Feb 9, 2023

Madan Lal Goel On Clash of Civilizations and Radical Islam

The notion of a clash of civilizations has gained notoriety since the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City.  Professor Samuel Huntington has popularized this view: the coming global conflict will be among civilizations, not among political ideologies.  He identified eight major civilizations: the Western (Europe and North America), Slavic (Russia and Eastern Europe), Islamic, Confucian, Hindu, Japanese, Latin American, and the African. Of particular focus in the present paper/article is the threat to civilization from radical Islam.  Three factors that foment Islamic radicalism are described here:  the monotheistic Islamic theology of exclusiveness, the nostalgia of a Muslim empire that lasted nearly 1,000 years, and the consequences of oil boom.  Population estimates for different civilizations are provided at the end.

Turkey Prime Minister Erdogan's favorite poem, author Ziya Gokalp

The theory of a clash of civilizations has been with us for some time. British historian Arnold Toynbee used the term in a series of lectures he delivered in 1953. The Middle East specialist Bernard Lewis wrote in 1990 that the Muslim rage against the West is “no less than a clash of civilizations” (Lewis, 1990, p 60). Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington has given new currency to the notion of a clash of civilizations. His 1993 article in Foreign Affairs has gained global audience.  The bipolar division of the world based on political ideology (communism versus capitalism) was no longer relevant. The world had entered a new period of intense conflict among civilizations. Writes Huntington,

It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future. (Huntington, 1993, P.22)

What is Civilization?

Culture and civilization are related concepts. A way of life is called a culture.  A culture that includes millions of people and has developed complex systems of art, literature, music, social, political and religious institutions may be called a civilization. There are hundreds of cultural groups but only a handful of civilizations. Huntington identified eight contemporary civilizations: the Western (Europe and North America), the Slavic (Russia and Eastern Europe), the Islamic, the Chinese, the Hindu, the Japanese, the Latin American, and the African.

Historians tell us that civilizations rise and fall with some frequency. Many ancient civilizations, once glorious and powerful, exist no more. Where are Rome, Greece, Egypt, Persia and Babylonia? They are on the ash heap of history. Arnold Toynbee studied 26 civilizations and of that number only ½ dozen survive today. The Chinese and the Hindu civilizations are unique in their longevity. They go back at least 4,000 years. Hindus chant hymns from the Vedas composed at least 2,000 years before the birth of Christ. This is an amazing record of continuity for a civilization. In contrast, Islam born in the 7th century has the shortest history at 1,400 years. Some have argued that the relative youth of Islam is the cause of its belligerence. Islam is said to be in its adolescence. I do not agree with these views.

Why a Clash of Civilizations?

First, differences among civilizations are basic. They involve history, language, culture, social life and religion. Different civilizations have different views about the nature of Godhead (male or female, personal or impersonal, benevolent or malevolent), the nature of man (godlike or beast-like), and relations between God and man (intimate and friendly, or distant and authoritarian). Civilizations also differ with respect to the concepts of the state, liberty, democracy, secularism, pluralism, tolerance and the rule of law. Civilizations develop over centuries. Differences among them are deep seated and will not quickly disappear.

Second, the communications and information revolution that has engulfed the globe is a two- edged sword. On the one hand, it narrows cultural and language differences across national borders. It tends to meld different peoples into a homogenous whole. People the world over begin to look, think and act alike. For example, Western style dressing has caught on everywhere and English takes on the status of a global language. On the other hand, people become more aware of their own special culture and how this culture is different from others. The Internet based social media is a great tool to help spread these notions of cultural and national pride. Thus, Muslims become more of Muslims, Hindus more of Hindus, Slavic more Slavic and so on. People react to the globalizing influence by going back to their roots. Omar Sheikh, who kidnapped and likely beheaded Daniel Pearl in Karachi in 2002, was born and educated in England but found home in Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan.

Third, modernization erodes local identities. The world over, people lose affinity with the village, the neighborhood and the family. Fundamental religious movements capture the space thus vacated.  A personal illustration is appropriate here: I grew up in a small village in the state of Punjab in North India in 1950s.  People then identified themselves more with the village and less with any particular religion. In a recent visit to my native village I found that religious differences had assumed nefarious importance. This happened in the wake of extremism that pervaded the state of Punjab in the 1980s. My village has a Sikh majority population; Hindu families have left the village and migrated to nearby Hindu majority towns.

 Critique

I agree much with Huntington. The world suffers greatly on account of the violence among different civilizations.  Huntington’s argument is flawed in two respects.

One, civilizations are not monolithic. They encompass a great deal of diversity. The West is divided not only among Catholics, Protestants and Jews, but also between Europe and North America. Catholics and Protestants fight in Northern Ireland. Britain might withdraw from the European Union. Hinduism is similarly divided between secularists and traditionalists. 

Islam is even more fractured. It has numerous warring factions: Sunni versus Shia, Wahabis versus mainline Muslims, secularists versus fundamentalists, the Kurd versus the Turk. The bloodiest conflict of the second half of the 20th century was the decade long war between Iran (Shia) and Iraq (under Saddam Hussein, a Sunni). 

Two, Huntington argues that the coming world conflict will be between “the West and the rest.” The rest includes the entire non-Western world.

The central axis of world politics is likely to be the conflict between the West and the rest, and the responses of non-Western civilizations to Western power and values.

I do not think so.  A war between the West and the non-West is highly unlikely.  The non-West is not unified and includes more than one civilization.  In a war of civilizations, the U.S. may well have non-Western allies in Japan and India. 

My Hypothesis

It is my hypothesis that the fundamental conflict in the 21st century is between radical Islam and greater part of the rest of humanity. Radical Islam is at war with every other religion and civilization. Militant Islamic anger is directed against Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Slavs and animists. Note the following battle lines.

