Page 7 - Pakistan Link - August 21, 2020

OPINION
India and Pakistan: Searching for Humanity in the Age of Madness - I
n By Dr Akbar Ahmed
American University
Washington, DC
My article will be in
three parts. The first
will be called Madness,
the second Hatred and the third
Hope. I will then
present my con-
clusions.
Madness:
Bernard-Hen-
ri Levy, the French as rapists and murderers. 2018’s
celebrity philoso-
pher, has coined the phrase for
the period in which we are living
as the age of madness. The coro-
navirus, he has argued, is reveal-
ing the fault-lines that divide
society. We in South Asia appear
to be living in our own bubble of
hyper-madness within the age of
madness.
There is a battle brewing that
will define not only India but the
entire region. If the mood of un-
checked hate grows in India, a
clash with Pakistan will be inevi-
table and it could involve a nucle-
ar exchange. The leaders of India
can huff and puff against Pakistan
but in their heart of hearts they
can never be sure that Pakistan, if
attacked and backed into a corner,
would not press the nuclear but-
ton.
The two nuclear armed na-
tions appear to be teetering on
the brink of conflict. You would
expect the leaders to tip-toe back
from the brink. That is not the
case. Now with the China-India
confrontation in the Himalayas
the situation becomes even more
dangerous and complicated.
There are now three nuclear pow-
ers rubbing against each other in
and around Kashmir, and with
the US explicitly lining up with
India, it makes four. Soon it may
be too late for South Asia.
It is this uncertainty that
gives the confrontation an exis-
tentialist edge. A single minute
miscalculation could plunge the
entire region into apocalyptic
chaos. It would be an extinction
level event. Let those planning
nuclear destruction of the enemy
understand there will be no win-
ners. Mutual destruction is as-
sured.
In the sci-fi classic The Planet
of the Apes when a nuclear apoca-
lypse destroys the planet the only
victors are the apes. The last lines
of The Planet of the Apes are as
eloquent as any of Shakespeare’s.
They could be the epitaph for
South Asia if we continue on the
current path of madness: “You
finally really did it. You maniacs.
You blew it up. God damn you.
God damn you all to hell.”
Hatred:
There are two sets of griev-
ances poisoning the atmosphere
in South Asia
and we need to navigate be-
tween them. The Hindu sees real
or imagined insults and humilia-
tion under Muslim rule over the
centuries. Muslim grievances are
more recent. They see themselves
as victims of Hindu prejudice and
violent hatred in the last decades
of independent India dominated
by Hindu culture and politics.
I could give dozens of exam-
ples from newspaper reports and
widely seen videos of the horrific
violence against Muslims in India.
The controversy around Panipat,
the recent Bollywood historical
blockbuster about an invading
Afghan warrior king, that erupted
last year in India was not an iso-
lated incident. Just as President
Donald Trump had labeled immi-
grants coming to the US from the
Latin south as rapists and murder-
ers, Bollywood had aggressively
begun to make films depicting
Muslims coming from the north
Padmaavat about Alauddin Kh-
ilji depicted him in this negative
light. There is already a full-blown
campaign to malign the historical
image of Tipu Sultan, ruler of the
south Indian Kingdom of Mysore
and once seen as a celebrated na-
tionalist Indian ruler (and Prime
Minister Imran Khan’s hero).
Songs like the one by Laxmi
Dubey threatening to “perform
ceremonies with bullets,” and “cut
off the tongues of enemies who
talk against Ram” are blasted into
Muslim neighborhoods to intimi-
date them.
Mobs of Hindus armed with
staffs go out looking for members
of the minority communities and
kill them often aided by the po-
lice. All the while the gang films
the gory details on videos that
are then widely circulated. In the
mayhem, Hindu sadhus, Dalit,
Christians and even nuns have
been attacked.
Muslims have been targeted
in the name of “cow protection”
by the mobs. Muslims are now
accused of bringing coronavirus
as part of their “Corona jihad.”
The Coronavirus upon its arrival
on the subcontinent turned ev-
erything upside down. Indeed,
the Indian establishment reacted
with Pavlovian predictability by
blaming it on Muslims/Pakistan.
Even medical doctors, discarding
the Hippocratic Oath, have made
public statements blaming Mus-
lims for spreading the coronavi-
rus and advising the hospital staff
not to treat them as they would be
better dead.
A leader in the Hindu nation-
alist Dharm Jagran Samiti organi-
zation announced on television a
target to “finish Islam and Chris-
tianity” in the country by the year next emperor of India? “Oh, my
2022, while a member of the Leg-
islative Assembly from the ruling
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in
Uttar Pradesh, the nation’s most
populous state, set a date of 2024
when India would be exclusively
Hindu and spoke of the “animal-
istic tendency” of Muslims.
From the harsh lockdown
in Kashmir, to the lynching and
The two nuclear armed
nations appear to be
teetering on the brink
of conflict. You would
expect the leaders to tip-
toe back from the brink.
That is not the case.
Now with the China-
India confrontation
in the Himalayas the
situation becomes even
more dangerous and
complicated. There
are now three nuclear
powers rubbing against
each other in and around
Kashmir, and with the
US explicitly lining up
with India, it makes four.
