The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State

Title: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State

Author: Tarek Fatah

Publisher: Kautilya, 2016 (First published 2008)

ISBN: 9788192998770

Pages: 403

The world is witnessing incidents of jihadi violence by the hour. Even though Islam is often touted as a religion of peace, non-Muslims and an increasing section of Muslims perceive it to be otherwise. A noted feature in the discourse on terror and its religio-political inspiration is the total absence of the voice of the moderates in the Muslim community. Surprising it may seem to us, but the extremists occupy centre stage in the debate and spread a false sense of victimhood among young Muslims. The radicals want to assert that the whole Muslim community in the world is a monolithic nation, called ‘Ummah’, irrespective and irrelevant of the national, ethnic, racial and linguistic barriers that divide them. They abhor parliaments and other law-making machinery offered by the Western civilization and want to go back to a presumed golden era that flourished in the seventh or eighth centuries CE when the supposedly Rightly Guided Caliphs ruled from Medina. This book presents the pitfalls inherent in such a ludicrously simplistic evaluation of what ails the Muslims of today. Instead of living in a state of Islam, in which every Muslim is entitled to live peacefully and joyfully as per the fundamental tenets of Islam that cares about the spiritual needs of the individual, Muslims are shepherded to outrageous notions of political supremacy of Islam over other religions of the world and authoritarianism of cleric-politicians as enshrined in an Islamic state. By looking back at the history of Islam and the status of implementation of the Islamic state in a few countries, the author affirms the illusion of an Islamic state that occurred anywhere in the world in the present or in the past. Tarek Fatah is a Pakistani author and journalist based in Canada. He has authored many books. He was an activist in Pakistan, and was twice imprisoned by successive military dictatorships. In the aftermath of 9/11, Fatah founded the Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC), a secular and liberal Muslim organization dedicated to the separation of religion and politics, opposition to Islamism and jihadi extremism.

Fatah begins by requesting his Muslim readers to attempt to answer a few questions in the privacy of their solitude, when they need not be on the defensive and have no fear of being judged. Presenting the difference between an Islamic state and a state of Islam, he argues that the 150 million Muslims in Pakistan live in an Islamic state, while an equal number of Muslims in India live in a state of Islam. The author makes a clear distinction between Muslims and Islamists, who work for the imposition of an Islamic state based on Sharia. They have brought out Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in 1990 roughly in line with the UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights in 1948. However, the Cairo one envisages all rights and freedoms subject to Sharia, and provides for second class citizenship to the non-Muslims who have the misfortune to live in an Islamic state. It legitimizes the notion of racial and religious superiority and allows for multiple levels of citizenship and widespread and systemic discrimination against racial and religious minorities living within a state’s borders (p. 17). The Liberal-Left is now hand in glove with the Islamists under the untrue impression that they oppose the US and its hegemonic world policy. However, Islamists are not against the West’s imperial ambitions or capitalist greed. They were the West’s handmaidens throughout the cold war and waged a jihad on America’s behalf against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The Islamists take sustenance from the writings of Sayyid Abul Ala Maudoodi of the Jamaat Islami and Hassan al-Banna and Syed Qutb of the Muslim Brotherhood. Maudoodi had noted that the West’s ‘unfettered freedom’ and individual liberty are to be opposed. This put the leftists in an awkward position.

The book then examines the blatant discrimination present in the Islamic states of Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Palestine. Religious minorities are not given equal status anywhere. Pakistan’s constitution, in its Article 41(2) states that only a Muslim can become its president. When Justice Rana Bhagwandas, a Hindu, was sworn in as acting chief justice of Pakistan, he had to take his oath of office with a Quranic prayer, “May Allah Almighty help and guide me, Ameen”. Imagine such a thing happening to a Muslim anywhere in the secular democracies like India or western countries! Also imagine the tremendous hue and cry such an incident will cause among human rights groups! But in this instance, nothing happened and the seculars turned a blind eye to it. The supreme leader of Iran – velayat e-faqih – can only be a person of Arab ancestry. Imams of the superior pedigree don a black turban while others wear white headgear. He advises the Palestinians to view Islamists with deep suspicion, especially the ones in Marxist attire who espouse support of the Islamist Hamas while living in and unwilling to give up residence or the comforts of the US (p. 74).

