Ten years ago Prof. Anthony Parel wrote-
India, from about the middle of the nineteenth century, had become a laboratory for testing two contrasting hypotheses. The first was that religion should be the basis of the nation and therefore inseparable from the state. The second was that religion should not be the basis of the nation, and therefore the state should be neutral towards religions.Is this true? Briefly, the answer is no. India had been united by the British who were neutral towards religion. They also had no particular preconceived idea of what the territorial limits or internal structure of India should be. Administrative convenience and military logistics was the only criteria which guided their actions. So long as Britain was unchallenged at sea, India enjoyed a long peace so administrative convenience, not military considerations, gained salience. This in turn led to the spontaneous emergence of the movements, associated with capturing rent seeking opportunities in the administration, which gave India its present internal structure and external borders. Essentially this internal structure and these external borders minimize costly conflict of a military or internecine sort.
Hindus, it turns out, don't want to slit each others throats provided they are free to use their own mother tongue and that 'sons of the soil' secure the lion's share of government jobs and other sources of rent extraction. No doubt, Hindus have their own sectarian and regional differences but they also have a conception of 'Bharatvarsha' or 'Jambudvipa' or 'Mother India' as a unified topos of great spiritual significance. Thus the Sindhi may make a pilgrimage to the far South and the Tamil eagerly reciprocates. The Telugu speaker was prepared to elect the Hindi speaking Mrs. Gandhi when she lost from her home turf and the Bihari Hindu was happy to repeatedly re-elect a Catholic from Mangalore.
The Hindu religion is the basis of India. Those parts of it where Hinduism is not predominant or otherwise normative are characterised by separatist movements. Since Hinduism seems to have lost any desire to grab fresh territory and convert their populations, it does not valorise violence save in self-defence or retaliation.
Prof. Parel takes a different view-
The first hypothesis underlies the political thought of such Muslim thinkers as Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938), Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948), Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi (1903–79), and Sayyid Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi (1914–99). The second hypothesis underlies the political thought of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869–1948) and Abul Kalam Azad (1888–1958). The experiments conducted to verify these hypotheses produced two major results. The first was the Partition of India along religious lines, giving rise to the formation of three sovereign states. The second was the movement of Muslim nationalism towards Islamist fundamentalism, giving rise to “the culture of jihad” (Akbar 2002: 190)
This is sheer nonsense. There wasn't much difference between Azad and Maududi. Both opposed Partition, except that Azad was much the more eminent man and could stay on in India as a member of the Cabinet. He had gambled on having a status of parity with Gandhi or Gandhi's Hindu successor on the basis of a 50-50 power sharing split. This required there to be a weak confederation and also that Muslim majority states would abide by what Jinnah called 'the hostage theory'- i.e. they wouldn't rob and ethnically cleanse their non-Muslim population to sate what Iqbal called the 'zamin bhook' (land hunger) of their cultivators, for fear of what would happen to their co-religionists in Hindu dominated areas.
Jinnah, unlike Azad, had good reason to be suspicious of Congress. He had served the common cause well only to be sidelined when it seemed certain of victory. Then, in 1928, when he was negotiating a pact on behalf of the Muslims but was called away because of his wife's illness, Congress had taken advantage of his junior's inexperience. Again and again, Jinnah felt slighted by Congress and, truth be told, they really had little use for him and took little pains to disguise their contempt.
Had Jinnah been treated well by Congress and had he felt they could get along in good faith, then the only difference between him and Azad would have been as to which of them should be the Muslim leader of the sub-continent who would hold a place of equality with a Hindu leader - perhaps by alternating the offices of President and Prime Minister- within a loose federation.
However, this did not militate to friendly relations between them. Azad despised Jinnah because he was little versed in Islam's glorious theology while Jinnah despised Azad as a naive 'show-boy' of the Hindus who had been gulled by the Mahatma.
Iqbal had a slightly different viewpoint. He thought the caste-ridden Hindus would never embrace Socialism whereas the Muslims would do so because, don't you see, Lenin was actually halfway to becoming a Muslim when he said 'There is no God', while the 'shahada' (confession of Faith) requires just the additional line 'but God and Mohammad is his prophet. Though theoretically 'Islam pasand' rather than 'Wataniya'- i.e. a Pan Islamist rather than Natonalist- as witness- Taza Khudaon Me Bada Sabse Watan Hai / Jo Pairhan Iska Hai Wo Millat Ka Kafan Hai (among the new idols the biggest is 'the Nation'/ Its accoutrements are the shroud of the Muslim Community)- his vision of Pakistan corresponds pretty well with what we now have.
Maulana Nadwi, was more an erudite expositor of what was already a fossilised doctrine rather than an original thinker. By choosing to remain in India after Partition, his trajectory was constrained in certain important respects. A general duty of Jihad was off the table because it would have simply meant extermination at the hands of the Hindu majority.
After the '65 War, when Indian Muslims- including Kashmiris- were deemed to have shown loyalty to the Hindu dominated State, the position of Muslims improved though they never regained anything like parity. In the Eighties, Nadwi did assert himself a little and was highly regarded by some elderly people. However, the rise of a violent Salafi Islam rendered his vision irrelevant in the post 9/11 world.
This was a pity because Nadwi, like Azad, was a great scholar of Arabic and had an influence far beyond our borders in the Sixties. At that time, the Arab nationalists wanted a strong united India because they too wished to escape the grip of neo-colonialism. The appreciated the Maulana's scholarship, rationality and wide knowledge of the contemporary world and could easily forgive his criticism of Nasser or the Ba'athists as the maunderings of an impotent, proverbially simple minded, Indian.
Parel takes a different view. He lumps Nadvi- who knew the Muslims in India would fall behind and have to accept a subordinate status- along with Maududi, who moved to Pakistan and attempted organised his followers to seek a dominant role in forging the new countries future. Logically, Nadvi belongs with Azad. They remained in India and made the best of a bad job.
Maududi, too, is more like Azad than Jinnah. After all, Azad had founded a party called 'Hizbollah' before the first world war and much of his voluminous writing is still quoted by people aligned with or inspired by Maududi.
Iqbal and Jinnah had a more European conception- not one based on Pan Islamic theology or the distinctively Indian variants of it- which, in the spirit of the Treaty of Laussane- by whose terms Greek speaking Muslims went to Turkey while Turkish speaking Christians went to Greece- would make religion coincide with specific territorial borders. Jinnah retained a certain ambiguity in this respect- after all he had a lot of property on the wrong side of the border- but Iqbal, who died at a time when the British departure still seemed a distant dream- could afford to be more logical.
Parel was writing ten years ago when, perhaps, jihad still sounded like it might achieve something. We now know different. The thing is about cutting throats and robbing people. If you can make a profit doing it, cool! If not, it doesn't matter what Scripture you were quoting- clearly it wasn't really a jihad, it was either stupidity or just a criminal enterprise- like the late, wholly unlamented, ISIS.
Parel quotes the following passage from Nadvi and draws a curious lesson from it-
'The case of Mr. Gandhi furnishes a striking example. He had set two moral objects before himself from the beginning of his public career, in the service of which he pressed all his energies and resources, and his resources, were so vast, indeed, as have been available to few men in modern times. One of these was, non-violence. He developed it as a creed and a philosophy of life, and made it the very breath of his existence. But as his approach was different from that of the prophets, he could not produce that fundamental change in the minds of his people which is essential to the success of a moral movement. The principle of non-violence was torn to pieces in his own lifetime (during the holocaust of 1947), and, in the end, Mr. Gandhi himself fell a victim to violence. His other objective was the removal of untouchability. In it, too, he did not register any remarkable success. We can, thus, say that the methodology of the prophets is the only sure and successful way of bringing about a radical change for the better in the religious and social affairs of humanity at large (Nadwi 1973: 49n1).Like the Muslims in Independent India, who dared not resort to violence because the retaliation would be asymmetric, and for whom the doors of 'hijrat' were closed because enough spare land was not available in any Muslim country to which they could flee, Gandhi could not use violence to score any victory which might consolidate his hold over the people. Nor could he, like Prophet Moses, lead the people away to some other land of milk and honey (though he did endorse 'desh tyaag'- i.e. abandoning your house and going to stay in the jungle to protest the Municipal authority charging you a sewage cess).
