The Vice President of India, Shri M. Hamid Ansari has said that the
challenge for the modern world is to accept diversity as an existential reality
and to configure attitudes and methodologies for dealing with it. He was
delivering a lecture at the Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco, today on
the topic ‘Accommodating Diversity in a Globalising World: The Indian
Experience’. The Moroccan University later conferred an honoris causa degree on
the Vice President.
The Vice President said that Indian Muslims have lived in India’s
religiously plural society for over a thousand years and that has impacted on
modern India and its existential reality of a plural society on the basis of
which a democratic polity and a secular state structure was put in place. He
further said that the framers of our Constitution had the objective of securing
civic, political, economic, social and cultural rights as essential ingredients
of citizenship with particular emphasis on rights of religious minorities.
The Vice President said that the Muslim experience in modern India
is that its citizens professing Islamic faith are citizens, consider themselves
as such, are beneficiaries of the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution,
participate fully in the civic processes of the polity and seek correctives for
their grievances within the system. There is no inclination in their ranks to
resort to ideologies and practices of violence, he added. He further said that
in countries having complex societal makeup, accommodation of diversity in
political structures and socio-economic policies is not an option but an
imperative necessity ignoring which can have unpleasant consequences.
The Vice President said that the Indian model was of relevance to
our globalizing world because in India, an attempt was being made to look
beyond the traditional virtue of tolerance and seek acceptance of diversity and
adopt it as a civic virtue.
Following is the text of Vice President's address:
"Accommodating
Diversity in a Globalising World: The Indian Experience
A traveller from a distant land in mashriq-al-aqsa comes to Maghrib-al
Aqsa and marvels at his good fortune. His sense of history quickly reminds
him that centuries earlier a great name from this land had travelled to India
and recorded in some detail his impressions about the governance, manner and
customs of Indians. He attained high office and also had his share of minor
misfortunes.
I refer, of course, to Sheikh Abdullah Mohammad ibn Abdullah ibn
Mohammad ibn Ibralim al Lawati, better known as Ibn Batuta of Tanja.
I thank the Government of the Kingdom of Morocco, and His Excellency
the President of the University, for inviting me to address the Mohammad V
University today.
Even in distant India, the contribution of Moroccan intellectuals to
modern thought and challenges is known and acknowledged. Names like Abdullah
Al-Arui and Abid al-Jabri readily come to mind; so do the contributions of
feminist writers like Fatima Mernisi and Fatima Sadiqi. The challenge in each
case was that of modernity and the contemporary responses to it. Each addressed
a specific aspect of the problem; the general question was posed
aptly by al-Jabri: ‘How can contemporary Arab thought retrieve and absorb the
most rational and critical dimensions of its tradition and employ them in the
same rationalist directions as before – the direction of fighting feudalism,
Gnosticism, and dependency?’
This is a rich field, amply and productively explored by contemporary
thinkers in Arab lands. This included the debates on Arabism, nationalism,
democracy and Islam. Much has also been written about the trauma, self or
externally inflicted, experienced individually and collectively by Arab
societies in the past seven decades. The misfortunes visited on Arab lands
since the 19th century was in good measure a result of their
proximity to Europe in the age of imperialism.
I would like to pause here and take up a related matter to draw the
attention of the audience to some terminological questions. In current
discussions in many places, the terms ‘Arab’ and ‘Islam’ are used together or
interchangeably. But are the two synonymous? Is Arab thought synonymous with
Islamic thought? Is all Arab thought Islamic or visa versa? Above all, can all
Islamic thinking be attributed to Arabs?
I raise these questions because for a variety of reasons and
motivations the contemporary world, particularly the West, tends to create this
impression of ‘a powerful, irrational force that, from Morocco to Indonesia,
moves whole societies into cultural assertiveness, political intransigence and
economic influence.’ The underlying basis for this, as Aziz Al-Azmeh put it, are
‘presumptions of Muslim cultural homogeneity and continuity that do not
correspond to social reality.’
