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Article of the Month

*Identity Crisis of Indian/Bengali Muslims, Mohsin Siddique,
uttorshuri@yahoogroups.com, Jun 16, 2005

Muslims of the Indian subcontinent as a whole and the Muslims of Bengal in particular, have long suffered from ambiguity regarding their identity. Are they Muslims first, only that, and in that context, part of the world wide Muslim umma, all other attributes being inconsequential? Or are they Indian and/or Bengali first and Muslims next? Is it not the success of their political/intellectual leaders to persuade them that their cultural/ social/political) identity is so different from the rest of the people of the subcontinent that they simply needed to create separate state(s) to survive requiring division of the country, even at the immediate cost of hundreds of lives lost in riots and migration, and the arrested development in the long-run? (We note that India still has a larger Muslim citizen than many Muslim countries.)

Several years ago, researchers at one of the universities in the south of India conducted a genetic study of the people of the subcontinent (unfortunately, I did not record the reference, but remember reading this in The Hindu) found that there is absolutely no discernible genetic difference among the people who live in the Indian subcontinent. The
conclusion was that we belong to the same gene pool distinguishable from other gene pools. This is not surprising. Biologically, the people in the subcontinent today are a mixture of Mongoloids and Austric people of the east (the forefathers of Bengalese), Dravidians of the south (where there may have been Arab/African influence since prehistoric times), probably Sino-Tibetans of the north, and hordes of migrants such as the people who built Harappá and Mohenjo-dãro, the Aryans, the Mongols, the Turkics, other Central Asian, the Persians, the Arabs, the British, etc., etc. It is important to recognize this, because it is important to be cognizant of our real history; and, that our biological history is an integral part of that real history. (I am aware that traditional historiography does not include what modern evolutionary biology teaches us about human being's emergence as a species and the process culminating in the creation of
'civilization'.) The biological history is not a trivial matter in the subcontinent: just as some Brahmins are prone to take pride in their unadulterated Aryan ancestry, some Muslims' claim to be khandan is based on supposed purity of their lineage to the Arabs, the Persians, the Turkics, etc. The claim of pure breeding is often a way to gain illegitimate access to privileges, power, and wealth. It is also a way to justify their
alienation from and denigration and rejection of the native culture.

One of the indications of the cultural ambiguity of the Muslims is the way they read and relate to history. In Pakistan, as I understand it, a jump is made from scanty descriptions of the Harappá / Mohenjo-dãro civilization to the arrival of Muslim conquerors (invaders), and glorification of Muslim rulers capture of power, without much mention of the well established ancient civilization built by the natives of the subcontinent followed by the Buddhist, Jain and Hindu religion based cultures, or of the havocs the
invaders perpetrated in the process. This is not entirely unexpected, in that there is this underlying assumption in (conservative) Islamic culture that anything that happened and achieved before the emergence of Islam is not of any real value. To be fair, I am not familiar with the history teaching in other Muslim dominated countries. In fact I have been away for long and do not to know how history is being taught today in Bangladesh..
But I suspect - and this was so when I was growing up in East Pakistan - not much value as seen in the contributions of non-Muslims to the creation of the universally recognized greatness of the Indian civilization in the Madrassa curricula in Bangladesh today (do correct me, if I am wrong). Efforts in India during Professor (of physics, to boot. you would expect some rational approach from some one like that!) Monohar Joshi's reign as
the education policy maker during BJP rule to replace history by mythology, and rejection of contributions to the Indian civilization by those who embraced non-Indian religions, and the simultaneous campaign to create a Hindu identity of the Vedic vintage, is parallel to such efforts in Pakistan and Bangladesh by the similarly disposed theocracy based political forces.

Even among the secular people in Bangladesh, I wonder how much acceptance there is that we are biologically linked to the natives of this place who lived here for thousands of years before the Muslim invaders arrived, and that those ancestors were sustained by their religions for all that time. It is during the four hundred years rule of the Palas (from about 7th to 11th century) that Bengal first got its true political and cultural identity (although it was known long before that, as early as the time of the Mahabharata, as a distinct ? though often derided as a hot and humid place unsuitable for people of higher casts to live, so much so that any one who ventured there had to do praoschittowhen they returned; a people whose language was like that of the birds; women of the region denigrated supposedly for being khinojoni, etc., etc.). Bengali language took shape during Pala period. The dynasty was native born (in the Barindraarea), and they created the first state machinery with an elaborate bureaucracy and civil service. Also of significance that these were Buddhist rulers who heavily patronized and encouraged Hindu religion & culture, where from is derived many of their rituals and practices of today. It is in this period that many aspects of our cultural heritage and identity are rooted, only later modulated by the influences of religions later-ancestors embraced.. All that had happened in the past - good and bad ? are part of our history and heritage. There is a reason why Muslims of Bengal are different from the Muslims of say, Egypt! It always surprise me that educated Muslims of the subcontinent have no hesitation in encouraging their children to study Greek and other western classics, but not the Indian classics ? from the
Vedas to the puranas, especially the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. They encourage reading the romances of Laila & Majnu, but not of Radha & Krishna; reading of Shakespeare is strongly encouraged, but not of Kalidas, Krittibash or Geet-Govinda. And I would argue that the steady decline of the Bengali language in Bangladesh (read any publication from there and you will notice how extensive the use of non-Bengali vocabulary is), especially its inability to coin new vocabulary to keep up with science and technology, has to do with the failure to study Sanskrit and Pali, the mothers of Bengali and many other north-Indian languages. I am not suggesting that the problem of Bengali keeping up with the modern world would be completely dealt with by cultivating our heritage-languages, but I am confident that the pain and embarrassment (given the hard fight for our right to our language) of doing so would be lessened.

It is true that identity is not a fixed designation. Like all other attributes it is a product of biology, history as well as where and how we live. Identity is also a political tool in everyone's hand. Hindu fanatics use trishul to make a point. The changing Islamists influenced identity of Bangladeshis, aided and abated directly and indirectly by their contacts with the Middle East, has a clear political purpose. Progressives' affinity to Ekusheor Pahela Baishakhis also symbolic-political. For objective reasons, identity can never be singular and/or pure due to the perpetually increasing complexity of social living (i.e., material conditions) and our propensity to be influenced.

That is because culture is not static (and neither is anything else). But
for it to grow in a healthy manner, it ought to be rooted in its origins. For that to happen, what is needed is recognition of those origins, making our children aware of those roots by honestly incorporating them in personal and institutional educational efforts. We need to read history as such. Even though not a religious person, I see no reason to feel that
somehow a Bengali (or Indian or of any other place) Muslim will be less if he/she accepts who they were before someone among their ancestors converted to Islam. Besides it is utterly ungrateful not to be thankful and respectful to those whose success in their reproductive functions, and their hard work for ensuring the survival of their off-springs, that has resulted (especially, biologically) in us! I would venture to guess that
the religions, cultures and identities (in addition to other aspects of their lives) they practiced in their time had some role in that success..

I am reminded of what poet Subhash Mukhopodya wrote (a very lose translation, from memory): "? wherever I go, with me goes the name of a river composed of its waves?" That remains especially true for this generation of the Diaspora. I recognize that it may not be true of our progenies who are growing up outside the jonmobhumi; but even for them, it would not be a bad idea to have some awareness of their biological and
ancestral history. Most likely, for a long time to come, they will be stopped and asked: "Are you from India?"

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