What then could he have done? Well, he could have followed the methodology of the prophets and done ad-dawah al-ilallah- i.e. called the people to Allah.
Since he failed to do so, he could not be a Prophet- i.e. what he said didn't come true- because Allah did not will it so.
Parel takes a different view-
The pivotal concept in the above passage is “the methodology of the prophets.” Since the prophet in context is Muhammad, it is valid to assume, I suppose, that he was referring to his methodology. That methodology of course included the use of force—that is, jihad. If I am right in saying this, Nadwi is criticizing Gandhi for not backing up his political and social goals with violence.Right! The way you persuade people that all violence is futile, is by beating them
He, in other words, should have been an “armed prophet,” to refer to the famous Machiavellian norm.
Very true! Armed prophets alone have promoted the Quaker creed!
To continue with the thought of the Florentine, only armed prophets win, while unarmed prophets lose.Yup! Jesus Christ kicked the shite out of the Romans till they admitted he was indeed the Prince of Peace. That's how Catholicism got its start.
Parel's Gandhi took a different route-
Gandhi, influenced by the Indian notion of ahimsa which is linked to karma, approached political violence in the same way that he approached domestic or any other type of violence. Violence is univocal. It doesn't matter what conception of nationalism or the state or religion or anything else you might have, it is simply wrong. True, there was no virtue in abstaining from violence simply because you were weak or cowardly. It might be better for you, in that case, to fight so as to restore your moral character sufficiently to see the error and futility of this course of action you have taken up.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s thought on question of political violence and religion was shaped by his conceptions of nationalism, the state, religion, and civic friendship.
He was convinced that only with the aid of appropriate theory of nationalism could the problem of political violence and religion be solved satisfactorily.Gandhi held no brief for the Nation State. He wanted village based autarky. Nationalism was a snare and a delusion. Tolstoy was no Nationalist. Gandhi admired Mazzini's 'Duties of Man' but considered that he had taken a wrong turning in embracing a centralised Nation State.
In India three theories of nationalism were competing with each other. There was first the Muslim theory that identified nation and religion. Only in a Muslim “homeland,” it was claimed, could Muslims flourish as Muslims.Nobody had as yet espoused any such theory. The partition of Bengal was not in response to any such demand on the part of Bengali Muslims.
Second, there was the hindutva theory of nationalism, according to which only those who possessed the quality of “Hinduness” could rate as Indian nationals.Once again, no such theory obtained. Savarkar was still talking about how Hindus and Muslims kept cuddling and kissing each other till the Brits took over and devised 'divide and rule'.
This virtually corroborated Jinnah’s “two nations” theory.Which Jinnah did not espouse till much later. At the time he was Gokhale's disciple and would soon come into his own as 'the Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity'.
Then there was Gandhi’s theory of civic nationalism, according to which India was “neither ‘peoples’ nor ‘nations,’ ” but a nation (CWMG 78: 187). The basis of civic nationalism is neither religion nor ethnicity but individual Indians sharing a common history.But this already existed! It was the central assumption on which the Indian National Congress had been set up while Gandhi was still a school-boy!
Indians have evolved historically as a multi-religious and multi-lingual people. Into such an evolutionary process was introduced the modern idea of the individual being a bearer of political rights and responsibilities. In this view, the nation exists to protect and promote, first, the civic interests of the individual, and, second, those of subnational groups. This is Gandhi’s basic position, first articulated in 1909 in Hind Swaraj.Quite untrue. Gandhi is saying 'this is how we think about things now.' He isn't saying this is the truth.
Parel goes on to say-
In his reading of Indian history, the acharyas, or religious philosopher-saints, were the first nation-builders. They established places of pilgrimage in the four quadrants of the country.So India starts as homogeneous on the basis of the actions of Mahatmas who are universally recognised and revered. The network of teerths- sacred fords- they establish constitute Bharatvarsha as a 'karma bhumi'. Others may come into it and one may tolerate them but not permit them to corrupt one's ancestral religion or the true and very ancient spiritual path shown by the great Rishis and Acharyas.
This they did because they had a notion that India, though diverse by language and local cultures, was nevertheless one country.The diversity comes later on as Gujerati becomes distinct from Punjabi and so forth. Gandhi says 'The English have taught us that we were not one nation before and that it will require centuries before we become one nation. This is without foundation. We were one nation before they came to India. One thought inspired us. Our mode of life was the same. It was because we were one nation that they were able to establish one kingdom. Subsequently they divided us.'
Even Abu Rihan Muhammad Alberuni in the eleventh century had spoken of Bharata-varsha as an oicumene, a civilizational unit, with a common worldview and a common moral and political philosophy.Right! Hinduism constituted Hindustan.
Did the introduction of Islam “unmake the nation?,” asks Hind Swaraj. The reply is that it did not. The reason is that Indian civilization is an open civilization and that it has an assimilative capacity. The newcomers, whoever they might be, gradually become part of the whole. Because of this Muslims, Christians, Zoroastrians, and Jews had become part of the greater whole that was India. He readily granted that prejudices against each other had existed among Hindus and Muslims in the past. However, the emerging new middle class was trying to be free of them. The Indian National Congress was the vehicle of civic nationalism. He blamed the shastris (Hindu scholars of learned texts) and the mullahs (Muslim religious teachers or leaders) for driving a political divide between Hindus and Muslims.Gandhi did not know Sanskrit, so he could not take on the Shastris. However, his Dad had been a Dewan of a Princely State and, though illiterate, had kept the peace. Gandhi and Gokhale and other such Congressmen were the true leaders of Hindu Society- not the purohits whom one had to employ to perform humiliating rituals so as to be permitted back into one's caste after a trip across the black water.
The two metaphors that he uses to convey his meaning of civic nationalism—the clay pot and the oceanic circle—help clarify his thought.Gandhi, like most polemicists, did not have clear thoughts. It is a disadvantage in that line of work.
Civic nationalism, he grants, is fragile in India and needs continuous care. It can be broken into pieces if Indians are not careful. A clay pot easily breaks with stones thrown at it. The remedy lies in baking clay pot hard enough so that it would not break.Rubbish! All pots are baked. They still break if you throw a stone at them.
While the metaphor of the clay pot conveys Gandhi’s sense of realism, that of the oceanic circle conveys his sense of national idealism. India is an oceanic circle—inclusive and delimiting at the same time. The term “oceanic” conveys the meanings of inclusiveness and openness. The term “circle” conveys the meaning of limit: any nation, including a civic nation, has to draw the line somewhere to distinguish itself from other nations. What is crucial to this metaphor is the center from which the circle is drawn. The individual is the center from which the oceanic circle is drawn. Any individual may draw as many circles as he or she may wish, provided the circles so drawn, do not breach the outer circumference of the oceanic circle.What a load of shit! The thing is not geometrically possible save on a circular island which has no inhabitants except at its very centre where they all stand on top of each other.
That is to say, in Gandhi’s political vision each individual occupies the center of the nation.Right! Because what happens is everybody consults a map and works out where the centre of the nation is and goes there and stands on the shoulders of someone else while others climb up to stand upon his shoulders.