Allow me to amplify. Islam is a global faith, and its adherents are
in all parts of the world. The history of Islam as a faith, and of Muslims as
its adherents, is rich and diversified. In different ages and in different
regions the Muslim contribution to civilisation has been note worthy. In
cultural terms, the history of Islam ‘is the history of a dialogue between the
realm of religious symbols and the world of everyday reality, a history of the
interaction between Islamic values and the historical experiences of Muslim
people that has shaped the formation of a number of different but interrelated
Muslim societies.’
This audience is in no need of being reminded of the truism that
reasoning should proceed from facts to conclusions and should eschew a
priori pronouncements.
What then are facts?
The Wikipedia indicates the world’s Muslim population in 2015 as 1.7
billion. The Pew Research Center of the United States has published
country-wise and region-wise religious composition and projections for 198
countries for the period 2010 to 2050. It indicates that in 2010 Muslims numbered
1.59 billion out of which 986 million were in Asia-Pacific. It projects that
four years from now, in 2020, the corresponding figures would be 1.9 billion
out of which 1.13 billion (around 60 percent) would be in Asia-Pacific. The
comparative figures for West Asia–North Africa would be 317 and 381 million (19.9%
and 20.52%) and for Sub-Saharan Africa 248 and 329 million (15.59% and 17.31%)
respectively. Within the Asia-Pacific region Indonesia, India, Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Iran, Turkey together would account for 830 million in 2010 and 954
million in 2020.
These numbers underline the fact that an overwhelming number of
Muslims of the world are non-Arabs and live in societies that are not Arab. Equally
relevant is the historical fact they contributed to and benefited from the
civilisation of Islam in full measure. This trend continues to this day.
The one conclusion I draw from this is that in ascertaining Islamic
and Muslim perceptions on contemporary happenings, the experiences and trends
of thinking of the non-Arab segments of large Muslim populations in the world
assume an importance that cannot be ignored. These segments include countries with
Muslim majorities (principally Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iran, and
Turkey) as also those where followers of the Islamic faith do not constitute a
majority of the population (India, China, and Philippines).
Amongst both categories, India is sui generis. India counts
amongst its citizens the second largest Muslim population in the world. It
numbers 180 million and accounts for 14.2 percent of the country’s total
population of 1.3 billion. Furthermore, religious minorities as a whole
(Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Parsis or Zoroastrians) constitute
19.4 percent of the population of India.
India’s interaction with Islam and Muslims began early and bears the
imprint of history. Indian Muslims have lived in India’s religiously plural
society for over a thousand years, at times as rulers, at others as subjects
and now as citizens. They are not homogenous in racial or linguistic terms and
bear the impact of local cultural surroundings, in manners and customs, in
varying degrees.
Through extensive trading ties before the advent of Islam, India was
a known land to the people of the Arabian Peninsula, the Persian Gulf, and
western Asia and was sought after for its prosperity and trading skills and
respected for its attainments in different branches of knowledge. Thus Baghdad
became the seeker, and dispenser, of Indian numerals and sciences. The Panchatantra
was translated and became Kalila wa Dimna. Long before the advent of
Muslim conquerors, the works of Al-Jahiz, Ibn Khurdadbeh, Al-Kindi, Yaqubi and
Al-Masudi testify to it in ample measure. Alberuni, who studied India and
Indians more thoroughly than most, produced a virtual encyclopedia on religion,
rituals, manners and customs, philosophy, mathematics and astronomy. He
commenced his great work by highlighting differences, but was careful enough
‘to relate, not criticize’.
Over centuries of intermingling and interaction, an Indo-Islamic
culture developed in India. Many years back, an eminent Indian historian summed
it up in a classic passage:
‘It is hardly possible to exaggerate the extent of Muslim influence
over Indian life in all departments. But nowhere else is it shown so vividly
and so picturesquely, as in customs, in intimate details of domestic life, in
music, in the fashion of dress, in the ways of cooking, in the ceremonial of
marriage, in the celebration of festivals and fairs, and in the courtly
institutions and etiquette’.
Belief, consciousness and practice became a particularly rich area
of interaction. Within the Muslim segment of the populace, there was a running
tussle between advocates of orthodoxy and those who felt that living in a
non-homogenous social milieu, the pious could communicate values through
personal practice. In this manner the values of faith, though not its theological
content, reached a wider circle of the public. This accounted for the reach and
popularity of different Sufi personalities in different periods of history and
justifies an eminent scholar’s observation that ‘Sufism took Islam to the
masses and in doing so it took over the enormous and delicate responsibility of
dealing at a personal level with a baffling variety of problems.’
