Articles
National And Emotional Integration
Dt:9/6/23
National And Emotional Integration
Dr T H Chowdary*
The article by Sri Humayun Kabir in the Bhavan’s Journal of 1 May 2023 raises the issue of National integration, 75 years after partition of the country demanded by 95% of Muslim voters in what now constitutes the Indian Union in the elections to the provincial legislatures in 1946. Over 90% of the Muslims of what is now Indian Union, though voted and rioted for the division of the country and the creation of Islamic state of Pakistan, chose to remain in this country. Did they give up the idea propagated for more than a century that Muslims are a separate nation ? Sir Sayyed Ahmed (b. 17/10/1817 d.27/3/1898 ), the most revered ideologue and Muslim leader and founder of the Aligarh Muslim University had eloquently said in his 16 March 1888 Meerut speech that the Muslims in the Indian sub-continent are a separate nation and two nations, that is Muslim and Hindu, together ruling this country is impossible . Here is the relevant portion of his speech:
Sir Syed Ahmed while addressing a Muslim gathering in Meerut in 16 March 1888 said interalia, “…Is it possible that under these circumstances 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…..”
2. An equally celebrated and eloquent leader of Muslims, Sir Md Iqbal ( b. 9/11/1877 d.21/4/1938 ) did once write the stirring Tarana -e-Hindi before 1906:
“Saare jahan se acha Hindusitan hamaaraa
Hindi hain ham, Hindi hai ham”
He hailed Lord 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”
He had clearly moved away from Hindi hai hum to Muslim hai hum proclaiming that Muslims are not Hindis, Indians . It is an assertion that Muslims are a different nation .
3. During the khilafat movement (1920-22), the Indian Muslims demand for the restoration to the Sultan of Turkey the territories he has lost during the first world war, Mahatma Gandhi committed the Indian National Congress, a secular body to the Indian Muslims’ demand in support of the Turkiye’s Sultan’s power. During that movement led by Maulana Md Ali and his brother, Maulana Showkat Ali, Gandhiji was hailed by them as brother and Mahatma . When the khilafat movement was terminated as the people of Turkiye themselves expelled the Sultan and put an end to the caliphate. Maulana Md Ali speaking at Ajmere in 1924 said:
“However pure Mr. Gandhi’s ( not Mahatma) 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”
4. This is the third tall leader of India’s Muslims who asserted that Muslims are different from Hindus and are superior to the latter, even their Mahatma.
Maulana Mohammad Ali was presiding at the National Congress session in Kakinada in 1923 when at the commencement of the session Vande Mataram was being rendered, as President of the session, he demanded that singing Vande Mataram should be stopped. As the singer went on rendering the song, the Maulana walked away over 100 mtrs so that the song would not even be heard by him !
5. Finally, Md Ali Jinnah stridently and publicly asserted that Muslims are a separate nation by any standard and test, different from Hindus and therefore two nations cannot live together in a united state and therefore India should be partitioned to create the Islamic state of Pakistan. He declaimed :
Excerpts from Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s Presidential address at
All India Muslim League Lahore Session, March, 1940
“……………………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…….”
6. The Indian National Congress and its leaders, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendraprasad etc., while denouncing the two -nation theory yet they accepted partition of India on the basis of Muslims following Islam are entitled to the division of India to create the Islamic state of Pakistan. It is this double speak, that is, we don’t accept the two - nation theory but we accept the division of India to create on the basis of religion the Islamic state of Pakistan. That is the root cause of Muslim residents of India who were once the ardent partisans of partition of India not integrating themselves with the rest of the people of India, overwhelmingly Hindus with some Jains, Buddhists and Christians .
7. In the Constituent Assembly, the few so called nationalist Muslims under the guidance of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad wanted to continue separate electorate, weighted representation for them in the legislatures and the government etc. The leader of the small minority of Christians ( 2.1%) Sri H C Mukherji eloquently rejected any idea of reservations on the basis of religion.
8. In the Constituent Assembly Congress’ nationalist Muslims presumably under private instruction from Maulana Abul Kalam Azad demanded the following as recorded by Dr K M Munshi in his monumental book, “Pilgrimage to Freedom” Vol-I, page- 201.
