Locating violence in history
Casting even a furtive eye on the antecedents of the present-day violence, a phenomenon that has become ubiquitous as the principal determinant of South Asian politics, the impact of World War II and Indian partition can hardly be overlooked.
The six-year long WWII bred jingoistic tendencies among the North Indian youth. Oxford historian Yasmin Khan notes, "The war sharpened dichotomies between the wealthy elites and the vast number of the very poor, heightened social tensions and exacerbated differences of class, caste and religion." In the 1940s, Gandhi’s pacifism virtually became redundant in the face of the aggressive mode that the seekers of freedom from the British Raj came to embrace. Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel (1875-1950) and for some, Subhash Chandra Bose (1897-1945), became far more relevant than the primordial figure of Gandhi. Similarly Muhammad Ali Jinnah did not shun his constitutional course of action but he also resorted to Direct Action, an understudied subject by Pakistani historians for obvious reasons.
Direct action snowballed into a large scale catastrophe, leading to a loss of thousands of lives. It turned from catastrophe to a disaster when its reverberation reached Punjab. All said and done, cumulative effect of the World War II and the direct action turned partition into one of the deadliest events in the entire human history. Three major communities, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, suffered immensely during the partition but one may argue that the pangs of that event have been indelibly etched on the collective psyche of Pakistanis. In Pakistan’s national narrative, partition is projected as an event, signifying the villainy of the Hindus and Sikhs; thus the claim of securing a separate homeland for the Muslims stands validated.
Most of those espousing jihad against India have, in one way or the other, experienced torments and tribulations of the partition.
Having looked at the influence of these two events on the violent behaviour in the subcontinent, it will be pertinent to underscore the religio-political parties/groups’ fascination with such figures like Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. They were conceptually-inspired and, to a considerable extent, modelled after Nazi and Fascist parties. The very organisation of such groups or parties (anti-British in their outlook and orientation) like Majlis-i-Ahrar and Khaksar Tehreek or even Jamaat-i-Islami was structured on the pattern of Nazis, Fascists and Communists as these were the only potential dispensations, which could offer the religio-political parties with any alternative to the British colonial structure.
Unfortunately, that aspect of these organisations is starkly under-researched area of scholarship.
One must bear in mind, however, that these parties stemmed out of Khilafat Movement (1919-1924) and drew inspiration from the reactive political mode manifested in the 19th century (post War of Independence) reform movements. It is important to note that the politics of agitation among Indian Muslims, in an institutionalised sense, had its roots in the Khilafat Movement.
In the subsequent period of history, Majlis-i-Ahrar and Jamaat-i-Islami made such form of politics into a lasting tradition. However, they retained their tightly-knit organisational structure, which their founding leadership emulated from the Nazis and Fascists. They rescinded popular politics.
Read also:Violence as an instrument of politics
In the post-partition days these organisations, along with Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam and its multiple offshoots, symbolised the ultra-rightist brand of politics in Pakistan.
Interestingly, the same holds for the Hindu fundamentalist parties like Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sang (RSS), which later on procreated the militant Hindu organisations like Vishwa Hindu Prashad (established in 1964), Shiv Sena (established in 1966) and Bajrang Dal (established in 1984) etc. RSS volunteers are still being disciplined, drilled and trained on the pattern of Nazis and Fascists. The commonality in all these parties/groups is their stress on exclusion which goads them on to the anti-liberal path.
To all of them, violence is the legitimate source to notch up their political ends but, unlike Franz Fanon’s emphasis on the violent means in order to weed out exploitative (colonial/new-colonial) structure(s), they employ violence to promote their reactionary and regressive agenda. The Ram Janumbhoomi event in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, India (in 1984), provided RSS and its subsidiary organisations a shot in the arm.
Now we turn our gaze to the Islamic parties in the post-colonial situation with Jamaat-i-Islami as our prime focus.
During the initial years, Jamaat-i-Islami had a hard time in securing a foothold in the newly-founded state of Pakistan. The Jamaat’s founder Maulana Maududi only escaped by a whisker from execution in 1954 when he had joined hands with other religious leaders against Ahmadhis. Some of his well-wishers in the government (like Abdur Rab Nishtar and Fazlur Rahman) came to Maulana’s rescue.
The Jamaat made its headquarters in Zaildar Park, Ichra, Lahore but it had sizable support in Karachi among the Mohajirs. Most probably, the afflictions caused by the partition had turned them politically conservative; because along with Jamaat, Jamiat-i-Ulema Pakistan (Barelwi group) also had its political base in Karachi. That support remained quite consistent until the Mohajjir Qaumi Movement (MQM) emerged on the political scene in the mid-1980s.
The Muslim League was confined to the Punjab only, where it was divided into two factions. Its rejuvenation became possible only under Ziaul Haq and his campaign of demonising politics and politicians (particularly those having liberal-left leanings). Ironically, both of these parties representing religious right suffered erosion in their political support in Karachi. The MQM completely shorn of any ideological underpinning resorted to violence as the only way for its sustenance. Perpetuating violence as a source of political survival eventually proves self-defeating which has become evident in the case of MQM.
The JI withdrew to Punjab and cobbled an alliance with Muslim League, which had been re-inventing itself with the help of establishment. It lost its own political vitality but its cadre in fact became an ideological core of the Nawaz Sharif-led Muslim League. Similarly, RSS, VHP, Shiv Sena and Bajrang Dal etc. helped Bharatya Janta Party by providing it an ideology. PML-N is the political incarnation of Jamaat’s ideology which has worked very effectively against Pakistan People’s Party, reducing it as a rump of its former self. Islamist ideology and conservative character of PML-N has made it acceptable to militant groups of different hues.
Secularist parties, on the other hand, were bombed to a sheer marginality in the realm of Pakistani politics. Same is true of the BJP in India. With religious right firmly entrenched in both the countries, the only possibility for the politics of the liberal-left is the implosion of the rightist brand of politics itself.
But it does not seem happening in the foreseeable future. The politics of exclusion is here to stay.
Concluded