Draft for discussion

GLOBALISATION OF RACIAL DISHARMONY: The Case

of Indian Muslims abroad
Background

Even as the western world tries to come to grips with the post 9/11 scenario, the Madrid
and London bombings and the Paris unrests have continued to spread a distorted view of
Islam. It has provided just the handy excuse to the more-to-the-right-wing governments,
which have the hidden agendas of global capitalist conquest.

There seems to be an intractable link between the evolution of economic forces of

domination in the world (represented by the current phase of economic Globalisation1)
and the increasing face off and hostility along cleavages of religious identities. Thus to
understand the dilemmas and position of the Indian Muslims abroad, it is important to
understand what is going on within the community and analyse how the community is a
pawn in the hands of global forces. Thus the thread of individual-community-world needs
to be turned around and unraveled to better understand the hapless and helpless position
of the Indian Muslims.

1. Globalization of politico-economic hegemony

1.1 The states
The fight for global control by the political states and their corporate forces has been
evolving beyond the geographical and political colonisation of seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries by the Western Europe, through the two world wars this necessitated
in the twentieth century, to the econo-political divide of Capitalist-Communists Cold War
era. The emerging capitalist-communist divide between the developed world split the
world asunder into economic and military (NATO vs Warsaw) Blocks. The `Third Force’
efforts of newly independent developing nations (especially from Asia, southern America
and Africa) such as the Non Aligned movement, were overshadowed during the cold war
phase as they did not offer politically coherent and economically sustainable grouping as
a counter to these two forces. With the fall of the USSR, the Breton Woods model of
economic domination became the mantra and the many multi-nationals became the avant
garde forces that spearheaded the economic conquest by the developed countries of the
rest of the world.

This has led to the current era of uncontrollable corporate takeover of national economies
of developing nations through the market aspects of globalization (the socio-cultural
aspects of globalization having a far more positive contribution). This has also
contributed to a general weakening of the role and status of the political state within the

1
I would like to clarify at the onset that like most people, neither do I find globalization something new (it
as old as world trade in 4th century BCE) nor all bad and destructive. I agree with most of what Joseph
Stiglitz says in his `Making Globalisation work’. However, there are aspects of it that are being applied not
for global good but for global domination. In this paper, I focus only on those aspects when I refer to
Globalisation.

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governance structures of these countries. Since such a process is like a genie let loose, it
has come back to haunt and led to some undermining of the governance structures of the
developed nations too.

1.2 The societies

At the level of societies within these political states, sensitive social groupings in the
developed and developing countries threw up forms of the counter forces for larger
environmental and anti-state political movements such as Alternative and Sustainable
development processes starting from 1960s, the Anti-war movements such as one against
Vietnam war in USA, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Europe and Chipko and
Appiko in India, Black consciousness movement in USA and many others. These
separate movements formed alliances and created spaces that tried to check and control
the corporate world take over and the compliance of the elected `democratic’
governments in undermining international democratic behaviour.

The whirlwind of political globalization in the garb of economic globalization is

contributing to weakening the alternate international alliances and reduced influence in
the global development and poverty debate and the power play, whether they be the
multi-lateral institutions for international political governance or the alternate non-
governmental movements. The process to reign in global corporate forces which more or
less control the elected `democratic’ governments world-over, has been now more or less
restricted to the realm of negotiations between the weakened state structures through
WTO and other economic forums which are locked in a stalemate. World political-
development fora such as UN system have been more or less rendered toothless and
insignificant. Thus a new form of developed democracies influenced not by their
citizenry but by the corporate partners, and beyond the control of international
mechanisms has taken over the global economic and political domination for which
religion has become one of the tools for control.

The inequity of trade and resultant profits, and disempowering of the alternate advocacy
and lobbying mechanisms has resulted in richness for a select few developed countries or
slices of classes within some developing countries such as China, India, Brazil, Russia
etc.. The growth within the working classes in the developing countries has been very
slow, leading to a seething resentment building up. However, given the weakness and
failure of the elected governments to negotiate better terms for them, the resurgent
religious parties have moved into the vacuum. They have gained considerable influence
and as their currency, are using religious divisions and bigotry as the basis for fighting
back. Thus the fight of haves and have-nots seems to be taking a religious colour and is
being fought by insular, closed and irrational religious groups, who hark to a revivalistic
approach and fixed identity stereotypes and are not afraid to use violence to achieve their
objectives. And the hapless poorer sections of the societies have no option but to support
such formations for their own negotiations with their governments and the shadow
corporations that support them.

