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India’s 200 million Muslims are at the mercy of an ultra-nationalist government that looks to create an exclusively Hindu Bharat or homeland. Since the rise of the BJP government, led by Narendra Modi, Muslims have been subject to discrimination, alienation, daily religious abuse, economic marginalisation, state-sanctioned mob violence and pogroms like in Gujarat in 2002. This Hindu nationalism is underpinned by a pernicious cultural and political ideology, Hindutva, framed by an antagonism towards Islam and a rewriting of Indian history.

Our guest this week Professor Irfan Ahmad, helps us understand the precarious state of India’s Muslims and the Hindutva ideology. Born in India, he now lives in Istanbul, where he is a professor of sociology and anthropology at Ibn Haldun University. Prior to istanbul he was research professor in Germany at Max Plank institute and he has taught anthropology and politics in the Netherlands and Australia He has written numerous books and articles on India and Islam and recently published a provocative piece on Hindu Orientalism.

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Transcript

This transcript was computer generated. Please check the transcript against the programme for accuracy.

India's 200 million Muslims are at the mercy of an ultra-nationalist government that looks to create an exclusively Hindu Bharat or Homeland since the rise of the BJP government led by Narendra Modi Muslims have been subject to discrimination alienation, daily religious abuse, economic marginalization, state sanctioned mob violence and pogroms like that in Gujarat in 2002. The Hindu nationalism is underpinned by a pernicious cultural and political ideology Hindutva framed by an antagonism towards Islam and a rewriting of Indian history. My guest today Professor Irfan Ahmad will help us understand the precarious state of India's Muslims and the Hindutva ideology. Born in India he now lives in Istanbul where he is a professor of sociology and anthropology at Ibn Haldun University. Prior to Istanbul he was a research professor in Germany at the Max Planck Institute, and he has taught anthropology and politics in Netherlands and Australia; he has written numerous books and articles on India and Islam and recently published a provocative piece on Hindu orientalism which I'm sure we're going to explore today. Professor Irfan Ahmad, Assalamualikum wa rahmatulah and it's a pleasure to have you with us today. 

Thank you for having me I'm also very happy to be here and I have watched some of your programs and I think intervention like yours is very important for our time.

Well, it's really a pleasure to have you with us and actually we're speaking in a week which has been marked by some very disturbing scenes in India and I'm sure we're going to pick up on that as we as we go along today. So, let's begin with the reality on the ground Hindu nationalism's ideology. Can you please paint a picture of the life of ordinary Muslims in India today.

In one sentence I think Muslims and it is not just ordinary Muslims both ordinary and non-ordinary their condition today in India is marked by a state of complete Terror you mentioned this situation in last week; Muslims have been killed in the train and the guide police officer who killed. So, of course now he is being depicted in the media as somebody who is mentally stable right unstable yes but of course there was a method in the way he killed these Muslims because it was not like a random shooting yeah it was moving from one coast to another and identifying Muslim with the visible marker like beer okay. So, these three Muslims have been killed in two separate coaches really yes. So, the point is these… So, this is one incident another incident which has happened in Gurgaon which by the way is very close to  the captain right. 

So, if we were to look at this map here that you've asked me to put up Gurgaon it would be where?

 

So, you see it is on the top in north right here. So, it is Delhi yeah technically Gurgaon is part of Haryana right but it is very close to Delhi. So, if you were to drive by car it will be like 20 25 minutes yeah. 

And why is it so significant why is being close to Delhi very significant? 

Because of course it is the capital of India yes where you have Parliament you have prime minister who lives there right. So, this is happening right under the nose of people who rule India yes. Now in Gurgaon um there was a Masjid and it is not a full-fledged message it was a makeshift Masjid yes and a very young Iman his name is Hafiz Saad. So, the mob went first attacked the Masjid and there I think there were four or five people who were attacked this young Imam he was killed, he died in the hospital this young Imam is from the same state where I come from really in fact from the same district as well Sitamarhi. So, you see this and in in Gurgaon in the past there has been. So, this is not the first attack on Masjid for example it has happened before because you know this is also Gurgaon is important as part of this new India like new offices right towers IT offices and. So, on. So, you have Muslims who work there but their number is very um low yes. So, they come for Friday prayer okay. So, in some cases they have been doing it in the open in that kind of prayer also they have been attacked there have been several reports. So, this has happened not one time but many times. So, the point here is that this state of Terror which Muslims have been subjected to and especially it has increased since 2014 yes when Modi came to power yeah. So, what I want to say that this state of terror is as state in the sense of condition. So, the condition of Muslims it is marked by like social disposition, it is marked by discrimination, it is marked by their worsening economic status yeah; their low representation in government jobs there are very few Muslims who find a way to go to the university to the higher education right. So, this is what I mean state as a condition, but then this condition of Muslims is definitely connected to the state as regime of power. Now, let me illustrate this what I mean by this. So, this kind of attacks which I described here when it happens either they state is silent and sometimes it also indirectly encourages, right, encourages not by not by acting against the criminals yes okay. So, in the case of lynching not only that the government doesn't take action you have a case from Jharkhand which is in the north right close to Bihar right earlier it was part of Bihar just over here yes yeah. Now 20 years ago it was created as a separate state yes. So, there Muslims were lynched and those who lynched Muslims; you have a politician who not only spoke in favor of these Hindu lynchers if there is a word like lyncher but when he went and actually gave bouquet to those who had lynched Muslims.

