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Our National Identity: An Introspection

In South Asian region which is virtually a melting pot of races and religions there are features often overlapping each other's identity. But wherever the separate entities have been carved out with the clear dictates of the historical experiences this separateness has to be earnestly safeguarded in the interest of good relationship in the region.

by Brig (Retd) M Abdul Hafiz
IT was the highnoon of British colonial rule when during the mid-nineteenth century the Bengal renaissance was spearheading the modern Indian nationalism with a distinct tinge of Hindu revivalism. The British already had an adversary image of the Muslims from whom they took power in Bengal. So the Muslim community in Bengal grossly discriminated against by the British as well as Hindus, who were the immediate beneficiaries of the colonial takeover, obviously lagged far behind and remained apathetical to the whole process. Amidst this despair something interesting happened to them. In the first ever census in 1872 it came to the light that Bengal, hitherto believed to be the bastion of Hindu power was in fact a Muslim majority province of British India. Not only that, almost a third of Indian Muslims were concentrated in Bengal where also lay the imperial capital — the hub of British Indian politics. The revelation of the first ever census of British India had been a major historic turnaround because now onward the Bengali Muslims who were Indeed monolithic In their sectarian and ethnic composition came to be reckoned as a potent political force and Inola's Muslim politics had to willy-nilly revolve round Bengali, the epicentre of all India political, cultural and intellectual activities.
But how did it all happen? Islam came into the subcontinent as the religion of the conquerors who however had no interest in the preaching of the faith and were more concerned with the expansion of their empire. As a result Delhi, the
places around Delhi and whole of Northern India remained predominantly non-Muslim in spite of many centuries of Muslim rule in Delhi. On the country. the Bengali Muslims substantially outnumbered other communities in their sub-region because Islam could, through numerous saints, preachers and Arab traders strike its root among the masses much before Bengal came under Muslim rule during the 14th century. Unlike in most other parts of India where the Muslims trace their origin outside the country of their settlement the Bengali Muslims are by and large the sons of the soil although a good number of them including their rulers could have been of Turko-Afghan origin taking refuge in Bengal during the Mughal rule. This fundamental difference as to how the advent of Islam took place in Bengal had a great deal to do in shaping its future politics as well as the national Identity of Bengali Muslims.
In spite of the newly found potentials of the Bengali Muslims their leadership — even if symbolic — was however retained by the remnants of the ruling Muslim aristocracy of northern and western India now. of course, bereft of their power, wealth and status. Yet they used to be looked upon as the inheritors of the authority from which they were dislodged
by the British. Incited and misled by this disgruntled and moribund Muslim aristocracy which always attempted to advance its class interest at their cost the Muslims of Bengal had to forfeit some of their vital political advantages and it was only in the beginning of the 20th century that we started becoming conscious of our interest and identity. Since 1872 we took a long meandering course of one hundred years to assert our true identity in 1971. During the odyssey of this self-assertion we frequently swung between the extremes of our identity choices and were seldom able to combine our both ethnic and religious identities. At one time some of us were firebrand Bengali nationalists and at ease in joining hands with Hindu Swadeshis’ in opposing the Bengal partition of 1905 although it was much to the advantage of Bengali Muslims. And at another we closed our ranks with the Muslims of the sub-continent whatever were their ethnic origin. Both kind of experiments backfired and we were left out in the cold, while others stole a march during those historic metamorphoses.
For unusually long we suffered from the dichotomy: whether or not to assert our ethnic identity. Although, apparently, there was no contradiction in such assertion and, in fact, in combining all the
facets of our identity i.e. those of religion, ethnicity, sect, clan and so on as it was done anywhere else in the Muslim world.
In our case the exercise of the choice was not easy however and had been greatly influenced by our geography, socio-economic conditions and historical experiences. Whenever we asserted to be a Muslim the way the Muslims are outside Bengal we did not quite well fit in our socio-cultural environs and our attempt to be a Bengali par excellence also resulted in a terrible mismatch even within the precinct of our religio-cultural zone. But when we ultimately combined the both not only that we were in our true form, we had an abode for ourselves which was exclusively ours. It was neither India — home for the Bengalis of Bihar, West Ben-§al and Assam nor Pakistan —
le promised land for the Indian Muslims, or in any way an extension of any one of them. Indeed the creation of Bangladesh and the dynamics behind its emergence themselves testify that we are people distinctly different from either of those countries in spite of odd religious, cultural or linguistic connections with any one or both of them. Problems however arise when these ground realities of our identity are somewhat diluted with certain flush of emotion from any quarter Because the identity of
a people has its wide fallout also on their socio cultural life
When the leaders of 1975 putsch tampered with our identity which was settled through the long years of trials and errors the ugly facets of the identity problems resurfaced. Still more ugly was its fallout on our emerging generation ignorant of the glorious struggle culminating in our emergence as an independent nation. Throughout the late seventies and eighties we helplessly watched a cultural aberration which resulted from our freshly distorted identity. In a sharp U-turn our new generation was exposed to the cultural symbols which we consciously abandoned in the process of our identity acquiring its ultimate shape. In an emotional rediscovery of our religio-cultural linkages with those symbols our youths were grossly misled and deflected from an orientation painstakingly set by the architects of our independence. So much so that they started adoring those symbols in total deference to their pristine culture. They prided on donning a Qabuli dress or attending a ghazal' evening with surprising ease. Within years we lost what we gained through the centuries' struggle. In an anti climax to those excesses today we again witness the syndrome of another emotional flush on socio-cultural and linguistic front. The enthusiasts tend to ignore even the formal
barrier with our neighbours and argue the primacy of cultural and linguistic proximity.
To them the state barriers are artificial and oppressive for a people belonging to the same ethnic stock. This is another aberration which must be resisted Notwithstanding their relentless effort in tracing numerous commonalities among the people on the either side of the barrier we are certainly not the same people We have been destined by the history to be different.
In South Asian region which is virtually a melting pot of races and religions there are features often overlapping each other's identity But wherever the separate entities have been carved out with the clear dictates of the historical experiences this separateness has to be earnestly safeguarded in the interest of good relationship in the region In any equation to be evolved with the neighbours or for that matter the nations of the world, this separate identity has to be the point of departure.
There can always be abundant areas of the congruence of interests among the nations and one of the best example in this regard can perhaps be cited from US-Japanese relationship where nothing — no religio-cultural bondage, no racial affinity — except common interests hold them together for a remarkable length of time. We also in our region can find enough of grounds to forge and nourish relationship among the neighbours to serve our common interests without tampering with each other's national identity which are both sacred and sacrosanct.