Understanding
‘geopolitics’, International Relations (IR) and IR Theories
The term ‘geopolitics’ refers the political affairs
between countries at the global level in which the role of non-state actors
like international NGOs and MNCs may have a great role. Instances of conflict,
cooperation and all other forms of interaction between states fall under geopolitics,
be it wars, commercial or peace treaties, regular state visits or summits of
international organizations like the United Nations (UN), European Union (EU),
Council of Europe, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), South Asian
Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) or any other.
The discipline of
International Relations (IR) is a study of the same that seeks to not only
observe these events but also provide conceptual frameworks, which are called
IR theories, to understand them in an incisive fashion.
What are Mainstream IR Theories (especially Realism)
and Critical IR Theories?
Mainstream IR theories are theories that are believed to subscribe to
what are regarded as conventional approaches to explaining geopolitics. These
include liberalism (premised on the idea that
humans desire for a better world for themselves, which can lead to cooperation
between states to that end) and realism (premised on the idea that
human beings are insecure and therefore self-interested, leading states to
conflict with each other for resources). The debate between the proponents of these two
constituted the First Great Debate of IR, which was largely believed to have
been won by the realists. Realism is a view of
international politics that stresses its competitive and conflict side.For realism, the state
marked the border between inside/outside, sovereign/anarchic, us/them.
Accordingly, some people began questioning how the state came to be regarded as
the most important actor in world politics, and how the state came to be
understood as a unitary, rational actor. This approach critical of realism is not anti-state, it
does not overlook the state, nor does it seek to move beyond the state. In many
respects, it pays more attention to the state than realism, because instead of
merely asserting that the state is the foundation of its paradigm, such an
approach is concerned with the state’s historical and conceptual production,
and its political formation, economic constitution, and social exclusions and
how these impact geopolitics. Arguably, the
greatest critic of idealism, EH Carr, also claimed that a simplistic realist
model cannot sustain geopolitics. He recognized himself that the logic of “pure
realism can offer nothing but a naked struggle for power which makes any kind
of international society impossible”. Although he demolishes what he calls “the
current utopia” of idealism, he at the same time attempts to build “a new
utopia,” a realist world order.
This approach of moving
beyond realism led to the rise of another IR theory, constructivism, which is
still closely linked to realism and is in very many cases also regarded as a
mainstream IR theory but it differs from liberalism and realism inasmuch as it
adopts a post-positivist rather than a positivist approach. The positivist methodology mainly believes in
the verification of the samples and coming to the conclusion on the basis of
the test only. They believe in the complete irrelevance of the personal value
judgments of the observer. The positivist method also emphasizes the value of
these empirical observations in determining the actual nature of reality.
Positivism is an approach that holds that the goal of
knowledge is simply to describe the phenomena that we
experience. Post-positivism seeks to look for a possibly alternative
understanding of the same.
Constructivism
is believed to mark the precursor to other post-positivist IR theories, known
as the critical IR theories that seek to provide a more nuanced and deeper
understanding of certain facets of the society that manifest themselves in geopolitics
such as class, gender and the likes. Critical IR theories include the Marxist,
post-structural, post-colonial and feminist IR theories. Mainstream IR theories
premise themselves on the conception of anarchy (no over-arching sovereign
entity) in geopolitics, while critical theories reflect on the social
structures that recreate and maintain a particular anarchy in the interest of
the informal hierarchies that inevitably emerged, seeking a radical overhaul of
these hierarchies in the interest of human emancipation. Thus, critical
theories are not just empirical but rooted in norms and values, and while the
mainstream IR theory of liberalism is also based on some values, it is rooted
in positivist rather than post-positivist methods unlike the critical theories
and is largely believed to have failed the test of empiricism. However, the
critical theories, while offering a challenge to realism, have also been
criticized as seeking to poke holes to critique and provide some alternative
narratives rather than be stand-alone, holistic conceptual frameworks to
understand geopolitics.
Understanding a
Critical IR Theory, Post-Colonialism, and Comparing it to Realism, A Mainstream
IR Theory.
In
this article, I shall be comparing the mainstream IR theory of realism and the
critical IR theory of post-colonialism in examining which is better at
accounting for geopolitics. The realist theory has been discussed in some
detail while examining mainstream IR theories, and how critical IR theories
came about.
The
realist theory has been discussed in some detail while examining mainstream IR
theories and how critical IR theories came about.
