Friday, May 3, 2013
Muslim Religious Community in India makes it clear that though Muslims were always in microscopic minority, but constituted the privileged class
The above history of Muslim Religious Community in India makes it clear that though Muslims were always in microscopic minority, but constituted the privileged class or were most favoured children of the State who enjoyed all the benefits from the public welfare and other State enterprises during Muslim Rule. The other non-muslim communities for about centuries under the Islamic Rules were underprivileged, weak and nondominant group of the Indian society. Muslim community was dominant upto partition of the India in all spheres of life including polity. The History itself speaks that abnormal growth of Muslim population proved to be a weapon for Muslim community for getting political power and to re-establish the Government in power of their own choice in the democratic process by using their voting rights in one side or the other prior and after partition in India.
The above historical background makes it clear that the Muslim Religious Community was a privileged class in comparison to Non-Muslim religious communities during Muslim Rules and also continuing as such during British Rule which developed a complex in Muslim Religious Community and in order to revive aforesaid privilege the Muslim Religious Community claimed partition of India. Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan which were part of ancient India were separated from it and are Islamic States and non-muslim religious communities are compelled to reside under the Islamic Rules.
The intention of Founding Fathers of the Constitution of India was not to create any privilege to minority religious community while introducing Articles 29 and 30 of the Constitution of India. This was just a protection given to minorities due to meagre population and strength treating such religious groups as non-dominant groups/communities. Constituent Assembly has categorised these non-dominant religious groups in three classes in the Schedule, i.e., 1/2%, less than 1-1/2% and above 1-1/2%. This was the criteria fixed by the Constituent Assembly for determining religious or linguistic minority. According to the Apex Court it is the region or the State which is the criteria for determining a religious or linguistic minority. Muslim Religious community is at present more than 18.5% of population in Uttar Pradesh is a dominant religious community and no sense of insecurity or lack of confidence exist amongst them at present. The claim of any religious group/community as privileged class may give rise to other community to make such demands which may be detrimental to nation's unity and integrity.
Jawahar Lal Nehru in his Book 'Discovery of India' at page 382 had described minority in India as under:-
" ....Minorities in India, it must be remembered are not racial or national minorities as in Europe; they are religious permanent, as conversions can take place from one religion to another, and a person changing his religion does not thereby lose his racial background or his cultural and linguistic inheritance. Latterly religion, in any real sense of the word, has played little part in Indian political conflicts, though the word is often enough used and exploited. Religion differences, as such, do not come in the way, for there is a great deal of mutual tolerance for them. In political matters religion has been displayed by what is called communalism, a narrow group mentality basing itself on a religious community but in reality concerned with political power and patronage for the interested group...."
In his Book 'Discovery of India' at page 392, Pt Jawahar Lal Nehru further noted as follows:-
"Mr. Jinnah's demand was based on a new theory he had recently propunded that India consited of two nations, Hindu and Mislem. Why only two. I do not know, for if nationality was based on religion, then there were many nations in India....."
Above observations of Pt Jawahar Lal Nehru that the question of minority was raised by Muslim leaders in order to gain their political powers would be clear from Chapter II of the Book 'The Administration of the Moghul Empire' written by a Historian Ishtiaq Husain Qureshi published in 1973 and reprinted in 1973. The relevant part of Chapter II, pages 22 and 23 are being reproduced below:-
"ISLAM takes a comprehensive view of life and does not separate politics from religion....."
"By the time of the Prophet's death, the Muslim state was already strong and well consolidated. IN its essence it was the organized Muslim community functioning as a religious entity to preserve and propagate its beliefs and to provide the facilities to practise them, confronted with socia, economic and political needs to sustain its life as an independent society, hence organized into a state without which its prime object of maintaining its Islamic character could jeopardized. This need could be felt by any religious group, but in Islam religion was not merely a matter of prayer and belief but it also embraced the external behaviour of man to a degree that such a conception of the Islamic community was inevitable. The Muslim thinkers have mostly upheld this conception of the Islamic State. Their legal thinking also has been affected by this belief; indeed this conception is so deeply immersed in the Islamic doctrine that it would be difficult to separate it from religious thought....."
Founding Fathers of Constitution never expected any such privileged and expected to make India a secular State, but given some protection to some of the religious communities having population about 1-1/2% of total population as religious minority community. The History of Minority narrated above also confirms the same.
