debate in the early decades of the 20th century were ‘Tahzib-i-Niswan’ and ‘Ismat.’

“But no systematic study has been taken up on this subject due to lack of access to the periodical data. There are several other insights available in this source (Urdu periodicals) in the Indian cultural tradition,” he remarked.

Moazzam, former head of the department of Islamic Studies at Osmania University, said that while he was working on the preparation of catalogues on Urdu books he found that journals in Urdu have never been researched for political, social and cultural issues.

Giving background of the Urdu Documentation Centre (UDC) project, he said it began in 2002 with sponsorship from a consortium of US universities led by the University of Chicago under the leadership of its bibliographer James Nye. The cataloguing work was taken up first at the Sundaryya Vignana Kendram and then at the State Central (Asafia) Library. (Women’s lib was hot topic in city in 1880s).

Oil wealth

After the 1973 Oil Embargo, the oil riches, the glitzy infrastructure boom of the Middle East, had a profound effect in Indian Muslims. The new found power by the Islamic Middle East made the Indian Muslim proud about his religious identity.

For the general Indian, the Middle East was the answer to the slow Indian economy. In an economy of shortages, an over-valued Indian currency, the Dubai allure was irresistible. It was the passport to wealth and abundance.

It took another 10-15 years for Indians to discover the underbelly of Dubai. To an average Indian, the prospect of slow career growth in Dubai, limited growth opportunities, the discrimination between the Western expatriates and Indians (and others) had a telling – and chilling effect. The Indian-Muslim, expecting a warm welcome in sandy climes, found a sneer instead.

Low RPM engine

As the Indian economy slowly started revving up in the 1980′s – starting with consumer electronics and auto-sector de-licensing, Indians found a new modus vivendi with Dubai and himself. The nineties saw this trend only become more pronounced. The Arab ‘sheikh’ marrying poor girls from Hyderabad peaked during this period.

In the last 10 years, as Saudi debt ballooned, Dubai’s problems also became apparent. Just as it was apparent, and Quicktake pointed nearly 3 years ago, that wheels are coming off Dubai. Most oil producing countries, are now living at the edge.

Kaal-chakra

The Indian Muslim in the meantime, has also come a full circle.

The colonial-era myth of ‘Muslims were the erstwhile rulers of India’, has weakened. The few ideological acolytes of Jinnah in India, have wilted in the face of a imploding Pakistan. To this combination, add an anti-Islamic West and declining Middle East. This has forced Deoband to admit that

for Muslims, there is no better country than India, no country in which Muslims are doing as well as they are doing in India. Our complaints, our objections, our problems exist, and we will continue to fight our fight for justice, but in other countries the situation is much worse.

For most Indian Muslims, the Middle East sheen, by this time, has worn off. Increasing incomes in India and stagnant incomes in the Middle East- and the circle is complete.

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Champions at Genocide – Taimur Leng and Churchill

Cartoonist Leslie Illingworth's faithfully reproduces Churchill's views on India. (Cartoon courtesy - cartoons.ac.uk; Published - Daily Mail, 20 May 1947).

Hitler believed that the so-called Nordic race, which in his view included Germans and Britons, was destined to rule the world. He sought to emulate, not supplant, the British Empire: the German empire would comprise the Slavic countries to the east. As he saw it, the United Kingdom would retain its colonies but assume the role of Germany’s junior partner in world domination. (read more via Churchill’s Dark Side: Six Questions for Madhusree Mukerjee—By Scott Horton (Harper’s Magazine).

Eat what you can digest

Looking at the lukewarm  coverage, desultory reporting and the general indifference to Madhusree Mukerjee’s masterly work on the Bengal Famine, I am drawn to some intriguing conclusions.

‘Modern’ Indians can be satisfied with perception and propaganda. Easier to digest, I presume. Empirical evidence be damned. Between the Rightist Islamic-atrocities and the Marxist effete-feudal theologies, Indian history suffers. At this rate, India will become another case of ‘forget-nothing-learn-nothing’.

Indian military might

The commentators are very enamored by ‘victims-of-Islamic-atrocities’ narrative – even though India’s military might would have reduced these ‘invasions’ to extensive plunder-pillage-massacre expeditions. In the few cases where these ‘invasions’ were able to consolidate, the regimes were short-lived.

British jaziya tax?