Therefore,
we move to post-colonialism. According to post-colonialists, mainstream IR
theories are deeply Eurocentric, even their historical account of the emergence of
the modern international order and therefore inevitably also in their account of
the nature and functioning of this order, which as per them, needs to be
challenged and fresh perspectives are therefore required.
The
broad structure of post-colonial discourse points to several things - the ethnic,
cultural and political makeup of the societies that were under colonial rule in
Asia, Africa, South America and elsewhere. The engagement with the ideas of geopolitics
could not have happened without the history of colonialism, which through its
cosmopolitan nature, helped evolve the modern theory of the state and international community as we know it. Colonialism also helped to discover/rediscover hitherto
forgotten, neglected or unknown artifacts and texts in the Afro-Asian culture,
but still there was a conscious, subconscious or unconscious Eurocentric
layering to understanding and explaining that history/culture by European
scholars which went on to be challenged. At times, there were undertones and
overtones of chauvinism and jingoism in that challenge by sections of colonized
or formerly colonized people and a sensible theorist would have to logically
deduce, what is, in his/her view actually meaningful, relevant and rooted in facts
and logic.*
Well-known
post-colonial Palestinian Christian scholar Edward Said pointed how in Western
discourse, the “Other" or “Orient”
is looked upon as something alien for which reason he/she must be subjugated.
This, according to Said, gives psychological legitimacy to the colonizer over
the colonized. He also examines the relationship between knowledge and power
and how the latter reproduces the former. Said highlighted that Arabs were
stereotyped as orthodox and despotic, while the Bedouins among them were
projected as cave-dwelling, reducing Arabs to savages. Said does indeed
acknowledge, for example, in this article, that Muslim societies
must reject theocracy and regressive practices and must engage in more introspection and reform (in his own words - "I do not at all believe that all the ills of Muslim countries are due to Zionism and imperialism"), but
questions how some Western writers pass judgment on Islam at a basic, doctrinal
level, without scholastic rigour in terms of properly citing references and how
they often overlook violent right-wing movements among Jews and Christians
which, as per Said, have been equally dangerous.**
In
this context, an article by Iraqi analyst Raed Jarrar published on the website
of the Al Jazeera, titled “Is it wrong to call the Mosul battle ‘liberation’?”,
points out, what in his view, are the flaws about the narrative about Iraq in
the Western media, which in his view, rightly condemns the ISIS but doesn’t fully examine the devastating
effects of US policies in the region,
such as fueling sectarian tensions, and having promoted militias, and he also
points to how the Kurdish fighters in the Middle East (who have gained much acclaim for taking on the ISIS and protecting non-Muslim minorities from that barbaric outfit) have also been engaging in human rights
violations against Arabs (indeed, Kurdish militants in Turkey have even
bombed innocent civilians), glossed over by large sections of the international
media.
The idea of the superiority of the Western civilization is critically challenged by post-colonialism,
which questioning existing notions of
power, agency and legitimacy, seeks to help to evolve the discipline of IR into
being much more pluralistic and free from Eurocentric hegemony, with an infusion of
new ideas that were earlier overlooked. Furthermore, post-colonial scholars
maintain the view that decolonization did not free the new sovereign states
from oppression. Therefore, post-colonialist studies are a continuing process
of reconstruction of theory which examines problems such as racism and
migration. In fact, in this context, highly acclaimed France-based Moroccan poet
and playwright Tahar ben Jalloun’s work is indeed very pertinent. Many, though not all, post-colonialists have leftist economic leanings.
The
text of the Mahabharat, an ancient Indian epic, for instance, can be analyzed to learn a certain
kind of diplomacy vis-Ã -vis ideals and pragmatism. In times of strife, which
the epic describes, reliability is given renewed momentum over ideals for a
larger noble cause such that the idea of 'dharma' or morality is actually not
frozen in a static mould, and the Mahabharat and other such ancient texts can
perhaps better explain the psyche of the Indian diplomats than binaries of
liberalism and realism being traced to Locke and Hobbes respectively and the
idea of modernity in non-Western societies, like India, would have to be
understood in a different context, looking at their own distinct historical
patterns, which may not correspond to the Western notions of historical
linearity, as Indian intellectual Ashis Nandy has pointed out. Books like ‘Applied
Diplomacy - Through the Prism of Mythology: Writings of T P Sreenivasan’ edited
by Divya S. Iyer and ‘The Making of Indian Diplomacy: A Critique of
Eurocentrism’ by Deep Dattaray delve into narratives of Indian diplomacy by
examining India’s past.
