DR JAVED JAMIL
RELIGION is a binding force, and as such, religious morality, rather than religious identity, should be the driving phenomenon. It is the religious identity which combines with economic and political fundamentalism to engender communalism. Religious morality entails tolerance, love, and brotherhood; communalism breeds hatred, disunity, and destruction. Religion brings peace; communalism brings chaos. Religious people embrace everyone irrespective of their faith and geographical boundaries; communal people maintain a distance from others.
Islam and Hinduism are among the four leading religions across the globe in terms of the number of their followers. The overwhelming majority of Hindus live in India, with smaller populations in countries like Nepal, Mauritius, Fiji, and other countries. Muslims form a majority of the global population. Muslims and Hindus together form around 40 per cent of the world’s population.
Despite differences on a theological level, they share common values in terms of most social and family matters. Many Muslim scholars tend to believe that Hinduism in its original form is the older version of Islam, and never show disrespect to Hindu deities like Ram and Krishna. Hindus, except for a few hardcore Islam-bashers, respect Islamic prophets and saints. Most of the time, these communities enjoy harmonious relations with one another. In times of communal tensions, they tend to get suspicious about one another. More often than not, the tensions and hostilities do not last long, and people return to their working relationships.
In India, there are three types of elements. These are: religious Hindus and Muslims, who form the majority. Then there are communal elements, which are in a significant minority. In addition, there are non-religious people or downright atheists who tend to disregard religion and religious morality. It is the first category that holds the key to peace. The third category has two kinds of streams, one inclined towards the left and the other is right-centric. They both tend to be liberal, but the latter are becoming more and more vocal due to the support of the forces of economics that have vested interests in liberal concepts. The second category needs to be sidelined by the first. It will then be easy to confront the liberalists and convince them that many of their liberal concepts are extremely dangerous for the well-being of human beings.
The religionists have to understand the role of the economic fundamentalists and the games they play in tandem with politicians, bureaucrats, and academicians. Their designs in commercialising human weaknesses, creating unbridled consumerism, and negating religious morality for the sake of economic and political hegemony have to be exposed and confronted at every level and in every possible way. Once religious forces understand the dynamics of the current economic and political order, they will become a cohesive unit respecting rather than hating one another. This can be achieved only if all religions, especially Hinduism and Islam, in India, with the addition of Christianity at the global level, combine on common grounds and learn to respect the rights of one another. If they start working for God rather than for their selfish ends, the destination will be reached sooner. If they fail, they will not only be angering God but will also be destroying their own future generations.
Muslims do know that, despite having emphasis on certain aspects of development, their vision of the country is not entirely different from the vision of their fellow countrymen belonging to other religions, and this is why they have reasons to feel confident that their vision of India will be realised one day with the support of all Indians. Indian people are overwhelmingly religious, and all of them love the moral values and family system practised by religion. All religious communities think almost alike as far as social and cultural values are concerned. It is this commonness rather than communal hatred that is ultimately going to rule the nation.
I would like to conclude by enumerating the salient features of the Muslim Vision of India, which I had given in my book, “Muslim Vision of Secular India: Destination and Roadmap”, which I believe is the same as that of the whole nation:
1) India as a secular country, where every religion is given respect; disrespect to religious figures and books is not permitted, there should be no discrimination on the grounds of religion, and all religions and religious communities cooperate in building a cleaner, purer, healthier, more peaceful, and more prosperous India.
2) India on High Moral Pedestal where moral, family and social values are protected and promoted where the system acts as healthy and peace-protective mechanism; where social evils such as alcohol and drugs, gambling and betting and unhealthy sexual practices like prostitution, promiscuity, pornography and homosexuality are not only recognised as evils but effective measures are taken at every possible level to eradicate these evils including a campaign on war-footing against commercialisation of human weaknesses;
3) India as a Country with Genuine Equality where all forms of economic disparity, including region-to-region disparity, state-to-state, community-to-community, urban-rural, etc., are kept at minimum possible levels;
4) India as a Secure Country where security issues are given top priority, including crimes of all types, riots of all hues, all other forms of violence, crimes against women, corruption etc;
5) India as a Citadel of Peace, which fights against all attempts of hegemony by world powers, and comes to the aid of the poor and weak nations.
6) India as a Prosperous Country, which achieves prosperity through proper and genuine means and where the fruits of development are shared by every citizen; and
7) Where Muslims do play a Meaningful Role in the Development of the Country becoming a part in the efforts as well as the fruits, and they are allowed to play their role without violation of their religious and cultural beliefs and without discrimination and security concerns.
Islam does not regard itself as an exclusive religion having no relation to other beliefs. Islam, in fact, is the final destination of a long journey of religions: Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity and other religions being milestones in that journey. The Qur’an is the culmination of the process of guidance that included great scriptures like the Vedas, Torah, and the Gospel. Accepting an Islamic system does not in any way mean rejection or abandonment of other religions. It is high time religion was resuscitated in its pristine role of guidance towards peace.
Knowledge in the clutches of villains is a disaster. Time is witness that heroes are a rare species, and villains are often misjudged as heroes. With villains holding knowledge to ransom in the current world, the life and the quality of life are not determined by the presence or absence of diseases and violence and the factors associated with them, but in the availability of all kinds of options, good or bad for human beings. Yet, villains keep shouting that they alone are right, and the human beings are left with no option but to follow in their footsteps. If people choose the bad option, they alone are held responsible and not the villains who are presenting the options in attractive colours. This is a strange system of barter where poisons like alcohol, drugs, tobacco and free sex are exchanged for currency.
We need a system in place in the world which decreases mortality and morbidity, reduces the global burden of diseases, increases total life expectancy (with conception being the starting point of life) and decreases the burden of the cost of maintaining health; and in addition, promotes crimelessness, peaceful and healthy family system and social harmony between different races, communities and nations. The current world systems based on so-called modern economic ideologies do just the opposite by exposing people to the dangerous social practices and trying to minimise the damage through artificial means of treatment and vaccinations. In this rivalry between economics and holistic peace (including health), economics is the clear winner. We must make holistic peace a winner with the promise that, ultimately, the true economy will also gain.
Let’s fight and defeat those who, for their own sinister ends, are trying to make the world more entertaining and more glamorous at the expense of healthy and peaceful living! Let’s all unite in our endeavour to make the world cleaner, purer, healthier and more peaceful!
Long Live India, Long Live Humanity!
______________
Dr Javed Jamil is an Islamic scholar and author. He has over two dozen books to his credit. The views expressed here are the writer’s own and Clarion India does not necessarily subscribe to them.