The circle exists to protect him or her.Circles have no such magical power. If I draw a circle around myself, I will be no safer from a ravenous tiger or brutal rapist.
There could be any number of inner circles drawn by individuals.They would all be equally ineffectual.
It does not matter whether the inner circle represents religion, language, or region.Because drawing circles is silly and has no effect.
The center from which they are drawn remains the same, namely, the individual.Yup, a crazy guy who draws a circle around himself to keep out tigers, and another circle to keep out Jehovah's Witnesses, and another circle to keep out transgender cosmic rays from the Bizzarro Universe, is still the same crazy guy acting in a stupid way.
The individual can have multiple identities.Right! My twitter handle is Honeytits Cumbucket whereas I am described on my business cards as The Great Poo Bah, Soothsayer to the Stars. However, the name on my credit card is something more prosaic.
The nation, in other words, is composite, not monolithic.A nation is only composite because it has many people with wholly different individual identities.
Neither religion nor language defines it.Very true! That's why, if you are posted to France, there is no point learning French. Speaking Tibetan would be just as useful.
The individual may belong to any religious or linguistic circle he or she may wish. The oceanic circle that is India has room for all of them.This was not true at all. If the Amir of Afghanistan or the Ranas of Nepal tried to invade India they would be repulsed by force.
It is sheer stupidity to say that every individual is the centre of the nation and that all the circles which describe their affiliations lie within that nation. Clearly, people living in a border area will have circles that enclose contested areas. The King of Afghanistan had a claim over territory in British India. There was a conflict of loyalty along the Frontier. The same point could be made about people on the Eastern border- like the Rohingyas currently in the news.
Gandhi’s reasons for denying religion as the basis of nation are of course highly relevant to the present discussion.Gandhi, in a naive manner, was trying to articulate the Gokhale line of the Indian National Congress. He made a hash of it.
He had two basic reasons. The first was his liberal conception of nationalism, derived especially from Giuseppe Mazzini. According to this conception, the nation is a political community whose justification is the protection of the rights of the individual.Utterly false! Gandhi thought only duties mattered. Rights were mischievous- he wrote
The English in 1833 obtained greater voting power by violence. Did they by using brute force better appreciate their duty? They wanted the right of voting, which they obtained by using physical force. But real rights are a result of performance of duty; these rights they have not obtained. We, therefore, have before us in England the force of everybody wanting and insisting on his rights, nobody thinking of his duty. And, where everybody wants rights, who shall give them to whom? I do not wish to imply that they do no duties. They don't perform the duties corresponding to those rights; and as they do not perform that particular duty, namely, acquire fitness, their rights have proved a burden to them.Mazzini's 'The Duties of Man' attracted Gandhi. He says-
'Mazzini was a great and good man; Garibaldi was a great warrior. Both are adorable; from their lives we can learn much. But the condition of Italy was different from that of India. In the first instance, the difference between Mazzini and Garibaldi is worth noting. Mazzini's ambition was not and has not yet been realized regarding Italy. Mazzini has shown in his writings on the duty of man that every man must learn how to rule himself. This has not happened in Italy. Garibaldi did not hold this view of Mazzini's. Garibaldi gave, and every Italian took arms. Italy and Austria had the same civilization; they were cousins in this respect. It was a matter of tit for tat. Garibaldi simply wanted Italy to be free from the Austrian yoke. The machinations of Minister Cavour disgrace that portion of the history of Italy. And what has been the result? If you believe that because Italians rule Italy the Italian nation is happy, you are groping in darkness. Mazzini has shown conclusively that Italy did not become free. Victor Emanuel gave one meaning to the expression; Mazzini gave another. According to Emanuel, Cavour and even Garibaldi, Italy meant the King of Italy and his henchmen. According to Mazzini, it meant the whole of the Italian people, that is, its agriculturists. Emanuel was only its servant. The Italy of Mazzini still remains in a state of slavery. At the time of the socalled national war, it was a game of chess between two rival kings with the people of Italy as pawns. The working classes in that land are still unhappy. They, therefore, indulge in assassination, rise in revolt, and rebellion on their part is always expected. What substantial gain did Italy obtain after the withdrawal of the Austrian troops? The gain was only nominal. The reforms for the sake of which the war was supposed to have been undertaken have not yet been granted. The condition of the people in general sill remains the same. I am sure you do not wish to reproduce such a condition in India.What Gandhi is saying is that the rights holder must also have the fitness to discharge the obligation created by the right. He does not believe the State has the capacity to develop any such fitness. Thus it is irrelevant. Self-help is the only way forward. Hence Gandhi's dream of small autonomous, almost wholly autarkic, village republics with little or no connection to any larger political entity. This is not a type of Nationalism. It is pure Anarchism.
Parel says-
India’s transition from monarchy to nation implies the emergence of the rights of the individual as the key question of Indian politics.The British did grant some rights to some individuals but the mass of the people found those rights to involve their own impoverishment- even starvation. Gandhi knew this. What attracted him to Mazzini was his care for the poor.
Parel continues-
Gandhi’s second reason for denying that religion is the basis of the idea of nation is the theory of the purusharthas as interpreted by him.What mistake is Parel making? The answer is that he is failing to distinguish between a reason Gandhi gives and Gandhi's reason for thinking something. Why this matters is because what Gandhi says about purushartha only makes sense, in context, if one already accepts that Hindus living in India must have a wholly religious conception of their Nation as the 'karmabhumi' in which their political actions must be dharmic, not dictated by artha or kama, if they are to gain moksha. Moreover, this dharma must be in consonance with the times. In the Golden Age, dharma may have involved taking up arms and expelling the invader. It may also have involved killing any low caste person who had the temerity to study the Vedas and showing a zero tolerance policy to beef eating Mlecchas whether Anglo-Saxon or Islamic or Christian or of any other description.
According to that reinterpretation, ideas of nation and state belong to the province of artha, and the idea of religion to that of dharma.If Gandhi really believed this, then- like Jinnah- he would have kept Religion out of Politics. His every statement on public matters would have been such as might be uttered by a wholly dispassionate constitutional lawyer whose own religious creed would by no means be apparent.
Just as artha is distinct from dharma, so is nation from religion. This is not to say that they are opposed to each other. Despite their distinction, they are related to one another as both belong to the same system of human ends. Each purushartha is simultaneously different and related. In this view, difference does not spell hostility. Each purushartha, while it pursues its own end, recognizes the validity of the ends that the other purusharthas pursue. Thus, artha has its own rules, which in theory if not in practice are applied in harmony with the rules of dharma. However, the fact that artha and dharma are compatible with one another, does not make the one a substitute for the other. Artha is artha; and dharma, dharma.So, never mention anything to do with Religion, nor quote any Scripture, when discussing political or economic issues. Clearly, this can't have been Gandhi's own belief because he was using religious terms to explicate his position.
We now turn to Gandhi’s concept of religion. There are in fact two concepts of religion in his philosophy. The first sees religion as “idea,” while the second sees it as a “social institution.” The first is religion in its universal, timeless sense, and the second is religion in its historical and sociological sense. Hind Swaraj, for example, speaks of the religion that underlies all religions (see Parel 1997: 42). “Religion” here is religion as idea, and “religions” is religion as social institution. What is religion as idea? Of the many descriptions that Gandhi has given of it, the following is typical: Let me explain what I mean by religion. It is not the Hindu religion, which I certainly prize above all other religions, but the religion which transcends Hinduism, which changes one’s very nature, which binds one indissolubly to the truth within and which ever purifies. It is the permanent element in human nature which counts no cost too great in order to find full expression and which leaves the soul utterly restless until it has found itself, known its Maker and appreciated the true correspondence between the Maker and itself (Young India, May 12, 1920; CWMG 17: 406).This was the contemporary doctrine of 'Sanatan Dharma' which admitted that the outward form of Hindu observances had changed- for e.g. with respect to 'murti-puja' (offerings to idols)- but that its uncreated, eternal and transcendental essence remained operative with undiminished force in the lives of it votaries.
