Articles
Hindu-Muslim Unity?
Dt: 28/4/22
Hindu-Muslim Unity?
- Dr T H Chowdary*
The narratives around the revealed wisdom of “left, liberal, secular, Marxist, independent intellectuals” and JNU’s “eminent” historians, that in order to sustain and prolong the colonial, imperial rule, the British adopted the “Divide and Rule” policy and not only disrupted Hindu-Muslim unity but promoted and intensified Hindu-Muslim strife, are the greatest falsehoods in the history of the world. The Hindu-Muslim strife started from the time Muslim invaders like Muhammad- ibn- Qasim conquered a part of Sindh ( 712 AD ) converted some conquered Hindus to Islam desecrated and destroyed some Hindu temples, took some captives to be sold in the slave markets of Baghdad . Subsequent Muslim invaders, looters, conquerors, rulers took conversion of conquered Hindus as part of their mission. Dr Ambedkar observed,
Muslim 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 Hindus 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.
2. It was not that some foreigners did not invade , conquer and rule parts of India before Islamised Arabs, Afghans, Mongols (Mughals) and Persians, Greeks ( eg. Alexander), Bactrians, Kushans etc., did invade, conquer and ruled India before the Islamised hordes. But conversion of Hindus to their faith (s) and destruction of temples was not their mission. On the other hand, the conquerors embraced the Hindu dharma and became parts of Hindu communities and castes, mostly Kshatriya and Vaisya ( including farers like Jats). But Islam and its conquering hordes had as an essential part of their religious duty to eliminate every other religion and destroy idolatry, places of worship ( synagogues, Churches, temples, Viharas (of Buddhists). Thus was Christendom eliminated in North Afrika ( from Egypt to Morocco and Spain for some centuries), Zoroastrianism in Persia ( Iran), Buddhism in Central Asia, Hinduism from Afghanistan and lands which are now Pakistan.
3. In India the struggle between Hindu rulers and people against Muslim conquests went on for eleven long centuries from the 8th to the early decades o the 18th century. Thousands of temples were desecrated and destroyed, their treasures looted, lakhs of women, children and captured soldiers sold as slaves and on sites of destroyed temples mosques were constructed (glaring examples : Quwwat-ul-Islam in Mehrauli (Delhi), Ayodhya, Mathura, Kasi, Rajamahendravaram…) . The celebrated historian, philosopher Will Durant had this to say regarding Islamic conquests of India .
Bloodiest Conquests
"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"
4. As the mission of the Muslim conquerors was to gain converts, besides establishing an empire, and it is the duty of every Muslim to help spread Islam, eliminate idolatry, how can there be unity between Muslims, especially among its converts and Hindus? Theologically and historically and even socially and politically, there is no basis for unity, much less brotherhood of Muslims and Hindus. To quote Dr Ambedkar again,
“ 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 Moplah atrocities in 1921 shows how careful the Congress was not to hurt the feelings of the Musalmans.
5. Yes, Hindus can be used temporarily, tactically, against Muslims’ enemies. Taquiyya (Sura 16; 106) sanctions this. The most demonstrative example of temporary unity and brotherhood of Hindus and Muslims was the khilafat movement (1919-’22) of India’s Muslims against the British rulers of India for restoration of Turkey’s Sultan and Caliph’s authority over the Arab lands he lost as a result of his defeat in World War I (1914-19). Maulana Mohammed Ali led the Khilafat movement for which he got the support and involvement of Gandhiji and predominantly (98%) Hindu Congress. One of the horrifying consequences of this then “Hindu- Muslim unity” was the Caliphate announced by the Muslim Moplas in Malabar, (Kerala) Aug 1921 to Jan 1922 the desecration and destruction of scores of temples, looting of Hindus’ properties, rape, killing and conversion of Hindus. It took the British Indian and Gurkha armies five months to put down this Caliphate rule. During the Hindus’ (Congress) participation in the Muslims’ khilafat movement Maulana Md Ali, called Gandhiji, Mahatma. After the termination of the khilafat movement, the Maulana had no use of Gandhi ( and Hindus) . Mohamed Ali speaking at Aligarh and Ajmere (1924) 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 just after the Khilafat movement of India’s Moslems into which Gandhiji involved the national, secular Congress! Gandhiji called Mohammed Ali, his brother!
The taquiyya doctrine ( temporary concealment of real intent of Hindu- Muslim unity) was vindicated by Maulana Md. Ali’s real opinion about Mahatma Gandhi and Hindus!
