Splitting India V

Dr. Ishtiaq Ahmed in The Friday Times questions the role of Pakistan’s first Foreign Minister Dr. Zafrulla in the Pakistan story.

After facing a tirade from Indian readers I must now confront an even more powerful onslaught from within Pakistan. The point which has generated most commotion is that I did not mention that the Pakistan demand goes far beyond 1940. For an informed public, as I believe The Friday Times readers are, to be reminded of the long pedigree of the idea of Pakistan is an insult. Some imaginative writers date the origins of the Pakistan idea to the arrival of Muhammad bin Qasim; on the way Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi, Aurangzeb Alamgir, Shah Waliullah and then in the 20^th century the Kheiri brothers and so on. Many other protagonists of such an idea figure in histories of the Pakistan idea. In the chapter entitled ‘Genesis of the Punjab Partition 1900-1914’ (ibid, pages 52-53) of my Punjab book, Iqbal and Rahmat Ali are quoted verbatim because they were the most important before the March 1940 resolution. By saying that the idea of Pakistan originated in the office of the viceroy, I was dramatizing an important transformation: from merely an idea of aspirants to a political project sanctioned by the main power in India: the British. I should have made that point clear.

Zafrulla presented the Muslim League case with great competence and conviction

However, the main body of criticisms and attacks on the Internet – emails, Facebook and Twitter – has been launched by the hero-worshippers and admirers of Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan, Pakistan’s first foreign minister. To informed Pakistani readers it should not be surprising that Sir Zafrulla is demonized by some and lionized by others. In my book, The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed (Oxford 2012, pages, 271-2), Zafrulla emerges as an outstanding counsel who pleaded the Muslim League’s case before the Punjab Boundary Commission pertaining to claims to territory in a partitioned Punjab. I have also presented the views of two leading Muslim Leaguers, Syed Ahmed Saeed Kirmani (Sunni) and Syed Afzal Haider (Shia) who attended the proceedings of the Boundary Commission. They give full marks to Zafrulla for presenting the Muslim League case with great competence and conviction. I even quote the counsel for the Congress Party, Mr Setelvad, who paid glowing tributes to Zafrulla for his excellent brief. I did this not as a favour to Zafrulla, but as a scholar I have to be faithful to the findings of my research.

Sir Zafrulla Khan speaks with Saudi Arabia’s Shah Faisal

The problem of Zafrulla’s followers is that they are fostering a myth about him that does not stand the scrutiny of objective research. Let me begin with the most superlative eulogy to Zafrulla by Mr Hussain Nadim who wrote under the title, ‘Do we really need Jinnah’s Pakistan’ in the Daily Times dated 22 December 2012:

“[T]here needs to be a realisation that Jinnah was the ‘lawyer’ for the case of Pakistan. He argued for it, and won. However, Jinnah was never the visionary or a revolutionary strategic thinker to guide the course of the nation. If anybody at all in Muslim League was a strategic thinker, it was Sir Zafarullah Khan, who was also the author of the Lahore Resolution, which for the first time chalked out the idea of Pakistan. Khan, however, belonged to the then Islamic sect of Ahmadis and thus his role over the years was kept secret, until recently when documents and letters written by Lord Linlithgow revealed the centrality of his role. Hence, there should be a little less stress on ‘Jinnah’s Pakistan’, because honestly, there is none; and scratching out Jinnah’s vision forcefully has only served to confuse the people and obfuscate the roadway to progress”.

Pakistan originated in the office of the Viceroy

In an overall homage to Sir Zafrulla on his death anniversary by Moahmmad Ahmad: ‘A forgotten hero: Mohammad Zafrullah Khan’ in the Daily Times of 1 September 2013, he describes Mr Khan as ‘one of the greatest heroes of Pakistan’. He goes on to list his services to Islamic countries and takes up his historic speeches on Kashmir and Palestine. With regard to the Lahore Resolution he writes: ‘Mr Khan’s greatest contribution to the cause of Indian Muslims is his drafting of the Lahore Resolution, which is the rallying point of our nationalism as our founding document’.

Sir Zafrulla With President Kennedy

However, one commentator wrote the following in the comments on my last article:

(The comment has been edited for clarity –TFT)

“Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed needs to read the correspondence between the Viceroy of India, Lord Linlithgow, and Secretary of State for India, Lord Zetland, that took place in the year 1940. I read that correspondence, preserved in the Viceroy’s Journal about 8 years ago at the British Library in London (which now houses the All India Office Library). The first letter on the Lahore Resolution was written by the Viceroy to Lord Zetland on the 26th of March. He mentions very clearly that he did not want an All India Muslim League meeting in Lahore to go ahead in the wake of the Khaksar tragedy which had taken place just a few days before. Sir Sikander Hayat, Premier of Punjab at that time, tried to persuade the Viceroy to convince Jinnah to postpone the session but made it explicit that it should not be disclosed to Jinnah that the suggestion had come from Sikander, because if Jinnah learnt of the source of the suggestion he would not accept it. The Viceroy sent Sir Zafrullah Khan to persuade Jinnah to postpone the Lahore session in the wake of the law and order situation prevailing in the city. The viceroy in his letter of 26th May clearly states that ZK went and tried to persuade Jinnah who listened to him patiently but refused to postpone the meeting. So much for the influence of Viceroy or ZK on Jinnah that Dr.Ishtiaq mentions in his article”.

