Articles
Dr. Ambedkar on Muslims in India (A special article in the context of the 127th Jayanti, 14 April 2018)
Dt: 6/4/18
Dr. Ambedkar on Muslims in India
(A special article in the context of the 127th Jayanti, 14 April 2018)
Dr T.H.Chowdary*
In the common hatred of Muslims for kafir Hindus and of the converts to Christianity for Hinduism , some Muslim leaders and Marxist and “Ambedkarite” pre-fixed Dalit (in fact crypto Christian) organisations are working to forge a common Front against Hindus in general and against the BJP in particular which is supposed to be wanting to do justice for Hindus by ending discriminations against them, some of them like Art- 25 and 30 flowing from our Constitution itself. If ever there was a clear thinking intellectual of integrity who foresaw the danger Muslims pose to what remains as India, that is Bharat, it was Dr. Ambedkar himself. In his several writings especially in the books, “Thoughts on Pakistan” and “Pakistan or India Divided” he clearly brought out the incompatibility and impossibility of Muslims ever living in amity and in peace with non- Muslims . In this article I am putting together some of Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s observations upon Muslims, their place in India and what they have done to the Dalits. Also, recalled in brief is the fate of the of Jogindranath Mondal , a leader of Dalits in what was East Bengal and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and the first Minister of Law in Pakistan and his naive belief that Muslims and Dalits could be friends to end the misery of Dalits.
2. Dr Prakash Singh (Department of Political Science, at Sri Aurobindo College, University of Delhi) in his book, “ Dr Ambedkar on Minorities” (2005) observed, “… in the present political scenario the politics of alliance between dalits and Muslims is going on and all the selfish leaders and religious organisations are never tired of calling this alliance as an aspiration of Baba Saheb, whereas the fact is that Baba Saheb always abstained himself from being part of any such alliance.(P 24). On 31st March 2018, Jamiat Ulema’s General Secretary Mahmood Madani, Jamaat-e-Islami’s President Hamid Mohammed Khan, Prof. Kancha Ilaiah Shepard (who as a convert away from Hinduism is asking BCs to give up their mother tongue and suffix their caste name in English to the names their parents gave), Islamic scholar Khalid Saifullah Rahman , Prof P.L. Visweswara Rao, President of Aam Aadmi Party, Telangana, Kaki Madhava Rao former Chief Secretary of A.P, Lingayat
Community leader Basavaraja Pattadarya and Prakash Ambedkar ( a grandson of Dr B R Ambedkar) unmindful of who rioted and voted to divide India; who forcibly converted Dalits during the Nizam’s rule in Telangana, who divided the Hindus saying Lingayats constitute a separate religion, shared a common platform and vowed to form a “pressure group” to fight “divisive forces”.
3. Here are Dr. Ambedkar views of Muslims :
· Writing under the backdrop of his religious conversion to Buddhism Dr.Ambedkar wrote, “if we accept Christianity or Islam our Indainness will change. We will start bowing our heads towards Mecca and Madina. Muslims can’t appreciate the concept of democracy as religion is supreme for them. Their politics is religion -based. They are known all over the world for their retrogressive approach. Their fraternity is confined to the Muslims only (Thoughts on Pakistan Amar Publication, Mumbai 1941, page-46)
· “…As per Muslim Law the world is divided into two parts - Dar-ul-Islam and Dar-ul-Hurb.
· Discussing whether Muslims will accept the authority of a government run by Hindus, Dr Ambedkar wrote that a Muslim considers the Hindus to be “a kafir”. And the kafir does not command any respect because he is lowly born and a dishonoured fellow. Hence the country ruled by kafirs is Dar-l Hurb for the Muslims “ (p 294 Pakistan or Partition of India ; Thacker & Co, Mumbai 1946)
· Dr Ambedkar presents some more views in this regard. “The Muslims did not forget that Hindus were lowly born and inferior to them even during the period of khilafat movement when Hindus were extending extensive support to the Muslims.
