Hameed's memoir calls for reclaiming India's spirit of communal harmony

The book reveals the India that once was, a plural state for which the liberal elite waxes nostalgic, and the India that could be by defeating rising Islamophobia

A Drop in the Ocean: The Story of My Life

Author: Syeda Saiyidain Hameed

Publisher: Speaking Tiger

Pages: 264  

Price: Rs 599

 

In India today it is difficult to imagine a period of uninterrupted communal harmony, with reports of lynching, hate speech and bigotry surfacing with rising frequency. So it comes as no surprise that an Indian Muslim woman feels the need to tell the story of her life in which she was often sheltered and accepted by Hindus around her. Syeda Saiyidain Hameed’s memoir, A Drop in the Ocean, reveals the India that once was, a plural state for which the liberal elite waxes nostalgic, and the India that could be by defeating rising Islamophobia.

 

This renowned social activist and former member of the erstwhile Planning Commission speaks candidly of her life in India and Canada. In doing so, she asserts all her identities: Indian, Kashmiri, Muslim, woman, wife, mother, social activist, author and translator. She highlights the Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb, the syncretic Hindu and Muslim cultural tradition of north India, in which she grew up in Delhi, and expresses her wish to preserve it. She fills her prose with poems ranging from Ghalib to Yeats and Faiz. Her ancestry traces back to the Prophet Muhammad’s lineage, including her great-grandfather, Maulana Hali, who was one of the first Urdu poets to write feminist verses in 1905.

 

Her candidness is intentional as she found her identity in the public forum, changing from being an Indian woman to an Indian Muslim woman in the face of rising right-wing politics. She writes about her aunt, the Sahitya Akademi and Padma Bhushan awardee Saliha Abid Husain, who propagated “the true face of Islam — liberal, enlightened, and gendered” through her works. Hameed was deeply inspired by her and practiced a similar Islam. She became aware of her Muslim identity at the age of nine when children stopped playing with her on learning her name. Later she discusses a video of destruction of the bust of India’s first education minister, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, in 2018 in West Bengal. He was the “man who was an active member of Jugantar and Anushilan, underground resistance movements born in Bengal before the formal struggle [for India’s independence] was launched in Kolkata” in 1912. The name is enough for hate to take shape, whether in the years following India’s independence or today, she points out. The only thing that has changed perhaps in the last 78 years is that people no longer condemn divisive politics that favour a uniform Hindu Rashtra.

 

One harrowing incident she recounts from her time as a member of the National Commission for Women is the consequences for a young Muslim couple who marry of their own accord. The entire community comes forward to punish them, especially the woman, stating she has married into the same gotra or clan, a socially unacceptable practice among some sections of Hindus. When it is pointed out that the concept of gotra does not exist in Islam, the villagers aggressively disagrees. As she points out, this is an example of how deeply Indians have been influenced by their diverse history, which has also led to intermingling of various religious beliefs and practices. So where do we draw the line between different religious practices? Which Islam is being villainised today?

 

Hameed’s works as a women’s rights champion are well known. What might be less known is her friendship with Khushwant Singh, who had a special mat saved for her at his home to offer prayers during Ramzan. She talks of Singh with gratitude, recalling how he encouraged her to be a writer, beginning with the story she wrote at the age of nine, ensured she was paid for her work by publishers, and urged her to make people aware of the true essence of Islam. She also talks of her enduring friendships with social activists Mohini Giri and Gagan Sethi and with the poet Kamla Bhasin.

 

Though Hameed witnessed hatred against Muslims early in life, she grew up in an urban India based on Nehruvian principles and acquired an education in India and abroad. Since this wasn’t necessarily the case for Muslim women across the country, especially those from poor backgrounds, her memoir is occasionally frustrating to read. In many instances, she is far from the ground reality of hatred and violence. but she claims “I identified myself with what I saw”. She has been, in her own words, a “chashmadeed gawah” (witness) of atrocities against women and the desire for peace in common people across the borders. In many instances, she has been helpless but she has also been at the forefront of change at a policy level for women in India and for peace between India and Pakistan.

 

Despite being a devout Muslim, Hameed’s life story isn’t simply a plea for understanding the essence of her Islam; it is a series of acceptances by people of different religions around her, something for everyone to think about. She discusses her trauma at the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the 2002 Gujarat pogrom, but she talks a lot more about harmony, of all the people who were by her side in person and in spirit all her life. She was sheltered by people of all religions, and this is precisely what she aspires for India to become again — a country where people look out for each other and stand together in the face of rising communal divisiveness.

 

The reviewer is an independent writer based in Sambalpur. She is @geekyliterati on Instagram and X