The
contrast between realism and post-colonialism can be understood with the help
of some examples in the Indian context. The refusal of India under Nehru (Nehru has, in my view, been at the receiving end of much false and unjustified criticism from people of diverse political stripes in India itself, which I have sought to rebut here, which is obviously not to say that all criticism directed at him is unjustified or that he or any other human being is, in general, above criticism) to take a permanent seat at the United Nations Security
Council and instead give it to China (letters revealed in August 2016 between Nehru and India’s then ambassador
to the US shedding light on his stand, removing any shred of doubt as to
whether this did indeed happen) on
one hand, demonstrates the pinnacle of
idealism, while Nehru’s aggressive Forward Policy with China, to coercively
impose India’s stand on the Sino-Indian border dispute when the Chinese were
willing to negotiate (they accepted a part of the McMahon Line with Myanmar as
their border by way of peaceful negotiation, and that very line was a serious
bone of contention with India), though later proving to be misplaced, was an
example of cold realism, as was Nehru’s irredentist, military approach towards
Goa, which is difficult to decipher using the mainstream IR tools.
Another
significant example is former Indian prime minister Morarji Desai, known for
his integrity and having been heavily influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas of
truth and minimizing violence, winding up Indian intelligence operations in
Pakistan (started by his predecessor Indira Gandhi) and even informing then Pakistani
military dictator Zia-ul-Haq of the details of the Indian agents
in Pakistan, which can certainly not be explained by realism (though I do wish Desai had been realist on this score, and would condemn him for what he did in this regard). Speaking of Mahatma Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi, like Nehru, has, in my view, been at the receiving end of much false and unjustified criticism from people of diverse political stripes in India itself, which I have sought to rebut here, which is obviously not to say that all criticism directed at him is unjustified or that he or any other human being is, in general, above criticism), while
several Western scholars have claimed that Mahatma Gandhi was influenced more by
Western philosophical thought than by Indian thought (despite Mahatma Gandhi being a
devout Hindu and a follower of Gautam Buddha, who lived in what is today
India), this view has been strongly challenged by post-colonialists like Rajiv Malhotra
(whose works exhibit a Hindu right-of-centre bent, but are indeed far from
bigoted towards any ideology or collectivity of people, and even other such Hindu right-of-centre people who are
no bigots, do exist, even in the RSS, as discussed
here), especially in his book "Indra’s Net: Defending Hinduism’s Philosophical Unity", a book in which
Malhotra, other than discussing the Indic philosophical influences on Gandhi, deftly challenges many of the Western narratives and constructs about
what we know as Hinduism. Committed to opposing Western hegemony in the
discourse around non-Western peoples, Malhotra spent some time at the Council
for Islamic Education, China Institute, Japan Foundation, Korea Foundation and
Tibet House, out of which he appreciated the most the Chinese efforts at
understanding, and promoting overseas, their own culture on their own terms.
Likewise,
India entering into a civilian nuclear deal with the US to court US friendship
without entering into any kind of fixed alliance (against China), even if
unwritten, is grounded in a typically Indian approach, which may not be easy
for many conventional realists to comprehend.
Another
prominent voice in the domain of post-colonial studies is of Indian writer Sudipta Kaviraj,
who expounds on the diversity of political opinions in India and other
developing countries, often not acknowledged in the Western imagination (I may
add, especially in the context of the Arab world and Iran, which not just after the
influence of Western ideas but even earlier, have had a rich history of multiple
approaches to religiosity, polity and social mores, the Persian civilisation having been a great one for thousands of years, predating the rise of Islam, and with many of the pre-Islamic cultural traits still prevalent in Iran, just as in Indonesia, even very many Muslims identify with the pre-Islamic Indonesian Hindu, Buddhist and animist culture). Indian Nobel Laurete Amartya
Sen has, in his acclaimed book ‘The Argumentative Indian’, expounded on the
rich tradition of dialectics in India since ancient times, and how that has
provided a fertile soil for secular, pluralistic democracy to take root in
India, in which Sen even explores the domain of India’s historical interaction
with China in contemporary times, relating it to how the two great, ancient civilizations have
interacted with each other over the centuries.
Africa too has a post-colonial
strand in its novels and poetry (seeking to understand Africa on
Eurocentric terms is very problematic at many levels, as this article
rightly highlights), not only from its Muslim-majority countries (Tahar ben
Jalloun from Morocco has been referred to earlier), but also in the context of
its animist culture, in the context of which work done by the scholar Harry
Garuba is quite pertinent. Despite growing interest in African
animism in academic circles, it still remains under-represented in the
intellectual discourse. A major problem
with post-colonialism is that in the discipline of IR, it has failed to institutionalize
itself, the way it has in other social sciences like literary theory and
sociology.