Soon it may be too late
for South Asia
burnings across India, to the citi- Azad.
zenship laws that make Muslims
third-class citizens in their own
land, to the media and police on-
slaught, the Muslims of India are
reeling. In the public’s mind Mus-
lims and Pakistan are fused and
the hatred easily shifts from one
to the other. The acclaimed Indi-
an novelist Arundhati Roy speaks
of a “crisis of hatred against Mus- philosophy of non-violence in In-
lims.”
The tragedy is that the preju- shot at by the national secretary
dice is accompanied by ignorance.
How many politicians and media
pundits know of Babar’s beautiful
www.PakistanLink.com
AUGUST 21, 2020 – PAKISTAN LINK – P7
letter written just before he died
to his son Humayun who was the
son,” begins the letter, keep your
“heart cleansed of religious bigot-
ry,” see that “temples and abodes
of worship of every community,
should not be damaged,” “bring
together the diverse religions” “in
particular refrain from the sacri-
fice of cows,” and “dispense justice emotions and human feelings.
according to the tenets of each
community.” Islam is best served
by “The sword of kindness, not by
the sword of oppression.” Babar’s
celebrated autobiography reflects
exactly the same spirit of inclu-
siveness and generosity. Presi-
dents and Prime Ministers today,
and not only in South Asia, could
learn a great deal about gover-
nance and humanity from Babar.
For those who claim Muslims
contributed nothing to India, let
me state that we cannot con-
template Indian culture or his-
tory without the Muslim imprint
whether it is in art, architecture
or political leadership. I could
give an endless list of Muslim
contributions starting with two
of India’s most iconic symbols—
the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort.
The prejudice against Muslims is
also a betrayal of those Muslims
who marched for Independence
shoulder to shoulder with the
Mahatma like Ghaffar Khan, the
Frontier Gandhi, and Maulana
Although India’s founding fa-
thers Mahatma Gandhi and Pan-
dit Nehru promoted coexistence
between the religions, their vision
of modern India is facing an ex-
istential crisis. There were many
tell-tale symbols of the ignomini-
ous rejection of Gandhi and his
dia; Gandhi’s ashes being stolen;
Gandhi’s image being publicly
of the Hindu Mahasabha orga-
nization; Gandhi’s killer being
hailed by the title “Mahatma,”
temples being constructed in his
honor and a cult of personality
built around him; above all the
overt rejection of ahimsa or non-
violence and the frequent explo-
sions of violence.
Hope:
Theories of geopolitics that
dominate local thinking are based
in modern constructs that calcu-
late on the basis of the zero-sum
equation and the clash of civiliza-
tions in which the aim is not to
merely defeat the enemy but ex-
termination. These theories rarely
if ever take into account human
Continued next week.
(Akbar Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun
Chair of Islamic Studies, School
of International Service, Ameri-
can University, Washington DC,
and former High Commissioner
from Pakistan to the UK and Ire-
land delivered this lecture at the
ISSI, Islamabad, 6 August 2020.
Dr Rajmohan Gandhi was the
discussant and Ambassador Ai-
zaz Chaudhry moderated.)
SHOWERS FROM P6
George Floyd, the heart knows that
his blood was not in vain. And that
of innumerable innocents through
decades of police brutality and in-
stitutionalized racism. But the
road is long. And we must see this
through.
With the weird dysphoria that
Covid-19 has created and the re-
peated assaults one has had to suf-
fer; I don’t have to wait for the other
shoe to fall. They’re falling one after
another; a veritable shower of shoes.
(Mahjabeen Islam is an addic-
tion and family medicine physician
practicing in Toledo Ohio. - mahja-
been.islam@gmail.com)
CORDOBA FROM P11
Ziryab mandated that the meals be
served in several courses, starting
with soup and ending with des-
sert and dry fruits, practices later
adopted by European society, that
have survived to this day.
Robert Lebling, an American
author and literary critic, in his
scholarly essay in Saudi Aramco
World has recounted the practices
that are credited to Ziryab that
changed the culture norms of the
Andalusian royal court forever.
The sartorial practices in Cordoba
had not changed for ages, people
dressed either for winter or sum-
mer. Ziryab persuaded them to
adapt to wearing a range of cloth-
ing suited to shifting weather con-
ditions. He focused his attention
on female needs as well, starting
beauty parlors in today’s parlance.
He brought astrologers from India
and Jewish physicians to Cordoba.
Indians also brought with them the
game of chess which became pop-
ular with the masses and spread to
Europe.
Emir Abdur Rehman II,
Ziryab’s mentor and friend, died
in 852 after ruling for 30 glorious
years. Five years later, Ziryab fol-
lowed him in death. By that time,
the Emirate of Andalusia was on a
firm path to stability and prosper-
ity. It reached its zenith during the
reign of Caliph Abdur Rehman
III (912-929), the eighth and the
greatest Umayyad ruler and the
first Caliph. While the country
scaled unprecedented new heights,
it never produced another “black
bird” of Cordoba.
(The writer is a former assis-
tant professor Harvard Medical
School and a retired Health Sci-
entist Administrator, US National
Institutes of Health)