Brahmin and Mullah

Just the other day, I was over a dear friend's house whose father hails from the Gujarat in India. Her uncle, the father’s eldest brother, and his wife were visiting from India for a while and to entertain them (since their command of English was negligible), her father suggested we put in tape two of the Ramayan. They’ve had the entire set for a few years now, and two summers ago we had the opportunity to watch every tape, each one being close to an hour, on a tape-a-night basis. Since her father is Hindu, he saw this as a great opportunity to allow his children to connect with the culture in which he grew up. Before I go on I should mention that her mother is Catholic, as is she and as are her younger sister and brother.

In any case, we watched the entire series that summer with her father occasionally jumping in to make comments explaining the significance of certain events and issues that might not ordinarily be understood by those not terribly familiar with Hinduism and the culture that goes along with it. When I watched the movie that summer, I reacted with amusement and interest; I realized that while I might think that the movie was nothing more than the retelling of a famous myth, to him and to countless Hindus this was the retelling of an ultimate truth. The Babri-masjid incident bears witness to that line of thought, and it underscores the greater conflicts that exist due to different beliefs in religio-historical truths and the modern day implications of these ancient systems (Palestine and Israel for example).

However, this essay is not meant to comment on the validity of the belief system in Hinduism vis-à-vis Islam, Christianity or any other faith. I am writing it because when I watched tape two the second time, I came upon the event in the Ramayan when a great sage visits Sita’s father, the king, just before Ram himself visits to claim Sita as his wife. What really struck me was the absolute power that the priest-class had over the kings, over the ministers, over everyone. Moreover, the comments that surrounded this event were hinting that this is the way that things should be: where the religious authorities are given their proper reverence and the holy-men are obeyed. Surely it is by this path that the virtues of the past will be restored. All this I saw, and this time, two years later, it had an entirely different resonance with me.

Being a Muslim, one of the things that I find wonderful about Islam is the complete lack (ideally, mind you) of a religious hierarchy. Although in the Shi’a tradition the Imamate has filtered down to the point where various Mullahs/ Ayatollahs have near Imam status, in the Sunni tradition this is by and by large not the case. Or, should we say, this had not been the case for many long centuries, but now seems to be something on the rise. When I saw the reverence given in the Ramayan my first instinct was to say, “thank God Islam doesn’t relegate itself to guru-reverence”. However, at this point in my life I’m not so certain that the previous statement is entirely correct. For example, just last year at the college I was attending we had a major rift in the Muslim community. Was this rift due to feelings on Palestine during the intifada? No, we were all unified about that. Was it due to feelings about Kashmir and relations with India? No, most Muslims were pretty unified in their feelings about that (i.e. we supported Kashmir either being part of Pakistan or being independent). The fight in fact started when a few people dared to disagree with certain beliefs that had been propagated by a “Shaykh” or “Imam” (his title was interchangeable) with regards to feelings on religious and social issues. I know because I was one of them, one of the main ones, who came out and said, “I’m sorry, but the scholar is wrong on this point”. I would have done better had I criticized Allah Himself. Well, maybe not… but for sure I would have gotten less grief because of it. Me and the few other people who made our views known were savagely attacked both verbally and in at least two cases physically. We were called everything from “misguided” to “Kaffirs”. On a personal level, one of the leading critics tried to have an article I wrote about Palestine barred from the Islamic Society newsletter on the grounds that I held religious beliefs that would “corrupt” others who might read it. Since the article was purely political in its nature and commented on current trends in Israeli and US policy, I could only muse that he hadn’t read it but rather just wanted to get it banned because it was written by me. Another of my very dear friends was called every name in the book and to this day is verbally assaulted by many people just because of he stood by me during the entire ordeal.

What does this have to do with the Ramayan? A lot. It shows that in Islam today there is a growing trend towards the development of a religious hierarchy, something for centuries thought anathema to the creed. The danger of this is that Muslims in various countries are falling prey to the fundamentalist dogma being expounded by these “scholars” and are straying from the idea that one can indeed do their own homework. This ideology is embedded in Hinduism from the start, where the Brahmin is placed at the top of the social order. Again today we see, with the BJP in power, the rise of this Brahmin-style pattern of thinking. Where the religion becomes the ultimate authority and the religious figures become the ultimate diviners of that authority. While this may be all good and well in Hinduism, it is disastrous in Islam because it undoes much of what Islam has tried to build over the years as far as a relationship between the religion and the state. It is particularly dangerous in Pakistan because the growing trend of adherence to the doctrine of Mullah this and Imam that threatens the delicate secularism of the state; that which Jinnah fought so hard to protect.

Musharraf, in his latest speech, has clearly shown that Islam in general, and Pakistan in particular, is worthy of much more than what she currently endures. Sectarianism and religious revivalism is rearing its ugly head in the Muslim world and Pakistan, and threatens to consume the ideals of the state and spit up a hodgepodge of Islamicist rhetoric instead. Groups such as the Jamaat-i-Islami help to foster this by placing the center of power on the shoulders of the religious establishment rather than where it belongs in the state: on the head of the civil authority. The caste system was one of the major reasons Islam was so successful in the sub-continent to begin with: the power of the Brahmins and their attitudes towards the untouchables and others only made the egalitarian spirit of Islam seem all the more attractive. And in any state where the Islamicists have brought religion into the government structure, we can clearly see a devolvement of the state. Pakistan cannot afford to allow that to happen to her.

Yet by adhering to religious rhetoric, the Indian government has shown itself to be essentially interested in trying to force the religious entities in Pakistan to take control of the government. Indeed, it serves their interests best. After all, drawing clear lines between two people who have such common cultural ties is very difficult, even for a dedicated Brahmin. Drawing clear lines between Hinduism and Islam is much less difficult. While Pakistan is taking clear steps at this point in time to relegate the Islamicists to a second-rate power in the state, India maintains a Hindu-Nationalist party as the majority power in its government, and all this from a secular state too.

This betrays something much more dangerous: the idea that India is tied at a fundamental level to Brahminism and the Hindu religion, and that no matter how secular it purports to be, stories such as the Ramayan are still taken as literal truth in this day and age. If the national identity of India is irreconcilably tied to a Hindu-Nationalist ideology, there is little hope that the future could bring anything other than constant attempts to destabilize Pakistan. Although Muslim, Pakistan has a much better chance in the long run of maintaining a secular identity because not only is Islam at a general level much more tolerant than Hinduism but the foundation of Pakistan is based upon law and constitution, and while she is growing to rid herself of the fundamentalist threat (imported from many other states in the Middle East we might add) it is doubtful that India will ever be able to separate herself from the Hindu glories of the past.

In the end, I suppose that perhaps I shouldn’t take such things as a nostalgic view of the past (the times of the Ramayan) as harbingers of future discord, but then again given the last fifty years of Pakistan-India relations maybe there’s more than a kernel of truth to my ideas. The people of India have a national obligation to ensure that their religion stays in the home, where all religions need to be, and not to confuse Indian national destiny with Hindu national destiny. Pakistan is now taking steps to ensure that there is no confusion on the part of the world; that Pakistan is indeed a secular state founded by Muslims and not an Islamic state. It is up to India to follow the lead on this issue.