Or so I hope. In recent years, Mr. Diggs, there’s been a change in the dominant ethos of the country, in the attitudes of mind that define what it means to be Indian. We’re seeing more and more the demonization of a collectivity. Look at the things they are saying! Muslims are “pampered” for political ends, they say: look at the Shah Banu case and Muslim Personal Law. Muslims have four wives, they exclaim, and are outbreeding everyone else; soon they will overtake the Hindus! Muslims are disloyaclass="underline" they set off firecrackers whenever Pakistan beats India at cricket or hockey. I tried to argue the point at first with those Hindus who were willing to raise it with me, but found it almost too simple to do so. The Rajiv Gandhi government’s action on Shah Banu was pure political opportunism; it was a sellout to Muslim conservatives, but a betrayal of Muslim women and Muslim reformers. Why stigmatize the community as a whole when many amongst them too lost out in the process? In any case, Personal Law covers only marriage and inheritance and divorce: how does it affect those who are not subject to it? If Muslims have four wives — and not many do — how does that increase the number of reproductive Muslim wombs, which still remains four whether by one husband or many? And by what statistical projection can 115 million Muslims “overtake” 700 million Hindus? If a handful of Muslims are pro-Pakistani, how can one label an entire community? Surely the families of my hero Mohammed Azharuddin, or, for that matter, of the nation’s numerous Muslim hockey stars, aren’t setting off firecrackers to commemorate Indian defeats by Pakistan? But it doesn’t matter — this is not about logic or reasoning. The national mind has been afflicted with the intellectual cancer of thinking of “us” and “them.”
Where do Indian Muslims like myself fit in? I’ve spent my life thinking of myself as part of “us”— now there are Indians, respectable Indians, Indians winning votes, who say that I’m really “them”!
But I’m determined to resist this minority complex that the Hindu chauvinists want to impose upon me and others like me. What makes me a minority? Is it a mathematical concept? Well, mathematically Muslims were always a minority in India, before Partition, even in the mediaeval Muslim period I spend my life researching and teaching. But when the Great Mughals ruled on the throne of Delhi, were Muslims a “minority” then? Mathematically no doubt, but no Indian Muslim thought of himself as a minority. Brahmins are only ten percent of the population of India today — do they see themselves as a minority? No, minorityhood is a state of mind, Mr. Diggs. It is a sense of powerlessness, of being out of the mainstream, of being here on sufferance. I refuse to let others define me that way. I tell my fellow Muslims: No one can make you a minority without your consent.
I beg your pardon? Yes, I’ve been to Pakistan. Once. For an academic conference, in fact. Where a Pakistani scholar stood up and spoke about the importance, indeed the centrality, of Islam in his country’s national identity. “If the Turks cease to be Muslim, they are still Turks,” he said at one point, bringing his peroration to a climax. “If the Egyptians cease to be Muslim, they are still Egyptians. If the Iranians cease to be Muslim, they are still Persians. But if we cease to be Muslim, what are we? We’re Indians!” I went up to him afterwards. “My name is Mohammed Sarwar,” I said, “and I’m Indian.” And I simply walked away from his outstretched hand.
Later, back in India, whenever I tell this story to my Muslim friends, I add something: “For me it’s the opposite. We’re Muslim, but there are Muslims in a hundred countries. If we’re not Indian, what are we?”
The danger is that Hindus like Ram Charan Gupta will get Muslims like me thinking differently. This is why the change in the public discourse about Indianness is so dangerous, and why the old ethos must be restored. An India that denies itself to some of us could end up being denied to all of us. This would be a second Partition: and a partition in the Indian soul would be as bad as a partition in the Indian soil. For my sons, the only possible idea of India is that of a nation greater than the sum of its parts. An India neither Hindu nor Muslim, but both. That is the only India that will allow them to continue to call themselves Indians.
Mrs. Hart and Mr. Das
October 12, 1989
“I don’t know how to ask you this, Mr. Das, but it’s really important to me. You see, I’m trying so hard to understand the circumstances of my daughters death.”
“Of course, Mrs. Hart, of course. Please be asking anything you want. Anything you want. If I am knowing the answer, I shall of course be telling you vithout any hesitation. Any hesitation.”
“Well. [Deep breath.] Did Priscilla have a special friend here in Zalilgarh?”
“Miss Priscilla was so much popular, Mrs. Hart. Ve were all being her special friends. Special friends.”
“No, you don’t understand. I mean I haven’t made myself clear. Did she have a special personal friend? An intimate friend?”
“I am regrettably not understanding you, Mrs. Hart. Not understanding.”
“Did she have a boyfriend here, Mr. Das?”
“Oh dear, Mrs. Hart, what question you are asking! Miss Priscilla was a weritable angel. She was helping poor women, vorking wery hard. Wery hard. Where from she was to find the time for boyfriend-shoyfriend? Chhi!”
“Mr. Das, I have no doubt she worked very hard, but I assume she had some spare time for herself. I found these among her things. They’re birth-control pills, Mr. Das, as I’m sure you know. Why was she taking them?”
“Ah, I see. I see. But why must you assume she was taking them herself, Mrs. Hart? You are knowing we are population-control awareness project. Awareness project. She may have been having them to show the poor women. To show the poor women. Please do not imagine the worst of your poor daughter, Mrs. Hart. The worst.” “Oh, for God’s sake…. Never mind, Mr. Das. Thank you.”
“Mrs. Hart, I am understanding wery veil your anxiousness to be knowing more about this great tragedy Great tragedy. And to have reminders of your lovely daughter. Lovely daughter. Alas, this is all I am being able to find for you in the office.”
“What is it?”
“A briefing paper, Mrs. Hart. Briefing paper. On population awareness and women.”
“It’s not exactly what I was looking for, but I do appreciate your kindness, Mr. Das. Thank you.”
“You are being most welcome, Mrs. Hart. Most welcome.”
“You haven’t come across anything of a more personal nature in her desk, have you?”
“You are meaning? Excuse me, I don’t follow. Don’t follow.”
“I’ve always known Priscilla to keep a sort of scrapbook, with her impressions, poems, sketches. It wasn’t at the apartment — the room she rented. No one seems to have seen it.”
“Scrapbook? Hmmm — I am not recalling any such thing, Mrs. Hart. Any such thing. If she had a scrapbook, she was not producing it at the office, isn’t it? I am truly sorry I am being unable to help, Mrs. Hart. Miss Priscilla was not really having the facilities here to keep anything, only project files. Project files. But we will certainly look again, Mrs. Hart. You are also being most welcome to look anywhere in this office by your goodself. Meanwhile, you are wishing to take this paper of Miss Priscilla’s? This paper?”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to deprive you of something you need for your work, Mr. Das.”
“Oh, that is perfectly all right. It is a spare copy. Spare copy. And so well-written. What a wonderful writer Miss Priscilla was, Mrs. Hart. Here, you must listen:
“ ‘The case for the HELP-US population-control awareness projects is founded on the clear and demonstrable relationship between high fertility rates and the subjugation of women. This is particularly apparent in India, where women are placed under considerable social and family pressure to bear more children, which in turn reduces their autonomy as decisional agents in society. The fact is that women who are largely confined to, and in a real sense shackled by, the repeated bearing and full-time raising of children suffer a loss of freedom and agency that restricts their abilities to fulfil their life potential. Young women must be a particular target of HELP-US because raising their consciousness can have a much wider impact on their families and on society as a whole. Women who resist repeated childbearing will exercise greater authority within their family units which, in turn, will reduce fertility rates and thus reduce the strain on the limited economic and environmental resources of a developing country like India…