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The policies of British Colonial
rulers in South Asia deepened communal consciousness along
religious lines and made religious identities salient over other
identities like regional, linguistic or gender. The political
process introduced by the British colonial power, particularly
elections in late nineteenth century with limited franchise for
local bodies, proved to be a deeply divisive process. Elections in
a backward and feudal society triggered off competitive
mobilization of voters along religious lines as the most effective
and easy way to mobilize and participate in the impending
elections for local self governance in a short duration.
Reading the writings on the wall in the emerging situation where
British has consolidated their rule, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan branded
Indian National Congress as party of Hindus and called upon the
Muslim community to keep away from it. Muslims did not have a
unified strategy and response to colonial rule. Badruddin Tayyabji
and many others chose to ignore the call of Sir Syed and
participated in the deliberations of Indian National Congress, and
later was even elected as its President. Sir Syed’s effort was to
pull out the community from deep traditional slumber and promote
modernity using English education as a tool. Sir Syed sought to
reinterpret Islam, dusting off the cobwebs that had accumulated in
the process of religious elite’s resistance to western colonial
cultural hegemony that had forced the community to gravitate
towards conservation and attempts to restore the past.
Communal and minority consciousness among the Muslim community was
formed as a response to two processes – resistance to British
Colonial rule by the religious and feudal elite on the one hand,
and the urge to get accommodated in the colonial bureaucracy by
acquiring western education on the other hand. The former was
natural response to loss of power to the colonizers, while the
latter was a strategy to accept the new reality of colonial rule
and to empower the community accepting colonial rule. Both
strategies ironically achieved similar results so far as creating
minority consciousness is concerned. The Wahabi and the Farizi
movements in the early nineteenth century are examples of the
former response, viz. resistance to British rule, while Sir Syed’s
movement for English education was an example of the latter
strategy to get members of the community accommodated in English
bureaucracy and power structures.
The religious elite, ulemas and maulvis, used religious symbols
and religious platforms and institutions for mobilization of the
community to resist colonial rule. The Islamic revivalist movement
focused more on the colonial rule, resisted western hegemony and
influences on people’s lives and even sought to build solidarity
with other anti-British forces and Indian nationalism. The
religious revivalist movement led by the religious elite hoped
that Muslims would have the liberty to practice their religion in
any future arrangement. After the brutal suppression of the
revivalist Wahabi and the Fariaizi movements in the first half of
the nineteenth century, the revivalist resisters of British rule
opened a seminary in Deoband to preserve Islam and its purity and
to guide Muslims in Islamic affairs. The underlying current was,
however, to oppose British rule in India and the Deobandis always
aligned with Indian Nationalist movement, but with a sub-text and
on assurance that Muslims would have freedom to practice their
religion in any future arrangements.
Muslim League benefited from the legacy of Sir Syed’s modernizing
and reforming zeal in some sense. In contrast to the revivalists
and their resistance to colonial rule, the reformists and the
modernists perceived the Hindu community as its competitor and an
inimical force in negotiating its share for power with the
colonial masters. Intermittently, it would seek to ally with the
British rulers for more share in power and when ignored by the
rulers, it would negotiate with the nationalist movement to accept
its demands. The negotiations with British rulers or with the
nationalist movement was nevertheless based on and promoted
communal consciousness among Muslim community, which ultimately
led to defining the community as a separate nation. The communal
nationalists tended to problematize Hindu community as its
competitors, if not as enemy and often allied with the British
rulers to achieve its goals.
The Colonial rulers benefitted from minority consciousness among
the Muslim elite’s feeling of exclusion, sense of competition and
even fear of majority community. Minority consciousness could be
trusted to be an ally of British rule. The British rulers promoted
Minority consciousness consciously by resorting to communal
historiography and periodization of the past into Muslim period
and Hindu period and reconstructing past through communal rear
view mirror. Separate electorates and a series of measures taken
by British rulers deepened communal consciousness. Partition of
Bengal in 1905 along religious lines, census enumerations,
maintaining records of religious traditions and customs were other
measures to deepen communal consciousness among the community.
British policies thus nurtured minority consciousness and the
discourse of minority rights and encouraged a sense of separatism.
