Future of Islam in India – Part 1
Mohammad Yaqub Khan
Editor : The Light
Mian Bashir Ahmad, B.A., Bar-at-Law, Editor, the Humayun has kindly sent us for review his recent publication in Urdu entitled The Past, Present and Future of the Musalmans. The theme is one which is exercising the mind of every lover of Islam in India. Instead of a passing review it needs a more serious, more earnest consideration.
The aggressive ideology which is fanned by the Hindu Mahasabha overtly and the Congress only covertly and which is fast spreading like wildfire, catching the fancy of the Hindu over the length and breadth of India makes the question raised by Mian Bashir Ahmad in his book one of life-and-death importance to Islam in India. According to that ideology, as the reader knows, the greatness and glory of India for which the above two wings of the Hindu revivalist movement are at work is but another name for the supremacy and domination of the Hindus and of Hindu faith and culture – in one word the revival of the golden age of Vedic India. Islam, according to this ideology, is a foreign faith and Musalmans are as much of foreigners as the English. Muslim history is the history of the enemies of India. Men like Shivaji, Guru Gobind Singh, Banda Bairagi who rebelled against the Muslim rule of the day are universally regarded and extolled as the liberators of India, first fighters of Swaraj.
Time there was when Hindu-Muslim unity was considered as the anchor-sheet of the freedom movement of India. Mahatma Gandhi waxing eloquent on this mould say that Hindu-Muslim unity and freedom were interchangeable terms. The sweet-sounding phrase, however, turned out to be the Siren’s song of mythology, designed to lure the Muslim masses without whom no power could be wrested from the British and rally them to the freedom movement. When, however, the stress of the struggle was over and some power was won, the Mahatma who carried a blank cheque for the Musalmans in his pocket, now assumed the sole of a calculating banya. The Mahasabha openly threw over-board the good old slogan of Hindu-Muslim unity. The Mahatma kept mum. No doubt even now he indulges in sweet talk about Hindu-Muslim unity, but it is no more than mere claptrap. He undertook a fast-unto-death when the Depressed Classes were separated from the Hindus. It was vivisection of the Hindu body-politic, he said. From the role of an all-India leader, he climbed down to a purely sectional leader and began to think in terms of Hinduism. Whereas Muslims were branded as ”communalists” when they talked of Islam and Muslim interests, the Mahatma staked his very life for the solidarity of his own community! He has now staked his very life and embarked on another fast-unto-death on the issue of Rajkot. Hindu-Muslim unity which was ever on his lips as synonymous with India’s freedom has been torn thread-bare but he has not considered it worthwhile to miss one meal over it!
A more aggressive stage in the evolution of Hindu mentality was, however, yet to come. Not content with throwing Hindu-Muslim unity overboard, Hindu India, under the leadership of men like Dr. Moonje began to talk of Hindustan for the Hindus. Freedom of India began to mean the revival of the ancient Vedic period of Indian history. Islam was a foreign cult. Hindus were the children of the soil. Muslims were foreigners.
This took Hindu India some time to digest. And when this new political philosophy was well digested, it was followed by another well-planned dose. Dr. Moonje gave place to Mr. Savarkar who, as shown in our recent issues, went the length of declaring, not only that Hindus are the nation in India, but that the Musalmans are to be what the Jews are in Germany. This is deliberately festering an aggressive mentality in the Hindu community. What the coming stages of this process would be may be guessed from Mr. Savarkar’s declaration, as President of all-India Hindu Mahasabha speaking in the name of Hindu India that if he were Premier, he would stop loud recitation of prayers in Mosques.
This is one side of the picture as to the future of Islam in India. Let us turn to the other, the Muslim side of the picture. What are the Muslims doing to withstand this rising tide of aggressive Hinduism, avowedly out to give no quarter to Islam? Here is a brief outline which should suffice to show which way the wind blows.
