Book Review
January 26, 2002
Political Islam
Political Islam in the Indian Subcontinent:The Jama'at-i-Islami by Frederic Grare; Manohar and Centre de Sciences Humane, New Delhi, 2001; pp 133, Rs 200.
Kalim Bahadur
The focus of the study under review is political Islam, which according to the author, Frederic Grare, is represented by the Jama'at-i-Islami movement in the Indian subcontinent. Political Islam has now become an important issue in international relations and has assumed in the public perception a negative image, particularly as a regressive phenomenon that espouses terrorism. The Jama'at-i-Islami movement during the recent period has acquired an international status. Militant Islamic groups, drawing ideological inspiration from the Jama'at's founder and ideologue, Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, have been fighting from Morocco in the west to the Moro Island in the Philippines in the east. They are fighting democratic, military and even secular governments in the Muslim world. The ideology that has inspired these militant groups has been deeply influenced by the teachings of Maulana Maududi, founder of the Jama'at-i-Islami movement in India and Pakistan. The Jama'at-i-Islami was founded in Lahore on August 26, 1941. There is no evidence that it was anything more than a coincidence that it was in Lahore that Jinnah had launched, a year earlier, the famous Lahore Resolution in which he had called for the formation of Pakistan. Maulana Maududi had been writing on the problems of Muslim politics for two decades before the foundation of the Jama'at. During the 1920s and the 1930s, there were broadly speaking three major political currents among the Muslims in the Indian subcontinent. One was represented by the Jamiat-al Ulama-i-Hind, an organisation of the traditional Ulama belonging to the noted Islamic seminary at Deoband that was in agreement with the ideology of the Indian National Congress. The second was the ideology of the Muslim League that was represented by the two-nation theory and the third was the ideas propounded by Maulana Maududi in his journal Tarjumanul Quran. Maududi was highly critical of the traditional Ulama and their interpretation of Islam. He did not agree with the Muslim League because he believed that it represented Muslim nationalism, which according to him was also against Islam. Maududi had said that while the other movements remained content with incorporating some parts of Islam or some objectives accepted by all Muslims, the objective of the Jama'at was to promote Islam in its totality. He said that the Jama'at would adopt the same system of organisation as adopted by the Prophet. Ultimately, the Jama'at would not restrict its activities to Indian Muslims alone but would appeal to Muslims the world over. Analysing the Indian situation, Maududi noted that various nationalities were out to annihilate each other. By nationality he meant, in fact, religious kinship that constituted the basis of a nationality. Consequently, he held the nationalism of the Hindus, the Sikhs and the Muslims as being responsible for the communal riots that had broken out before partition. At the same time, he denounced the secularism of the Congress for being irreligious and because he had no faith in its objective of establishing a united and independent India. He felt democracy meant the rule of the majority, in this case of the Hindus and therefore the subjugation of the Muslims. He condemned Muslim nationalism for having accepted, during the crucial negotiations before independence with the British, the principle of the rule of the majority over an oppressed minority in the two zones where the Hindus and Muslims respectively were in the majority. He was unsparing in his condemnation of the concept of Pakistan. He did not relent even when some members of his party requested that the demand for Pakistan be supported, at least for the time being, at the height of the conflict between the All-India Muslim League and the Indian National Congress during the 1940s. Maududi believed that Muslim nationalism was as reprehensible in the Shariah of god as Indian nationalism. The traditional Ulama opposed the Muslim League and the two-nation theory but they themselves did not have a clear concept of what was meant by the term 'nation.' According to Maududi, Islamic nationalism was different from Muslim nationalism. He believed that the terms 'Muslim' and 'nationalism' were contradictory. By the early months of 1947, it had become apparent that India would be partitioned and Maududi also began to modify his views. He said in a speech at Pathankot in July 1947 that since the partition had become inevitable, the Muslims in Pakistan should try to build the new country in accordance with the teachings of Islam and the Hindus in