Parel ignores the context in which Gandhi wrote and spoke so as to paint him as constitutional lawyer with some deeply help private religious beliefs.
He writes-
Gandhi could not have possibly had this view. It is deeply silly. Only one condition is necessary to eliminate violence between religions- viz. that the police keep tabs on nut-jobs and arrest them and throw them in jail before they can incite any violence. This can be done in a theocratic state just as easily as in one where there is a constitutional separation of religion and the state. Thus, I have no reason to fear religious violence in the U.K- where there is an Established Church- because I have confidence that the police will take swift action against trouble-makers- even if they are Anglicans belonging to the 'English Defence League'.
Two conditions are necessary to reduce the violence between religions. The first is that they should accept de jure legitimacy of all religions. In Gandhi’s reading of the history of institutional religions, all institutional religions were “divinely inspired” (CWMG 44: 167). The second condition is the constitutional separation of religion and the state. Put differently, the state as part of artha should remain neutral towards all dharmas or religions.
Why did Gandhi say something different to what he and everybody else believed? The answer is that the Brits were providing the police service which was doing quite a good job in keeping the peace between the sects. Obviously, to eliminate religious violence completely, Indians would have to pay higher taxes and tolerate harsher policing methods. But this would strengthen the hand of the Imperial Government. Thus, as was obvious to all, the different Sects had to establish an entente such that their nutjobs were turned away from their usual vocation to attacking the machinery of Imperial power.
Gandhi devoted his entire active life to bring into being a state in India that would be neutral towards all the religions practiced there.The British Raj was already neutral towards the various heathen creeds of the dusky inhabitants of the sub-continent save where expediency dictated otherwise.
Gandhi was the partisan of his own brand of Hinduism- he considered himself the greatest living interpreter of its canonical text- and believed that he was winning over the Christians and Muslims and Parsis and so forth. As a matter of fact, some very influential Muslims and Christians, including high class White people, joined his Ashram and turned vegetarian and so forth. One- the American Johnny Appleseed of Himachal- who had come to India as a missionary, converted to Hinduism and built a Temple with the aid of one of the Birlas.
Civic nationalism had prepared the groundwork for the evolution of such a state.The State pre-existed and has preserved the same basic shape long after Independence. Civic nationalism could only arise because of this pre-existence.
Turning now to Gandhi’s theory of the state. According to his philosophy, the state is necessary for the proper management of violence within society and between states.Quite false! Satyagraha was a sufficient tool. True, every Indian moffussil lawyer knew that religious violence could always be preempted, if the thing was worth doing, by the District administration and the State C.I.D. Trouble makers could be arrested and shipped off to the Andamans till they saw the light. However, the State did not in fact think it necessary to prevent a lot of religious violence. Indeed, the thing could prove quite useful.
This may come as a surprise to those who think that he undervalued the state or that he was even a philosophical anarchist. The fact is that, by his explicit admission, the establishment of a state—he called it parliamentary swaraj—according to the wishes of the Indian people was the final goal of his political activities.He said this at a time when he was saying that if a certain amount of money was raised within a set period, then he would deliver this parliamentary swaraj within 18 months though he himself held no great stock by it.
Gandhi failed to deliver on this promise. His excuse was that Indians were not ready to govern themselves. Ludicrously, he suggested that spinning cotton would by some magical process endow them with the necessary civic virtue. After this point, Gandhi's importance arose from his ability to raise money in lean times from industrialists who stood to gain either directly from the boycott of foreign textiles or indirectly by gaining leverage against British commercial interests in India.
However, the state that he had in mind is philosophically different from the Machiavellian or the Hobbsean or the Weberian state—the state that does not recognize anything other than its interest or reason of state as its supreme norm. Gandhi’s state, I argue, belongs to the category of artha and, as such, recognizes dharma as well as moksha as valid goals of human activity.This is meaningless. Which State denies that acting ethically or achieving spiritual liberation is a valid goal of human activity?
It has of course the monopoly of the use of violence,No state has the monopoly of the use of violence. The thing is impossible. Thus if my g.f. gives me a black eye, Theresa May is not to blame.
Parel means 'the monopoly of legitimate coercion'. I may use violence to defend myself but can't coerce you or imprison you or punish you. Only the State has the legal power to do so.
but, as we shall see presently, it manages that monopoly in a way consistent with his theory of nonviolence.Sheer nonsense! Suppose I ring the police because the g.f is beating me. Does the police constable who turns up go on a fast unto death so as to soften the heart of my g.f and cause her to repent her brutality? No. She is arrested and carted away kicking and screaming.
Gandhi’s state has to perform three functions. First, it has to guard and protect the rights of its citizens.They ought not to have rights. Rather they have the duty to themselves make themselves fit to not just be self-reliant in all matters but extend protection to others. Gandhi thought any other course was bound to result in something morally indistinguishable from the sort of State India already had thanks to its British overlords.
Gandhi rejected the sort of state Parel describes below because if he approved it he would either have to show how he could improve on what already obtained or else admit that he owed it gratitude and loyalty.
It has to do this according to the established norms of the constitution. It may therefore be called a limited, constitutional state. Second, it is the defender of the state from external threats. To do this it has the right to self-defense by military means, a position made clear by him in his formal statement at the Second Round Table Constitutional Conference of 1931. Because of the rising savagery of wars, however, he added a rider to the right to self-defense by military means. According to that rider, the state has the obligation to engage in serious disarmament, as well as the duty to develop the means of self-defense by civilian means. The addition of the rider does not abrogate the right to self-defense by military means. Third, the state has the duty to be neutral towards religions.Once again, Parel is ignoring the context. The fact is an influential section of the Labour Party though India should be independent. Sidney Webb had just given Sri Lanka self-government on the basis of universal suffrage. India couldn't get the same thing because the Muslims were sticking out for parity and reserved seats and a restricted franchise and so forth.
Gandhi's remarks about disarmament was very much in the spirit of Locarno and the League of Nations and so forth. It meant shit.
This position is in some respects compatible with the modern theory of the secular state. There is, however, a philosophical difference between the Gandhian state and the modern secular state. Gandhi’s secularism is grounded in his theory of the purusharthas, according to which the state, though neutral towards religions, is not hostile to them.Which modern secular state is hostile to religion? America? The U.K? France? Which one?
What is so special about the purushartha theory? All it says is Religion is one thing, Economics is another, Sex is something separate again, Spirituality may be something else altogether. This is common sense. I may be a Hindu by religion but, at my place of work, I don't refuse to handle a cheque issued by a beef merchant because that is a purely economic transaction. I may find Spiritual solace in listening to Sufi music- this does not change anything. My sexuality is my own business. Thankfully, most Churches now recognise this and, I hope, the Indian Supreme Court will remove an obnoxious law dealing with homosexuality because it contravenes fundamental Human Rights.
It respects all religions: sarva dharma sama bhava is its operational norm.Quite untrue at the operational, as opposed to theoretical, level. Gandhi did support a common Hindu code which regarded some conceptions of dharmic behaviour to be higher than others with superior scriptural support or legal precedent.
Thus a Hindu might say 'yes, in theory, polygamy is perfectly dharmic. However, the 'apad dharma' appropriate to our age is monogamy.'
The modern secular state, by contrast, arose from the laic conception of the state, which did not recognize any principle that transcended human will.So, America is not a modern secular state because its grundnorm, the Declaration of Independence, specifies that it is the Creator, not any particular collection of human wills, which has endowed the American people with certain inalienable rights by reason of which they can give themselves a Constitution.
