The culture of dissent in Indian civilisation gave birth to two great religious traditions—Jainism and Buddhism. Both these religious traditions and their founders preached against the caste system—something which was, and still is, considered central to Brahmanic religion. The point is: dissent is as old as Indian civilisation. The great Indian historian Romila Thapar has pointed out in her recent works that dissent is an ancient tradition, but the multiple forms in which it exists in modern society are quite modern.
When the founders of Buddhism and Jainism preached against the caste system in the period some 500 years before Christ, it didn’t give rise to social or religious tensions in ancient Indian society for two reasons. First, Brahmanic religions had no concept of orthodoxy; and secondly, Brahmanic religions are not religious systems in the sense that Middle Eastern traditions of religion are. Brahmanic religions are open systems, ready to embrace new concepts, ideas and religious beliefs. So, when the people of British India were presented with ideas about the modern forms of dissent, there was little resistance at the social and political levels. The British introduced a parliamentary form of government in British India—dissent is the very essence of the parliamentary form of democracy.
It is debatable whether Islam, as a religious system, includes some kind of orthodoxy and whether modern forms of dissent are within the realm of possibilities in a Muslim culture. However, two things I would like to point out: first, in the formative period of Islamic thought, when Muslims were the dominant political and military power in the Eurasian landmass, they openly espoused ideas and concepts which would now be considered heterodox. The belief systems within Islam were open to contestation between rival groups. Ideas and beliefs that are now mainstream were on the fringe of orthodoxy in the formative years.
Secondly, and more importantly, Islamic history bears witness that never in Islamic societies, and the myriad of states they formed, was there ever a coercive institution to enforce orthodoxy or to curb dissent. Human history bears witness that no great religious tradition has ever come into existence which was not preceded by one or the other form of tumultuous dissent—a form of dissent that disagreed with the existing religious, political, and moral frameworks of society.
There was one thing common in all the revivalist movements—whether they sought revival of Islam or Hinduism, they borrowed their interpretation of Indian history from colonial historians
Indian Muslim leaders—I would name only two due to paucity of space—Quaid-e-Azam and Allama Iqbal, were great practitioners of dissent. Jinnah was trained in the British liberal, legal and political parliamentary tradition. He had the courage to disagree with British colonial authorities and the narrowly defined social and political norms of his host society. Iqbal was a thinker and deeply disagreed with the religious traditions of his co-religionists in India.
The colonial system of government introduced by the British in India gave ample religious freedom to the people of India. Multiple forms of religious revivalist movements originated in British Indian society. There was one thing common in all the revivalist movements—whether they sought revival of Islam or Hinduism, they borrowed their interpretation of Indian history from colonial historians. Colonial British historians projected Indian society—both the Hindu and Muslim segments—as decadent. Their efforts at revival had no meaning until they adopted the concept of social and cultural decline in their respective communities, as well as in society more generally. Revivalist movements wove this idea of decline or decadence into their theological edifice, which served as the rationale or theory for the revival of their respective communities.
Let me point out something very interesting: that modern British historians such as John Darwin and other Western historians of India—like Richard Eaton—do not agree with the theory that Indian society was in decline when the British began their colonial rule. They agree that India under the Mughals was not in decline. The culture of dissent was flourishing, and there was cultural flowering in and around the Mughal court when the Persianate culture of the Mughal court was interacting with the Sanskrit and Vedantic world of Indian philosophy. New forms, genres, and ideas were taking birth. In British India, the revivalists began their work to ruin this cultural flowering.
I will cut the story short, as it is not my intention to write a history of revivalist movements in British India and their impact on the cultural productions of Pakistani and Indian societies. Revivalists were flirting with the post-industrial revolution idea of “system” and wanted their ancient religions to act as political, social and economic systems. They were preparing themselves to take control of the machinery of the post-colonial states—Pakistan and India.
The Pakistan Movement was not a revivalist movement, and revivalists formed a very small and insignificant part of its central leadership. Revivalists in post-independence Pakistan have lived very paradoxical political lives—they are very influential in shaping the worldviews of the Pakistani populace, but they have always been on the fringes of the country’s electoral politics. At present, they have such a negligible presence in the Pakistani parliament that the incumbent government doesn’t feel the need to co-opt them. Pakistani ruling elites—political leadership and civil and military bureaucracy—are least influenced by the revivalist cause and politics. To outsiders, this may appear untrue. But this is a reality.
Today’s India tells a very different story. The capture of the state by Hindu revivalists is a reality. Indian secularism hardly has any reality beyond the text of the Indian constitution inscribed on a piece of paper. No book has captured that change more accurately than Christophe Jaffrelot’s, who has written extensively on the politics of India and Pakistan—Modi’s India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy. The book effectively describes how the Sangh Parivar is changing the nature and structure of the Indian political system from a secular parliamentary democracy to a Hindu ethnic democracy that is good only for one religious community or nationality.
