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    Dara Shikoh Central to RSS 'Assimilation' Project

    Synopsis

    Universities such as Jamia Millia Islamia, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University are also in the process of setting up similar forums, those in know of the matter said. Specifically, the National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language, AMU and MANUU have been roped in for helping out the RSS with research for the project.

    UniversitiesAgencies
    Six months before the Ram temple verdict was announced in 2019, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh made an interesting push for Mughal prince Dara Shikoh as a "true Muslim intellectual" who initiated an attempt to foster discourse, peace and concord between Hindus and Muslims.

    Two years later, the project to promote Dara Shikoh's life and teachings has become the anchor of the RSS' larger project to assimilate Muslims.

    Earlier this week, the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), under its Dara Shikoh Centre for Inter-Faith Understanding and Dialogue, announced a panel of 'inter faith dialogue activists' with a mix of Muslim scholars, Christian clergy and academics who have researched on Hindu history and faith.

    Universities such as Jamia Millia Islamia, Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU), Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University are also in the process of setting up similar forums, those in know of the matter said. Specifically, the National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language (NCPUL), AMU and MANUU have been roped in for helping out the RSS with research for the project, particularly to consolidate Dara Shikoh's works and get them translated into different Indian regional languages, while India Islamic Cultural Centre has been tasked with increasing outreach with the Muslim intelligentsia on this matter.

    This outreach with Muslim scholars is being mobilised by the RSS and the task has been specifically assigned to senior leader Krishna Gopal who has held several high-level meetings in this regard. In 2019, in one of the many workshops held to promote Dara Shikoh, Gopal said, had Dara Shikoh been the Mughal emperor in place of his brother Aurangzeb, Islam would have “flourished more” in India, and Hindus and Muslims could have understood each other better.

    The Dara Shikoh project took off from there and the RSS roped in researchers and initiated an effort to find how many of Dara Shikoh's libraries still existed -- only one has been found and is being restored physically till now, near Kashmiri Gate in Old Delhi.

    It then started consolidating all of Dara Shikoh's work and commentary on them, specifically translations. Some enthusiastic supporters launched a search for his grave and concluded that it was 'found' at Humayun's tomb, while the NDMC, based on requests from BJP MPs, promptly renamed Dalhousie Road in New Delhi as Dara Shikoh Road.

    However, now, the project has started making substantial progress and is being developed as a fulcrum of the RSS' attempt to foster dialogue between Hindus and Muslims, starting with academics and students, said Sangh insiders. An expert panel of Muslim professors has been put in place to look for Muslim icons and come up with best ways of integrating literature that promotes inter-faith talks.

    Reputed names such as AMU VC Tariq Mansoor, Ainul Hasan, VC, MANUU, Hyderabad, Aquil Ahmed, NCPU director, researchers Mahsar Kamal and Nishad Fathima, Azharmi Dukht Safi and Sirajuddin Qureshi of the Islamic Centre are steering this, ET has learnt.

    There is also a list of Muslim icons who fought for the idea of nationalism and inclusive India, such as revolutionary Ashfaqulla Khan, leader of Salt Satyagraha Abbas Tyabji, Quit India movement leader from Kerala Vakkom Abdul Khadir and political activist and freedom fighter Ubaidullah Sindhi, Syed Ibrahim Khan, an Indian Sufi Muslim poet who became a devotee of the Hindu deity Krishna are being considered.

    Earlier this year, AMU hosted a workshop on Dara Shikoh attended by Gopal and minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, while MANUU has planned a discussion on Dara Shikoh's treatise on the similarities of Hinduism and Islam – Majma-ul-Bahrain or The Confluence of Two Seas, next month.

    According to AMU VC Tariq Mansoor said, "We are focussing on the commonalities between religions here, and through the Dara Shikoh centre, we intend to promote the good things present in them. People have been living in this country, despite diversities, for centuries. Dara Shikoh was the first to initiate inter faith dialogue, and his philosophy is relevant even today. We want to take the dialogue to people. We are working on the translations and many organisations are involved in this work."

