The Indian subcontinent has a long history of social reformers who helped shape society and make it better for later generations. But as happens quite often, certain names are forgotten as time goes by.
Muslim Politics in India
Vintage Books
Pages: 144
Price: Rs.499
One such name is that of Hamid Dalwai. Born in 1932 to a lower-middle-class Muslim family in Maharashtra, he pursued a path of reforming the Indian Muslim community to rid it of its social evils. In Muslim Politics in India, the journalist Dilip Chitre (1938-2009) has chronicled the interviews and conversations he had with Dalwai and translated them from Marathi into English.
Observing both pre- and post-Independence India gave Dalwai a critical understanding of Muslim politics and the way it manifested in society at large. He starts by taking the reader on a stroll across the history of India to show how conservatism limited the prospects and development of the Muslim community.
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Criticism of the mentality and the politics
Simultaneously, he focusses on how his criticism of communalists from his community was sometimes celebrated by communalists from the Hindu community, which should not be the case as he was a staunch opponent of their politics as well. He underlines that his criticism is of the mentality and the politics rather than of people in general, and his aim was to strengthen the broad national interests of India rather than achieve some narrow personal gains. He goes on to explain how during the early days of British colonisation in India an irrational nostalgia for the Mughal Empire kept Muslims away from modern education, and even when efforts were made by people like Sir Syed Ahmed Khan to bring them closer to it, conservative factions called them kafirs and issued fatwas against them.
To create a better India, Dalwai presents an interesting proposal: he states that the most effective way to get rid of communalism from the Muslim community is to socially modernise the Hindu community. “Obscurantist Hindu revivalism” was often the obvious retaliation of the communalists of the majority against the communalists of the minority, and this harms the Hindu society and simultaneously empowers Muslim communalists. To explain this point, he talks about the movement to ban cow slaughter and how his opposition to this was rooted in the national interest around agro-economy and the fact that anyone could use this sentiment for their selfish gains, which ironically is true even today.
Digging deeper into the mentality of the Indian Muslim leaders of that time, he mentions how defensive they were about any substantial debate. His conversations about the despicable conditions in which Hindu citizens in West Pakistan were forced to live were met with an assurance from the leaders that if they were convinced that any injustice was being done to Hindus, then the leaders would obviously criticise Pakistan, but as expected, it was not possible to make them believe in that obvious truth.
Lack of a liberal intellectual class in Muslim society
He also points out that the lack of a liberal intellectual class in Muslim society hindered Muslims’ complete integration. To support his claim, he points out how several Hindu intellectuals opposed the movement for the ban on cow slaughter for different reasons, but when there was any kind of communal unrest from the Muslim side, there was a glaring lack of rational voices coming from within the community to oppose it. Although, he clarifies, there were indeed certain rational individuals within the community who tried to raise their voice, there was a lack of concentrated efforts to deal with such incidents.
Dalwai strongly believed that Muslim leaders had failed the community at large. Some of them had the absurd dream of turning the entire subcontinent into a Muslim nation, which led to more problems for the community and hindered their progress. Unfortunately, even leaders who had been members of supposedly liberal political parties had time and again supported causes that empowered the conservative factions of the Muslim community. At the same time, he urged modern Hindus who believed in justice and brotherhood to speak up against Muslim communalism.
“Today, Dalwai’s demands, which were made in good faith, are being used in the political arena as dog whistles to dehumanise the Muslim community.”
Dalwai believed that humanistic modernism was the only way to solve such problems within the community. He pointed to an emerging class of educated Muslims who he believed might bring about an undercurrent of change, and to further that he proposed several reforms including the following: religious conversions should not be allowed unless the convert is an adult and the process takes place in front of a magistrate; the income of religious properties should be acquired by the government and used for the welfare of the public; and the children of interreligious marriages should not be burdened with the religion of either of their parents but should be free to choose their faith once they attain the age of majority. He also sought the revocation of the special status given to Kashmir and for every Indian to be allowed to visit Nagaland.
Dalwai presents an interesting solution to the issue of personal religious laws: anyone who wishes to be ruled by the Shariat has to accept it in its entirety; hence, if such people lie, then they should be whipped publicly as per that specific religious law. The aim of suggesting such an outlandish solution was not really the propagation of religion but a calling out of the attitude of the orthodox class trying to apply rules selectively.
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Looking back at Dalwai’s words today is an interesting experience as much has changed in power dynamics and politics since his time. Today, the communalism of the majority is not really a response to the communalism of the minority as he described to Chitre; it is a separate political movement to sustain power and reduce others to the status of second-class citizens, something that Dalwai would have opposed.
One can understand the context under which he wrote what he believed in, and as the founder of the Muslim Satyashodhak Mandal his demands for the reformation of his community stand valid even today. He was one of the first to protest against the practice of triple talaq, and he paid a price for raising his voice against such social evils prevailing in Muslim society. Today, his dream of abolishing it has come true thanks to Muslim women and the Supreme Court, but much still needs to be done to alleviate Muslims’ social condition.
At the same time, a careful approach needs to be taken to avoid the hostile environment that has been created against the community he wanted to reform. His quest for a liberal and secular Muslim community did not deprive them of their beliefs but instead focussed on their social and educational uplift, but the fact is that today his demands, which were made in good faith, are being used in the political arena as dog whistles to dehumanise the Muslim community and further hinder their progress, which ultimately harms the country. Today, we need a Hamid Dalwai not just for a single community but for India itself.
Chittajit Mitra is a queer translator, editor, and writer from Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh.
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