· Dr Ambedkar opposed the Nehru Committee Report (in which separate electorate and weighted representation for Muslims was conceded by Congress). In Jan 1929 in the journal, Bahishkrut Bharat he wrote, “ The plan is against the interest of Hindus , is of no use. We oppose this report, not because it violates the rights of the untouchables but for the reason that this poses a threat to the Hindus at large and the future of India may fall in peril”. He further observed: “Constant appeasement is the most foolish policy. Endless demand and unfulfilled appeasement is a final outcome of this policy ( Communal Deadlock by Dr Ambedkar p-1)
· Dr. Ambedkar after a great study of Hindu- Muslim relations in India since the advent of the Muslim rule in the country, had concluded that Hindus and Muslims cannot live as one nation in this country. He referred to Md. Ali Jinnah’s speech on the Muslim League’s Lahore resolution March 1940 which loudly proclaimed that Hindus and Muslims are two separate nations and that they cannot live together and therefore India should be partitioned to create Pakistan as a homeland for the sub-continents Muslims Dr Ambedkar wrote, “I do not think the demand for Pakistan is the result of mere political distemper, which will pass away with the efflux of time. As I read the situation, it seems to me that it is a characteristic in the biological sense of the term which the Muslim body politic has developed in the same manner as an organism develops a characteristic. Whether it will survive or not, in the process of natural selection, must depend upon the forces that may become operative in the struggle for existence between Hindus and Musalmans (In the book, “Pakistan or the Partition of India)”.
Dr. Ambedkar was also aware that this two -nation theory was not a new one propounded by Md. Ali Jinanh but that it had a long history. It was first propounded by Sir Sayyed Ahmad Khan in his 1885 Meerut speech Dr. Ambedkar .
· In the book, “Pakistan or the Partition of India”. Dr. Ambedkar advised Hindus; he appealed to their intelligence to concede Pakistan peacefully and as a permanent solution to the Muslim problem, he advocated peaceful organised exchange of the minorities; that is, all Muslims from Hindustan should go to Pakistan and all Hindus and Buddhists and even Christians from what would be Pakistan, should come to India.
· In apparent agony Dr Ambedkar admonished the Hindus thus, “I feel that the Hindu leaders (Congress as well as Hindu Maha Sabha and Gandhi in particular) who are guiding their (Hindus ) future have lost competent vision. And they are under some hollow illusions and its outcome, I apprehend would be fatal for Hindus . ….It is a proven fact that Hindus and Muslims vary from one another in nature , spirituality and will for political unity and even the short period (during khilafat) for which both remained in harmony was also marked by tense relationship.
…Hindus are under the illusion that Pakistan is the whims and fancies of Jinnah only and majority of ordinary Muslims and the other Muslims leaders don’t support it. ….it is very astonishing how their wisdom has become so slow and retarded ……. Hindus are imprisoned within the thick walls of imaginary emotions and predictions. If Hindus failed to carry on their duties ( that is, realise that all Muslims think they are a separate nation . India should be divided ) . “India will be destroyed how Europe was once destroyed”.
· Of Muslims he said, “religion is their political inspiration. Muslims tend to oppose vehemently any kind of social reforms . They have shown everywhere in the wold that they are not of progressive mind. For them Islam is the only religion which is competent enough to deal with any situation all the time and anywhere in space. The fraternity enshrined in Islam is confined only to the Muslims of the world, it is not for others. ..Islam does not give a chance to a true Muslim to consider India as his mother land and the Hindus as his brethren. …invading mentality is lying in the nature of Muslims . (quote from Dhananjay Keer’s, Dr. Ambedkar ki Jeevani p-334)
· Dr. Ambedkar even doubted as to whether Muslim regiments in the Indian Army will fight under Hindus officers. His doubt arose because some Muslim leaders of khilafat movement ( 1992-’21) invited the Emir of Afghanistan to invade India ( and establish Dar-ul-Islam).
· When news of Hindus, especially Dalits being forcibly converted to Islam in the Nizam’s territory Dr. Ambedkar iIssued a statement “advising the Hindus left in Pakistan to come to India in every possible manner to save themselves from forced conversions to Islam. They should not believe Muslims for the simple reason that they were angry with the upper caste Hindus only. It would be a blunder for them”.