 Radical Islam is at war with:

  • Roman Catholics in Mindanao in the Philippines 
  • Roman Catholics in Timor in Indonesia 
  • Buddhists in Singapore and Malaysia
  • Hindus in Bangladesh 
  • Hindus in India
  • Ahmadiyas in Pakistan 
  • Russian Orthodox Catholics in Chechnya 
  • Armenian Christians in NagornoKarabakh 
  • Maronite Christians in Lebanon 
  • Jews in Israel and in all other parts of the world
  • Animists and Christians in Sudan 
  • Orthodox Christians in Eritrea 
  • Greek Orthodox Catholics in Cyprus 
  • Slavs in Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania 
  • Coptic Christians in Egypt
  • Yazidis in Iraq
  •  Ibos in Nigeria
  • Christians and Jews in the United States
  • Moderate Islamic Regimes in Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and elsewhere

Militant Islam is in ferment everywhere. The Islamic world has bloody borders.

Why is this so? The explanation may lie in Islamic theology, Islamic history, and the economic bonanza of oil.  

Islamic theology

Islamic militancy arises out of its monotheistic theology. There is no other God but Allah. Allah is jealous. He brooks no rivals.  He claims sole sovereignty. Other Gods are false. He proclaims Jihad or Holy War on unbelievers, kafirs. Prophet Mohammad is regarded as the final and the seal of prophets. Lesser prophets such as Isaiah, Ezekiel, Moses and Jesus are recognized as precursors but Mohammad is the most perfect. Muslims believe in a single life, a single judgment and eternal life either in heaven or hell.

This theology of a single God, a single prophet, a single revelation, a single community or ummah, a single life and a single judgment leads to intolerance.  We are reminded about the ferocity unleashed by monotheism on 9/11/2001.  Writes Jonathan Kirsch:

The men who hijacked and crashed four civilian airliners were inspired to sacrifice their own lives, and to take the lives of several thousand ‘infidels,’ because they had embraced the simple but terrifying logic that lies at the heart of monotheism:  if there is only one god, if there is only one right way to worship that god, then there is only one fitting punishment for failing to do so—death.

Not all Muslims however read the Quran the same way. Certain verses in the Quran proclaim religious tolerance: “There is no compulsion in religion.”  Another verse says: “To you your religion and to me mine.” Moderate Muslims emphasize the tolerant nature of their religion. It is evident though that the extremists have outflanked the moderates and now dominate the religious dialogue.

In certain respects, Christian theology is similar to Islamic theology. Christianity also posits the doctrine of a Single Jealous God, and of the Only Begotten Son. The history of Christianity is dotted with periods of persecution of non-Christians. The Spanish Inquisition of the 16th century was an extreme case of this intolerance. 

Christianity however was reformed during Renaissance and the Age of Rationalism. Religion’s hold on European life has seriously eroded.  Secularism arose and gradually the Church and the state were separated. Tolerance of religious diversity grew. The West has come a long way in accepting pluralism in matters of religious belief. Christian churches and Jewish Synagogues exist side by side in the West. The non-Western religions of Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism have gained an important presence in the West.  There are 1,500 Islamic Mosques in Britain, and 2,000 in the United States, I have been told. 

The so-called New Age or New Thought churches (such as Unity, Unitarianism, Science of Mind, and Practical Christianity) are a rapidly growing phenomenon in the West.  New Thought theology borrows a great deal from the East, especially from Hinduism and Buddhism. The doctrines of Karma, reincarnation, meditation, and yoga have avid followers. Vegetarianism has gained ground. The notion of a female Deity has gained support.  Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (2003) was a popular book.  Brown’s book highlights the positive role in early Christianity of Mary Magdalene, a female disciple of Jesus.  Pensacola has two Buddhist temples and several Yoga and meditation centers. 

The changes incorporated in Christianity over the past 300 years have not yet found a home within Islam. Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shintoism are inherently pluralistic in their doctrine and practice.

Islamic History

Islam may be dated to 610 AD, when Mohammad began having conversations with Archangel Gabriel. Mohammad’s message one true God named Allah attracted a number of followers. But the leaders of Mecca rejected his new teaching. Conflict ensued. In 622, Mohammad was forced to flee to Medina, some 240 miles to the North. The year of the flight, 622 AD, is significant as it marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar. Mohammad became the leader of Medina and within a few years felt emboldened to raid Mecca. Mohammad’s actions were brilliant and bold. Mecca signed a treaty of friendship and allowed Muslims to enter the city for pilgrimage. By the time Mohammad died in 632 AD at age 62, he had become the supreme figure in all of Arabia.

Muslim conquest did not stop with the death of Mohammad. Within two years, the holy warriors attacked and conquered Byzantium and Persia, the two powerful empires of the period. The warriors were filled with religious zeal and hopes for war booty. It seemed that, armed with faith in Allah, nothing could stop the soldiers of Islam. In 712, Arabs captured Sindh on the frontiers of India. In 715 they took Spain after conquering North Africa. 

In less than 100 years since Mohammad’s death, the Islamic rule stretched from the frontiers of India all the way to Spain. Victories resumed after a hiatus of three centuries. Believers captured Anatolia (Turkey) in 1071, the throne of Delhi in 1201, and Constantinople in 1453. 

Islam’s rapid rise from obscurity to a world power had a touch of the miraculous for Muslims. How could they have attained all this without Allah’s favor and support? The fabulous military victories demonstrated to the faithful God’s pleasure with Islam and punishment on infidels.

Islam was the strongest military power on earth for nearly 700 years (approximately 1000 to 1700). The Muslims enjoyed the greatest wealth; they had the biggest harems and lived in the most grandiose palaces. And then suddenly in the 17th century, the empire collapsed. In 1660 Maharaja Shivaji defeated Muslim armies in India.  This set the ball rolling. In 1683, the Turkish army failed in its siege of Vienna and was forced to retreat (interestingly on 9/11). This turned the tide against Islam. In subsequent 200 years, Islamic lands fell under Western colonial rule.

