Return to Roots Emancipation of Indian Muslims

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A doyen among Indian historians and a former chairman for the Indian Council of Historical Research, Professor Kishori Saran Lal (b. 1920), took his doctorate in Medieval Indian History from the University of Allahabad in 1945. Starting as a lecturer in the same University, he served in the Madhya Pradesh Education Service from 1945 to 1963 and taught at Government Colleges in Nagpur, Jabalpur and Bhopal. He was Reader in the University of Delhi for ten years (1963-73) and, for the next ten years Professor and head of the Department of History in the University of Jodhpur (1973- 79) and the University of Hyderabad (1979- 83).

Prof. Lal has participated in many seminars and conferences, national and international, in India and abroad. In Madhya Pradesh, he was Secretary of the Madhya Pradesh Itihasa Parishad and Convener of the Regional Records Survey Committee. He presided over the Medieval History Section of the Indian History Congress in 1958, Punjab History Congress in 1975, Rajasthan History Congress in 1978, and Indian History and Culture Society in 1984. In 1977 he chaired a session at the Seventh International Conference of the Association of the Historians of Asia, held in Bangkok.

In 1973, the International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, U.K. commended Professor Lal as Man of Achievement 1973 and sent a diploma for his distinguished achievements. The American Biographical Institute Raleigh, North Carolina, nominated him for the prestigious title of Man of the Year, 1995. In 1999 the International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, U.K. awarded him the title of the International Man of 'he Millennium.

In India there is talk of national integration day in and day out. This integration, this sense of oneness as a nation, is sought to be achieved primarily between Hindus and Muslims, the two principal communities of India. The irony of the problem is that integration is sought to be achieved between Hindus and Hindus- between present-day Hindus and ex-Hindus-between Hindus who are so by birth and Muslims whose forefathers were Hindus. It is a well known fact that the ancestors of modern day Indian Muslims were converts from Hinduism. Islam separated them from their mother society. The active realization of the fact that Islam has separated present-day Muslims from their Hindu ancestors and that the roots, origins and cultural moorings of Indian Muslims are common with those of the Hindus, alone can bring about national integration and no slogan- mongering or swearing by secularism.

In our hurry to achieve national integration we put the cart before the horse. National integration cannot be achieved without first removing the causes of segregation. Majority of Muslims in every town and city reside in a separate locality or ghetto. First of all they have to learn to live with others, intermixed and on equal terms. They have to renounce hate-ideas like jihad and kafir. These terms are not archaic; they are still instilled in young minds in madrasas. They have to forsake the idea that it is their duty to destroy the idolaters and their idolatry, that they have to change India from Dar-ul-harb to Dar-ul-Islam. Secondly, they have to observe normal behaviour of living together as is done by Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis etc. Lastly, they have to feel socially, politically and also culturally integrated into one commonality.

It is then alone that India can become a socially and culturally united vibrant nation. Else India will remain disunited.

National integration can be achieved only if and when Indian Muslims realise that Islam was imposed on their ancestors by foreign invaders and rulers and that it wrenched them apart from their indigenous origins. Instead of wrongfully nursing the notion that they were Muslims all along, Indian Muslims have to locate their origins, their foundation, their fount, their genesis, their baseboard, and try to see if return to it can help bring about national unity. This attempt at self-appraisal and acquisition of self-knowledge is by no means an easy task. Islam does not allow such freedom of introspection and action. It is not permitted to probe into one's past, to renounce Islam or join one's old faith. Punishment for apostasy is death. But this tyranny of denial of freedom of thought is to be fought by Muslims themselves.