Narrative and counter-narrative - II

For the last few months, the term ‘counter narrative’ is in wide circulation among the intellectual as well as official circles. It is therefore pertinent to introspect about the possibility of the counter narrative’s emergence, given the situation which does not seem conducive for such a changeover.

Pakistani society’s inherent character has been plural with multiple languages and dialects, cultures and even belief systems. That plurality, if allowed to sustain, could have made Pakistan into a culturally rich and socially-vibrant country. Ruefully, forced socio-cultural homogeneity was clamped with catastrophic results. In order to do that, religious ideology was used in such a ruthless manner that any thought or idea exhibiting even the slightest of difference from state-sponsored version was squeezed out of existence.

By doing that not only the socio-cultural vibrancy was set at rest but equally important was another implication. When any singular ideology is given such a wide currency as it happened in the case of Pakistan, then inexorably, the ideology in question gives birth to its own anti-thesis, thus spawning a situation that is rife with conflict and violence. In Pakistan, Islam as an ideology burst at the seams and the sectarian split was caused.

The counter-narrative is usually possible in a situation when two or at time more than two ideas intersect and by doing so tend to create a space for a new ideological dispensation to articulate itself. Hence, the counter narrative is conjured up. But whole of that process is not simple and smooth. The production of any new narrative comes to a pass after numerous pangs.

However the question staring in our eyes is starkly different. With the monolithic character that our society as well as the state have come to assume, is there any possibility for a counter narrative to come to pass? Is not it like asking for an impossible? Can we derive counter narrative by projecting the ‘soft’ image of Islam or as many people are asserting that the ‘real Islam’ ought to be preached and professed? Such questions indeed call for an introspection with utmost sincerity.

Read the first part here

Of course, introspection at this particular juncture becomes extremely crucial when the intellectual and also social consciousness of the society is profoundly entrenched in the ideological/religious abstraction. Here, I am deploying the term ‘abstraction’ simply because the hiatus between the ground reality manifested as the physical word with its challenges peculiar to the twenty first century and the religious idea, imagined as a complete code of life with its universal appeal is absolutely unbridgeable. The domains of the two phenomena are divergent if not completely antithetical. Hence the challenges of the modern times can only be addressed by the means and methods of the modern era.

The problem not realised by the zealots of ideology is its incommensurability with the contemporary epoch with which the ideology in its current manifestation has hardly any correspondence. A close and somewhat disinterested reading of the Muslim intellectual history reveals that the system of governance, which corresponded with the Islamic ideology got stunted in the 9th century. Unfortunately, its evolution with the changing time failed to take place. Besides, in the wake of Ummayid rule, Muslim political power ceased to be mono-centric. The poly-centric power structure tends to atomise the singularity of ideology and the system that it underpins. Thus Islam as a religion practically was invoked by the monarchs when they deemed it suited to their interests.

The fact however, remained that the political exigencies of the rulers held precedence over any system sanctioned by the Islamic injunctions. Ghyias ud Balban’s unequivocal stress on the divine right of kingship and Mughals preferred adherence to the Changazi code starkly exemplify their independence from any system of governance prescribed by Islam. Consequently, the Islamic system of governance could not grow with the changing time.

With the dawn of modernity and its global spread made things extremely daunting for any other system or epistemology to hold its ground. The economic system and the shape it took after massive industrial advancement, unprecedented proliferation in human knowledge and the establishment of the nation state system left little space for any other ideology to sprout and spread or to re-invent itself, in the particular case of Islam. Because it is far removed from the existing realities of the contemporary world, Islam as a system of governance can only be described as an abstraction.

Despite that changed scenario, the idea of ‘Islam as a complete code of life’ is sustained, widely circulated and zealously espoused by a large number of people as a panacea of all the ills and sufferings of the people. One cannot deny the fact that religion is a tremendous source of solace and mirth for the believers if employed as an instrument of spiritual amelioration by striking a chord between the creator and the creation (here it is mankind) and also by inculcating among them the acceptability of the fellows humans with different set(s) of belief. That can be done by emphasising the its ‘inclusive’ character which will be the first phase of the project that may help us to create a favourable environment for the counter-narrative to sprout.

Will it be possible for the state to pronounce in clearer and assertive terms that anyone reciting the Kalima is a Muslim so that the practice of takfir is jettisoned. Second phase will be to bring back the plural character of the state which ought to transcend the religious or ethnic particularities. Religion is vital for the spiritual and moral well-being of us. When it is made into the state-ideology then it is trans-figured and mutated according to the wishes of the rulers. Thus it becomes subservient to the real police.

At every level the social, cultural or even religious diversity must be celebrated instead of despised. The earlier the policy to that effect is hammered out, the better it will be for us and for posterity.