Page 7 - Pakistan Link - December 31, 2021

OPINION DECEMBER 31, 2021 – PAKISTAN LINK – P7
India and Pakistan Searching for Humanity in the Age of Madness

n By Dr Akbar Ahmed tween Hindus and Muslims. This is, however,

American University an incorrect reading of history. As an anthro-
Washington, DC pologist I will share the following personal ex-
amples which throw light on the subject and
adness challenge the idea of an immutable confronta-
Bernard-Henri Levy, the tion between the two faiths.

MFrench celebrity philosopher, has The first example is of the esteemed Hin-
coined the phrase for the period in which we du scholar Nirad C. Chaudhuri. In the 1960s
are living as the age of mad- I had read Nirad Babu’s classic The Continent

ness. The coronavirus, he of Circe: Being an Essay on the Peoples of In-

has argued, is revealing the dia. Impressed by Nirad Babu’s knowledge of
fault-lines that divide society. the Subcontinent and attention to detail, I de-
We in South Asia appear to cided to interview him for my own book Re-
be living in our own bubble sistance and Control in Pakistan (Routledge,
of hyper-madness within the 1991) when I was based in Cambridge in the
age of madness. late 1980s.

There is a battle brewing that will de- I thought he might have insights into the

fine not only India but the entire region. If region of Waziristan to add something new to

the mood of unchecked hate grows in India, my perspective. At first those who acted as his
a clash with Pakistan will be inevitable and it minders in Oxford where he lived were reluc-

could involve a nuclear exchange. The lead- tant to give me access and asked many ques-
ers of India can huff and puff against Pakistan tions as to why I wanted to see him. A nona-

but in their hearts of hearts, they can never be genarian, he was also something of a celebrity
sure that Pakistan, if attacked and backed into videos that are then widely circulated. In the hatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru promoted curiosity. Nirad Babu was 5 feet in height but
a corner, would not press the nuclear button. mayhem, Hindu sadhus, Dalit, Christians and coexistence between the religions, their vision intellectually he towered over those around

The two nuclear-armed nations appear even nuns have been attacked. of modern India is facing an existential crisis. him. On his hundredth birthday, the Queen
to be teetering on the brink of conflict. You Muslims have been targeted in the name There were many tell-tale symbols of the igno- and the President of Oxford University sent

would expect the leaders to tip-toe back from of “cow protection” by the mobs. Muslims are minious rejection of Gandhi and his philoso- messages of congratulations.
the brink. That is not the case. Now with the now accused of bringing coronavirus as part of phy of non-violence in India; Gandhi’s ashes When I told his minders I had been

China-India confrontation in the Himalayas, their “Corona jihad.” The Coronavirus upon being stolen; Gandhi’s image being publicly Sub-Divisional Magistrate or Assistant Com-
the situation becomes even more dangerous its arrival on the subcontinent turned every- shot at by the national secretary of the Hindu missioner in charge of Kishoreganj, Nirad

and complicated. There are now three nucle- thing upside down. Indeed, the Indian estab- Mahasabha organization; Gandhi’s killer being Babu’s hometown, in Mymensingh District,
ar powers rubbing against each other in and lishment reacted with Pavlovian predictabil- hailed by the title “Mahatma,” temples being I was immediately invited to Oxford. Once
around Kashmir, and with the US explicitly ity by blaming it on Muslims/Pakistan. Even constructed in his honor and a cult of per- there he asked intelligent questions based on
lining up with India, it makes four. Soon it medical doctors, discarding the Hippocratic sonality built around him; above all the overt his readings of Waziristan: he asked about the
may be too late for South Asia. Oath, have made public statements blaming rejection of ahimsa or non-violence and the river Tochi and about the legendary Fakir of
It is this uncertainty that gives the con- Muslims for spreading the coronavirus and frequent explosions of violence. Ipi. In between the volley of questions, he de-

frontation an existentialist edge. A single advising the hospital staff not to treat them as livered brief lectures on the tribes and terrain
minute miscalculation could plunge the en- they would be better dead. Hope of Waziristan. Nirad Babu had the reputation

tire region into apocalyptic chaos. It would be A leader in the Hindu nationalist Dharm Theories of geopolitics that dominate lo- of being a walking encyclopedia and I was not
an extinction-level event. Let those planning Jagran Samiti organization announced on tele- disappointed.

nuclear destruction of the enemy understand vision a target to “finish Islam and Christian- But it was his hometown at the other end
there will be no winners. Mutual destruction ity” in the country by the year 2022, while a I am encouraged that beneath of the Subcontinent in Kishoreganj that was

is assured. member of the Legislative Assembly from the the bluster and hatred and on his mind. He had left his family home in

In the sci-fi classic The Planet of the Apes ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Kishoreganj in what became East Pakistan and

when a nuclear apocalypse destroys the planet Pradesh, the nation’s most populous state, set violence there is still humanity. found himself a refugee first in India and then

the only victors are the apes. The last lines of a date of 2024 when India would be exclusively Hindus must never forget that in England. To him, I became a link, however
The Planet of the Apes are as eloquent as any Hindu and spoke of the “animalistic tendency” weak, with his own past. Again and again, he

of Shakespeare’s. They could be the epitaph of Muslims. the Quaid while protecting a came back to Kishoreganj, soaking up infor-

for South Asia if we continue on the current From the harsh lockdown in Kashmir group of Hindus being attacked mation like a thirsty traveler gulping water. He
path of madness: “You finally really did it. You to the lynching and burnings across India, to by Muslims in Karachi, declared asked many questions about his home, which

maniacs. You blew it up. God damn you. God the citizenship laws that make Muslims third- I had visited while on a tour of the area. My
damn you all to hell.” class citizens in their own land, to the media himself, “the Protector General visit was a homage to his scholarship, and little
and police onslaught, the Muslims of India of the Hindu community in did I imagine that one day I would meet him.
Hatred are reeling. In the public’s mind, Muslims and It was a large rural house and kept in good