The term 'Hindu', according to Dr. Radhakrishnan, had originally a territorial and not a credal significance. It implied residence in a well-defined geographical area. Aboriginal tribes, savage and half-civilized people, the cultured Dravidians and the Vedic Aryans were all Hindus as they were the sons of the same mother. The Hindu thinkers reckoned with the striking fact that the men and women dwelling in India belonged to different communities, worshipped different gods, and practised different rites (Kurma Purana) (Ibid p.12)
Monier Williams has observed that "it must be borne in mind that Hinduism is far more than a mere form of theism vesting on Brahmanism. It presents for our investigation a complex congeries of creeds and doctrines which in its gradual accumulation may be compared to the gathering together of the mighty volume of the Ganges, swollen by a continual influx of tributary rivers and rivulets, spearding itself over an every-increasing area of country and finally resolving itself into an intricate Delta of tortuous steams and jungly marshes...The Hindu religion is reflection of the composite character of the Hindus, who are not people but many. It is based on the idea of universal receptivity. It has ever aimed to accommodating itself circumstances, and has carried on the process of adaptation through more than three thousand years. It has first borne with and then, so to speak, swallowed, digested, and assimilated something from all creed". (Religious Thought & Life in India" by Monier Williams, P. 57).
We have already indicated that the usual tests which can be aplied in relation to any recognised religion or religious creed in the wordld turn out to be inadequate in dealing with the problem of Hindu religion. Normally, any recognised religion or religious creed subscribes to body of set philosophic concepts and theological beliefs. Does this test aply to the Hindu religion? In answering this question, we would base ourselves mainly on the exposition of the problem by Dr. Radhakrishnan in his work on Indian Philosophy . ("Indian Philosophy" by Dr. Radhakrishnan. Vol. I, pp.22-23). Unlike other countries, India can claim that philosphy in ancient India was not an auxiliary to any other science or art, but always held a prominent position of independence..... "In all the fleeting centuries of history", says Dr. Radhakrishnan, "in all the vicissitudes through which India has passed, a certain marked identity is visible. It has held fast to certain psychological traits which constitute its special heritage and they will be the characteristic marks of the Indian people so Loungsri as they are privileged to have a separate existence". The history of Indian thought emphatically brings out the fact that the development of Hindu religion has alrways been inspired by an endless quest of the mind for truth based on the consciousness that truth has many facts. Truth is one, but wise men describe it differently.(...) The Indian mind has, consistently through the ages, been exercised over the problem of the nature of godhead the problem that faces the spirit at the end of life, and the interrelation between the individual and the universal soul. "If we can abstract from the variety of opinion', says Dr. Radhakrishnan, "and observe the general spirit of Indian though, we shall find that it has a disposition to interpret life and nature in the way of monistic idealism, though this tendency is so plastic, living and manifold that it takes many forms and expresses itself in even mutally hostile teachings."(..)
.....Naturally enough, it was realised by Hindu religion from the very beginning of its career that truth was many-sided and different views contained different aspects of truth which no one could fully express. This knowledge inevitably bred a spirit of tolerance and willingness to understand and appreciate the opponent's point of view. That is how "the several views set forth in India in regard to the vital philosophic concepts are considered to be the branches of the self-same tree. The short cuts and blind alleys are somehow reconciled with the main road of advance to the truth." (..) When we consider this broad sweep of the Hindu philosophic concepts, it would be realised that under Hindu philosophy, there is no cope for ex-communicating any notion or principle as heretical and rejecting it as such.
The development of Hindu religion and philosphy shows that from time to time saints and religious reformers attempted to remove from the Hindu thought and practices elements of corruption and superstition and that led to the formation of different sects. Buddha started Budhism; Mahavir founded Jainsim; Basava became the founder of Lingayat religion; Dnyaneshwar and Tukaram initiated the Varakari cult; Guru Nanak inspired Sikhism, Dayananda founded Arya Samaj, and Chaitanya began Bhakti cult; and as a result of the teachings of Ramrksohin and Vivekananda, Hindu religion flowered into its most attractive, progressive and dynamic form. If we study the teachings of these saints and religious reformers, we would notice an amount of divergence in their respective views; but underneath that divergence, there is a kind of subtle indescribable unity which keeps them within the sweep of the broad and progressive Hindu religion.
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