Suddenly Saddam Husain of Iraq has become a folkhero from the Atlantic to the Pacific. There is a Saddam Wave In India.
Muslim India is in the throes of a pro-Saddam frenzy.
The mass upsurge has taken the national leadership, the official establishment, the mass media, by surprise. Political parties which had lost all hopes of cutting into Muslim votes are rushing in to cash on the Saddam Wave and find their way back into Muslim favour. The religious fundamentalist and the leftist are vying with each other in adoring Saddam Husain. The anti-American and the anti-Russian have found a common cause in defending Saddam Husain.
Saddam Husain is seen as the Mujahid par excellence, as the emergent leader of the Third World, as the hero of anti-imperialist resistance, as the Unifier of the Arabs, as the Liberator of Palestine, as the symbol of Iraqi Nationalism.
David vs Goliath
When a David is pitted against a Goliath, people instinctively cheer David. The Afro-Asian world is still basically anti-imperialist, anti-West and anti-American. The Muslim World is still licking its wounds, frustrated, disunited and waiting for the restoration of the unity of the Umma. Unity demands power, a cause, a personality and a mystique. The Arab World is looking for a Salahuddin Ayyubi. And Muslim Indians, beleaguered, deprived, oppressed, besieged by chauvinist forces, are only seeking vicarious satisfaction in the heroism of a co-religionist called Saddam Husain! Pathetic, indeed so symptomatic of the depth of their frustration.
Holy War?
The war raging in the Gulf is not a Holy War. It is not a war between Christianity and Islam; it is not a war for promoting Islam or for defending the Muslims. It is a war between Iraq and Kuwait, in which Iraq stands condemned by the International community and isolated and in which Kuwait has been able to muster the support of the USA and its allies. Everyone admits that Iraq has committed unjustifiable act of aggression against Kuwait; that Kuwait's cause, the cause of sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, is just, that Iraq must vacate Kuwait. Every one knows that unless Iraq vacates Kuwait, or at least declares its intention to do so to disgorge what it has been able to digest, there cannot be a ceasefire. Every one understands that Saddam Husain is ultimately responsible for the death and destruction in the Gulf; that Saddam Husain is sacrificing his people and all the progress Iraq has made on the altar of his ego, not for the glory of Islam or even of Arabism. Yet the while the Muslim Indians shed tears for the victims of war, they do not ask Saddam Husain to quit Kuwait!
Does Islam sanction aggression and plunder and that too of a small state by a big neighbour? Does not Islam stand for 'Adl' and for 'Amm' and not for 'FITNA' and 'FASAD'? And not long ago Saddam Husain the Mujahid, destroyed Islamic movement in Iraq, waged a war against Iran in which a million lives were lost and poured chemical gas over the Kurds and the Iranians.
Liberation of Palestine
Muslim Indians support the indisputable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, to a state of their own. They oppose Israel's occupation of the Arab occupied territories. They identify themselves with the spirit of Intifada. They demand resolute action by the UN to secure for the people of Palestine their long suppressed rights. They realise that for its own strategic reasons, USA has adopted a policy of supporting and arming Israel and that far this reason the Arab states have not been able to dislodge Israel, for less to destroy it. In their sympathy for the Palestinian cause, they are taken in by Saddam Husain's attack on Israel - which has not even dented the Israeli war machine - and by his demand for linking Iraqi vacation of Kuwait with Israeli vacation of the occupied territories. One may see the linkage as a clever though transparent game plan but what is important is that this was never a part-of Saddam Husain's original war plan; it is an afterthought, to mislead the Palestinians, the Arabs and the Muslims and the Third World, in general. One has only to look at Iraq's role since 1947 and Saddam's own track record that they have made precious little contribution to the Arab action against Israel. And why should Kuwait and the people who were living there pay for Saddam Husain's sudden love for the long-suffering people of Palestine? Why should liberation of Palestine mean the occupation and destruction of Kuwait? No, his objective was Kuwait, not Israel.
Iraq's missile attack on Israel is nothing more than a political play to enlarge the theatre of war and to create a divide among the allies. But Israel has refused to oblige Saddam Husain.
The war and the Sanctity of the Holy Land
Muslim Indians love and revere the Holy Land and they are distressed by the threat to its security and sanctity as they are under the impression that the West has a military presence in the Hedjaz where the Holy Cities are situated. Hedjaz is totally untouched by war. Secondly, non-Muslims are only barred from entering the Holy Cities and not Hedjaz. Thirdly, any state has the right to seek the assistance of cooperation of other friendly states when under threat. On the other hand, let us ask Saddam Husain whether his military adventure against Israel has not jeopardised the security of the Holy Cities. Tomorrow Israel may decide to retaliate and adopting Saddam Husain’s logic, rain missiles and bombs on the Holy Cities.
