07-15-2006, 09:06 AM
Indiaâs troubles with Islam and the West
By Gautam Sen
Published 06/27/2006
Indiaâs troubles with Islam and the West
A clash of civilisations was predicted by V. S. Naipaul and later given some sort of quasi academic respectability by Harvardâs Samuel Huntingdon. Some Indians were exercised by this new intellectual oeuvre, either hating it or self-satisfyingly sensing confirmation of their supposed superior understanding of Islam. But Naipaul was clearly on to something. Even hard-nosed Western bankers pronounced him a prophet when his casual observations about an impending crisis in Southeast Asia came to pass suddenly in 1997, halting its ostensibly irresistible economic advance.
Yet Naipaul has remained without honour in the land of his own forebears. The greatest Indian of letters since Rabindranath Tagore has been treated with arrogant short-sightedness by Indiaâs politicians, who unfailingly take refuge in low cunning. Instead of bringing honour upon themselves by honouring him they played shamelessly to the Islamic gallery which dislikes Naipualâs unsparing scrutiny intensely. Of course, there was the crass envy of Indiaâs legion third-rate writers and journalists at the international esteem Naipaul enjoys, coupled with unbridled ignorance of his magnificent literary opus.
Much of Indiaâs social science scholarship is basically crassly imitative, with virtually nothing worthy of note originating in India. I was once impressed by a piece of Marxist writing by a leading ex-JNU academic, now prospering abroad as a human rights entrepreneur (usually tending to become defence of men with bombs strapped to their waists) only to accidentally discover that the key concept in it was lifted, without any acknowledgement whatsoever, from a standard 1976 text by colleague of mine at the LSE. Yet another idea that produced a massive award-winning tome by an Indian writer derived its presiding insight from an obscure piece of writing by a German scholar, also unacknowledged.
Many of these people pontificate darkly about Naipaulâs alleged attempt to justify white colonialism, an accusation first spawned by the New York academic, the late Edward Said. Saidâs reputation subsequently faltered after taking a robust beating from the formidable late Professor Ernest Gellner, who damned him irretrievably with faint praise as ânot all that badâ! But it is the opinions of Indiaâs great patriots and ghastly bureaucratic entrepreneurs that incubate the maximum claptrap when it comes to Islam.
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After 2001 they got it into their heads that India must insinuate itself in the impending Western onslaught against the scourge of Islamic terror or indeed Islam itself. As an aside, it might be noted that such an onslaught was always likely be perceived by the faithful as an assault on them all since they intermingle in a seamless web. Ties of tribal loyalty and multifarious bonds of marriage and commensality override all the media contortions about divisions between moderates and suicide bombers.</b> Every suicide bombers begins as a moderate and both traverse the same rocky path of rage and more rage. Historically, the religion of peace has chronically embraced violence and contemporary denunciations by some of the faithful are mere public relations. Discreetly taped proceedings of many mosques around the world dissolve all such propaganda in a chorus of approval for the suicide bombings of âshahidsâ, with mothers of teenagers urging surviving sons to follow the lead of their deceased brothers.
But neither Indian group, the purveyors of second-hand, imported Leftist âthinkingâ of mass murderers (Lenin, Stalin, Mao, et. al.) and the retailers of mindless patriotic imbecilities, is capable of independent thinking. One is congenitally slave to imported ideas to escape local contamination (i.e. of Hindu provenance) no matter how improbable its relevance to India. The super-patriots on the other hand have dispensed with thinking altogether, taking refuge in slokas, which have become a substitute for applying intelligence. Slokas pertain to social contexts and articulate generalities that cannot be taken literally, but they have turned into a curse for Hindus. They apparently absolve one from engaging in any critical reflection! As a result, India is hostage to nonsense that would have befuddled both Lewis Carroll and Sukumar Ray, one of the few Indians who astutely grasped that mockery and parody were the most appropriate means for interpreting Indian society.
India has foolishly decided to globalise its particular Islamic problem, which remains fundamentally unique. The West is confronted by an Islamic problem that dates back to the 8th century and their civilisations are indeed involved in a world-historical dispute. But it does not follow they are going to help India with its contemporary difficulties with Islam. On the contrary, they are now merely using India to prosecute their own war with Islam. The current disputes go back to the post-FWW settlement in the Middle East, when the Western powers divided up the post-Ottoman Arab world, the establishment of Israel and the Westâs insatiable thirst for oil.
Indiaâs fate did not figure in any of these issues, except to elevate the importance of post-partition Pakistan because of its proximate geographical location to the Middle East. And Pakistanâs Punjabi military elites decided with alacrity to take advantage of the situation by becoming an American colony during the Cold war to ensure their domestic primacy. Indiaâs views of both Islam and West thus reflect what amounts to attention deficit disorder and an immense weakness for shortcuts while the wider world gives a damn about its dire predicament.
The West, which is only wooing Indiaâs because of anxiety about China, has behaved abominably towards Muslims. It has been robbing Arabs for several generations and also imposed various brutal dictators on Arabs to exercise political control over them. The super-patriotic among Indians may consider this a source a satisfaction because Turks, Iranians and Arabs (in that order of precedence) once oppressed Hindu grievously, but it ought not to cloud their judgement. Indiaâs problem, in the first instance, is with Pakistani military dictators though Islam remains the backdrop that allows the dictators to use diplomatic rivalry with India to justify their own ruthless perpetuation at home.
Short of refusing to eat pork meat and beating their women in the prescribed manner there is nothing Islamic about this category of Pakistani low-life. And as it happens, Indians have no major contemporary disputes with the Arabs except that that the execrable potentates, who illegally rule over them, bankroll and support Indiaâs Pakistani tormentors. Of course Palestinians have also helped Pakistani terrorists murder Indian civilians though Indiaâs leftists would liquidate the Indian Union itself in extending support to them.
A grave error of judgement has therefore been made in inferring that joining the Westâs crusade against Islam would somehow benefit India. Islam and the West richly deserve each other and both have, one should always remember, jointly tormented India since independence in 1947. The US allowed China to develop Pakistanâs nuclear arsenal during the 1980s since both were crucial allies against the Soviet Union. The US continues to warn India not to retaliate against Pakistani state-sponsored terror. But different groups of Indians are oscillating slavishly between Islam and the West, the first due to base electoral calculations because Muslim constituents determine their political survival, the other transfixed by green cards. Indiaâs strategy should have been to gleefully (er, mournfully!) observe their sworn enemies fight each other to death, cynically take advantage of the situation and, most of all, advance domestic economic transformation to become altogether independent of both.
The British media continue to treat the Indian government and terrorists on par in their reporting of the conflict in J&K. Recently, they loftily announced that the 35 Hindus murdered by Muslims terrorists could just as well have been killed by Indiaâs intelligence services. Even after 9/11 and 7/7 treating Hindus fairly is unthinkable. This is why India should quietly sign the Indo-US accord, say as little as possible about Iran and keep a firm focus on the domestic economy. They should also think carefully about how to help the Pakistani military implode, a subject that requires some systematic investigation (any takers to fund this venture??). Joining the West against Islam is folly. Instead India should deal ruthlessly with its local problem, originating exclusively in Pakistan. Thus merely watching the rest of the worldâs travails with Islam from the sidelines is Indiaâs best bet, as the Chinese are doing (while they crush their local Islamic militancy without ceremony or mercy). All good things come to those who wait!
Dr. Gautam Sen