Sir Zafrulla in New York

It is to be noted that Mr Mohammad Ahmad has not mentioned the source on which he is basing his claim that Zafrulla drafted the Lahore Resolution. However, while Mr Nadim depicts Zafrulla as the “strategic thinker” who masterminded the Pakistan demand while Jinnah was merely the lawyer who pleaded the case of Pakistan, the commentator’s intervention effectively negates any role of Zafrulla and Linlithgow in the framing of the Lahore resolution. If at all these two played any role, according to the commentator, it was an unsuccessful attempt to dissuade Mr Jinnah from going ahead with the Lahore session of the Muslim League. The commentator gives the credit exclusively to Jinnah for the drafting and passing of the Lahore Resolution. Both claim to have read the same recent primary source material. So, who should we believe? Either Nadim or the commentator is dead wrong, or, both are. One can even wonder if this new information which the two gentlemen claim to have read is credible in its own right.

With regard to the source material I have used, it is Wali Khan’s, Facts are Facts (New Delhi: Vikas, 1987, pages 29-30). Wali Khan too has claimed that he sat in the British Library and researched the material on partition and found out that Linlithgow sent Zafrulla to tell the Muslim League to demand separate Muslim states.

Sir M. Zafrulla Khan talks with Sir Carl A. Berendsen, New Zealand, before the 46th plenary meeting of the Second Session of the United Nations General Assembly

If now, as many of his followers and admirers claim that Zafrulla did play the key role in the formulation of the Lahore resolution the question is, did he do so as a free agent? He was a member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council and such a position should effectively preclude him saying something that would jeopardize British interests. If not Linlithgow then some other British agency must have given him a nod to go ahead.

Another possibility is that the spiritual leadership of his Ahmadiyya community approved of such an idea and not the British directly? Such a possibility poses serious problems if one relies on available primary source material on it. Consider the following report of the Punjab Governor Sir Henry Craik, which he sent to the Viceroy Linlithgow two days after the Lahore Resolution, was moved:

“I had an interesting talk this morning with Pir Akbar Ali, a Unionist member of our assembly, who belongs to the Ahmadiyya community…Pir Akbar Ali gave me two items of information, which may interest you. The Ahmadis, he said, have always considered the Khaksar Movement a dangerous one and not a single Ahmadi has joined it. The second item was that the Ahmadis as a body have not been allowed by the religious head of their movement to join the Muslim League. Akbar Ali himself has been allowed to join as a member of the Unionist Party for a term of six months only. The question whether his followers should be allowed to join the League is, I understand, shortly to be considered by the head of the community” (Carter, Punjab Politics, Strains of War, New Delhi 2005, page 101).

We can step back some years and consider another claim. It is that it was the efforts of the Ahmedis that Jinnah was brought back from Britain where he had settled and established a flourishing practice. There are counter claims that assert that Liaquat Ali Khan convinced Jinnah to return. Then we have those who say that it was Allama Iqbal who persuaded Jinnah to come back and lead the Muslims. Whose supplications actually convinced Mr Jinnah to return can be nothing more than mere speculation. With regard to the Ahmadi claim that they were in the forefront of the Pakistan movement the Munir Report does not uphold it. It states that the Ahmadis were wary and reluctant of the movement (presumably out of fear that they could be persecuted, which I think was a perfectly justified reason to hesitate) and after much prevarication it was only just before partition that the Ahmadi community reached the decision to support it (Munir Report, Lahore: Government Printing Press, 1954, page196).

I now present some additional criticisms of Zafrulla. Jinnah appointed him as the foreign minister of Pakistan. I am sure such a choice was based on his competence and brilliance, but the fact that he had powerful connections to Western leaders must also have played an important role. He was known as the Pet Indian. However, when Jinnah died on 11 September 1948, Zafrulla did not participate in his funeral prayers. The Munir Report testifies to that (page 199). Revisionist apologies have explained away Zafrulla’s decision by saying that since Shabbir Ahmed Usmani did not consider Ahmadis Muslims Zafrulla could not have offered prayers led by Usmani (Sunni-Deobandi).

From what I have heard, all sorts of Muslims took part in the public prayers arranged by the government and among them were Barelvis, Deobandis, Ahl-e-Hadith, Ahl-e-Quran and Shias, who ordinarily would prefer an alim of their own denomination to lead funeral prayers. They had no problem in standing behind Usmani because it was a very, very special occasion. Yet Zafrulla remained steadfast to the Ahmadiyya community’s practice of not taking part in such ceremonies because non-Ahmadis are not considered “Muslims” by the Ahmadis (Munir Report, page 199).

On the other hand, in the famous debate in the Pakistan Constituent Assembly on the Objectives resolution in March 1949, Zafrulla supported its Islamic features. I have read the whole text of the debate. Allama Shabbir Ahmed Usmani spoke after Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan. Zafrulla’s speech followed in which he deferred to the authority of Usmani. This happened at least half a year after the death of Jinnah. So Zafrulla has no problems speaking in support of a man behind whom he did not stand during the funeral rites of Jinnah! This was all politics. At that time the Cold War was raging and the Pakistani elite, which included Zafrulla, wanted Pakistan to take a categorical anti-secular stand and thus make credible its co-option in the anti-Soviet alignment in international politics.