The fact that the Gandhian state has the monopoly of violence raises difficulties for his theory of nonviolence. Though serious, they are not fatal to it. They can be overcome with the aid of his theory of the purusharthas. The latter endows the state with the right to use the minimum necessary coercive means. The right to use force is a right inherent in artha.This is sheer nonsense. There is a right to use force in dharma but not in artha which however supplies a reason to use force. The King, or police man, or soldier has a dharmic duty to use violence (though of course he has no monopoly over its use).
There is no concept of 'minimum necessary coercive means' in Hindu thought for the very good reason that the concept is incoherent. Violence has a signalling function. The use of maximum possible coercive means on one occasion may be greatly reduce the total amount of coercion and thus may be the 'regret minimising' solution.
At the same time the principles of the constitution, international law, and international conventions, and of course the principles of universal (sadharana) dharma, delimit the scope of the exercise of that right.There is no right to violence. There is an immunity with respect to the discharge of a duty involving violence. It is often the case that due process of law involves inflicting disproportionate punishment or other violence. Some jurists may wish to see immunities in this respect to be limited by international law or convention or some universal principle we might term dharmic, but, currently, except in the case of a defeated power- or one very vulnerable indeed- no such delimitation has indefeasible juristic force.
Gandhi, in other words, is neither a radical pacifist nor a conscientious objector.In Parel's account, Gandhi is nothing at all- he did not exist- Gandhi is just the name Parel attaches to his own ignorant maunderings.
He is a moderate realist, if the term realist can be used without its Machiavellian or Hobbsean connotations.It can be used in no other way because both Machiavelli and Hobbes were really shit at political theory. Nobody reads them, except stupid Professors. Nostradamus, on the other hand, is still quite popular.
His reflections on colonialism had taught him the hard lesson that a state that was incapable of defending itself was courting trouble; it was asking for domination by states that were stronger than itself.Sheer nonsense. Gandhi could see with his own eyes that the Boers were capable of defending themselves but, because their land had gold and diamonds, the British were capable of exterminating their women and children in concentration camps. Once, that great barrister turned soldier, Smuts, did a deal with the Brits, he was able to raise up the Boers by playing the 'Yellow peril' card- i.e targeting the Chinese and Indian coolie population- which played well with voters back in Blighty and thus gaining countervailing power over the mine owners who needed cheap labour. Smuts deported the Chinese- whom Gandhi quietly abandoned- but the Indians were British subjects. They couldn't afford to pay the poll tax and couldn't be made to work as slaves so either the British Government would have to ship them home or Smuts would have to give in. Strikes by other workers forced Smuts hand. Gandhi, of course, managed to snatch defeat from the hands of victory, and settled for much less than Smuts would have been obliged to concede. Still, he could finally quit South Africa and go screw things up in his native land.
How did he do so? The answer is that if the India's pauperised themselves then the Brits couldn't get any money out of them- the country didn't have vast gold deposits or diamond mines- and so they'd leave of their own accord. Clearly, the way to make India poorer was to get people to quit school and paying jobs in favour of doing worthless gesture political shite.
He was sufficiently wise to know that politics abhorred a power vacuum.Fuck does that mean? There's no politics in the middle of the Sahara desert. Do politicians rush there from every corner of the globe to start debating with each other and issuing manifestos and conducting opinion polls?
Politics is attracted to sites where there is already a lot of politics.
In interpreting Gandhi’s theory of nonviolence, it is not enough to do it within the context of the theory of the purusharthas. Two additional factors also have to be taken into account. The first is what he called the “fields” of nonviolence. By fields he meant the specific communities in which nonviolence was supposed to operate. He identified four such fields—the family, the political community, the religious community, and the international community.Violence may arise, as sickness may arise, but it does not operate in a family or community of any sort. Sickness may lead to death and the breakup of a family unit such that some new units are created. So may violence. In general, families and communities take measures to protect against or mitigate the effects of anything that might disrupt or dissolve them.
There is absolutely no need to take anything so obvious into account even when discussing the thoughts of a silly man, like Gandhi.
Nonviolence operated differently in each of these fields. To apply the principles and techniques that worked in one field to another field or the other fields is to apply them inappropriately. Thus, satyagraha could work in political community, but it could not work in the relations between states or between religions. To think of satyagraha as substitute for war, as some have done, is to think without due regard to Gandhi’s distinctions.This is why Gandhi favoured an autarkic Ashram type village republic which would be indistinguishable from one large extended family where granny goes on a fast if baby won't eat its greens and doggie goes on a fast till pussy relents and stops hissing at it and saying meow in a sardonic and cutting fashion.
Nor can the ethics of nonviolence work where the vast majority is nonviolent. Work means doing stuff. Having nothing to do means not working at all.
There is a second principle that needs to be considered in discussing Gandhian nonviolence. I call it “the vast majority principle.” The concept is simple enough: it is impossible to govern a state nonviolently, if the vast majority in that state is not nonviolent already. That is to say, the ethics of nonviolence cannot work where the behavior of the vast majority of the people is still shaped by a culture of violence.
Gandhi writes: “I believe that a state can be administered on a non-violent basis if the vast majority of the people are nonviolent” (CWMG 71: 407).So, Gandhi could utter a tautology just as well as the next man. So what?
Such a society, he adds, does not anticipate or provide for attacks from outside the state. On the contrary, such a society believes that nobody from outside is going to attack it. Again,
'Without the vast majority of people having become non-violent, we could not attain non-violent swaraj.…So long as we are not saturated with pure ahimsa we cannot possibly win swaraj through non-violence. We can come into power only when we are in a majority or, in other words, when the large majority of people are willing to abide by the law of ahimsa. When this happy state prevails, the spirit of violence will have all but vanished and internal disorder will have come under control (Harijan, September 1, 1940; CWMG 72: 403).'Yup! That's what pi-jaw always says- viz. 'Talking high falutin' shite can only transform society when everybody acts in accordance with such high falutin' shite. So kindly lend me your ears so I can fill them yet again with high falutin' shite. It is not needful at all for us to talk sensibly because, if only everyone did what they ought to do, sensible talk would not be needful to motivate them to change their behaviour.'
A corollary to the vast majority principle is that only if there is a circle of states that are governed nonviolently, can there be lasting peace between them. In this regard, it is worth comparing Gandhi’s vast majority principle with Immanuel Kant’s republican principle. Kant had hypothesized that if the constitutions of states were republican, peace between such states would be possible and lasting.We know Kant was wrong.
Gandhi while agreeing with Kant would go a step further. Only if the vast majority in states were to become nonviolent, would peace between them be possible and lasting. If the vast majority principle means anything, it is that the business of peace is the business of both the state and civil society, of the leaders and the citizens, of economic and religious institutions. The principle places the burden of responsibility for peace equally on the leaders and the people. If the people in civil society behave violently—in thought, words, and deeds—the leaders can do little to achieve peace on their own. It is now fashionable in democracies to blame the leaders for acts of violence, without realizing that the people themselves are complicit in the violence that occurs in the civil society in which they live. Gandhi’s nonviolence is addressed as much to people in civil society as it is to the state. It seeks to change popular culture as a first step towards changing the behavior of states.Very true. If I buy a TV and it blows up and I go to the manufacturer to get my money back, he is perfectly correct to say 'not till popular culture changes so that it would become unthinkable to make or sell a defective TV, not till then will TVs stop blowing up. Why are you coming to me? You yourself are enmeshed in popular culture. Why not compose a nice song about how Society must take responsibility for the types of TVs it produces? That will be a step in the right direction. However, it is not enough for our Society to change in this way. Neighbouring countries too have their own popular cultures. They too must change. Indeed the whole world must change. You yourself must be the change you desire to see in the world. If you buy a TV it is up to you to disassemble it and remove or repair any defect in it which might cause it to blow up. You and you alone are to blame for negligently allowing a pure and innocent TV to blow up. Now go home and think about what you have done!'
