Articles
Hindu-Muslim Dis-unity - Whose Creation is it ?
Dt:12/10/22
Hindu-Muslim Dis-unity -
Whose Creation is it ?
Dr T.H.Chowdary*
The most vile and pernicious lie that is propagated for the last one century and over in this country is that the Hindu Muslim divide in India was created by the British rulers to prolong their colonial imperial exploitative rule. The propagators of this lie are leaders of all political parties, “left, liberal, secular, Marxist “intellectuals” , communists, their fellow travelers in “peoples “and popular fronts. The honorable exceptions are the Muslim parties (IUML, AIMIM, AIUDF, PFI, SDP, Campus Front of India…) and their leaders and intellectuals among them.
2. The fact is there never was Hindu Muslim unity of hearts and minds in India. It is impermissible according to the theology of Islam. The about eighty Ayats cited in the Calcutta Koran case 1985 make the position very clear. The petition for prohibiting the Quran as the Ayats cited promote hatred and violence and strife was, after some hearings dismissed. There is now one more petition in the Supreme Court of India, filed this time by a Muslim (Shia) for the deletion of Ayats that promote intolerance, violence and jihad in the Holy Quran.
3. If one goes to Google and types Gladstone, one can get the most eloquent pronouncement of that UK’s Prime Minister ( 1861 & 1894 ) why there would be no peace in the world as long as that “something” exists. It is also quoted on page 51 of Dr Rafiq Zakaria’s book, “Mohammad and the Koran”. I hope and pray to escape the “ sar se tan juda” verdict.
4. That Hindus and Muslims cannot exist as a common nation and any such project is doomed to failure was proclaimed by the most revered and venerated and celebrated Muslim intellectuals and political leaders, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan ( b.17/10/1817 d. 27/3/1898 ), the progenitor of the Aligarh Muslim University, Sir Muhammad Iqbal, who wrote the celebrated Tarana -e-Hind with the stirring words “Hindi hain hum” before the Muslim League was born in 1906 and thereafter rewrote it as tarana-e-milli with equally stirring words “Muslim hain ham” and for the first time in 1938 voiced the wish for a separate Muslim state in the north-west of India and Quaid -e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah. A case for another division of India to create Mogulistan for (remnant) India’s Muslims was made out by professor Samar Abbas in the Marxist fortnightly journal Economic And Political Weekly in its issue of December 2000 . That many Muslim majority districts should be carved out in India is demanded by a Hyderabad -origin academic Dr. Omar Khalidi in his article in Jamaat-e-Islam’s journal Radiance in the year 2005. It can be seen that the idea of division away from Hindu majority India has attained the character of DNA in Muslims as opined by Dr Ambedkar:
“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.
(Source: Dr. Ambedkar in the book, “Pakistan or the Partition of India” )
5. It is historic fact that on two eventful occasions Muslims and Hindus acted as a united people. The first was in 1857 when the Hindu and Muslim sepoy (soldiers) of East India Company that was ruling India mutinied together. That was to restore the Muslim Mughal rule in India. The sepoys were joined by most rulers (and their armed subjects) who were dispossessed of their rule and estates. It was a sort of war for independence, but not to restore the Maratha rule but to restore the Mughal Mohammed Shah Zafar as emperor of India.
6. The second occasion for Hindu- Muslim unity was during the khilafat movement (1919-1922-24) when Mahatma Gandhi involved the predominantly Hindu but secular Indian National Congress into the purely India’s Muslim movement for the restoration to the Sultan Caliph of Turkey powers and possessions he lost as a result of World War I (1914 -19) due to his defeat along with his ally Germany by British- French- American coalition. Immediately after the termination of the khilafat movement, ( the Sultan and Caliph was deposed and exiled in 1924 by Gen. Kamal Ata Turk and Turkey was declared a secular Republic), its Muslim leader Maulana Mohammed Ali stridently asserted that Mahatma Gandhi (the Hindu) was inferior to a fallen, adulterous Muslim from the point of his religion Islam. The short-lived (1920-22) Muslim-Hindu “unity” was to serve the Muslim cause namely restoration of a Caliph in Turkey to his grandeur.
7. It is often said that Hindus and Muslims lived together as neighbors in India for centuries; Muslims as ruling community lived in their separate neighborhoods . Under British rule, they were equally subordinate as Hindus were. The post 1919-1947 period was remarkable for periodical Hindu -Muslim riots with cow- slaughter and processions during festivals as troopers and in the 1940s Muslim demand, backed by violent agitations and riots for the division of India to create the Islamic state of Pakistan.
8. The British who were accused of dividing Hindus and Muslims and undermined Hindu- Muslim peaceful coexistence and unity had gone out of India 75 years ago. But post- 1947, Hindu -Muslim riots have not ceased; they are more numerous, more ferocious and intense. India’s Muslims who voted and rioted to divide India did not go to the Islamic country they created. They are here growing from 9.8% to an estimated 20%. They are voicing the same divisive demands - reservation, proportional reservations, creation of Muslim majority districts and in addition citizenship for Pakistani and Bangladeshi and Rohingya Muslims infiltrating into India. Notwithstanding special rights given to them under Article -30 of the Constitution, governments subsidizing the Haj pilgrimage, funding Haj Houses, madrassas, paying Imams and muezzins, and special scholarships, Muslim parties denounce governments as anti -Muslim.
9. The mosques on destroyed temple sites and waqf properties taken from defeated Hindu owners and stubborn denial of wrongdoing by the intruding conquerors and rulers cannot promote Muslim -Hindu unity. Hindus in their only millennial land despite their majority cannot even celebrate their festivals in peace !
10. It is clear that Hindu -Muslim strife and division was not Britain’s creation. It is because of the fundamental, theological intolerance of and ordained mission and duty of every believer to convert all non- believers to the only true religion, that is the reason why there cannot be true and lasting unity between Muslims and Hindus. Hindus’ friendship is required by Muslims only to serve their cause. Dr Ambedkar profound observation is apt to be recalled:
“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
“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.
(Source: Dr. Ambedkar in the book, “Pakistan or the Partition of India” )
(1,217 words)
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