There are two sets of grievances poison- Pakistan are fused and the hatred easily shifts Pakistan” and in his rst condition by the family retainers. Every time

ing the atmosphere in South Asia and we need from one to the other. The acclaimed Indian speeches to the Constituent I reminded him that it was getting late for my

to navigate between them. The Hindu sees real novelist Arundhati Roy speaks of a “crisis of train, he suggested I take a later train. That

or imagined insults and humiliation under hatred against Muslims.” Assembly guaranteed the afternoon, we were two exiles from a beautiful

Muslim rule over the centuries. Muslim griev- The tragedy is that prejudice is accompa- security and religious freedom of land united by our distant memories of it.

ances are more recent. They see themselves as nied by ignorance. How many politicians and When I requested a blurb from him for

victims of Hindu prejudice and violent hatred media pundits know of Babar’s beautiful letter the minorities in Pakistan; just my book, he readily agreed. That encounter
in the last decades of independent India domi- written just before he died to his son Huma- as Muslims must never forget in Oxford, my reaching out to an old man in
nated by Hindu culture and politics. yun who was the next emperor of India? “Oh, that Mahatma Gandhi gave exile still yearning for his homeland across
I could give dozens of examples from my son,” begins the letter, keep your “heart the world, was an act typical of the composite
newspaper reports and widely seen videos of cleansed of religious bigotry,” see that “temples his life protecting the rights of culture of South Asia; his response by giving

the horrific violence against Muslims in India. and abodes of worship of every community, the Muslims. For the admirers a stranger the gift of a blurb for his book was

The controversy around Panipat, the recent should not be damaged,” “bring together the an equally generous South Asian gesture. His

Bollywood historical blockbuster about an in- diverse religions” “in particular refrain from of the Quaid, as indeed I am, excellent blurb graces the cover of my book:
vading Afghan warrior king, that erupted last the sacrifice of cows,” and “dispense justice we should appreciate that the “Akbar Ahmed’s book is in a great tradition of

year in India was not an isolated incident. Just according to the tenets of each community.” the greatest British administrators—Sir Alfred

as President Donald Trump had labeled immi- Islam is best served by “The sword of kind- Mahatma addressed Mr Jinnah Lyall, Sir William Hunter, and Sir Denzil Ib-
grants coming to the US from the Latin south ness, not by the sword of oppression.” Babar’s with respect as Quaid-i-Azam betson. Ahmed is also like them, an anthro-
as rapists and murderers, Bollywood had ag- celebrated autobiography reflects exactly the pologist administrator.”

gressively begun to make films depicting Mus- same spirit of inclusiveness and generosity. Another towering Indian intellectual and
lims coming from the north as rapists and Presidents and Prime Ministers today, and not cal thinking are based on modern constructs an ex-Supreme Court judge, V. R. Krishna
murderers. 2018’s Padmaavat about Alauddin only in South Asia, could learn a great deal that calculate on the basis of the zero-sum Iyer, also reached out to me in this spirit of
Khilji depicted him in this negative light. about governance and humanity from Babar. equation and the clash of civilizations in inclusive humanism. He reviewed my 1992

There is already a full-blown campaign For those who claim Muslims contributed which the aim is not to merely defeat the en- book Postmodernism and Islam: Predicament
to malign the historical image of Tipu Sultan, nothing to India, let me state that we cannot emy but extermination. These theories rarely and Promise thus: “Discovering Akbar Ahmed

ruler of the south Indian Kingdom of Mysore contemplate Indian culture or history with- if ever take into account human emotions and through his brilliant book Discovering Islam

and once seen as a celebrated nationalist In- out the Muslim imprint whether it is in art, human feelings. was my first experience … Ahmed is, above
dian ruler (and Prime Minister Imran Khan’s architecture, or political leadership. I could Seeing the ugly confrontation between all, human and so is his book. I am in love with
hero). Songs like the one by Laxmi Dubey give an endless list of Muslim contributions India and Pakistan and the disgusting acts of both” (Iyer in Economic and Political Weekly,
threatening to “perform ceremonies with bul- starting with two of India’s most iconic sym- violence that it has generated on the Subcon- 7 November 1992, Bombay.)

lets,” and “cut off the tongues of enemies who bols — the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort. The tinent it is understandable to see Hindus and My next examples of the many at hand

talk against Ram” are blasted into Muslim prejudice against Muslims is also a betrayal Muslims and Indians and Pakistanis as eternal are of a Sikh and a Hindu. The former was my
neighborhoods to intimidate them. of those Muslims who marched for Indepen- foes with undying hatred for each other. And teaching assistant at American University. I
Mobs of Hindus armed with staffs go out dence shoulder to shoulder with the Mahatma Muslim mobs in Pakistan and Bangladesh asked her to reflect on our time together. “You

looking for members of the minority commu- like Ghaffar Khan, the Frontier Gandhi, and have exhibited similar violent hatred towards have been a mentor, a friend, and someone
nities and kill them often aided by the police. Maulana Azad. their Hindu and other minorities. One might who has led me to view not only Islam but my

All the while the gang films the gory details on Although India’s founding fathers Ma- assume that there is nothing but hatred be- own religion, Sikhism, with a new perspec-
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