Thus, in states with a strong political structure, religious identity is becoming both a
shield as well as the spear. Thus President Bush talks of war in Afghanistan and Iraq as

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`Holy Wars’ – in the process, taking the world back by centuries to the turbulent and
ravaging times of the fight between Christianity and Islam. On the other hand, in the
countries with weaker state control systems, the groundswell of discontent from the
marginalized citizinery is being shepherded by movements with religious faces that act
beyond the control of the state structures (the complete anarchy evident in Pakistan, the
emergence of Al Qaeda from the control by the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia, Taliban
in Afghanistan and stand offs in Malaysia).

The fundamentalisation of world religious interfaces provides the economic comprador

forces with the reason to openly attack the Islamic state structures to reach into the
Muslim communities, especially where they sit on, or are access points to, scarce
resources (oil being the most lucrative) and potential industrial, military and consumer
markets.

1.3 The Individuals

With the Uni Polar world now seemingly controlled by USA and its European ally, the
UK, seething resentment is building the world over amongst people who are loosing out
in the new economic globalization that is being let loose on the world. Thus a
centrifuging force of collective feeling of anger by most poor and logically thinking
middle class all over against the centripetal forces of domination is a very natural.

This leads to legitimacy of this reactionary upswell to force of economic domination

through a cultural/religious identity based response. However there is a need to
differentiate between types of responses. One is to be supportive and sympathetic to that
feeling of silent anger at the continued western imperialism and lauding any lone ranger
force thumbing its nose at it. But becoming a terrorist with an agenda to subvert and
destroy the political and economic systems that fuel the international economic re-
colonization through globalization is a completely different extreme. Committing suicide
is not a normal human response. For an ordinary father, mother or son/daughter to tie ten
pounds of plastic explosive around one’s chest and walk into the conquering soldiers in
tanks just to blow up a few – this is an individual transition whose pain and agony has to
be felt more than understood.

2. Impacts within India

The events described above naturally have had a huge impact on India itself. India is an
interesting example of a multi secular nation which has clawed its way up from the
dustbin of colonization into an economic power. But much before it became an economic
power, it was a spiritual power center as well as a democratic power that worked. The
fact that democracy worked in India is itself a miracle according to many. But quite
clearly, the religious identities (communities) and economic identities (classes) in India
have worked together2 to create a `nation’ around an `Indian’ identity that is above their

2
apart from a few abhorrent exceptions such as the continued caste system and occasional communal flare
ups especially in western and northern India

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religious, cultural and economic identities. This emergence of a unifying, non-

threatening, secular `Indian identity’ is an interesting evolution which is worth studying3.
Whether a Hindu, Muslim or a Christian Indian, we all have a multiplicity of identities
which make us take positions that define our individual personality– for example any
person from these and other multitudes of religious identities can be – secular, an ardent
believer in modern education, freedom of speech, equality of women etc.. Thus our
Indian First identity is a composites of various ethnic and religious identities.

The feeling of anger against in-equities in wealth and opportunity brought in by

globalization is not restricted to Indian Muslims only - all other Indian communities at
the receiving end of the negative impacts of globalization echo it. The anti-Bush protest
in India during the President’s visit and the anger against the second Iraqi invasion were
truly secular in their being shared by a class of Indians running across the political and
religious divides. The Indian elites, and the heading-that-way-classes, have been
benefiting from the globalization process while the other economically lower classes are
being disempowered and are feeling the brunt of the unequal growth.

However, in using religion as an identity to react to economic comprador forces from the
west, the old chism between Christianity and Islam (as used during the Conquests and the
Holy Wars) has become a more convenient handle for both sides at a global level. In
India, this threatens to take a Hindu-Muslim fault line. The still fresh wounds of the
bloody partition of a greater India into India and Pakistan along religious identities in
1947 provide the latent potential of further marginalizing the Muslim communities within
the Indian Secular identity4. Over the last twenty years there has been an upsurge of
revivalist nationalist forces within India who are attempting to link an Indian Identity to
the Hindu Identity (as majority of the people are from the Hindu group of faiths)5. Thus
the global schism along religious identities is finding a natural ally in these internal
schisms.

The resurgent India has been going global with its brand image of an `Indian Identity’, a
harmonious ancient cradle of secular, peaceful societies, which have successfully
transitioned into a stable democracy and an international power with every citizen being
an Indian first. However, the all pervading concern is that the international process of
radicalization along religious identities is forcing an increasing radicalization of one
section, the Muslims in India and abroad. The fear is that this will negatively dent this
`Indian’ image and also fan a greater counter radicalization of Hindu and other identities
within the Indian identity, thereby weakening the nation which is a `sum that is greater
than all its parts’6.