If it is true that Zafrulla had no meaningful role in the drafting of the Lahore Resolution then the myth of Zafrulla as the great hero of Pakistan effectively bursts. A proper study of the role of Sir Zafrulla is needed in which all sides who have an opinion should be given a fair chance to present their views and the relevant official documents are examined and analysed.

A scathing criticism of Sir Zafrulla’s role exists among Pakistani Leftists

A scathing criticism of Sir Zafrulla’s role as Pakistan’s foreign minister exists among Pakistani Leftists. He is accused of having served imperialist interests rather than that of progressive Muslims during the Cold War. This is what Mian Iftikhar-ud-din said in the Pakistan Constituent Assembly:

”I am pleased to announce that Sir Muhammad Zafrullah Khan is leaving us. The House will join me in congratulating Sir Muhammad Zafrullah Khan on a rumoured Eisenhower Prize and Churchill Medal to him for having successfully and finally committed his country, in private at least if not in public, to the permanent slavery not only of British Imperialism but also of the rising powerful imperialism of the U.S.A. He has no need now to control our foreign affairs as in future we shall have no foreign affairs. Our foreign affairs will be dictated and controlled by Britain and even so by America. Sir Zafrullah will now, I understand, be entrusted to these great powers with the task of enslaving other Islamic countries…

It is hoped that as a practised hand and one who has acquired great prestige by having represented the biggest Muslim State of the world in international affairs, he will perform this task to the satisfaction of his employers and no doubt to the full detriment of the future of the Islamic and Asiatic States and will succeed in enslaving as certainly and permanently as he has enslaved his own unhappy land” (Abdullah Malik (ed), Selected Speeches and Statements of Mian Iftikhar-ud-din, Lahore: Nigarishat, 1970, pages 103-104).

Splitting India IV

Facing criticism from Indians and Pakistanis alike, Dr. Ishtiaq Ahmed in The Friday Times tackles questions on the Hindu class system and religious nationalism  

As I argue my thesis that the partition of India, Bengal and Punjab was not necessarily the best option for Muslims – a point of view that in Pakistani nationalist historiography is inadmissible, to my very great surprise it has elicited quite bizarre reactions from some Indian readers. One of them, writing in the comments section after the publication of my second article dated 27 September 2013 considers me arguing my case in the same vein and wave-length as Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the head of the Jama’at-ud-Da’wah and formally of the defunct Lashkar-e-Tayyaba who advised Bollywood megastar Shahrukh Khan to migrate to Pakistan to rid himself of the cloud of suspicion he was under in India, despite being one of their most admired and loved artistes! This commentator asserts that the Indian constitution suffices to protect the rights of Muslims.

The partition lent legitimacy to religious nationalism in both India and Pakistan

May I add that Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar went public some years ago over their vain attempts to buy an apartment in Mumbai, the reason being that they are Muslims. The great thespian Dilip Kumar has been hounded by Shiv Sena for years. I need not say that these are very high profile Indian Muslims. The partition of India rendered every Indian Muslim a suspect for rightwing politicians. I have explained this at length in my earlier essays on this theme.

The architect of India’s secular constitution

Another gentleman found my article accusative because I drew attention to the vulnerable position and depressed status of Indian Muslims. To my third article in the series dated 5 October 2013, one commentator alleges that “the article reeks of hatred and prejudice against Hindus. Don’t know where to start.” He goes on to claim he has never heard about Manusmitri!

I can help him to start with the mid-1940s, with a scene described vividly by Mr Dina Nath Malhotra, son of the publisher of the notorious tract, Rangeela Rasul. The scene is from Nisbet Road Lahore, an upwardly mobile middle-class Hindu locality close to the heart of pre-partition Lahore’s cultural centre: Lakshmi Chowk and Royal Park:

“During the summer months in Lahore, young Hindu volunteers from good families used to haul trolleys of cool water, scented with kewra and sandal, on Nisbet Road and other areas, offering water in silver tumblers to every passer-by with courtesy. But it was limited to Hindus only. When any Muslim, even if decently dressed, came forward to get a glass of water, he was given water in a specially reserved inferior glass, the water being taken out from a bamboo funnel more than a yard long. This was most humiliating and repulsive. Such acts effectively made the Muslims feel discriminated against. Under the circumstances, it was inevitable that the exhortations of Jinnah had a telling effect on the mind of the Muslim community” (Malhotra, Dare to Publish, New Delhi, 2004: 59).

With regard to the Indian constitution let me say that a gap between a constitution as a theoretical instrument of rights and the actual practice of states has always existed, though over time if the political system adheres to constitutionalism then that gap narrows or even closes. I will give only a few examples. The US constitution (1787) famously declared that all men were created equal and endowed with equal rights, but till the mid-1960s racism was endemic in the southern states. African-Americans had to wage a protracted struggle to be included in the category of equal citizens. The French Revolution (1789) and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen ushered in the first democratic revolution in Western Europe, but it was not until 1945 that French women were granted the right to vote. The English arrogate themselves over the Magna Carta (1215) as the first constitutional instrument limiting the power of the king, which in 1769 was further strengthened by the English Bill of Rights but it was not until 1928 that the right to vote was granted to all men and women in Britain. As late as the 19^th century a child of 12 caught stealing a loaf of bread could be hanged under British law.