The flowers to those who lynched the Muslims yes wow. And this was a politician the local politician in the area?

Yes, and that politician is not an insignificant one yeah he's quite a significant politician who has fought national elections really you know yeah. So, in that sense you see the state of Terror that I am speaking about a state as a general condition and also a state in terms of the political regime or the power yeah they are connected, the fusion between state, society, and media. Now this raises an important question that can we talk about democracy and Terror because clearly India projects itself and in a way it is because every five years there is an election. So, this raises the question that is there a connection between democracy and terror?  Yeah. Now of course most theories would say that actually terror is a positive democracy yeah but I think historically Terror and democracy have coexisted right now you remember the famous or the infamous statement that Roosevelt met and it is something like this that the extermination of Indians was ultimately beneficial as it was inevitable if you look at the history of democracy in Australia yes the extermination of  Aboriginal population it is bound of victim democracy right it is bounded with nationalism.

Okay can I can I ask you about…We hear a lot on social media we hear about Caw Vigilantes who are these Cow Vigilantes can you just explain, because it sounds like a

very strange idea, just explain what's going on there.

I've written about this term Cow vigilante or Cow Vigilantism elsewhere I think the term itself is problematic right now why because the idea of Cow Vigilantes I mean the word vigilance is a positive term that we have to keep a vigil on something right. So,  the idea here is that these are people who are engaged in a good cause yes namely that they are maintaining a vigil against those who are either the term which is used in the Indian media those who are smuggling cows. So, it is not about every animal yes particularly cow yes right yeah I think for me the term Cow vigilante is problematic because what you have here these are criminals right because once you take law into your own hand and if a poor Muslim is exporting animals, including cow, and you surround him you start beating him and in many cases they have been killed. So, the word Cow Vigilante here is not appropriate it is from a legal perspective they should be described as criminals at least yeah. There are some people and I have also used this straw that can be also talk about cow terrorist because by killing these Muslims in the name of Cow Vigilantism yes what is the purpose the purpose is to strike a terror yeah in the hearts and minds of Muslims yes. So, Cow Vigilante is of course and this will take us to a little bit of history now the Indian constitution is understood in the west as secular but here we must make a distinction that the word secular was inserted in the constitution only in mid 70s right. So, from 47 when India got independence yeah until 76 or 77 you don't have the word secular it was inserted but if you take the idea of India as a secular  state yes. So, Constitution has different parts in the part which is called directive principles of the state policy that constitution in that part it says that their state will try to ban beef okay. So, it has not been implemented yes at a federal level yes but different states have implemented it really now after the rise of Modi yes this has become a hot issue and it is not simply enforced by the law enforcing agencies but also this Cow Vigilantes okay who are civil society technically speaking yes. So, these are young people who are affiliated to either directly or indirectly yeah to the Hindutva organizations yes and indirectly they also have protection from the police and from the Civil Administration. 

So, can I ask you about this what is the relationship between the state the government these, civil society actors like the RSS, the police and the perpetrators the mobs who conduct these public lynchings. 

This is really a great question because we cannot understand the health of a democracy which really believes in Justice without this question about the interrelationship between state and society and also between the different organs of the state now as we know liberal democracy is based on the idea of differentiation of different realms, okay Judiciary, executive and legislative; now people who have written about fascism that there are many explanation of fascism but one key explanation of fascism which bears on our discussion is that what happens under the fascist order yes is that different aspects of the society and different institution of the state, the fuse there is almost  complete identification and the space between the state and society and different institutions of the Civil Society that completely disappears.

It fuses together.

Yeah. So, what the politician says and what the civil society says, what the media says they become almost one identity one unified voice right, and that is dangerous because the defenses, the dissenting voices they are simply eliminated and in the case of India you see this if you want to use this word called fusion of different organs of the state as well as the society. Now, the first example of this fusion and let's keep this idea of how fascism works in practice it fuses yes this separate problems into one yeah. So, you see the RSS and BJP they have been working hard to demolish the Babri Masjid which was eventually demolished in 1992 now if you take RSS and BJP as political parties.

RSS being by the way just a quick explanation.

So, RSS is an organization which the full name is Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh,  in English if you translate it would be National volunteer Association right. So, the name itself is quite innocent yes. But as we’ll explain it later please yeah it has got a quite violent ideology as well as practice.

And the BJP is the government in power the political party of the ruling party.

That is correct yes. So, so there have been campaigning for building of the Ram Temple which also means demolishing the Babri Masjid yes if you take BJP and RSS as actor in civil society because this is how political parties are right taken as  Civil Society actors yes. Now what they have been saying for decades the Supreme Court in excitement it said the same thing and then media says the same thing. So, this fusion between what political party says what the media says and what the supreme court judgment says this is almost identical right and that is where you see this fusion between the state and the society really and that is one way to understand fascism the media's portrayal of Muslims likewise in our contemporary world media is very important in order to shape our public opinion and so on. Now, there are many people who say that well India is a favorite vibrant democracy we have so many media houses we have media pluralism and so on. So, on the face of it looks very attractive but I'm not interested. So, much as a political anthropologist or a social philosopher in the diversity in terms of number the point is that you may have 15 media houses or 20 media houses. The key question is how do all these different media, yeah, look at the issue how do they deal with the Muslim question how do they approach the right-wing Hindu extremism. So, with some minor differences you will see that all of them they speak one language, and that language is of an ethnic Hindu nationalism in which Muslims are the prime enemy, right. And this is routinely telecast, printed now of course I should say that they don't do it identically. So, there are differences yeah and these are some of the names you audience in India would probably clearly identify those names. So, for example you have people like Arnab Goswami or Anjana Umkashir. So, these are the aggressive proponents in the media.

