When William Dalrymple authored Duff Cooper Award Winner ‘The Last Mughal’ he prompted many to categorise the uprising of 1857 as Jihad against imperialism, forcing them to draw parallels between India of 1857, Afghanistan of 2001, and the present day Iraq.
His positioning of 1857 as a clash of ‘rival fundamentalisms’ with evangelical Christians on one side and Wahabis on the other exaggerated the influence of Wahabism and demonised Indian Muslims throughout. Equating both Ghazis and Jihadis of 1857 with Wahabis is a preposterous comparison as those based in Allahabad, Lucknow and Gwalior largely identified themselves not with the Wahabi leadership, but with Sufism and other mystic orders. For this absurd comparison, “The Last Mughal” was widely criticised as a re-reading of historical events with flawed modern hindsight.
Nevertheless, Jihad did play a significant role in the uprising of 1857, and thereon. Initially, for a very short-lived period, it was predominantly to reinstate the Muslim rule to its full glory, but in the uprising of 1857, it majorly transformed into a fight against the suppression and exploitation of Indians by the Brits.
While Maulavi Baqar, the editor of Delhi Urdu Akhbaar went on to the limit of tracing instances from the history of Islam and Hinduism to instigate the idea of Jihad among people, Maulavi Sikandar Ali Shah distributed printed copies of proclamation calling upon the Muslims as well as the Hindus to arise, or to be forever fallen.
But this was not the only form of Jihad in British India. As the freedom movement progressed, it shaped itself according to the struggle, and yet on a few instances, shaped the struggle accordingly. In the later stages, Jihad was non-violent, non-cooperative and Khudai Khidmatgaar too.
This diverse nature of Muslim participation in Indian freedom struggle efficiently describes Jihad which today is one of the most widely misinterpreted concepts by both Islamic extremists and the Islamophobes alike. Back then, today’s “Holy war against the infidels” was just a struggle within and outside against all evils.
Jihad According To Quran
Quran describes three types of jihad: jihad against yourself, jihad against Satan — the greater jihads — and the jihad against an open enemy, known as the lesser jihad, which is never people of another faith or fellow citizens. Quran prohibits any collateral damage and strictly lays down five conditions for this lesser jihad: self-defence; when Muslims are being persecuted for their faith; have fled their homes and migrated to a different country to preserve peace; are targeted to be killed for their faith, and to protect universal religious freedom. In all the above cases, for there to be a military jihad, the enemy must attack first.
Prophet Muhammad said, “the best jihad was to speak words of truth in front of a tyrannical leader”. Not Violence. Not Terrorism. Yet, Jihad has been as barbaric as Raqqa and Istanbul, and as brutal as Charlie Hebdo shooting that killed 12. But in British India, every Muslim participant was a Jihadi speaking the truth in front of a tyrannical queen.
Jihad In The Times Of Hatred
The anti-muslim pitch is an ever-changing narrative. It has evolved in the communal laboratories of Sangh to consolidate a vote bank that would structure Hindu Rashtra—a country where rights of Muslims and other minorities would be subverted. While evidently, 2014 changed India, but the roots of this hatred can be traced back to 1992 when every falling brick strengthened the foundations of a majoritarian nation, giving this pitch a new lease of power. Evidently a stronger one.
This anti-Muslim pitch initially defined Muslims as Pro-Pakistan, later as Anti-India, and now— anti-Hindu. In 2012, and thereon, this pitch found a new level of acceptance trumping the pluralistic values deeprooted in the Indian consciousness during late 18th and the early 19thcentury, and then later in the late 19th century until Advani’s chariot of fire sliced the secular fabric apart.
Since 2012, the attacks have been centred around the identity, the questions — on loyalty, and obviously, Muslim lives have been a casualty too. Inside the shoes of Muslims, space has been shrinking fast and breathing, tougher, by every passing day. Bullied, humiliated and offended, they’re prone to get radicalized sometimes. And since Hindutva thrives on Islamophobia, any radicalization amongst Muslims will only strengthen it.
Bahadur Shah Zafar was a great poet and a person under whom flourished the greatest cultural renaissance in modern history, but he was no efficient administrator. He just stood at a crucial juncture of history that made him the leader of uprising and immortal in the books. Today, Indian Muslims stand at a similar juncture from where they can reclaim the true essence of Jihad from Islamic Extremists and the meaning from the Islamophobes; fifty years from now, history will bear a witness to this.
If Hindutva has to lose, it fails with making monsters out of Muslims. So at the hands of Muslims, today rests a collective responsibility to wage jihad against any and every extremism cropping up within the Muslim community along with the formation of a political front that ensures enough representation in the Parliament. The Jihad in a majoritarian India needs to spread the message of peace and love. It has to be love Jihad indeed.
This struggle can be led by any Syed Ahmad Khan, Frontier Gandhi, or even a Gandhi himself. Many, including the likes of M J Akbar, already believe that in 1920, he became the first Non-Muslim to lead a Jihad.
For the rest of India—as there can be no greater cause than defeating Hindutva—what Thomas Lowe ( a British chronicler) wrote in 1860 about the uprising of 1857 should be the way forward, “the infanticide Rajput, the bigoted Brahmin, the fanatic Mussalman had joined together in a cause; cow-killer and the cow worshipper, the pig hater and the pig-eater had join hands”.
Together we may survive, divided we will perish.