Degrees of separation

The evening triggered off a different kind of reflection. The image of Pandit Kachru emerged in bold relief. He used to visit Mustafabad, our village, during Moharram for sermons on the battle of Karbala. As I have said repeatedly, centuries of cultural commerce, across religious lines, makes ours a very precious history. Give or take a century, Muslim rule in India and Spain lasted for a similar length of time, over different periods, of course. Today there are no Muslims in Spain, there are roughly 150 million Muslims in India. This would not have been the case had there not been considerable catholicism in the society, opening the way for continuous cultural commerce. Pandit Kachuru was the metaphor for this commerce.

In fact if we add 300 million Muslims in Pakistan and Bangladesh and over 50 million spread across Afghanistan, Maldives and Sri Lanka, there are 500 million Muslims in the South Asian region. This exceeds the entire Muslim population in the Arab world. If this bulk can be moderated they will function as an engine for moderation, creation of space for multiculturalism in the entire Muslim world.

During the Cold War, Saudi Arabia was 8220;moderate8221; as it sided with the West. But as a Muslim society, it is the world8217;s most orthodox, extremist beyond description. It is the exact opposite of Sufi Islam which expanded in India, preaching love and universal brotherhood as the Bhakti movement did. Islamic practice was moderate or non-existent in Muslim enclaves in the Soviet Bloc because of the state8217;s active opposition to religion.

Communism in the former Yugoslavia was replaced by Serb and Croat nationalisms. The victims were Bosnians, sowing seeds of extremism. In the Central Asian republics two factors contributed to an Islamic upsurge. Activism of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which was involved in dismantling the Soviet system. At the time of independence these republics had active churches but defunct mosques. This imbalance was played up by imported Islamists. I saw Al Irqan active in Tashkent when this extremist group was in the process of being banned by Malaysia.

Much the stronger reason for the emergence of political Islam in these republics is the draconian control of the state by the former communist leaders. The mosques became the only ventilators in an oppressive system.

Baath socialists in Iraq and Syria discouraged religion with as much force as the Soviets did. There was no religious extremism. Lebanese religious diversity was contained in a clever constitutional structure. It is only the coming to power of the Ayatullahs in Iran in 1979 which brought to the world8217;s notice the fact that the majority population in Lebanon and economically the most backward were Shias. The arrival of Palestinians after Black September in Jordan, Israeli invasion, Syrian response, growth of Hizbullah 8212; these gave birth to Islamic radicalism. But there was no trace of religious extremism in Syria or Iraq. Highly enriched religious extremism in Iraq could well be the gift to the world Americans are helping manufacture. An honest appraisal may reveal that straightforward resistance to foreign occupation is being given a religious spin.

The other Muslim country facing US ire is Sudan. More moderate practitioners of Islam are difficult to come by. Every Sufi 8220;silsila8221; or school we know in India, including a 8220;Bihari silsila8221;, is at the heart of Sudanese Islam. But current politics will generate a wave of anti-Americanism which will be blamed on Islamic extremism, the precursor of terror.

I cannot believe Indonesia can be in the grip of Islamists. Over 120 Muslim artistes, who say their prayers five times a day, have been performing the Ramayana in the shadow of Yogjakarta8217;s Hindu temples for 27 years. The theme in every shadow play, across Indonesia8217;s villages, is derived from Indian epics. Can so much have changed in the three years since I was last there?