The Khilafat Movement temporarily brought Hindus and Muslims togther

The Indian constitution is indeed a great document and it goes to the full credit of the government of Jawaharlal Nehru that he helped get the evil practice of untouchability declared a penal offence in 1955. However, it would be naïve to imagine or believe that more than two thousand years of socialization into the doctrine of pollution and caste which divides Hindus into strict hierarchy no longer informs social attitudes and behavior. Attacks on Dalits take place all the time. There is a documentary film by K. Stalin on how widespread is the persecution and humiliation of Dalits in India. It is available on You Tube and anyone can see it. Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has observed:

Even after 60 years of constitutional and legal protection and support, there is still social discrimination against Dalits in many parts of the country… Dalits have faced a unique discrimination in our society that is fundamentally different from the problems of minority groups in general. The only parallel to the practice of untouchability was apartheid. (28 December 2006, The Guardian, UK).

With regard to Indian Muslims, no doubt there is nothing in the Indian constitution which disqualifies them from enjoying citizenship on an equal basis with other Indians, but what do the facts tell us? In my article I have referred to the rabid anti-Muslim propaganda of Hindu extremist organizations such as the RSS and Shiv Sena, and I might as well add to that list the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal who together form the notorious nexus of Sangh Parivar, who constantly demonize Muslims as fifth columnists.

Indian Muslims felt that they were subjected to systematic discrimination

I also referred in my earlier article to the 2006 Sachar Report which found that Indian Muslims as a whole were a depressed community. It also reported that the Indian Muslims felt that they were subjected to systematic discrimination. Further, I drew attention to the infamous attack on the Babri Masjid in 1992 and the carnage of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. Then what about the massacre of Sikhs in Delhi in 1984? It is clearly reminiscent of scenes that were enacted in Nazi Germany in the 1930s. An Indian friend of mine, a Sikh who served in the highest position in the Indian Foreign Service had to run for his life and sought refuge in a foreign embassy to save his life. I believe that the celebrated Sikh writer Khushwant Singh had to do the same. Let me develop this point even further. Attacks on Christians have also been taking place of and on. The horrendous attack on Father Staines and his family is one such case but not the only one.

In civilized societies there is no scope for mob revenge attacks

Of course one can make a case about the slaughter of Muslims in 2002 and of Sikhs in 1984 as reactions to terrorism that some Indian Muslims, possibly with the backing of the Pakistani ISI, and of Khalistani Sikhs had carried out, but in civilized societies there is no scope for mob revenge attacks and with the state being complicit in it. Those guilty have to be put on trial and if found guilty, punished in accordance with the law of the land.

Once again, I set forth my argument: the partition lent legitimacy to religious nationalism. Pakistan succumbed to it rather easily and naturally despite the famous 11 August 1947 speech of Mr Jinnah. The situation today is so bad that the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan who till recently were being damned by the Pakistani media and politicians as RAW agents have now been conferred respectfully as “stakeholders” in the Pakistani state project! India will touch nadir if voters elect Narendra Modi to the same office which was once occupied by Jawaharlal Nehru who led India towards democracy, secularism and progressive social reform.

It is the genius of Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru that they opted for secular democracy

I am convinced that in India most people are good and decent and common folk are able to accommodate religious and ethnic differences if given a chance. In fact one of the greatest strengths of Hinduism is that it has always let other religions go on with their belief systems. It has even tried to co-opt religious and spiritual leaders into its own traditions. The whole world can learn from this great capacity of Hinduism. On the other hand, Hinduism and Hindus must understand that the caste system effectively defeated any serious sense of community amongst them and it is because of that weakness that a handful of foreigners could come and exploit the divisions within Indian society and establish their rule. M J Akbar’s Siege Within (1985) has a long history and pedigree extending far back in time. It is the genius of Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru that they opted for secular democracy and thus a foundation was laid for not only formal democracy but also substantive democracy. A reformed and progressive Hinduism, just like Western European Christianity would be a lovely cultural system, but before that happens a great deal of effort is needed to move in that direction.

Narendra Modi, widely tipped to be elected to the same office which was once occupied by Jawaharlal Nehru

Let me take up another matter on which people want my response: the Khilafat Movement (1919-24) and Gandhiji’s support for it. It was launched by anti-imperialist Sunni Muslims to protest the ruthless policy of the victorious allies, especially British Prime Minister Lloyd George, to dismember the Ottoman Empire. When the war broke out, Indian Muslims were confronted with a veritable moral and religious crisis: how to continue associating themselves religiously with the caliphate while simultaneously maintaining good relations with their British rulers. A way out was found by agreeing to remain loyal to the British on the understanding that the caliphate will be spared and sovereignty over Muslim holy places in the Middle East continue to be vested in the Ottoman sultan.

However, an Arab revolt in 1916, masterminded by British agents such as the legendary Lawrence of Arabia, under the leadership of Sharif Hussein of Mecca hastened the defeat of the Turks – they would have lost otherwise too, but that is another matter. Indian Muslims felt cheated. Consequently many stepped forward to mobilize support for Turkey. Gandhiji was looking for an opportunity to bring Muslims into the fold of the nationalist movement – since the 1909 separate electorates system Indian Muslims were alienated from the freedom struggle; exceptions were of course there too. On the other hand, the Muslim felt that without the support of Hindu leaders and masses they could not challenge British authority. Gandhi declared the Khilafat cause just and offered his support. He was invited to join the All-India Khilafat Committee that was set up in 1919. He served for a while as its president.