These are anchors news anchors maybe.

Exactly yeah. So, they speak loud aggressively and then there are others lik  Rajdeep Sir Desai or even Siddharth Rajan they may not be speaking aggressively; they may be even smiling but they are taught in the ultimate analysis is Islamophobic and in my view I think this is smile yes which often is more fake than genuine this is smile is as dangerous as the aggression that you find in Arnab Goswami or Anjana Umkashir.

So, the latitude will belong to what we were broadly call the liberal press and the first two probably were more nationalist press and your point is it doesn't really matter because these are just different forms of a very rapid islamophobia.

That is correct with some qualifications implications yes. So, this Siddhartha and Rajdeep Sir decide they are taken as liberal also secular yeah but in the ultimate analysis if you see it, yeah. The idea of India that it is a Hindu Nation okay. So, even when they speak sometimes in a very patronizing way about Muslims yes they keep the idea of India as a nation of Hindus yes and then they try to find some space for Muslims but not in the ways in which Muslims themselves would like to find their place in India right but the ways in which they think that the Muslims should think, act and behave and that is where the problem lies because I think for me Muslims are not an statistical entity Muslims are a cultural entity Muslims are a thinking entity yes. So, you have even people like Nobel Laureate who proudly say that we have the largest Muslims in a largest number of Muslims in India yeah now the point is that it is an statistical or numerical claim but the point is does Ahmad Sen also think of Muslims in not simply statistical terms because Muslims also have a tradition they have  their ways of thinking yes they have a philosophy, they have a literature, are you taking those traditions and thoughts into account or you want Muslims to act and think based on the parameters of Hindu philosophy which you have instituted in the name of nationalism and that I think is a very critical point yeah.

Now that's I think that's really interesting and I saw recently and it became an issue on social media  uh there was a circulation of a video showing two Christian women in Manipur who were stripped and paraded through the street and then ultimately abused and raped can you shed light on the context behind this video and it is Hindu nationalism as antagonistic towards other minority groups as it is Muslims as they are Muslims.

 

So, I personally did not watch that video, but I read about it because in any case later on

acts of violence and discrimination this was removed from the social media yeah it was. So, horrific yeah now clearly it is unacceptable, and it is shameful and a practice like that in a democracy is simply in a genuine democracy it should not occur in the first place yeah. But now back to this video. So, see this incident happened in a state which is called Manipur and the map that I showed to you it is in the northeastern part of India right and it is a small state yeah. So, right in the north there yeah no. So, Northeast so. So, if you bring your finger down yeah Manipur is here yes the one in green, right. So, it is a small estate now to understand the political context of that violence. For your viewers of course it is very complex situation in terms of ethnicity, language, history and political formation but for the purpose of this conversation. So, there are two main communities right okay the majority Hindu Meitei community in Manipur in Manipur yeah and then you have Kukis who are predominantly Christians right okay now Meiteis are in majority both numerically but also in terms of power because minority after all is not simply a numerical thing, minority is a relationship of power right. You also have eight or nine percent of Muslims, but they don't matter okay. So, what happened is that this there has been conflict and clashes between the Hindu largely Hindu Meitei Community yeah and the Kukis who are Christians yeah, but this would not have been possible the context or the video without this political development now what is this political development it is this until 2012. So, BJP had no elected member in the local legislative assembly okay its share of vote was only 2.1 percent yeah now you have election. So, in 2014 Modi comes to power at Federal level or the central level there is election in 2017 and you see a sudden rise in BJP. So, their share of vote increases from 2.1 percent to 36.3 percent wow okay and then they're able to form the first government now the chief minister of that state is from the Hindu majority community. So, now emboldened by the national scene okay now BJP wants to implement its ethnic Hindu nationalist idea all over India including in Manipur and

where these Kukis who are Christians, you know. There are also by the way issues of land ownership because the Manipur it comprises of the Hill areas and the well right so, the Christian cook is they are mostly in the in the Hills and Hindus are mostly in the in the valley, now even though their number is quite significant but only 20. So, the State Legislative Assembly it has 60 members but maximum you can have only 20 from the Kuki community. So, in any case the Hindus will have the political majority. So, they are the Kukis, they are also um in a way contesting that political marginalization. So, but we cannot understand what happened in this horrific video is we cannot understand it unless we relate it to the national situation right which is the embodying of Hindu fascism and its grand plan to implement the Hindu ideology in every state and Manipur is simply another. So, some people have described it that well the first laboratory of Hindu fascism was Gujarat in 2002 yes when anti-Muslim pogrom happened now Manipur is second really and in this case because in this North Eastern part of India we have also other states which has significant Christian population right okay. So, so in that sense it becomes significant.

So, okay no thank you, that's a very informative. So, is it then fair to say that Hindu nationalism has an equally antagonistic view towards all non-Hindu religious groups?

Yes, but they also have a hierarchy of enemy. So, it's Islam at the Hindu nationalism's hierarchy of enemies top of that hierarchy yes Muslims and we can probably get to that idea when we to the ideology of be happy and RSS yeah right yeah. So, so of course um this ideology emerged when Britain was still ruling India. So, at that time they were not as open against Christians, I mean they were, but in this ideology because Muslims also. So, religiously speaking after Hindus, Muslims are the second largest religious community. 