98.6% of the Muslim electorate rejected secular Gandhi, socialist Nehru and nationalist Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and voted for Pakistan demanding Moslem League in the General Elections to Provincial Assemblies and the Central Legislature.
6. That “Islam does not permit “Hindu-Muslim unity” is expositioned by three other much venerated and influential Muslim leaders of India - Sir Syed Ahmed Khan ( 1817 - 1898); Sir Md Iqbal (1877-1938) and Quaid-e-Azaam Md. Ali Jinnah (1876-1948).
Sir Md Iqbal wrote Tarana -e-Hindi before 1906:
“Saare jahan se acha Hindusitan hamaaraa
Hindi hain ham, Hindi hai ham”
In this he hailed Rama as Imam-e-Hind .
In 1910, four years after the founding of the Muslim League in Dhaka in 1906, he wrote Tarana-e-milli :
“Chin-o-Arab hamaaraa, Hindusitan hamaaraa
Muslim hai ham, Muslim hai ham,
Vatan hai saaraa jaahaan hamaaraa”
In 1938, presiding over the Muslim League’s annual session in Lucknow Sir Syed ( earlier than Jinnah) spoke for a sovereign Islamic state in north-west India ( Punjab, Sindh and NWFP). From Hindiath he embraced Islamiat.
7. Sir Syed Ahmed while addressing a Muslim gathering in Meerut in 1888 said interalia, “…Is it possible that under these circumstances ( that is, if British left India) two nations — the Mahomedans and the Hindus — could sit on the same throne and remain equal in power? Most certainly not. It is necessary that one of them should conquer the other and thrust it down…..” . The Alighar Muslim University (AMU) which was described by Mohammad Ali Jinnah as the armoury for Pakistan, is the fruit of Sir Syed’s foundational work for Muslim- British alliance against Hindus.
8. In his Presidential address at All India Muslim League Lahore Session, March, 1940 Mohammed Ali Jinnah said :
“……………………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 – Ed) 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…….”
9. Maulana Hasrat Mohani reputed to be a nationalist Muslim in Congress, in the context of Congress resolution on Moplah rebellion ( Aug 1921- Jan 1922):
“… An out and out nationalist like Maulana Hasrat Mohani opposed the resolution on the ground that Moplah country no longer remain Dar-ul-Aman but became Dar-ul-Harab and they suspected the Hindus of collusion with the British enemies of the Moplahs. Therefore the Moplahs were right in presenting the Koran or sword to the Hindus. And if the Hindus became Musalmans to save themselves from death, it was voluntary change of faith and not forcible conversion. ….” …the Musalmans consider the Congress to be existing on their sufferance and if there was the latest attempt to ignore their idiosyncrasies the superficial unity would be scrapped . (Page 160, Dr Ambedkar’s book, Pakistan or India Divided)
10. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was considered a nationalist Muslim . He was the President of the Indian National Congress . In the Constituent Assembly, he collected the few remaining Muslim Members of the Consembly and made them to demand separate electorate and reservation for Muslims in government offices and in the legislatures. It took all the tact and firmness of Sardar Patel to prevail upon Begum Aizaz Rasool to come to the podium and declare that Muslims in post-independence India would not and should not have any reservations or separate electorates . Sardar Patel as Chairman of the Minority Sub-committee of the Constituent Assembly then and there ruled that the decision of the committee was not to have separate electorate and reservations for the minorities. (K M Munshi in his nook: Pilgrimage to Freedom.
Obviously Maulana Md Ali , Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad practised taqiyya.
11. Under Muslim rule, Hindus lived under fear and exploitation and extortions like zezia and waqf. There were ineffective localized Hindus’ fights against Muslims’ violence and only during British rule Hindus sometimes dared to strike back Moslem violence. This period has been one of armed truce, broken by frequent communal riots from 1921 onwards. Dr Ambedkar emphasized the fact that Islam divides humanity into believers ( in Allah and his Prophet) and the rest and that it enjoins Muslims to strive ( jihad) to convert non-believers, especially Hindus to Islam. He wrote:
Pakistaniat as DNA
“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
- Dr. Ambedkar in the book, “Pakistan or the Partition of India”
12. Dr.Ambedkar thought and wrote that the Muslim problem in India could only be solved by the partition of India and that there should be an exchange of minority populations in a peaceful manner between the two countries just as such an exchange took place between Moslem Turkey and its Christian provinces in Europe after the defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Turkish empire in 1918. That exchange of population was carried out under the auspices the League of Nations with the involvement of the League of Nations, the fore- runner of the United Nations.
