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| The Hindu Phenomenon |
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RETREAT AND RAGE |
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| Secondly,
he writes,"the movement of Sanskritization is in no way
approved by Brahmin priests and yet it goes on. Islamization, on the
contrary, is not only engineered by the religious elites but results
into [sic] an enhancement of their hold on the Muslim masses. It is
thus a traditionalizing movement par excellence" 18.
Seen in this perspective, two interrelated propositions become obvious. First, the determined bids by Faraiziz, Wahhabis,Al-Hadithis and Tablighis to remove Hindu influences and practices from the lives of ordinary Muslims and to block Western ideas and ideals were part of one single movement and, as such, one programme could not be separated from the other. Secondly, the presence of Hindu elements in Indian Islam alone could make its modernization possible by way of exposure to, and acceptance of, Western values; their elimination inevitably closed Indian Islam to modernization. But for the British tilt towards them, necessitated by the compulsions of the Raj, Indian Muslims would have faced marginalization long before 1947. |
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