The place of socialism in Muslim thought in South Asia

Abstract

The Muslim response to socialism on the Indian subcontinent must be categorized because of differing levels of effects under the headings of political responses, literary responses, and student responses, because student bodies were found to be more radical than the political response and both were being fed by the literary response. The greatest influence of communism or socialism has been on literature. Just as on politics, British rule had prepared the groundwork for Russian influence on literature. Urdu poetry, though sublime and versatile, was nevertheless bound with conventions. Students have been the most active arm of socialism in South Asia. What made South Asian Muslims receptive to socialism was, in fact, religion. This made Muslims consider socialism economically as a system apart from its political and ideological content. Many staunch Muslims felt attracted to socialism because of its egalitarianism, which they thought to be closer to Islam than the capitalism that had enslaved them. Muslims sympathetic to ideologies created space for socialism and communism in the hearts of Muslims. Iqbal, who had a great influence among Muslims, was in complete agreement with the economic principles of socialism; however, the atheism inherent in the communist ideology was not something he could just shrug away.