13. The division between Muslims and the rest is an article of faith even at the international level. The sixty and odd countries in the Organization of Islamic Co-operation (OIC) have subscribed to Islamic Declaration of Human Rights, different and distinct from the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights !
14. After the Lahore- Pakistan Resolution ( March 1940) the Muslim League commanded by its supremo Md. Ali Jinnah took to ever more horrific militant communal strife and murderous onslaught by launching Direct Action in Calcutta from the 16th of Aug 1946 against Hindus. North India was engulfed in murderous communal riots. Congress and Gandhiji had to eat crow; frightened, they agreed for partition while sanctimoniously and ineffectively not accepting the two-nation theory – evidence of self-deception.
15. What then can we do to the “un-integrationable” Muslim population in India:
There is resurgence of Muslim separatism fostered by the vote-hungry Congress and regional parties in addition to the communist parties which have been traditionally supporting almost every demand of Muslims as a separate community, including that of partition of India and creation of the Islamic state of Pakistan. The Muslim population in India which was 9.85% in the 1951 census is now anywhere about 20% ; more than doubling. And this is according to a planned operation . The Muslim separatism is fostered especially by the regional parties in their contest for their votes and weaning them away from Congress . The following measure ought to be undertaken in order to contain and control the Muslim separatism and disruption of our nationhood.
· The waqf properties were actually the properties of Hindus taken away from them after their defeat in different battles wars by the invading, conquering and ruling Muslim dynasties. While we abolish the princedoms and zamindaries, we did not take over the waqfs immediately after independence, though it was definitely warranted as justice to Hindus and in fact, as a social justice measure . Government should not be involved in the affairs of the wakf institutions. The waqfs should become state property and used for welfare of all.
· Government of India and now-a-days some state governments have been subsidizing Muslims’ Haj pilgrimage to Makka. A secular government has no business to support the religious pilgrimages or tours of any religion, much less of Islam which has been a cause of much of India’s poverty, humiliation and partition.
· Minority Welfare Departments : Minority is the word which is generally used for Muslims. Why should there be a departments of a secular governments to foster a religious group, be it welfare or any other aspect of life. These ministries and the departments both at Union and State level must be abolished and whatever is done to the poor and disadvantaged people should be done to India’s citizen irrespective of their religion.
· Muslim majority districts: Beginning with in communist government in Kerala, Congress governments in other states like Haryana and Punjab had carved out Muslim majority areas from composite districts into separate minority ( i.e Muslim-majority) districts. This is a prelude to Pakistanisation of parts of India. The UPA government ( 2004-14) appointed the Sachar Committee which identified more than 80 districts across the country to be developed specially because they are Muslim- intensive in population. The UPA government’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shamelessly launched the Muslim First ( and not SC First) programs to help the prosperity and proliferation of Muslims in those districts. It means that these 80 districts would become separate Muslim majority areas.
Already, several districts in Assam, West Bengal, Bihar and UP have become Muslim majority both by indigenous Muslim population growth and hosting infiltrators from Bangladesh. All these districts are on the way to become a Society, followed by Union and then a Federation just like the princely states spread all over India before independence.
That such Muslim districts are absolutely necessary for Islam to thrive has been publicly propagated by Dr. Omar Khalidi in the year 2005 ( a post graduate of Harvard University and Ph.D from University of Whales) wrote in the Jamat-e-Islami ‘s weekly, “Radiance”: “ we need Muslim districts for three reasons. First , concentrated areas provide security; second, to provide an environment that is conducive to our cultural independence; third, to provide a political base through which our people can be elected ……at present…our numbers don’t’ add up to elect adequate legislators. Hyderabad & Rangareddy in Andhra and Gulbarga (Karnataka) and certain Thlaukas could be merged to create Deccan province ( with Muslim majority) similarly in Bihar, Bengal & UP.. where Muslims can be in majority…”.
Samar Abbas another Muslim intellectual wrote in the leftist Economic Political Weekly of Dec 2000 that India should be partitioned further to provide a Muslim state Mughalistan comprising of the Western districts of Assam northern districts of West Bengal, Bihar and UP and Punjab to form a continuous belt adjoining Pakistan on the West and Bangladesh on the East. This reminds us of Md Ali Jinnah wanting corridor across Northern India to link up West and East Pakistan (Bangladesh).
