Book review of “The Good Muslim”

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.