The people of this vast country, both Hindus and Muslims, deserve to be saluted for their extraordinary patience and perseverance after the Allahabad High Court Bench delivered its judgement in the vexed litigation for the title of the disputed Babri Masjid site in Ayodya. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari there was not even a single incident of violence or demonstration. Without going into the merits and demerits of the majority judgement of the Bench, although a section of the people had reasons for jubilation and another to feel disappointed, there was no celebration or sulking anywhere. In fact in many places across the country, more particularly at Haridwar, the ‘holy land’ of Hindus, the religious leaders and people of both communities took out joint peace processions and official joint prayers. Countries all over the world, and those inimical to India, which were apprehending communal flare up in the post-verdict period, must have been taken in by surprise.
The pertinent question is: Is this welcome feature a new phenomenon in this country? Absolutely not. Historically the two communities had been living in absolute peace and united for ages.
When India launched on its struggle for freedom from British rule, its two major communities, the Hindus and the Muslims, joined in it with equal enthusiasm, like they had done so during the “First” Indian War of Independence in 1857 popularly known as ‘sipoy mutiny’. The Indian National Congress was formed in 1885. Nationalist leaders from all communities participated in its activities in the first four decades of its existence. Indeed, its second President was a Muslim, Badruddin Tyabji. Soon after the First World War, Mahatma Gandhi emerged as the leader of the Indian freedom movement. It was he who set the Congress on a mass militant but non-violent course. Till then, the organization had been largely an elitist protest movement against the denial of rights and opportunities to qualified Indians to participate in the governance of the country in order to ensure that India’s interests were not subverted to those of Britain. Under Gandhi’s inspired leadership, the social base of the Congress was widened and it acquired the character of a mass national organization. Meanwhile, in pursuit of their worldwide imperial interests the British decided to dissolve the Islamic Caliphate in Turkey. The repression let loose in Muslim countries in the wake of this decision caused a stir in the Indian Muslim community which launched its own separate movement against the British, referred to as the Khilafat.
Mahatma Gandhi, who perceived that the common impulse behind both movements was nationalism, called for a united effort. The Indian National Congress made common cause with the Khilafat, and leaders of the two organizations conducted a common struggle against British imperialism. Among the most steadfast freedom fighters were the Pathans of undivided India’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), now a part of Pakistan. Led by their austere leader, Khan Abdul Ghafar Khan, who was popularly known as Frontier Gandhi, and who spent 45 years in jail of his 95 years life, the Pathans were throughout uncompromising in their opposition to British rule. Since NWFP was a sensitive border area, the British had to employ even more repression here than elsewhere in the country. They resorted to strong-arm methods to suppress the Khudai Khidmatgars, the soldiers of the disciplined and non-violent militia raised by the Khan. Thousands of these volunteers were victims of this repression. They not only spent years in British prisons but fell victims to their batons and bullets.
During their joint struggle against the British, the Hindus and Muslims transcended their sectarian differences and interests. In this period, even Muslim separatist leaders paid tribute to the ideal of Hindu-Muslim unity. Enthusiastic scenes of fraternity and amity between the two communities were witnessed all over the country. These events greatly encouraged and strengthened the Muslim nationalist leadership all over the country that is now manifest in all the major secular political parties of India. These developments were a direct challenge to the British hegemony over India. Anxious to reassert their hold over the country they took recourse to the application of the classical imperial policy of divide-and-rule by playing up sectarian differences between the two communities. Unfortunately, this succeeded largely owing to personal rivalries and animosities between the leaders of the movement. The feudal elements among Muslims, as well as the conservative and rigidly orthodox among the Hindus, who enjoyed considerable prestige and influence in their respective communities gradually drifted away from the truly nationally inspired national movement. The hard core of nationalist Muslim Leaders, however, remained solidly united with their Hindu colleagues in the Congress. Outstanding among them were Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Abbas Tyabji, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, Maulana Hussain, Ahmed Madani and Maulana Hifzur Rehman.