Islam’s explosive beginning has implications for modern politics. Memory of early success has given to Islamists faith in their invincibility. Setbacks are temporary. Eventual world dominion is assured.  Early success meant that radical Muslims did not need to negotiate with the infidel or with their moderate countrymen. Memories of a glorious past are alive. The Muslim empire collapsed in the 17th century. Osama bin-Laden and the Islamic State or ISIS wish to turn the clock back. 

The Consequences of Oil Boom

Islamic radicalism is some five decades old.  It goes back to the period of the oil boom in the 1970s and 1980s. The huge wealth derived from petroleum in the Arab Sheikhdoms has given rise to the belief that Muslims are favored by Allah. The extraordinary oil wealth, much like Muslim military victory in an earlier period, is taken as a sign of God’s happiness with Muslims.

Petro-dollars have been used to spread Islamic radicalism around the globe. The Saudi Government has spearheaded thousands of religious schools or Madrassas. Some 40,000 to 50,000 exist within Pakistan alone. These Islamic schools have been called factories for Jihad. Next to petroleum, Saudi Arabia’s largest export is Wahabism.  Wahabism is a puritanical branch of Islam.  It seeks to cleanse Islamic society of western influences, by violence when necessary.  Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek observed: the Saudi Kingdom has made the biggest Devil’s bargain. It deflects attention from its misrule at home by funding religious extremism abroad. 

The ousting of the former Soviet Union from Afghanistan in 1979 also led to extremism and militancy. A rag-tag army of the Holy Warriors defeated a super power. The military success against the Soviet Union promoted the belief that religious zeal and the way of Allah could defeat the mightiest of armies. The United States has not done much better in Afghanistan.        

What is to be Done ?

Economic reform is often suggested as a solution to militancy. The poverty of Afghanistan is taken as a cause for its political instability. It is also said that the unemployed youth turn to religious extremism to vent their anger.

The poverty-radicalism thesis fails at both the level of the individual and at the level of the society. The 19 hijackers that attacked the World Trade Center on 9/11 were not poverty stricken; they were middle class youth with college degrees. Fifteen of the 19 were Saudi nationals. Osama bin-Laden was a millionaire. The militants are much better educated than the Muslim masses.

Poor societies are not the hotbed of militancy. Bangladesh and Niger are not their breeding ground. The militants are bred in the oil rich Middle Eastern countries and in Pakistan. The entire Taliban leadership was nurtured in Pakistani madrassas, or Islamic schools. British born and educated kids travelled to the Middle East to fight with ISIS.

Economic development is good and should be pursued vigorously for its own end. But it will not necessarily lead to moderation. Building factories will not reduce the appeal of radicalism.

Fareed Zakaria, a moderate Muslim, calls radical Islam “an armed doctrine.”  “Like other armed doctrines before it– fascism for example, it can be discredited only by first being defeated.” When Hitler scored military victories, he was much admired. Many children in Europe and Latin America were named after him. When Nazism suffered defeat, the children were given new names. Bin Laden understands the aura of victory: “When people see a weak horse and a strong horse, by nature they prefer the strong horse.” Bin Laden claimed to be the stronger horse (Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek, December 24, 2001, 23-28).

America’s misguided war in Iraq has also emboldened the radicals.

Concluding Thoughts

The challenge of radical Islam is global. It affects all of us, including moderate Muslims. The problem of radicalism and militancy will not go away until successfully dealt with. 

As a first step the scholars have the responsibility to open up radical Islam for critical examination. Moderate Muslims can best accomplish this goal. They must throw the light of reason on radical Islamic theology and its history of violence. All extremist ideologies have been scrutinized and exposed, including slavery, the Inquisition, apartheid, fascism, Nazism, colonialism, imperialism, and communism. Only radical Islam avoids serious exposition. 

I do not foresee a war of civilizations. I do see a challenge to civilization from religious extremism; in particular from radical Islam. Islamic extremism at present is the most virulent challenge to civilization. Scholars have a duty to throw light on this challenge.

Source: Dr. Madan Lal Goel https://intellectualkshatriya.com/clash-of-civilizations-and-radical-islam/

Feb 5, 2023

"Hindu is a Coward" - Mahatma Gandhi

Why do Asian Indians of Cleveland have a Mahatma Gandhi statue in downtown Cleveland, Ohio? 

There is common perception that Hindus are cowards and Muslims are brave. Even Mahatma Gandhi went on to write in Hindu-Muslim Tension: Its Cause and Cure", Young India, 29/5/1924: “Hindu is a coward and a Muslim a bully by nature. I, as a Hindu, am more ashamed of Hindu cowardice than I am angry at the Mussalman bullying.

Cleveland Cultural Garden, Ohio (Mahatma Gandhi, India)
Mahatma Gandhi statue
Cleveland Cultural Garden, Ohio

This perception mostly results from the fact that a handful of barbaric Muslim invaders were able to defeat the Hindus and rule over them for centuries.

If one were to analyze the underlying causes that led to the defeat of the Hindus, there is no evidence to suggest that the Hindu is coward — Hindus just have different ideology — a different set of priorities and ideas about nature of things.

Hindu defeats were more intellectual and cultural. Muslims brought a new ideology and a new kind of warfare to India — one that at first the Hindus did not understand. And today when they fully understand it, they are not willing to adopt it.

The Hindu mind regarding “religious” warfare was first expressed by none else than Alberuni, a scholar in Greek, Farsi and Arabic and an astronomer in his own right, who came to India with Mahmud Ghaznavi, stayed in India, learnt Sanskrit, read extensively all Hindu literature, wrote 20 books including translations on India. In his still available book Indica, he went on to observe:

“On the whole, there is very little disputing about theological topics among themselves; at the utmost they fight with words, but they will never stake their soul or body or their property on religious controversy.”

