Horror, Sleaze and Trash.

TWELVE
Swords to sell a god1

Ram Swarup

Mr. Mushirul Hasan's innocous opposition to the ban on The Satanic Verses has stirred a hornet's nest. He attempted an apology but could not save himself from the hounds. On May 22, the fire-eating Imam of Jama Masjid declared from the pulpit that "anyone who defends Salman Rushdie is defiling Islam." The students of the Jamia Millia shouted: "Qaum ka gaddar, Maut ka haqdar" (Betrayer of the community, deserver of death).

Did Mr. Hasan badly miscalculate? Did he not realise the moral pressures under which he was working? Or, did he think he could brazen it out and earn an instant reputation as a liberal and a progressive without having to pay a price for it?

Whatever his compulsions, the episode has proved again that there are not many Muslim liberals around, that they have to work under great pressure, and that though they might establish their credentials cheaply among Hindu secularists, they will have to work at a more fundamental level to deserve it.

The Jamia Millia controversy offered its own dilemma to India's secularists who have a close alliance with Islamism. The alliance works under a veneer of liberal-sounding slogans. But when the Muslims themselves are divided, the secularists too are paralysed and take recourse to equivocation. To retain their ideological face, they must appear to support the Muslim liberals, but in practice they go along with the Bukharis, Ali Mians, Saits and Shahabuddins. The sleight of hand satisfies no party. The Muslim liberals feel let down. The Muslim fundamentalists feel the secularists must follow the lead of mainstream Islam more gracefully. They expect the Hindu secularists to abandon hypocrisy and own up to the alliance with Islam.

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