The crippling taxes that these Islāmic ‘invaders’ were able to impose, were less crippling than Western colonial extraction. At the end of the Mughal Raj, India was still a formidable economy. Even after, the Mughal rulers had bloated their treasury to the largest in the world. By the time the British were sent packing, Indians were left struggling for roti-kapda-makaan.

Taimur and Churchill

The Delhi massacre of Taimur Lame, the Mongol looter accounted for less than 2 lakh victims (most estimates are 1,00,00). The Bengal Famine engineered by the British accounted for 40-50 lakh victims (British estimates are 10,00,000-20,00,000). Taimur was a Hindu-hating Islāmic plunderer. Churchill and the British Raj oozed the milk of human kindness? From every pore and orifice of their bodies?

Westernization – the new religion

So enamored with the new religion of ‘Westernization’ are we, that no criticism will be accepted or tolerated. Compared to the ‘co-operation’ with the Islāmic plunderers our ‘collaboration’ with the West is in no way less damaging or in any way less culpable.

Not a welcome message, I guess.

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Eat what you can digest

Looking at the lukewarm coverage, desultory reporting and the general indifference to Madhabi Mukherjee’s masterly work on the Bengal Famine, I am drawn to some intriguing conclusions.

‘Modern’ Indians can be satisfied with perception and propaganda. Easier to digest, I presume. Empirical evidence be damned. Between the Rightist Islamic-atrocities and the Marxist effete-feudal theologies, Indian history suffers. At this rate, India will become another case of ‘forget-nothing-learn-nothing’.

Indian military might

The commentators are very enamored by ‘victims-of-Islamic-atrocities’ narrative – even though India‘s military might would have reduced these ‘invasions’ to extensive plunder-pillage-massacre expeditions. In the few cases where these ‘invasions’ were able to consolidate, the regimes were short-lived.

British jaziya tax?

The crippling taxes that these Islamic ‘invaders’ were able to impose, were less crippling than Western colonial extraction. At the end of the Mughal Raj, India was still a formidable economy. Even after, the Mughal rulers had bloated their treasury to the largest in the world. By the time the British were sent packing, Indians were left struggling for roti-kapda-makaan.

Taimur and Churchill

The Delhi massacre of Taimur Lame, the Mongol looter accounted for less than 2 lakh victims. The Bengal Famine engineered by the British accounted for 40-50 lakh victims. Taimur was a Hindu-hating Islamic plunderer. Churchill and the British Raj oozed the milk of human kindness? From every pore and orifice of their bodies?

Westernization – the new religion

So enamored with the new religion of ‘Westernization’ are we, that no criticism will be accepted or tolerated. Compared to the ‘co-operation’ with the Islamic plunderers our ‘collaboration’ with the West is in no way less damaging or in any way less culpable.

Not a welcome message, I guess.

Related Articles

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• Books: Churchill’s Shameful Role in the Bengal Famine (time.com)
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• You: INDIA: CHURCHILL DENIED RELIEF TO BENGAL FAMINE VICTIMS, BOOK SAYS (menafn.com)
• The Dark Side Of Churchill (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
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Shortlink

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Indian Muslims – The Changing Debate?

Most Indian Muslims can see that religious freedom in India exceeds that of even Muslim countries. The idea of world Islamic identity is mix of paranoia and mythology. (Cartoon courtesy-www.koothanallurmuslims.com). Click for larger image.

There is no other country in the world with such breathtaking plurality at the highest level of leadership.

Consider Britain: only Protestant (not Catholic) Christians can be monarch. The law of blasphemy protects only Christian citizens in the United Kingdom. In Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, minorities (including, in Pakistan, even Muslim Ahmadis) have restricted rights. Unlike burqa-banning western democracies such as France and Belgium, Indian secularism does not separate church and state. It allows them to swim together in a common if sometimes chaotic pool.

Fundamentalists dislike the concept of liberal Islam flourishing in the syncretic soil of India. Indian Muslims, however, remain rooted in a Vedic civilisational ethic that has celebrated our religious plurality for over 3,000 years. Despite al-Qaida’s and the ISI’s concerted recruitment efforts, Indian Muslims except renegades from the Students Islamic Movement of India and the Indian Mujahideen have consistently spurned the call to jihad.

India’s innate respect for all religions, which does great credit to its silent Hindu majority, has historically made the country the refuge-of-last-resort for all faiths: Jews, Parsis, Christians, Buddhists. (read more via Educate, Don’t Appease – The Times of India).