It also produced a convergence or parallelism; the Sufi trends
sought commonalities in spiritual thinking and some Islamic precepts and many
Muslim practices seeped into the interstices of the Indian society and gave
expression to a broader and deeper unity of minds expressive of the Indian
spiritual tradition. The cultural interaction was mutually beneficial and an
Islamic scholar of our times has acknowledged ‘an incontrovertible fact that
Muslims have benefited immensely from the ancient cultural heritage of India.’
I mention this because I am aware, but dimly, about the role of
Sufi movements and ‘zawiyas’ in the history of Morocco. There is, in my view,
room for comparative studies of Sufi practices in Morocco and India.
It is this backdrop that has impacted on modern India and its
existential reality of a plural society on the basis of which a democratic
polity and a secular state structure was put in place.
The framers of our Constitution had the objective of
securing civic, political, economic, social and cultural rights as essential
ingredients of citizenship. Particular emphasis was placed on rights of
religious minorities. Thus in the section on Fundamental Rights ‘all persons
are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess,
practice and propagate religion.’ In addition, every religious denomination
shall have the right to establish and maintain institutions for religious and
charitable purposes, to manage its own affairs in matters of religion, and to
acquire and administer movable and immovable property. Furthermore, all
religious or linguistic minorities shall have the right to establish and
administer educational institutions of their choice. A separate section on
Fundamental Duties of citizens enjoins every citizen ‘to promote harmony and
the spirit of common brotherhood amongst all the people of India transcending
religious, linguistic and regional or sectional diversities’ and also ‘to value
and preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture.’
Given the segmented nature of society and unequal economy,
the quest for substantive equality, and justice, remains work in progress and
concerns have been expressed from time to time about its shortfalls and pace of
implementation. The corrective lies in our functioning democracy, its
accountability mechanisms including regularity of elections at all levels from
village and district councils to regional and national levels, the Rule of Law,
and heightened levels of public awareness of public issues.
The one incontrovertible fact about the Muslim experience in
modern India is that its citizens professing Islamic faith are citizens, consider
themselves as such, are beneficiaries of the rights guaranteed to them by the
Constitution, participate fully in the civic processes of the polity and seek
correctives for their grievances within the system. There is no inclination in
their ranks to resort to ideologies and practices of violence.
The same diversity of historical experience, and the
perceptions emanating from it, is to be found in Indonesia that has the world’s
largest population of Muslims and where two Islamist parties – Nahdatul Ulema
and Muhammadiyah function legally, have large memberships, and participate in
political activities including local and national elections. On a visit to
Jakarta a few months back, I had occasion to solicit their views on
contemporary debates on Political Islam. They said Islam in Indonesia has
united with the culture of the people and their Islamic traditions have adapted
themselves to local conditions. They felt Indonesian Muslims are moderate in
their outlook, that Islam does not advocate extremism, and that radicalization
of Islam is harmful and does not benefit the community.
Both instances cited above indicate that in countries having
complex societal makeup, accommodation of diversity in political structures and
socio-economic policies is not an option but an imperative necessity ignoring
which can have unpleasant consequences.
I come back to the principal theme of this talk. Why is the
Indian model of relevance to our globalizing world?
Globalization has many facets – economic, political and
cultural. All necessitate the emergence of a set of norms, values and practices
that are universally accepted. A sociologist has defined it as ‘the compression
of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole.’
An obvious implication of this would be assimilation and homogenization. In a
world of intrinsically diverse societies at different levels of development,
this could only result in denial of their diversity and imposition of
uniformity. Such an approach can only result in conflict.
The challenge for the modern world is to accept diversity as
an existential reality and to configure attitudes and methodologies for dealing
with it. In developing such an approach, the traditional virtue of tolerance
is desirable but insufficient; our effort, thinking and practices have to
look beyond it and seek acceptance of diversity and adopt it as a civic
virtue.
We in India are attempting it, cannot yet say that we have
succeeded, but are committed to continue the effort. We invite all right-minded
people to join us in this endeavour.
Thank you."
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KSD/BK