This year, again, the world’s Muslims celebrated Eid al-Fitr Id-ul-Fitr twice. Eid was on Sunday, 20 September, for 850 million Muslims—350 million Arabs, 235 million Indonesians, 16 million Malaysians, Somalis, Nigerians, Chinese, Turks, Kurds, Iranians, Kosovans, Uzbeks, Afghans and Chechens.
Eid was Monday, 21 September, for the world’s other 480 million Muslims—Pakistanis, Indians and Bangladeshis.
A question of faith: Eid al-Fitr prayers at the Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi (above), held a day before prayers at Islamabad’s Faisal Mosque.
The second group fasted when the first was feasting. Only Satan fasts on Eid, so this is a serious matter. And Muslims love their
ummah, so what explains the split?
The first group anticipated Eid. They consulted science to know when the lunar month of Ramzan ended, and when the first moon of Shawwal would appear. The second group would not end Ramzan till they physically saw the moon. The difference isn’t trivial. On 19 January 1998, two Muslims preaching rationalism in Mumbai’s Jama Masjid were killed in a dispute over the Shawwal moon. Without this visual satisfaction, every year, desi Muslims refuse to end their fast.
Why? Their culture isn’t really Islamic; it’s Hindu. That explains the idolatry towards the moon. Only one group of South Asian Muslims celebrated Eid on Sunday with the rest of the world, and that was the Pashtuns of the Frontier. We instinctively know they are different: more Afghan than Indian.
Indian Islam, like Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism and the animism of the scheduled tribes, is really an aspect of Hindu culture. Muslims bow to a different deity, but in India that means little. The Patels of Charotar worship Krishna as Rannchhod. The word means “he who ran from battle”. It refers to Krishna’s fleeing the ferocious attacks of Jarasandh and his general Kalyavan, abandoning the people of Mathura for Dwarka. Patels are not an insignificant community: Vallabhbhai, Praful and half of America’s motels. They worship Krishna’s instinct of self-preservation because it saves his life. But it will put off other Hindus who venerate the war-like Krishna of the Bhagavad Gita, a very different deity from Rannchhod.
Also Read Aakar Patel’s previous Lounge columns
Muslims might see themselves as having two identities, Muslim and Indian. But the first is quite superficial, and the second is really Hindu.
In his Vijayadashami address on 27 September, RSS sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat said this: “The word ‘Hindu’ does not symbolize any particular way of worship, language, province, creed or religion. Actually it signifies an ancient culture, a way of life that has come down to us through (the) ages.”