Hindus believed in open discussion of theological topics but did not kill each other for their opinions and they could not understand why would one kill others for differing on matter of theology or imposing their own ideas on others.

Almost thousand years later, talking of the betrayal of king Dahir of Debal, V S Naipaul went on to explain the Hindus’ reaction to Muslim invasions in the following words:

“It is the first of the betrayals that will assist the Arab conquest. But they are not betrayals, really. They are no more than the actions of people who understand only that power is power, and believe they are changing rulers; they cannot conceive that a new way is about to come.”

Hindu kings, before Islam, fought incessantly but it made no difference to general public — they were not asked to change their religion, their women were not raped, their temples and cities were not plundered and desecrated. The war did not touch their personal lives. All they got was another king.

A new way did dawn upon India after the conquest of Muhammad bin Kasim but the cultural moorings of Hindu were so strong that they refused to learn the new ways of Islam. That would have meant giving up Hinduism. While civilizations of Arabia, Egypt, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Iran and others crumbled before the Islamic onslaught, Hindus withstood it for centuries. Had the Hindus been cowards, India today would have been a purely Islamic state. They refused to be annihilated and were not desirous of annihilating even the aggressor. Religious warfare, as Alberuni observed, has no place in their ideology.

It is not Hindus lack of understanding of these new ways even after almost 1300 years and even when Hindus were massacred in Pakistan, they failed to retaliate in India. Even today after all the massacres of Hindus in Kashmir, the Hindus don’t want to fight in the name of religion. Secularism in India is not an empty slogan or mere cosmetic — it is the very basis of Hindu beliefs and that is why a common Hindu is still ashamed of Babri masjid demolition while a Muslim — of Hindu ancestry — has no qualms or shame of the destruction of tens of thousands of Hindu temples by Muslim invaders. The difference in behavior is nothing but the ideology that one follows — both have the same genetic pool in their blood stream.

It is not without reason that despite what has been visited upon the Hindus by the Muslims, Hindu India is still a secular country while there is not a single Muslim country that subscribes to the ideal of secularism. M J Akbar in his book The Siege within India admits that India is secular because it is a Hindu majority country.

As far as Hindu bravery is concerned — it is well documented in the annals of Muslim victors themselves — I need not go into details of that. It is the Hindu psyche that refuses to act contrary to their long held beliefs that killing in the name of religion is not the right thing to do.

The success of the Muslim invaders came not from their being a martial or superior race or being physically stronger — it were the same Arabs who had not done any “brave” acts other than trading in entire history before Islam — it was only after they took on the ideology of Islam that preached them to be cruel to all infidels and spread the “TRUE FAITH” that they went on the rampage. The Buddhist Afghans had lived with their Buddhist/Hindu neighbors for a millennium — it was only after they adopted the creed of Islam that they went on the rampage on those very people with whom they shared history and culture.

A study of the lives and teachings of Muhammad and Buddha, Mahavir and even Gandhi today will explain why the Muslims and the Hindus behave the way they do. Physically and genetically an Indian/Pakistani Muslim is no different from his Hindu compatriot — it is the ideology that one follows that makes the difference. It is the ideology that makes them act so differently from each other.

The Vedic “Ekam satya, viprah bahuda vadanti” — there is one truth but people call it by different names — is deeply engraved on and continues to control the Hindu mind and actions while the Koranic injunctions “Islam is the only true faith” and “Those who do not believe in Our revelations shall be inheritors of Hell” continue to guide the minds and lives of Muslims.

~ Vinod Kumar

Source: https://www.sanskritimagazine.com/hindu-is-a-coward/

Jan 7, 2022

Padmashri Kangana Ranaut on Gandhi and Nehru

Nathuram Godse Mahatma Gandhi Kangana Ranaut



 “An individual is never greater than a nation." - Nathuram Vinayak Godse

“In fact, honour, duty and love of one's own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard ahimsa." ― Nathuram Vinayak Godse

"I have never in my life called him Mahatma. He doesn't deserve that title, not even from the point of view of his morality". - B. R. Ambedkar, 1955

"History had little significance for me" - Jawaharlal Nehru

"Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so, he had failed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutly maintain that. Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan" - Nathuram Vinayak Godse

The book, Why I Killed Gandhi by Nathuram Vinayak Godse is publicly available as a free download in PDF format on the internet.

Jan 3, 2022

India's Independence Day is on May 26, 2014

 

kangana ranaut, tushar gandhi
Padmashri Kangana Ranaut is right
and Tushar Gandhi is the evidence.
Please donate Burnol and
a mirror to Mr. Gandhi.

Jun 30, 2021

Social Security Scammer from India

The Asian Indian Social Security Scammer called from a 859 area code and said that a Social Security Number had been compromised and an arrest warrant was issued. He asked for the bank name, type of account and amount of deposit in the account.

The scammer provided two methods of resolution of the warrant: 1. Hire an attorney and appear in a court in El Paso, Texas 2. Use ADR (Alternate Dispute Resolution).

The bank account would be drained through fees etc for the alternate dispute resolution. At the beginning of the call the Indian Social Scammer make an error; he identifed himself as Bhagat Singh; a moment later identified himself as David Miller.

Madarchods.

Who are the people behind this Indian social security scam? How do Asian Indians have access to social security number and date of birth of American citizens?

Jun 6, 2021

BR Ambedkar, The Real Father of Nation On Indian Muslims

Anand Ranganathan has argued that BR Ambedkar deserves the honorific title of Father of the Nation of India more than Mahatma Gandhi does.  What do you think?

Here, he writes on a topic that Indian liberals want to keep hidden from Indians.