3
I try to explore it through a different paper that is almost complete.
4
India has the third highest population of Muslims in the world.
5
This aspect is explored very sensitively and well by Amrtya Sen in his masterpiece `Identities and
Violence’.
6
Shashi Tharoor.

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3. Impact and response of Indian Muslims in Southern Africa

I would like to take the attempt to understand what is going on within the Muslim
community in southern Africa as my current experiences are here and now. To do this, I
will focus on the category of Muslim from India who have migrated to southern Africa
over the centuries.

Let me first clarify the identities called Muslims of Indian origin and Indian Muslims.
The first generation Muslims that immigrated to Africa from India did so between the
years of early nineteenth and mid twentieth centuries got ingrained into their local host
societies after a difficult first phase. They entered these societies at the lowest levels as
indentured labour, salespersons and traders etc. and after decades of sheer hard work, and
using their Asian skills, kinship and prowess, they moved up the social and economic
hierarchies and most have even taken the citizenship of their countries of adoption. They
are mostly moderate in their views and have been a bit hesitant to stand out with their
different Muslim identity and loose what they have painfully gained by harmonizing into
the local identities. They are more Muslims-of-Indian-Origin than Indian-Muslims.
Whereas, Indian Muslims are mostly recent immigrants who were mostly born and
brought up in India, have recently arrived and retain their living links with India more
than with Muslims of Indian Origin in southern Africa.

The situation for the next generations of Muslims of Indian Origin (one that came into its
social and political consciousness in the host country) and that for the new waves of
recent Indian Muslim immigrants is exposed far more to recent global events and I will
explore what is happening to these two categories.

The young generation of the Muslims-of-Indian-Origin were born and brought up in the
Southern Africa and have mostly never, or only briefly, visited India. They have been
more western in their upbringing, though indoctrinated in the basics of the Muslim faith.

On the other hand, most of the `Indian Muslim’ who have migrated in after the 1980s
have come in from poor villages in Gujarat and UP with only a smaller percentage being
that of the more educated English speaking blue collar or white collar backgrounds. Most
of them have come to Southern Africa from a mostly multi-cultural upbringing in India
where they have gone to schools with Hindus, Sikhs and Christians and had a more
secular and open outlook.

In a foreign and new environment in southern Africa, their initial socialisation into a
community often starts within a broader `Indian’ identity, with Hindus-Muslims helping
each other in their primary and common interests - money to be remitted to India,
immigration issues, filling up intimidating forms in a foreign language and getting linked
to known sympathetic officers to ensure continuation of residence and work permits etc..

However, for their cultural and religious observances, they are slowly drawn more and
more into the `Muslim’ identity and brotherhood that exists around the masjids and
ibatgahas. They encounter very different perspectives as they mix around with Muslims

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from other countries in these masjids on Friday prayers. They find that the Muslims from
Pakistan and Bangladesh are far more strict and radical in their beliefs and rituals and
they are initially derided as na-pak (not pure Muslims) - leading them to initially back
off. Their Indian cultural acceptance of Pirs and dargahs7 and many mixed cultural
beliefs of their Hindu brethren, as well as a lack of strictness about offering namaz five
times a day for the seven days of a week, are the first to be challenged by the more strict
Muslims.

These madrasas and masjids also become the arena where the category of new generation
Muslims-of-Indian-origin meets up with the Indian Muslims. For both categories, the
organized religious discussions and debates, anchored by Maulavis and young
intellectuals from the more conservative Muslim countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh,
lead to a more strict interpretation the Quran and Hadees, which challenges them to go
beyond their more social and open Islam, and look at the more fundamental interpretation
of pure Islam.

Two factors push them in the direction of an increasingly fundamental Islamic belief
around a `Muslim first’ identity as against an `Indian First’ one. One is the increasing
realization that there is an organized western/white persecution of all Muslims by the
western uni-pole. They see the slaughter of the civilians and the helpless in Iraq,
Palestine, Lebanon etc. and are forced to realize that Islam is no longer just a faith – it is
a regional identity which is politicized in the new global third world war.