So, it's around 200 million I think that's the figure I gave at the beginning it is an inaccurate…

That is correct. So, we had census in 2011. So, it is decennial census. So, there would be another one it should be probably out soon, so in that sense as it was 14.5 percent wow Muslims yes okay. And as you know the total population of India is already over 1 billion right, but of course we have to also take this demographic data with a pinch of salt because  demography has always been historically enmeshed in politics, how you count which state has been counted properly or not and so on and. So, forth right but clearly this is a vast number of Indians who are who are Muslims yes. So, for the idea of an ethnic Hindu state to be fully workable Muslims are taken by the Hindu extremists as the greatest impediment, because it is based on the idea that it is a democracy yes. So, of course there are Christians, but their number is very less. So, in electoral term they may not matter okay. But Muslims would matter, but also the fact that Muslims have been the presence of Muslims in India has been long it has had a thriving culture actually whether it is in terms of language or civilizationally thoughts, Islam has played a key role so it is for this reason that Muslims become the prime enemy of Hindu nationalisms.

So, it's a good time then to talk about Hindu nationalism now you sent me a very persuasive piece a very great a great piece on  that you re you wrote an essay on Hindu orientalism and I think your basic argument is that this type of nationalism pervades  Indian Society it's not just restricted to the BJP but I suppose it's also the case that the BJP government has used Hindu nationalism in as a tool to marginalize Muslims but also as a tool for electoral success Hindu nationalism (  Hindutva). So, we hear a lot about the BJP's ideology -Hindutva- and you've mentioned Hindutva for a number of occasions today. So, how does Hindutva differ to the religion of Hinduism.

So, this is again this is a very good question, and it actually comes to… It touches the heart of discussion about contemporary politics. So, broadly speaking there are two

Positions: one is one position maintains that actually Hindutva and Hinduism to use  peculiar British English phrase they are as different as cheese and chalk right. So, in this position these are two completely different things. Now, among academics Ashish Nandi was the one who made this distinction. Now, there is there is an evaluation behind this distinction and we should get this now what is that distinction based on this distinction is based on the idea that Hinduism is or political it is a spiritual tolerant repository of ideas whereas Hindutwise political thing. 

So, Hinduism is apolitical, and Hindutva is political.

Yes, that is one way to read it yes Ashish Nandi would say that Hinduism is a faith and Hindutva is an ideology a political ideology yeah right. Now, I am not I think this distinction is not entirely correct right and let me say why. So, for me I think the question is not that Hindutva is political and Hinduism is apolitical now in my view both are political right okay. So, so let's stick to this the those who make the distinction between Hinduism as faith and Hindutva as an ideology there are others who say that actually there is no difference, although you will find this voice very rare in at least articulated in public yes now many Hindus themselves they think that actually Hindutva and Hinduism is the same and you have somebody called Lokesh who is director of Indian Council for cultural relation. So, not only he thinks that Hindutva is Hinduism, he went to the extent of saying that Modi is god yeah okay. So, so when you have a description like this then the distinction between Hindutva and Hinduism is collapsed, right. Okay, my own theoretical take is that rather than making this distinction ah what we can safely say that definitely Hindus prior to 19th century, okay which is to say that the political and social lives of Hindus prior to the rise of nationalism and after the rise of nationalism these are two different things right. So, we cannot think of what is happening to India in a pre-nationalism age so in that sense it is difference but not in the sense that, oh one is simply a spiritual entity and another is a political entity and therefore ideological.

Professor Ahmed I would like to ask you  about the RSS movement because of course  you've explained what the BJP is the BJP is the governing party, the party of Modi but we also hear a lot about RSS. Is it a social movement and just tell me a little bit about its background and why its so controversial.

This is also quite a critical question. So, I think it is the best word to describe it is that it is not a social movement in the sense we understand green movement or even publication it is a para military  militia kind of movement and it was established in 1925 yeah now without going into much details I just want to tell the viewers what actually it stands for so although it was established in 1925, but the bible of its ideology came in 1923 um by Vinaiak Dámodar Savarkar and he wrote a book which is called Hindutva now.  Hindutva basically literally means Hinduness. So, in in that sense it is not a problematic term, but the way he defined Hindutva so his definition he wanted India to be a nation state in the sense of Western European nation state okay and given the immense diversity in India he sought to have an ethnically purified

vision of India. Now, in that vision everything is Hindu right. So, to cut it short his definition of who is an Indian and he took Indian as a substitute to Hindu okay. So, Indian and Hindu qualifies as equivalent yes. So, he gave these three-core thing that only he or she would be considered as Indian who takes India as her motherland and also has her ancestral land right and as finally Holy Land. 

But how different is this discourse from say that of the more tolerant discourse we're used to hearing of Mahatma Gandhi for example.

Yeah. So, this is I mean there are people who take Gandhi as oppositive RSS in my view he's not actually opposite of RSS and there are also a few scholars who have made this point that actually he is a moderate version of that really yes.

 So, he believes in Hindu nationalism a Hindu Rashtra. 

