There is a potential silver lining in Hindu nationalism’s endorsement of
Indonesia’s Humanitarian Islam. That is, if the approval produces a Hindu
equivalent.
اضافة اعلان
At first glance, Hindu nationalist Ram Madhav’s call
on Indian Muslims to embrace this, probably the world’s most moderate,
expression of Islam, seems patronizing and out of step.
Madhav is a member of the executive of Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an almost century-old militant right-wing Hindu
nationalist paramilitary volunteer organization, former national
secretary-general of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and a close
associate of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In an essay published by Open, an Indian current
affairs weekly, Madhav, widely viewed as a moderate among Hindu nationalists,
called on Indian Muslims to adopt a moderate form of Islam propagated and
practiced by Nahdlatul Ulama, the world and Indonesia’s largest Muslim civil
society movement.
Nahdlatul Ulama advocates reform of what it calls
“obsolete” and “problematic” elements of Islamic law, including those that
encourage segregation, discrimination, and/or violence toward anyone perceived
to be a non-Muslim.
Humanitarian Islam further recognizes equal rights
for Muslims and non-Muslims, unrestricted acceptance of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, and inter-faith relations based on shared common
values.
If adopted
by Madhav’s RSS and BJP, it would be an
approach that could contribute to the restoration of a semblance of societal
harmony in India and help halt the backsliding of the country’s democracy.
Several Nahdlatul Ulama-associated bodies welcomed
Madhav’s endorsement “as an opportunity to place humanitarianism at the heart
of interaction between different faith groups — regardless of religion and
across different sectors of society, ranging from mass organizations to
governments — in order to promote peaceful coexistence and enshrine equal rights
before the law”.
Madhav’s essay appeared against the backdrop of
mounting Hindu-Muslim communal violence that critics believe is fuelled by the
BJP and RSS’ anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies. Muslims account for 14 per cent
of India’s 1.4 billion population.
Last week, the Delhi working-class neighborhood of
Jahangirpuri witnessed some of the latest incidents. Riots erupted when
participants in a Hindu procession allegedly brandished weapons and chanted
anti-Muslim slogans as they passed through predominantly Muslim areas.
“There was chaos,” said Sudarshan Prasad, a
71-year-old Hindu. I have always lived here in peace. This has not happened in
the last 40 years.”
Days later, authorities imposed a curfew and cut off
internet connections in an area of Jodhpur, the capital of northern India’s
Rajasthan state, following altercations between Hindu and Muslim communities.
The crackdown occurred as Muslims celebrated Eid Al Fitr, the holiday at the
end of Ramadan, and Hindus commemorated the festival of Parshuram Jayanti.
At about the same time, tension was building in the
state of Maharashtra, home to India’s financial capital Mumbai, after Hindu
leaders demanded that Muslims remove loudspeakers from their mosques because
the call to prayer constitutes noise pollution.
Bucking the trend, one Hindu village in the state
gifted a loudspeaker to the mosque in a neighboring Muslim hamlet as a gesture
of harmony.
In his essay, Madhav insisted that RSS had distanced
itself from “violent language and talk of annihilation of an entire community”
that he termed “un-Hindu”.
Madhav went on to say that “the Indian social
leadership needs to stand up to the forces of hatred and violence by invoking
peace, inclusive and a nation-first narrative. India’s narrative of the decade
should be ‘it’s the economy, stupid’. The onus lies on all of us”.
Madhav insisted that Hinduism was ‘”very inclusive
and very open”. He asserted that no “ideological or philosophical movement that
proclaims exclusivity” exists in Hinduism. He further argued that there was no
difference between Hinduism and Hindutava, the Hindu nationalism of the BJP,
and the RSS. However, he conceded that “when confronted with very hardline
things like Wahhabi Islam, it created some kind of a reaction in some sections,
possibly, but Hindutava is not about that. Hindutava is about core Hindu
values”.
Madhav acknowledged that Hindu-Muslim tensions would
undermine Indian efforts to ensure that the country witnesses the kind of
transformative economic growth that China experienced in the 1980s.
Asserting that the leadership of Indian Muslims, the
world’s third-largest Muslim community, adhered to Wahhabism, Madhav wrote that
violent elements, whether “Muslim or Hindu, do not and should not represent our
respective mainstream communities”.
Madhav also suggested that the hijab, the head cover
worn by a large number of non-Wahhabi Muslim women, signalled belief in
Wahhabism’s purported purpose of pitting Muslims against non-Muslims.
“A more inclusive and humanitarian Islam on the
lines of the one promoted by organizations like Nahdlatul Ulama... must be the
way forward for them,” Madhav wrote.
Many of Nahdlatul Ulama’s women activists and
followers wear hijab while embracing the concept of humanitarian Islam.
Some European and American officials privately hope
that increased engagement with India in response to the war in Ukraine and big
power rivalry in the Indo-Pacific will strengthen the hand of the more moderate
wing of the BJP and the RSS.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz invited Modi to attend
a G7 summit in June in the Bavarian Alps. The group includes Canada, France,
Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain, and the US.
Madhav’s embrace of Humanitarian Islam and Nahdlatul
Ulama’s engagement hark back to notions of an Indianized civilizational sphere
that encompassed South and Southeast Asia for nearly fifteen centuries before
the arrival of China, Europe, and Islam in the region.
In a gesture at a time when religious and cultural
sites have been at the centre of disputes and conflict in India and elsewhere,
Indonesia agreed in February to open Prambanan Temple and Borobudur Temple in
Java to worship by Hindus and Buddhists. The sites had been mainly closed for
decades for worship.
Madhav said he wished to avoid “loaded phrases” like
an Indosphere stretching across Asia’s parts. However, “I would say that
Eastern civilizations (and) Eastern religions all share the same civilizational
value system”.
He referenced Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism,
and “an Islam with an Eastern value system like Indonesian Islam”.
Madhav suggested that “maybe we all can stand up and
talk about these values… commit ourselves to those values, including respect
for pluralism, inclusivity, and commitment to the nation-state idea, (and)
patriotism. … If something can be worked out jointly, we would be definitely
happy to do that.”
James M. Dorsey is an award-winning journalist and scholar, a
senior fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute
and adjunct senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam
School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and
blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.
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