Part 2 of the book that deals with the genesis of the faith and its political institutions present the true face of history the Islamists often sweep under the carpet. Three out of the four Rightly Guided Caliphs had fallen victim to an assassin’s knife in an orgy of tribal and racial enmity. After the Prophet’s death, the claim of the Quraysh tribe was proposed by Abu Bakr, who became the first caliph and a member of the tribe. Notions of equality were discarded at that stage itself. The second caliph Omar followed a policy of sabiqa which determined people’s level of piety on a sliding scale of when they accepted Islam. War booty was divided by Omar unequally. Those who followed Muhammad to Medina were given the highest entitlement and the lowest for those who accepted Islam after the fall of Mecca. In the sixth year of Omar’s reign a famine struck Arabia. The relief effort was also based on the principle of graded inequality – Meccan Quraysh the most, then Meccan Arabs, then the Aws tribe of Medina over the Khazraj and the non-Arab Muslims and slaves. The non-Arab Muslims were disparagingly called Mawalis and the Umayyad dynasty of caliphs (661 – 750 CE) taxed Jizya from them as noted by Maudoodi. Sectarian and familial jealousy overruled the early caliphate. Muawiyah instituted the practice of cursing Ali, the Prophet’s son-in-law during Friday sermons, which is still followed during the Hajj pilgrimage (p. 159). The forward thrust of Arab culture into Europe was stopped in 732 CE when Charles Martel defeated the Berber – Arab army in Poitiers, France. Muslims could never cross this line again. When the flow of war booty from expansion subsided, dissensions broke out in the Islamic camp. The Islamic states of the past failed to establish a norm for rightful succession that led to the unhappy situation in which lasting political institutions didn’t develop. Fatah categorically affirms that the idea of the caliphate or Islamic state has no basis whatsoever in either the Quran or the traditions of the Prophet.

The third part of the book is earmarked to expose the deviant agenda of Islamists in the West and their political manifesto. Their agenda is what Maudoodi declared: “Islam wishes to destroy all states and governments anywhere in the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and program of Islam. If the Muslim party commands adequate resources, it will eliminate un-Islamic governments and establish the power of Islamic governments in their stead. (p. 252). Fatah brings to light the backhand deals in Canada in which Islamists tried to sneak in Sharia for the country’s Muslim minority and the true face of Islamic banking which is another front of extremism. The religious bigotry of the Islamists is nauseating. They swing into action only when a Muslim country or individual is attacked. In 1999, New York police intercepted a Black man named Amadou Diallo and shot him down in a case of highhandedness. Civil rights groups began protests but the Islamists kept mum. A few days later, the man’s full name was published in the newspapers as Ahmed Ahmedou Diallo, a Muslim. Islamists took up protests only at that point. In the Vietnam War, they sided with the US government and only join the action when a Muslim state is at the receiving end of US foreign policy.

As I noted earlier, the voice of the moderate Muslim is nowhere heard. This book changes all that, and Tarek Fatah’s lone voice rumbles through the debating bodies as a voice of sincerity and reason. It is to be noted that he never says anything against the Prophet or the Quran, but attacks the false interpretation of the Islamists. Readers open a rich treasure trove of new information from this book that blunts the sharpness of Wahhabi-funded Islamists masquerading as free thinkers and human rights activists. The book uses footnotes instead of attaching a glossary at the end. A veritable collection of Notes and a long list of books for further reading make this a must-have for all classes of readers. A comprehensive index elevates the book to the level of a reference work.

When you grow old, it is rare that you come across a book which gives you a flood of details you never knew existed. Most books show a new sidewalk or an unexplored by-lane to the city centre which you are thoroughly familiar with. But this book showcases an entirely new city, which justifies its Five Star rating.

The book is most highly recommended.

