+ A response from the other side
BY SAFDAR HUSSAIN
CHOOSING TO STAY, Memoirs Of An Indian Muslim, by Nasim Ansari. Translated into English by Ralph Russel. Published by City Press, Karachi. 196pp. Rs160.
M UKHTAR Masood’s Awaz-e-Dost was a well received effort in literary circles when it hit the shelves in 1972. It was a very aesthetically narrated account of a generation of well-educated Muslim young men who studied at Aligarh and were in one voice behind the Pakistan Movement. The book under review is the translated version of aptly-titled Jawab-e-Dost by Nasim Ansari who came up with the other side of the story: the Algarians who were more keen to work within the Indian national framework rather than going for Partition. Initially serialized in Qaumi Awaz, a Lucknow based newspaper, in 1987, the text came out in the form of a book a year later. The first Pakistani edi tion of the book was brought out a decade later in 1997.
Talking of the Muslim mindset in pre-Partition India, Nasim Ansari has sounded the opinion that owing to their extended rule over the subconti nent, the Muslims were unable to chart out a clear path for themselves in the changed circumstances. And, at the same time the other communities, especially the Hindus, were skeptical of every move the Muslims made. The Muslims, he says, were never out to re-enact their past glory, but their “intellectual backardness” never allowed them to convey this to the Hindu masses.
This dearth of intellectual talent among the Muslims is, in fact, the main argument that runs through the book. In the last five or six centuries, he writes, the personalities who stand out as peo-ple who attained status in the realm of learning include “not a single Muslim name although they are spread throughout the world.” It is interesting that the writer has found the falut with the Muslims, and not with Islam. “It is obvious that the responsibility for this intellectual stagnation cannot be placed at the door of Muslim religion because after the rise of Islam for approximately six hundred years Muslims ruled the intellectual world. Supporters of this religion were responsible
for greater achievements in the sciences and the arts,” he writes.
The Muslim rule in India lasted for several hun-dred years, but, the writer regrets, not a single university was set up, and this led to a situation where there were very few Muslims with the abili-ty to influence Hindu intellectuals. In Aligarh, he recalls, the Muslim League workers adopted to a great extent an anti-intellectual stance, and “they regarded every intellectual with suspicion”.
Nasim Ansari has, then, moved on to argue that the Muslims failed to understand the changing dimensions of the global scenario. This he has done by discussing a soemwhat misplaced sense of pan-Islamism that was prevalent among the Indian Muslims. He has a narrated an incident to high-light his point. “I have heard from my elders,” he says, that Maulana Mohammad Ali once went to see Ibn-e-Saud of Saudi Arabia and proposed to him that since Madina and Makkah were holy places for the entire Muslim world, their manage-ment may be placed under some kind of an inter-national council. “I have heard that Ibn-e-Saud lis-tened… with great attention. After that he put his hand on the hilt of his sowrd and said, ‘I have by means of this sword brought these cities into my power; if you like you too try your luck.”
The message of the incident is clear: whatever the reason or the cause, nobody will willingly sur-render his government to anyone else. Nasim sounds logical when he says that in the days when there was no independent Muslim state anywhere in the world, the talk of pan-Islamism had some meaning to it, but now when all the Muslims exist within independent states, “it is obvious to every-body that political unity is impossible”.
Instead of political and emotional pan-Islamism, the writer has suggested “another kind of pan-Islamism” under which there should be a common-wealth of Muslim countries in which scientists may be able to move from country to country with-out any formality, and intellectuals should be absolutely free to express their opinions. “Also, governmnets should devote at least one per cent of their national income on the advancement of science.” Sounds logical, but, unfortunately, there is little on the ground to bank our hopes on.