Book Review – The Islamic Connection: South Asia and the Gulf

This is true that after independence during 1971 India-Pakistan war which led to liberation of Bangladesh. The then Pakistan’s President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who took over after the surrender of his country’s armed forces, went on a ‘journey of resistance’ to Muslim countries seeking money to build an ‘Islamic bomb’. Saudi Arabia gave a loan of $20 million to Pakistan. From here onward, interdependence and closeness between Saudi and Pakistan even increased more. The Wahhabization of Pakistan would begin soon afterwards during the rule of Zia ul-Haq.

End game of USA was to contain ‘communism’ in South Asia. USA was afraid of proliferation of communism due to domino effect. In fact, in the recent UNGA 2019, Pakistan prime minister, Imran Khan has admitted the same thing. He confessed in his long speech that Pakistan was financial backed by the USA to build ‘Jihadis’. But the disintegration of USSR during 90s led to the end of cold of war. After end war USA’s project becomes irrelevant. Those trained Jihadis fired back on Pakistan itself. End game of Saudi with respect to USA was that Saudi wanted itself to refrain from ‘Arab Spring’. USA helped Saudi but in return asked help to contain ‘communism’ through Wahabism. 

Indo-Islamic civilization different from Middle Eastern variants of ‘Muslimness’
Jaffrelot mentions that for centuries, the Indian subcontinent was imbued with an Indo-Islamic civilization that did not share much with the Middle Eastern variants of ‘Muslimness’. I completely agree with this notion because even in India a part of Muslim community celebrates “Chhath Pooja” in eastern side. In the same eastern region like Bihar, Bengal and North East, some Muslim women uses ‘Sindoor’ at the forehead. Even Muslims in Indian subcontinent including Pakistan and Bangladesh might be Muslims by religion, but they are Hindu by tradition. Have you ever noticed the ‘Mehandi Rasam’ in the marriage practices in the Arab world? It all just because of shared history between Hinduism and Islam.

However, Muslim elites have been trying to destroy the diversities within the Muslims communities by homogenizing them. By and large Pakistan has been successful in homogenization but diversity within the Muslim community still exists in India. Zia-ul-Haq during his reign reads “There is no such thing as South Asian Islam. There is only one true Islam, based on the Qur’an and the Prophet Muhammad.” That’s why Tarek fatah in his book “An illusion of an Islamic state” says that Muslim population in Pakistan lives in ‘Islamic state’ but Muslim population in India lives in the ‘state of Islam’. However, Christophe Jaffrelot in this also claims that it began to change after the decline and the demise of the Mughal Empire, a time when Indian Muslims felt the need to turn towards an Islamic authority that they could only find in the Middle East.

Rise of Muslim Nationalism and caste system in Indian Islam
During the decline of Mughal empire in India, along with looking toward the Arab, India saw a rise of Muslim Nationalism, “Indian Muslims from the intelligentsia developed a new, nationalist ideology in reaction to the post-1857 British repression and the rise to power (economic as well as political) of the Hindus in North India.” during the rise of Muslim intelligentsia, Islam developed a caste system. Nationalism always exist in binary: one in superior and other is inferior. In order to create a binary, a class within class was developed. This led to the caste system in Indian Islam. 

This book pointed out that “The aristocratic, upper caste background of this intelligentsia led them take pride in their Middle Eastern origins. Indeed, the so-called noble (Ashraf) upper castes are made up of descendants of Muslims who (allegedly) migrated to India from abroad, whereas those who converted to Islam after it spread throughout the Indian territory make up the two lower categories, the Ajlafs (lower castes) and the Arzals (formerly Untouchables).” In this way also, Muslims of Indian subcontinent have adopted the Hindu tradition of caste system. Before reading this book, I was letting caste system as artificial but in facts it is natural. It is created to exercise power and show oneself as superior over another through elitisms.

Present scenario
In fact, I agree with the writer that Muslims of south Asia and Muslims of the Arab can be common in the sense of ‘follower of same god i.e. Allah’, ‘following same book i.e. Quran’ and ‘followers of same religion i.e. Islam’ but they are and should be separated in the sense of civilization. I agree with the Sindhi ideologue, Ghulam Murtaza Syed who used to say, “I am Sindhi for 5,000 years, I am Muslim for 1400 years, I am Pakistani for 63 years.” On the same line Indian Muslims must let themselves as Indians for more than 5000 and Muslim for nearly 1400 years. 

I recently heard the interview of Munawar Rana on citizenship amendment act and the notion of Pakistan where he says “Don’t say me to go Pakistan, if you want to send me other countries then send me to Arab”. It is the reality of modern Muslim elites who have been trying to connect themselves with Arab and appeal for homogenization of Muslims for the sake of same book, same god and same religion. 

Homogenization of any society will lead to the confrontation among the communities. To live in a peaceful society, diversity is needed. Today, Fruit of diversity and tolerance has made India to move far ahead of Pakistan. In spite of much smaller and less diverse than our India, Pakistan is more vulnerable in terms of clashes among societies than India.