BR Ambedkar vs Mahatma Gandhi
BR Ambedkar is the Real Father of Nation
of India not Mahatma Gandhi

From the Aryans to Aurangzeb, from St Xavier to Shivaji, our historians have chosen what to hide, what to invent, and what to disclose. The singular reason for this is the craving for patronage – of an ideology, a government, an ecosystem, or a clique. And once our historians are done with their contortions, we the readers sit back and enjoy the inevitable fallout – the outing of Hypocrisy.

The Left outs the hypocrisy of the Right and the Right outs the hypocrisy of the Left and great column-yards are churned out as a result of such skirmishes. But we forget – outing of hypocrisy is a virtue so long as it doesn’t turn one into a hypocrite. Well, it does; every single time. Villains are made into heroes and heroes into villains. We like it this way. Gandhi, Nehru, Savarkar, Patel – they are to be worshipped; they are to be made into Gods, into Atlases who carry the weight of our ideologies and our biases on the nape of their necks.

History as myth; myth as History. It conforms to what we really are – unsure of our present, fearful of our future. The Right wing doesn’t want to hear anything about Savarkar or Golwalkar that might put them in bad light; the Left-wing doesn’t want to hear anything about Nehru or Namboodiripad that might put them in bad light; and the Velcro Historians don’t want to write anything about anyone that might put them in solitary confinement, away from all light.

Fear and trembling, that is what this is, and the whole nation chugs along on this dead yet simmering coal. A journey to nowhere; slow, halting, tiring; until you realise what the grand plan always is – to appropriate. And of all the great men and women we have had the honour to call our own, no one has been more appropriated than Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar.

Ambedkar. A hero for all, the Left and the Right – out of genuine admiration, out of genuine fear. This is to be expected, for here was a man like no other in modern world history, one who shone like a star with his intellect and understanding. The most un-Indian Indian. Wisdom so frightening and yet so rooted, that it appealed to all. Where he was allowed to, he never put a foot wrong. His writings have that rare quality of timelessness, and his quotes, if quoted anonymously, can be mistaken as comments on contemporary India. Ambedkar has aged well. In this, he stands alone, afar, above. But there is a side to Ambedkar that is not known, spoken, or written, out of fear by those who have appropriated him.

Ambedkar’s criticism of Hinduism, as a religion, as a way of life – call it what you will, everyone is aware of. From his umpteen speeches and numerous scholarly works, we know Ambedkar as someone who fought and exposed the terrible ills of Hinduism, and we applaud him for it. That Ambedkar left Hinduism and converted to Buddhism is in itself a stinging appraisal of the former. Knowing him, nothing more needs to be said as a critique of Hinduism. Such is the trust one can put in the man.

What we don’t know, however, is what he thought of the other great religion of the world – Islam. Because this facet of Ambedkar has been hidden from our general discourse and textbooks, it may come as a surprise to most that Ambedkar thought frequently of Islam and spoke frequently on it. The cold and cruel India of the young Ambedkar, that shaped his views on Hinduism and Hindus – and of which this author has writtenpreviously – soon became the cold and cruel India of the old Ambedkar, allowing him, through a study of Islam and Muslims, to make sense of a nation hurtling towards a painful and bloody partition.

A distillate of Ambedkar’s thoughts on Islam and Muslims can be found in Pakistan Or The Partition Of India, a collection of his writings and speeches, first published in 1940, with subsequent editions in 1945 and 1946. It is an astonishing book in its scope and acuity, and reading it one realises why no one talks of it, possessing as it does the potential to turn Ambedkar into an Islamophobic bigot for his worshippers on the Left.

Here, then, is Ambedkar on Islam:

Hinduism is said to divide people and in contrast Islam is said to bind people together. This is only a half-truth. For Islam divides as inexorably as it binds. Islam is a close corporation and the distinction that it makes between Muslims and non-Muslims is a very real, very positive and very alienating distinction. The brotherhood of Islam is not the universal brotherhood of man. It is brotherhood of Muslims for Muslims only. There is a fraternity, but its benefit is confined to those within that corporation. For those who are outside the corporation, there is nothing but contempt and enmity. The second defect of Islam is that it is a system of social self-government and is incompatible with local self-government, because the allegiance of a Muslim does not rest on his domicile in the country which is his but on the faith to which he belongs. To the Muslim ibi bene ibi patria [Where it is well with me, there is my country] is unthinkable. Wherever there is the rule of Islam, there is his own country. In other words, Islam can never allow a true Muslim to adopt India as his motherland and regard a Hindu as his kith and kin.”

This scathing indictment by Ambedkar of Islam never finds a mention in our history books. (Indeed, even in Ambedkar.org, a primary resource site for Ambedkar, the chapter that contains this explosive passage is hyperlinked and, unlike other preceding chapters, not easily visible as a continuation under the sub-heading Part IV. The idea is to skip it, not click it.

But then this is India – a Hero must not be perceived as a Villain even though the misperception is entirely of our making. Well, we know better; he didn’t mean to say those things about Islam; perhaps he was misguided; let us look at the context; damn, no, that’s not of any help here; tell you what, let us gag him; for the greater good; for communal harmony; for the sake of IPC Section 295A and our peaceful future.

Selective reading of Ambedkar, by which it is meant reading only his damning (and entirely justified) criticism of Hinduism, has led to a prevalent view that only Hinduism is laden with cultural and religious ills. One can see this even today, when the Left and its ideologues point selectively to the social and religious evils pertaining to Hinduism. As a result, someone who isn’t well-versed with India may get the impression that it is only Hinduism and Hindus who are to blame for every ill and intolerance that plagues us. The reality, of course, is that social and religious intolerance runs in our veins, it always has and it always will, for none other than the holy scriptures of all religions have mainstreamed it. It is Ambedkar himself who, presciently and fiercely, points to this hypocrisy.

