Unwanted Returns – Newspaper – DAWN.COM

WITH the insider knowledge that philosophers share with out-of-office politicians, a leading Indian scholar analyzed India’s combustible demography a hundred years ago. In 1923, Dr. Radhakrishnan wrote in his two-volume survey of Indian philosophy: “India even today is mainly Hindu.” In his description of the epic period, which stretched from roughly 600 BC, they included Buddhists, Jains, Saivites and Vaishnavites – the sons of India’s territory. Of course, the Muslims still had to come.

It’s a long tome to read, and even harder to digest. I chewed on it as a student in the 1960s, but gave up before I got to the end of the second part. I recently returned to it to seek answers to the Hindu-Muslim experiments in religious coexistence since the arrival of Muslims in the subcontinent, and especially since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s determination to drive them out.

India’s traditional hospitality is proverbial, but does not apply to religious foreigners. Over the centuries, Buddhists have left India for a milder climate. Today, Buddhism has over 520 million followers, of whom only 8 million remain in India (the birthplace of Lord Buddha) to follow in his footsteps.

Almost contemporary to Buddhism is Jainism, also founded in India and perfected by the 24th tirthankara, Lord Mahavira (c. 600 BC). As pacifist as it is non-confrontational, unlike Buddhism, Jainism has survived in India. Between 4 and 5 million people still live there. A growing number today can be found in Canada, Europe and the US, where the practice of pious self-denial seems to be at odds with crass materialism.

In the eyes of Prime Minister Modi, the problem in India is not a Hindu majority, but a prolific surplus of 200 million Muslims (now 15 percent of the population). Modi’s predicament is not a matter of putting the genie back in the bottle. His riddle is how to remove the green genie from the saffron bottle.

Under Prime Minister Nehru, Muslims in India rarely felt that they had to choose between their country and their religion. Under his daughter, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, a test of sorts came for Indian Muslims in 1971 when, after her victory in East Pakistan, she is reported to have said: “A thousand years of subjugation have been avenged.”

By the way, all the rulers of the Mughal dynasty (which Prime Minister Modi regards with abhorrence) – except its founder Babar and his son Humayun – from Akbar to Bahadur Shah Zafar, were born in India. They saw themselves as Indians by birth. Today they are defiled as Muslim foreigners.

During the recent elections in Bangladesh, which returned Sheikh Hasina Wajed to power, India did not emerge as a material issue. Not even in Pakistan, where Nawaz Sharif’s previous friendly relationship with Prime Minister Modi had no influence on his PML-N’s return to power.

In India, however, Prime Minister Modi’s recent speeches during his election campaign could have been dismissed as hype if not for their implications for Muslims in India, and for Pakistan and, by extension, other neighboring countries.

On home turf in Gujarat, Mr Modi addressed four different rallies where he accused the Congress party of harboring a “dangerous mentality” even though the manifesto was written in the “language of the Muslim League”. In 2017, he accused former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of “holding a secret meeting with Pakistani diplomats to conspire against him.”

Now his theme is that Pakistan’s political leaders are “praying for a Congress victory. Pakistan is now keen to make the Congress prince the Prime Minister of India.” Before an audience in Junagadh, he added: “If Sardar Patel was not present (in 1948), Junagadh would have gone to Pakistan. Congress will create a dangerous situation for the country if it comes to power. Maybe they will give away the Kutch desert and claim that no one lives there.”

On June 4, everyone in the subcontinent will know who will rule India for the next five years. Mr. Modi knows it will be him. The Sharifs in Pakistan hope so too. However, they should anticipate that Mr. Modi, as a three-time Prime Minister, will taunt Pakistan by testing the fragile border between occupied Kashmir (India’s new ‘union state’) and Pakistan’s foundling Azad Jammu & Kashmir.

He could also decide to withdraw from the Indus Waters Treaty, which covers the rivers flowing from the higher banks, leaving Pakistan frothing at the mouth, knowing that a weakened World Bank would prefer not to mediate.

Over the next five years, Prime Minister Modi could pressure Indian Muslims to cross Pakistan’s eastern borders in Punjab and Sindh as refugees. It happened in 1971, when ten million refugees from East Pakistan entered India. Prime Minister Modi might be tempted to return the compliment.

The writer is an author.

www.fsaijazuddin.pk

Published in Dawn, May 9, 2024