Indian Muslim

Caught between liberal-progressive-apologist Hindus, opportunistic politicians, Indian Muslims, are less understood and poorly served by their own leadership. Quite a few things that 2ndlook has said about Indian Muslims are reflected in this article linked and extracted above. Importantly, it is is written by a Muslim.

Missteps

There are a few missteps that the author makes. For one, the Uniform Civil Code. भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra, the Indic political system, does not approve of a Uniform Civil Code. In fact, भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantrahas no State-mandated laws on marriage and sex. That is a matter for communities to decide for themselves.

Good to see the changing debate.

Saffron Terror – What must Muslim response be!

Many essential issues get sidetracked into the political noise! Cartoon by Shreya Navare.

From various news reports

Home Minister, P.Chidambaram (PC) raked up a ‘storm’ by terming some bomb blasts as ‘saffron terror while addressing a national level conference of conference of DGPs on Wednesday. “There is the recently uncovered phenomenon of saffron terrorism that has been implicated in many bomb blasts” Chidambaram said.

“Terrorism cannot be attached to any religion,” Rudy said, of the BJP. Immediately, the Congress General Secretary and media department chief told reporters and the controversy has erupted because of a word.

“As far as saffron or bhagwa or kesariya (other words for saffron) it was not not an issue then. The issue was terrorism. Terrorism does not not have colour. Terrorism has only one colour and it  is black.

“Whatever colour terrorism may be associated with. whatever you call it saffron, green, white or  red can you associate it with one colour,” he asked. (more news reports linked below).

Caricature of caricatures! (Cartoon by TN Ninan; courtesy - indiatimes.com).

Equating religions

Why is it that I am surprised by Muslim silence on ‘Hindu’ terror! I expected Muslims to explode in anger! After all, the idea of ‘Hindu’ terror implies that just like ‘Muslim’ terror there is also ‘Hindu’ terror.

Now people are not really quite lining up to believe in Chidambaram’s theory of ‘Hindu’ terror. But, it leaves the lame concept of ‘Muslim’ terror intact and standing.

As this charade of ‘Hindu’ terror winds its way to a stale end-game, the apparent perceptual ‘validity’ of ‘Muslim’ terror will become stronger.

And that is why Muslims particularly should be concerned – and not satisfied with this ‘saffron’ terror game.

How ‘saffron terror’ will be used against the Muslims

The trick of ‘Hindu terror’ is so well-executed, its simplicity breath-taking, that one no longer knows who the villain of the piece is.

The ‘centrist’, secular democratic Kawngress who is persecuting these Hindu terrorists? Instead would you like to paint the desi-version of Christian Democrats of India (Bhajpaa) as the villain of the piece? Or the Leftist-Socialist-Communists (Vaampanthis) who are cheer-leading this ‘game’ in their skimpy ideological bikinis.

Cartoon by Sandeep Adhwaryu; courtesy - blogs.outlookindia.com; Jul 24, 2010 15.27 IST)

It is counter-intuitive but the battle against ‘Hindu’ terror is the one that Muslims   must fight! That may about be the only way to kill this malformed idea of Islamic terror.

At least, in India.

Related news posts

• BJP for Chidambaram’s resignation over ‘saffron terror’ remark
• PC clarifies, but stands by statement on saffron terror
• Chidambaram warns police chiefs against ‘saffron terror’
• No takers for BJP’s ‘saffron terror’ remark protest
• There is no such thing as saffron terrorism: Gadkari
• Oppn sees red over PC’s ‘saffron terror’ remark
• Congress does balancing act on “saffron” terror
• Saffron terrorism: PM should apologise to people, says Modi
• Saffron terror a new phenomenon: Chidambaram
• Uproar in Rajya Sabha over Chidambaram’s remarks
• Congress ticks off Chidambaram over ‘saffron terror’ remark
• Terrorism has only one colour and it is black, says Congress
• Furore in Rajya Sabha over ‘saffron terrorism’
• Chidambaram warns against ‘saffron terror’
• Terror has many faces

Related Articles

• Saffron Terrorism (teabreak.pk)

Pakistan and Kashmir – Regaining the narrative!

Having got their way, Jinnah and Co., Pakistan should have been a happy lot. So, goes Indian thinking.

Instinct for self-putrefaction (Cartoonist – Chip Bok).

The puzzle of Pakistan

Over the last 63 years, Indians have had to face upto either a Kashmir ‘problem’ or a Pakistani ‘threat’.