Rating: 5 Star

Islands in Flux

Title: Islands in Flux – The Andaman and Nicobar Story

Author: Pankaj Sekhsaria

Publisher: Harper Litmus, 2017 (First)

ISBN: 9789352643981

Pages: 268

The Andaman and Nicobar (A&N) Islands are the largest archipelago system in the Bay of Bengal, consisting of about 500 islands with a total area of approximately 8200 sq.km. Only 38 of these islands are inhabited and the archipelago is separated from mainland India by 1200 km of open sea. The nearest landmass from the island chain is Sumatra, located at a distance of 145 km. All these factors make them unique and extremely important in the case of social and strategic implications. This book is a selection of articles published by the author between 1998 and 2016, which are related to conservation of the fragile ecology, rights and changing nature of the tribal communities, tourism development and questions on development planning and policy in the islands. This book builds upon what the author’s ‘Troubled Islands’ offered in 2003. Pankaj Sekhsaria is a researcher, writer, photographer, campaigner and academic. He has worked extensively in the fields of environment and wildlife conservation with a particular focus on the A&N Islands. His debut novel was also based in the Andamans.

A&N Islands retain most of the original names given by the British. Many of them commemorate administrators and military leaders. Hugh Rose cornered Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi and his name is given to Rose Island. Demands are afoot to rename the island as Lakshmi Bai Dweep. Similarly, Havelock Island is named after the general who retook Lucknow from the mutineers, which could be renamed as Nana Sahib Dweep. In addition to these, the local names used by the indigenous tribes can also be used. The book contains an interesting list of local names. We must not lose sight of an important fact in this renaming spree. These islands were never a part of the political and social milieu of the mainland, and the annexation of the island chain to India was a gift of the British. Without their colonizing it first, it is highly likely that those islands would now have become the naval base of some of the prominent maritime powers like what came about in Diego Garcia.

Sekhsaria paints the picture of a very successful intervention by environmental groups on the economic life of the islanders. They were instrumental in bringing out a verdict from India’s Supreme Court in 2002 which ordered a stop to felling of trees from the island’s evergreen forests, closure of the wood-processing industry, banning traffic on the Andaman Trunk Road and a host of other far reaching observations. Timber extraction had peaked in 1980-81, which then tapered down and went totally blank in 2002-03 after the judgment. The book targets tourism as the single activity that can wreak havoc with the ecology of the islands. He attacks former President A P J Abdul Kalam for proposing the idea of using tourism as a plank in development. He even asks how a person with such good education can become so little informed on environmental concerns! Sekhsaria criticizes the government order to allow airfare as part of LTC (Leave Travel Concession) scheme of government employees. This was designed to increase arrival of tourists in the aftermath of the killer tsunami of 2004. It is estimated that one per cent of the total population of the islands perished in the tsunami. However, the subsidized tourism – also disparagingly called LTC tourism on account of the meager spending of such tourists – has been a bone of contention of the local tourism industry as well. As the number of tourists goes up, the carrying capacity of the islands get filled up. Port Blair is now witnessing rationing of water in summer.

A number of indigenous tribal communities still inhabit the islands, outside the reach of civilization and modern amenities. The earliest aborigines are thought to have colonized the islands 40,000 years ago. On such a vast time scale, the British period is hardly a page and India could only be a paragraph in the book of the human habitation of Andaman. Some of the tribes are said to be cannibals but the author doesn’t make a mention of this. The Jarawas are a prominent tribe that is now showing symptoms of becoming adapted to modern civilization. The Sentinelese are still hostile, but the author argues that on this hostility ‘stands the tribe’s best chance of surviving as an independent human community for some more time’ (p.24). The author elevates the ethno-medical knowledge of the tribes even greater than contemporary scientific practice and is apprehensive of the bio-prospectors and pharmaceutical multinationals ‘stealing’ that information. Most of the islands are out of reach of foreigners.