The social evils which characterize the Hindu Society, have been well known. The publication of ‘Mother India’ by Miss Mayo gave these evils the widest publicity. But while ‘Mother India’ served the purpose of exposing the evils and calling their authors at the bar of the world to answer for their sins, it created the unfortunate impression throughout the world that while the Hindus were grovelling in the mud of these social evils and were conservative, the Muslims in India were free from them, and as compared to the Hindus, were a progressive people. That, such an impression should prevail, is surprising to those who know the Muslim Society in India at close quarters.”

Ambedkar then proceeds to talk in scathing terms of child-marriage, intolerance, fanatical adherence to faith, the position of women, polygamy, and other such practices prevalent among believers of Islam. On the subject of caste, Ambedkar goes into great detail, and no punches are pulled.

Take the caste system. Islam speaks of brotherhood. Everybody infers that Islam must be free from slavery and caste. Regarding slavery nothing needs to be said. It stands abolished now by law. But while it existed much of its support was derived from Islam and Islamic countries. But if slavery has gone, caste among Musalmans has remained. There can thus be no manner of doubt that the Muslim Society in India is afflicted by the same social evils as afflict the Hindu Society. Indeed, the Muslims have all the social evils of the Hindus and something more. That something more is the compulsory system of purdah for Muslim women.”

Those who rightly commend Ambedkar for leaving the fold of Hinduism, never ask why he converted to Buddhism and not Islam. It is because he viewed Islam as no better than Hinduism. And keeping the political and cultural aspects in mind, he had this to say:

Conversion to Islam or Christianity will denationalise the Depressed Classes. If they go to Islam the number of Muslims will be doubled and the danger of Muslim domination also becomes real.”

On Muslim politics, Ambedkar is caustic, even scornful.

There is thus a stagnation not only in the social life but also in the political life of the Muslim community of India. The Muslims have no interest in politics as such. Their predominant interest is religion. This can be easily seen by the terms and conditions that a Muslim constituency makes for its support to a candidate fighting for a seat. The Muslim constituency does not care to examine the programme of the candidate. All that the constituency wants from the candidate is that he should agree to replace the old lamps of the masjid by supplying new ones at his cost, to provide a new carpet for the masjid because the old one is torn, or to repair the masjid because it has become dilapidated. In some places a Muslim constituency is quite satisfied if the candidate agrees to give a sumptuous feast and in other if he agrees to buy votes for so much a piece. With the Muslims, election is a mere matter of money and is very seldom a matter of social programme of general improvement. Muslim politics takes no note of purely secular categories of life, namely, the differences between rich and poor, capital and labour, landlord and tenant, priest and layman, reason and superstition. Muslim politics is essentially clerical and recognizes only one difference, namely, that existing between Hindus and Muslims. None of the secular categories of life have any place in the politics of the Muslim community and if they do find a place—and they must because they are irrepressible—they are subordinated to one and the only governing principle of the Muslim political universe, namely, religion.”

The psychoanalysis of the Indian Muslim by Ambedkar is unquestionably deeply hurtful to those on the Left who have appropriated him. How they wish he had never written such things. They try their best to dismiss his writings on Islam and Muslims by taking refuge in the time-tested excuse of “context”. That’s right. Whenever text troubles you, rake up its context.

Except that in the case of Ambedkar, this excuse falls flat. Ambedkar’s views on Islam – in a book with fourteen chapters that deal almost entirely with Muslims, the Muslim psyche, and the Muslim Condition – are stand-alone statements robustly supported with quotes and teachings of scholars, Muslim leaders, and academics. To him these are maxims. He isn’t writing fiction. The context is superfluous; in fact, it is non-existent. Read the following statements:

The brotherhood of Islam is not the universal brotherhood of man. It is brotherhood of Muslims for Muslims only.

There is a fraternity, but its benefit is confined to those within that corporation. For those who are outside the corporation, there is nothing but contempt and enmity.

The second defect of Islam is that it is a system of social self-government and is incompatible with local self-government, because the allegiance of a Muslim does not rest on his domicile in the country which is his but on the faith to which he belongs.

Wherever there is the rule of Islam, there is his own country. In other words, Islam can never allow a true Muslim to adopt India as his motherland and regard a Hindu as his kith and kin.

If you are hunting for a context to the above statements, you have just outed yourself as a hopeless apologist. Well, you are not alone. Some of India’s most celebrated hagiographers, commentators, writers, and columnists, that include Ramachandra Guha and Arundhati Roy – both of whom have written copiously on Ambedkar, through stand-alone chapters or books (The Doctor and the SaintIndia after GandhiDemocrats and DissentersMakers of Modern India) – are conspicuously silent on Ambedkar’s views on Islam and the Muslim psyche. Clearly, this is a story the apologists do not want to tell.

The one thing Ambedkar was not, was an apologist. He spares no one, not even Mahatma Gandhi, who he blasts for giving into the selective bias, of the type one finds ubiquitous today.

He [Gandhi] has never called the Muslims to account even when they have been guilty of gross crimes against Hindus.”

Ambedkar then goes on to list a few Hindu leaders who were killed by Muslims, one among them being Rajpal, the publisher of Rangeela Rasool, the ‘Satanic Verses’ equivalent of pre-Independence India. We all know what happened to Rushdie. As for Rajpal, he met a fate worse than the celebrated Indian author. Rajpal was brutally stabbed in broad daylight. Again, not many know the assassination of Rajpal by Ilm-ud-din was celebrated by all prominent Muslims leaders of the day.

Ilm-ud-din was defended in the court by none other than Jinnah, and the man who rendered a eulogy at his funeral (that was attended by tens of thousands of mourners) was none other than the famous poet Allama Iqbal, who cried as the assassin’s coffin was lowered: “We sat idle while this carpenter’s son took the lead.” Iqbal is revered in India; Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, recently conferred on him the title of Tarana-E-Hind. “Nation will never forget Iqbal,” she said.

