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| The Hindu Phenomenon |
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RETREAT AND RAGE |
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everyone will agree with this assessment. Some Muslims have sought
to emulate the West. Turkey,since the Tanzimat movement in the late
nineteenth century, is one example and so is Egypt which was
virtually an autonomous province of the Ottoman empire since about
the same time. That these attempts failed is, in fact, a critical
issue, but that cannot be dealt with here. Broadly speaking, the
assessment is valid. Turkey and Egypt too continue to struggle to
contain the tide of Muslim revivalism and fundamentalism.
There is another aspect of the
Western impact which deserves attention. Millions of those who have
been uprooted from the countryside and pushed into crowded slums
and/or have found themselves left out of the benefits of
modernization and economic development have sought and found solace
in Islam. For them the language of Islam has become the means of
coping with moral anxiety, social disequilibrium, cultural
imbalance, ideological restlessness and problems of identity
produced by the economic transformation of the post- independence
period. |
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