From: bhatnagr@ucunix.san.uc.edu (Raj Bhatnagar)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.bangladesh,soc.culture.pakistan
Subject: Re: II. Conflict : Causes
Date: 14 Apr 92 18:46:45 GMT
Organization: Univ. of Cincinnati



Author of the article has made attempts to understand
the Hindu Muslim conflict in India, but it seems that 
he is very reluctant to examine the deeper causes of 
the malaise. He keeps himself confined to this as only
a law-and-order problem and confined to todays times
only - perhaps in the hope that History of the conflict
has no role to play in its solution. There are some
historical perspectives on both sides that must be 
accomodated in any situation of lasting peace. Here are
rebuttals to some of the points raised by him.


>Hindu-Muslim Conflict in India: Causes and Remedies
>by Iqbal Ansari (Dept. of English, Aligarh Muslim University)

It is more appropriate to view the conflict as between 
two cultures and two conflicting concepts of nationhood
based on these two cultural traditions. An individual
Hindu and an Individual Muslim come in conflict with 
each other only when they are acting as pawns, knowingly
or unknowingly, of the forces of the two conlficting
cultures and nationhoods. And though by default a person's
religion may be used to predict the side he/she will
choose in the conflict, the prediction is not always
true.

>A new dimension of the state security forces not only conniving at but
>actually indulging in communal violence including cold-blooded murder
>of Muslims has been added since Aligarh (1978) and Moradabad (1980).

The use of excessive force by security forces is a problem in 
itself and is not particularly directed at Muslims. If the author 
believs otherwise, he certainly is creating an unfounded myth. 
The security forces have shown the tendency to use excessive force
in countering Strikes, Bandhs, rallys, etc. without caring for the
religions of the protesters. Their response to the Oct. 90 RJB activities
by Hindus was not very much different.


>Communal riots may be occasioned by some immediate specifc political,
>social, economic or religious causes, but the sources of conflict and
>tension are permanently rooted int he collective Indian psyche.  These
>are mainly traceable to the following:
>
>1. Visualization of 700 years of supposed Muslim rule in India by the
>Hindu elite as a period characterised by forced conversion to Islam,
>destruction and conversion of temples into mosques and other symbols of
>humiliation. The myth owes its origin mainly ot
              ^^^^^^^^
>administrator-historians of the Bristish raj; later it was
>perpertuaated by communal Indian historians.

As long as the author believes that the destruction 
and conversion of temples, and a general onslaught on 
native Indian culture by the Muslim invaders and their 
descendent rulers is a mere myth and folklore, he will 
not be able to establish channels of communication with 
Hindus. The solution lies in accepting the past - in all its 
horrifying details of invasion, loot, and 
devastation - consigning this past to the basket of history, 
and continuing towards future with no remaining ill-will 
along Hindu-Muslim lines. But to deny the devastation brought 
on the Indian culture, to call the ruining of its symbols 
a myth and folklore, and to seek to glorify Babar, Gazni, 
Qasim, and Nadirshahs and their invasions - for
whatever good they may have done - is to further insult those
who cherish the remnants of Indian culture and are revitalizing
its spirit so that it once again forms the basis of a modern 
Indian nation and its civilization.

>2. Image of the Indian Muslim as an outsider, with extra-territorial
>loyalty, who is incapable of belonging to the country as a patriotic
>citizen.

The "image" can be smashed by denouncing the idea of 
nationhood-based-on-Islam and Islamic-Solidarity in
the political sense,
and preferring Indian  nationalism as the basis of
Indian nationhood. (Throughout my response I never
imply that all Indian Muslims/Hindus think alike)
Shahabuddin/Bukhari/Owaisi/IUML have spoken a lot
against the excesses by the security forces in
Kashmir; but a single assertion by them denouncing
the Islam based separatism in Kashmir would be strong
beginning towards smashing the "image" cited by the author.

>3. Partition of the country and its aftermath, for which Muslims as a
>community are supposed to be exclusively responsible.

Islam's requirement that Muslims live in, or strive to 
carve out, Islamic states whenever possible, was  
responsible for India's partition. Individual Muslims
are only as much responsible as they support the above
position. A majority of them decided to stay back in
India in 1947, but many are doing it without rejecting
the above Islamic ideal of the Islamic state - and hence
the responsibility until they discard advocating such
Islamic polities.


>5.a. Sections of Hindus, who have been championing the cause of Hindu
>Rashtra as against liberal secular polity, 

As long as Islam remains confined to spiritual-social aspects
of an individual and a community, the Hindu(civilizational)-Rashtra
does not come in conflict with it. The proponants of Hindu-Rashtra
view Hindu as a civilizational term and not as circumscribing some
unique spiritual philosophy. Their goal is to build the political 
India based on the cohesive forces of Hindu(civilizational) heritage.
And that is liberal secular polity. That, in which a separate Islamic 
polity is sought to co-exist with a non-Islamic polity, is not at all
the definition of a liberal secular polity, but only the proponants'
attempts to hide the recipe for India's Lebanonization under some
fuzzy sounding euphemisms.



---raj
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian