Agnostic Khushwant Page 7

  Prejudice has no factual or logical justification and is therefore very difficult to overcome. The most widespread are religious and ethnic prejudices; they are the basis of our communal problems. You have to first make the people admit what they are and then give rational answers to them in the hope that their prejudices will then disappear. I for one turned my back on religion after having studied most of them. I came to the conclusion that religious prejudices have done more harm than good to humanity. I accept ahimsa (non-violence) as paromo dharma (primary duty). One does not have to belong to any religion to believe that one must not hurt anyone; the rest is of marginal or no importance.

  Years ago, an experiment was tried out by a lady teaching in a college in South India. She sensed that many of her Hindu students harboured undefined prejudices against Muslims. She asked them to spell them out in writing so that they could discuss them openly in the class. After she had received their views, she put them in serial form and opened the debate. My answers to the questions are as follows.

  First prejudice: Muslims can marry many wives and consequently have large families. If they continue to indulge in polygamy and breed at the rate they are doing, they will soon outnumber the Hindus and make India a Muslim state.

  Answer: Muslim men are indeed entitled to marry up to four wives but rarely do they exercise the right unless their wives are barren or physically or mentally impaired. On the other hand, Hindu males, though not legally allowed to have more than one wife, are also known to indulge in polygamy. Muslims do not have larger families than Hindus, Christians or Sikhs. This has been repeatedly brought out by market surveys, which show that, if anything, the Christian and Sikh birth rate is higher than that of the Muslims. Some years ago I had published names of members of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha giving the sizes of their families. There was no difference in fecundity on communal lines. When talking of large families, I remember that the former president of India, V. V. Giri, had eleven children and former railway minister who was earlier chief minister of Bihar, Laloo Prasad Yadav, has nine. The list could carry on endlessly.

  Second prejudice: Muslims are fanatics who try to impose their religions on other people.

  Answer: Islam is more precise with its dos and don’ts than other religions. This gives the impression of uncompromising rigidity, which is not the same thing as fanaticism. For that matter, Sikhs are no less fanatic than Muslims. If bigoted Muslims in Kashmir try to impose purdah on their women, Sikh hotheads too try to impose dress code on Sikh and Hindu women in Punjab. There is nothing to choose between their respective forms of narrowmindedness. No community can impose its religion on others; whatever conversions take place these days are those of deprived people promised a better deal. That explains conversion to Islam or Christianity amongst Scheduled Castes and tribals.

  Third prejudice: Muslims do not respect other religious places of worship. They desecrate Hindu and Sikh temples.

  Answer: There is historical evidence of desecration of Hindu and Sikh temples by Muslim conquerors. However, Hindus and Sikhs, when they had the upper hand, did not lag behind in desecrating mosques. This contest in desecration almost came to an end with Independence. Since then hardly any places of worship have been tampered with on either side. It is a section of the Hindus that has been talking of demolishing mosques in Varanasi and Vrindavan (both in Uttar Pradesh) to settle centuries-old scores. And who can pardon the demolishing of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya (also in Uttar Pradesh) by Hindu fanatics on 6 December 1992?

  Also, let us not forget that all religious systems everywhere in the world have engendered cults committed to violence and martyrdom. I recall years back one David Koresh, the leader of the Davidian Branch of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, defied the police for several days before he allegedly set fire to his headquarters killing many men, women and children.

  I can’t give the exact numbers today, but at one stage, according to some estimates, there were over 2500 religious cults in America, of which over 900 believed in Armageddon or the Day of Judgement. The largest following was of a religious organization known as Church Universal and Triumphant, run by a woman, Elizabeth Clare Prophet. She and her husband and the vice-president of the group were estimated to have 5000 members who had been stockpiling arms for almost 20 years. In one police raid on the group’s headquarters, seven automatic rifles and 120,000 rounds of ammunition were seized.

  More bizarre than Koresh’s was the case of Jim Jones of Guyana. In November 1978 he forced 900 of his followers including women and children to commit suicide.

  True, Islam has generated more cults than Christianity. Many of them like the Muslim Brotherhood are committed to violence. They do not hesitate to defile holy precincts of mosques by shedding blood. In 1979 over 200 pilgrims were slain in the Kaaba. In November of the same year Shia followers of Mohammad Ali Qureshi seized the grand mosque of Mecca and proclaimed their leader as the Mahdi. It took the Saudi army equipped with tanks five days to evict the squatters after killing some of them. Some years ago a young Shia woman in Pakistan decided to take her followers over the waters on a pilgrimage to Karbala in Iraq. Over 40 of them were drowned in the sea off Karachi. Salman Rusdie fictionalized the tragic episode in his The Satanic Verses (1988).

  We in India have similar groups of fanatics committed to violence. It is not a mere coincidence that leaders of these cults are men or women with diseased minds but mesmeric powers of speech. In the early 1980s, in Punjab, we had Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale who ordered cold-blooded executions of his detractors. He and his militant followers were holed up in the Golden Temple at Amritsar. In early June 1984, the Indian Army entered this temple to evict the militants, and in the ensuing battle, brought about the destruction of the sacred Akal Takht. (Chapter 1.) Bhindranwale himself was killed. In the 1980s, thousands of lives were lost in Punjab, Haryana and Delhi.

  Religious zealotry has also reared its ugly head among Hindus usually regarded as a peace-loving and tolerant people. A part of that myth was exploded at Ayodhya in December 1992 and also during the 2002 Gujarat riots, when Muslims were targeted by Hindu mobs. What remains of that myth will be demolished as soon as right-wing fanatics take over leadership of the community. Hence, beware of religion!

  Fourth prejudice: Muslims are not loyal to India as they harbour pro-Pakistani feelings.

  Answer: A large number of Muslims migrated from India to Pakistan in 1947-48 – some willingly, others forced to leave because of widespread anti-Muslim violence. Many families were divided. The desire to visit their relations across the border should not be construed as disloyalty to India; nor childish display of adulation of Pakistani cricketers in matches against India. There is no evidence whatsoever of Muslims’ disloyalty to India in times of Indo–Pak wars. The fact is that many Muslims laid down their lives fighting for India against Pakistan.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RAMZAAN FAST

  Of the three Eids (days of rejoicing), the ‘Eid-uz-Zuha’ or ‘Bakri-Id’ (Eid of sacrifice), ‘Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi’ (the Prophet’s birthday), the one following the end of Ramadan on the first day of the next month Shawwal is the most auspicious and is known as ‘Eid-ul-Fitr’.

  I had very vague notions of why Muslims fast during Ramzaan. So I asked my Muslim friends why they did so and read up all matter that I could find in my library on this topic. I am writing this chapter for the benefit of my non-Muslim readers in the conviction that knowledge of the belief of our fellow citizens creates better understanding.

  Of all the months of the Muslim calendar, Ramzaan or Ramadan is the only one designated as felicitous – shareef in India, mubarak in Arabic. The observance of fast during this month is next to namaaz (prayer) the secondmost important pillar of Islam – the other two being zakat (charity) and haj (pilgrimage). The month is divided into three ten-day periods (ashra). The first is devoted to rehmat (kindness), the second to mafrat (forgiveness) and the third to insurgence against being consigne
d to hell.

  The most important night, known as Leilat-ul Qadr or the night of glory, falls in the last ten days of the lunar month and is usually observed on the 27th day. According to a Hadith, while the reward for other good works is given by angels, the reward for fasting is given by Allah Himself. Apart from the good that occasional fasting does to the body, the real purpose of the Ramadan fast is to give people personal experience of what hunger and thirst are like so that they can better appreciate the pangs the poor suffer from due to deprivation. The fast also cleanses the body of accumulated toxins and cleanses the soul of unconcern for the suffering of the underprivileged.

  Contrary to popular belief, the fast does not began with sunrise but well before that, when the eastern horizons begins to turn grey. A strict watch is kept on the time as eating or drinking even a minute after the prescribed time can invalidate the fast. It ends with the setting of the sun, when it is broken with – iftari – a light repast of dates or fruit. Of late, throwing large iftar receptions by various politicians to gain political leverage is the exploitation of a solemn religious rite.