Post-colonial
narratives also turn their attention to the indigenous people inhabiting parts
of what is known as the West, such as in the American context, the Red Indians
(or even the Tlingits of Alaska) and how they came to be engaged with the
European-origin people - British, French and others - in many ways in the
spirit of foreign policy like diplomacy and war. Post-colonial literature on
this facet of Western history [such as what the Native Americans (Red Indians) saw as
their betrayal by George Washington]
gives even Americans an opportunity to
re-examine themselves in the context of their own nation-building and thereby,
their own foreign policy. In this connection, this essay analyzing
the portrayal of Native Americans in popular culture in the US and more
interestingly, how this subject should be approached today in the context of
pedagogy, is fascinating, as is some interesting work
that has been done on “decolonizing” research methodologies to study indigenous
peoples. This research paper
on Red Indians as actors in international politics during the Cold War is directly
relevant to the discipline of IR.
Post-colonialism,
as we have seen, is indeed a potent force for exploring new bodies of knowledge
relating to human behaviour and new power structures, and in that sense, offers
an interesting critique of what we understand as realism in the mainstream
sense.
Yes,
post-colonial narratives can also take the form of hyperbolic West-bashing and
chauvinistic and self-righteous assertions by non-Western people, even
validated by some Westerners, either overawed by some Eastern people or even excessively
swept away by historical guilt. However, that in no way, means that
post-colonialism as a critical IR theory can be altogether discredited and by
that yardstick, all theories will have proponents whose work can indeed by
strongly challenged.
A
post-colonial framework of discussing geopolitics should draw from mainstream
theories wherever necessary to give a holistic picture, rather than strive to
exist only as offering contrarian narratives, which would make it less
meaningful in itself.
Conclusion
Clearly, the binary of liberalism and realism – the mainstream IR
theories – cannot explain non-Western geopolitics very well. This inability
sets the impetus for novel approaches like post-colonialism.
Realism
has its own significance which is here to stay, but such an approach to
understanding geopolitics may aside from lack of values to give a direction,
fail to explain the non-Western world even in a pragmatic context, for despite Western
influence and attempts to imitate the West (as discussed by Indian post-colonial
writer HK Bhabha), the non-Western world can be far from be understood very
well on Eurocentric terms. A meaningful post-colonial approach, which draws on
what is relevant in realism and constructivism, but moves beyond the same, can
be a better framework to understand geopolitics, which encompasses state actors
that are not only Western, more so with the increasing globalization, the
prevalence of diaspora from non-Western countries in the West and the emerging
multipolarity.
A limitation of this article,
however, has been that it engages with realism and post-colonialism at a basic,
conceptual level to compare the two rather than engage in in-depth analysis of
the scholarship produced by proponents of the two theories, one mainstream and
the other critical, to actually examine who has been better at examining what
facets of geopolitics, for that would entail a very detailed discourse putting
to test both the theories, and the focus in this article has been from a broad,
conceptual angle.
*For instance, while t
he genuinely documented achievements of ancient Indian mathematicians and scientists must be promoted and celebrated, but promoting an un-historical history of science that conveniently undermines the scientific creativity of all non-Hindu civilisations (to claim in a baseless fashion that all knowledge was “stolen” from here) and promotes Hindu religious texts as undisputed history, with supposedly much science in them, doesn’t bode well for promoting a scientific temperament. Going by the Jewish texts, even Solomon had a flying vehicle (there are similar references in ancient Egyptian and Greek lore too), and many science-fiction stories by writers like Joules Verne have mentioned things really invented later, but that does not mean those stories were true when they were written, nor does referring to real places like Delhi or Mumbai or Hastinapur or Kurukshetra in a story make that story true, and as Karan Thapar, whether you love him or hate him, logically points out – “how do you account for the fact the scientific knowledge and achievements you are boasting of have been lost, if not also long forgotten, and there is no trace of any records to substantiate they ever occurred?”. Rather than spreading awareness about the documented scientific achievements of our civilisation, we would only largely make a laughing stock of ourselves by boasting of scientific achievements from religious lore! There are indeed such counterparts among Muslim rightists, including the celebrity-preacher Zakir Naik, too, talking of religious lore being scientific (not a very good idea), as discussed in this article.