Sekhsaria and other environmentalists of the lot treat the local tribals as little more than an endangered animal species which needs to be protected from poachers rather than as fellow human beings. Mind you, these aborigines are roaming the steamy, disease-ridden tropical jungles stark naked – men, women, children and all. They don’t have recourse to education, medical facilities or any other convenience which technology has gifted to us and which we take for granted. Interaction and intermixing with the external society is strongly protested by these environmental fundamentalists. In fact, this is the only option to save them from sexual and physical exploitation as evidenced in a 2012 video shot by a tourist which pictured Jarawa women dancing around a tourist vehicle, begging for ‘exotic’ food. The head count of the tribes has come down drastically over the decades. The population of the Onge tribe is only about 100 and the Jarawas number around 500. It is a well known genetic fact that as the number of people in an endogamous society declines, inbreeding takes place and this leads to serious congenital disorders for future generations that are also usually lethal. Commonsense dictates that it is high time for the tribals to mix with the outside world – including marital relationships – and live a happier and more prosperous life. This will definitely cause them lose their ethnic purity, no doubt, but the days of racial purity and eugenics are long gone. Education is the primary requirement and right of such a society, to prepare its children to the vagaries and pitfalls of modernity. But the author and his fellow hard-line environmentalists want to hold them down to their jungle fastnesses and are content with tossing coconuts, bananas and packets of biscuits over to the tribals when they venture out of the forest in search of greener pastures.

The book is a collection of items that appeared in newspapers and journals over a span of nearly two decades. Naturally, repetitions abound in the 25 chapters arranged over six broadly defined fields ranging from the environment, tribal communities, military significance and the dreaded tsunami which devastated the Nicobar group of islands in 2004. The earthquake which caused the tsunami had made some startling tectonic shifts on the islands. The northern part of the island had experienced an up-shift of 1.5 m, while the southern part had subsided by as much as 4.5 m. Such scope for change in the geological foundations of the islands justifies the title of the book. A very nice collection of colour photographs add much value to the book. As no credits are expressed for the photographs, we may suspect that the author has taken these pictures himself. The book includes a good index and a very informative historical timeline.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 2 Star

Notes from a Big Country

Title: Notes from a Big Country

Author: Bill Bryson

Publisher: Black Swan, 1999 (First published 1998)

ISBN: 9780552997867

Pages: 416

Bill Bryson is one of the funniest authors to have graced the language. Reviews of many of his other books can be seen in this blog and I don’t intend to introduce the hearty fellow again. He was born in the US and then made England his home for nearly 20 years when he travelled and worked. He met his wife there and was happily married with four kids when the idea struck him to move back to the US. He settled in New Hampshire among friendly neighbours and idyllic woods. This book is a collection of articles written for a weekly journal about life in America. It is written in the form of addressing fellow Britons across the ocean. Bryson pulls the leg of both the British and the American, in these exceedingly witty essays – 78 of them in total.

Though it is a clichéd expression, I have to affirm that Bryson’s articles evoke laughter as well as thought. His sarcasm is armour-piercing. And no one is free from his acerbic attacks, whether it is the careless airline company that ignores customer rights, or a US government department for which lethargy is the rule, or the ubiquitous marketing strategists who assume that their target people are outright dumb. The author’s clear stand on the need to abolish capital punishment is logical and to the point. It may be remembered that the US is the only major western power that employs it as a part of the judicial process. Many people argue that it must remain a part of the statute book as a deterrent for dangerous criminals. Bryson turns this argument on its head. It is not necessarily the culprits of the most heinous crimes that get caught and executed. Rare examples have come to light where a condemned person was found to be innocent just before the execution was to take place. Even otherwise, the time and effort expended by the state in establishing and confirming the death penalty is worth much more than what is required for awarding life imprisonment.

This book brings to light the extravagance and profligacy of American life. It all started after the Second World War, when the armament industry reconfigured itself for domestic uses. Bryson was born in the 1950s, which was also the decade in which American prosperity scaled its zenith. As compared to the splendor of plenty, Britain looked niggardly. A positive aspect the author finds in his new home is the extraordinary friendliness of his neighbours and has been prominently remarked upon. Curiously, this is in stark contrast to the experience of most Indians who stay in the US, and evidenced in the book ‘Visa Wives’ by M B Radhika, reviewed earlier. Racism is what comes instantaneously to mind, but if we decide to be more charitable, one of the reasons might have been the absence of camaraderie in urban sprawls where working Indians usually ends up.

The book includes a bonus chapter from ‘The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid’, another absorbing title from Bryson. Unfortunately, the same chapter is given as an extra along with ‘Made in America’ as well, which is another delightful work on things made in America, including the subtle changes it had wrought on the English language itself.

