| Mughal India and Sectarian Bombs | |||
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By: Kishan Bhatia November 22, 2006 Views expressed here are author’s own and not of this website. Full disclaimer is at the bottom. 
FeedbackIn the pre-British India absence of adequate infrastructure for higher education deprived over 40 generation of Indians ruled by native Muslim and Hindu ruling elites, which resulted in an absence of a critical-mass of critical thinkers in South Asia. Lacking adequate abilities to master and exploit modern sciences Indian ruling elites couldn’t develop a second-to-none military power needed to defend freedoms against European colonizers. In the nuclear age, absences of adequate infrastructure for modern education in Muslim lands have left fifty-seven Muslim majority nations with a combined total of nearly one billion Muslims relatively backward in technical areas. Some Muslims nations, particularly Pakistan and Iran, are any thing but status quo nations. The limited scientific capabilities did not stop Pakistan from clandestinely acquiring nuclear and advanced missile technologies from China, North Korea and Western sources. They have also spread elements of nuclear technology to some other Muslim nations. If you have good critical thinking skills but for some reason are not motivated to deploy them – as is the case with Muslims of questionable scholarship, - you will reach conclusions and make decisions no more rationally than someone without those skills. In case of Muslim nations dominated by political opportunists Islam phobia spreads sending alarm bells to rational minds as they propagate fascism with a face of Islam, use jihadi terrorism on global scale and acquire nuclear capabilities. The essay presents two cases to illustrate unintended consequences of Muslims aversion to mastering modern sciences. Lacking a tradition of superior scholarship, over emphasis on the blind faith and suffering from “not invented here syndrome”, Muslim dominated nations have failed to build second-to-none military power. The absence of infrastructure for the higher education in pre-British India was a contributing factor for colonization of India and the spread of nuclear capabilities to Muslim nations responsible for jihadi terrorism have created conditions for a clash of sectarian dominated Muslim civilization. Mughal India: There are many facets to the Mughal Empire in India but most Muslims and other scholars have describe it as a glorious period in Indian History, but it was in many respects, for most parts, far from it. It is wrong not to recognize and learn from history as it is; instead of ignoring it as have been the case in Pakistan for most of its existence and a short period in India. European and many Indian scholars view history of India from tenth to nineteenth centuries using the colonial mindset. When it suits a purpose, Muslims correctly point out to good deeds of the followers of Sufi sect but ignore the ravages that Sunnis inflicted on Hindus at large and on those of other Muslim sects in pre-British India. The most glaring omission that most historians and learned commentators make is to ignore destruction of Hindu India’s educational infrastructure by Muslims rulers of India starting with the Sultanate period (tenth to thirteenth centuries) and concluding with the Mughal period (sixteenth to nineteenth centuries). Not a single center of education was established by Muslims during almost nine hundred years as rulers of parts of India! During British India period at the Aligarh Muslim University the Deobandi school of Muslim thought germinated. Some of its graduates and teachers precipitated the partition of India! A mix of Wahabi and Deobandi followers in Pakistan are responsible for perpetuating political insecurities of South Asia and unleashing terrorism on a global scale by adopting fascism with a face of Islam propagated by radical and fundamentalist clerics, power-hungry autocrats and elites obsessed with inferiority of Muslim political power. Isn’t it a South Asia tragedy that today’s generation is paying a price for neglect of education in India (or South Asia if that’s what Muslims prefer to call the area after partition,) for over nine hundred years, not to mention that many scholars have made cases to demonstrate a link in the decline of Muslim and Hindu powers in India and their woefully inadequate scholarship in areas of math, sciences and philosophy. With the exception of Muslim and Hindu treading communities, all across South Asia the ghettoisation of the Muslim community and that of India’s disadvantaged lower castes is attributable to backwardness that came with a lack of adequate education to empower these segments of South Asians with a critical mass of creative-thinkers. Lacking creative-thinking abilities, semi- and uneducated masses develop blind faith. If you have good skills but for some reason are not motivated to deploy them – as is the case with South Asians of questionable scholarship, - you will reach conclusions and make decisions no more rationally than someone without those skills. One only needs to listen to the fundamentalist and radical clerics of any faith to see how blind faith can lead to disastrous consequences. People with a belief system that has stayed frozen in the past continue to live with blind faith in a cycle of generation of poverty and dream of pre modern utopia. Europeans are blamed by chauvinistic South Asians for colonization after subjugating and humiliating Indians and their native rulers. But if Europeans had not mastered and exploited the power of modern scholarship starting with the renaissance period in Europe, to build a second to none military power in pursuit of economic growth through commerce, they too like most Muslims and disadvantaged Indian masses would have remained backward that they were more than a millennium ago. Sectarian Bombs: The Muslim Um’mah or the sphere of active Muslim believers is a highly fissiparous and regional. It is mixed with a myriad of localized customs, superstitions and hagiologies. Muslim history is littered with never ending sectarian and tribal rivalries and wars. Under current political conditions from Ankara to Islamabad, Shia and Sunnis, two dominant Muslim sects are most violent and determined to spread their political influence through autocratic and fascist methods. Jihadi terrorism is an element of fascism with a face of Islam. Pakistan managed to acquire nuclear technology and tested Islamic nuclear bombs in 1998. The proliferation of the bomb making technology accelerated with elements of the nuclear technology leaking out from Pakistan to several other third world nations. True to age old Shia - Sunni rivalries, unlike Sunni dominated Islamic nations, Pakistan’s Islamic bomb was recognized as the Sunni bomb by Shia Iran. Responding to Iran’s overt attempts to acquire nuclear capabilities, Saudi Arabia and Egypt among other Sunni dominated Mid East nations now have disclosed intentions for acquiring nuclear capabilities. Meanwhile, the Saudi Arabian and Egyptian plane hijackers spread terrorism originating in Afghanistan and Pakistan to America. America retaliated by invading and occupying both Afghanistan and Iraq, two nations bordering Iran. That the Americans are at its doorstep and a nuclear Sunni nation knee-deep in global terrorism is in the neighborhood should make any nation, and for sure, the Shia dominated Iran nervous. Spiraling oil prices flushed Iran and other OPEC nations with revenues it could only have dreamed of earlier. Knowing American military weaknesses, Iran chose to defy the IAEA and using elements of technology acquired through Pakistan decided to go for nuclear energy, creating a potential for the Shia-Sunni sectarian rivalry to acquire a nuclear dimension. As several other Sunni nations go nuclear in response to Iran, the stage for a sectarian show down is now set. With increasing number of Muslim nuclear states, the clash of civilizations can go either way: West vs. East or East vs. Mid East. Kishan Bhatia
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