**
Terrorism, and even terrorism citing a theological basis, is not a
Muslim monopoly. As you can see here, very many instances of
terrorism globally, even in the name of religion, have been carried out by
those identifying themselves as Christians, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus and even
Buddhists, the victims of the acts of terrorists from each of these religious
groupings not always being Muslims. However, just like most people of these
religious groupings are not terrorists or supporters of terrorism, and they do
not believe that their religion preaches terrorism, the same is the case with
most Muslims (and not supporting terrorism applies to even most of those
Muslims with other regressive and not-so-liberal attitudes on issues like
gender and homosexuality).
It is possible to quote any scripture (allegedly out of context
according to its liberal adherents) to justify malpractices, like some verses
in the Bible namely Deuteronomy 13:12-15, Samuel 15:3, Leviticus 24:16 and
Matthew 10:34 seemingly advocate violence against “non-believers” and the
Purusha Sukta of the Rigved, an ancient Hindu scripture, is taken by some to
justify caste discrimination, but these verses do not define the entire
religion. This article mentioning an
anecdote from the British parliament does make an interesting read in this
regard, as does this video make an interesting
watch in this connection. There are Quranic verses like 2:256, 5:2, 5:8, 5:32, 6:108, 6:151, 10:99, 49:13, 60:8 and 109:6 preaching peace, religious
tolerance and human brotherhood, as does the letter from Prophet Muhammad to the
Christian monks of St Catherine’s monastery and there
are episodes from Prophet Muhammad’s life, as per Islamic lore, indicative of
such an approach too, such as his allowing a woman to throw garbage at him
daily and his succeeding in ideologically, winning over her by way of
humanitarian affection. Those suggesting that peaceful verses in the Quran are
superseded by violent verses (which the vast majority of practising Muslims
globally regard as contextual) would do well to
note that verse 109:6 appears towards the end of the book, and preaches nothing
but peace, and the Quran and Hadiths devote considerable space to talking about
honesty (there’s an anecdote of Prophet Muhammad punishing a Muslim for
stealing from a Jewish gentleman’s house), kindness, forgiveness, humility and
striving for socioeconomic egalitarianism.
Very
many mainstream Muslims do indeed believe that Islam is the only religion that
can lead to God since the advent of Prophet Muhammad, as mainstream Christians
believe the same for Christianity since the advent of Jesus, but that doesn’t
entail intolerance towards those of other faiths. To explain this with an
analogy, if a certain coaching centre (analogous to Islam or Christianity,
going by the mainstream interpretation) claims it is the only one that can get
students admitted into say, IIT (analogous to heaven), and even encourages its
students to get students of other coaching centres and those not taking any
coaching to join that particular coaching centre, it cannot be equated with
forcing others to join their institute or killing those not willing to do so.
In fact, both the Bible and the Quran preach the message of peaceful
coexistence with other religious groups (the relevant verses in the
context of the Quran have already been cited, and Rom. 12:18 and 1 Tim 2:2
may be cited in the context of the Bible).
Speaking of apostates of Islam (“ex-Muslims”) criticising their
former religion, there is a fairly well-known website run by an apostate and
basher of Islam who has even offered a cash prize to anyone who can disprove
his allegations against Prophet Muhammad (but there are books by apostates of
other religions criticizing their former religions too, the most famous one
being ‘Why I Am Not a Christian’ by Bertrand Russell, and there’s also ‘Why I
am Not a Hindu’ by Kancha Ilaiah, levelling very strong allegations), but
practically, he is the judge of the debate, or to go by what he is saying, the
“readership” of the website, a rather non-defined entity. In fact, he has
acknowledged that he came across a Muslim who “intelligently argued his case
and never descended to logical fallacies or insults” and while that
Islam-basher “did not manage to convince him to leave Islam”, that Muslim
earned his “utmost respect”, which implies that practically, the Islam-basher
is the judge of the debate. Likewise, that Islam-basher has mentioned with
reference to a scholar of Islam he debated with, that the latter was “a learned
man, a moderate Muslim and a good human being” and someone he (the
Islam-basher) has “utmost respect for”. So, that Islam-basher’s critique of
Islam, whether valid or invalid, has no relevance in terms of making blanket
stereotypes about the people we know as Muslims or even practising Muslims. By
the way, that Islam-basher bashes Judaism too. And it is worth mentioning that
I have encountered several practising Muslims on discussion groups on the
social media, who have, in a very calm and composed fashion, logically refuted
the allegations against Islam on such websites. Indeed, as you can
see here and here, there are several other
apostates of Islam who have stated that while they personally left Islam
thinking that the extremist interpretations are correct and moderate ones wrong
(as is the case with apostates of many other religions), they have equally
explicitly emphasized that that does not in the least mean that they believe
that most people identifying themselves as practising Muslims support violence
against innocent people.
