The Hindu : Islam and democracy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 17, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Islam and democracy

By Imtiaz Ahmad

So long as authoritarian regimes find it expedient to respond to the fundamentalists' challenge by repression rather than reform, the later will find a ready audience.

ISLAM THROUGHOUT its history has been characterised by an obvious paradox. This is its simultaneous unity and its bewildering diversity as the living faith of local, regional and national communities.The typical response of Muslims to this diversity has run along two lines. One is to gloss over the paradox and continue to act on the premise that Islam is one, characterised by a common shar'ia (the canonical law of Islam). The second is to regard the diversity of beliefs and behaviour as a temporary anomaly susceptible of elimination as the rules of the shar'ia take hold.

The implication of this religious pluralism is two-fold (1) the unity of Islam is not axiomatic or given, but is achieved through a complex process of interpretation and construction, and (2) as a practised faith Islam is far more pluralistic than the extreme degree of reification and unity attributed to it. Each Muslim society constructs its own self-definition of what is fundamental.

The reason this becomes possible is an in-built ambiguity as to what is strictly within the limits of the shar'ia. Controversy and debate, whether a particular action of individuals or communities, is a recurrent feature of Muslim societies.

Controversy and dialogue are not merely the result of ambiguity in collective perceptions. Even in scriptural literature, there exists a possibility for ambiguity to prevail due to the different sections of the scripture advocating seemingly contradictory positions. For example, on the question of the treatment to be meted out to a non-believer (kafir) there are two positions: (1) that he be converted on the point of the sword, and (2) he be allowed to persist in the solace of his faith on the ground that there is no compulsion in matters of faith.

This brings us to the popular perception that the high degree of Islamic doctrines orients towards religious militancy and violence. This image of Islam is an academic artefact of the historical process of colonial expansion reinforced by political events involving confrontation with U.S. hegemony. For the one-fifth of humanity, which is self-defined as Muslim, collective violence assumed a new dimension in the eighteenth century. It can be described in different stages, all of which relate to the economic ascendancy of European, predominantly Christian nation-states. Thus, twentieth century Islam like the nation-state system was created de novo in response to colonialism.

As to contemporary times, the situation is too complex and varied to allow sweeping generalisation. Nearly two-thirds of the Muslim world currently lives under some kind of secular dispensation. Even in some of these societies the fundamentalist groups have been active, but whenever they have seemed to be gaining political ascendancy they have been put down with a heavy hand. Even so, the dominant tendency has been to characterise Islamic fundamentalism in terms as if its rhetorical message is about to become an eminent reality. This has led to the speculation whether the current ideological struggle in the world is between Islam and the West.

Among the countries of the Muslim World one contemporaneously finds a series of political responses, from the presence of an Islamic discourse to militant Islamic reassertion to open rebellion. When one looks at the varied cases comparatively it is clear that colonialism and the nature of political regime seem always to generate Islamic self-consciousness. Goals, perceived or manifest, of the dominant non-Muslim groups are also crucial in determining the nature and scale of Islamic response. Threats of liquidation, conquest and domination produce rebellion. Authoritarian domination leads to independent movements of an Islamic variety. Cultural domination with a democratic structure generates variegated Islamic self-consciousness with religious concerns for identity. Integrative democratic structures result in very little concern for Islam. Where Islamic self-identity is assured. Muslims tend to become extremely divided and often end up fighting among themselves.

These differences of political response are matched by varied ideological orientations. First, there are the secularists, though limited in size and influence, who would like to model society on secular lines. Second, there are the traditionalists who have frozen the Islamic message and would let the winds of changes pass by. Third, there are the modernists who seek to draw upon the resources of Islam to build a society and polity free of exploitation and repression. Fourthly, there are the Islamic fundamentalists who, while they hark back to the tradition, are ill-equipped to harness Islam for the reconstruction of Muslim societies.

Islamic fundamentalism is essentially a product of the long historical development in Muslim societies with the hegemony of the West during the colonial period. The colonial experience is not something of the past. It has been continuing. Political and military imperialism was bad enough, but much more demoralising is the ethical, cultural and intellectual arrogance of the West. If in the past all ascendant civilisations had their moments of self-righteousness, no civilisation before the modern West felt itself so completely valid that mere questioning of some of its values can be tantamount to barbaric backwardness. While it talks of freedom and equality at home, it sustains gross economic exploitation and denial of democracy abroad.

Thus, the roots of violent expressions of religious protest lie in the existence of an undemocratic global capitalist order and virtual democratic governance in much of the third world, particularly Muslim countries. The uncritical support of the West to the autocratic regimes to fight Soviet Communism during the Cold War period freed them from any obligation to introduce any democratic measures. At present, these regimes cause so much anger among the people who are unable to express their opinion. Pent up feelings lead to acts of violence. It is only through democratisation that these countries can hope to get rid of pro-Western authoritarian regimes.

Contemporaneously, two conflicting trends are discernible throughout the Muslim world: the wave of democratic urge pulsates and simultaneously the popularity of Islamic fundamentalism escalates. That is, the number of people who believe that the frame of reference of organising the political realm should now be derived from a basic understanding of the Islamic text has grown. This phenomenon, particularly in the post-Cold War period, is apprehended to bring in an Islamic state system. But while this remains the promise of the fundamentalists, their real fortunes as a political force have fallen short of expectations.

So long as authoritarian regimes in Muslim countries find it expedient to respond to the fundamentalists' challenge by repression rather than reform, the later, however inept their political programme, will find a ready audience. The trouble with authoritarian regimes is that they promised national honour and held out hopes of goods and services but ultimately failed to deliver either. When the regimes failed, it was natural that Islamic fundamentalists would blame that failure on the experiments being un-godly though their programmes might be no different. This explains that the manifestoes of the Islamic fundamentalist groups have no solutions for the socio-economic ills of the society. It is because of this lack of vision that they are unable to strike deep roots among the masses.

(The writer is a former Professor of Sociology, JNU.)

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