Ambedkar writes: Mr. Gandhi has been very punctilious in the matter of condemning any and every act of violence and has forced the Congress, much against its will to condemn it. But Mr Gandhi has never protested against such murders [of Hindus]. Not only have the Musalmans not condemned these outrages, but even Mr Gandhi has never called upon the leading Muslims to condemn them. He has kept silent over them. Such an attitude can be explained only on the ground that Mr Gandhi was anxious to preserve Hindu-Moslem unity and did not mind the murders of a few Hindus, if it could be achieved by sacrificing their lives…This attitude to excuse the Muslims any wrong, lest it should injure the cause of unity, is well illustrated by what Mr Gandhi had to say in the matter of the Mopla riots. The blood-curdling atrocities committed by the Moplas in Malabar against the Hindus were indescribable. All over Southern India, a wave of horrified feeling had spread among the Hindus of every shade of opinion, which was intensified when certain Khilafat leaders were so misguided as to pass resolutions of “congratulations to the Moplas on the brave fight they were conducting for the sake of religion”. Any person could have said that this was too heavy a price for Hindu-Moslem unity. But Mr Gandhi was so much obsessed by the necessity of establishing Hindu-Moslem unity that he was prepared to make light of the doings of the Moplas and the Khilafats who were congratulating them. He spoke of the Moplas as the “brave God-fearing Moplas who were fighting for what they consider as religion and in a manner which they consider as religious “.

As usual, Mr Gandhi failed to produce any satisfactory response to Ambedkar’s serious charge. Mahatmas never do. The conduct of Gandhi during the Mopla riots, and his views on them once the carnage had subsided, remain a blot on the Mahatma. Again, they never form part of our history books.

On the allegiance of a Muslim to his motherland [India], Ambedkar writes:

Among the tenets one that calls for notice is the tenet of Islam which says that in a country which is not under Muslim rule, wherever there is a conflict between Muslim law and the law of the land, the former must prevail over the latter, and a Muslim will be justified in obeying the Muslim law and defying the law of the land.”

Quoting the following: The only allegiance a Musalman, whether civilian or soldier, whether living under a Muslim or under a non-Muslim administration, is commanded by the Koran to acknowledge is his allegiance to God, to his Prophet and to those in authority from among the Musalmans…” Ambedkar adds: “This must make anyone wishing for a stable government very apprehensive. But this is nothing to the Muslim tenets which prescribe when a country is a motherland to the Muslim and when it is not…According to Muslim Canon Law the world is divided into two camps, Dar-ul-lslam (abode of Islam), and Dar-ul-Harb (abode of war). A country is Dar-ul-lslam when it is ruled by Muslims. A country is Dar-ul-Harb when Muslims only reside in it but are not rulers of it. That being the Canon Law of the Muslims, India cannot be the common motherland of the Hindus and the Musalmans. It can be the land of the Musalmans—but it cannot be the land of the ‘Hindus and the Musalmans living as equals.’ Further, it can be the land of the Musalmans only when it is governed by the Muslims. The moment the land becomes subject to the authority of a non-Muslim power, it ceases to be the land of the Muslims. Instead of being Dar-ul-lslam it becomes Dar-ul-Harb.

“It must not be supposed that this view is only of academic interest. For it is capable of becoming an active force capable of influencing the conduct of the Muslims…It might also be mentioned that Hijrat [emigration] is not the only way of escape to Muslims who find themselves in a Dar-ul-Harb. There is another injunction of Muslim Canon Law called Jihad (crusade) by which it becomes “incumbent on a Muslim ruler to extend the rule of Islam until the whole world shall have been brought under its sway. The world, being divided into two camps, Dar-ul-lslam (abode of Islam), Dar-ul-Harb (abode of war), all countries come under one category or the other. Technically, it is the duty of the Muslim ruler, who is capable of doing so, to transform Dar-ul-Harb into Dar-ul-lslam.” And just as there are instances of the Muslims in India resorting to Hijrat, there are instances showing that they have not hesitated to proclaim Jihad.” 

On a Muslim respecting authority of an elected government, Ambedkar writes:

“Willingness to render obedience to the authority of the government is as essential for the stability of government as the unity of political parties on the fundamentals of the state. It is impossible for any sane person to question the importance of obedience in the maintenance of the state. To believe in civil disobedience is to believe in anarchy…How far will Muslims obey the authority of a government manned and controlled by the Hindus? The answer to this question need not call for much inquiry.”

This view isn’t much different from the views of Jinnah and the Muslim League. Indeed, in the then prevailing climate, engineered or otherwise, these views could be seen as legitimate from the point of view of an anxious minority. However, the reason that Ambedkar gives for this predilection is not at all political but, rather startlingly, religious. He writes:

“To the Muslims a Hindu is a Kaffir. A Kaffir is not worthy of respect. He is low-born and without status. That is why a country which is ruled by a Kaffir is Dar-ul-Harb to a Musalman. Given this, no further evidence seems to be necessary to prove that the Muslims will not obey a Hindu government. The basic feelings of deference and sympathy, which predispose persons to obey the authority of government, do not simply exist. But if proof is wanted, there is no dearth of it. It is so abundant that the problem is what to tender and what to omit…In the midst of the Khilafat agitation, when the Hindus were doing so much to help the Musalmans, the Muslims did not forget that as compared with them the Hindus were a low and an inferior race.” 

