A NEW INDIA
Creative Mindset
AFTER 1962, India and China became hostile to each other. But now, the equation between these two enemies has completely changed, albeit without the issuance of any formal communiqué to that effect. Now, in reality, India and China have become business partners, not rivals.
This is on a parallel with the equation between the Muslims and Hindus of India. After partition, Hindus and Muslims in effect became not just each other’s rivals but each other’s enemies. One sign of this phenomenon was the communal riots that, after partition, were rampant all across India. But now, riots of this kind no longer appear in the headlines of our national dailies. They are no longer a burning issue.
Muslims have emerged as a selfaware community of India, whereas prior to this, they had been lacking in any appropriate sense of their own value to the country.
It was the demolition of the Babri Masjid that changed the minds of both communities, leading to the development of a positive relationship between Hindus and Muslims, who had both ultimately come to the conclusion that the demolition of the Babri Masjid had actually led to the decimation of the Indian economy. The Hindu community had ultimately to acknowledge that the Muslims, rather than being their rivals, were indeed their customers. And vice versa. After this discovery, the thinking of both Hindus and Muslims underwent a total sea change and they performed a complete about–turn. They started applying to each other that wellknown maxim: “The customer is always right.”
One sign of this change is that the Hindu community has bought up prominent Urdu newspapers as Muslims bought up certain English newspapers after independence.
After partition, because the Muslim community regarded the Hindus as antagonists and rivals, they allowed their own development in all fields to come to a standstill and, as a community in India, they became directionless. But now, mostly under compulsion, Muslims have performed a U-turn, without any declaration of a specific policy. Indeed, Muslims have accepted Hindus as their brother community rather than as their rivals.
After partition, the Muslim community was driving up a blind alley, as it were. But now, with the complete change in the Muslim attitude, the Muslims are, according to my assessment, a truly fast growing community, in almost all walks of life in modern India, albeit unconsciously, rather than consciously.
History shows that great success is always the outcome of great shock. For Isaac Newton (1642-1727), “apple shock” led to a great discovery. That is, the law of gravity. This applies also to the case of the Muslims. The Muslims, by their way of thinking—which was unrelated to hard reality—took the partition of India to be a political shock for their future. But after 1971, everything changed greatly, a new process set in the Indian Muslim community, and now this process has reached its culmination and Muslims have emerged as a self-aware community of India, whereas prior to this, they had been lacking in any appropriate sense of their own value to the country.
The so-called Muslim intelligentsia is still intent upon proclaiming that Muslims are under siege, whereas the reality is totally different—Muslims in India have started rebuilding themselves as a creative community.
One international survey shows that when two communities co-exist in one country—a majority community and a minority community—according to the law of nature, such a situation is bound to be fraught with tension. The pressure arising therefrom is bound to start a natural process by which the minority community, can do no other than enhance its creativity. If, at the outset it was uncreative in character, it will eventually re-build itself as a creative community. This is a law of nature that is bound to come into force, even without any declaration of intention, or obvious planning. This is an ongoing process in India, and according to the law of nature, it is impossible for any group to call a halt to it: it is bound, sooner or later, to come to fruition. The so-called Muslim intelligentsia is still intent upon proclaiming that Muslims are under siege, whereas the reality is totally different—the law of nature inevitably prevails, and certainly, Muslims are no exception to it.