West’s Motives
Undoubtedly the West’s moral indignation and military response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait is not due to any love for freedom or for the Arabs or even for Kuwait or its ruling family. It is primarily meant to maintain easy access to the oil resources of the Gulf. If Iraq takes over Kuwait, can the conquest of Qatar and Arab Emirates be far behind? Iraq may not be able to occupy Iran or Saudi Arabia but they may have to play second fiddle when Iraq controls the Gulf. Iraq shall then dictate terms, set the world price, control the supply at its sweet will. With the revenues so generated, Iraq may build a yet more gigantic war machine to threaten its bigger neighbours, emerge as a regional power, control the sea lanes. So the West has its reasons to oppose Saddam Husain.
But when the oil price shoots up, the West, whose goods, technology and services are needed, shall to some extent be able to absorb the shock. Can the Third World, the sub-continent, absorb the shock? So, the real fodder for Saddam Husain’s guns shall be the hungry masses of the Third World, not the pleasure seeking Sheikhs or Amirs or the affluent people of the West. The future of the Third World is at stake, not that of the West.
Pan-Islamism and Muslim Minorities.
Since the decay of the Khilafat in the 13th Century, the Muslim world, in general, and since the disintegration of the Moghul empire, Muslim Indians, in particular, have been waiting for angels and looking for heros. At various times, Anwar, Mustafa Kamal or Ismet from Turkey, Mahdi from Sudan, Sennusi from Libya, Afghani or Amanullah from Afghanistan or later Nasser, Faisal, Khomeini, Qaddafi or Zia-ul-Haque, the heroes of the day, captured the imagination of some of them and were acclaimed as the saviours of Islam. Today it is Saddam; tomorrow it shall be someone else. Not that any foreign hero had anything positive to offer or could do anything solid for them. Their approach was always emotional rather than intellectual. And, therefore, when the heroes, they adored, fell or were disowned by their own people, they were left high and dry; they received a shock, they felt stunned. Can mirage quench a thirst? Can hollow pride fill up bellies? Can sentiments solve problems? Can curses and abuses change the power patterns?
Let us be frank. Some Muslims continue to live in, a dream of an idea for a world-view that is no longer valid, in the modern world of nation-states. A political minority in a nation state has the democratic right to stand against a national decision, however vital, but a religious or ethnic minority in a nation-state cannot do so, without being misunderstood, accused of extra-territorial loyalty and even treason. Today the Muslims in the USA and UK are facing an anti Islamic resurgency because they have lined up with Saddam Husain without a second thought for their host state, without pausing to consider national interests and questioning Saddam Husain’s credentials. Had India taken a decision to join the military action against Saddam Husain, how would the majority react to the Muslim hysteria? There is no Gandhi today to understand our sentimental attachment to the Khilafat and divert our energies for the cause of freedom.
Baghdad can never become the capital of the Muslim world, not even the Arab world, primarily because of its geographical location which creates a religious fact. Iraq is at the periphery of the Arab World and Shia Iran, just next to Iraq, divides the Arabs from the non-Arabs in the Muslim world which is largely Sunni. Calling Saddam Amir-ul-Momineen does not revive the Khilafat. Nor can the Khilafat today be a practical proposition for Muslim states or a panacea for the Muslim minorities. Every Muslim community, whether a majority or a minority within the territorial limits of a state, has to come to terms with its political environment on its own strength because no modern state, with the exception of Israel, is prepared to open its doors or to share its resources or opportunities with the foreigners, even if they profess the same faith.
Rule of Law : Need of the Weak
In the world of power politics, the rule of law alone can protect small states and the minority groups within nation-state. Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait is a clear negation of the rule of law in every sense of the term. Historical claims cannot justify violation of existing agreements. Conflict of economic interest must be sorted out peacefully, without recourse to aggression.
There are no doubt historic states and artificial states created and maintained by foreign powers in their interest. Some states are no doubt run like private estates. Yet, international boundaries are sacrosanct and cannot be changed by use of force. Similarly, the people of a state alone have the right to change the form of government. Objectively speaking, there is no difference between a dictatorship based on a small coteric and a monarchy based on a family. No foreign support can save an oligarchy against the people. But if a people choose to live under Tyranny, it is their business, not anyone else's?
Impact on Indian Economy
India is one of the Third-World countries which has paid the price of Iraq's occupation of Kuwait and which shall pay a still heavier price, if Kuwait indeed became the 19th province of Iraq.
Impact of Iraq's Defeat on Muslim Indians
While Saddam Husain may go down in Iraq's history as a national hero, Iraq will lose the war, sooner than later. Muslim Indians will be left with nothing but deep frustration and unbounded demoralization, face to face with chauvinist assertion at home and economic denial abroad. Why should the other Gulf states welcome them back?
Internationally, their frenzy is arming their adversaries, the Hindu chauvinists. It is providing Hindu communalism with a stick to beat them with, with an argument that the Muslim Indian has extra-territorial loyalties, that physically he lies in India but mentally he inhabits the World of Islam. The RSS the VHP and the BJP are indeed so happy that they cannot hide their glee at this windfall, at this tremendous opportunity, the Muslim Indians are themselves providing, to drive the wedge further between the Muslim and Hindu Indians, to widen the gulf of intolerance and suspicion.
Are we determined to be losers at home and abroad, today and tomorrow?
New Delhi
1 March 1991