Yes. So, the difference is  more in terms of the modes of realizing it rather than the actual  content of it right now so back to this Savarkar vision but this was in 1923 now RSS is  the second Chief of the RSS  Mr Golwalkar he wrote a book which is called V or our nation would define and Golwalkar was clearly he writes in the book that his source of inspiration is Hitler. So, this is a Nazi ideology and I want the viewers to take this into consideration because in that book he clearly says that non-Hindus okay and in a way, it ties to the South Africa's definition of India because Muslims do not consider India as their Holy Land okay. So, he extends this and he is very clear that what non-Hindus should do or what would be the future of non-Hindus. So, he says and let me quote this and this is from Golwalkar from this book published in 1939 the non-Hindu people in Hindustan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion must entertain no idea but those of glorification of the Hindu race and culture in one word they must cease to be foreigners or they may stay in the country wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation claiming nothing, deserving no privilege far less preferential treatment not even citizens’ rights. So, this is a said in 1939 and I think what we are facing today. So, so it is not simply a word which has been put on paper now you see this actually in practice right. 

So, the realization of that vision is really through Modi and the BJP government.

And also take into consideration that this vision and this is an important question for any person interested in democracy. So, it is a paramilitary organization Modi himself is a member of that of that party yeah right yeah and by the way RSS members are not just within BJP you will find RSS people also in other parties like in the Congress in in Samajwadi Party right. And, this is not I am saying but a spokesperson of the RSS yeah he has said that our people are in everybody here but more importantly I don't understand this that. So, they have a shark which is like training camp and every city and town has that drill session they wear white shirt and nick or half pants which is a also inspired by Hitler's SSS and. So, on. So, they do this military training in every town and city, wow. So, it works like a parallel organization. So, I don't understand why in a democracy you will have a paramilitary organization because in a democracy the citizens have to put their faith in a state and legalized institution like the police the Judiciary rather than having something which is outside this realm but this has existed right and many of these like the violence which has happened in Haryana and Gurgaon yeah many of them would be connected to allied organization of the RSS right. So, not directly a member of the RSS but then RSS also function by establishing other groups like Visha Hindu Parishad, like Bajrang Dal which is a militant being of the youth yes which indulges in street violence right yeah. So, this is how this ideology and practice go together. 

Now, there's a lot in the Indian press about of course about Muslims one of the key lines of malign in Muslims is the connection with the Mughal Empire; the Mughal Empire was the last Muslim empire that ruled over India for many centuries and there is an attempt to revise a revisionist attempt to revise Mughal history in the in the school textbooks I remember some discussion about the 17th century ruler Aurangzeb in Indian media and the characterization of  Aurangzeb as an Islamic extremist. So, just lay out why the Mughal Empire is so problematic to these hindered for people yeah. 

So, this is a very relevant question and I think the root cause of this is that the entire demonization of the Mughal rule is actually historically and intellectually indebted to British or Western orientalism right. Now, what I mean by this I mean this. So, see when the British colonized India in order to legitimize their own rule as benign and also beneficial they started constructing the Mughals as malignant and bad force okay,  because this is to tell the Indians that look we have colonized you and we are better than the previous rulers but what the British also did was to say that look we are not the first outsiders to rule India Mughals were also outsiders. So, you have two things happening here externalization of Muslims okay that they are not from India from outside just as the British are and then the demonization because without this demonization you cannot tell Indian people that look how good we are to you as Indians because we have brought progress, we have brought modernization and so on. Now, the depiction of Indian history uh happened along these lines and two  key historians where Ilya ten thousand so they created even a chronology by saying that Hindu India Muslim India and then the British India once you have this linear classification Hindu India Muslim India and British India now of course when you say Muslim India when the Mughals ruled but in the Mughal Administration there are also Hindus who have been at key position right yes but once you create this kind of thing  then it is like depicting them as three successive linear stages in history and also as opposed to each other now this was for a variety of reasons many Hindus themselves. So, this is the British creation but Hindus found it useful yes. So, you have somebody like Raja Ram Mohan Roy who is considered as leader of the Indian Renaissance and he described his on record to say that we do not and by we he means probably Hindus that we do not regard the British as colonizers but as liberate really yes.

Liberating from Muslim rule.

Which using the orientalist vocabulary it described Muslim rule as Muhammadan despotism and then described Hindus as original inhabitants yeah. So, what you see that Raja Ram Mohan Roy the famous British historian he described Raja Ram Mohan Roy as the first Indian Liberal but if that is what liberalism means. So, you see when you say Hindus as original inhabitants Muhammadan what gets identified with despotism as an outsider and British colonialism as a deliverer and liberator. So, you see the seats of violence is already there now it is it is in this framework that Aurangzeb becomes the villain of not simply RSS and BJP you will find that there are many people outside of RSS and BJP they also have a similar view of Orange now there are many historians who have written  books about Aurangzeb yes it  is not entirely accurate the way he is being demonized I mean there was a historian called B and Pandey who wrote a book on Aurangzeb and it is forgotten that Aurangzeb also gave grant land grant to many temples as well Hindu temples yes but also mind keep in mind that this villa… this demonization of Aurangzeb is at radical variance with Muslims perception of Aurangzeb, for many Muslims Aurangzeb is quite closer to the idea of a good leader because the kind of lifestyle he used to lead right he did not take money for his own from the exchequer of the government he used to sue caps and the money that he used to earn from that he used to spend on his own food wow. But also he has this idea of Justice. So, he would have an audience with people every even a commoner could come and have an audience with him about Justice and so on. So, so for Muslims Aurangzeb is something entirely different the way and the Hindus they depict him as complete villain now of course the as a historian or academic the point is not to um endorse this or that view but assess what actually historical evidence show and clearly historical evidence do not show that he was such a such a bad fellow yeah. He also did a lot of things but he is mobilized in order to enact this politics of enmity, hatred which is what you see all over India  since 2014 especially and is there any truth in the Hindutva narrative that Muslim India treated Hindus as second-class Citizens. So, a proper response would be from a historian who has done enough work and I'm not historian but what I can say and this is crucial that see Al-Biruni who wrote a book on India and he was a scholar who went there left with Hindus also learned Sanskrit really yes.

