[Reader-list] By R.J. Rummel

[junaid]

Since much of the discussion seems to be focused on how ‘Muslim’ rulers of the past destroyed Hindu temples or converted them into mosques and Khanqahs, I feel one should try to attempt to understand why this could have happened. Richard M Eaton (“The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204-1760”, “Essays on Islam and Indian History”, “Temple Desecration and Muslim States in Medieval India”) provides the argument that the larger Hindu temples unlike mosques were not just places of worship and gathering. They acquired a larger significance by housing a certain deity who would be the font of sovereignty for the ruler and his subjects. For ‘Muslim’ rulers the font of sovereignty was Allah who doesn’t reside in the mosque. An invading army would not have accomplished the total defeat of the ruler and assumed sovereignty until the temple was desecrated. Eaton provides many examples where ‘Hindu’ rulers destroyed temples of the defeated rulers to claim sovereignty. It was the same with ‘Muslim’ invaders. 

I must, however, point out this argument will not hold for all the rulers. Obviously there are examples of rulers who possibly destroyed temples to plunder them, or just out of their faith. It is difficult to attribute intention to a certain ‘act’. But they are very rare, and not representative of a general trend. Among the ‘Muslim’ rulers of India starting from Muhammad Ghori to the Bahadur Shah Zafar, how many did really destroy temples? 

In Kashmir, too, a certain historical narrative picks out some ‘Muslim’ rulers as exemplars of Islamic vileness, while other ‘Muslim’ rulers are painted in a way as if their only occupation was to oppress ‘Hindus’. The same narrative glosses the pre-Muslim period as one of golden age and intellectual renaissance. This narrative, of course, draws its structure and inspiration from the larger Hindutva historical project currently in operation in India. 

It is unfortunate that we have to defend kings and rulers here, and not their subjects against them, but the nature of the discussion forces us to do so. If Zainul Abidin’s father Sikander was an unjust ruler, so was Avantivarman’s heir Samkaravarman who institutionalized ‘begar’. If Aurangzeb’s governor Iftikar Khan hounded Pandits, so did Ksemgupta murder Buddhists and plunder their viharas. Kashmir had depraved rulers in Didda, Kalsa and Harsa. I would not call them Hindu. They were only rulers, bad rulers. We can’t say what they would have done to Muslims had Muslims been their subjects. We just get some glimpses in what Narendra Modi’s government did to Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, or what Shiv Sena did to Muslims in Bombay in 1992-93, or what AASU did to Muslims in Nellie Assam, or what Indian government is doing to Muslims in Kashmir. 

The point is power. The kings, of whichever creed, have only occasionally been driven by their faith. The most important thing for them was to retain, boost and legitimize their power and authority. To this end, they did anything possible and practical—practical in the sense where a certain policy wouldn’t provoke too adverse a reaction from the subjects. In earlier times, the subjects probably were not united by any bond of community (except for a faith community, which was directed towards God and afterlife, and not actively against a ruler), and thus the bad ruler was not replaced by people but by another ruler, who might be welcomed by the subjects of the erstwhile king.
             
The argument that Islam is intrinsically violent and intolerant of other religions is an ahistoric, simplistic and thus a convenient view, which betrays an aversion to complexity. There will always be loads of evidence and counter-evidence to an (such an) argument. Followers of a particular religion (or the version of it they think is authentic) will show as many differences in behaviour as followers of others. Can anyone say it is natural to have more ‘Muslim’ murderers than ‘Buddhist’? Or that non-violence strain gets curled into the Hindu DNA more easily. If there is a Gandhi, there is a Godse too. We still remember the Black July of 1983 when thousands of ‘Hindu’ Tamils were butchered on streets and fields in Sri Lanka, and many more in army operations afterwards. And we also remember ‘Hindu’ Tamils butchering ‘Buddhist’ Sinhalese for many more years to come. Well if it is all about religion we should speak of how Hindu soldiers killed thousands of people in India’s North East, or how Hindu and Muslim soldiers killed thousands of Sikhs in Punjab, and how Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Christian soldiers gaily shoot Muslims in Kashmir, or how Christian, and non-believing soldiers have eliminated lakhs of Iraqis in the last few years.

Talking of ‘Hindus’ spreading Buddhist ideas, it seems quite odd. (I should quickly mention the ‘Muslim’ Darashikoh who translated a multitude of Sanskrit manuscripts into Persian, which was later carried into Europe). If they were spreading these Buddhist ideas, did they not follow Buddhism themselves? Were they Hindus even after converting to Buddhism? Hindutva vadis will say Buddhism and Hindusim are one, but do the Buddhists too think so? Many Hindus converted to Buddhism, so did many Hindus and Buddhists later convert to Islam. Why is it difficult for some Pandits to accept that most Kashmiris became Muslims, and not live in a self-deceptive bubble that only Hindus are the original residents of Kashmir? How does acceptance of Islam make Kashmiris outsiders? Is the talk of ‘we’ and ‘they’ valid? Can today’s Kashmiri Pandit claim Kashmir’s ancient history more than a Kashmiri Muslim? Can he disown Kashmir’s medieval history as not his own? 

Mohamad Junaid