One can only imagine what would happen if the people in Muslim countries were to rise in revolt against the culture of jihad.Rising in revolt would itself be a jihad. Far better to just stop giving the nutjobs money or publicity and let the Law take its course with them.
Similarly, one can only imagine what would happen if people in industrialized countries were to rise in revolt against the behavior of the economic institutions that perpetuate international injustice—institutions in which the people alas participate as approving and happy consumers.Why imagine it? We know what will happen if we ransack the banks and loot the supermarkets. Within a few weeks we would be dirty, malnourished and paranoid from lack of sleep by reason of the necessity to stand guard over our small and diminishing pile of possessions.
This brings us to the question of civic friendship, the fourth element in Gandhi’s political thought that is important to the present discussion. His appeal to civic friendship occurs in one of his very important writings, Constructive Programme: Its Meaning and Place. Though it was addressed to the members of the Indian National Congress, its underlying principle has universal application. It is a call for the reform of civil society. The first thing necessary for such reform in India, he argued, was “communal peace,” that is, peace between religious communities. And a precondition for achieving communal unity was civic friendship. The first thing essential for achieving such unity is for every Congress-man, whatever his religion may be, to represent in his own person Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Zoroastrian, Jew, etc., shortly, every Hindu and non-Hindu. He has to feel his identity with every one of the millions of the inhabitants of Hindustan. In order to realize this, every Congressman will cultivate personal friendship with persons representing faiths other than his own. He should have the same regard for the other faiths as he has for his own. In such a happy state of things there would be no disgraceful cry at the stations such as “Hindu water” and “Muslim water” or “Hindu tea” or “Muslim tea.” There would be no separate rooms or pots for Hindus and non-Hindus in schools and colleges, no communal schools, colleges and hospitals. The beginning of such a revolution has to be made by Congressmen without any political motive behind the correct conduct. Political unity will be its natural fruit (Gandhi 1989: 8).Parel is taking Gandhi out of context. Every Congressman knew that Religions have different rules regarding ritual purity. A pious Ashraf Shia going to pray becomes defiled if some rain water glancing off the shoulder of a Jew or Hindu falls upon him and pollutes him rendering him 'najis'. He has to undergo ritual ablution to regain ritual purity. Hinduism had even more of such rules. So does orthodox Judaism. There are reasons why people of a particular religious community may enforce such rules so as to benefit from congregational or other worship which requires ritual purity.
Gandhi was simply saying that the mode of life he was promoting in his Ashram was a superior normative model. Many agreed with him. There was an atheist who came to Gandhi to get funds for his 'inter-dining movement' and also to lobby for Government funds for 'inter-caste' marriages. The thing was wholly useless. All that matters is proper, lawful, industrialisation and urbanisation without corrupt rent-seeking or criminalised 'vote-bank' politics.
The theme of friendship has a long history in Western political philosophy.If so, it must also be the case that it had no effect whatsoever because it changed nothing on the ground.
It goes back at least to Aristotle. Marcus Tullius Cicero picks it up again, and so does St. Thomas Aquinas.Because they thought Aristotle was a bright guy worth paying attention to. However, this changed nothing in the polities to which they belonged.
The rise of radical individualism and utilitarianism put civic friendship in the shade.So what? It had no role in determining anything in the polity. On the contrary, in so far as Benthamite, or other Radical thought, stressed the equal worth of every member of the polity and counseled needful reforms regardless of how they affected existing elites, such thinking rather increased than reduced the scope of civic friendship.
John Ruskin revived it when he argued that “social affection” should balance self-interest as a motivating force of economic activities.Ruskin, rather foolishly, thought that by treating one's servant kindly one would get more work out of him at a lower wage. However, true kindness consists in improving working conditions and raising real wages so that the worker's standard of living rises. This may lead to increased productivity. However, it may also lead to reduced supply of labour to repugnancy markets including ones which require servility or are otherwise degrading.
Gandhi picked up Ruskin’s idea and incorporated it in his philosophy of sarvodaya or welfare of all. Social affection in Ruskin becomes “love-force” (prem-bal) in Gandhi. Love is an expression of the spiritual soul. Civic friendship in turn is an expression of love. It is the soul that disposes us to recognize the other as “friend,” not competitor.This is all very well, the beggar may regard all the world as a friend, but what matters is whether one produces something useful to others. It is here that Gandhi fell down. His Ashrams were money pits. This meant Society was paying for this 'love-force' which was not itself productive.
Gandhi is the first among modern Indian thinkers to place an emphasis on civic friendship.Nonsense! The very concept of Yoga is founded upon gaining like minded or same hearted (suhrit prapti) friends and associates who form the basis of a Sangha or association. For Gujeratis, like Gandhi, the locus classicus of this concept is in the 15th century hymn Vaishnava jana to. Scarcely any communal activity was undertaken without a discourse from a religious leader in which the importance of 'maitri bhavana' (universal friendship) is not extolled by a Hindu or Jain Sadhu or Shravak.
Indian society traditionally delimited the social reach of its members to jati (caste) or dharma (religion).Nonsense! People also belonged to Shrenis (Guilds) and those who were 'shresht' (outstanding) also served in Sabhas, Panchayats, kutcherees and other such institutions of local or state government.
Gandhi wanted to bring about a “revolution” (the word is his) in the traditional pattern of social relations. He was embarrassed that traditional Hindus and Muslims refused to drink the same water or tea or share the same kitchen.However, Gandhi had no answer when it was pointed out that such exclusive practices had religious sanction. Thus, during the Vaikom agitation, which arose when a road to a Temple was closed only to low caste Hindus, not low caste Muslims or Christians, by the high castes, Gandhi was not able to rebut the arguments of his interlocutors.
The solution, however, was simple. The road needed to be declared a public thoroughfare- which is what it had always been. Moreover, Temple priests needed to be indemnified by Law for dispensing with such obnoxious restrictions. They pointed out that they could be financially ruined by a civil action brought by a casteist Hindu if they acted as their conscience might dictate. Religion itself held that a practice could be abandoned if some secular sanction attached itself to it under the doctrine of apadh dharma.
In other words, what was needed was not 'civic friendship' but a salutary legal reform which is what barristers and politicians were supposed to be doing- at least according to the British plan of advancing towards responsible Government.
Jinnah, as we saw, had already remarked that they neither dine together nor intermarry. The closed character of caste and religion was such that it needed a mental revolution to make a breakthrough. Civic friendship was one of the most powerful means of bringing about a radical change in civil society.This was wholly untrue. What was required was, first a change in the law, and second and more importantly, a change in the economic substructure of society arising out of increased mobility of factors of production and the adoption of new technologies and modes of production and distribution.
No 'radical change in civil society' occurs simply because of an up-swell of mutual affection and friendship which, in any case, happens during certain festivals or after a bumper harvest or other such collective windfall or auspicious event.
Consider an orthodox Haredi Jew. He or she rejoices as much as anyone else if the local team wins the Cup. It may be that, if the match falls on the Sabbath, the football fans amongst that community have to forego the pleasure of watching it on TV or in the Stadium. However, they are making this sacrifice for a religious reason and we rather admire than condemn them for not being able to share our pleasure on that occasion.
