Of India and Islam
How not to put things in the right place
T... Sharma and Jindal appear unrepentant, though the former has issued a half-hearted apology.
HERE is a moral dislocation in the world of ours today. What has been going on in India in the last two weeks — the derogatory remarks made by two senior members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) about Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and his wife and the fallout thereafter — is a reflection of such moral dislocation. Tan Sri Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, the Islamic scholar and founder of the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation, had long ago pointed to the cause of the moral dislocation: loss of adab. Adab, in Arabic, in the words of Naquib Al-Attas, means the recognition and acknowledgement of one’s proper place in relation to one’s self, society and the community. Put another way, adab means putting things in the right place. Every created thing has its proper place and so has the Creator. Nupur Sharma, the recently suspended national spokeswoman for BJP, and Navin Jindal, the now expelled BJP’s New Delhi spokesman, who are at the centre of the moral dislocation storm, have shown that they do not know their proper place in the scheme of things. Loss of adab ,as Naquib Al-Attas points out repeatedly in his writings and speeches, implies loss of justice, which in turn betrays confusion in knowledge. Injustice is a dangerous thing for any society, more so for a nation as diverse as India.
Derogatory remarks against Islam and its prophets hurt Muslims, not just the 200 million in India, but also the 1.8 billion outside the country. How then can this moral dislocation or confusion of knowledge be cured? First, it needs effort at an individual level. Second, it needs effort at the national level. Start with the cure at the individual level. Sharma and Jindal need an education. This much is clear. The duo and those who are rising up in support of them — they are plenty — need to learn how not to disrespect the religion of another. Post-suspension and expulsion, Sharma and Jindal appear unrepentant, though the former has issued a half-hearted apology. Recalcitrants such as these need the nation to give them an education, our second cure.
India can do this by throwing the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at them. Sharma and Jindal have caused national unrest by inciting religious sentiments, a crime within the ambit of the IPC. Or the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA). Many in India are saying that the violence in Kanpur is reason enough to arrest the duo under UAPA. As this Leader goes to press, there is no news on their arrests, though police reports have been lodged in several parts of the country, including by the police. Have they been at least questioned? According to The Telegraph of India, a rare brave voice in a sea of servile media, no police force would even want to confirm this. All the action that has been taken has been at the BJP ruling party level: suspension for Sharma and expulsion for Jindal. Even here, why just suspension? Sharma is a national spokeswoman for the BJP, not someone on the fringes, as it was claimed. Expulsion followed by arrest is the right thing to do. There is a lesson here for all of us living in multi-ethnic and multifaith nations. Do not do anything to disturb this universe of diversity. United, nations stand. Divided, nations fall.