“ two leading nationalist ( Congress) Muslims Abdul Qaiyum Ansari and Maulana Hifjur Rahman wanted a provision inserted in the Constitution to the effect that Muslims Qazis should be appointed to administer Shariat laws and a Muslim Minister put in -charge of waqfs . This was going back on the equality before law established in the country for over a century and half . The so called nationalist Muslims in the Congress were and even now are obviously not to promote Indian nationalism cutting across religions, languages and regions but to protect specific and general Islamic interests by influencing the Congress from within . Now-a-days we can find such Muslims not only in Congress but in almost all the regional parties . While the avowedly Islamist parties like AIMIM, IUML, AIUDF, PFI etc.
9. Begum Aizaz Rasool who was the leader of the Muslim League in UP Legislative Assembly, now in the Constituent Assembly vehemently opposed the idea of separate electorate and reservation for any minority including Muslims. Sardar Patel who was the Chairperson of the sub-committee on minorities closed the issue by saying that, there was unanimity in this regard; that is, no reservation on the basis of religion .
10. That the Islamists want to be treated as different from the rest of humanity is evidenced by the fact that the 62 nation Organization of Islamic Co-operation (OIC) had come out with the Islamic Declaration of Human Rights as distinct from the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The fundamentalist and exclusivist nature of Islam is evident from this act of the OIC countries.
11. Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru invited Muslim League people in the Constituent Assembly, in the Parliament and in the State Legislatures and in the country to join the Congress. Many obliged. Since then, the Congress has become a hostage to Muslim interests . The Congress has been treating them as block voters. And in order to get their votes, several appeasement measures like subsidies for Muslims’ Haj pilgrimage, separate minority welfare department , budget allocations and so on are being made. Gradually the Muslim identity and separatism resurfaced and is now most strident. Composite Districts are being divided to create Muslim majority districts - Malappuram in Kerala, Mewat in Haryana and Malerkotla in Punjab. About 80 more are in the offing.
12. Twenty organizations of Muslims of Indian origin in the US congratulated Rahul Gandhi for his strident criticism of Narendra Modi in the USA in May/ June 2023. The generally known fact is that Muslims join the Congress and regional parties not because of their nationalism but because of their avowed object of getting those parties to safe guard and advance Muslims’ communal interests as distinct from national interests.
13. In order to promote national and emotional integration of people following different faiths and religions into one common nation, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru constituted the National Integration Council in 1961 . Despite several decades of its existence there has been little success for the national and emotional integration of minorities, especially Muslims . As this Council became useless , it is no longer being convened .
14. As the Indian National Congress went on splitting, many regional parties, mostly based upon grouping of castes and their demagogic dynastic leadership have come up. There is a contest for the votes of groups, religious, caste, dalitism, tribalism and so on. Now Indian people are getting disintegrated into numerous groups based not only on religion but also caste and region. Each of them is asserting that it is more backward and should be having separate reservation in every part of government and social organisations .
15. Islam does not accept or recognize territorial loyalty irrespective of race, territory and language. Muslims everywhere in the world are considered to be one community, millat. The loyalty is to the millat. There is only one land which is holy, that is, Arabia and the place is Mecca. No other place can be considered either as mother land or a holy land. That is why Muslims in India object to the rendering of Vandemataram . They will do vande only to Allah and Prophet Mohammad and to Mecca and to not any other land or person.
16. Islam divides humanity into two categories . Those who believe in Allah and his Prophet, the final one Mohammed, are called believers and the rest of humanity who don’t believe in Allah and his Prophet are called kafirs. According to Allah and his Prophet the kafirs are the worst species of humanity and deserve to be converted by any means or done away with also by any means. Theologically, it is impossible for the believers that is, Muslims to be in peaceful coexistence with the rest, that is the kafirs.