After World War II when the British, under the pressure of India’s demands for freedom, agreed to withdraw from the country, the Muslim League insisted on partition. The Congress had always opposed the theory that Hindus and Muslims in India constituted two separate nations. It had set its face against the proposal to divide the country into a Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. However, committed as it was to democratic principles the British rulers were able to prevail upon it to accept the proposition that “unwilling parts of the country” could not be compelled to remain in the Indian Union. Also, because it wished to obtain independence for the subcontinent from British rule as early as possible, the Congress had ultimately to accept that the predominantly Muslim provinces of India’s northwest and the east could secede to form the new state of Pakistan.
Earlier, Tipu Sultan, also known as the Tiger of Mysore, was one of the prominent Indian kings who fought against the British East India Company.
The contribution of Muslim revolutionaries, poets and writers is documented in India’s struggle against the British. Titu Mir raised a revolt against British. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Hakim Ajmal Khan and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai are Muslims who engaged in this purpose. Muhammad Ashfaq Ullah Khan of Shahjehanpur conspired to loot the British treasury at Kakori (Lucknow). Barakatullah of Bhopal was one of the founders of the Ghadar party which created a network of anti-British organizations; Syed Rahmat Shah of the Ghadar party worked as an underground revolutionary in France and was hanged for his part in the unsuccessful Ghadar (mutiny) uprising in 1915; Ali Ahmad Siddiqui of Faizabad (UP) planned the Indian Mutiny in Malaya and Burma along with Syed Mujtaba Hussain of Jaunpur and was hanged in 1917; Vakkom Abdul Khadir of Kerala participated in the “Quit India” struggle in 1942 and was hanged; Umar Subhani, an industrialist and millionaire of Bombay provided Gandhi with Congress expenses and ultimately died for the cause of independence. Among Muslim women, Hazrat Mahal, Asghari Begum, Bi Amma contributed in the struggle of freedom from the British.
Hyder Ali, and later his son Tipu Sultan were early to understand the threat of the British East India Company and resisted it. However, Tipu Sultan was finally defeated at Srirangapatnam in 1799. In Bengal, Nawab Siraj ud-Daulah faced the expansionist aims of the British East India Company and fought the British. However, he lost at the battle of Plassey in 1757.
The first ever Indian rebellion against the British saw itself in the Vellore Mutiny of 10th July, 1806 which left around 200 British Officers and troops dead or injured. But it was subdued by the British and the mutineers and the family of Tippu Sultan who were incarcerated in the Vellore Fort at that time had to pay a heavy price. It predates the First war of Independence, which the British imperialists called the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. The soldiers of disbanded armies of Kattabomman and Marudhu Pandiyan brothers were settled here and actively cooperated with Tipu Sultan’s loyal men. As a result of the Sepoy Mutiny, mostly the upper class Muslims were targeted by the Britishers, as under their leadership the war was mostly fought in and around Delhi. Thousands of kith and kins were shot or hanged near the gate of Red Fort, Delhi, which is now known as ‘Khooni Darwaza’(the bloody gate). The renowned Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib(1797-1869) has given a vivid description of such massacre in his letters now published by the Oxford University Press ‘Ghalib his life and letters’compiled and translated by Ralph Russel and Khurshidul Islam(1994).
Other famous Muslims who fought for freedom against the British rule: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Maulana Mehmud Hasan of Darul Uloom Deoband who was implicated in the famous Silk Letter Conspiracy to overthrow the British through an armed struggle, Husain Ahmed Madani, former Shaikhul Hadith of Darul Uloom Deoband, Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi, Hakeem Ajmal Khan, Hasrat Mohani, Dr. Syed Mahmud, Professor Maulavi Barkatullah, Dr. Zakir Husain , Saifuddin Kichlu, Allama Shibli Nomani, Vakkom Abdul Khadir, Dr. Manzoor Abdul Wahab, Bahadur Shah Zafar, Hakeem Nusrat Husain, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai, Colonel Shahnawaz, Dr. M.A.Ansari, Rafi Ahmad Kidwai, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad, Ansar Harwani, Tak Sherwani, Nawab Viqarul Mulk, Nawab Mohsinul Mulk, Mustsafa Husain, VM Ubaidullah, SR Rahim, Badaruddin Taiyabji, and Moulvi Abdul Hamid.