In the Frontier Province, the home of the manly sturdy Pathan, the greatest bulwark of Islam in India, the Province where 95 per cent of the population is Muslim – in that Muslim Province, the most popular leader of the Pathans, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan goes about saluting people with folded hands in right Hindu fashion and his brother, Dr. Khan Sahib, the Premier, instead of that graceful, proud and manly Pathan turban takes pride in decorating his head with a Gandhi cap. In Sindh, another Muslim Province, the Province where Islam first set its foot, leaders of Islam are placeing self-interest above the interest of Islam. Perhaps this is too mild a way of putting the thing. They are selling the interests of Islam to feather their own nests. Come to the Punjab, another great Province where Muslims form the majority. If there is no Muslim League anywhere in India, except perhaps on paper, it is in the Punjab.
Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan
There is no organized life of any sort among Muslims in the Punjab, to say nothing of any realization of the coming danger and organizing a defence. Be it said to the credit of Sir Sikandar that in the face of very heavy odds he is acquitting himself even beyond expectation. A soldier Premier as he is, he no doubt looks like sticking to his guns. You can see that from the “turra” he keeps flying, undaunted by Englishman and Hindu alike. This must not be dismissed light-heartedly. A ” turra” may look insignificant but it is not. If Gandhi’s “dhoti” sums up his attitude towards his Hindu culture, Sir Sikandar’s “turra” proclaims his loyalty to his own culture. That is positively creditable, and it is gratifying to note this freedom from inferiority complex with which his brother-Premiers of the Frontier and Sindh are afflicted. One would certainly have liked to see him present the same bold and strong front to all forces of opposition as his political Guru, the late Mian Sir Fazal-i-Hussain did. But even his political detractors would not grudge him the compliment that the discipleship has not been altogether in vain and if there is one figure around which Muslim politics may still centre and retain their own complexion, it is Sir Sikandar. But this solitary exception only accentuates the hopelessness of the situation in general. How long can you expect a man to put up a lone fight? The generality of those supposed to be the leaders of the community – those at any rate who are in the limelight – are only busy in an undignified scramble for self-advancement.
There is a price for everyone. Pay it and he is yours – body, heart, and soul.No one will accuse us of exaggeration. Is there one Jawaharlal among Muslims, to say nothing of Gandhi, one Subas, one Gopalacharia, one Rajendra Parshad, one Moonje, one Malaviya, one Savarkar? Such names among Hindus may be counted by the hundred – those wedded heart and soul to the restoration of the lost glory of the Vedic Age of India. Can such names among Muslims be counted even on fingers?
Mohammad Ali Jinnah
A.K.Fazlul Haque
Mr. Jinnah has been crying himself hoarse. The Lion of Bengal (A.K.Fazlul Haque) has been roaring too. They have even brought about some awakening among Muslims and have rallied them to the standard of Islam. But the fact remains that the rally is not on a national scale – on anything like the scale on which the forces of opposition are organized and arrayed. Nor is there half of that burning enthusiasm and self-sacrifice that mark the ranks of opposition. The Ulema whose proper place was by Islam have joined hands with those avowedly out to wipe off Islam. Deoband, the citadel of Islam resounds with shouts of Bandemataram instead of Allah-o-Akbar. The 700 students of Deoband were rushed to the Congress-staged show of Jamiat-ul-Ulema Conference at Delhi to strengthen the forces for the strangulation of Islam.
Even the late Allama lqbal died bewailing: –
ز دیو بند حسین احمد! این چہ بوالعجبی است
(Hussain Ahmad of Deoband! what nonsense are you preaching to the Muslims)
As to the Ahrar of the Punjab, they are soldiers of fortune, their services always at the disposal of the highest bidder! These being the hard facts of the situation, we leave it to Mian Bashir Ahmad to visualize the future of Islam:-
آنکھ جو کچھ دیکھتی ہے لب پہ آ سکتا نہیں
Nothing can save Islam in India. God Himself will not do it ; for, as the warning in the Quran says He does not change the condition of a people until they change themselves. There is just one thing that can yet save Islam. The discovery of a glowing ideal that should consume the heart of every Musalman and pulsate him with a new life. All else is artificial respiration. What that ideal can be is a subject by itself and we have already overstepped the bounds of an editorial. More in our next.
M.Y.K.
(The Light – March 8, 1939)