Consequently, a genuine nationalist upsurge took place in which Muslims and Hindus joined ranks at all levels against colonial rule. Som Anand, a Lahori Hindu remembers its positive effects in the following words:

“[T]he first current of change was felt during the Khilafat movement in the early twenties. Though the spirit of Hindu-Muslim amity received many reverses in later years, at the social level the urban elite had changed its code of conduct for the better. This was due, in part, to Western education. What this change meant was evident in my father’s attitude. When he was young, my mother used to recall, he would come back to change his clothes if a Muslim had touched him while walking in the bazaar; but during my childhood in Model Town, my father had several Muslim friends and he considered my mother’s inhibitions a sign of backwardness” (Lahore: A Lost City, Lahore: Vanguard  1998: 3-5).

I therefore pose this question: Did support for the Khilafat movement generate Mullah power? Not that I know of. For a while radical Muslims were in the streets and some commotion took place, but it petered out on its own. Gandhiji’s politics was meant to bring Hindus, Muslims and all other communities into one fold. To support a cause that was dear to Indian Muslims was to act in the best spirits of solidarity with a community he wanted to be part of a grand Indian nation of equal men and women.

I think I should be winding up this series, or else it will go on and on. So, other aspects and details will have to wait for another round of essays. However, I feel obliged to explain, one, how British policy impacted the partition process; and two, where do we go from here. As a social and political scientist I am always interested in proposing measures that can be useful to policy makers.

I do apologize for addressing Madam Mayawati as Shrimati, which is a designation for a married lady. It was just a slip. I knew she never married. I was just trying to be respectful.

Another inaccuracy in my last article occurred with regard to the issue of universal adult franchise. It now seems that both Congress and the Muslim League were in its favour. This then renders the issue of separate electorates all the more meaningless because that would have effectively ensured Muslim majority in the north-western and north-eastern zones of India, so Hindu domination would become impossible. Even under the 11 per cent restricted vote the Muslim majority was never in danger, but with universal adult franchise any disadvantage to it deriving from property and educational qualifications was out of the question. The Motilal Nehru Report was thus the best solution for everyone.

Since I have shifted recently to Lahore from Stockholm all my books have been left behind except those I need to teach some courses; hence the mistake in not checking the Muslim League position. In any case, it is interesting to note that the British had granted universal adult franchise to its Sri Lankan colony already in 1931. Not granting it to India then must have been determined by other considerations.

Splitting India III

Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed in The Friday Times continues his myth-busting series on the partition of India, Punjab and Bengal -  

A reader has pointed out that in my first article dated 20 September, I had given the wrong Hindu–Muslim ratio: 7: 4. I regret this error and it should be 9: 4, though even that is questionable as the official statistics from the 1941 census for the whole of India including the hundreds of princely states return 24.9 percentage of Muslim population. In the British administered areas the Muslim percentage went up slightly. In any case, the Muslims were between one-fourth and one-third of the total population of India.

Another reader has argued that Mr Jinnah was an ardent nationalist and it was Gandhi and Nehru who antagonized him and therefore they bear the responsibility for what happened later. This type of blame-game is the favourite haunt of nationalist historians whose heroes and villains are all too well-known. I am a political scientist and although I am examining the history of the partition of India I am not doing it as a historian. I do feel a bit sad when I am described as a historian. For me the partition of India and of Bengal and Punjab are processes with both intended and unintended consequences. No doubt leaders at the top and the games going on at the level of high politics played a very important role in determining the direction history would move in and it moved towards partition. But leaders are embedded in social and political webs and are trapped by their own doings and moves. This is what I proffer in the theory I have propounded to explain the partition of the Punjab in my book, The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed. For me the partition of India, Bengal and Punjab is inexplicable without British strategic interests being brought into the analysis.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah leading a prayer

Let me state my case very, very candidly – the demand for the partition of India and the creation of Muslim states was originally masterminded by Lord Linlithgow who had his views conveyed to the Muslim League in great secrecy through Sir Muhammad Zafrulla, who was a member of the Viceroy Council and one of the most trusted friends of Great Britain. From 23 March 1940 onwards, the Muslim League never wavered even for a moment from its demand for separate states for the Muslims of India (which soon afterwards crystallized around one state, Pakistan) and anyone who seriously reads the speeches of Mr Jinnah would have no problem in identifying that he consistently and constantly laid stress on the Hindu-Muslim dichotomy. He was always ready for a peaceful settlement, but for him that was to partition India on a religious basis.

Anyone who has read the speeches of Mr Jinnah seriously knows that he consistently laid stress on Hindu-Muslim dichotomy

The truth is that two Congress decisions proved to be colossal mistakes: resigning the ministries in September 1939 and then the ill-fated Quit India movement of August 1942 whose chief merit was that the Congress was nowhere around to make a difference while the Muslim League filled that space and secured a mandate from the Muslims of India for a separate state. Had the Congress not earned the contempt and wrath of the British who considered the lack of support during the war as a betrayal that was tantamount to treason, the course of history would have been very different.

