A Brief History Of The Present: Muslims in New India
Author: Hilal Ahmed
Publisher: Penguin Viking, New Delhi
Pages: 226
The only Muslim population that has seen uninterrupted democracy in the last 75 years is in India. They are the brightest hue of the diversity that defines the country as a mosaic of different communities. Their experience as citizens, however has not been quite fructuous. Theirs is in fact a saga of sadness and despair. They are equal partners in national life, yet they feel tormented and under-represented in every sphere of the republic.
The voting pattern of Muslims decides the course of Indian elections. In several provinces, they constitute powerful vote-banks and regional political parties eke out their electoral position solely because of Muslim support. It should then make them leaders, but they are seen only as a supporting cast, and at times as outcasts.
A series of scholars, academics, journalists and even politicians have ventured to articulate this predicament of the community: how to grok and grapple with identity-based politics in India? Still, like a mystery in the message of a mystic, the commentary on the state of Indian Muslims only keeps confounding.
Hilal Ahmed, an erudite academic-exponent, is among the most prolific writers on issues connected with the politics of and about Muslims. Instead of hastily drawn conclusions, his discourse is nuanced and mindful of complexities attached to the storied story of the community. Ahmed’s writings are often accompanied with statistical backup based on surveys conducted by the think tank CSDS-Lokniti with which he is associated.
He has explored and analyzed almost every theme that can help understand the political and social journey of Muslims in India. His gaze is that of a scholar and researcher, and so his narrative is layered.
For Modi and his political party, Bharatiya Janata Party, the Amrit Kal, as Hilal quotes from one of Modi’s speeches, is a “liberated present” that has seen the light of the day after years of “caged past.”
In his latest slim volume of essays titled A Brief History Of The Present: Muslims in New Delhi (Published by Penguin Viking, New Delhi), Ahmed spells out in 8 chapters how recent politics in India has shaped up and how it has impacted Muslims which happen to be the largest minority anywhere and ever found in the world.
The present, for Ahmed, is what the BJP has euphemistically coined for the era of Modi Raj – Amrit Kal (The Era of Elixir) -- which was ushered in 2014 after the former Gujarat chief minister ascended to the office of the Prime Minister of India with pomp, and continues to rule ever since with unprecedented, albeit somewhat qualified popularity after the 2024 polls.
For Modi and his political party, Bharatiya Janata Party, the Amrit Kal, as Hilal quotes from one of Modi’s speeches, is a “liberated present” that has seen the light of the day after years of “caged past.”
The ‘past’ is a pal of both Hindutva (hardline Hindu) politics and Muslim nostalgia. The Hindu Right excavates the past to present a tableau of Hindu subjugation at the hands of Muslim invaders to garner support from Hindu masses. Muslims paradoxically lament for the same historical period which, they believe, was an epoch of their ancient glory.
The past thus forms the bedrock of the Hindu Right’s key political philosophy that sees it as a tool to unite Hindus and generate the electoral political economy that guarantees their place in power. For Muslims, it has turned out to be catastrophic and they continue to face the music for their history, heritage and culture.
Ahmed writes that for Varma, the advent of Islam in India was an objectionable historical fact that broke the unadulterated flow of the pure Hindu past.
Ahmed discerns a streak of “finding Muslim villainy” even in scholarship produced by liberal authors like Shashi Tharoor and Pavan K. Varma. Both are also politicians and known for their strong views against BJP and its politics.
“One finds that a new version of ‘Garv se kaho hum Hindu hain (say it with pride that we are Hindus)’ is taking a concrete shape in the writings of a section of non-BJP intellectuals as well,” writes Ahmed, adding that Varma, an ex-diplomat, was once enchanted with Mughal emperor Akbar, prince Dara Shikoh and poet Ghalib. His book Ghalib: The Man, The Times (1989) celebrated the composite ethos of India that carved poetic genius of that timeless Urdu-Persian poet. But, now Varma has woken to the realization that he belongs to a great Hinduism that has nothing to do with Akbar or Ghalib. He has penned a tome to prove his thesis – The Great Hindu Civilization: Achievement, Neglect, Bias and the Way Forward (2021).
Ahmed writes that for Varma, the advent of Islam in India was an objectionable historical fact that broke the unadulterated flow of the pure Hindu past.
“…Hindu civilization had never seen conquerors like the Islamic… invaders, who blindly committed to the destruction of a culture,” Ahmed quotes from Varma’s book.
Similarly, the icon of liberal and panache craft of elocution, Shashi Tharoor, in his book Why I Am A Hindu (2018) has found flaws even in Sufism which is otherwise a fulcrum that balances the entire edifice of Indian syncretism. Ahmed quotes Tharoor saying: “Sufism… was greatly influenced by Hindu metaphysics and the Bhakti movement… but, the Sufi faith never rejected Islam and many of its leading figures were vocal supporters – as in the case of Amir Khusro – of the religious iconoclasm practiced by Muslim rulers.”
This fallacious simplification of history and reductionist views of Sufism, a bridge between Hindus and Muslims of India, will turn public discourse problematic, says Ahmed. “This intellectualism is dangerous as it excludes Muslims… their (scholars like Varma and Tharoor) elusive search for Hindu civilization doesn’t provide any space for Muslim identity,” writes Ahmed.
The ‘past’ is a pal of both Hindutva (hardline Hindu) politics and Muslim nostalgia. The Hindu Right excavates the past to present a tableau of Hindu subjugation at the hands of Muslim invaders to garner support from Hindu masses.
If liberals can discover Hindu victimization, then the RSS-BJP will sell it even more rigorously, through both overt and covert means. This has exactly been the zeitgeist of the years after the BJP stormed to power.
This was the premise that laid the foundation of BJP’s electoral rise around the Ram Temple movement and the subsequent demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in the early 1990s. The temple-mosque controversies ensure a good electoral yield for the BJP, and the party will continue to cultivate such issues.
The Hindutva-induced imagination has in fact, according to Ahmed, established Muslim politicophobia in India in the same way as Islamophobia found place in the West after 9/11. The 24/7 electronic and digital media have taken anti-Muslim biases to minds in every corner of the country, leading to aggravated negative perception of Muslims. This is the most alarming aspect of New India for Muslims.
More than a political formulation for public consumption, Ahmed argues that this New India is an ideological-political doctrine and the “Hindutva constitutionalism” will work as a mechanism to achieve it. The implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the quest for Uniform Civil Code are steps in this direction.
Despite mapping setbacks for Muslims in the political life of India in recent years, Ahmed’s book is not merely a compendium of gloomy notes. It contextualizes the place of Muslims in the present history and analyzes all contours of contestations around their politicization.
Ahmed also highlights the fact with survey reports that Muslims have been almost equal beneficiaries of all major government welfare schemes that the Modi government launched in the last 10 years. And that the youth of India – both Hindus and Muslims – have shown an inclination largely towards development issues that affect their daily lives more than religious beliefs.
It however seems only like a footnote, as the 2024 elections showed that the dominant theme about Muslims will continue to be their identity and the Hindu Right is in no mood to bridge the Hindu-Muslim divide. But its magic has surely waned, and its grip loosened.