India should try to build their country according to the teachings of Rama and Krishna. However, to the Muslims who would be left in India, he had some advice to offer. According to him, three possibilities were open to the Indian Muslims. They could either accept the policy of nationalist Muslims and get absorbed into the Hindu majority or continue to follow the policy of Muslim nationalism and be annihilated or give up nationalism and concentrate on the call of Islam. He could not conceive the possibility of India becoming a secular state where Muslims would have equal status with other communities and would have complete freedom to follow their religion. Maududi follows the line of all fundamentalists, which according to Grar stems from a dialectical concept of history. Maududi puts Islam against all that is non-Islamic. The struggle between the two must inevitably culminate in an Islamic revolution and in the creation of an Islamic state, which will initiate in society large-scale reforms leading to an utopian Islamic order. It is in this context, for Maududi, that the necessity of political power arises. In the early years, the Jama'at appeared to be focusing only on the reform of the Muslim society, of making Muslims better or true Muslims. This created the impression that the Jama'at, like the other Islamic group Tablighi Jama'at, would remain aloof from active politics and only confine itself to present a critique of the un-Islamic practices of Muslims. However, after the creation of Pakistan, the Jama'at was involved in politics when Maududi in 1948 went on a campaign trail for the creation of an Islamic constitution. The party fought the provincial elections in 1951 without much success. In 1956 -57, the Jama'at was convulsed with an ideological crisis. Some of the top leaders of the Jama'at demanded that the party should not participate in politics and should remain a religious organisation. Maududi claimed that the Jama'at's decision to plunge into politics in Pakistan after partition was a natural corollary of the fundamental and central objective of the Jama'at-i-Islami from its very inception. He asserted that the reforms that Islam aspires to implement were impossible through predication and persuasion alone. It was necessary to make use of an authority that had powers of coercion. But, according to Grare, it is precisely here that the question of democracy once again reasserts itself, for what is to happen to non-Muslim minorities in an Islamic state? The 1953 anti-Ahmediya riots in Punjab were a turning point in the evolution of the Jama'at as a full-fledged political party. Maududi, along with the leaders of the Ahrar Party, had spearheaded the movement demanding that the followers of the Ahmediya religion be declared non-Muslims. Maududi was opposed to Pakistan because he was convinced that Jinnah would not make it an Islamic state. Almost all the Ulama parties in India, including the Jama'at-i-Islami, were convinced that the leadership of the Muslim League, including Jinnah, were westernised and they could not be relied upon to build an Islamic state. Jinnah was not known for his religiosity. Grare has pointed out that it was the Jama'at that was influenced by Pakistan after it came into being rather than the other way round. The Jama'at leaders were at great pains to prove that they were carrying on what Jinnah wanted. Once the Jama'at decided to enter into politics, their Islamic ideology was relegated to the background. They had to make compromises with their principles. The most glaring was the issue of support to Fatima Jinnah, sister of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, in the 1964 election against president Ayub Khan. Maududi had written extensively against women being elected head of the state and yet the party decided, in a dramatic turn around, that it was preferable to support a woman when faced with a military dictator. The Jama'at has had very unpleasant experiences with military rulers. Ayub Khan had not only banned the party but had put most of the top leaders in prison. Later Zia-ul Haq, in spite of his Islamisation drive, had banned the Islami Jamiat Tulaba, the student wing of the Jama'at. For a short period in 1978-79, Jama'at leaders found themselves in the government as ministers, but the experience turned bitter when they discovered that they hardly had any power. The Martial Law administrators enjoyed the real power. Within a few months after being inducted into the government, they were thrown out after Zia-ul Haq executed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in April 1979. To their great discomfiture, the Jama'at leaders realised that they had been used by the general as a civilian cover for hanging the former prime minister of the country. The author has correctly