However, we need to step back some years to understand where things began to go wrong before they became impossible to repair. In this regard, I would like to draw attention to the 1928 Motilal Nehru Report. There was broad participation in its preparation. From the Punjab, Maulvi Abdul Qadir, grandfather of ex-foreign minister Mr Khurshid Mahmud Qasuri, took part in its preparation. It had three main elements: there will be no state religion; men and women will have equal rights as citizens; and India will be a federation with a strong centre. The conflict between Mr Jinnah and the Congress leaders was over weightage and separate electorates. Such problems can be made sense of only if one assumes that the right to vote would be restricted on the basis of property ownership and education. Till 1947 roughly only 11 percent had the right to vote in India. But if instead universal adult franchise had been adopted, as the Congress proposed – I have not seen any Muslim League document supporting universal adult franchise – the Muslim majorities in north-western and north-eastern India would have been permanent and irrevocable and thus the advantage the Hindus enjoyed in these areas because of greater ownership of property would have become redundant and obsolete. Scholars have not looked into this aspect of the conflict between Mr Jinnah and the Congress leadership.

Dr Ambedkar, a lower caste Hindu was made Chairman of the Constitution Comittee of India

Now, once all men and women are given equal citizenship rights theological Hinduism becomes a dead horse. It is the end of the dreadful Manusmriti, which apologetic Hindus now tell me was never the only social code that defined stratification of Hindu caste hierarchy. To them I say other regional codes were even worse (except some anti-caste remnants of the Bhakti-inspired and other such non-conformist movements) such as those in some areas of South India where to see an untouchable meant one got polluted. So, those unfortunate creatures had to come out only when night had fallen to the villages, if they had to. Hinduism has over the centuries lost members to other religions which in principle offered greater equality to them and that include Islam, Christianity and Sikhism and then Buddhism after Dr Ambedkar in 1956 decided to convert with thousands of his followers to that religion.

But was the Congress Party at any stage making a case for a Hindu India based on the caste system? I have not found any evidence of it but would welcome any corrections. In this regard the most vilified Congress leader on the caste question is undoubtedly Gandhi. As Perry Anderson has pointed out he did speak about the righteousness of the caste system on a number of occasions. But, there is the counterfactual too. In 1920, Gandhi spoke at the Harijan Congress and this is what he said:

‘We describe the government (British) as Satanic because of some of its policies but what restraint have we exercised in oppressing our untouchable brethren? We force them on their knees. We make them rub their noses in the dust. With red-shot eyes indicating our anger we force them out of railway compartments. We have become untouchables for the British because we have created untouchables in our own midst. The fact is that those who make others slaves, suffer the most themselves because of slavery. If I am to be born again then I would like to be born an untouchable so that I can experience and share their pain, problems and humiliation and then an occasion may come when I can convince them to struggle for their liberation. 

A Dalit, Shrimati Mayawati has been elected the chief minister of UP four times

The original book is in English and I have it in Stockholm. Here I have translated it from the Urdu translation, Gandhiji kee Ghair Mamuli Qyadat’ by Ambassador Pascal Alain Nazereth, Delhi: Urdu Academy, 2013. Here I find Gandhi practically subverting orthodox Hinduism, and it is not surprising that the Hindu extremists made three attempts on his life before getting him finally in January 1948.

There is no doubt that Dr Ambedkar was very suspicious of Gandhiji. He felt Gandhi had blackmailed him into accepting that his community was an integral part of the Hindu social system and thus deprived the Dalits of separate electorates. I would not challenge Dr Ambedkar’s assertion, but would like to add the following, once again from my vantage point of a political scientist. Unlike the Muslims who could press for separation from the rest of India in places where they were in majority – in north-western and north-eastern India the Dalits were everywhere but nowhere in a majority. They were roughly 15 to 20 per cent in all the regions of India. In political terms, for such a community the only way to find relief is through vertical movement upwards and not horizontal movement in a separatist direction. Therefore the 1932 Poona Pact between Gandhi and Ambedkar was the best option for them – unless one believed that the British would remain in India forever and take care of their interests.

People who assail Gandhiji have to explain something else too. Dr Ambedkar was never a member of the Congress Party and in fact remained hostile to Indian freedom under the leadership of that Party. However, he was made the chairman of the Constitution Committee. How? First of all the Constituent Assembly elected in 1946 had a clear Congress majority which became even greater when the Muslim League members shifted to the Pakistan Constituent Assembly after the partition. Reportedly Gandhiji suggested Ambedkar’s name to chair the constitution committee. Nehru reacted by saying it was not possible to make him the chairman when he was not a member of the Congress Party, but had opposed it all his life. Gandhiji then said, ‘Jawaharlal, are we making the constitution for India or for the Congress Party?’ That settled the matter. Now even if this story is a fabrication someone has to explain how Dr Ambedkar could have become the chairman of the constitution committee if the Congress Party had opposed him.

But Gandhi’s greatest passion was Hindu-Muslim unity. Here again I have found both rightwing critics and left-liberal detractors saying that he was a fraud. I have with me a recorded interview with Syed Ahmed Saeed Kirmani who attended one of the Morning Prayer meetings of Gandhi which began with a recitation from the Quran, followed by similar reading from the Bible and the Gita. Mr Kirmani said that he was profoundly touched by that experience and he found it very genuine. I need not remind the readers that Mr Kirmani was a student leader of the Muslim Student Federation which was the student wing of the Muslim League. He has remained convinced that it was important for Pakistan to come into being. That is his right and I respect it.