Having got their way, Jinnah and Co., Pakistan should have been a happy lot. So, goes Indian thinking. The last 25 years of ISI-Khalistan-Peshwar-Afghan-Taliban-Kashmir axis leaves an average Indian (like me) quite puzzled. What do these guys want from us? In another context, Arvind Subramanian pointed out

Narratives matter. Not just for creating and sustaining nationhood as Isaiah Berlin famously argued. They also matter critically in international negotiations. At the moment, India is not winning the battle of the narrative on climate change. And that’s a worry.

Are we losing the narrative in the case of Pakistan and Kashmir too?

A short cursory look says no. After all, America had a civil war within a 100 years after the declaration of independence. Britain had its Cromwell at the start of its imperial innings. Russia, Italy, Germany, France, China, Japan went through various upheavals when limiting monarchy or changing over from monarchy to republican governments.

But then, India is ‘different’ …

The Kashmiri conundrum

We know what Hurriyat Conference wants: azadi, freedom. But freedom from what? Freedom from Indian rule. Doesn’t an elected Kashmiri, Omar Abdullah, rule from Srinagar?

Yes, but Hurriyat rejects elections. Why? Because ballots have no azadi option. But why can’t the azadi demand be made by democratically elected leaders? Because elections are rigged through the Indian Army. Why is the Indian Army out in Srinagar and not in Surat? Because Kashmiris want azadi.

Let’s try that again.

What do Kashmiris want freedom from? India’s Constitution.

What is offensive about India’s Constitution? It is not Islamic. This is the issue, let us be clear.

The violence in Srinagar isn’t for democratic self-rule because Kashmiris have that. The discomfort Kashmiris feel is about which laws self-rule must be under, and Hurriyat rejects a secular constitution.

Hurriyat deceives the world by using a universal word, azadi, to push a narrow, religious demand. Kashmiris have no confusion about what azadi means: It means Shariah. Friday holidays, amputating thieves’ hands, abolishing interest, prohibiting alcohol (and kite-flying), stoning adulterers, lynching apostates and all the rest of it that comprises the ideal Sunni state.

Not one Shia gang terrorizes India; terrorism on the subcontinent is a Sunni monopoly.

There is a token Shia among the Hurriyat’s bearded warriors, but it is essentially a Sunni group pursuing Sunni Shariah. Its most important figure is Umar Farooq. He’s called mirwaiz, meaning head of preachers (waiz), but he inherited his title at 17 and actually is no Islamic scholar. He is English-educated, but his base is Srinagar’s sullen neighbourhood of Maisuma, at the front of the stone-pelting. His following is conservative and, since he has little scholarship, he is unable to bend his constituents to his view.

Hurriyat’s modernists are led by Sopore’s 80-year-old Ali Geelani of Jamaat-e-Islami. Jamaat was founded in 1941 by a brilliant man from Maharashtra called Maududi, who invented the structure of the modern Islamic state along the lines of a Communist one.

The Kashmiri separatist movement is actually inseparable from Sunni fundamentalism. Those on the Hurriyat’s fringes who say they are Gandhians, like Yasin Malik, are carried along by the others in the group so long as the immediate task of resisting India is in common. But the Hurriyat and its aims are ultimately poisonous, even for Muslims.

The Hurriyat Conference’s idea of freedom unfolds from a religious instinct, not a secular sentiment. This instinct is sectarian, and all the pro-azadi groups are Shia-killers. In promoting their hatred, the groups plead for the support of other Muslims …

We think Indian Muslims are different from Pakistanis and less susceptible to fanaticism. It is interesting that within Pakistan, the only group openly and violently opposed to Taliban and terrorism are UP and Bihar migrants …So what do the separatist groups want? It is wrong to see them as being only terrorist groups. They operate in an intellectual framework, and there is a higher idea that drives the violence. This is a perfect state with an executive who is pious, male and Sunni. Such a state, where all is done according to the book, will get God to shower his blessings on the citizens, who will all be Sunnis.

The current violence is a result of this. Given their boycott of politics, the Hurriyat must rally its base by urging them to violence and most of it happens in Maisuma and Sopore. The violence should also clarify the problem in the minds of neutrals: If Kashmiri rule does not solve the azadi problem, what will? (What ails Kashmir? The Sunni idea of ‘azadi’ By Aakar Patel).

Loot kill, plunder and power – No Islamic caliphate, democracy or capitalism (Cartoonist – Matt Wuerker).