In all the conspiracy cases filed by the British rulers both Hindus and Muslims were accused, prosecuted and punished. Even during partition and after, vast majority of Muslims in India preferred to stay in the country in spite of a promised ‘heaven’ in Pakistan.
They felt this was their native land and the people here including the Hindus were their brethren. Not a single Muslim family from Tamil Nadu migrated to Pakistan because here in districts particularly in Southern and Eastern districts, there is a sentiment of relationship between the peoples of both communities and male members call each other as ‘mamu’ (uncle) and ‘machchan’ (brother-in-law). But to religion, by language, culture etc., Muslims here are as much Indians as others are. Now India has the second largest Muslim population in the world next to Indonesia.
The acid test for a democracy is the sense of safety and security that minorities of all types feel. The Sangh Parivar leaders, particularly Shiv Sena’s Bal Thackeray were vocal in their support to the LTTE of Lanka and its chief Prabhakaran, because they belonged to minority Hindu community which was sought to be suppressed by the majority Buddhist community. But when it came to the Muslim and Christian minorities in India, they did not extend the same logic.
If the British alien rulers sought to vitiate this age-old communal amity in order to serve their colonial policy of ‘divide and rule’, the Sangh Parivar and its political wing, the BJP resorted to the same tactics to achieve their heinous design of ‘divide to rule’. The rath yatra taken out by L.K.Advani, karseva, silanyas etc., that culminated in the demolition of Babri Masjid at Ayodya were part of their design to capture power at the Centre. Unfortunately yielding to provocations some ill-advised sections among the minority community also resorted to retaliatory measures resulting in riots, blood shed and chaos for over two decades. But the communal forces of all hues could not keep the people on the edge of emotional upheaval for long and sanity started prevailing in both communities. The BJP was defeated twice in Lok Sabha elections and the party is decaying under its own weight. The post-Allahabad High Court verdict period had vindicated the stand of secular, progressive and democratic forces in the country.
Yet, secular forces cannot afford to be complacent and they must keep eternal vigilance against the re-emergence of communal forces!
The pertinent question is: Is this welcome feature a new phenomenon in this country? Absolutely not. Historically the two communities had been living in absolute peace and united for ages.
When India launched on its struggle for freedom from British rule, its two major communities, the Hindus and the Muslims, joined in it with equal enthusiasm, like they had done so during the “First” Indian War of Independence in 1857 popularly known as ‘sipoy mutiny’. The Indian National Congress was formed in 1885. Nationalist leaders from all communities participated in its activities in the first four decades of its existence. Indeed, its second President was a Muslim, Badruddin Tyabji. Soon after the First World War, Mahatma Gandhi emerged as the leader of the Indian freedom movement. It was he who set the Congress on a mass militant but non-violent course. Till then, the organization had been largely an elitist protest movement against the denial of rights and opportunities to qualified Indians to participate in the governance of the country in order to ensure that India’s interests were not subverted to those of Britain. Under Gandhi’s inspired leadership, the social base of the Congress was widened and it acquired the character of a mass national organization. Meanwhile, in pursuit of their worldwide imperial interests the British decided to dissolve the Islamic Caliphate in Turkey. The repression let loose in Muslim countries in the wake of this decision caused a stir in the Indian Muslim community which launched its own separate movement against the British, referred to as the Khilafat.
