Declaration of War
Mohammad Yaqub Khan
Editor The Light
Hindu India has opened the new year with an open declaration of war on Islam and Muslims in India.In the midst of scenes of enthusiasm almost frantic, Mr. V. D. Savarkar, President of the All India Hindu Mahasabha declared at the 20th session of the Mahasabha held at Nagpur on December 20, as follows:
” It is absurd to call us, Hindus a community in India. The Germans are the nation in Germany and the Jews a community. Even so the Hindus are the nation in India and the Muslims a minority…. We Hindus will fight out the good battle of achieving the independence of India and herald the rebirth of a free mighty Hindu nation in the near future.”
As we said this declaration of founding a Hindu nation and reducing the Muslim minority to the plight of the Jews in Germany was made in the midst of frantic outburst of enthusiasm. Hindus flocked in their thousands to listen to the declaration. Three thousand men and women volunteers, the press reports say, presented a guard of honour. The Vice-Chancellor of the Nagpur University garlanded the President. The Hindu Sabha banner was carried on the back of an elephant. Forty “akharas” marched at the head of the six-mile-long procession. Fifty gates were erected. Shopkeepers decorated the route with their wares. Why, a momentous declaration was to be made. Hindustan was to be officially proclaimed to be the land of the Hindus. And what is more, the Muslims were to be treated as the Jews were being treated in Germany.
Muslim India will by no means be startled by this declaration. There is hardly a Muslim with any sense of realities in him who did not sense the danger of Hindu Raj designs long before they were publicly declared by the leading lights of the Sabha. In fact, they can quite see the same designs in the Congress tactics which is but another edition of the Mahasabha. It should, however, serve as an eye-opener to two classes of people – the Muslim Congressites and the non-Muslims who are inclined to look upon the purely defensive measures of Muslims under the League banner as communalism. As regards the first, they will have to make a choice sooner or later, whether in this grim struggle to reduce the Indian Muslims to the position of German Jews they will stand by their own people or by those who are openly out to wipe them off. How long will they live in the fool’s paradise of the so-called nationalism?
The Musalmans have only to thank the Muhasabha President for such annual hymns of hate. In fact, these serve as blessing in disguise. They owe whatever of awakening and solidarity there is among them to this challenge to the existence of Islam in India. The annual session of the Muslim League was marked by unprecedented scenes of enthusiasm and responsible men like Sir Sikandar and Mr. Huq, the Punjab and Bengal Premiers declared that if Muslims in the minority Provinces were oppressed by the Hindu governments, Muslims of the Punjab and Bengal will not be found wanting to march to the rescue of their brethren in faith. For this solidarity of ranks on an all-India scale as well as for this determination on the part of Muslims to live as a distinct, free and respected community in India, the Musalmans have only to thank such fire-eating effusions from the Mahasabha platform coupled, of course, with the oppressions of Muslim minorities in Bihar, C. P. and U. P.
The solidarity already attained, however, would be still further cemented by this new proclamation of Mr. Savarkar. So far, the Muslims were labouring under the apprehensions that the Hindus just wanted to attain political ascendancy over the Muslims who would be allowed to live in this country. Mr. Savarkar’s new year’s declaration, however, is not prepared to give them even that much quarter. They are to be reduced to the plight of the Jews in Germany and who does not know what that plight is? Turning them out bag or baggage! He has been pleased, however, to give them a chance of staying in the country and that by adopting the Hindu faith and culture. That is what is implied in his exhortation to carry on the Shuddhi Movement.
The repercussion in Muslim India can well he imagined. This open war of extermination declared on them by the official head of Hindu India will lash them into rallying in still larger numbers to the standard of Mr. Jinnah. There is hardly a Muslim in India who would not place the last pice in his pocket and the last drop of blood in his body at the disposal of Mr. Jinnah in the defence and deliverance of Islam.
It is only a coward who indulges in tall talk like Mr. Savarkar has done. To talk of wiping 80 million of sons of Islam by a race which will not be credited with any great dash and daring by its best friends, can be the talk only of one who has never faced an enemy. We dare say just one organization of Islam the Red Shirts of the Frontier, if the time ever comes for a trial of strength, will be found to be more than a match for Mr. Savarkar’s teeming millions from Maharashtra.
In the midst of the heat that would naturally be engendered by the cowardly declaration of War on Islam in India, we are anxious to counsel our brethren in faith not to forget the Islamic traditions of chivalry and clean fighting. Fight they naturally would, with their back to the wall but let them remember that it is a fight free from all hatred of the Hindu, a fight in sheer self-preservation.
M.Y. K.
(The Light – January 1, 1939)