    In one of the workshops on Dara Shikoh scholar and writer Jamileh Alamolhoda, who is Iran's first lady now, had participated and presented a paper on 'Interfaith dialogue', he added.

    National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language director Aquil Ahmad said under the project, Urdu copies of the translations of nearly 52 upanishads translated by Dara Shikoh to Persian are ready to be published in the next few months. "We brought out a book on his poetry last year and also on his main work, Majma-ul-Bahrain."

    A senior RSS leader, who is part of the project, said Dara Shikoh tried to present a stream of philosophy where Islam and hindutva could flow together, mainly by 'indianising Islam' for Indian Muslims. Referring to it as a search for "samanvay ke daage" (threads of commonalities), the attempt is to urge Muslims and Hindu leaders to sit across each other and discuss "commonalities within their respective religions that can, if not stop any conflict entirely,” at least soften the hostilities and foster peaceful living, he added.

    "Muslims have to look up to Dara, Akbar, APJ Abdul Kalam and the way they respect other religions and their deep interest in Indic thought. Given that India has the third-largest Muslim population in the world, it is important that it counters these narratives with its own icons who draw strength from its unique local ethos and value systems. Dara was the first to translate the Upanishads into Persian, which led to them being read in other countries. In a way the European countries got to know about them because of him," he added.

    The committee is also looking at the translations of Dara Shikoh's earliest books that were on Muslim sufi saints in the country, collecting extensive details about the dialogue sessions he held between Hindu and Muslim philosophers in five cities, including Prayagraj, Srinagar and Lahore.

    Essentially, for the RSS, this is about asking the Muslims to have "a deeper look at the country's rich history and their own past," an RSS functionary said. "We don't know if these activities will work. We have started with limited institutions, but we want to do our best. Unfortunately, many other organisations that RSS has no control over keep pushing controversies that are not good for the country. So, we want a proper dialogue."

    The RSS has been making outreach to the Muslim community for a while now. Before the Ram Temple verdict, Sangh leaders held many meetings with Muslim clergy and Hindu organisations to ensure "there are no violent demonstrations or loud celebrations that can threaten peace."

    Only recently, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had appealed to Hindus not to look for a shivling in every mosque, while also asking Muslims to delink themselves from the invaders who tried to destroy India.

    Last year, Bhagwat attended a closed-door meeting in Mumbai with Muslim intellectuals, after which, speaking in Ghaziabad a few days later, he sternly addressed the issue of lynching by gaurakshaks and said those indulging in such activities were going against the principles of Hindutva. He also asked Muslims not to get trapped in a “circle of fear” that their religion and way of life were in danger in India.

    Repeated calls for an Uniform Civil Code, the Hijab controversy in Karnataka, call for bans of Azaans on loud speakers and economic boycott of Muslim vendors, Hindu groups demanding worship rights at Gyanvapi in Varanasi and Shahi Idgah in Mathura and more recently, comments by some BJP spokespersons had triggered protests by Muslim organisations across the country. The RSS effort to intensify outreach also comes at a time of a diplomatic pushback by the Arab world in the light of controversial remarks on the Prophet by a BJP spokesperson on television.

    However, many experts and critics have said that RSS and BJP campaigns’ insistence on "Indianising Muslims" have led to unfair erasure of the ‘particular’ and ‘specific’ cultures of the community.

    Former AMU professor Rahman Sheikh told ET the Bharatiya-karan project itself was aimed at Muslims being subjected to rules and regulations set by Hindus, as Hindu-ness was no longer a faith, but representative of the nation.

    "There are constitutional safeguards for citizens and that is the most important demand for Muslims today. It is true that Dara Shikoh did model himself on his great grandfather Akbar and tried to weave together diverse cultural and religious strands. But he lived in a different era and was fighting personal battles to be an emperor. It might be overly simplistic to assess him in today's deeply divided context."


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