And in fact, even speaking of the West, a report submitted
by Europol, the criminal intelligence agency of the European Union, showed that
only 3 out of the 249 terrorist
attacks (amounting to about 1.2%) carried out in Europe in 2010 were carried
out by Muslims. Even in the United States, most terrorist attacks from
1980 to 2005 were not carried out by Muslims. And no, I
am not in the least seeking to undermine the heinousness of the crimes committed
by some in the name of Islam by pointing to others having committed similar
crimes under other ideological banners, for a more highlighted wrongdoing is no
less of a wrongdoing than a less highlighted wrongdoing, but only to point out
that viewing only Muslims as villains, and that too, all or even most of them,
would indeed be grossly incorrect. However, despite jihadist terrorists being a
microscopic minority of Muslims, Islamist terrorism has become a bigger global
threat for its well-coordinated international network since the 1990s, with the
US-backed Islamist resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan having
signalled its rise. And, let us not forget that when we had the Charlie Hebdo
attacks in Paris, the victims included Ahmed Merabet, a Muslim police
officer who died fighting the terrorists (and by the way, there are more French Muslims in the local police, including those
who have died fighting jihadist terrorists, than in the Al Qaeda unit in their
country), Mustapha Ourad, a Muslim who was one of
the magazine staff members killed in that attack and there was Lassana
Bathily, a Muslim shopkeeper who gave sanctuary to many innocent civilians
during the hostage crisis in Paris that followed. Even in the context of the
more recent attacks in Paris, a Muslim security guard Zouheir, risking his own
life, prevented one suicide bomber from entering a packed football stadium.
More recently, Kenyan Muslims very laudably protected fellow bus commuters, who
were Christians, from jihadist terrorists, and Kurdish, Emirati, Iraqi and
Syrian Muslims have also been fighting the ISIS. In India too, most
of the terrorism is not by Muslims, as you can see here and here.
It is not as though communalists under any banner, except
arguably those actually resorting to killing innocent civilians, should be
dehumanized or can never be logically made to modify their views, as the
must-watch movie Road to
Sangam, based on a true story, demonstrates, and to draw an
analogy, you can see this video of a Muslim who initially
wanted to become a terrorist wanting to blow up Jewish civilians but changed
his standpoint about Israel for the better after visiting that country. It is
also not as though Muslims are another species that can’t be rationally
engaged with, the way some extreme anti-Muslim rightists almost make them out
to be, portraying Muslims in general as cruel, slimy, backstabbing and
aggressive (many Muslims whom the non-Muslim readers would know personally
would not exhibit such traits if the non-Muslim readers were to analyze
dispassionately, rather than making baseless presumptions, and indeed, most
Indian Muslims are of Hindu ancestry and so, they share the same genes as the
Hindus – Hindu religious lore also refers to treacherous human beings like the
Kauravas wanting to burn the Pandavas in a wax palace; so, treachery was not
unknown to India before the advent of Islam, as royal family feuds among the
Nanda and Gupta rulers also demonstrate, and some of the worst atrocities in
history have been committed by the likes of Hitler and Stalin, who were not
Muslims, nor was Chengiz Khan who was an animist), but like many people in
other communities in different contexts, some (not all) Muslims are in the
stranglehold of anachronistic ideas like a global pan-Muslim fraternity and the
upholding of Islamic law, other than having prejudiced notions in the form of
an exaggerated sense of victimhood, and I have dealt with how to ideologically
combat Muslim extremism in some depth in this article.
Sacrificing animals as a religious ritual is indeed not
exclusive to Muslims, and ‘bali’ has existed among Hindus too, something Gautam
Buddha (who lived centuries before Jesus and Muhammad) had opposed (and even
Emperor Ashok the Great consumed meat of peacocks, which he stopped after
embracing Buddhism, though interestingly, Buddhists in China, Japan, Bhutan,
Vietnam etc. do consume meat, as do most Sikhs, Christians, Jews and Parsis,
and what is halal for
Muslims in terms of dietary regulations and the mode of slaughtering some
animals is identical to what is kosher for
Jews and several sects of Christians, and that is true for the practice of
circumcision for males as well, which even has health benefits), and still
continues in many Hindu temples across India, especially in West Bengal during
the Navratri season. Also, it may interest some to know that the story of
Prophet Abraham associated with Id-ul-Zuha is found in the Old Testament of the
Bible too, which the Jews and Christians also believe in (those regarded as
prophets by the Jews are regarded as prophets by the Christians too, with the
addition of Jesus, and those regarded as prophets by the Christians are
regarded as prophets by the Muslims as well, with the addition of Muhammad).
