In a recent presentation to Asians in New York, M. J. Akbar talked about the difficulty in relating Islam and the West - one a religion, the other a region. An article by Tufail Ahmad, first posted in Henry Jackson Society.

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During a conversation at the Asia Society in New York in March 2009, eminent Indian journalist and author M. J. Akbar remarked: ‘‘Islam is a religion and the West is geography.’’ Akbar, an author of several books including ‘The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict between Islam & Christianity’, spoke perceptively about political and ideological uses of the term ‘Islam’ after 9/11. However, it is worth asking if his assertion that the ‘West is geography’ is correct, especially in the light of contemporary India which is increasingly becoming part of the West, both in terms of its people’s political and social attitudes as well as its place in the international state system.

In India and most of the developing world, the West has been understood as a geographical entity and colonial in intent. This view, nurtured by universities and political analysts, is mainly due to a long history of conquest by colonial powers such as England. However, the old reality of colonial era no longer exists in contemporary times. Several countries in the East today are part of the West, for example, Australia and New Zealand, also Japan and South Korea, and increasingly India and South Africa.

In all these countries and in the U.S., UK and Europe, political systems are organized on the basis of similar institutions: free press, political parties, regular elections, adult franchise and belief in individualism, free enterprise, independent judiciary and rule of law, and a professional civil service. The system of governance in Western countries such as India is not based on religion and ideologies as it is, for example, in Saudi Arabia and North Korea. In the West, people are individuals first and then members of any religious or other group; their political and social choices are arbitrated by democratic politics and media; social and political consensus in Western societies is derived from a democratic system that respects differences to the benefit of common good.

On the contrary, many nations such as Russia are geographically closer to the West but not a part of it. This is because they do not offer the individual freedoms and political choices that are available to the free people of the West. Although many Western nations such as UK are religious states, religion itself does not play a role in government policymaking. In all these countries, religion is confined to the private life of individuals. So, what distinguishes the Western countries from others is not shared a geography, but a democratic political system and man’s belief in himself to decide about the shape of his life.

Over the course of past several centuries, the West has emerged as a framework of values and democratic governance. Although its roots are in the Judeo-Christian history, its growth from Greek philosophy – characterized by man’s conscious exploration of his ability to shape life, and through intellectual movements such as Reformation and Renaissance and democracy-promoting Americanism was marked by the rejection of Church from public life. In fact, the United States and India, both of which are secular states but religious societies, can be today described as the products of European Enlightenment. It is only in Western countries like India and the U.S. that Miss Mayawati, who comes from an ‘untouchable’ caste, and Barack Obama can hope to be elected to the highest public offices. Contrarily, a Pakistani Hindu or Christian cannot even nurse a hope to be the President of Pakistan, nor an Ahmadi Muslim the ruler of Saudi Arabia.

In Western societies such as contemporary India, even an outsider can acquire citizenship by the virtue of good behaviour. India today is not what it used to be for centuries. If this were so, Miss Mayawati would still be living on the outskirts of an Indian village like an untouchable. Contemporary India has emerged from the 1857 War in which the British destroyed the Mughal rule in India. It is due to the British rule that India today has prospered on the path of a free society in which all its members are equal. Mayawati, a woman from an ‘untouchable’ caste, APJ Abdul Kalam, a Muslim, and Manmohan Singh, a member of the Sikh minority, have become the rulers despite being members of disadvantaged communities. In a sign of how Indian social and political attitudes are changing, the Supreme Court of India last year made an observation that Indian youth should marry across castes and religions. This is possible because the political principles that shape a democratic system and free society in India are similar to the ones that define the social and political choices in any Western country.

Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and B R Ambedkar, the founders of the Indian republic, designed the contemporary India to be a free society based on the rule of law. In doing so, they knew what to adopt from the West and what to reject that was typically Indian, for example, caste system and untouchability. Even in social attitudes today, India is being transformed on the lines of a Western society. Bhagavadgita, the Hindu holy book, is thought to have widely influenced the Indian way of life. In an introduction to the Wordsworth Classics edition of Bhagavadgita, Indian social scientist Vrinda Nabar notes that it will be ‘‘wrong’’ to think that ‘‘the spiritual message of the Upanisads or the Bhagavadgita offers an alternative direction of social growth’’ and instead ‘‘present-day Indian social aspirations’’ are being shaped on Western lines. India indeed is fast becoming a Western nation, both in its political constitution and social outlook.

Even in the international state system, the emerging India is gradually finding its place in the comity of great powers, with its position greatly bolstered by the strategically oriented India-U.S. nuclear deal. The nuclear pact was preceded by a visit of George W. Bush to India in 2006, which was as significant and historic as Nixon’s visit to China in 1972. It is unprecedented in history that the world today expects a reluctant India to play a greater role internationally.

Tufail Ahmad is on the staff of the Middle East Media Research Institute (www.memri.org), Washington DC and directs the South Asia section of the Henry Jackson Society.