Sources of the self

Part - II
Untimely meditations
Although Sir Sayyed appropriated modernity to create a modern Muslim self, he compromised its purity in the process. Therefore, his project of modernity remained incomplete and fragmentary. That is why traditional scholarship of the modern period dubbed Indian Muslims’ narrative of modernity during the colonial period as apologetic.
However, the tendency to reject Muslim reformers’ efforts of modernisation prevents us from viewing the processes that went into the construction of our modern self and state. Faisal Devji in his paper ‘Apologetic Modernity’ argues against such an essentialist approach that tend to reject Muslim discourse of modernity in India. He aserts “that Muslim apologetics created a modernity whose rejection of purity and autonomy permitted it a distinctive conceptual form.” He think that “the fragmentary nature of such thought also allowed its practitioners to be modern in curious and not-quite-European ways.” Although the project of modernity by Muslim reformers was impure, fragmentary and incomplete, it did provide a locus for thinkers to intellectually engage with modernity.
A pluralist self and open society can be created by allowing our minds to explore the possibilities of a new conceptual form of modernity. This possibility is forestalled by omniscient modernity that does not approve of any profanity committed against its sacred essence of universality. Since early modern Muslim reformers inhabited the time of modernity, they were bound to be influenced by modern developments in economy, technology and politics.
The process of the formation of the Muslim self entailed multiple modern factors whose functioning in the Indian Muslim milieu contributed to the creation of a new consciousness. Ayesha Jalal in her magisterial book ‘Self and Sovereignty’ declares the press and poetry as markers of identity in the late nineteenth century. Vernacular press for the first time created modern readership and public opinion in India. It changed the whole processes of knowledge production and dissemination.
In the form of printed books, the printing press provided a medium that directly interacted with the reader. Printed books robed the aura and relevancy of charisma associated with the human mediator who transmitted meaning and message of the texts to people who tend to be more follower than readers. With the increase of literacy, the demand of printed material never declined. Also, novels provided archetypal characters for modern literate Muslim men/women to imbue their own selves in the hues of such figures, albeit fictional.
Allama Iqbal holds an eminent position among thinkers of the colonial period for the central role of self (khudi) in his philosophy. He was well acquainted with western intellectual tradition and culture. Iqbal closely witnessed the culture of disbelief that dominated the west after the famous pronouncement of ‘Death of God’ by Friedrich Nietzsche.
The disappearance of the omnipresent and omnipotent Being cleared the ground for Nietzsche to formulate his idea of authentic self. It is wrong to attribute the end of the sacred to Nietzsche. He tried to diagnose a deep cultural malaise in modern civilisation, which took a different form and opted for a new rational order. Repudiating all the ideas related to traditional religion and modern rationality, he propounded a concept of a new self in the shape of Übermensch – superman.
Nietzsche proved to be an inspiring and problematic figure for Iqbal at the same time – inspiring because of the former’s daring revolt against metaphysics and insights into hidden psychological processes that determines the course of whole culture and nature of the self. Iqbal did not have a chance for a fresh start, with nothing carried over from the past, to create a new self.
The inability of Iqbal to escape God and the past stems from the fact that unlike the disenchanted west, God still enchanted every sphere of life in the east. Therefore, Iqbal had to take only inspiration from Nietzsche, but for solutions he had to employ eclectic metaphors and symbols drawn from religion, modern science and philosophy. This contributed to ambivalence, contradiction and impurity in Iqbal’s works. By the same token, these are the characteristics which make his poetry polysemous.
Iqbal took upon himself to infuse new meaning into ossified words and metaphors, for these tend to get ossified with the passage of time. Once the words are embraced as metaphors with a fixed message, then dogma sets in. Traditionally, Sufi symbolism, practices, approach and language provided space for profanity within religion and expanded the metaphor.
Despite his criticism of some of the dimensions of Sufism, Iqbal relied on its irreverent aptitude towards religious authorities for the reason that it provided a niche to launch an internal critique of self and society created by dogmatic worldview. Allama Iqbal’s poetic oeuvre provides a picture of a radical individual who dares to question, explores the depths of ocean and pull the stars down. Hence, he dares to irreverently question the self, society and divinity, especially his famous poetical work of Shikwa.
All the aforementioned developments did not follow a pre-meditated or planned path. On the contrary, an array of actors, factors, characters, writers, scholars, and developments in politics, economy and technology converge in a particular place and time to give birth to a new idea of self, society and state in India.
The creation of a new state in the shape of Pakistan on the basis of religion was an outcome of a fragmented and incomplete project of modernity whose script was not in the control of the authors who were enunciating it. That was why a peacenik like Gandhi and a secular like Jinnah could not stop the carnage following the partition of India.
To be continued
The writer is a freelance columnist based in Islamabad.
Email: azizalidad@gmail.com