· Uniform Civil Code: The directive principles of the Constitution, Article -44 enjoins the government to promulgate Uniform Civil Code . In Goa this had been there since 1867. It is encouraging that some states like UP, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh are now working to introduce Uniform Civil Code in their states. It should not be confined to those states; every state must be encouraged and directed to bring in the Uniform Civil Code .
· Union and State governments should stop funding madrasas: They may be given option to convert into schools following the syllabus laid down for schools in the respective states.
· Population control: From the fact that the % of Muslim population has doubled and that India’s population has grown uncontrollably, there is need to enforce one-child norm just as in China. If such is impossible then, all the welfare measures must be confined to families having only one-child.
· National Minorities Commissions should be abolished. National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) should consider Muslims also as humans and not as different species of homo-sapiens .
· All citizens of India should be treated alike as regarding rights and duties.
· The almost defunct National Integration Council should be done away with.
· Urdu is sought to be built up as the language of Islam to unite Muslims all over India. Unlike any other language University, Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) is having distance centers in several states spread all over India. The hidden agenda is to develop Urdu as the language of Muslims Pan India to strengthen their separatism. These centers must be wound up.
· Public discourse should be in defense of reciprocal treatment of religious minorities as in India and Pakistan . After all, these are successor states of the once united India. If there is religious sanction for consigning non-muslins in Pakistan to disadvantaged citizenship, the same religious standards should be invoked for application to Muslims in India, the Hindu majority nation state.
16. There is only one successful instance of large-scale reconversion of Muslims to their original faith. That was in Spain. Muslims conquered most of it in the 8th century, forcibly converted the Christian population to Islam and churches into mosques. In the 15th century Moslem Spain was conquered by an alliance of Christian Kings . Moslems were given choice between reversion to Christianity or expulsion. 90% reconverted to their ancestors’ faith; the recalcitrant left Spain. Mosques were restored as churches. Such a development in India may not take place. India is paying a heavy price for disregarding Dr Ambedkar’s advice for an organized peaceful exchange of religious minorities between Pakistan and India for a permanent end to Hindu-Muslim conflict in what remains as post-1947 India. Pakistan solved its minority problem by expelling the minorities ( reduced from 17% to less than 2%), East Pakistan, Bangladesh since Dec 1971, reduced its Hindu, Buddhist population from over 30% to under 6% (gradually in waves) and still continuing.
17. Hindu- Muslim unity fancied and sought for so long and by so many is according to Islam’s theology and historic experience in India has been a pious wish, a sweet dream only for many Hindus and a slogan for those who want to harvest votes. It can be , if at all, on terms laid down by the Maulana-Mulla-Mufti-Imam fraternity and that would be suicidal to Hindus.
William Ewart Gladstone ( 1809-1898) the Prime Minister of Great Britain (displaying the Holy Quran) told the British Parliament, “As long as this book is there , there will be no peace in the world” (quoted in Rafiq Zakaria, “Mohammed and the Quran” Penguin Books, 1991, page 51). For more light on such contents of the Holy Quran which were a subject of petition in Calcutta High Court, one may read the Voice of India publication , “ The Calcutta Quran Petition” by the late Sri Sitaram Goel.
18. Can there be a greater humiliation and tragedy for Hindus in their own land for millennia that there are “ No Go” areas for them in many towns and cities and that they cannot have peaceful and un-stone pelted religious and cultural processions in their holy land while their governments give Iftar parties and distribute gifts to Muslims and for five times a day Hindus suffer Aazan proclaiming that,” Allah is most great. There is no God btu Allah . I testify that Mohammad is the Apostle of Allah. Come to prayer….there is no God but Allah” . Is not tolerance of the intolerant abetment of evil? St. Augustine said:
“I am in the right, you are in the wrong. When you are stronger, you ought to tolerate me for it is your duty to tolerate the truth.
But when I am stronger, I shall persecute you, for it is my duty to persecute errors”.
- St. Augustine, one of the gentlest of Christian divines
- Religion, Rajaji and his Social Philosophy by R Srinivasan (source: Freedom First No.464, Jan-March 2005 Page 43)
That is the belief and conviction of the Prophets, Missionaries and Tablighies of the Abrahamic faiths - Christianity, Islam and Marxism - Communism. Hindus believe in “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” that is, all people on earth are one family. ( 3,801 words)
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