Modi’s Sufiana Kalam And Owaisis’s Venom

By Sazzad Hussain

20 March, 2016
Countercurrents.org

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech at the opening session of World Sufi Congress in New Delhi on 17th March has drawn lots of applause not only from the audiences but from even of his staunchest critics. The Prime Minister appeared to be in a new avatar this time shedding much of his earlier image as a hardliner in the cultural assertive aggrandisement of modern majoritarian India. Indeed, the Sufi conclave, which was desperately needed in recent times, was a perfect platform to announce the NDA government’s stance concerning religious nationalism and growing intolerance paraded by storm troopers and to reassure the communities who have been at the receiving end of all the mindless acts of provocation and useless debates ranging from matrimony to eating habits. For Modi, it was a message expected by the vast majority of Indians who have been weary of his government’s complicity and silence in dealing with growing majoritarian jingoism. However, despite the enthusiasm felt by many at his speech on Sufism and Indian Islamic tradition, the equally opposite narrative and stand on this by the Sangh Parivar has left many of us sceptical about how effective Modi’s message could be in making India inclusive and pluralistic as it has been. At the same time antics like Asaduddin Owaisi in name of religious identity also deserves condemnation for dampening the atmosphere of harmony.

First Prime Minister Modi termed Sufism as the ‘Noor’ (light) of hope. It is undeniable that in the current spectre of violence associated with Islam in many parts of the world, Sufism is the only answer to them. As the centuries old Sufism represents diversity and pluralism and love for the humanity, it appears directly opposite to the exclusivist Islam that blankets all Muslims worldwide as a homogeneous entity. This neo-Islam, funded by oil revenues of the Gulf monarchies has destroyed diverse Muslim societies in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and many parts of the world by creating forces like Al-Qaeda, Taliban and IS with support from various players of global geo-politics and have been eyeing a similar onslaught in India— home to world’s second largest Muslim population. Though of late, due to the easy access of online services, Indian youths have been trying to be a part of global Islamist terrorism while large chunk of their population of the comunity is still vehemently against it. Even during the Afghan Mujahedeen (1980-89) not a single Indian Muslim was found to be associated in that ‘Holy War’ though volunteers from neighbouring countries were there. It was a great contentment for India that the thousands Al-Qaeda-Taliban fighters arrested by US led forces in post 9/11 attack in Afghanistan, there was not a single Indian Muslim among the nationals of twenty-two countries. But India was open to neo-Islamic ideas emanating from the exclusivist Gulf monarchies since 1980s thanks to the thousands of its expatriates. A trend of rejecting the age old traditions of Indian Islam or South Asian Islam in the name of puritanical Islam began to take centre stage among Muslim societies. Since then Sufism has been facing a great danger from the neo-Islamists and remained in a state of neglect. The tradition of prominent Muslim political leaders offering the Chadar at the shrine of Khwaza Moinuddin Chisti at Ajmer started to wane when even Pakistani foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri did it during his visit to India. The state’s failure to provide security to Muslims during post-Babri riots in Bombay, Surat and elsewhere and at the same time the majoritarian narrative of Hindutva further pushed the community into the ghettoes where inclusiveness and pluralism was meaningless. From that point the Sufi conclave in the capital city and Prime Minister’s speech will definitely enthuse the besieged community.

As Modi’s eulogies for great Indian Sufi saints Khwaza Moinuddin Chisti, Nizamuddin Chisti and literary-cultural icons like Amir Khasroe, Dara Sikoh and Maulana Azad, it reiterates India’s cultural plurality inclusiveness—a sense he failed to imbibe when he stereotyped India’s Muslims as “Hum Paanch hamare pachchis” during 2002 Gujarat riots. The devastation felt by Indians when frenzied mobs razed down the thirteenth century Sufi shrine of Wali Gujarati in Ahmedabad in 2002 seems to be healed by Modi’s words at the Sufi conclave.

But will Modi’s Sufiana Kalam could bring any change in the stated ideology of the Sangh which has been negating the Islamic past of India? The Sangh considers the advent of Muslim rule in India as an act of aggression by foreign powers and all the fruits of that thousand year period have been regarded as symbols of bondage. When Ghalib’s centenary was celebrated in India in 1968, Organizer dubbed it to be an act of alien culture which was condemned by Dr. Bhupen Hazarika in his Aamar Partnidhi. Sufi saints, poets, artist, scholars and Muslim rulers, commanders of various ages have been excluded from the cultural heritage of India and often identified as villains by Sangh. The Vidya Bharati schools even remain open on Eid. So will these eight decades old attitude of the Sangh, of which our Prime Minister is also a product, be changed after his address? Coincidently four Kashmiri Muslim students were attacked in a Rajasthan university for allegedly cooking beef at their hostel room just a day before Modi’s speech. We are optimistic that the Sangh will change its stand on Indian Islam as it has changed concerning women’s sentry to the temples and on LGBT community.

While appeals like Modi’s bring some glimmers of hope, hatemongers like Owaisi always play spoilsports. His bellicose speech on ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’, aimed at creating religious polarization for the next year’s UP polls, could justify the majoritarian mantra. However, as termed by eminent poet Javed Akhtar, Owaisi represents the very different cultural spaces of some Indian Muslims, that as stated above, are non-Sufi and homogenous created in a ghettoised world following state’s failure to contain religious violence. Let’s hope that the wider world of Sufism would be imbibed by all the stakeholders of our nation to make India awesome.

The writer is a freelancer based in Assam