Regressive numbers

A writer with a ‘helpful’ background, Aatish Taseer brings another interesting perspective.

It is one of the vanities of a war, like the war on terror, to believe that your enemy’s reasons for fighting are the same as yours. We are bringers of freedom, democracy and Western-style capitalism; they hate freedom, democracy and Western-style capitalism. It is an irresistible symmetry; and if not a way to win a war, it is certainly a way to convince yourself that you’re fighting the good war. But there is another possibility, one that the Americans, and other defenders of post-colonial thinking, are loath to admit: that a place’s problem might truly be its own; that your reasons for fighting are not your enemy’s reasons; and that you might only be a side-show in an internal war with historical implications deeper than your decade-long presence in the country.

In the case of Pakistan, the imposition of this easy West versus Islam symmetry has helped conceal what is the great theme of history in that country: the grinding down of its local syncretic culture in favour of a triumphant, global Islam full of new rigidities and intolerances. It is this war, which feels in Pakistan like a second Arab conquest, that earlier last month saw, as its latest target, the Data Sahib shrine in Lahore—among the most important of thousands of such shrines that dot the cities and countryside of Punjab and Sindh.

But there is also something else, and this has been going on in Pakistan since its inception: the wish to cleanse the Islam of that country of its cultural contact with the Indian subcontinent, a contact that is, for many in Pakistan, a contamination. For me, with my Indian upbringing, and Pakistani father, this desire to remove all trace of India was visible everywhere. It was there in the dress of a woman in Karachi, under the hem of whose black Arab abaya an inch of Indian pink was visible; it was there in the state’s desire to impose restrictions on weddings so that they would be stripped of their Indian rituals and become only Islamic; it was there in the hysteria surrounding the kite-flying festival of Basant, where public safety concerns—and this in Pakistan!—were invented so that the Indian spring festival could be put out of business once and for all.

But one cannot be too hopeful. Pakistanis have stood by and watched the decay of their society for over six decades now. It seems that once the original outrage dies down, no significant majority will be found to defend the old religion of Pakistan. They will see it go as they have seen so many things go. The reason for this is that original idea on which Pakistan was founded, the idea of the secular state for Indian Muslims, has perished and nothing has taken its place. The men who say “Pakistan was founded for Islam, more Islam is the solution”, have the force of an ugly logic on their side. Their opponents, few as they are, have nothing, no regenerative idea to combat this violent nihilistic one.

Pakistan, Nuclear Weapons, India-Pakistan Islamic fundamentalism | A declining West and supportive China can be an explosive Pakistan. (Cartoonist – Nick Anderson.).

Frozen takeout

These following ‘vatis‘ or ‘katoris‘ can safely be put in the Kashmir ‘thali‘: –

1. Currently, most of the Pakistani-Kashmiri-azadi syndrome is driven by a Sunni agenda.
2. Next, the significant level of disturbance is limited to Maisuma and Sopore.
3. Clearly, the rest of the Jammu, Ladakh, Leh regions are peaceful.

What is on the menu

Based on the agenda, actions, sounds and direction indicated by the azadi faction, Jammu and Kashmir will treat non-Muslims (non-Sunnis also as per the above two writers) as candidates fit for ethnic cleansing, fodder for religious conversions, and landless, jobless, clueless labourers – like in Pakistan. More than most, Big Industry and politics in Pakistan remain in the hands of 22 Pakistani land-owning families.

How can this be resolved?

A simple fact in history that everyone seems to forget is Sheikh Abdullah. The ‘secret’ of Sheikh Abdullah’s popularity was his agenda for land reform.

Maybe Omar Abdullah should take inspiration from his grandfather.

Related Articles

• Kashmir put on the back burner: Mirwaiz (nation.com.pk)
• Opinion: India’s Blood-Stained Democracy (nytimes.com)
• Islamic militants threaten war on Pakistan over Kashmir (telegraph.co.uk)
• Divided families urge India, Pakistan to leave Kashmir (dawn.com)
• Christian Missionaries Destroying Kashmiri Culture, Claims Muslim Leader (eurasiareview.com)
• Srinagar sojourn (telegraphindia.com)
• Bangladesh: A Step Behind Pakistan or a Step Behind India (quicktake.wordpress.com)
• In Yumm-Rika There is no Corruption or How IAC Completely Gets The Story Wrong! (quicktake.wordpress.com)

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