  Of the three Eids (days of rejoicing), the ‘Eid-uz-Zuha’ or ‘Bakri-Id’ (Eid of sacrifice), ‘Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi’ (the Prophet’s birthday), the one following the end of Ramadan on the first day of the next month Shawwal is the most auspicious and is known as ‘Eid-ul-Fitr’.

  The tradition of fasting is pre-Muslim practised both by the Jews and the Pagans. In Arabia it was known as ‘Tahannuth’, the month of asceticism. People observed this month by fasting from sunrise to sunset, abstaining from other worldly pleasures and meditating on their doings. The Prophet himself spent this month in a cave in Mount Hera, a short distance from Mecca taking his wife Khadija and servants with him. It was during this month that one night known as Leilat-ul Qadr or the night of glory he heard the voice of God commanding him to read, which is known as ‘Iqraa’. The Prophet being illiterate was unable to do so. The order was repeated three times before the Prophet recited the very revelation, which, in the course of years, became the Quran:

  Proclaim

  In the name of thy lord and cherisher who

  Created man out a mere clot of congealed blood.

  Proclaim.

  And thy lord is most bountiful

  He who taught the use of the pen

  Taught man that which he knew not

  And so on.

  There is another reference in the Quran to the night of glory:

  We have indeed revealed this message

  In the night of power

  And what will explain

  To thee what night of power is

  The night of power

  Is better than a thousand months

  Therein came down

  The angels and the sprit

  By God’s permission

  On every errand

  Peace

  This until the rise of morn.

  It is believed that, it was after this revelation, the Prophet asked his followers to face Mecca instead of Jerusalem when they prayed and fixed Friday as the day for special congregational prayers. It was also in the month of Ramadan many years later that the Prophet returned from Medina to Mecca as its liberator. He was questioned by two followers on the merits of abstention. ‘It is not “riza” or self-torture’, he replied, ‘it fortifies the body and the soul till they become a shield. It will protect you from evil till holes are made in it.’

  ‘And what makes these holes?’ asked his companions.

  ‘Falsehood and calumny,’ replied the Prophet.

  For the Shias, Ramadan has added significance as it was during this month that Hazrat Ali (the son-in-law of the Prophet) received an injury to which he succumbed three days later. They spend three days in mourning.

  After Eid prayers, a collection (fitra) is made to be disbursed amongst the poor and the needy. I exhort all my non-Muslim friends to always wish our Muslim brethren ‘Eid mubarak’.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE SIKH RELIGION AND THE BEAUTY OF THE ADI GRANTH

  … the Granth Sahib is a unique historical document. It is perhaps the only kind of writing of a scriptural nature that has preserved without embellishment or misconstruction the original writings of the religious leaders. It has saved the literary works of other poets of the time from the vagaries of human memory.

  In the life of every nation there comes a time when accepted values begin to be questioned. This is usually occasioned by a challenge from another set of values at variance with those formerly accepted. The conflict may result in compromise and the emergence of a new code of living incorporating principles common to both systems. Sometimes, the new code finds adherents who break away from their original loyalties to form a new community bound by allegiance to a new way of life. The Sikhs are an example of the emergence of a community with a communal consciousness fashioned out of new social norms.

  For several centuries Indians accepted Hinduism as something ordained and immutable. From A.D. 780 began Muslim invasions from the north. The invaders’ religion and way of life were the antithesis of whatever Hinduism stood for. Their religion was a simple set of dos and don’ts, most of them with direct bearing on matters of everyday life. A large part of the Quran consisted of rules on what a man may or may not eat and drink, how many wives he may marry, how to treat them and divorce them. The faith itself was brief and simple: that there was one God and Mohammed was his Prophet. The Quran was the word of God and what it said was law unto mankind. The Quran insisted on the unity of God in opposition to Hindu pantheism; it deified the iconoclast in a country of idol worshippers; it stood for the equality of men in a country ridden with caste distinctions; and it sanctioned pleasures of the flesh and palate in a country that preached the ascetic ideal.

