Fwd: A timely book by Shamsul Islam demolishes stereotypes associated with the role of Muslim masses during Partition

[Sukla Sen]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Sukla Sen <sukl...@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2020, 22:18
Subject: Re: A timely book by Shamsul Islam demolishes stereotypes associated with the role of Muslim masses during Partition
To: XXX

<<Much before them, Raj Narain Basu (1826-1899), maternal grandfather of Aurobindo Ghosh, and his close associate Naba Gopal (sic) Mitra (1840-1894) had emerged as the co-fathers of Hindu nationalism. Eminent historian R. C. Majumdar has remarked that “Naba Gopal forestalled Jinnah’s theory of two nations by more than half a century”. So, the onus for spreading the belief that Hindus and Muslims constituted two separate nations that could not peacefully co-exist with each other should first be placed at the door of Hindu leaders.>>

Quite interesting.

I. The two Hindu leaders  who're named here are not known to be associated with the Congress. 

II. They're being compared with Jinnah.

That's quite funny.

Let alone all Hindus, even from amongst educated Bengalis of today, very few would recognise these names.

Even in their times, they were not too well known beoynd a limited circle.

Let alone Jinnah, they were no Savarkar either. 

Not by the furthest stretch. 

III. They were not even traditional Hindus.

They were Brahmos - followers of a miniscule religious sect.

Brahmos - to whom Tagore, Satyajit Ray, Amartya Sen (whose names are globally recognised) and so many other eminent personalities belong, are supposed to be following a universalist creed - founded by Rammohun Roy.

The quote doesn't indicate any specific year. 

It talks of "more than half a century" before the Pakistan Resolution in 1940.

That makes it 1890 or thereabout.

Let's now compare with the following (March 15 1888):

<<Now, suppose that all English, and the whole English army, were to leave India, taking with them all their cannon and their splendid weapons and everything, then who would be rulers of India? 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. [Emphasis added.] It is necessary that one of them should conquer the other and thrust it down. To hope that both could remain equal is to desire the impossible and the inconceivable. At the same time you must remember that although the number of Mahomedans is less than that of the Hindus, and although they contain far fewer people who have received a high English education, yet they must not be thought insignificant or weak. Probably they would be by themselves enough to maintain their own position. But suppose they were not. Then our Mussalman brothers, the Pathans, would come out as a swarm of locusts from their mountain valleys, and make rivers of blood to flow from their frontier in the north to the extreme end of Bengal. [Emphasis added.] This thing — who, after the departure of the English, would be conquerors — would rest on the will of God. But until one nation had conquered the other and made it obedient, peace could not reign in the land. This conclusion is based on proofs so absolute that no one can deny it. [Emphasis added.]>>

This is from a speech delivered in Meerut to a crowded public meeting with estimated attendance of some 700-800 people. 

And not by an obscure museum piece like Nabagopal Mitra.

The speaker is Sir Syed Ahmed.

(Ref.: <http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_sir_sayyid_meerut_1888.html>.)

(Nabagopal Mitra, one doesn't imagine, has said anything of that sort in his rather obscure corner of annual Hindu Mela (Hindu fair).)

The Indian National Congress had, let's recall, been founded in 1885.

Sir Syed started his speech by launching a vituperative tirade against the Congress and airing his profound sense of discomfort over the reports of some eminent and not-so-eminent Muslims joining this new organisation - allegedly led, and peopled, by the Bengalis.

He ends it with the appeal to ensure continuance of the British rule and shun like plague any demand for a representative government (of the natives).

He makes no secret of the fact that he's an ardent votary of the continuance of the British rule, completely unhindered.

For that very reason, Bengalis are the special and virtually exclusive target of his attack.

To be sure, as he's asking for the continuance of the British rule, he's by no means advocating a bloodbath between the two "nations" - the Hindus and Muslims. 

If we follow his argument, that's the only plausible way to avert a bloodbath between the two utterly incompatible "nations".

Far more importantly, despite Sir Syed and Jinnah and all those, the Congress would have a number of Muslim presidents - including Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, for an extraordinarily long term (in those days) almost till the eve of transfer of power.

The problem with activists' history is that it cherry picks facts - if not distorts outright.

Presents a very slanted picture. 

Btw, Shamsul Islam, as it appears, could not even manage to spell the two names - which he had so assiduously dug out, quite correctly. 

Sukla 

On Tue, 2 Jun 2020, 18:56 XXX wrote:

The standard narrative about the Partition, actively propagated by the Hindu communalists and innocently believed by most Hindus, puts the onus on the Muslim masses that supported the Muslim League’s demand for a separate country. It is not uncommon to hear people referring to an area where Muslims live in substantial numbers as “Pakistan”. However, as a recently published book tells us, the reality is very different. 

“Muslims Against Partition”, written by Shamsul Islam, the multi-talented theatre activist, anti-communal propagandist and political scientist, and published by Pharos Media and Publishing Pvt. Ltd., offers an eye-opening account of the way a large number of Muslim political leaders, thinkers and organisations opposed the idea of Pakistan and actively worked against it. Renowned historian Harbans Mukhia has penned a thought-provoking foreword wherein he praises the writer for drawing our attention to the ambivalent attitude of the Congress to the question of communalism as it had many leaders who were sympathetic to the “exclusivist Hindu cause”. 

