On the Hindu-Muslim Question

Mumbai’s Shiv Sena “boss” (a.k.a. “supremo”), Bal Thackeray, has written an editorial in his Marathi “mouthpiece”, Saamna, calling for “Hindu suicide squads”.

He has done this not long after this piece of recent news:

"New Delhi, June 6: After declaring terrorism as anti-Islamic, the Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind is all set to launch a website to clarify misconceptions regarding Islam. Jamiat, one of the leading Islamic organisations in the country, had hit the headlines recently by organising a massive rally in Delhi where clerics from every state came together to issue a fatwa against terror."

Thankfully, we Hindus – as opposed to hindoos – do not belong to the Thackeray cult.

This gives me a wonderful opportunity to use my own mouthpiece to air the liberal position on the Hindu-Muslim question, that too, in English, the weltsprache.

It is this:

Both the Hindu and the Muslim faith endorse the free market.

Hinduism said Shubh Laabh aeons before Adam Smith revealed this vital insight to the West: that private profits are also good for society as a whole: profits are “auspicious”. Adam Smith is dated 1776 – and this insight still does not inform the West, who are plagued by socialist visions of numerous kinds.

Hindus are proud their forefathers discovered the Zero.

They should be even more proud of Shubh laabh – and the idea that dharma, artha, kama, moksha are the “ends of life”.

Note that the position of artha is ahead of kama but following dharma – which means that Hindu “morality” (or dharma) meant earning one’s artha and enjoying kama in ways that did not use unjust means. In worldly matters there are only two relevant moralities: the economic and the sexual, and it is interesting that economic morality matters more to the Hindu than sexual morality – though both matter.

Islam is THE religion of the market. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was a trader, as was his wife Khadija. The Prophet once said, “He who makes money pleases Allah.”

Much of the Koran is written using idioms and metaphors from the market and trade.

Islam is a religion of traders, not soldiers.

And yes, they have sexual freedom too.

And all their worldly morality concerns only the economic and sexual spheres. They abhor riba – or “unjust profit”. And marriage is but a contract to them. We could learn much.

Not only are Islam and Hinduism free market religions, they also contain the basic element of an anarchistic vision. There is no Supreme Book or Supreme Pope in Hinduism. We have to find our own “guru” – and there are millions of them; many, of course, complete frauds.

In Islam too, the germ of the idea that knowledge (or ilm) must be completely free clearly exists. The word “ilm” is the most recurring word in the Koran – and it is interesting that when disputes arise in Islam, scholars, not priests, address them.

The liberal should not be surprised to find that not only Hinduism and Islam, but even Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism endorse free markets – because this is the only “moral” means of survival. Adam Smith was not an “economist”: he was a moral philosopher.

So we return to the only issue that matters in Indian politics today: a new moral consensus to replace the old moral consensus that Nehru forged, according to which profit was a “dirty word”.

This ungodly faith of Nehruvianism must be replaced, not only by sound economic theory in the classrooms, but also, on the streets and in the bazaars, by the new moral consensus regarding Shubh Laabh; dharma, artha, kama, moksha; and “He who makes money pleases Allah.”

This is the political task before India’s liberals – not elections. Thackeray has given us a wonderful opportunity - that too, in Mumbai!

Read my "The Purpose of Politics".