  For seven centuries Islam and Hinduism battled for supremacy. There were periods when Islam, with characteristic impatience, argued sword in hand. Hinduism with characteristic resilience withstood persecution and took the edge off the Islamic sword. By the fifteenth century, India had many million Muslims, but by then Muslims were observing caste distinctions, visiting Hindu temples, and generally accepting Hindu customs and conventions. Above all, they accepted the principles of religious tolerance. On the other side, the Hindus themselves recognized the superiority of the concept of the indivisibility of the Godhead, of the evils of caste and other unwholesome social customs. The stage was set for the emergence of a school of thought propagating a fusion of faiths based on principles common to Islam and Hinduism. This was the school of Bhakti philosophy.

  Like the religious reformation in Europe, the Bhakti movement in India was basically a protest against religious dogma, ritual and intolerance. The propounders of Bhakti philosophy – Ramananda, Gorakhnath, Chaitanya, Kabir, Tulsidas, Vallabh and Namdev – taught that the form and place of worship were of little consequence and that basically Hinduism and Islam had the same values; only the nomenclature was different. They evolved a form of religious poetry with a vocabulary that borrowed liberally from the sacred texts of both Hindus and Muslims. It had a spontaneity that appealed to the masses. All that the movement lacked was personal leadership and guidance. This was provided by Guru Nanak (1469–1539), the founder of the Sikh faith.

  Guru Nanak, like the other Bhakti philosophers, was more concerned with spreading religious tolerance than with founding a new community. His teachings, however, fired the imagination of the Punjab peasantry and even during his lifetime a large number of followers gathered around him.

  At first, they were merely known as his disciples (in Sanskrit: shishya). Some time later, these disciples became a homogeneous group whose faith was exclusively the teachings of Nanak. The shishya became the ‘Sikh’ (corruption of the Sanskrit word).

  Guru Nanak was content to be a teacher. He laid no claims to divinity or to kinship with God. He neither invested his writings with the garb of prophecy nor his words with the sanctity of a ‘message’. His teaching was a crusade again
st cant and humbug in religion and his life was patterned by what he said. What he said was eminently well said, as his hymns are the finest in the Punjabi language. What he did was eminently well done, because his life was an example of his faith.

  He ignored religious and caste distinctions and took as his associates a Muslim musician and a low-caste Hindu. He ridiculed such Hindu religious practices as giving importance to bathing in ‘sacred’ rivers, wearing ‘sacred’ threads and making offerings to dead ancestors. He personally went to the places of pilgrimage and demonstrated to worshippers their utter absurdity. Likewise, he went on pilgrimages to Muslim shrines and reprimanded priests who had made a trade of religion and transgressed the injunctions of the Quran. His success in efforts to bring Hindus and Muslims together was a personal one. He was acclaimed by both communities, and on his death they clamoured for his body – the Muslims wanted to bury him, the Hindus wanted to cremate him. Even today he is regarded in the Punjab as a symbol of harmony between the Hindus and the Muslims. A popular couplet describes him:

  Guru Nanak the King of Fakeers,

  To the Hindu a Guru, to the Muslims a Peer.

  In fifty years of travel and teaching, Guru Nanak had attracted a following that could at best be described as a group dissenting from both Hinduism and Islam. (Chapter 8.) It was left to his successors to mould this group into a community with its own language and literature, religious beliefs and institutions, traditions and conventions.

  Guru Nanak was followed by nine other Gurus. Succession was determined on the basis of finding a teacher most fitted to safeguard and develop the spiritual legacy left behind by Nanak. Hence, for two centuries, there was remarkable continuity in the functions of leadership. These years saw the consummation of the religious aspect of Sikhism. They also saw nascent Hindu nationalism grow to political power and pave the way to the setting up of a Sikh state. Of the ten Gurus, the second, Guru Angad, the fourth, Guru Ramdas, the sixth, Guru Hargobind, and the tenth, Guru Gobind Singh, were chiefly responsible for measures that fostered communal consciousness and welded the Sikhs into an independent community.