My summer in India was exhausting...emotionally exhausting. As a person who comes from a Hindu (mostly nationalist) family, most of the things I hear about Muslims is derogatory and pejorative. And as a person who is doing research about minortiy sects in Islam, and is working closely with Muslim, it is hard to shut up about it. But after having corrected, or clarified or refuted the statements of many of my relatives, I think, to them I had taken on the role of a champion of Islam, a defender fo the Faith. But truly, all I was trying to defend was a more complex view of the world. Encountering such ignorance, and to be honest, distrust and distaste, towards Islam and Muslims, was frustrating and infuriating. It had always been around, but only now, since my entry into the world of Islamic Studies and the Anthropology of religion, has the sheer scale and intensity of it become clear to me. It's almost as if, to my family, I have become the messenger, the embassador from the court of Islam, if you will. And it is to me that their defense of their distrust and distaste is to be now addressed. They point at temple walls defaced by marrauding "Muslim invaders" from the north and say, "Try defending that!" But it is not the actions of some faceless loot-seeker, and defacer of magnificant works of art that I seek to defend. All I negate is the notion that the only reason those temples were defaced was because the invaders were Muslim; that somehow within that act, there is no politics, no economics, no history, no temporally situated context. And I found myself saying this over and over again...and just as my insistence was undaunted, so was their insistance that the presumed crassness of the other's religion was all that was to blame. I came away from it all drained of the emotional smugness I used to feel when I wa swith family, a complacency that I prized so much.
If I am avoid such emotional fatigue, I may have to pick my battles. But by doing that, by restrainign myself, I risk my sanity.
2 comments:
Rachana, I think the toughest stance you can take in today's political scenario is to defend Islam. With every effort is being made to equate "terror" with Islam, it becomes a monumental task for Muslims to defend their own faith. After all, they cannot completely disown the extremists who believe in the same God, yet they differ immensely in terms of ideology. What is important for people around the world is to understand that no religion is identifiable by a stereotype. As a follower of Islam, I appreciate the efforts of people like you who are making a sincere effort to understand the tenets of this religion with an unbiased perspective.
Hey Rachana!!
Well, I'm not too sure if you remember me...But maybe if you jog your memory back to Indian Association quiz days way back in 99-2000, maybe you would.
Rohan Bharadwaj(yes, we were all grade 8&9 kids back then and you were the Quizzing Goddess in Grade 12) happened to mention about you and I thought I would drop by.
Nice blog here!!
Cheers!
Joylita
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