Mahatma Gandhi, who perceived that the common impulse behind both movements was nationalism, called for a united effort. The Indian National Congress made common cause with the Khilafat, and leaders of the two organizations conducted a common struggle against British imperialism. Among the most steadfast freedom fighters were the Pathans of undivided India’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), now a part of Pakistan. Led by their austere leader, Khan Abdul Ghafar Khan, who was popularly known as Frontier Gandhi, and who spent 45 years in jail of his 95 years life, the Pathans were throughout uncompromising in their opposition to British rule. Since NWFP was a sensitive border area, the British had to employ even more repression here than elsewhere in the country. They resorted to strong-arm methods to suppress the Khudai Khidmatgars, the soldiers of the disciplined and non-violent militia raised by the Khan. Thousands of these volunteers were victims of this repression. They not only spent years in British prisons but fell victims to their batons and bullets.
During their joint struggle against the British, the Hindus and Muslims transcended their sectarian differences and interests. In this period, even Muslim separatist leaders paid tribute to the ideal of Hindu-Muslim unity. Enthusiastic scenes of fraternity and amity between the two communities were witnessed all over the country. These events greatly encouraged and strengthened the Muslim nationalist leadership all over the country that is now manifest in all the major secular political parties of India. These developments were a direct challenge to the British hegemony over India. Anxious to reassert their hold over the country they took recourse to the application of the classical imperial policy of divide-and-rule by playing up sectarian differences between the two communities. Unfortunately, this succeeded largely owing to personal rivalries and animosities between the leaders of the movement. The feudal elements among Muslims, as well as the conservative and rigidly orthodox among the Hindus, who enjoyed considerable prestige and influence in their respective communities gradually drifted away from the truly nationally inspired national movement. The hard core of nationalist Muslim Leaders, however, remained solidly united with their Hindu colleagues in the Congress. Outstanding among them were Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Abbas Tyabji, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, Maulana Hussain, Ahmed Madani and Maulana Hifzur Rehman.
After World War II when the British, under the pressure of India’s demands for freedom, agreed to withdraw from the country, the Muslim League insisted on partition. The Congress had always opposed the theory that Hindus and Muslims in India constituted two separate nations. It had set its face against the proposal to divide the country into a Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. However, committed as it was to democratic principles the British rulers were able to prevail upon it to accept the proposition that “unwilling parts of the country” could not be compelled to remain in the Indian Union. Also, because it wished to obtain independence for the subcontinent from British rule as early as possible, the Congress had ultimately to accept that the predominantly Muslim provinces of India’s northwest and the east could secede to form the new state of Pakistan.
Earlier, Tipu Sultan, also known as the Tiger of Mysore, was one of the prominent Indian kings who fought against the British East India Company.
The contribution of Muslim revolutionaries, poets and writers is documented in India’s struggle against the British. Titu Mir raised a revolt against British. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Hakim Ajmal Khan and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai are Muslims who engaged in this purpose. Muhammad Ashfaq Ullah Khan of Shahjehanpur conspired to loot the British treasury at Kakori (Lucknow). Barakatullah of Bhopal was one of the founders of the Ghadar party which created a network of anti-British organizations; Syed Rahmat Shah of the Ghadar party worked as an underground revolutionary in France and was hanged for his part in the unsuccessful Ghadar (mutiny) uprising in 1915; Ali Ahmad Siddiqui of Faizabad (UP) planned the Indian Mutiny in Malaya and Burma along with Syed Mujtaba Hussain of Jaunpur and was hanged in 1917; Vakkom Abdul Khadir of Kerala participated in the “Quit India” struggle in 1942 and was hanged; Umar Subhani, an industrialist and millionaire of Bombay provided Gandhi with Congress expenses and ultimately died for the cause of independence. Among Muslim women, Hazrat Mahal, Asghari Begum, Bi Amma contributed in the struggle of freedom from the British.
Hyder Ali, and later his son Tipu Sultan were early to understand the threat of the British East India Company and resisted it. However, Tipu Sultan was finally defeated at Srirangapatnam in 1799. In Bengal, Nawab Siraj ud-Daulah faced the expansionist aims of the British East India Company and fought the British. However, he lost at the battle of Plassey in 1757.
