Muslims in South Asia: Dilemma of identity crisis

In general, every social, religious and ethnic group of people in the world is conscious of its identity. Identity usually is derived from the history, geography and cultural background of a particular region in addition to its continued civilizational flow. India like many other civilizations on the globe has a distinct character, persona and disposition. It stands tall in size because it has a relentless, contineous and strong connect with time irrespective of socio-political viccititudes so integral to its history. Dr. Muhammad Iqbal, in his famous poem in Urdu, Sarey jahan say achha Hindustan hamara....., described this civilization as eternal and evergreen. He said, "Kutch baat hai ki hasti mit-ti nahi hamari, Sadiyon raha hai dushman daurey zaman hamara...".

The regions that India's history, culture and civilization represented from time to time include all the current nation-states that make South Asia and which Europeans purposely called Indian sub-continent. They are, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Maldives. Hindus in general call it as 'Akhand Bharat'. In an earlier effort by the SAARC countries (excepting Myanmar and Afghanistan), this uniqueness of an integral identity was exhibited in a subtle manner when SAARC was created. Later on, when Afghanistan was included in the SAARC in 2007, the earlier loopholes were plugged in, but keeping Myanmar out of it was surely an error committed by the then member states of the SAARC. However, currently, it is a non-functional forum due to the obvious political reasons, primarily Pakistan's indulgence in cross-border terrorism. South Asia has a distinct identity and the people therein have a common bondage of cultural, historical, civilizational and traditional relationship dating back to not less than five to ten thousand years.

From Afghanistan to Myanmar, in all the countries of South Asia, with the passage of time, Islam penetrated and conversions took place around one thousand years back. These conversions initially took place at a very negligible speed but later on they assumed greater dimensions (due to the intervention of the Muslim rulers) and around twenty five percent of the population of the South Asia got converted to Islam by the next five hundred years. It happened so in all the areas in South Asia but the most affected areas remained Afghanistan, Sindh, Punjab, Kashmir, Bengal, Central India, Kerala, Lakshadweep and Maldives. The conversions took place also in Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Nepal but their impact was not so inundating.

During the long period of the Mughal rule in India, the neo-converted elite class among the Muslims tried to identify themselves with the rulers of the land. They carried this message to the lowest strata of their community and started feeling overwhelmed. With the extinction of the Mughal rule and re-colonisation of South Asia by the Portuguese, French and Britishers, Muslims in general in whole of South Asia felt orphaned and started discovering their identity as a distinct community. Slowly and steadily, they constructed a disconnect with the ancient history, civilization and culture of the land they belonged to. Since their social bindings with the Hindus and Sanatan Dharma were deep rooted and existential, they couldn't make a clear judgement on issues concerning to their very existence as the indegenous people of the land. While they continued with the same surnames & nicknames as they had for the last hundreds of years depicting their identity, yet they chose to divorce the cultural and traditional legacy of their forefathers in order to appear separate.

The most tragic thing happening to the Muslim community in general was the way their so-called leadership led them to believe that they were a seperate nation. The Britishers kept encouraging this sentiment of Muslims in general and consequently gave them a political voice when Bengal was divided in 1905 on the communal lines. This laid the foundation of the ideology of a seperate electorate, seperate identity, separate law and a seperate nation. While Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim (then a separate country) and Myanmar (Burma) were freed to evolve and exist as separate nations, the United India was forced to accept the two-nation theory of Muslim League based upon the belief that Hindus and Muslims couldn't co-exist and that Muslims were a seperate nation. Thus India got divided in 1947 and the Congress agreed to the partition plan of the Britishers and the Muslim League.

The partition of India led the Muslims of the then India to believe that Pakistan as an Islamic republic would be a panacea for them and would take care of their main concers related to both existential and identity issues. With the further division of Pakistan in 1971 and with the creation of Bangladesh, the idea of Jinnah and the Muslim League that Muslims were a nation was torn into pieces. The rise of Bangladesh exposed the myth that Islam could be a unifying force to help the believers to exist as a nation. However, the deliberate and conscious disconnect with the past history, culture and civilization continued to be the guiding force of Muslims in general in all the three entitities, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It is so tragic for any group of human beings to isolate themselves from their roots, indegenous and ancient civilization and the culture of their forefathers that their future generations feel its vaccume terribly, sooner or later.

