Indian Islam: Future


Figure 1.--This photo was taken in northern Kerala (southeastern India). It is a portrait of a Muslim family, probably a mother with two older daughters and two younger sons. Islam is the second most practiced religion in Kerala. The traditional Muslim way of life of southern India doesn't include the forms that we can see in modern Pakistan. The people in the photo, however, are following the main rules of Muslim modesty. The women, indeed, have the whole body covered except the face, the hands and the feet. On the contrary, the young boys were not required to follow any modesty rule. Anyway it is striking that this Mulslim family had a photo portrait with the boys unclothed, just like an Hindu family would had done.

Indian Muslims do not attract much attention outside of India. This is largely becayse Indian Islam is a relatively moderte strain of the religion, nothing like the fananaticism that is metastasising throughout neighboring Pakistan. Indian Muslims have accepted a minority status protected by Indian's constitutional protections and strong tradition of secular laws--both part of India's invaluable heritage from the British Raj. We are not sure to what extent this is a result of the minority status of Indian Muslims as opposed to a basic commitment to moderation and toleration as a positive social value. There are in the Koran many verses which promote intolerance, and this often refers to the People of the Book (Jews and Christians). Hindus are seen in even more negative terms. Indian Muslims show no apetite for the fanaticism displayed by Muslims in Palistan and the Middle East. You do not see little girls being shot on their school busses or health workers murdered for trying to save children from disease as you see in Pakistan. And terror attacks like the 2008 Mumbai attacks in India have come from Pakistani infiltrators and not native-born Indians. This is vital for both the future of India as well as the effort to contain Islamic fundamentalism. As can be seen in the Arab Spring, democracy without secular limitations can lead to incrwased power to the Islamicists and their violent goals. While this has not occurred in India, it is also true that the relative modernation of Indian Muslims has had no impact on the Whabists and other fantatical strains of Islam.







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Created: 12:59 AM 1/5/2013
Last updated: 1:00 AM 1/5/2013