The e-mail gave me much to think about, both because of its own thoughtfulness and because it is always salutary for a writer to be reminded that one must never become too complacent in the belief that one's own good intentions are self-evident. I responded by pointing out that certain cultural symbols are identified with a religious community but used by both — I mentioned the Hindu custom of the smashing of coconuts in my piece; I know Muslim women who wear the bindi for decorative purposes, and Hindu men who wear an achkan. Most Hindus do join in Muslim celebrations when invited, though the iftar parties thrown during Ramadan by sundry politicians suggest both tokenism and opportunism.
In my column I had put the Hindu in “‘Hindu’ names” within quotes because the names of the Amritraj trio are actually no more Hindu than the names Bashir or Jamal are Muslim. Vijay and Anand are merely Sanksrit words connoting victory and bliss respectively, which have been used as names for millennia. Ashok is the name of a Buddhist king. They are indeed names with a hoary pedigree on Indian soil, which is why I suggested their use might have seemed more “nationalist.” I believe my entire published work would demonstrate vividly that I have never identified Indianness with Hinduness, “a part with the whole.”
Having said that, though, I was concerned by Muslims using Arab names as “a joyous affirmation of being able to participate not only in a local heritage but also in a culture that goes beyond national boundaries.” First of all, what is this culture? It is not Islam, because Arab names are pre-Islamic and the same names are used by all Arabs, Christian, Muslim, or Druze. Should an Indian Muslim feel more affinity with Arab culture than with Indian? I hoped not, because then she would be giving ammunition to the worst bigots on the Hindutva side.
Ms. Habib's reply was impressive:
If we go back to the linguistic and geographical roots of “amrit” and “bashir,” there is indeed nothing remotely religious about them. But to do so is to deny the cultural associations that have accrued to them over centuries of use. Most Indian Muslims naming their children are not trying to create a mini-Arabia.
But religion plays an important role in culture (and the cultural-identification process of naming). A name is not its original meaning; it is what it represents. Arab names may represent a geographical affiliation to Christian Arabs; to Indian Muslims, it represents the religion which originated in the Middle East. Piqued by your use of the phrase “obliged to,” I was trying to point out that Indian Muslims have a dual heritage — that of the national culture encompassing the Ramayana and the freedom struggle as well as that of the Muslim civilization.
Fair enough — though I sense much room for further debate on this point. I was struck, nonetheless, by her observation about the paucity of Muslim or Christian symbols in our public spaces — of holidays being granted for Deepavali and not for Muharram in the Delhi publishing house in which she worked. These are, for the most part, unintentional slights. But her raising it is one more reminder that one can never fully put oneself in the shoes of another.
And yet, as I have often written, who in India is not a minority? A Keralite friend recently reminded me of the “southern discomfort” the journalist Madhavan Kutty wrote about in describing his experience of North India. In that case it's not being on the “wrong side of the accident of numbers”; it's being on the other side of the accident of geography and location. But if we were to remain perpetually on our own side, where would be the “magic of constantly challenging” not only our preconceptions, but our expectations of what Indianness can be?
That throwaway line observing that “Muslim Indians still feel obliged to adopt Arab names in deference to the roots of their faith” provoked a flurry of correspondence, many from other Christian readers who themselves do the same as the Amritrajes, a few from Hindus citing examples of friends of other faiths adopting Hindu names, and several from Muslims explaining to me why their names were as they should be.
The clearest explanation in the latter category came from my friend Professor Mohammed Ayoob, the eminent scholar from Orissa who currently teaches in Michigan. Ayoob-sahib pointed out that most Arabic names adopted by Indian Muslims are, in the perception of Muslims, Quranic (and therefore Islamic) rather than “Arabic.” In other words, such names imply no extraterritorial allegiances, only loyalty to the wellsprings of the Holy Book. Some of the most common Muslim names, Professor Ayoob tells me, are names of prophets mentioned in the Quran. For example, Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses), Isa (Jesus), Yaqub (Jacob), Yusuf (Joseph), and Ayoob (Job). The same principle applies, naturally, to Muhammad and Ahmed (which is a variation of Muhammad — literally one who sings the praise of God).
There is a second set of Muslim names that have the prefix Abdul (literally servant or slave, the equivalent of Das in Hindu names). Abdul is prefixed to one of the ninety-nine names of God in the Quran that identify his various attributes, which gives us Abdul Rahim, Abdul Rahman, Abdul Karim, Abdul Latif, Abdul Qadir, and so on. “These are equivalent to Bhagwan Das or Ram Das among Hindu names,” says Professor Ayoob. (Or, for that matter, “Jesudas” among Indian Christian names.)
The third set of names came from those of the Prophet's companions or from his family: Ali, Abu Bakr, Omar, Usman, Jaafar, Saad, Hassan, Hussein, Aisha, Fatima, etc. “These were adopted not because they were Arabic,” writes Professor Ayoob, “but because these figures are held in high respect by Muslims all over the world.” Fair enough.
These three sets make up the bulk of Arabic names among Muslim Indians, but there is also a fourth category. Professor Ayoob explains: “Non-Quranic Arabic names have been recently adopted especially as a result of the Gulf oil boom and the sizable number of Indian Muslims who have migrated to West Asia temporarily to find livelihood. They come into contact with Arabs who have non-Islamic Arab names, mistakenly think they are Islamic, and sometimes give such names to their children. Since the returnees from the Gulf are perceived as role models among low-middle-class and working-class Muslims because they have made money, the latter begin to name their children after those of the returnees and the contagion spreads.” However, non-Quranic and non-Islamic Arab names, he stresses, are in a very small minority among Indian Muslims.
Why is this issue important at all? The question of the “foreign origin” of the names used by Indian minorities has become one element of the Hindutva assault on them for being insufficiently Indian. In one passage of his 1923 book, Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu? Veer Savarkar questions the patriotism of India's minority Muslim and Christian communities because “they do not look upon India as their holy land,” he wrote. “Their holy land is far off in Arabia and Palestine. Consequently their names and their outlook smack of foreign origin. Their love is divided.” The implication is that the Muslims should seek inspiration in India's culture rather than Arabia's.
Professor Ayoob argues:
Arabic names are assumed by Indian Muslims not because of cultural affinity. Islam came to India (with the exception of Kerala) from the Turko-Persian lands of Central Asia. The cultural influence is, therefore, Persian more than Arab. Persian was the court language and the language of literature and of high culture. A cultured gentleman in north India until the turn of the twentieth century had to know Persian and had to be able to quote Persian couplets (this applied to both Hindu and Muslim old elites). Muslim elite families, therefore, adopted names of Persian origin for reasons of cultural and linguistic affinity. This had little to do with religion. Therefore, names like Parvez, Parveen, Firoz, Firoza, Shireen, Mehnaz, Mehjabeen, Shahnaz, Humayun, once adopted by elite families, also gradually became popular among the lower strata of society, although I would wager that Persian names are more common among the elite than they are among the “subalterns.” Some Arabic names come through Persian because Arabic words, including names, have over time been adopted in Persian.