Ambedkar isn’t done yet. On the lack of reforms in the Muslim community, he writes:

What can that special reason be? It seems to me that the reason for the absence of the spirit of change in the Indian Musalman is to be sought in the peculiar position he occupies in India. He is placed in a social environment which is predominantly Hindu. That Hindu environment is always silently but surely encroaching upon him. He feels that it is de-musalmanazing him. As a protection against this gradual weaning away he is led to insist on preserving everything that is Islamic without caring to examine whether it is helpful or harmful to his society. Secondly, the Muslims in India are placed in a political environment which is also predominantly Hindu. He feels that he will be suppressed and that political suppression will make the Muslims a depressed class. It is this consciousness that he has to save himself from being submerged by the Hindus socially and-politically, which to my mind is the primary cause why the Indian Muslims as compared with their fellows outside are backward in the matter of social reform.

“Their energies are directed to maintaining a constant struggle against the Hindus for seats and posts in which there is no time, no thought and no room for questions relating to social reform. And if there is any, it is all overweighed and suppressed by the desire, generated by pressure of communal tension, to close the ranks and offer a united front to the menace of the Hindus and Hinduism by maintaining their socio-religious unity at any cost. The same is the explanation of the political stagnation in the Muslim community of India.

“Muslim politicians do not recognize secular categories of life as the basis of their politics because to them it means the weakening of the community in its fight against the Hindus. The poor Muslims will not join the poor Hindus to get justice from the rich. Muslim tenants will not join Hindu tenants to prevent the tyranny of the landlord. Muslim labourers will not join Hindu labourers in the fight of labour against capital. Why? The answer is simple. The poor Muslim sees that if he joins in the fight of the poor against the rich, he may be fighting against a rich Muslim. The Muslim tenant feels that if he joins in the campaign against the landlord, he may have to fight against a Muslim landlord. A Muslim labourer feels that if he joins in the onslaught of labour against capital, he will be injuring a Muslim mill-owner. He is conscious that any injury to a rich Muslim, to a Muslim landlord or to a Muslim mill-owner, is a disservice to the Muslim community, for it is thereby weakened in its struggle against the Hindu community.”

Then, Ambedkar writes something that would surely confirm him as a certified Islamophobe and a bigot in the jaundiced eyes of those who have appropriated him.

“How Muslim politics has become perverted is shown by the attitude of the Muslim leaders to the political reforms in the Indian States. The Muslims and their leaders carried on a great agitation for the introduction of representative government in the Hindu State of Kashmir. The same Muslims and their leaders are deadly opposed to the introduction of representative governments in other Muslim States. The reason for this strange attitude is quite simple. In all matters, the determining question with the Muslims is how it will affect the Muslims vis-a-vis the Hindus. If representative government can help the Muslims, they will demand it, and fight for it. In the State of Kashmir the ruler is a Hindu, but the majority of the subjects are Muslims. The Muslims fought for representative government in Kashmir, because representative government in Kashmir meant the transfer of power from a Hindu king to the Muslim masses. In other Muslim States, the ruler is a Muslim but the majority of his subjects are Hindus. In such States representative government means the transfer of power from a Muslim ruler to the Hindu masses, and that is why the Muslims support the introduction of representative government in one case and oppose it in the other. The dominating consideration with the Muslims is not democracy. The dominating consideration is how democracy with majority rule will affect the Muslims in their struggle against the Hindus. Will it strengthen them or will it weaken them? If democracy weakens them, they will not have democracy. They will prefer the rotten state to continue in the Muslim States rather than weaken the Muslim ruler in his hold upon his Hindu subjects. The political and social stagnation in the Muslim community can be explained by one and only one reason. The Muslims think that the Hindus and Muslims must perpetually struggle; the Hindus to establish their dominance over the Muslims and the Muslims to establish their historical position as the ruling community—that in this struggle the strong will win, and to ensure strength they must suppress or put in cold storage everything which causes dissension in their ranks. If the Muslims in other countries have undertaken the task of reforming their society and the Muslims of India have refused to do so, it is because the former are free from communal and political clashes with rival communities, while the latter are not.”

History for us is either to be hidden or invented. We tell and retell what we like of it, and of what we don’t, we scrunch it up and slip it under the mattress, and then perch ourselves cross-legged over it to retell a little more. We are born storytellers. A lap and a head is all we need. As for truth? Well, it is not there; it vanished from view; and so it never happened.

But it did happen. Ambedkar did say these things on Islam and Indian Muslims. In doing so, he gave a choice to us, for he knew us only too well. We could either discuss his views on Islam openly like we do his views on Hinduism, or we could scrunch them up like a plastic bag and slip it under our mattress. He did not live long enough to witness the option that we chose but being the seer that he was he had an inkling. As a preface to his book, he wrote:

“I am not sorry for this reception given to my book. That it is disowned by the Hindus and unowned by the Muslims is to me the best evidence that it has the vices of neither, and that from the point of view of independence of thought and fearless presentation of facts the book is not a party production. Some people are sore because what I have said has hurt them. I have not, I confess, allowed myself to be influenced by fears of wounding either individuals or classes, or shocking opinions however respectable they may be. I have often felt regret in pursuing this course, but remorse never.

“It might be said that in tendering advice to both sides, I have used terms more passionate than they need have been. If I have done so it is because I felt that the manner of the physician who tries to surprise the vital principle in each paralyzed organ in order to goad it to action was best suited to stir up the average Indian who is complacent if not somnolent, who is unsuspecting if not ill-informed, to realize what is happening. I hope my effort will have the desired effect.”

What words. What beautiful, forceful, tender words. Here was Ambedkar, trying to goad us as a physician would paralysed organs. But he misjudged us. We remain fearful, indifferent, paralysed.

Nations that fear their past fear their future, and fearful nations worship, never follow its great men and women. Ambedkar is no exception.

Anand Ranganathan can be contacted at anand.icgeb@gmail.com and on Twitter @ARanganathan72

This article first appeared in newslaundry on Apr. 14, 2017.