Readers are assured a jolly, good time reading the book, as there are very few authors in the world, who can match the caliber of Bryson for wit. His style is impeccable and breathtakingly original. There is an essay titled ‘On Losing a Son’, which is in fact all about parting with the boy who had enrolled in the university for higher studies and was leaving home. This chapter demonstrates that the author is quite adept in handling emotionally overloaded sentiments as well. Once a child moves to a college faraway, there is little chance that he or she will come back to you, ever. The author’s touching emotion on his finding his son’s carelessly discarded yesterdays is a moving experience.

Satirizing the nascent computer industry – this book was first published in 1998 – is a little far fetched. It can be confidently vouched that the personal computers that came out in the year had been quite user friendly. At least on this aspect, Bryson’s critique may be taken as a friendly banter than a serious observation.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

Indigo Rebellion

Title: Indigo Rebellion

Author: Ananda Bhattacharya

Publisher: Dey’s Publishing, Kolkata, 2012 (First)

ISBN: 9788129517043

Pages: 221

The 1857 rebellion was a turning point in Indian history, both for the Indians and the occupying British. For the Indians, it was an assertion that the moral will of the country has not gone bankrupt even after being under the yoke of foreign powers for nearly eight centuries. The British, on the other hand, was rudely woken up out of their complacent slumber in the firm belief that India would forever be a slave to their business and political interests. Many parts of North India were striven by frenzied battles between the two sides. Bengal was largely calm during this period, which helped the Europeans to safely use it as a base for arrival and organization of specialist troops from Europe. Eventually, the mutiny was crushed and things went back to normal, but not in the way it used to be. Something snapped between the master and the servant. The British were thereafter forever alert to hostile reverberations among the natives. Within a year of crushing the revolt, the Bengal government had another rebellion in their hands. A bright blue dye extracted from the indigo plant had become very popular in the eighteenth century. Large tracts of agricultural land in the newly conquered Bengal were earmarked for indigo cultivation. European settlers built up factories for manufacturing the dye and entered into contracts with the zamindars and peasants for producing the raw material upon payment of an advance amount. This system ran well for a few decades when indigo fetched a decent profit. With the advent of synthetic aniline dyes in the nineteenth century, the price of indigo fell steeply. Cultivated indigo became so worthless that many peasants refused to plant it and diversified to sowing rice. The planters opposed this, often with physical force. A great deal of atrocities and criminal acts had been done towards the poor peasants that they rose up in revolt in 1859. This was brutally crushed two years later. This book tries to tell this story.

The above details I have collected from Wikipedia, as this book is a total failure in conveying any intelligible information. ‘Indigo Rebellion – A Selections’ (sic) is written by Ananda Bhattacharya, which is a huge collection of readers’ letters addressed to the leading newspapers of Kolkata during the years in which the rebellion raged. The author is said to be an archivist and the Assistant Director of the West Bengal State Archives. He is also claimed to have earned name and fame for his command over source material related to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He has authored a few books too. However, this book has neither a structure nor any content.

It seems that the book is not subjected to proof-reading or copy editing. Or, if there was indeed a proof reader, chances are high that he was ignorant of the language. Spelling is pathetic, many of the sentences are not even grammatically correct and at least five to ten mistakes can be pointed out in every page. Stop indicators crop up unexpectedly in the middle of a sentence, ruining all pleasure of reading. The structure of the book is laughable. There is an introductory chapter running through 40 pages, which is crammed with so many details that it looks almost like an index without page numbers. The second chapter is an enormous collection of newspaper cuttings that span 148 pages. The last chapter is also a collection of journals, which goes through 18 pages. This anthology is compiled in a very haphazard and irresponsible manner, without the compiler even looking at the content. A news item on the annexation of the Nagpur principality has also been accidentally included, which has no relevance to the topic of discussion.

Several times I was gripped by a desire to toss the book away, but I persevered to write a review to warn others to stay clear of this trash. The price of the book is pegged at Rs. 350, which can most probably be reimbursed with added compensation if a buyer approaches the consumer protection forums. The book does not even include a glossary, but casually uses such terms as lathiyal, be-ilaka ryots and such.

This book is a pure waste of time and not recommended.

Rating: 1 Star