Moving onto the Parel's account of Maulana Azad we are struck by the grotesque nature of the following claim-
Azad’s real contribution, as Mujeeb (1993: 397) rightly states, lies in demonstrating how the Islamic ideal of life could be lived within a pluralist nation. And in doing so he has responded convincingly to both Iqbal and Jinnah. Valid as Azad’s contributions are, he could not have made them without the political space that Gandhi created for observant but non-fundamentalist Muslims. For, as Mujeeb has observed very astutely, “Gandhi…was the one man who saved the Muslims jettisoned by the Muslim League” (399). That is to say, Azad’s interpretation of Islam combined with Gandhi’s political practice towards Muslims gives genuine hope to all Muslims who reject the violently fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.This is sheen nonsense. Indian Muslims were and are observant- perhaps more so than elsewhere because of their sobriety, industry, and peaceful avocations. They had no interest in either Khilafat or Hijrat or Pakistan till journalists and agitators like Azad started inflaming the situation and hinting that any ulema not 'on side' were leading their flock to damnation at the behest of a satanic infidel power.
Far from creating a political space for 'observant but not fundamentalist' Muslims- who might, for example, want reasonable restrictions on the playing of music near their places of worship, or else seek for improved educational facilities or a fairer quota of jobs in the administration and armed forces- Gandhi put pressure on them to join the utterly foolish 'Khilafat' movement. Jinnah, who, it must be admitted was not a particularly 'observant' Muslim, was squeezed out of the political space by Khilafat (which viewed him with suspicion because he was a Shia by birth)
Khilafat, like Hijrat, collapsed. It turned out that the Turks themselves did not want the Caliph to remain. The Amir of Afghanistan too had no use for the indigent Indian Muslims who turned up un-invited in his realms. Ibn Saud did a deal with the British such that they took financial responsibility for repatriating indigent Muslims who had come to the two Holy places and settled down there as beggars. Azad, who was born in Mecca to an Arab mother, was well aware of this. Moreover, as a young man visiting Egypt, Turkey etc, he had found that the young radicals did not want to hear about Pan-Islamic ideology. Instead, they demanded that the Indian Muslims put aside their differences with the Hindus and chuck the British out of the sub-continent. After all, it was Indian resources which permitted Britain to expand its influence in Arab lands. Later, during the first World war, Indian troops- many of them Muslims- fought the Turks in Iraq. The Indian Muslim needed to come to his senses and stop dreaming of the glories of past Islamic Empires.
Akbar Illahabadi's couplet satirizing this tendency of Indian Muslims to compensate for their impotence by dreaming of the might of the Caliph or Shah wrote-Payt masroof hai klerki mein/ Dil hai Iran aur Turki mein- the stomach dictates that we work as clerks for the British but our hearts are with Iran and Turkey! The problem here was that even clerical work for the Imperialists increased their power and ability to grab land and resources from Iran and Turkey.
The Khilafat campaign, which did raise a lot of money for the Turks, was also subverted by British Intelligence. A Khilafat agent from India turned up at Attaturk's headquarters. But his aim was to assassinate the Ghazi on the orders of his British paymasters! After that, Attaturk abolished the Caliphate.
The Indian Muslim- like the British or American Muslim today- was confronted with the question 'is it lawful to dwell and pay to tax to an infidel Government currently waging war on an Islamic state?'
The conventional answer was that British India- or independent India later on- was not 'dar ul harb'- a realm of war'- but rather a dar ul sulh which is not at war with all of Islam but rather has a treaty or other pact with at least one Muslim State or potentate. Clearly the British had such an agreement with, for example, the Nizam of Hyderabad. It was a different matter that they were at war with Turkey because Turkey had allied with Germany.
Agitators and journalists like Azad could not simply accept this common-sense solution. Like Gandhi, Azad's mind was filled with messianic dreams of glory such that he himself would become the Imam-ul-Hind and thus the Muslim counterpart to the Mahatma. It is important to remember that Azad had some reason to hope that India would achieve independence as a loose federation with something similar to the original Lebanese constitution such that there was a sort of parity between the two main Religions. He himself might be President while a Hindu might be Prime Minister or something of that sort. It was long odds, but worth a punt. In any case, the Indian Muslims- most of whom could not migrate- would need senior figures like him after Jinnah had stabbed them in the back to secure his own place in History.
It is in this context that we need to look at the evolution of his ideas in the Twenties. The Hindus in Bihar had shown, with a cunning campaign of violence, while Gandhi was busy in Champaran, that they were determined to have the upper hand on things like cow-slaughter. Some of the Pirs and other leaders of tribes in Sindh, West Punjab and NWFA had shown that they could have their own slow burning insurgencies, too costly for the British to put out, in which Hindus would get short shrift. Within the Princely states, there were similar sectarian militias lying in weight. There was a danger that much of India could revert to the lawless days of the Rohilla and Pindari. In this context, it behoved an educated and urbane man- one moreover strongly invested in the fate of the anti-Imperialist movement among the Arabs- and Azad's mother tongue was Arabic- to ensure that the successor state to the British Raj preserve as much as possible of its legacy of Rule of Law and effective projection of geopolitical heft.
Azad, like Gandhi, had to moderate his messianic ideas and take up the theme of the first Congress politicians back in the Eighties whose heirs were actually Jinnah & Motilal Nehru. However both had been sidelined by populist stupidity. Motilal died but by the time Jinnah returned to India, it was clear that Gandhi & Azad's woolly talk had created a political space for a tough negotiator untrammelled by any theological or deeply religious considerations.
Parel says-
What is remarkable about Azad’s political practice is that it is grounded in his interpretation of the Quran and the Sharia.Surely, this was not remarkable at all. Azad had received proper education in nothing else. What was he supposed to do? Start writing like a Sociologist or a Marxist Economist?
The Quran according to him revealed a universal religion—din—which is shared by all those who believe in God.Azad needed to assert this so as to get round the vexed question of whether on not Hindus were 'kitabi' (a people of the book) and thus 'dhimmi' (to be granted civic rights).
Din consisted in “devotion to God and balanced, righteous action” (Mujeeb 1967: 461). The Quran, in his interpretation, did not ask the followers of other religions to accept Islam as an altogether new religion. “On the contrary, it asks them to return to the true form of their own religion” (462). That is to say, Azad saw Islam as recognizing the de jure legitimacy of all institutional religions.I'm afraid this is rather misleading. It would be perfectly proper for a follower of Azad to argue that Hinduism, or Christianity, did not- in their original form- tolerate processions featuring idols and music. Thus de jure recognition would not entail toleration unless there was no other alternative in which case would need only dwell on the merely temporary nature of any de facto dispensation which, God would certainly overturn in his own good time.
Since a spiritual bond unites all believers regardless of their institutional differences, the practice of Muslims regarding themselves as members of a metaphysically closed religion has only historical, but no doctrinal, foundation. Azad went further. While din was common to all and unchangeable, the Sharia was changeable and specific to time, place, and people.Since this was already the 'ijma' (consensus) and prevailing practice, no scandal or innovation was being made. However, it is important to understand that Azad's argument cuts both ways. A follower of Azad in Pakistan would be perfectly entitled to use this doctrine to get rid of non-Muslim, or supposedly heretical practices if this were feasible. It is noteworthy that the anti-Ahmediya movement was led by people who previously had condemned the creation of Pakistan. It could not succeed immediately because the Ahmediyas had played a signal role in the creation of the new country and were some of its distinguished and patriotic citizens. However, by the Seventies, this movement did succeed in getting the Ahmediyas classed as non-Muslim.
There should therefore be no doctrinal or juristic objection against Muslims forming an ummah al-wahidah, or body-politic, with the Hindus.In other words, Azad was showing that his father's generation of Maulvis had been right all along.
