One can assert that human civilisation is a fulfilling outcome of historical interaction between different groups of peoples from diverse backgrounds. But the process also has its flip side; groups involved can deny or at least undervalue the existence of such interaction for reasons known and less known, conscious and subconscious.

The interaction between two groups, for example, works neither smoothly nor does it produce the similar effects for each concerned. Each is impacted in a particular way depending on the balance of power. On the one hand, it helps create a new vision and way of life and on the other it brings to surface resentment and antagonisms which are rooted in the very nature of relationship between the interacting groups. In the process, one group generally emerges more powerful than the other. Such newly-gained power creates conditions whereby hegemony of one group is established. So fissures bordering on conflict emerges between the dominant and the dominated with the risk of squandering the fruits of interaction.

Interestingly, position of power or weakness is neither fixed nor permanent; it keeps changing with the change in historical conditions. This is exactly what we witness in the history of the subcontinent. Ancient inhabitants of India in post-Harappa era did not call themselves Hindu as there was no single term that could describe them as they were not of single denomination in terms of race, faith, language and culture. They were diverse races with myriad religious and cultural practices. It were foreigners or outsiders who coined a term for all of them as initially they could hardly make distinctions between various groups. They lumped them together and gave them an over-arching geographical description that has endured giving them identity which began to signify more than their geography with the passage of time.

“Hindu is not a native word but comes from a word for the river (Sindhu) that Herodotus (in the fifth century BCE), the Persians (in the fourth BCE), and the Arabs (after the eighth century CE) used to refer to everyone who lived beyond the great river of the northwest of the subcontinent, still locally known as the Sindhu and in Europe as the Indus…,” writes historian Wendy Doniger in her remarkable book The Hindus.

The Arabs captured Sindh in 712 AD and gradually extended their occupation to the ancient city of Multan in Punjab but they made no further inroads as their trade in the coastal areas proved a major source of their prosperity.

“Yet this was no invasion like the others, but a warning of much more important events to come. But Indians lived on, unconcerned,” writes Amaury De Riencourt in his The Soul of India. He writes further: “All over the Muslim world, the Arabs were soon superseded by the tough ‘Romans’ of Islam, the dour, uncultured Turks of Central Asia. Muslim imperialism in India proper started when the Turks stepped onto the scene of history, not before.”

‘India proper’, according to Dharama Shastras, was in the east beyond the river Bias and that’s the area that eventually became the centre of the invading Turks and others paving the way for a new syncretic culture which still endures despite the political division of India in 1947 into two states. It is fair to claim that newly-arrived foreign Muslims and converts from the local population could not fully absorb/retain what one may call Hindu influences despite being part of Indian society which has been/is predominantly Hindu in religious and cultural practices, and intellectual outlook. Likewise Hindus despite being ruled by foreign Muslim kings for centuries did not accept all that was offered by way of dominant elite culture. Having said that one can say that interaction took place and, give and take happened in the course of time with intended and unintended consequences. Even after the bloodied Partition and independence of erstwhile East Bengal as independent Bangladesh, unmistakable signs of enduring historical interaction and its consequences are there for all to see.

Hindus are no longer what they were before the start of the Muslim rule and Muslims with local and non-local roots are no longer what they professed to be while converting or what they were at the time of their arrival in India from foreign lands. Firstly, local and non-local Muslims are indistinguishable as the both have similar social and cultural practices evolved over thousands of years in the subcontinent. Secondly, Muslims in India, and even in Pakistan and Bangladesh share the Indian culture if not specifically Hindu that may evoke religious image of what is called Hinduism.

Hinduism is used for lack of better term as it is not an organised religion with single source of authority like Islam and Christianity. Pluralism has been the hallmark of India which is being systematically destroyed under the influence of re-invigorated exclusive doctrine of Hindutva propounded by D.V. Savarkar in 1922. It’s all the rage in today’s India. It ideologically and politically aims at the elimination of what history has produced enriching the sub-continental social and cultural scape. The ill-conceived effort shall fail if history is the evidence.

Hindutva clan cannot eject from India’s spiritual firmament the illumination of Muslim mystics who epitomised the hopes and aspirations of the oppressed castes and classes. What Indian languages borrowed from the Arabic, Persian and Turkish cannot simply be wished away. Foreign food recopies introduced by non-local Muslims are now an inseparable part of the wonderful Indian cuisine that has gone international. They would not be able to do away with what Muslims added to history writing, literary taste and sense of dressing, for example, in the subcontinent. If they succeed they would be left much impoverished.

Likewise Muslims in India and, Pakistan and Bangladesh cannot disown what they legitimately inherited from their Indian ancestors and the long history of India. Their rituals at birth and death are the same except few minor religious differences. They eat the same kind of food and dress in the same way. They have the same family structure and the same socio-cultural norms. All the state-backed religious dogmatism in Pakistan has failed to wean them off the so-called Hindu practices. Meaningful peace can prevail if Hindus do not eject from their system what they got from Muslims and Muslims do not throw away what they inherited from their Hindu (and Buddhist) ancestors. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2022

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