The first city state in Greece was founded during 7th century BC. With the passage of time there were about 1000 city states in Greece which lasted up to 480 BC. The prominent city states were Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, Syracus, Rodos and Eretria etc.. The main contribution of Greece city state was introduction of Direct Democracy which gave way for modern Representative Democracy. About 1100 years later in 622 AD, ‘Constitution of Medina’ was formulated in the city of Yathrib (Medina) in Arabia by Muhammad, the prophet of Islam.
As per Islamic traditions, Muhammad with about a hundred of his early followers (Muslims) migrated from Mecca to Yathrib city in 622 AD. Soon after that, conflicts started between Mecca followers of Muhammad (Mohajir) and different local Jewish tribes of Yathrib, including local converts to Islam (Ansar). To run Yathrib as first Islamic City State, Muhammad drew up the ‘Constitution of Medina’ which was aimed at resolving conflicts between different tribes residing in Medina. Though there is no original document of the Constitution of Medina, it is mentioned in the edited biography of Muhammad written by ibn Hisham about 225 years after Muhammad’s death.
Arabic word Madhhab (in South Asia pronounced as Majhab) means “way to act”. The nearest English expression for Madhhab is ‘school of Islamic jurisprudence’. There are four Sunni Madhhab, namely Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi and Hanbali. All four schools of Islamic jurisprudence were formalized by Islamic scholars between 9th and 10th century. We also find first reference of ‘Constitution of Medina’ during mid 9th century AD only. These four schools recognize each other’s validity and they have interacted in legal debate over the centuries. Rulings of these schools are followed across the Muslim world. Hanafi School is followed in South Asia (Pakistan, India and Bangladesh).
The transformations of Islamic legal institutions in the modern era have had profound implications for the Madhhab system. Legal practice in most of the Muslim world has come to be controlled by government policy and state law, so that the influence of the Madhhab, beyond personal ritual practices, depends on the status accorded to them within the national legal system. But at psychological level, Madhhab is an integral part of Islam and no Muslim can dare to brush away the Madhhab he belongs to.
Since Islam divides humans into Muslims (Momins) and non-Muslims (Kafirs), the position of Kafir in Islamic state is a central theme of Islamic statehood. The Hanafi and Maliki Madhhab allow non-Muslims (Kafir) in general to have Dhimmi status. In contrast, the Shafi and Hanbali Madhhab only allow Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians to have Dhimmi status, while maintaining all other non-Muslims must either convert to Islam or be fought. While Democracy was the contribution of city states of ancient Greece, Islamic state in middle age contributed Dhimmi to humanity.
The word Dhimmi literally means “Protected Kafir“, referring to the state’s obligation under Sharia to protect the Kafir individual’s life, property, as well as freedom of religion, in exchange for loyalty to the state and payment of the Jizya (protection tax). Jizya was like ‘protection money’ of present day Mafiadom. The ‘Pact of Umar’, issued by the Second Islamic Caliph Umar, imposed a long list of humiliating conditions on Dhimmi. For example, Dhimmi had to move from their seats if a Muslim wished to sit there, and they were forbidden from manifesting their religion in public. The ‘Pact of Umar’ gained canonical status in Islamic jurisprudence.
In India under Muslim rule, Hindus were humiliated by Muslim Jizya collectors. While paying Jizya, the Hindu had to kneel before the Muslim official, lower his eyes and even allow the Muslim official to spit on him. Failure to pay the Jizya could result in the pledge of protection of a Dhimmi’s life and property becoming void, with the Dhimmi facing the alternatives of conversion, enslavement, death or imprisonment. In modern day Muslim majority countries, humiliation of Dhimmi has been replaced by discrimination and persecution of Kafir in a thousand ways. None of Muslim majority countries treats Kafirs equally.
With all these historical facts or beliefs in his mind when an Indian Muslim thinks of a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ in India, he simply shudders in fear of his status as ‘Muslim Dhimmi’ in ‘Hindu India’. He looks at ‘Hindu Rashtra’ through his Islamic smoked glass and gets worried and restless and starts crying against the imaginary evil of ‘Hindu Rashtra’. His bias and ignorance about Hinduism also help him to be paranoid. What he does not care to know that Hinduism has no concepts of anything like Kafir, Dhimmi or Jizya. A Sanskrit term, Mlechchha was used by the Vedic people much as the ancient Greeks used Barbaros, originally to indicate the uncouth and incomprehensible speech of foreigners and then extended to their unfamiliar behaviors. Mlechchhas were found in ancient northwestern India, and included people like Huns, Sakas, Yavanas, and Pahlavas. As a Mlechchha, any foreigner stood completely outside the Hindu caste system. Thus historically speaking, contact with Mlechchhas was viewed by the caste Hindu as polluting. Following Muslim invasions of India, Hindus started using the word Mlechchha for Muslims too. But that was a sociological expression without any repressive connotation.
The Constituent Assembly India was dominated heavily by Hindus. But still Constitution of India accorded equal rights of all types; including preaching and practicing of own religion to all its citizens. Then in 1976, the word ‘Secularism’ was incorporated in the Preamble of Indian Constitution. In 1951, Muslim constituted 8 per cent of India’s population and now it is 18 per cent. This sign of healthy demography in favor of Indian Muslims, unlike Pakistani and Bangladeshi Hindus, is the litmus test that Indian Muslims are not persecuted in Hindu majority India, least to talk of being driven out of the country. All has been possible as India has been a Hindu majority country. This reflected the essence of Hinduism.
Hinduism has its tenets like Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam and Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah, Sarve Santu Niramaya. Strictly speaking, there is no example of ‘Hindu Rashtra’ in history. Chanakya (371 BC to 282 BC) wrote as to how the state craft, diplomacy and administration of a good kingdom should be. In modern time, Maratha Hindu Kingdom of Shivaji Maharaj (1674 Ad to 1680 AD) functioned as secular and inclusive Hindu kingdom. There is no reason to believe that a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ has to be theocratic. The Hindu value system will rather strengthen the secular democracy of India. It will also be a balancing power against violent Islamic value system in India that has been causing many problems since a century at least.
The Left-Liberal cabal of India, like its Islamist counterpart, is against ‘Hindu Rashtra’ because of its disruptive ideology. The cabal members smell their much loved anarchy by opposing the majority community and aligning with violent component of particular minority community of India. They don’t have any problem with Islamic state and persecution of religious minorities there, but start crying the moment they are faced with all inclusive prospect of ‘Hindu Rashtra’ in India.