pointed out that Pakistan's foreign policy has been motivated by nationalism rather than by the Islamic ideology. There has been a clamour about Islamic solidarity and unity but behind this rumpus the real objective has always been Pakistan's national interests. That was so when in 1956-57 Pakistan supported the Anglo-French aggression against Egypt. The author asserts that though the Jama'at gives the impression that it adheres to pan-Islamism, it essentially promotes the interests of Pakistan. The Jama'at played an important role during the East Pakistan crisis and attempted to provide an Islamic rationale for the military's attack on East Pakistan freedom fighters. Maududi and other Jama'at leaders defended the atrocities committed by the armed forces on the hapless Bengali freedom fighters. No wonder during the Bangladesh war the Jama'at was more hated by the Bengalis than even Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Maududi had claimed that Bengali Muslims were under the influence of Hindus and thus was seen as questioning their faith. The author has pointed out the role the Saudi regime has played in promoting and projecting the Jama'at and its leader Maududi as international players in the affairs of the Islamic world. It is known that the Jama'at has been flush with money due to the largesse of the oil-rich Saudi government. It was because of this support from the Saudi royal family that the Jama'at has been able to acquire a role in the management of the Afghan conflict. The Jama'at's involvement with Afghanistan has not only been because the present Amir of the Jama'at, Qazi Husain Ahmed, happens to be a Pakhtun. Similarly, the Jama'at has been playing an important role in the terrorist movement in Kashmir. Several terrorist outfits in Kashmir are politically and materially supported by the Jama'at, which has been blatantly indulging in murder and mayhem in the state in the name of jehad. The Jama'at-i-Islami of Jammu and Kashmir, while espousing separatism, has for opportunistic reasons kept a separate and distinct identity from the Jama'ats of both India and Pakistan. It is one more instance where the Jama'at in Pakistan is acting in the national interests of Pakistan rather than its own ideology or for the independence of Kashmir. The author, in this connection, has also thrown light on the Jama'at's relationship with the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI, which has taken advantage of the Jama'at's relations with the Afghan militants. While discussing the Jama'at-i-Islami in India, Grare points out the contradiction in its basic political position of denouncing both Indian nationalism and secularism. The Jama'at reiterates Maududi's position on nationalism as unIslamic. The Indian Jama'at's approach to secularism has undergone changes from the position taken by Maududi, who had rejected it as atheism and had decided to oppose it. The Indian Jama'at, in its resolution passed in 1970, declared that in contrast to other totalitarian and fascist modes of government, the secular democratic mode of India should endure. It knew that Indian secularism was the best guarantee for the freedom of religion for the Muslims in India. The entire history of the Jama'at shows the contradictions that almost all fundamentalist parties face in the context of the socio-political situation in their respective countries. These are reflected in their attitude to democracy, nation state, economy and social issues. Some of the points made in the book by Grare are certainly arguable. For example, the author says in the concluding chapter that in 1978 the Jama'at-i-Islami of Pakistan was forced to withdraw its nominees from the civilian government under Zia-ul Haq. This is not accurate. The general had dismissed the government as it had served the purpose of providing a civilian cover to the military ruler for the execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. One of the most glaring contradictions of the Jama'at's political posture has been its support to the Taliban. The Jama'at Amir Qazi Husain Ahmed had denounced the Taliban in 1995 as the creation of the Americans. In spite of the fact that the Jama'at had serious reservations about the Taliban's interpretations of several Islamic issues, the party went all out to support them. However, the Jama'at 's tragedy was that it could not take the U-turn that Musharraf took under Washington's pressure to jettison Mulla Umer. Grare, in this compact volume, has covered a vast ground and has produced a critical study of one of the most important Islamist movements of recent times.
EPW Hitkari House, 284 Shahid Bhagatsingh Road, Mumbai 400 001 Phones: 269 6072, 269 6073 Fax: 269 6072 E-mail: epw at vsnl.com © Copyright 2001 The Economic and Political Weekly. All rights reserved.