The Angry Young Secularist

By Arshia Malik

If one is researching the emergence of critical thought and reasoning in Muslim culture in the subcontinent of India, one is bound to come across the work of Hamid Dalwai.

Sceptics in Islam are not new, but they are not exactly well-known too. It is only now that due to the advent of technology, one is able to piece together the zanadiqa (heretic) traditions in Islam and discover strains of reasoning (Mutazalite) and 'ridda' (doubt).

Though it is a matter of geopolitics that Western researchers and scholars are discovering them in multitudes, what is fascinating is that the dissenters within the Muslim community in South Asia are no less in number.

In these politically correct times, it is no surprise that Hamid Dalwai is not known much in India, especially in his own home state.

Born on September 29, 1932, in Mirjoli village of Ratnagiri district in Konkan, Maharashtra, he is most famous for the March that he organised without any political backing for the rights of Muslim women, in 1966 on April 18 against the triple talaq, (oral pronunciation of divorce in Muslim Personal Laws banned in most Muslim majority countries except India till a recent Supreme Court ruling).

He was only able to gather seven Muslim women including his wife Mehrunissa Dalwai, a revolutionary lady in her own way, for the March which is now an iconic photograph showing Hamid Dalwai holding a placard. But he pioneered the Muslim Reform Movement by criticising the regressive practices in Islam on the subcontinent and demanded the scrapping of triple talaq, polygamy and the regressive practice of 'halala'.

He was of the opinion marriage should be based on the laws of the Constitution and tirelessly campaigned for a common civil code. Decades later, the youth of India would rush to the archives in their respective libraries to see what experts had to say about the Supreme Court hearings on triple talaq and out tumbled Hamid Dalwai's personality, his novel 'Indhan' (Fuel) and his views as told to his close friends especially Dilip Chitre who recorded them verbatim and published them in English, Marathi being the vernacular Hamid Dalwai preferred.

'Angry Young Secularist' - Hamid Dalwai earned the nickname twice over with his continuous clash with the Deoband brand of Islam taught by mullahs as well as the extremist and increasingly 'fascist' far-right Hindutva groups of India.

Fearless, rational, atheist, secular, patriotic and reasonably nationalistic, Hamid Dalwai is the kind of leader that the youth of India especially those of Muslim heritage are discovering. Influenced by Ram Manohar Lohia, Jai Prakash Narayan, and Mahatma Gandhi (freedom fighters and builders of the Indian Republic), Hamid Dalwai also established the Muslim Satyashodak (truth-seeking) Mandal.

Unfortunately, Hamid Dalwai died too young at the age of 44 on May 3, 1977, of a kidney ailment. Though his legacy lives on gaining momentum, 'Hamidness' is something every secularist and liberal has missed out on if he/she hasn't heard of him or read him once.

Being Hamid Dalwai means no quarter given to nonsense, superstition, and dogma.

Source: IANS