· Dr. Ambedkar termed Nizam of Hyderabad an enemy of India and directed the dalits not to favour him. He asked the Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru to take immediate action to bring out Hindus from different parts of Pakistan . ( p 39 Dr. Ambedkar; On Minorities by Prashant Singh)
· To demonstrate how even the so called nationalist Muslims view Hindus, Dr. Ambedkar narrated the following instance: “Maulana Md Ali called Mahatma Gandhi a brother during the khilafat movement. Gandhi committed the overwhelmingly nationalist Congress to the khilafat moment of India’s Muslims demanding that the British government should restore the Turkish sultan’s authority over Macca and Madina . Nowhere else in the world did Muslims make this demand. The Turks themselves deposed the Sultan and packed him off in a sealed train to Paris . The khilafat movement was in vain. At the end of it Maulana Md Ali made the most shocking observation. Speaking at Aligarh and Ajmere (1924) he said: “However pure Mr. Gandhi’s character may be, he must appear to be from the point of view of religion inferior to any Musalaman, even though he be without character”. The Statement created a great stir. Many did not believe that Mr. Mohamed Ali, who testified to so much veneration for Mr. Gandhi was capable of entertaining such ungenerous and contemptuous sentiments about him. When Mr. Mohamed Ali was speaking in a meeting held at Amina Baug Park in Lucknow, he was asked whether the sentiments attributed to him were true. Mr. Mohamed Ali without any hesitation or compunction replied. “Yes! According to my religion and creed, I do hold an adulterous and a fallen Musalman to be better than Mr. Gandhi”. And this was just after the Khilafat movement Of India’s Moslems into which Gandhiji involved the national, secular Congress! Gandhiji called Mohammed Ali, his brother! In the 1946 general elections to the central and Provincial Legislature, 98.6% of the Muslim electorate rejected secular Gandhi, socialist Nehru and nationalist Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and voted for Moslem League and its demand for partition of India and creation of the Islamic state of Pakistan.
· Moulana Mohammad Ali of the Khilaft fame while presiding at the annual Congress session in Kakinada in 1923 advised the Congress that the SCs should be shared 50-50 between Hindus and Muslims . That is, he wanted to swell the numbers of Muslims in India by converting half the SCs with the consent and connivance of the Congress, to Islam.
· During the khilafat movement (1919-21) the Moplah Muslims of Kerala declared a Caliphate and anointed one Md Musliar as the caliph of India . The Moplhas rose in revolt against the British and in the caliphate of Kerala, they raped Hindu women, forcibly converted Hindus and destroyed their temples. IT took four months for the British Indian army to quell this revolt. Gandhiji did not condemn this. The whole county was aghast, when he said that “Moplahs were god -fearing people and they did what they thought was their god’s commands to them”. Dr. Ambedkar wrote “ the resolution passed by the Working Committee of the Congress on the Moplah atrocities in 1921 shows how careful the Congress was not to hurt the feelings of the Musalmans.
· In his book, “Pakistan or India Divided” Dr. Ambedkar quoted Md. Ali Jinnah speech while passing the Lahore resolution for division of India. “……………………It is extremely difficult to appreciate why our Hindu friends fail to understand the real nature of Islam and Hinduism. They are not religions in the strict sense of the word, but are, in fact, different and distinct social orders and it is a dream that the Hindus and Muslims can ever evolve a common nationality, and this misconception of one Indian nation has gone far beyond the limits and is the cause of most of our troubles and will lead India to destruction if we fail to revise our notions in time. The Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs, and literature. They neither intermarry, (only Hindu girls marry Moslems, but they have to convert to Islam ) nor interdine together and, indeed they belong to two different civilizations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their aspects on life and of life are different. It is quite clear that Hindus and Mussalmans derive their inspiration from different sources of history. They have different epics, different heroes and different episodes. Very often the hero of one is a foe of the other and, likewise, their victories and defeats overlap. To yoke together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority, must lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the Government of such a state…….” Even after partition India has the same minority ( i.e Muslim) problem, price the country pays for not accepting the statesman, Dr. Ambedkar’s advice for peaceful exchange of minorities.
