S Academician M.A. Muqtedar Khan’s Proposal

…In an age where being “different and few” is perilous, the plight of Muslim minorities is particularly special. Unlike other minorities, Muslims have displayed a uniquely strong resistance to assimilation. Where they are in significant numbers such as India, they have made a major religio-cultural impact on the local culture and its social institutions.

The contemporary reassertion of Islamic identity by Muslims … has alarmed non-Muslim majorities. They are reacting strongly by trying to either culturally assimilate Muslims as in … India, or secularize them as in … Britain, or to democratize them as in the United States. The issue of Muslim minorities has become a special global concern in the non-Muslim world… To arrest systematic persecution of Muslims, a dialogue must be established to rethink the nature of India and the status of its Muslims…

Many Hindus believe that in an India which is 85 per cent Hindu, the Nehruvian slogan “unity and diversity” is an unnecessary pampering of minorities; … Muslims … have already been given their Muslim state; India is culturally a Hindu nation and therefore should manifest this in its legal and political forms, a recognition of this fact… Muslims … are increasingly building bridges with secular Hindus to fight Hindu communalism… However, dealing alone with Hindutva will not solve the problem.

…The decline and the systematic underdevelopment of Muslims and their economic marginalization began and gained momentum in the Nehruvian India… The state has always used “symbolism” … to pacify Muslims and enjoy their support and consent. No government has made sincere efforts to uplift the condition of the Muslims… The real problem is … the difference in the relative strengths of the two communities…

…The problem of Indian Muslims is not the rise of Hindutva but the fact that they are numerically outnumbered in a system where things are determined by head count… Democracy assumes that individuals are autonomous and rational…

Muslims cannot be definition live as autonomous rational individuals whose only allegiance is the state and whose only purpose in life is to be selfish. Muslims have allegiance to their community and their religion. They are communal beings who consider it a virtue to align their personal interests with that of their family and their community. Often their personal interests are subordinated to the larger goals of the Muslim Ummah. Selflessness is a virtue, indeed realizing the maqasid al shariah is their purpose in life… Therefore, it will be difficult for Muslims to give up their “collective identity” as Muslims of India and become singular individuals who are merely citizens of a democratic India. …If India were to remain a hindutva free democracy, as it was in its first three decades, Muslims would still be marginalized… (They would still be caught in the dilemma as to who they are; Muslim Indian or Indian Muslims? If India would become a pluralist society as the United States, then the more developed and politically and economically more powerful Hindu would determine what India is to the exclusion of the Muslims, as they are presently trying to do. In either case it is very difficult to guarantee the protection of Muslims faith, property and future.

What Muslims need to do is to … advance an alternate vision of India and the status of minorities in that… Where can we look for such an alternate vision? In Islam, of course!

Islamic political thought offers an arrangement for majority minority relations the concept of dhimmis…

The question is why Muslims who are in a minority cannot demand to be treated as they would treat minorities in their state? … What can be better than to be a “protected community” that can enjoy the freedom to prosper and practice its beliefs?

Why cannot the Muslims be dhimmis in non-Muslim countries?… Hindu can have their Ram Rajya and Muslims can have their properties, their future and their faith guaranteed protection. They will not be equal citizens of a Hindu India but will be a responsibility of this Hindu India. This arrangement can be sustained by making India accountable to the international community as well as the world wide Muslim community for the well-being of Indian Muslims through constitutional and international treaty arrangements.

…What they gain … is the freedom to live their lives according to their beliefs independent of India’s national character…

…When Muslims give up the imaginary privileges as equal citizens of India, they get slightly more significant privileges from the world community as well as the global Muslim community. India, in turn will have to become accountable to its constitution for guaranteeing the security of its protected minority. It will have to make binding international commitments to the UN and to the Muslim world (perhaps through the Organization of the Islamic Conference - OIC. While Muslims give up their “equal citizens status” India also looses its “sovereignty” over its Muslims where the international community and world Muslims can “legitimately intervene” whenever it fails to “protect” Muslim minorities…

(Courtesy: The Islamic Horizon, June/July, 1997)