The other factor is the indoctrination as a result of the dedication of the faithful Muslims
volunteers and Jamaats they encounter. The Jamaats are formed of Muslims who come
voluntarily all the way from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh etc., leaving their shops,
teaching careers in universities, families for four weeks to six months at a stretch to
spread the message of Quran. These international Jamaats come and visit each region
within Southern Africa to discuss, discourse and appeal to the brotherhood of Islam and
ask the faithfuls to make their contribution in a social sense. The local communities
organize the stay, food and meetings for the Jamaats. The jamaatis do not restrict their
interaction with the Muslim community clusters in different cities and towns, but often
shun cars and walk through the African areas and towns, spreading the word of Islam to
ordinary Southern African folk, assisted by the local Muslims.

The third factor is cognizance through this coming together of the increasing Hindu-
Muslim divide within India. The revivalism of militant Hinduism abroad is led by World
Hindu Council (Vishwa Hindu Parishad ) through its active campaign of building temples
and celebrating Hindu festivals as opposed to Indian8 festivals in Southern Africa. The

7
These were local saints and holy people of Muslim origin that are revered after their death by both
Muslims and Hindus in India. The stricter interpreters of Koran and Hadees find them to be abominations
and un-acceptable.
8
As a secular state, India celebrates the key festivals of all major faiths (Muslim, Jain, Buddhist, Sikh,
Hindu etc.) as national holidays (which the industry bemoans as loss of working days)

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recent state sponsored sectarian strife in their home state of Gujarat9 was very personal
anguish for many Indian Muslim as they came from the classes and communities that
were targeted by the fundamentalists during the pogrom. For others from the region of
Uttar Pradesh, the increase in religious divide between Hindus and Muslims in the post
Rath Yatra India phase strengthens their anguish more, making them seek the `Muslim
First’ identity more and more.

For a very small number, the shift goes a step further. When then they see the hizbuls and
the talibans, fighting the `aggressors’ who are killing common Muslims in global hot
spots where the western misconduct is most glaring and obvious, something shifts. From
there starts a hardening of the persecution syndrome and a strong urge to hit and fight
back. At this point some slowly start withdrawing from an more open Indian First
identity and start donning a more fundamentalist International Islamic identity.

4. Whither then, the Indian Muslim abroad ?

Recent arrests of 23 Muslims in London for an alleged plot to blow up planes, and the
subsequent one of another 14, forces us to think hard. We can all see a third undeclared
global war going on which is intrinsically a war over economic and resource control but
being fought using religious identities. One which deliberately blurs the difference
between a larger, very sociable, popular and open Muslim belief system and the small
fringe reinterpreting Islam in a fundamentally violent manner. How do we retain our
secular and moderate Indian-ness outside of India in these times?

In the recent state of fear and caution, most of the governments, media and religious
parties are focusing on identifying people only by their religious identities. In fact we
have to try and underplay our religious identities that divide us and instead focus on the
more humanistic values that make us Indian and move out of the vitiated environment
that is building up to a behind-the-scene third world war based on religious and ethnic
identities.

It is important for the other Indian communities abroad to become active and instead of
standing aloof, reach out and work closer to reinforce a broader secular Indian First
identity with their Muslim brothers and sisters, so that at current moment of a feeling
intense scrutiny and persecution, they feel less vulnerable and isolated and more
supported. This could take the form of being sensitive to these issues within the various
organizations we are involved in – the Indian Associations being one of them. Working
actively to bridge this divide through common Indian cultural assertions, celebration of
festivals and events and working together on developmental programmes for the
downtrodden communities in Southern Africa can be constructive collective releases for
us.

9
The Muslim communities were targeted during a communal backlash that was partially supported by the
political government in the state of Gujarat leading to about 2000 deaths and the social balance and co-
existence being disturbed for good.

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I am forced to think of history repeating itself. It is back to the days of ascent of Nazism
in Germany and Europe before the Second World War when the Jews began to be
targeted by the Gestapo and the SS. They were left to fend for themselves and while their
neighbors for generations, warm-affable middle class families, shut their doors and
nobody protested when the midnight raids took them in cattle wagons to the
concentration camps. The real crime in the Jewish Holocaust was not as much the actions
of the draconian state as was the silent inaction of the society at large and their
subsequent collective guilt.

I hope we the Indians abroad can rekindle our secular national strength and work with our
Muslim brothers lest we become responsible for another reprehensible collective guilt –
the targeting of the ordinary Muslims. This will be our shout into the storm of
globalization which threatens to globalize us into fragmented identities at war with each
other rather that together with each other for world peace, plenty and happiness.

Rajeev Ahal

(December 2006
Edited Sept. 2007)