And obviously, not all of Arab cuisine is non-vegetarian either, with Arab
vegetarian dishes like strained yogurt using labneh cheese and sweet dishes
like zlabia, popular in South Asia as jalebi!
And for those suggesting any marriage between a Hindu boy and Muslim girl as amounting to “love jihad”, they may note that many Muslim women too have married Hindu men, like Katrina Kaif, Sussanne Khan, Zohra Sehgal (formerly Zohra Khan), Neelima Azim (Pankaj Kapoor’s wife), Nargis and leading Mumbai cyclist Firoza, and some have even converted to Hinduism upon marriage, like famous sitarist Annapurna Devi (formerly Roshanara Khan), fashion model Nalini Patel (formerly Nayyara Mirza), Maharashtra politician Asha Gawli (formerly Zubeida Mujawar), South Indian actress Khushboo Sundar (formerly Nakhat Khan) and Bollywood actress Zubeida.
Not too long ago, even
the Modi sarkar conceded that there is no evidence whatsoever to justify the Hindu rightist conspiracy theory of the Taj Mahal having been a temple of Lord Shiv. And yes, historically, while many (not all) Muslim rulers have a historical record of intolerance to Hindus, so do many ancient Hindu rulers like Mihirakula and Pushyamitra Shunga have a historical record of intolerance to Buddhists (of course, there can be a debate on the historicity of these allegations, but the point is that religious intolerance wasn’t unheard of even in pre-Islamic times in India). One may add in this context that there is this totally incorrect notion that Muslims are the only ones who stop non-Muslims from entering some of their holiest places of worship like the Kaba in Mecca, but actually, several Hindu temples, like the Pashupati Nath temple in Nepal, too bar non-Hindus from entering them, while many mosques and Sufi shrines have absolutely no problem with non-Muslims visiting them or even praying there. Also, the conspiracy theory about the Kaba being a Shiv temple have their basis in the writings of one Mr. Oak, who was not even a historian, and he is actually not even taken seriously even by those historians, Indian or of other nationalities, who have saffron or other religious right-wing leanings, and in fact, some votaries of this theory claim that Lord Shiv has been ‘imprisoned’ by Muslims, which refutes the logic that God is all powerful! Oak also said that Christianity is Krishna-Neeti (though ‘Christianity’ as a term does not exist in Hebrew, and came about much later in history!) and many other such ludicrous things! There are websites making claims about non-existent Arabic texts to prove their point. While such propaganda (except the bit about Lord Shiv being ‘imprisoned’!) may please the Hindu chauvinist who desperately wishes to imagine ancient India to be the only centre of human civilization, impartially speaking, one ought to thoroughly dissect it before taking it seriously. These are just completely baseless rants being circulated on the social media that don’t have the backing of any serious historian, not even the most right-wing ones. These conspiracy theories are typical of loony religious rightists, including
Muslim rightists in Pakistan attributing 26/11 to RAW and many genuine liberal Muslim intellectuals in Pakistan are dismissed by conspiracy theorists as agents of the CIA, RAW and/or Mossad!
There are also misplaced notions of Muslims potentially
outnumbering Hindus in India, though the Muslim population growth rate is
declining (not the population itself, which cannot decline usually for any
community), and the population growth rate of Keralite Muslims is less
than UPite Hindus, for instance, and yes, even otherwise, if
someone sees Muslims potentially outnumbering Hindus in India as a real
problem, they should appeal to the Indian government to legally impose a two-child
norm for all Indian citizens, irrespective of religion, rather than just
generate unnecessary hatred for an entire community and divide the nation. Many
Hindus criticize Muslims for having many children because they practise
polygamy as permitted by their faith (though census reports have established
that Hindus are more polygamous than Muslims, even though it is illegal for the
former, and I myself know a Hindu electrician in Delhi who has engaged in
bigamy), even though that actually doesn’t make a difference to the number of
children as long as the number of reproductive women remains the same. Four
women would respectively give birth to the number of children they would,
irrespective of whether they are married to one man or four different men! In fact,
polygamy is not prohibited by Hinduism as a faith (and, in fact, it was
outlawed for Hindus only after independence, and Nehru
faced stern opposition for the same from orthodox Hindus). The
Puranic lore is full of multiple marriages by a single man – to quote some
prominent examples, Krishna had thousands of wives, prominent among whom were
Rukmini, Satyabhama and Jambvati; his father Vasudev had two wives, Devki
(Krishna‘s mother) and Rohini (Balram‘s mother) and Ram‘s father Dashrath had
three wives, besides even Bheem having a wife other than Draupadi (Gatodkach‘s
mother) and Arjun too had several, including Krishna‘s sister Subhadra. In
fact, the law mandating monogamy for Hindus was introduced only after
independence! Also, Islam mandates a limit of four wives and a responsibility
of the husband to look after his multiple wives (if he has multiple wives in
the first place) equally well, though I do agree that even this is
anachronistic today. As for harems, these too have not been a monopoly of
Muslim rulers, and the practice has existed among Hindu rulers too, such as in
South India, and even among Buddhist rulers in Sri Lanka.
