{"id":3980,"date":"2006-11-22T09:43:55","date_gmt":"2006-11-22T14:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=3980"},"modified":"2006-11-22T10:59:44","modified_gmt":"2006-11-22T15:59:44","slug":"mahmood_the_ath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2006\/11\/22\/mahmood_the_ath\/","title":{"rendered":"Mahmood the Atheist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mahmood Farooqui is among the bloggers signed on to a new group blog project called Kafila<\/a>, which I discovered via DesiPundit<\/a>. (Other names on the roster include Shivam Vij<\/strong>, the omnipresent progressive blogger\/journalist, and Nivedita Menon<\/strong>, a well-known, Delhi-based academic).<\/p>\n\n

For his first post<\/a> at Kafila, Farooqui reprints an essay he had published in Tehelka, on the uncomfortable position he finds himself in as a secular — indeed, atheist — Muslim intellectual in today’s India. The place to start might be where he lays his cards on the table:<\/p>\n\n

Let me explain my locus. I am an atheist, I follow none of the Islamic taboos, but I live in a locality in the capital that can only be called a ghetto.<\/strong> I lived here for five years, when I was a student, when I was very self-consciously opposed to the Indian Muslim stereotype. I had grown up on Chandamama and Nandan, Holi was my favourite festival, Karna my hero, Shiva the great God, Hinduism a highly tolerant religion and I had dreams of attaining martyrdom fighting Pakistan. I was studying history and detested medieval Muslim rulers; I would expatiate on the reasons why Islam had trouble with modernity; I admired Naipaul and Rushdie; supported Mushirul Hasan during the Satanic Verses controversy \u00c2\u2014 a novel I deeply admire in spite of its undoubted blasphemies \u00c2\u2014 and I detested many things about Indian Muslims, except, predictably, Urdu literature and Sufism. I was, in short, a model Hinduised-Indian-Muslim, who always put India before Islam. I was desperate to leave Okhla.<\/strong> (link<\/a>)<\/blockquote>\n\n

Okhla is a predominantly Muslim suburb (slum?) in south Delhi; Mahmood Farooqui has written a little more about life there in this article<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Tellingly, Farooqui had trouble leaving Okhla for Delhi’s posher (predominantly Hindu\/Sikh) neighborhoods:<\/p>\n\n

But I am now back in Okhla, arguing simultaneously for the legitimacy of difference and the fact of a universal human. Between the self-hatred of my youth and the current uneasiness with my earlier positions lies, possibly, a series of adult defeats \u00c2\u2014 perhaps they have dulled my passions and my hatreds. However now I have, you could say, chosen to live here, after a series of eliminations \u00c2\u2014 Defence Colony, Greater Kailash-I, Jangpura \u00c2\u2014 on grounds of my being Muslim and\/or not having a company lease.<\/strong> But, crucially, I came here because I was sickened by South Delhi and because I was incipiently aware of Okhla\u00c2\u2019s hospitableness. (link<\/a>)<\/blockquote>\n\n

When he says “eliminations,” he means he was denied a lease — at least some of the time — because of his Muslim name. What happens to Farooqui as he tries to leave Okhla is a reflection of the double-bind he faces as he tries to balance his social identiy and background with a self-critical attachment to the idea of modern India as a nation. He fits in uneasily in Okhla, surrounded by conservative Muslim neighbors. But mainstream society isn’t very encouraging, and as a result the pull of his social loyalites remains alive:<\/p>\n\n

More than this, however, my views, in conformity with the rest of the academic world, about the virtues of egalitarianism, liberty and a democratic welfare state are now far less uncomplicated than they were in my youth. I still search for vestiges of the narrative of liberty in Islamic pasts, I continue to valourise streams of pluralism in Muslim sultanates and extol those Indian Muslims of the past who were ecumenical and tolerant. I would still challenge descriptions of the medieval past that underline forced conversions or bemoan the second-class treatment of Hindus. If I do not have much truck with Islam, why then do I continue to search for narratives of tolerance in the Islamic past? Why do I smart when Vajpayee says that there is trouble and violence wherever Muslims live? Why is my attitude to Islam so defensive?<\/strong> (link<\/a>)<\/blockquote>\n\n

In this essay (you should really read the whole thing), Farooqui doesn’t really come upon any answers to the double-bind he faces, but it is a remarkably forthright and careful attempt to articulate the problem of minority belonging — which isn’t so different from minority belonging in other national contexts.<\/p>\n\n

More Mahmood Farooqui links:<\/p>\n\n

Recent articles in Mid-Day<\/a><\/p>\n\n

More articles in Mid-Day<\/a><\/p>\n\n

Articles in Outlook<\/a><\/p>\n\n

Amit Varma’s post on a controversy regarding a possible instance of plagiarism<\/a> in a book review Farooqui wrote<\/p>\n\n

Dastan Goi<\/a>, the lost art of storytelling<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mahmood Farooqui is among the bloggers signed on to a new group blog project called Kafila, which I discovered via DesiPundit. (Other names on the roster include Shivam Vij, the omnipresent progressive blogger\/journalist, and Nivedita Menon, a well-known, Delhi-based academic). … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3980"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3980\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}