All of us know about prominent Muslim leaders like Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, M. A. Ansari, Asaf Ali and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad who fiercely opposed the communal politics of the Muslim League. However, since they were in the Congress, their opposition to the creation of a separate homeland for the subcontinent’s Muslims is generally ignored. What is remembered is the fact that the Muslim League led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah was successful in mobilising the Muslim elite as well as Muslim masses in support of its Pakistan demand and had won most of the Muslim seats in the 1946 election to provincial assemblies. 

However, most people remain unaware that this fact conceals a vital aspect of reality. The Sixth Schedule of the 1935 Act had restricted the franchise on the basis of tax, property and educational qualifications, thus excluding the mass of peasants, the majority of shopkeepers and traders, and many others. Thus, as Shamsul Islam informs us quoting from Austin Granville’s book on the Indian Constitution, only 28.5 per cent of the adult populations of the provinces could cast their votes in the 1946 provincial assembly elections. This makes it amply clear that the Pakistan demand was not supported by the majority of Muslims because only a small percentage of the Muslim population was eligible to vote. 

 http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/the-myth-of-for-and-against/article7977192.ece 

The myth of for and against 

 KULDEEP KUMAR 

The Hindu, Metroplus 

December 11, 2015 

A timely book by Shamsul Islam demolishes stereotypes associated with the role of Muslim masses during Partition 

The standard narrative about the Partition, actively propagated by the Hindu communalists and innocently believed by most Hindus, puts the onus on the Muslim masses that supported the Muslim League’s demand for a separate country. It is not uncommon to hear people referring to an area where Muslims live in substantial numbers as “Pakistan”. However, as a recently published book tells us, the reality is very different. 

“Muslims Against Partition”, written by Shamsul Islam, the multi-talented theatre activist, anti-communal propagandist and political scientist, and published by Pharos Media and Publishing Pvt. Ltd., offers an eye-opening account of the way a large number of Muslim political leaders, thinkers and organisations opposed the idea of Pakistan and actively worked against it. Renowned historian Harbans Mukhia has penned a thought-provoking foreword wherein he praises the writer for drawing our attention to the ambivalent attitude of the Congress to the question of communalism as it had many leaders who were sympathetic to the “exclusivist Hindu cause”. 

All of us know about prominent Muslim leaders like Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, M. A. Ansari, Asaf Ali and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad who fiercely opposed the communal politics of the Muslim League. However, since they were in the Congress, their opposition to the creation of a separate homeland for the subcontinent’s Muslims is generally ignored. What is remembered is the fact that the Muslim League led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah was successful in mobilising the Muslim elite as well as Muslim masses in support of its Pakistan demand and had won most of the Muslim seats in the 1946 election to provincial assemblies. 

However, most people remain unaware that this fact conceals a vital aspect of reality. The Sixth Schedule of the 1935 Act had restricted the franchise on the basis of tax, property and educational qualifications, thus excluding the mass of peasants, the majority of shopkeepers and traders, and many others. Thus, as Shamsul Islam informs us quoting from Austin Granville’s book on the Indian Constitution, only 28.5 per cent of the adult populations of the provinces could cast their votes in the 1946 provincial assembly elections. This makes it amply clear that the Pakistan demand was not supported by the majority of Muslims because only a small percentage of the Muslim population was eligible to vote. 

Nationalist Muslims had started expressing themselves as early as 1883 when the Congress was not even born and nationalism was in the early stages of its inception. Shamsul Islam’s book contains a very informative chapter on Muslim patriotic individuals and organisations. It tells us the inspiring story of Shibli Nomani who established a National School in Azamgarh in 1883 and actively opposed the Muslim League agenda of cooperation with the British and opposition to the Hindus. Nomani, who died a year after Jinnah’s entry into the League in 1913, castigated the organisation because “everyday the belief which is propagated, the emotion which is instigated is (that) Hindus are suppressing us and we must organise ourselves.” In a chapter titled “Two-Nation Theory: Origin and Hindu-Muslim Variants”, Shamsul Islam underlines the fact that much before the Muslim League came up with the two-nation theory, leaders such as Madan Mohan Malaviya, B. S. Moonje and Lajpat Rai were championing the 

cause of a Hindu nation. Much before them, Raj Narain Basu (1826-1899), maternal grandfather of Aurobindo Ghosh, and his close associate Naba Gopal Mitra (1840-1894) had emerged as the co-fathers of Hindu nationalism. Eminent historian R. C. Majumdar has remarked that “Naba Gopal forestalled Jinnah’s theory of two nations by more than half a century”. So, the onus for spreading the belief that Hindus and Muslims constituted two separate nations that could not peacefully co-exist with each other should first be placed at the door of Hindu leaders. 

Of all the Muslim leaders who were opposed to the idea of Partition, the case of Allah Bakhsh seems to be most interesting. 

When British Prime Minister Winston Churchill made a derogatory reference to the Indian freedom struggle and Quit India Movement, Allah Bakhsh, who as head of the Ittehad Party was the Premier (chief minister) of Sind, decide to return his titles of Khan Bahadur and Order of the British Empire (OBE). Consequently, he was dismissed by the Viceroy. Later, he was assassinated by supporters of the Muslim League and his murder paved the way for the entry of the separatist organisation into Sind. The rest, as they say, is history. 

Keywords: Kuldeep Kumar, Shamsul Islam, Muslim, Partition, Muslims Against Partition