The first ever Indian rebellion against the British saw itself in the Vellore Mutiny of 10th July, 1806 which left around 200 British Officers and troops dead or injured. But it was subdued by the British and the mutineers and the family of Tippu Sultan who were incarcerated in the Vellore Fort at that time had to pay a heavy price. It predates the First war of Independence, which the British imperialists called the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. The soldiers of disbanded armies of Kattabomman and Marudhu Pandiyan brothers were settled here and actively cooperated with Tipu Sultan’s loyal men. As a result of the Sepoy Mutiny, mostly the upper class Muslims were targeted by the Britishers, as under their leadership the war was mostly fought in and around Delhi. Thousands of kith and kins were shot or hanged near the gate of Red Fort, Delhi, which is now known as ‘Khooni Darwaza’(the bloody gate). The renowned Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib(1797-1869) has given a vivid description of such massacre in his letters now published by the Oxford University Press ‘Ghalib his life and letters’compiled and translated by Ralph Russel and Khurshidul Islam(1994).
Other famous Muslims who fought for freedom against the British rule: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Maulana Mehmud Hasan of Darul Uloom Deoband who was implicated in the famous Silk Letter Conspiracy to overthrow the British through an armed struggle, Husain Ahmed Madani, former Shaikhul Hadith of Darul Uloom Deoband, Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi, Hakeem Ajmal Khan, Hasrat Mohani, Dr. Syed Mahmud, Professor Maulavi Barkatullah, Dr. Zakir Husain , Saifuddin Kichlu, Allama Shibli Nomani, Vakkom Abdul Khadir, Dr. Manzoor Abdul Wahab, Bahadur Shah Zafar, Hakeem Nusrat Husain, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai, Colonel Shahnawaz, Dr. M.A.Ansari, Rafi Ahmad Kidwai, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad, Ansar Harwani, Tak Sherwani, Nawab Viqarul Mulk, Nawab Mohsinul Mulk, Mustsafa Husain, VM Ubaidullah, SR Rahim, Badaruddin Taiyabji, and Moulvi Abdul Hamid.
In all the conspiracy cases filed by the British rulers both Hindus and Muslims were accused, prosecuted and punished. Even during partition and after, vast majority of Muslims in India preferred to stay in the country in spite of a promised ‘heaven’ in Pakistan.
They felt this was their native land and the people here including the Hindus were their brethren. Not a single Muslim family from Tamil Nadu migrated to Pakistan because here in districts particularly in Southern and Eastern districts, there is a sentiment of relationship between the peoples of both communities and male members call each other as ‘mamu’ (uncle) and ‘machchan’ (brother-in-law). But to religion, by language, culture etc., Muslims here are as much Indians as others are. Now India has the second largest Muslim population in the world next to Indonesia.
The acid test for a democracy is the sense of safety and security that minorities of all types feel. The Sangh Parivar leaders, particularly Shiv Sena’s Bal Thackeray were vocal in their support to the LTTE of Lanka and its chief Prabhakaran, because they belonged to minority Hindu community which was sought to be suppressed by the majority Buddhist community. But when it came to the Muslim and Christian minorities in India, they did not extend the same logic.
If the British alien rulers sought to vitiate this age-old communal amity in order to serve their colonial policy of ‘divide and rule’, the Sangh Parivar and its political wing, the BJP resorted to the same tactics to achieve their heinous design of ‘divide to rule’. The rath yatra taken out by L.K.Advani, karseva, silanyas etc., that culminated in the demolition of Babri Masjid at Ayodya were part of their design to capture power at the Centre. Unfortunately yielding to provocations some ill-advised sections among the minority community also resorted to retaliatory measures resulting in riots, blood shed and chaos for over two decades. But the communal forces of all hues could not keep the people on the edge of emotional upheaval for long and sanity started prevailing in both communities. The BJP was defeated twice in Lok Sabha elections and the party is decaying under its own weight. The post-Allahabad High Court verdict period had vindicated the stand of secular, progressive and democratic forces in the country.
Yet, secular forces cannot afford to be complacent and they must keep eternal vigilance against the re-emergence of communal forces!
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