He was an Arab scholar?

Yes, now Abul Qalam Azad he attributes this term to Al-Biruni saying that. So, in the Islamic worldview of course you have the notion of Ahlul Kitab. 

Jews and Christians.

Right, yeah. So, through Al- Biruni, Abul Qalam Azad refers to this description of Hindus as shiv Ahlul Kitab. So, which is and I'm not a expert of Fiqh either but shiv literally means something which is closer to like a resemblance. So, they are not Ahlul Kitab in the sense of Jews and Christian, but shiv is like something closer to it. So, there were also ways to deal with religious differences yeah and my point is that there were, I mean in Mughal bureaucracy you have many Hindus who were at key position  they were Finance Minister who were Hindus, this goes and also defense minister especially in the reign of Akbar now the point is that we should also keep in mind that we cannot judge the political history of that era from the standard of today right because the idea of equality that we have today that did not exist at that time but I would go one step further and say that okay for theoretical reason we accept that there has been discrimination but by the way this discrimination I mean you also have poor Muslims weavers right but Mughals generally they did not interfere in the in the religious life of Hindus right okay but the point is for the sake of argument even if we accept that there has been some ill treatment for the sake of harm then the point is the way you mobilize it now okay what is the goal of that mobilization of course you are using or you use that invented  idea to impact and make the life of Muslims difficult and impossible yeah right.

Can I ask you about now that's a really good understanding, can I ask even about a liberal India we've got Rahul Gandhi who is of course the leader of the opposition congress party you've got Shashi Tarur who again is quite popular in the west and he's written some books which one can interpret to be a little bit more inclusive I suppose of Muslims his book on Moghul India did merit Moghul India for  its substantial work on improving  and creating the world's largest economy of its time. So, you've got figures like this and some Muslims may come to the conclusion that we need to support these liberal guys these Congress politicians because they would deliver us from this fascism that has  undertaken that is that is taken over India and is that narrative a little bit too simplistic. 

Yeah. So, you see here in such a formulation the assumption is  that Party politics is the key to understand what is happening in India and I am interested I am interested in Party politics as well but there is something which goes beyond Party politics. So, it is the shared ideology of India as a Hindu nation which informs BJP,  RSS as much as it does it does impact and influence even communist I would say and Congress because the existing Communist Party by the way  historically as you know communism is about International movement but the Indian companies they never they operate within the international framework and they also in many ways reproduce that idea of India as a Hindu Nation not in the same way as  BJP and Congress does now back to Rahul Gandhi and Shashi Tarur so I would say that if we do not see Indian politics in term in

terms of Party politics but something which is Supra party the idea of India what has been in in what has been India and what India wants to be. So, that idea of an ethnic Hindu Nation, it cuts across the political parties now Rahul Gandhi I mean Congress itself after the Babri Masjid was demolished now the general narrative is that well the BJP and the RSS and BJP they have been responsible for the demolition of the Babri embassy after the Babri Masjid was demolished and the supreme court judgment came validating that demolition in some ways you have many prominent Congress leaders in UP and this included the chief of the UP Congress think that no actually we also played a key role in the demolition right. Rahul Gandhi himself has been adopting a soft Hindutva yeah now  about Shashi Tarur, I think his take on British colonialism his critical take on Churchill I'm quite a fan of it and it is good that he brought such things to the public yes but when it comes to Islamic issues yes Shashi Tarur is no different I mean probably the difference is that unlike the BJP and RSS and Arnab Goswami who uses an aggressive language, Shashi Tarur has got a decent vocabulary and he also speaks with some smile but the content of that Islamophobia is there in in a different way but let me say this that if we take Hindu politics beyond party politics beyond Congress versus BJP yes here. So, the commonality that I have highlighted across political parties this is you will see that even Gandhi has that idea okay.

 Mahatma Gandhi or Rahul…

No, Mahatma Ghandi, well Mahatma is the title but the name is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Now, as you know the Dalit leader Ambedkar he used to say that I  refused to call him Mahatma because the term literally means the Great Soul or probably the greatest soul Mahatma so Gandhi and probably this is something for the viewers to take into consideration now Gandhi is considered as someone who has truth for an inclusive India he was for Hindu Muslim unity and so and so forth yeah and above all his icon of non-violence so you have people like Barack Obama yeah praising him yes I always wondered that well is Barack Obama really aware of Gandhis’ is thought and I want to say here is that actually how Gandhi's violent views on Muslims elements of Gandhi's thought is. So, violent especially when it comes to Muslim issues…

Evidence that I mean you know how do we know that that he had these very violent views towards Muslims.

