New Trends In Indian Muslims

By Shahul Hameed MM

12 April, 2016
Countercurrents.org

India’s Muslim Spring: Why is Nobody Talking About it? By HasanSuroor.Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd 2014, ISBN 978-81-291-3098-3. 395RS.

‘Silent revolution’ is the term we often see in the Dalit politics literatures to connote the greater transformation that took place in the Indian politics, by the lower caste mobilisations. Here the author looks at the Muslim version of revolution in terms socio political transformations within the society during the last two or three decades. By using the word ‘spring ‘, the might have intended to high phonate the developments within the Indian Muslims to larger Global Muslim society. Nonetheless, other than using such a term, the book does not go beyond the South Asian story.

Methodologically, the book would create more problems for a social science student as it is purely a kind of journalistic comments. Suroor tells us somewhere in the volume about how he went write this book. It was to look at how the Indian Muslims have changed from the time his generation was early seventies and eighties. This study he has done by ‘good old fashioned journalism by talking to as many people as possible and asking them the right questions. This is further based on the assumption that the opinions are moulded at the urban localities by the young people over there. While he says the Indian Muslims, it does not go beyond the Hindi (or Hindustani or Urdu) speaking north Indian Muslims, even though he recognizes the heterogeneity of Indian Muslims. On the other side, the relevance of the work is in depicting the changes in the young Indian Muslims and in unearthing of silent revelution that no one is talking about.

The most significant argument of Suroor in this book is that we can no longer look at the Indian Muslims through the dichotomy of liberal left who are totally disconnected with the community and the fundamentalists who are the self-styled conservers of the Islam. This is the time to go beyond it and there are large emerging sections among the Indian Muslim youths who are the practicing liberal tolerant nationalists. This young Muslims want to change the wrong perception about Islam and Muslims by recapturing the Islamic identities and the culture which has been misused by the fundamentalists within the society.

Why the educated youth are now in front to show their identity through long beard and Hijab may be puzzling question before us. In the olden days, if someone within the Muslim community was educated would naturally opt secular dress code and way of life without showcasing any community symbols, which was the monopoly of the fundamentalists. But even the left Muslim atheists also faced the common stereotypes which are generally directed against the Muslims. In other worlds, the identity in India is something ‘objective’. Moreover, the newly asserting youths within the community are the generation which had gone through two important challenges of the community ever in the history of Muslims; the Ram Mandir issue and the post 9/11 terrorist attack developments. These two incidents mainly prompted the young educated people within the community to seek for a transformation within as well as without the community. This struggle was not only against the negative stereotypes against the Muslims, but also against the Mullahs within it.

The main cause of the apathy of the Muslim community within India, according to Suroor, is none but the self-styled leaders that is the Mullahs, who filled the vacuum created by the migration of elites to Pakistan in the wake of partition. The young Muslims have the fundamental problem with this Mullocracy. After the partition, the Congress used the easiest way of promoting the Mullahs to grab the minority votes at cheapest cost. The liberal leaders did not try their luck on the one side, and Congress did not promote them on the other side. This ultimately led to the less visionary Mullah leadership who responded only to the cultural issues ignoring the material interests of the community. The young generation thinks that this state of affairs has to be changed in order to get the prosperity for the community.

While Suroor is more vocal about the change, the hope and the good future, he is also cautious about the problems that are still hunting the Muslims in India. The institutional bias and wrong media narrations are still the nightmare for the community. Even today the Indian Muslims are scared of the fabricated terrorist cases, institutional discriminations and alleged Pak loyalty, which author thinks that can only be solved through actions by the state and the public.

When the author makes comments about the Indian Muslims, and often in other cases, it is caught up with the macro generalizations. For instance, the author says somewhere in the book that ‘Nobody (Muslims) wants a book or film banned, or someone killed for insulting Islam’. These like statements are abundant in the book. However, this book provides a new insight to the governments, media and the public with regards to the Indian Muslims.

Shahul Hameed MM, MA Political Science, Jamia Millia Islamia New Delhi