· Dr. Ambedkar had scant respect for Gandhiji . He always refered to him as Mr. Gandhi and never as Mahatma Gandhi because Gandhiji had a total misunderstanding of Islam and of Dalit problems too. On Gandhiji death Dr B.R. Ambedkar wrote to Sharada alias Laxmi Kabir who later became his wife, following Gandhiji’s assassination. In that letter, dated 8 February 1948, Dr B R Ambedkar said that Gandhiji should have not met his death at the hand of a Maharashtrian. Then he went on: "Mr. Gandhi had become a positive danger to his country. He had choked all the thoughts. He was holding together the Congress which is a combination of all the bad and self-seeking elements in society who agreed on no social or moral principle governing the life of society except the one of praising and flattering Mr Gandhi. Such a body is unfit to govern the country". And the Bible says that something good comes out of evil, so also I think that good will come out of the death of Mr. Gandhi. He will release people from bondage to superman, It will make them think for themselves and it will compel them to stand on their own merits.And to that, he added: “My real enemy has gone, thank goodness, the eclipse is over” (Source: A Reporter At Large ( page 238/239) by M V Kamat)
· That Islam and Muslims have scant respect for Dalits that is Shedule Castes was made evident by the fate of Sri Jogindranath Mondal. He was the leader of Sheduled Caste Federation in Bengal and was a Minister in the Muslim League government headed by H S Suhravardy in the undivided province of Bengal. After partition, he was the Law Minister in Pakistan (just as Dr Ambedkar was the Law Minister in independent India). While in the Ministry of Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan, Jogindranath Mondal repeatedly submitted reports on atrocities committed on Hindus, especially the SCs in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh ). They were being subjected to rape and forced conversion . The small properties they were having were being snatched away from them. Thousands of them were fleeing to West Bengal as there was no protection from the East Pakistan government. All his reports were getting dismissed by Liaqat Ali Khan with the remark that Islam does not preach such things. Mandal was shown little respect even by his own officers and colleagues, Muslims ministers. He was so humiliated that he fled from Pakistan, came to Calcutta and died unsung and unrecognised. His parting letter to Liaqat Ali Khan is a stinging charge sheet of what Islamist Pakistan was doing to non-Muslims, especially Dalits. Muslims ruled India for hundreds of years converting many hapless SCs by every possible means to Islam. The Muslim rulers including the Nizam had done very little to uplift Dalits . The current solicitude for SCs by various Muslim organisations is only to inveigle them to support the Muslim demands.
· It is not only Dr. Ambedkar who had the correct appraisal of Muslims and their rule in India. Here is what will Durant the famous historian wrote, "The Mohamedan conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precarious thing, whose delicate complex of order and liberty, culture and peace may at any time be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within" (Source: Story of Civilization ).
· And here is what the famous historian, philosopher Arnold Toynbee observed, “Aurangazeb’s purpose in building these mosques ( Kashi and Mathura) was the same intentionally offensive political purpose that moved the Russians to build their Cathedral in the city center at Warsaw. I must say that Aurangazeb was a veritable genius for picking out provocative sites. Aurangez and Phillip –II of Spain are a pair. They are incarnations of the gloomy fanatical vein in Christian, Muslim and Jewish family of religions………Perhaps the Poles were really kinder in destroying the Russians’ self discrediting monuments in Warsaw than you (Indians) have been in sparing Aurangazebs’s mosques. (Source: Azad Memorial Lecture at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai -1963)
Dr B R Ambedkar’S some definitive opinions:
· Muslims invasions were not undertaken merely out of lust for loot or conquest- there is no doubt that striking a blow at the idolatry and polytheism of Hinduism and establishing Islam in India was also one of the aims.
· The Muslim invaders were all united by one common objective and that was to destroy the Hindu faith. Slavery was the fate of those Hindus captured in the holy war .
· Islam is a closed corporation and the distinction that it makes between Muslims and non-Muslims is a very real , very positive and very alienating distinction .
· The resolution passed by the Working Committee of the Congress on the Moplha atrocities in 1921 shows how careful the Congress was not to hurt the feelings of the Musalmans.
(3,127 words) END