Yeah, and I'll  just explain that but I would say that actually the contemporary forms of lynching of Muslims it is many people think that this is a departure from Gandhian values or Gandhi and ideology yeah. I will just explain to you that actually it is a homage to Gandhi and it is actually derived from teachings of Gandhi now how to see Gandhi was killed on 31st of January; 2nd of January he holds a prayer meeting okay now a Hindu has written a letter to him. So, we are talking about the first week of first week of January 1948 India got independence in August 1947. okay. So, it is just within a few months so a Hindu asked him that if there was a war between India and Pakistan and that Hindu assumes that Muslims of India will not be loyal to the Indian Union or the Indian state but rather side with Pakistan, so that Hindu is asking Gandhi that should not Muslims be expelled before that war happens because they will not be loyal to the Indian state so in that prayer meeting this letter is written in English but he replies in Hindi so he is addressing this question and let me quote it so this is Gandhi's reply please yeah: Do I imagine that crores of Muslims in India will be loyal to India and fight against Pakistan we must not assume anyone to be bad till he has been proven to be bad if later they meaning Muslims betray you can shoot them you may shoot one or two or a certain number. Everyone will not be disloyal we must be brave and trust the Muslims if later they violate the trust you can cut off their heads this is in collected works of Mahatma Gandhi volume 19 volume 98 page number 160 and 61. Wow. Now imagine you have collected volumes of 98 there are more volumes I'm not a scholar of Hadith but I am how many volumes of Hadith are there so everything that Gandhi has said it is collected  it is gone into over 100 fall yes now what you see if you read this quote closely so there are two things if Muslims betray you can cut off their heads it doesn't occur to Gandhi Hindus can also be disloyal there's nothing in broad or religion because you are talking about nation state. So, he takes the Hindu questionnaire's assumption that only Muslims would be disloyal and as we know from history there have been many Hindus who have walked against the national interest of India yes right so it doesn't occur to him that Hindus could also be loyal he takes the assumption that Muslims would be destroyed but then if they are loyal and you want. So, the proper legal mechanism would be that you put those disloyal Muslims in a quote on trial and if the court makes this judgment that they have betrayed India then you can deliver the punishment whether it is in terms of execution or kill in this answer Gandhi is telling his audience and addressing the questioner that you can shoot them now what is lynching technically is that rather than the official of the state it is the non-state actor Civil Society actors who take law into their own hands and kill a people rather than a court judgment which tells that okay this person should be executed right. So, in Gandhi's endorsement of lynching this quote Gandhi is indirectly asking the citizens to take law into their own lands and that way what you see today in terms of lynching yes because it is an illegal act right yeah. So, in my view it is not a departure from Gandhian thought it's the logic of it yeah it is extension yeah. 

Can I can I ask you about the international response to  Modi's India to his fascism. now I talk about how we live in an age of impunity. Why has there been near silence on the backsliding of democracy in India I mean Joe Biden he speaks against human rights abuses around the world yet when it comes to India neither does he speak  against India nor does he  in fact he in a way sanctions he permits these  acts of violence by Court in India is a member of his Summit for democracies where he brings the world's democracies together and of course he's trying to  develop a consensus against the autocracies in the world Pakistanis excluded from that even though they have elections because Pakistanis seem to be an imperfect democracy or non-democracy whereas India is seen to be other than that Modi was on a visit to the United States not. So, long ago what's going on here why is the International Community silent about what seems to be the road to some form of genocide in in India.

This is a sort of difficult question to answer but let me say this: that this coalition of democracy yes America, India Britain and France and so on and so forth. Now, when these powers speak of democratic values now India projects itself as the largest democracy America is the oldest democracy but if you see the histories of these democracies they have not always been for democracy right now  the part of the history of democracy and I alluded to this briefly earlier with the example of Roosevelt and what happened to the aboriginals in Australia yes but these democracies have also been engaged in what I call de-democratization which means how  it has been engaged in toppling elected governments from Chile in 1971 or 72 was elected leader there was a coup against Allende in 1953 elected government was overthrown. So, the point here is that these democracies or the history of democracy after World War II is almost also enmeshed simultaneously indeed Democratic indeed democratizing polities this has happened in hierarchy of human lives Muslim countries as well you could think of already 1953 but you know Moses government also not in the same way as in a slightly complex way yeah it's a soft coup yeah; and this happened by the way in  in early 70s in Bahrain yeah. Okay, so you have many examples of these they democratization. So, when these democracies come together and speak in terms of values of democracy sometimes, I'm reminded and maybe I think probably I will have to switch now from English into Urdu. So, there's this poet Rahat Indore, you know during the COVID. So, here this is very important and couplet and which. So, let me say this he said “…” I'm not saying that this is the only thing but in this particular context it also it refers to like you know a set of liars telling another set of liars that let's speak truth ok ah now the reason why the waste codes Modi now you mentioned choir dancer and. So, forth so of course it is to counter China and so on. There is also an argument that look India is the largest market. So, the West wants to do business and there are people who have said that no from the Western World you will not hear anything about violation of democracy or human rights because it is a party to this Alliance to counter China but then if that is the case and if it is simply raw or brute polytaking then the question is what happens to the idea of norms what happens to values, human rights human rights yeah and that I think and this may not be a practical  response to your question but I think at the theoretical level my senses that look the world order or the word disorder that we have after World War II in the form of the United Nations. So, it is world of nation state now the chief working axiom of this world order is ruthless pursuit of national interest right every nation state is engaged in pursuing its own National interest yes and then of course you have coalition and alliances now this whole idea of national interest the way modern politics works this National interest is based on the idea of enmity. So, Carla Smith who was sympathetic to Fascism. So, he takes politics as making setting friends yes apart from enemy and this is this enemy friend dualism it is actually the core of post-world war political order or disorder and then and it anchors in the name of national interest. Once you have this then the idea of violation of human rights, of dignity of women like for example this horrific video of women raped and paraded in in Manipur. So, all these things will be subordinated to that brutal logic of national interest now sometimes I also think that like you know this genocidal violence which has happened against Rohingya right if it had happened to section of people in Europe would the Western World have responded differently right. But I think and this is probably not  an optimistic note to make but I think there is a hierarchy of human lives so certain forms of life of certain humans have been given more respect and attention then the life of certain other social groups and unless we do away with that hierarchy and really come to a genuine egalitarianism where humans are not ranked or graded based on  now either racism nationalism now there is also logic of civilizationalism. So, both India and China there might be they are actually enemies in some ways, but both use this language of civilization nationalism; China has been a great civilization since time immemorial and India makes the same argument right. So, so we have to have really radically new understanding of humans where these gradation and hierarchy is done away with and once we get to that stage only then I think we'll be in a position to talk about suffering of all and really create a beautiful world because what we are confronted with today is all awful and this awful by the way is legitimized by lawful. So, law because the moment you say that law and order has to be maintained. So, this is lawful but lawful is not necessarily and always beautiful there are many things in the world which has been awful but it has been lawful in the sense that apartheid in South Africa it was awful, but it was lawful it was legitimized by law yeah be as humans I think we have to aspire more towards not simply lawful but a lawful that is also beautiful. It is for Humanity it is for not simply for humans in in but also it is sensitive to the larger idea of universe in which rivers, animals, insects and butterflies  and cats they all have their rightful and dignified please.

