Reza Aslan's Believer reflects subtle truths about India's caste system
The debate around Reza Aslan’s show Believer should have subsided, if not ended by now.
It’s been a couple of weeks since the series made its debut. Even World Cup losses fade out of memory in this period, with cricket being the biggest religion in this region.
Reza’s popularity (and notoriety) is primarily as one of the better-known critics of Islamophobia. Articulate and sharp-witted, there are times when watching him speak on TV, his screen presence can make it difficult for people to imagine him as a writer.
Rather, a scholar of religions, as he likes to put it.
Of course, I believe there is a need for more people like him. Not from among Muslims alone, Islam being the faith which Reza identifies with.
Even though I have trouble understanding what he means by saying that he believes, in particular, the Sufi tradition.
That statement itself comes laden with a caveat. A soft forsaking which says, “Hey yeah, I know there’s a violent strand of Islam, but no, not me”.
The simple assertion that a Muslim is a Muslim not being good enough is equally a part of creating problematic perceptions.
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| We can shred the show apart in as many ways as possible, yet, there remain two key messages we need to consider. Photo: YouTube |
There has been a range of reactions to the show, mostly negative (and mostly deservedly).
The more acerbic ones have, naturally, also made Reza’s faith the target of their derision. One of the more ludicrous pieces based its criticism, in an exercise of academic erudition, on the premise of something called “Islamic Orientalism” while denying the presence of the caste system in Hindu society.
Focusing on Reza’s identity as a Muslim and challenging him to do a show on “Islamic terrorism” is doing to Islam what many Hindus feel he has done to them.
In making Believer, it isn’t that Reza is performing an Islamic duty. Neither, and I say this after wasting forty-five minutes at the altar of curiosity, is there anything that he says or does in the show which derives itself from Islam and its central beliefs.
So please, in an attempt to add another block into building a Hindutva narrative of Islam being the unrelenting oppressor, let’s not turn this into something it isn’t.
The show needs to be called out for what it is. A stupid TV show which, like every other, wants to grab TRPs.
In view of the present climate in the United States, it is indeed bad timing.
Regardless, focusing on an extreme, fringe sect as a representation of a complex religion isn’t prudent.
Especially when the intended audience has little understanding of Hinduism, and there is a good chance that what they see will form their perception about the faith.
Making it the debut episode couldn’t have been a coincidence.
It’s unlikely they would have found anything to match the theatrics of a drunk Aghori sadhu.
If there was anything else which would have been better television for them, that would have come first.
Sadly, that’s a limitation of the medium, and more than anyone else, we have ourselves to blame for it.
Viewing the episode from the perspective of an Indian, as someone with an understanding of the Hindu religion that’s probably better, even if by a slight margin, than what Reza has chosen to portray; as someone who has experienced the religion by spending a lifetime in close proximity — as friends, neighbours, family — with those who identify as Hindus, and not only in academic pursuit or spiritual adventure; as someone who belongs to the same geography of culture that Benaras is a part of — there is something else that bothers me.
We can shred the show apart in as many ways as possible, yet, there remain two key messages we need to consider.
It’s shameful these have been ignored and not much is being said about them.
As part of the responsibilities of my first job, I had to make weekly trips to Benaras.
Despite being aware of the significance of the city, I could never really develop a bond with it.
What used to bother me then, just as it does now, was a singular question: if the place is so sacred and revered, what holds everyone back from keeping the city clean?
I realise now that I might have been rewarded better if I had dug deeper to find more in the city. A decade and a half ago, the filth was enough to dissuade me from looking beyond the surface.
It isn’t different for the Ganga either. Living a few hundred kilometres upstream from Benaras, I know that the river only gets worse by the time one reaches the banks.
It is this that made up the reticence amounting to panic for the “germophobic” Reza when faced with the prospect of taking a dip.
He goes on about how there are entire carcasses floating, people taking a dump in the water, not to mention human ashes and the staple of any Indian river — untreated sewage.
The sight of our cities and rivers is a matter of shame. Not for any particular religion, but everyone who lives there, irrespective of what or who they believe in.
Even more shameful is that there was the need of a state-sponsored campaign, the efficacy of which is still suspect, to mobilise people to clean up their own environs.
It isn’t unusual to hear the Swachh Bharat jingle ringtone in a public place, only to be followed by the phone’s owner spitting out a mouthful of pan masala before he can speak.
It is untouchability, or the caste system in the Hindu religion, which forms the premise on which Reza bases his show.
The same premise is why he sets out to interact with Aghoris, because they reject caste.
Existence of the caste system, in today’s world, is a blot on each one of us.
The persecution of Dalits continues even today, with stories of their murders and rapes reported on a daily basis from the across the country.
This apart from the discrimination they face in their everyday lives; in addition to their condemnation as being fit only for performing menial labour.
This isn’t something which only Hindus need to be ashamed of. Untouchability maybe unknown among Indian Muslims, yet the caste system exists within different sections of the community.
Critics may see this as a legacy of conversion, with people carrying their castes and professions with them.
But, it’s been a few hundred years since these communities entered Islam. That should have been enough time to make amends. Instead, the promise of a truly egalitarian societal setup as promised within Islam isn't the life experience they ended up with.
It isn’t incidental, but ironical, that both these issues were exploited, albeit in different ways, by the victorious party to secure its place in the 2017 UP elections.
Unless we start seeing through narrow political ambitions and engage in the right conversations, we will continue to be lost in muddled narratives.