17. Islam rests on three pillars - Koran, Hadith and Sira. Koran contains Allah’s message to Prophet Mohamad through his messenger Gabriel. Sira is the life story of Prophet Mohammad and his deeds. Hadith is the tradition of what Prophet Mohammed did or said. There are several versions of Hadiths as well as Sira. The trilogy comprises of Koran -14%; Sira - 26% and Hadiths - 60%. Therefore, much more than what is there in the Koran, is in the sayings and doings of Prophet Mohammad during his prophethood as recorded in the Hadiths and Sira. The amount of text devoted to kafirs is: Hadith -37%; Sira-81%; Koran -61%. In the total trilogy it is 51%. It can therefore be seen that Islam deals tremendously and voluminously about non-Muslims and the relation between Muslims and non-Muslims. A few examples as to how a kafir can be dealt with as specified in the Koran are:
· A kafir can be mocked – Koran : 83:34
· A kafir can be beheaded – Koran 47:4
· A kafir can b plotted against- Koran 86:15
· A kafir can be terrorized – Koran 8:12
· A kafir is cursed – Koran 33:61
· A Muslim is not the friend of kafir - Koran 3:28
18. In what has come to be known as the Calcutta High Court Koran Case in the 1980s a petitioner listed 80 Ayats in which Allah has enjoined upon Muslims cruel treatment on non-believers. The petitioner pleaded that as they constitute hate speech, leading to strife in the society, these should be expunged . The lady judge who admitted the petition and was hearing it was transferred and the final judge who delivered the judgment held that those Ayats were the words of God and therefore no man can sit in judgment upon them. A similar petition is now pending in the Supreme Court. This petition does not list all the 80 Ayats but some of them which are so explicitly and intensively hate and intolerance - promoting . We can expect that there will be no judgment in our lifetime . No judge may dare to pronounce expungement of these allegedly God-pronounced words.
19. While the Vedas and even the Bible are subjected to intense criticism and on that account, the critics are not beheaded or are not terrorized into silence , anyone who writes or speaks critically about anything in Koran or about Prophet Mohammad will be risking his neck. That is, terror prevents critical examination of what is in the Koran or in the life and deeds and sayings of Prophet Mohammed. Indeed Prophet Mohammed himself silenced his critics by having them assassinated, beheaded and by mass -killing.
20. A lady satirist, Asma bint Marwan ; Abu Afak and Kaab s/o Abu Ashraf both poets were assassinated by the expressed wish of Prophet Mohammad for their poetry making light of the Prophet. Jews of Banu Kainuka were expelled from Madina; so were Banu Nadir with all their properties and wealth confiscated and most terribly were over 800 Jews of Banu Kuraiza beheaded and their severed bodies thrown into the long and deep trench got dug by themselves, the whole ghastly act was over- seen by the Prophet himself in Madina. The Jews did not accept Mohammad’ prophethood and Islam. They were suspected to be secretly supportive of the Prophet’s enemies. Terror and beheading and expulsion and enslavement of kafirs thus became the standard practice to preempt and punish any inquiry into and critical appraisal of Islam , Hadiths, Sira and the Holy Koran. This is in contrast to no harm coming to any one criticizing Vedas , Rama, Krishna and even Gandhiji . Gone were the times when the Pope could sanction the burning at take of deviants after inquisition; even the great astronomer Giordano Bruno ((b. Jan 1548 d. Feb 1600) of Italy and Joan of Arc ( 30 May 1431) of France and excommunication of another astronomer, Galileo ( b.15/2/1564 d.8/1/1642).
21. It is therefore very clear that theologically and the traditions set up by Prophet Mohammad himself sincere and believing Muslims cannot fraternise with non-Muslims called kafirs or by any other name. There could be truce. Dr.Ambedkar in his seminal book, “Pakistan or India Divided” which he wrote after the Muslim League’s March 1940 Lahore resolution about the two nations and creation of Pakistan by division of India, showed that there never was amity between Hindus and Muslims in India, especially after khilafat movement in the 1920s. He wrote that there was armed truce frequently broken by communal riots. These communal riots got sanction from Md. Ali Jinnah when in 1946 he launched Direct Action - violent one as happened in Calcutta on the 16 of Aug 1946 and thereafter. He indeed said that he had forged a pistol ( that is the communal riots) in order to achieve his goal of partition of India.
22. It is unfortunate that after partition and the creation of Pakistan in 1947, India did not constitute a Truth and Reconciliation Commission as the great Nelson Mandela constituted after achieving black majority rule in South Africa. His aim was that if those who committed atrocities in South Africa on the basis of race admitted and repented there could be Reconciliation and peaceful and fraternal living between the erstwhile rulers who did not emigrate away from South Africa but continued to live among the black native majority and the natives. This example was followed by Peru in South America . It is now being followed by Australia and even Sweden ( where the original inhabitants are called lapps). In India, instead of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission , the erstwhile Muslim League people and their leaders were co-opted into the Nehruvian secular Congress and over time, they are competitively fraternised by the vote-mongering regional parties and leaders . Muslims once again are strident in asserting their separateness as before the partition of India.