Can I ask you one last question it's been a fascinating discussion and I've really valued your responses to my questions. There is a raw feeling amongst Indian Muslims and I sense it also when I speak to Pakistani Muslims that we have what 200 million Muslims in India today, we have the that's the third largest population of Muslims in the world in fact. But in 1947 when India and Pakistan separated both Muslims decided to remain in India, was it a mistake to stay in India and should those Muslims, your parents your thought your grandparents possibly should they have moved to Pakistan?

This stay or move to Pakistan question in its Axiom a little bit problematic because there's nothing called Muslims decided or chose to remain India right now why I'm saying this, see there is a whole library written on partition and so on. I think from the Pakistani side also there is some quite a bit of damage done to the historical facts look the best definition of partition that I uphold and have written about it who became the home minister, and he was from the same state as your grandparents or forefathers Gujarati yes right. So, he says that partition was cutting of the diseased limb what does it mean. So, here is the idea that from 19th century onwards and I made this reference to the key leader of Indian Renaissance Raja Ram Mohan Roy. So, from that time onwards you have the idea of India as a Hindu, and pure Nation okay. Now, Muslims were but of course from Raja Ram Mohan Roy until Patel there's a long time. So, it is not life it happened just in one go you know just slowly. So, once you have that idea of a purified ethnic Hindu Nation, Muslims were seen simply as detrimental. So, it is like a healthy body Nation as a healthy Hindu body and Muslims were taken as a diseased part of that body. So, it needs to be cut off; now what partition is that of course for Hindus and this is Vajpay by the way who was prime minister and who died, and it is considered a liberal RSS member he is on record to say that partition was a good thing. So, why it is a good thing because the Muslim majority areas which now constitute today after 97 Bangladesh and Pakistan. So, these Muslim areas they were wanting their own autonomy okay and speaking on behalf of Muslims so once you have Joker a territorially separated them and given them a state separate estate yeah now Muslims who remain in India. So, there was in Partition drama there is nothing called that you have a choice actually you have worked by historians when Muslims were going from India to Pakistan. So, after a few months this is in June and there is a cartoon it's it says that Pakistan is full which is to say that now you don't come because our geography is definite and we cannot accommodate all Muslims so it was not it was not in the sense of like oh Muslims have been given it choice to go. There's nothing like that and for Hindu nationalists also if you have a small population that is not a problem. So, this is what Vajpay said that partition was a good thing we have now a lesson we have now less Muslims and it is easier to manage them right. So, it is not in terms of it is not in terms of choice but what I want to say here that Pakistan as a as an entity, as a name. So, so please keep in mind that before 1947 there is nothing called Pakistan yes right but the enmity against Islam exists prior to 1947. So, that time the Hindu nationalism or mainstream Indian Nationalism conducts itself against Islam against Muslims yes now what happens after 1947 the Indian politicians or people like even Shashi Tarur they will if they do not use the word Pakistan sorry Islam but when they use the word Pakistan and Pakistan in Hindu nationalism is a bad word. So, when you say that that guy is a Pakistani that means you are being disloyal right you are not being tolerant you are exclusivist. So, even for these liberals when they use what Pakistan it basically means that something because of certain liberal constraints you cannot say Muslims and you cannot give them you cannot abuse them. So, Pakistan becomes a word of abuse right and that is why it is kept alive like on a daily basis 24/ 7. You cannot read a newspaper in India or watch a television without, or films, or even public conversation with friends without mention of Pakistan.

Professor Irfan Ahmad, it's really been a pleasure speaking to you today thank you very much for your time.

Thank you thank you for having me and it was lovely to speak to you.

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