The Messenger Shoots

Over the years, the "unity in diversity" model has come under strain on various counts, increasingly even on issues of foreign policy. This brings us to a paradox. The Muslim is internally divided into many cultures (Malayali, Bengali, Tamil, Urdu-speaking), but his worldview has always been similar. The idea of the Ummah does play a role when it comes to events concerning Muslims outside the country. Gandhiji was sensitive to this when he supported the Khilafat, although events in Turkey took a turn he didn’t anticipate. This worldview has been rather dramatically solidified since the first Gulf War when CNN showed for the first time in history live coverage of war. From that day, Muslim defeat and humiliation was to become staple fare on live TV.

The Muslim elite in Delhi and Oudh had been decimated during 1857. Globally, they were smashed when the Ottoman empire was liquidated in the wake of World War I. None of that was on TV. But in March ’91, Muslims in particular saw with their own eyes the defeat and humiliation of a Muslim state, Iraq, with roots in one of the world’s great civilisations.Then followed the two "intifadas", the four-year-long brutalisation of Bosnian Muslims, Srebrenica, rape camps, the post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan, the continuing occupation of Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, desecration of the holiest of shrines in Samara—and all on live TV.

Any wonder, then, that the Muslim world is in a state of rage? Just as the workers of the world had nothing to lose but their chains, a section of Muslims feel they have nothing to lose but their daily humiliations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza etc. This is the way it comes across to them, riveted as they are on a diet of live TV. But responses of the world’s Muslims vary. Indian Muslims belong to an exceptional category for a simple reason: the world’s second largest Muslim population has the good fortune to operate in a multicultural, secular democracy. Remember, a massive demonstration at Ramlila grounds thwarted US President George Bush from addressing a joint session of Parliament. The vent of democracy keeps Indian Muslims from terrorism.

But our democratic ventilators will work only in conditions where there is some, minimal consensus across the board on issues. It is remarkable that for the first time in my experience, issues of foreign policy are leaving even the liberal Hindus and liberal Muslims on opposite sides. We ignore this only at our peril. A friend of mine, a scholar of some distinction, startled me with this observation, "These things have been happening throughout history, why are Indian Muslims so excessively concerned about events taking place thousands of miles away?"

Well, it was thousands of miles away that Hitler sent millions of Jews to the gas chambers. Hiroshima was even further away. And those tragedies were played out when information was transmitted at snail’s pace. Today’s atrocities are on live TV. Of course, if the US neocons evaporated miraculously, if the Arab dictatorships were removed, the world would become much more wholesome. But contrary to the scaremongers, the situation in India is more realistically manageable. Our democracy protects, among its billion, the world’s second largest Muslim population. Any initiative, even in foreign policy, must be sensitive to the centrality of internal social harmony. I doubt if Muslims want a break with America. All they want is a condemnation of atrocities—not an unreasonable expectation.

Of course, there will be occasion when the state, in the interest of statecraft, will not be able to raise its decibel level on, say, US misdemeanours worldwide, to match popular expectation. But the state can facilitate the addition of other ventilators to our democracy. One such ventilator can be a genuine public service media (as distinct from government media) which informs and alerts but does not demoralise.