The Supreme Court has been neutralised, secular opposition parties are almost non-existent, the military has been co-opted into the Hindu nationalist framework, civil society and human rights organisations have collapsed, and the media has become the mouthpiece of the revivalists. Hardly any obstacle is left in the way of the Sangh Parivar to make India a Hindu-only nation. After reading the aforementioned book, it becomes clear that India is on the path to becoming a “Hindu Pakistan”, as someone important in India described a few years back.
The killings and torture inflicted on Muslim communities in India compelled Islamist ideologues in Pakistan to assert that what is now happening in India is a confirmation of Jinnah’s Two-Nation Theory. As the Hindu majority is itself now saying that Muslims are a separate nation.
Let’s say for the sake of argument that both Islamist and Hindu ideologues are absolutely correct. How will their positions now affect inter-state relations in the subcontinent? And how will the culture of religious extremism in one country affect the culture of religious extremism in the other? Suppose there are acts of lynching in India—will there be corresponding lynchings in Pakistan?
In Pakistan, no religious party has the slightest chance of winning parliamentary elections. But at the social level, the atmosphere is no less toxic than India’s. The lynching of a Sri Lankan engineer in Sialkot was a clear sign that we have already destroyed the social and political fabric of our society. The culture of dissent, which, in Romila Thapar’s words, was the essence of Indian civilisation, is receding from public life. Once, dissent gave birth to the world’s greatest religious traditions—Jainism and Buddhism—in India. Now, Indian society cannot even digest the dissenting note of a young university professor who begged to differ with the official narrative of “Operation Sindoor”—the official Indian name for the military operation that led to military strikes inside Pakistan. There are media reports that hundreds of people have been arrested for criticising the Modi government for what it did during “Operation Sindoor”.
Our greatest misfortune in the wake of independence was the move on the part of the Pakistani state to dissociate itself from the Indian civilisational heritage
The situation begs the question: what are the state and government, with their military forces, coercive machinery, and vast bureaucracy, good for, if they cannot protect the good things in society? By good things, I mean its social and political values, its harmony, its civilisational traditions, and most importantly its political culture, which is a product of continuity with historical traditions. In other words, if you cannot protect the way of life of a society, your state structures and military forces are meaningless.
This may sound purely idealistic. A more important question is: who will protect society from itself? By this, I mean that if some political force musters enough support of a majoritarian bloc in the political system to change the historical, social, and political traditions of the society, the state itself will have to transform under such adverse conditions. In such conditions, the state will reflect the majoritarian viewpoint. What will become of the historical and civilisational traditions and norms of such a society?
With all your military might, what exactly does the state want to achieve? Apart from the sadistic pleasures those who control the states in our region derive from the demonstration of military might, what tangible results do they achieve by killing innocent civilians?
During the Cold War, Americans used to say they were protecting freedom and civil liberties from the oppressive Soviet state. In the case of Pakistan and India, political leaders routinely and casually use such words: “teaching a lesson to the enemy”, “revenge”, “they will suffer”, “they will weep”—without realising that these words are meant to provide sadistic pleasure to their hardline political constituencies and will not go any distance in meeting the political or military objectives of their respective states.
Pakistani and Indian states are the culprits of ruining the great civilisational and cultural traditions their societies represent. The absence of any religious orthodoxy and the wide space for dissent of every type is something central to Indian historical traditions. The Hindu revivalist ruling party has ruined this great Indian tradition. Hindu revivalist movements, just like Islamic revivalist movements in British India, stemmed from a tradition that took shape under the influence of Western religious and educational traditions. The revivalists in Hinduism attempted to create and establish orthodoxy in religious practice—but this is not how religion is practised in Indian society at the grassroots level.
Islamic revivalists forced Pakistani society to dissociate itself from the great intellectual tradition that formed the essence of Islamic history. I strongly believe that our greatest misfortune in the wake of independence was the move on the part of the Pakistani state to dissociate itself from the Indian civilisational heritage.
How can we disassociate ourselves from Khawaja Nizamuddin, Moinuddin Chishti Ajmeri, Mirza Ghalib, Tansen, and Amir Khusrau? Secondly—and at a more profound level—how can we dissociate ourselves from the historical fact that the geographical setting of Vedic literature is Pakistani Punjab? If not at the religious level, we cannot ignore this fact at the historical and philosophical level—treating Vedantic philosophy as a rival religious system is inherently wrong. It is a philosophical system, and Muslims, in their age of political and military dominance, had always borrowed from non-Islamic sources of knowledge.
But this is not my main point.
My main point is: if our states are not protecting the cultural and civilisational heritage of the societies they preside over, what are they good for? The social way of life and political framework are the most precious things a society owns. Weapons, militaries, and concepts like deterrence are very attractive—especially when the host society is in a state of hysteria. But if the state is transforming the host society into hell, then what exactly are you protecting? Land, buildings, infrastructure, military assets? These are meaningless if the state is not protecting the way of life and the cultural and civilisational heritage.
The violence you think you are inflicting on the enemy society will come back to haunt you in the near future. Only your joint civilisational heritage of political dissent under a democratic social and political framework can save you from the disaster you are hurtling towards.
Deterrence will not save you.
Dissent will.