Subcontinent’s Muslims: Time to reflect on borrowed identity

For the first time in recent history, Muslims across the Indian subcontinent are confused about who their true enemy is amid the ongoing Middle East conflict. Many see Islamic Iran, the symbolic Casablanca, as under attack by two ‘kafir’ enemies — the US and Israel. But the situation becomes more complex as Iran retaliates not only against Israel but also against US allies, the Gulf countries, many of which are Muslim and home to over 15 million Muslims from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

The United States, the mastermind behind the chaos, remains distant and secure. The war zone narrows to a fierce conflict between two warring Islamic groups, Sunni and Shia sects, traditionally known for their internal sectarian violence. On both sides, those suffering and dying are Muslims, while the rest of the world also feels the fallout to varying degrees.

It is a tough dilemma for Muslims in the subcontinent. They do not know how or against whom they should vent their anger or frustration. Usually in the past, in such tense situations, it was the next-door Hindu. When the Ottoman Caliphate collapsed, Indian Muslims targeted hapless Hindus, went on a killing spree, raped their women and burned their houses. History records that mayhem as the Moplah riots.

Notably, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad issued the ‘Hijrat ka Fatwa’ in 1920 during this movement, calling for migration from India, a non-Islamic country, to Afghanistan, an Islamic one. Of course, this plan fell through because Afghanistan refused to be a part of it.

This episode highlighted a key aspect of identity formation: the allegiance of subcontinent Muslims that extended beyond territorial boundaries. It is a fruitless pursuit of Ummah — a chimera of a global Islamic collective — that transcends national borders.

In Kashmir’s Shia pockets, youth moving door-to-door to collect cash, gold and utensils for victims of a distant West Asian conflict is being hailed as compassion. But strip away the sentimentality, and an uncomfortable question stares us in the face: why is this empathy so geographically and ideologically selective?

Where does this zeal disappear when it comes to the brutal realities closer home? Why no such mobilisation for the victims of the Pakistan-Afghanistan conflict, where Muslims are killed in large numbers? Why no door-to-door collections for persecuted Hindus in Bangladesh?

Recently, Hindu youth Tarun, a Dalit, was lynched by a Muslim mob in Delhi’s Uttam Nagar over colours and water spilt during Holi. There was hardly any outrage. Is suffering less worthy of solidarity if it does not fit a preferred narrative?

Most Muslims of the subcontinent continue to look up to West Asian Islamic countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, for guidance, especially in matters relating to faith. According to Mohammed bin Salman’s (MBS) 2018 interview, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, “Investments in mosques and madrassas overseas were rooted in the Cold War, when allies asked Saudi Arabia to use its resources (Wahhabism) to prevent inroads in Muslim countries by the Soviet Union.”

MBS’s revelation is shocking and should prompt Muslims in the subcontinent to reflect. The so-called ‘authentic’ version of Islam they passionately followed was vetted by the US to serve its geopolitical interests. One wonders how many fedayeen this US-inspired Islamic network produced and how many innocent lives it claimed. Those who believed they were killing or blowing themselves up for Islam were - including many in the subcontinent - in fact dying for the American cause.

Meanwhile, the Arab world itself is undergoing a transformation. Under the leadership of MBS, Saudi Arabia has embarked on a series of reforms aimed at reshaping its social and economic order.

In contrast, on the Indian subcontinent, many Muslims still find themselves stuck in the past, holding on to a colonised mindset. They look down on pre-Islamic traditions. This rejection of pre-Islamic civilisations by converted Muslims in the subcontinent is not inherent to Islam. Countries like Indonesia and Malaysia illustrate this clearly.

Former Pakistani High Commissioner to India, Abdul Basit, made shocking remarks on a Pakistani TV show, claiming, “If America attacks Pakistan, we have to attack India, Mumbai, New Delhi, without a second thought. We will not leave it; we will see what happens later.” This statement came in response to US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s warning about Pakistan’s missile programme.

Such words are fuelled by pure hatred and irrationality, reflecting a deep-seated resentment among some Muslims in the subcontinent against their pre-Islamic civilisation.

This contradiction is not merely theological; it is civilisational. It reflects a deeper intellectual confusion that is neither abstract nor distant. Consider the recent episode in Varanasi, where an Islamic iftar gathering was organised on the banks of the Ganga.

The objection raised by many was not to the gathering itself, but to the reported consumption of chicken by Muslim youths and the disposal of leftovers into the river. Trivialising such concerns, as sections of the political class hastily did, is to misunderstand the civilisational grammar of India. Some commentators asked: by that logic, should the immersion of ashes, cremation ghats along the river, or even carnivorous aquatic life also be considered problematic?

The Ganga is not just a river. It is, in the Hindu worldview, a sacred being — revered, worshipped and deeply linked with life, death and Moksha (liberation). Some asked: what “law” had been broken? Stretch this logic a bit further. Should one host a pork party close to a mosque and share it on social media to rub it in? It may be within the law, but it is surely an insensitive move, a deliberate provocation with the potential to tear communal harmony apart.

Here is a historical reference that emphasises this point. The 1980 Moradabad riots started on 13 August, Eid-ul-Fitr, when a stray pig accidentally entered an Eidgah — an incident that ignited widespread unrest and loss of life and property, disrupting life for nearly nine months.

The depth of outrage in that instance was neither dismissed nor rationalised away. The contrast with contemporary responses is difficult to ignore. The roots of this imbalance, however, lie not in isolated incidents but in a particular historical consciousness.

The distinguished Nobel laureate VS Naipaul captured this with remarkable clarity in his essay Our Universal Civilization:

“I was soon to discover that no colonisation had been so thorough as the colonisation that had come with the Arab faith. Colonised or defeated peoples can begin to distrust themselves. In the Muslim countries I am talking about, this distrust had all the force of religion. It was an article of the Arab faith that everything before the faith was wrong, misguided, heretical; there was no room in the heart or mind of these believers for their pre-Mohammedan past.”

Naipaul’s observation is difficult to dismiss. It points to a psychological rupture — a distancing from pre-existing cultural memory — that has shaped identity in many post-conquest societies. In the Indian subcontinent, this rupture has been particularly pronounced.

Maybe it is time for the subcontinent’s Muslims to reflect — will they embrace the vibrant culture and traditions of their homeland while remaining believers, or continue to be held captive by a colonial mindset chasing the elusive dream of Ummah, a concept that often leads them to a dead end?

The writer is an eminent columnist, former Chairman of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), and the author of ‘Tryst with Ayodhya: Decolonisation of India’ and ‘Narrative ka Mayajaal’; views are personal