And there are indeed many Hindus too, particularly in rural areas and in
several cases, even among the urban educated class, who have several children
even if they are monogamous. Many educated Hindus who have been public figures,
like former president V.V. Giri, former prime minister Narasimha Rao and our
very own Lalu Prasad Yadav have all had many children, and even Narendra Modi
is the third of his parents‘ six children.
Also,
there are some who accuse Muslims of being the only community that carries out
inter-cousin marriages, but that is true for Parsis as well and Hindu lore
mentions Abhimanyu marrying his maternal uncle Balram‘s daughter (though this
is a South Indian folk adaptation not to be found in the Puranic lore, it shows
that the idea hasn‘t always been abhorrent in Hindu societies) and Rajasthani
folklore has it that Prithviraj Chauhan too eloped with his cousin and while
even this is contested by historians, he has never been looked down upon for
the same, and even today, this practice exists in South Indian Hindu societies.
An allegation often leveled against Islam and Muslim societies
is sexism. It should be noted that Prophet Muhammad’s wife Khadijah was a
successful businesswoman, and the world’s oldest existing university, which is
in Morocco and dates back to 859 AD, was set up by Fatima al Fihri, a
well-educated Muslim woman. Prophet Muhammad is even believed to have mandated
education for all, irrespective of gender, as you can see here and here, and in fact, the education cutting
across gender lines even includes physical education. Interestingly, Prophet
Muhammad himself is believed to have said that children (he did not specify
only boys) must be taught archery, horse-riding and swimming. In fact, a woman,
Nusaybah bint Ka’ab, fought in his army, just as Hindu lore refers to Arjun’s
wife Chitrangada as an ace fighter and how Kaikeyi and Madri were ace charioteers. This
article discusses in some detail the freedoms accorded
to women by Islam and early Muslim societies, and how they partook in war,
diplomacy, business and several other fields of life, and how the veil came in
later as a norm in Muslim history. Currently, many Kurdish Muslim women
are bravely fighting the ISIS, and there was news of an Iraqi Kurdish woman,
Rehana, killing over a hundred ISIS terrorists. Major Mariam Al Mansouri, a female
fighter pilot from the UAE, has also been involved in anti-ISIS operations.
While one would not assert that Islam or any other major global religion (and
in this, we include the oriental faiths as much as the Abrahamic religions) is
completely free from patriarchy (with all due respect to everyone’s religious
sentiments), this mindset of prohibiting girls’ education represents a deeply
patriarchal mindset among these ultra-conservative terrorists hailing from
tribal Pashtun communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but has no basis in
Islamic theology, and very many people across the globe who have identified
themselves as Muslims have educated their daughters.
No Muslim-majority country (but for parts of them ruled by
militias like the Taliban and ISIS), not even Saudi Arabia, has legally imposed
wearing burqas (though only Iran has imposed headscarves; however, as regards
wearing burqas, it must be noted that the Quran does not ordain it, nor do
quotations attributed to Prophet Muhammad of undisputed authenticity), or
prohibited women from driving (though only Saudi Arabia, other than
militia-ruled regions, has imposed a ban on women driving, but a Saudi cleric also declared that there was nothing in
the Islamic texts that prohibits women from driving. In Dubai in
the United Arab Emirates, another Islamic state which largely follows the same
Wahabi sect of Islam as Saudi Arabia, there are women-run family taxis, and
Laleh Seddigh, an Iranian Muslim woman, is among the best car-racers globally,
competing with men.
The author would like to thank his friends Suvankur Sukul, Rudre Malik, Siddhant Kalra and Karan Bidani for their help and support.
By:
Karmanye Thadani
Knowledge Council
