Book review of “The Good Muslim” for Nehru
Centre Discussion Group
First thing I would
say about the novel “The Good Muslim” by Tahmina Anam is that it is very
readable. Every chapter makes you ask “what will happen next?”, thus the book
takes you through till the end. There are enough twists in the plot too.
But it is not a mere novel;
it captures very ably the history of Bangla Desh immediately before and after
it was born as a country. In a way it is the story of how ideologies change
during war-time and peace-time, the novel acknowledges that they would change
but what is the process and what is the outcome? Which direction should it take
and what direction it actually takes in reality? How political leadership is
keen to obliterate the war memories and memorials lest they retain their iconic
value in comparison to the importance commanded by current leadership. How
intellectuals get carried away by money-based goals, how rationality gives way
to fundamentalism, and yet the human relationship keeps building up providing
solace, peace and something to look forward to.
Simply told it is the
story of an educated girl who becomes a village-doctor and gets an insight in
the rural areas of Bangla Desh, their poverty, their lack of medical
facilities. The girl, who dreamt of becoming a surgeon because that carried
higher prestige, realizes that what the millions of rural poor women need is a
doctor who can handle child birth and maternity related problems. She is a
good Muslim to switch to that branch.
She also finds women in clutches of religious superstitions and tries to bring
a change in their attitude, though unsuccessfully, the system has a much wider
spread and her individual efforts are not enough. Rather, she is threatened and
has to return back home to her mother and brother from whom she had fled earlier
as she had felt that her beloved brother and childhood hero, her companion
during the Bangla-Desh Liberation Movement, a modern, rational and truthful
person, a soldier had turned to religious extremism. This is where the story
begins and traces further the emotional upheavals that come in her life as
mother becomes seriously ill with cancer. In this journey she has another
realization – that sometimes the rational modern outlook cannot solve certain problems
and then the religion and faith becomes the only savior. She realizes the
solace and assurance she gets by surrendering to prayers during this illness
and recovery of her mother. Still, an imbalance of the two, the faith and rationality, can lead to
disaster, as it happens in the end and to that extent the novels leaves you
with a sad feeling of having witnessed unnecessary, avoidable disaster.
The title “The Good
Muslim”, to my mind, applies most to Maya, the lead character, a rebel, a
self-dependent educated girl who is not afraid to live alone or take decisions
for her own life irrespective of the societal changes around her. It applies
partly to her mother, a capable and self-willed woman who has lot of
practicality to understand and accept the importance of both Rationality and
Faith. It applies to her brother who
stands tall and supportive to her despite his turning away completely from
their earlier-shared life of modern thoughts and books steeped in Rationality,
and taking upon him the task of reviving religious beliefs. He remains a Good
Muslim in the eyes of Maya as well as the reader because he has not taken to
“money-making practicality” at the cost of basic human values. It applies to
Joy, in his ardent support to the cause of freedom of Bangla-Desh and
subsequent movements for rectifying the corruption that is setting in the
system of this new-formed country’s polity.
The book has its own
authenticity as it well-describes the settings prior to the liberation war and
subsequent political developments that seem to be threatening the earlier ethos
of freedom, justice and equality. The small passages describing how the iconic
importance of war-memorials is destroyed, how the health and empowerment of
rural women is thrown out of agenda, how Chakma tribals are ill-treated, all
these details are not fantasy of imagination but hard-hitting facts that can be
threatening to democracy in Bangla-desh. In fact every person respecting
democracy and particularly the Indians who are concerned that democratic values
should not be eroded will empathize with the emotions and conditions through
which Maya passes through and that is the success of this realistic novel.