Minority consciousness is therefore a construct and a response to
British rule. For that matter, even the Hindu community as we know
today is a political construct that emerged out of the writings of
V. D. Savarkar which defined Muslims and Christians as foreign and
inimical to the interest of Hindus and called upon the Hindu
nationalists to defend the interests of Hindus. Hindu nationalists
too, like the Muslim communalists saw British as an ally.
As religion became salient in defining the identity of the
colonized, communal elite emerged competing for favours from the
colonial masters and in the process legitimizing the colonial
rule. The communal elite, often from feudal classes, mobilized
their co-religionists using religious symbols and discourse,
crafting and constructing overarching communal identities and
communal consciousness to the exclusion of other shared regional,
linguistic, cultural and historical bonds and shared humane values
in the process of day-to-day existence struggle for existence. In
the process of crafting communal identities, the elite carefully
selected some religious traditions, discarded others and
reinvented some traditions to promote homogenization of religio-cultural
practices. The unity among followers of religion was often sought
to be built by communal elite not only by selectively using
traditions and religious symbols but also in the process,
conceiving and popularizing identity of the “other” community also
with homogenized cultural traditions. The elite construct the
identity of other as opposed to one’s identity, as a competitor
whose existence threatens interests of members of one’s own
community.
The whole political process in South Asia, and the process of
constructing history of the colonized people thus created an
overarching religion based communal identities with inimical
interests and in the process helped create minority consciousness
among the elite of numerical weaker religious community. Communal
identities created the binaries of majority and minority
community. Rights were bargained on the strength and legitimacy of
one’s community.
Drawing boundaries on the maps in 1947 to accommodate the communal
nationalisms did not solve the problem of minorities – it was
further exacerbated on both sides of the borders. The boundaries
were accompanied by violence that engulfed millions and displaced
populations with memories. Majority in one country was minority in
another.
South Asian states have a worst record of treating minorities
within its boundaries. Minorities are distrusted by the majority
community, discriminated by the state and state officials and
discouraged from practicing their religion and being different
than the majority. The Christians, Hindus, Ahmediyas and Shias in
Pakistan face worst violence. Shias are killed inside their
mosques, Ahmediyas are brutalised, Hindus are forcibly converted
by religious zealots and their women abducted and forced to marry
and convert to Islam. Christians are targeted under the blasphemy
laws and even children are awarded death sentences.
In India, Muslims and Christians have suffered violence and worst
brutalities with state complicity, branded as anti-nationals,
traitors and terrorists and targeted by security agencies. Sikhs
too have massacre in 1984 in Delhi. Communal violence has taken
toll of 40,000 lives and lakhs injured. Discrimination of
minorities in India in Govt. jobs, education, political offices
and in Govt. contracts, bank loans etc. is now well documented by
Sachar Committee report.
The right wing in Bangladesh too has targeted the Hindu minority
with impunity causing them to seek refuge in India. The Sri Lankan
war against ethnic Tamil minorities is reported to have violated
human rights of the Tamil Minority in Srilanka. We have Kashmiris
on both sides of LoC divided between two states struggling for
fair treatment by both the states.
South Asia needs a charter of minority rights as it will be
mutually beneficial to peoples of all countries. For majority in
one country is minority in another. Accepting and adopting best
regime of rights of minorities will benefit all the communities.
South Asia should become a model for granting liberal democratic
rights to minorities. Minorities world over require three
categories of rights – 1) right to security and freedom from
communal or ethnic profiling; 2) Freedom to practice, profess and
propagate one’s religion, develop one’s language and live one’s
culture and to educate and bring up their future generations in
their religion and way of life; and 3) right not to be
discriminated by the state. Ethnic minorities should also enjoy
the collective right to self-determination. These rights are
possible only when we accept multiculturalism as a model way of
life and for the state not to interfere in cultural rights of its
people and citizens.
We do have precedence in the Liaquat–Nehru Pact which was signed
between India and Pakistan in 1950 amidst the post-partition
riots. The Liaquat–Nehru Pact was a bilateral treaty and it sought
to guarantee the rights of minorities in both countries and avert
another war between them. We need to have treaty for minorities of
all South Asian states.
The author is
associated with All India Secular Forum (AISF). The views
expressed here are his own.
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