Crashing into Taj Mahal

(Three suspected Al-Qaeda agents, plotting to bomb embassies, were nabbed here this week, police say. But India proves daily that the Muslim, as terrorist, is a stereotype. Below is an abridged news clip from New Delhi, e-mailed by a friend. The author requested his name be deleted.)

After Indonesia, the second largest country in the world is not Saudi Arabia. It is India, with some 150 million Muslims.

But there are no Indian Muslims in al-Qaeda. None fight alongside Iraqi jihadists. They’re a minority in a Hindu-dominated land. Why don’t they (try) to fly airplanes into Taj Mahal?

They have grievances. Interreligious violence, in India, had disastrous results. Some American Muslims found their way to al-Qaeda. It can happen with Indian Muslims. But this is not the norm. Why?

The answer is context. India’s secular, free-market, democratic context is influenced by a tradition of nonviolence and Hindu tolerance.

M. J. Akbar is a Muslim. He edits “Asian Age,” a national Indian English-language daily. “Age” readers are mostly non-Muslims. “Which is the only large Muslim community to enjoy sustained democracy for the last 50 years?” he asks. Answer: India’s Muslims.

There are tensions, like the 1992 destruction of Ayodhya mosque, by Hindu nationalists. But India’s Constitution is secular. It provides opportunity for economic advance to any community that offers talent. A Muslim middle class is growing. It doesn't manifest the deep anger of many non-democratic Muslim states.

Where Islam is embedded in authoritarian societies, it tends to become a vehicle of angry protest, as in Egypt or Syria. But where Islam is (rooted) in a pluralistic democratic society, (like) Turkey or India, progressives get a hearing in a democratic forum. They fight for ideas on more equal footing.

In November 2003, Istanbul’s two main synagogues were hit by suicide bombers. When reopened, the chief rabbi appeared with the top Muslim cleric while crowds showered red carnations on both. The prime minister, who comes from an Islamic party, visited the chief rabbi for the first time ever.

"We cannot understand why this child did the thing he had done,” the suicide bomber’s father told the Turkish newspaper Zaman, “Let me meet with the chief rabbi of our Jewish brothers and apologize in the name of my son and offer my condolences…“

Different context, different narrative, different imagination.

Despite imperfections, including the oppressive caste system, India sustains a functioning democracy for over one billion people, who speak different tongues. That’s a great source of stability.

A Muslim woman sits on India's Supreme Court. But Muslim woman may drive a car in Saudi Arabia. Indian Muslims, including women, have been state governors. High on the Forbes list of global billionaires, is an Indian Muslim: Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro, one of the country’s major technology firms.

Shortly after the 2001 US (strike) in Afghanistan , Indian tv aired a debate between the imam of New Delhi's biggest mosque and parliamentarian Shabana Azmi, a Muslim woman. Join the jihad, the imam urged. Join the Taliban yourself, but leave us Muslims alone, Azmi riposted. She lived in a context that empowered her to speak her mind even to a leading cleric.

Give young people a context where they can pursue an entrepreneurial idea, become respected and affluent, no matter their backgrounds; have grievances adjudicated in a court of law, publish ideas in a newspaper or run for office. And guess what? People don't want to blow up the world. They want to be part of it.

A South Asian friend recalls his Muslim family split in 1948. Half went to Pakistan and the other half stayed in Mumbai. Years later, he asked his father: “Why did the Indian half of our family do better than the Pakistani half?”

"Son, when a Muslim in India sees a man living in a big mansion high on a hill, he says: ‘One day I will be that man’.” In Pakistan , he’ll say : 'One day I will kill that man.'"

When you have a pathway to be the Man or the Woman, you focus on the path and achieving your dreams. When you have no pathway, you focus on your wrath.

India, 20 years ago, was known as a country of snake charmers, poor people, and Mother Teresa. Today, its image has been recalibrated. Now, it’s seen as a country of brainy people and computer wizards.

Atul Vashistha, CEO of the consulting firm NeoIT, often appears in media to defend outsourcing. When his HP printer went kaput, called tech support. This guy answers and takes all information down. From his voice, it’s clear he is somewhere in India. They chat.

Towards the end, the technician said: ''Sir, I was very proud to hear you on ( tv )… You did a good job. ....' Atul had discussed backlash against globalization and outsourcing, with a union official, an economist.

“Remember: In the flat world you don't get just your humiliation dished out to you fiber-optically,” Atul recalls. You also get your pride dished out to you fiber-optically.” A help-line operator knows, in real time, how a compatriot represents his country half a world away. “And it makes him feel better about himself.”

The French and American Revolutions, Indian democracy, and even e-Bay, are all based on social contracts. Their dominant feature is : authority comes from the bottom up. And people can be empowered to improve their lot. Those who live in such contexts focus on what to do next, not on whom to blame next.*

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