Even Mr Jinnah called Gandhi’s sacrifice a great act of humanity

Gandhiji was simply trying to establish the equality of all faiths and one God at the centre of their worship. If he was doing this all as a trick to make the Muslims agree to keep India united then that façade should have ended when despite his best efforts India was partitioned and India and Pakistan emerged as two antagonist neighbouring states. All his efforts had been in vain. There was no need then to go on fasting to ensure that Pakistan should have its due share of common colonial kitty and that Muslims who wanted to remain in India be given all the protection that any Indian citizen was entitled to. The homage paid to Gandhiji after his assassination on 30 January 1948 in the various Pakistani provincial legislative assemblies and in the Constituent Assembly is there for all to read. In Aftar Singh Bhasin’s 10-volume collection of India-Pakistan documents, India-Pakistan Relations, 1947-2007: A Documentary Study, New Delhi: Geetika Publishers; 2012, those proceedings can easily be read. Even Mr Jinnah called his sacrifice a great act of humanity and in the Constituent Assembly reference he graciously did not describe Gandhi as a great leader of the Hindu community. Gandhi died for the rights of those Muslims who had remained in India and there are very few examples in world history where someone gives his life for the community he is supposed to have been an enemy of.

I therefore do not find the Congress Party at any point in time seeking to impose a Hindu state on India. Once when Gandhi was asked what really Ram Raj was he said that there was no historical record of a government run by Ram, so it was only a metaphor for a good and chaste government. The only example he could think of a government based on Ram Raj was the governments of Hazrat Abu Bakr and Hazrat Umar. This statement is mentioned by Allama Shabbir Ahmed Usmani in the debate on the Objectives Resolution of 7 March 1949. I will be looking at that debate too in a forthcoming article in this series. Furthermore, Gandhiji said categorically that India would be a secular state with equal rights for all men and women. In fact the introduction of reservations in the Indian constitution for the Dalits and Adivasis (aboriginals) in my opinion is a major contribution to constitutional theory. It was all because of the the Gandhi-Ambedkar Poona Pact of 1932.

A Dalit, Shrimati Mayawati, has been elected four times as the chief minister of the biggest Indian state of Uttar Pradesh – the same population strength as Pakistan. From an orthodox Hindu point of view this is sacrilege; this is blasphemy. A Dalit should never have a right to vote and to have it on a par with a Brahmin is effectively a negation of the logic of the caste system. Imagine if all the Indian Muslims were also in a united India. It would have hastened the end of the caste system even quicker. No doubt the RSS and other rightwing Hindus, while hypocritically condemning Gandhi and Nehru for agreeing to the partition of India, are quite pleased that a very large portion of Muslims opted out of it and therefore their system of oppression can continue somewhat longer.

There is a philosophical debate as to whether by bringing religion into politics Gandhi created the basis for different sorts of religion-based nationalism. I shall be looking at it too, but once again all this is based on a flawed premise, which is that before he brought religion into politics, it was excluded from it. This is not true at all. The Hindu, Muslim and Sikh revivalist movements predate the emergence of Gandhi by at least 40-50 years. The Arya Samaj, Brahmo Samaj: Deoband’s Reshmi Rumal movement, the emergence of the Ahmadiyya movement with its theology radically breaking with Sunni and Shia beliefs and the response of the Sunni and Shia ulema to it; the conflicts within Sikhism over the control of the Gurdwaras and between the Sikhs and the Arya Samajists – all are pointers towards religion having very much arrived in Indian politics and in a very big way. The revivals were in fact religious nationalisms entering politics but in divisive ways. Gandhiji tried to convert such developments into an inclusive, essentially secular platform which sought to bring all faiths into a shared humanity. 

Pasmanda - Muslims that 'minority politics' left behind

KHALID ANIS ANSARI

   

 

The pasmanda’s quest for empowerment will help democratise Indian Islam and deepen democracy in the country

‘Pasmanda’, a Persian term meaning “those who have fallen behind,” refers to Muslims belonging to the shudra (backward) and ati-shudra (Dalit) castes. It was adopted as an oppositional identity to that of the dominant ashraf Muslims (forward castes) in 1998 by the Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz, a group which mainly worked in Bihar. Since then, however, the pasmanda discourse has found resonance elsewhere too.

The dominant perception is that Islam is an egalitarian religion and that Indian Muslims on the whole, especially in the post-Sachar scenario, are a marginalised community. The pasmanda counter-discourse takes issue with both these formulations. In terms of religious interpretation, Masood Falahi’s work Hindustan mein Zaat Paat aur Musalman (2006) has convincingly demonstrated how the notion of kufu (rules about possible marriage relations between groups) was read through the lens of caste by the ‘manuwadi’ ulema and how a parallel system of “graded inequality” was put into place in Indian Islam.

Caste-based disenfranchisement

As far as the social sphere is concerned, Ali Anwar’s Masawat ki Jung(2000) has documented caste-based disenfranchisement of Dalit and backward caste Muslims at the hands of self-styled ashraf leaders in community organisations like madrasas and personal law boards, representative institutions (Parliament and State Assemblies) and departments, ministries and institutions that claim to work for Muslims (minority affairs, Waqf boards, Urdu academies, AMU, Jamia Millia Islamia, etc). The book also underlines stories of humiliation, disrespect and violence on caste grounds that various pasmanda communities have to undergo on a daily basis, at least in northern parts of India.