India as a Hindu majority country, unlike Pakistan and Bangladesh, took the whole responsibility on its own to identify with, represent and flourish the culture, civilization and tradition of the ancient and modern history of the land. While Muslims in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were asked by their religious and political leaders and institutions to distance themselves from the civilizational and cultural past in order to appear politically and religiously correct, they deliberately shut their eyes to the ground realities existing in all other Islamic nations in the world. They went to the extent to falsely believe that M. bin Qasim, M. Gazni, M. Gouri, Sikander Butshikan, Aurangzeb, Bhakhtiar Khilji and Ahmed Shah Abdali likes were their own and presented them as heroes. It is the rarest of rare example in the world where some sections of the indegenous people of a land would make their foreign invaders as their community icons knowing well that they were responsible for the plunder, loot, death, destruction and conversions in the land of their forefathers.

All nations, moreso the Islamic nations, are conscious and alive to their distinct civilizational past and history and would keep their religion separate while attending to the cultural, existential and historical issues. The most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia, is a classic example in this regard. So is the case of Central Asian countries, Arabian countries, Iran, Turkia and Egypt who boast of their ancient civilizations. They don't try to find anything common with other Islamic nations when issues relating to their ancient past and civilization are concerned. They feel proud, distinct and rich while attending and practicing their traditions and maintaining their ancient artifacts, monuments, scriptures, valuable sources of history and civilizational symbols. In Pakistan, the sights like Taxila, Mohjodaro, Harrapa and Katas Raj or Hinglaj Mata are not only unattended and neglected but are also unknown to even the educated class of the people in the society. It is so because of a deliberate disconnect with the past that is supposed to be Vedic, Hindu or Sanatan.

Muslims in Bangladesh and India have fallen victims to the same thinking and practice and have by choice kept themselves away from the mainstream national cultural and civilizational flow. Unfortunately, they were driven by politicians to believe that there was something called as "Ganga-Jamuni Tahzeeb" without explaining to them that both Ganga and Jamuna were the rivers of India and were treated as sacred by the Hindus, and also by their forefathers, for the last thousands of years. Some of the religious and political leaders of South Asia try to explain and make understand the Arabs that they know Islam better than the Arabs. They even go to the extent to say that the Arabs have deviated from the basic tenets of Islam.

They love to live in a denial mode and don't want to accept as to what impressions they have made in the minds of Arabs about them. Arabs and other Muslims nations treat Pakistan Muslims with disdain and don't treat them at par with their fellow countrymen though both practice the same faith. The myth that Islam could be the greatest binding force politically has since failed and the Muslims in South Asia needed to learn a lesson. The existence of separate 56 nations, with a number of them having same ethinicity, language, religion and geographical relationship is a stout instance to quote, in this context.

The dilemma of identity crisis among Muslims here won't take a recess unless there is an expressed urge to reassess the approach about the civilizational and cultural issues connected with the common Hindus. They have been living with them for the last thousands of years unlike the alien proselytizers and the foreign rulers who came as invaders in India. Muslims in South Asia have no realistic affinity with those barbaric rulers who converted their forefathers. Out of the whole population of Muslims in South Asia, merely 5 to 10 percent among them represent those who came to India from the foreign lands along with the invading rulers and settled here. Rest are all indegenous, and their names, DNA and traits prove that convincingly.

The younger and educated generations among the current Muslim community in South Asia recognise these facts and also the ground realities as well. Some among them have been raising these issues publicly while some are distancing away from the old-fashioned narrative primarily controlled by the religious and political leaders of Muslims. Those young and educated Muslims who have visited, toured or lived in foreign lands have also their own experiences to share with their brethren in this regard.

It needs hard efforts for the emancipated people among the Muslim community in the whole South Asia region to determine the futuristic responses in regard to their dilemma of identity crisis. Though it is a tall order, but someone courageous will have to catch the bull by horns among the Muslim community to connect it with their roots, civilization and ancient past in order to bring it out of the dilemma. After all, it needs to be realised that the history didn't begIn only fourteen hundred years back......!

(The author is a senior BJP and KP leader, author & columnist)