He claimed that his interpretation was based on the practice of the Prophet—the settlement that he had reached with the non-Muslim tribes of Medina (463n30). In a not too subtle rebuke to Maududi and Nadwi, he wrote in India Wins Freedom, an autobiographical account of his political life, that they were foisting a fraudulent account of Islamic history on the Muslim community. History has “proved” he contended, “that after the first few decades or at most after the first century, Islam was not able to unite all Muslim countries into one state on the basis of Islam alone” (1959: 227)Azad knew whereof he spoke. He had tried to mediate in the Shiah Sunni conflict in Lucknow arising out of the madh-e-sahaba (praise of the first 4 Caliphs) agitation. The issue remained a source of conflict as Nadwi, who was from there, well knew. Nobody at that time could have envisaged a Pakistan where not just Ahmediyas were declared infidel but even Shias were attacked by the 'Sipah-e-Sahaban' linked to Zia's military and which now seems to have a life of its own with murky links to Saudi Arabia and the ISI.
Parel- remember, he was writing this more than a decade ago- concludes thus
I think Parel is wrong. The one lesson to be learnt is that people who write a lot of books and pose as philosophers or political theorists or whatever are just worthless scribblers- journalists incapable of distinguishing news from paranoid fantasy- and power hungry agitators and schemers.
Lessons to be Learnt Modern Islamic fundamentalism has its South Asian roots. There has been an alliance between the thought of Maududi, Nadwi, and Qutb. The demand for a homeland for Muslims can easily degenerate into Islamic fundamentalism. What is lurking behind such demand is the uncertainty in the Muslim mind as to what is the legitimate form of state for Muslims in the postMughal, the post-Caliphate, and the post-colonial era.
Islam is a sensible religion. The Mullahs were doing a good job. Then a bunch of young nutters started writing nonsense and implying that Imperialism was some Satanic- as opposed to purely Economic- force and all those not rallying to some either imaginary or wholly jihad were agents of the Devil or Zionism or some such shite.
This sort of worthless shite forced the Mullahs into the political sphere which however imperiled their ability to carry out their pastoral duties. Thus, in self defence, they were forced to concentrate on what was incontrovertibly established long before these 'Satanic' forces had arisen.
In the ten years since Parel published this essay, Indian Islam has collectively condemned all this crazy jihadi nonsense. The Mumbai Taj Hotel terrorists were denied even an Islamic burial by the spontaneous and unanimous decision of the Ulema. Dr. Zakir Naik- once considered a great bridge to the younger highly educated Muslims- is languishing in Malaysia. Nobody wants him back in India. Everybody has come to see that these supposedly brilliant intellectuals are just stupid self-publicists who will never under the sane, rational and humane message of Islam because they dream of themselves as great Messiahs perhaps presiding over vast Emirates or, indeed, securing a revived Caliphate for the themselves. Idiots like that are welcome to go the way of ISIS.
Parel concludes-
We see demands similar to the one made in pre-Partition India now being made in places such as Kosovo, Southern Thailand, and Southern Philippines, not to mention Kashmir and Chechnya. Such demands require the breaking up of existing multicultural societies and the creation of closed Muslim societies.Legitimate grievances, which it is in everybody's interest to see redressed, were indeed crowded out by mischievous gob-shites dreaming of their own personal glory. However, all over the world, the mood has changed. It is a question of bomb first, ask questions never.
The recent and very tragic story of the Rohingyas is an example of that. Some well heeled young sparks from Saudi turn up and commit a small atrocity. The backlash is wholly out of proportion- it is ethnic cleansing on a brutal scale. The world ignores it. Bangladesh does not want these people. They will go back- so desperate is their condition- and next time any young spark turns up to make trouble, they will smash in his skull themselves or inform the authorities.
Actually, that is the sensible thing to do. Don't argue with these nutjobs. Record and report their hate speech and think fondly of them in their prison cell.
The link between religion and political violence involved in outer jihad is internally maintained by Islamic theology.Islam has nothing at all to do with political violence which, by definition, is illegal. Some nutters with a paranoid fantasy about 'Imperialism' or 'Neoliberalism' or 'Mossad blew up the Twin Towers' or whatever, don't represent Islam in any way shape or form. There are plenty of nutjobs in every religion. If they say or do anything illegal, report them and let them be locked up. There is absolutely no need to study their philosophy or theology or any such thing. These people are worthless shitheads. Ignore them.
Western social science makes a huge mistake when it fails to go beyond political and economic analysis of that link.Nonsense! Only economics could explain ISIS and only fracking could so fuck up their finances that it became worthwhile for them to be obliterated with almost everybody lending a hand. There were some stupid social scientists who thought ISIS had to be studied properly. They were wrong. It had to be starved of funds and then squashed like a bug.
Peace between religions can be maintained in South Asia if all South Asians adopt Gandhi’s and Azad’s philosophy of the constitutional separation of religion and state, combined with sincere respect for all religions based on their de jure legitimacy.Nonsense! A Bangladeshi Hindu is safer in Oman or Saudi than he is in his own ancestral home. All that matters is that the Rule of Law obtains and that the funds are available to ensure this happens.
England has an established Church. It is and has been perfectly safe. Gandhi's and Azad's nebulous shite caused vast pogroms after the Partition of India and continued bloodletting and ethnic cleansing in East Pakistan for decades after. Talking worthless shite helps nobody. Gandhi was a lawyer. He ought to have demanded widespread reform of the Police and Criminal Justice system so that miscreants were arrested before they could work their mischief. Instead the idiot went to jail so as to avoid doing anything constructive & pose as some big Saint. Azad wasn't wholly foolish. He should have been found a municipality to run and then a Provincial ministry and thus worked his way up to the Cabinet. Instead, Gandhi fawned on him- he even got his wife, much to her disgust, to cook mutton chops for Azad who was also allowed to smoke cigars in is presence. Contrary to what Gandhi said to his wife, this was not an example of 'non-violence'. It was sheer stupidity. Men like Azad need to be engaged in constructive work. Otherwise the write high falutin nonsense which then sets a bad example for the rising generation of scribblers and half baked pedants.
Parel continues-
Ethnic nationalism such as that maintained by the ideology of hindutva is as much a threat to peace between religions as is religious nationalism.How? The only difference between the Hinduism of Congress and the Hindutva of the BJP is that the former is casteist and dynastic, while the latter is anti-casteist and meritocratic. Thus Rahul Gandhi inherits his position as head of Congress. Varun, his younger cousin, will have to rise by his own merits within the BJP. Rahul, now, has come out as sacred thread wearing Shaivite Brahmin. He accused Modi of being Hindutva but not genuinely Hindu. Amit Shah is labelled a crypto-Jain.
Civic nationalism is the only type of nationalism that is compatible with ideology of peace between religions.Very true! In England, Catholics and Protestants slaughter each other in the streets because there is no 'Civic nationalism'. Instead we have a monarch who is also the head of the Anglican Church.
Finally, the idea of a clash of civilizations is not an invention of some ill-informed Western thinkers. Some very well informed Indian thinkers had come up with it in 1940s and 1950s.Civilizations are closely related to specific modes of production. When these modes of production change they may collapse or burgeon. What is important is the Rule of Law. Without it, no mode of production is safe.
As Gandhi has argued, the ways to prevent such clashes are (i) to keep religion and state constitutionally separate and (ii) to wean theology away from violence.Gandhi was completely wrong. The way to prevent such clashes is to arrest those involved- including those who instigate such things by their babblings- and make an example of them.
Theology doesn't need to be weaned off anything. If it does, it is not fit for purpose and can't be called Theology at all.
Parel, as a Professor teaching some wholly worthless subject, may want to pretend that some puerile scribbling represents 'Islamic theology' so as to make himself look important. However, he should understand that he is fooling nobody.
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