Thus, pasmanda commentators contest the two key elements of mainstream ‘Muslim’ or ‘minority’ discourse —Islam as an egalitarian religion and Indian Muslims on the whole as an oppressed community. Islam may be normatively egalitarian but actual-existing Islam in Indian conditions is deeply hierarchical. Similarly, all Muslims are not oppressed, or not to the same degree, at any rate: Muslims are a differentiated community in terms of power, with dominant (ashraf) and subordinated (pasmanda) sections. Consequently, the so-called ‘minority politics’, which has been quite content in raising symbolic and emotional issues so far, is really the politics of dominant caste Muslims that secures their interests at the expense of pasmanda Muslims. Not surprisingly, a recurrent theme in pasmanda narratives is that minority politics has singularly failed to address the bread-and-butter concerns of the pasmanda Muslims, who constitute about 85 per cent of the Indian Muslim population and come primarily from occupational and service biradaris.

The notion of ‘minority’ and ‘majority’ communities in India — read primarily in terms of religious identity — is of modern origin and linked with the emergence and consolidation of a hegemonic secular nation-state project. In this sense, while ‘secular’ nationalism becomes the locus of legitimate power and violence, Hindu and Islamic nationalisms become the sites of illegitimate power. The seemingly epic battles that are constantly fought within this conceptual framework — around communal riots or ‘Hindu’/‘Islamic’ terror more recently in the post-9/11 world — have been instrumental in denying a voice to subordinated caste communities across religions and in securing the interests of ‘secular,’ Hindu or Muslim elites respectively. In this sense, the pasmanda articulation has highlighted the symbiotic nature of majoritarian and minoritarian fundamentalism and has sought to contest the latter from within in order to wage a decisive battle against the former. As Waqar Hawari, a pasmanda activist, says: “While Muslim politicians like Imam Bukhari and Syed Shahabuddin add thejodan [starter yoghurt], it is left to the Hindu fundamentalists to prepare the yoghurt of communalism. Both of them are responsible. We oppose the politics of both Hindu and Muslim fanaticism.”

Faith and ethnicity

The structures of social solidarity that pasmanda activists work with are deeply influenced by the entangled relation between faith and ethnicity. The domains of Hinduism and Islam are quite complex, with multiple resources and potentialities possible: in various ways they exceed the ‘Brahminism’ and ‘Ashrafism’ that have come to over-determine them over time. On the one hand, the pasmanda Muslims share a widespread feeling of ‘Muslimness’ with the upper-caste Muslims, a solidarity which is often parochialised by internal caste and maslak-based (sectarian) contradictions. On the other hand, pasmanda Muslims share an experience of caste-based humiliation and disrespect with subordinated caste Hindus, a solidarity which is equally interrupted by the discourse around religious difference incessantly reproduced by upper caste institutions. Since the express object of the pasmanda movement has been to raise the issue of caste-based exclusion of subordinate caste Muslims, it has stressed on caste-based solidarity across religions. As Ali Anwar, the founder of Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz, says: “There is a bond of pain between pasmanda Muslims and the pasmanda sections of other religions. This bond of pain is the supreme bond … That is why we have to shake hands with the pasmanda sections of other religions.”

This counter-hegemonic solidarity on caste lines is effectively encapsulated in the pasmanda slogan ‘Dalit-Pichda ek saman, Hindu ho ya Musalman’ (All Dalit-backward castes are alike, whether they be Hindu or Muslim). At the same time, birth-based caste distinctions are sought to be transcended from the vantage point of an egalitarian faith: “We are not setting the Dalit/Backward Caste Muslims against the so-called ashraf Muslims. Our movement is not directed against them. Rather, we seek to strengthen and empower our own people, to enable them to speak for themselves and to secure their rights and justice … We welcome well-meaning people of the so-called ashraf background … who are concerned about the plight of our people to join us in our struggle.” It is in the midst of such complex negotiations, the punctuated nature of faith and caste-based solidarities, that the pasmanda emerges as a political factor.

Overall, pasmanda politics has relied on transformative constitutionalism and democratic symbolism to attain its social justice goals — the deepening of existing affirmative action policies, adequate representation of pasmanda Muslims in political parties, state support for cottage and small-scale industries, democratisation of religious institutions and interpretative traditions, etc. Obviously, it confronts all the challenges that any counter-hegemonic identity movement faces in its formative phases: lack of resources and appropriate institutions, cooption of its leaders by state and other dominant ideological apparatuses, lack of relevant movement literature, internal power conflicts, and so on. Also, as Rammanohar Lohia said: “The policy of uplift of downgraded castes and groups is capable of yielding much poison. A first poison may come out of its immediate effects on men’s minds; it may speedily antagonise the Dvija without as speedily influencing the Sudras. With his undoubted alertness to developments and his capacity to mislead, the Dvija may succeed in heaping direct and indirect discredit on the practitioners of this policy long before the Sudra wakes up to it.” These are the challenges that the pasmanda activists face while confronting the ashrafiya-dominated minority politics. However, their struggle for a post-minority politics is on and one hopes it will democratise Indian Islam in the long run by triggering a process of internal reform. The pasmanda critique of the majority-minority or the secular-communal dyad will also contribute to a democratic deepening that will benefit all of India’s subaltern communities in the long run.