September 12, 2004

SYED Nesar Ahmad’s book Origins of Muslim Consciousness in India is based on his doctoral thesis and was published posthumously by his wife. Its relevance has been revived as new events unfold which have a bearing on the Muslim consciousness in South Asia and worldwide.

An investigation into the reasons for the separation of the two major communities in the subcontinent has been the subject of a major academic endeavour by many scholars, especially since the departure of the British. After partition and the formation of a ‘Muslim’ homeland (Pakistan) and later of Bangladesh, conflicts and violence have continued.

The root cause of the division cannot be explained by a simple theory of events at a given time or some specific differences between two major leaders or political parties. If one goes into the material causes of the division, then internal and external causes of this major event could be looked into from a world perspective, which Nesar Ahmad has done. He writes:

“Our argument is that the initial cultural differences between the Hindus and the Muslims widened and gained social significance as a consequence of the structural impact of India’s integration in the world system.”

There are several views regarding the Muslim alienation, which led to the demand for the division of the subcontinent. But the most important question remains unsolved: was the Muslim community united as a monolithic group to separate itself in a new homeland, cutting off its links with its historical ancestral landholdings? Muhammed Mujeeb of Delhi’s Jamia Millia University wrote a massive book showing that there were a cluster of Muslim ‘majority’ areas in India but a large section of Muslims were scattered without any hope of ever becoming a part of Pakistan. From north to south, and east to west, Indian Muslims had different historical roots and distinct regional cultures, which they shared with other religious groups. There was the map carved out by Rahmat Ali, the originator of the name of Pakistan. This had Muslim pockets spread all over the subcontinent. If Muslims were a heterogeneous community how did the ‘communal elitists’ of the two major religions manage to negotiate a divided country from the departing British colonial rulers.

Diverse scholars have argued that the Hindu and Muslim communities were invented by the British for their Machiavellian scheme, and then the dominating classes ‘imagined’ their communities to be national groups which constituted the sovereign nations of Pakistan and Bangladesh. An Indian scholar, Bipan Chandra, expounded: “Communal consciousness is a false consciousness, and the use of the word community with reference to Hindus or Muslims, or Sikhs is misplaced.” It has also been argued by some prominent Indian academics, including Romila Thapar, that the ‘word’ Hindu was a British invention; in reality, major castes and hundreds of subcastes, which functioned autonomously, inhabited India. Even today for ‘conscious Hindus’ India is Ma Bharat.

It was the colonial state, which wanted to negotiate with the ‘union’ of castes/subcastes called “Hindus” and the ‘imagined’ monolithic Muslim community, over and above their local domains where they had coexisted peacefully for hundreds of years. There were more pronounced class-based conflicts in the urban areas, which were conveniently divided on ‘religious’ basis.

There are two fundamental questions Nesar Ahmad raises: 1) why did the cultural contradiction assume primacy over the class contradiction in modern India? 2) Why did religious identity persist and class identity clearly did not surface?

It is important to investigate the local dynamics where Muslims and Hindus with other religious groups were living side by side; some political events led to the polarization, based on material interests.

The most telling phenomenon was the ‘two nation’ theory which became attractive for the United Provinces (UP) Muslims, because of the threat to their privileged positions from the Congress government, which was advocating drastic land reforms.

The Muslim League exploited this impending threat, creating an ‘imagined nation’ far away from UP. Once again, Ahmad observes that prior to the Second World War, the UP Muslims were ambivalent about a ‘separate’ nationhood, as was “Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, the pioneer of modern Muslim consciousness in India”. These comparatively more educated and privileged Muslims became determined to struggle for a ‘separate nation’ even though this meant their migrating away from their ancestral land”.

The dynamics of Punjab and Bengal, the two key majority provinces, were different. The privileged landlords in Punjab had their own Unionist Party with Hindus and Sikhs as political partners. They didn’t clamour for Pakistan. In Bengal, Muslims were the downtrodden, debt ridden, longing for a ‘homeland’ of their own, far away from the northwestern part of the subcontinent where the majority of the Muslims were clustered.

Ahmad’s thesis puts great emphasis on external forces, especially the events of the two world wars, which created a depressed economy in India, and thus differential outcomes for the Muslims and Hindus, the two protagonists. That led to the ‘communal’ division, based on economic interests, and religion was used as an instrument to achieve political goals.

Another pitfall for Indian Muslims was the absence of a ‘national bourgeoisie’, an important condition for building a viable ‘nation state’. The feudal, under the shadows of British colonial administration, acquired material benefits and lacked the incentive for investing in productive industrial or other outputs.

In the final analysis, if the Indian Muslim elite could negotiate a separate country, against heavy odds, the will to power by the communities within the present day Pakistan could harbinger a viable confederation, like Canada. It is the praetorian feudal combination that keeps the crisis on a burner, always bubbling with hot water, threatening to undo the country.

 

Origins of Muslim Consciousness in India: A World System Perspective

By Syed Nesar Ahmad

Greenwood Press, NY. Available with Vanguard Books, 45 The Mall, Lahore Tel: 042-7243783

Email: vbl@brain.net.pk

ISBN 0-313-27331-6

311pp. Price not listed

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