23. That terror is even now used to silence criticism is evidenced by the fact of the fatwa to kill that was issued against Salman Rushdie who wrote the book, Satanic Verses in 1988 . An attempt to murder him was made by a Muslim on Aug 12, 2022 , 34 years after the fatwa even though it was withdrawn sometime ago. This attempt to kill him was made by the Muslim not in any Muslim land but in United States ! Such is the grip of Islam on the faithful believers.
24. In contrast to the discontinuance of inquisition and burning at the stake of blasphemers in Christianity , the threat and practice of sir tan se juda that is, beheading is still the norm as evidenced by such pronouncement of fatwa on Smt. Nupur Sharma, a discussant in a TV program and the actual beheading of a tailor in Rajasthan recently on allegation of blaspheming the Prophet.
25. As pointed out earlier, the problem of non-national and non-emotional integration of Muslims is not because something is wrong with Muslims; it is with Islam itself. 51% of the content of the triology of Koran , Hadiths and Sira together deals with kafirs, non-believes in Allah and his Prophet. It is not inapt to recall the awesome pronouncement of William Gladstone ( 1809 -1898), three times Prime Minister of the United Kingdom between 1868 and 1894, waving the Holy Koran in the Parliament of the UK he said “ as long as this Book exists, there will be no peace in the world”; terrible words indeed .
26. With about 200 mln native Muslims in our country and thousands of Madrasas infusing Islamism from childhood it is indeed an awesome task if not impossible deed, to have intolerance and terror filtered out of Islamiat but its propagation with state aid can be stopped by the following measures among others.
· It need not be the duty of the secular state of India to fund Madrasas , construct and maintain Haj Houses and subsidise Haj pilgrimage
· State funds should not be specifically used to promote Muslim’s education and welfare and businesses . Muslims should be non-discriminatively and non-denominationally treated on par with all other citizens of India in all respects
· There should be Common Civil Code
· There should be no National and State Minority Commissions
· No minority, religious or otherwise, should have rights which the majority has not ( Art- 30 of the Constitution)
· Muslims in non-Muslim majority countries may be treated in the same manner as non-Muslims are treated in Islamic countries - principle of reciprocity may bring sense
· The reasons for the economic, educational a and entrepreneurial backwardness of Muslims should also be objectively established to bring about national and emotional unity, if not integration.
27. It is not late to appoint a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to once for all resolve all doubts and disputes about the numerous temples destroyed and mosques constructed in those places and the wakfs which are actually properties of vanquished Hindus appropriated by the conquering Islamist invaders. These should have been taken over by the state(s) just like zamindaris and Inam lands and privy purses of princes and Maharajas and Nawabs. Similarly, the historic Hindu names of towns and cities, rivers and mountains may be restored discarding the conqueror- given names.
28. The National Integration Council pompously established by Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru has served no purpose. Disintegrationist Islamist bodies like the now banned Popular Front of India; IUML ( the successor to the pre-1947 All India Muslim League); the Razakarist AIMIM, AIDUF and avowedly militant Islamist parties and movements are proliferating and flourishing due to patronage by and courtship of disintegrationist regional, casteist, dynastic parties angling for Muslim votes. The cry of federalism in danger is a sinister slogan. Not once such a word as federal, federalism or federation appears in any of the 395 Articles of the constitution. Such an idea for India was decisively given up consequent upon partition and creation of the Islamic state of Pakistan in 1947. India is an indivisible Union of India’s territories newly designated as states, former British Indian Presidencies, Provinces and Princedoms all integrated into a tightly holding Union with extra-ordinary powers for the Parliament and government of India. History teaches us to avoid, conquest and rule by aliens by incessantly promoting and preserving and strengthening the Union against disintegrationist faiths and isms.
The great statesman, scholar and seer Dr K M Munshi , founder of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan wrote the book, “Warnings of History” in 1960s which if we ignore , India’s independence would be imperiled. The speeches of Dr Ambedkar and Dr Rajendraprasad at the concluding session of the Constituent Assembly on 29 Nov 1949 eloquently warned us of the disintegrating factors in our policy. ( 3,774 words)
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