SPAIN IN INDIA
WHAT “LIGHT” WROTE 20 YEARS AGO
”Shall Spain repeat itself in India”? Shall the Taj become the Alhamra of India to stand as a mourning monument to the once mighty days of Islam? Shall the minaret of the Shahi Mosque at Delhi ever cease to resound with the daily proclamation of One God? Will you believe it that a whole nation of men and women and boys and girls is up to see that it shall?”
The following is a reprint of the leading article of The Light dated April 1, 1927. The establishment of Pakistan, thank God, has saved a big slice of the country. Crores of our brethren in faith in India, however, are yet threatened with extinction, physical as well as cultural. The article is reproduced chiefly for the benefit of those who still cling to the illusion that the policy of appeasement may avert the repetition of Spain. This is wishful thinking. The whole thing is coming off according to plan. Worst things are yet ahead. Wholesale militarization of Pakistan is the only policy in keeping with the realities of the situation.
While without the historic walls of the city of Lucknow the forces of the foe were fast advancing to extinguish that last feeble flicker of the once mighty rule of Islam in India – so says the chronicle, right within the walls, Wajid Ali Shah, the puppet king, was helping himself to one of his most favourite and most intoxicating goblets. When apprised of the danger – for the flash of enemy sabres was already within sight – the tipsy king just nodded a nod of self-satisfaction.
“Oh! yet far off!” he murmured.
Nothing could more fitly illustrate the Himalayan menace that threatens to engulf the 80 million of Indian Muslims and the blank indifference of these latter to this fast-enveloping tide. It seems we are tipsy on a national scale.
How many of Muslims have anything like approximate idea of the extent and dimension, the aggressive Hindu mentality of the day has assumed? Let our special correspondent’s report of the annual gathering of Arya Samaj at Gurukula Kangri serve as an eye-opener. No less than 200 thousand of souls drawn from every nook and corner of India and dominated by one single passion – viz. Down with Islam! Wholesale Shudhi or bag and baggage! No third alternative! We are by no means inclined to be alarmist, but it is a case where facts are more alarming than fiction.
We have never had any illusions as to the so-called “religious” campaign of Shudhi. Masqueraded under whatever name and sponsored by whichever Hindu leader, a Pandit, a Babu, a Mahasha, or a Mahatma, each and every Hindu movement aims at one and the same objective – the revival of a Hindu Hindustan. If it were a question of a quest after truth, we would have welcomed the movement. Inspired by that spirit, no honest man can have any quarrel with Islam, for Islam is a message of equality and brotherhood to all. Islam enjoins respect for the Rishis and Prophets of all and as such, alone, paves the way for a universal brotherhood of man. No seeker-after truth approached it in the right spirit but was drawn to it as if by a magnet. Guru Nanak, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Keshab Chandar Sen are names too well known here and there, who were thus drawn. Even today there are good-natured Hindus – say, men like Sir P.C. Ray and Professor Dwijadas Dutta whose love of the Quran may be seen from his writings, men like Principal Vaswani, the Islamic ring of whose article in this very issue cannot be mistaken. We would there were more of such men. Then, there would be no Hindu-Muslim question. Unfortunately, such noble souls could be counted on fingers. As a rule, religion is just a screen, nowhere the driving inspiring force – religion in the Divine sense of the word, engendering love for all, hatred for none. If there is any religion, it is – Hindustan for the Hindus! This is not the only religion. It is the highest religion. The whole of national brainpower, the whole of national money-power, the whole of national manpower is being fast mobilised on an all-India scale with this one grim determination. A vast network of D. A. V. schools and colleges, of gurukulas, of girls’ schools and colleges, of ashrams, over the length and breadth of the country, are so many factories busy fashioning a whole generation of young men and women into a legion of firebrands inspired with this one fervour. While early in the morning our young-men at Aligarh are busy at the looking glass to make sure that they are spick and span and while our young men at the Lahore Islamia College are yet dozing in their indolent beds or just lolling about, smoking, gossiping and doing nothing, the Hindu youth is already on his way back from the river, having exercised his muscles, done his akhara or gatka and taken his refreshing morning dip. This is how he is brought up, tough and hardy, so that when the call comes, he may have the requisite mettle to take his due share in his national struggle of freedom. While the topmost custodians of our national education are engaged in a bitter duel on personal points, and our professors are thinking more of their bank balances than their wards, Hindu institutions are steadily and systematically pursuing a huge nation building programme, chancellors, vice-chancellors, principals, professors, teachers and the taught all harmoniously co-operating to the same end. While the Sunnis, Shias, Wahabis, Deobandis, Barailwis, Qadianis, Nizimis, Saudis and a mushroom of other “is” have not yet been able to get over the age long silly feud as to who is a Kafir and who Muslim. Santanists, Arya Samajists, Brahmo Samajists, Dev Samajists and all other “ists” that were so far keeping Hindus at loggerheads amongst themselves, have sunk all their petty differences and marching shoulder to shoulder towards that great ideal. Let Sanatanists come with their money, as our report says, and the Arya Samajists with their heads, and then – Hindustan for the Hindus!
Instances like these could be multiplied to show the two sides of this picture – awakening, determination, unity of purpose, organisation, life, vitality, brain, money – all ranged on one side, whereas on the other a universal nightmare paralysing the entire system, aimless drifting, disunity, discord, drowsiness, lethargy, ignorance and penury! If in this universe coming events do cast their shadows before, it would certainly be nothing short of Wajid Ali’s self-complacency to shut eyes against this terrible tide of Hindustan-for-the Hindus. We do not wish to be pessimistic, but we must not live in a fool’s paradise either. The warning of facts is too loud to be ignored. God, it is suggested, will throw in His lo, on the side of Muslims. Another illusion. Does not the Quran clearly disabuse our minds of this illusion when it warns us “God does not alter the condition of a people unless they change their own ways.”
There was a day among days when the coast of Spain saw the most dare-devil feat ever recorded in the history of valour. This was when Tariq set his little fleet aflame and with a handful of men faced a whole continent. This was one of the brightest days and the most glorious in the rise of Islam. Who could then imagine that the same coast would witness one of the ghastliest tragedies recorded in the annals of man? Yet inscrutable are the ways of God. A day there did come among days and after eight long centuries, after the invaders had made that land their home and hearth and had given her one of the greatest and most humane civilizations known to history – a day among days did come when the coast which had seen Tariq and his devoted band also saw ship-loads of their successors, the survivors of the general massacre, mercilessly consigned to the deep. He must be a silly ass indeed who should expect a less merciless treatment at the hands of those who are making no secrets of their dark designs, those who shout from house tops: Hindustan for the Hindus! Shall Spain repeat itself in India? Shall the Taj become the Alhambra of India to stand as a mourning monument to the once mighty days of Islam! Shall the minaret of the Shahi Mosque at Delhi ever cease to resound with the daily proclamation of One God? Will you believe it that a whole nation of men and women and boys and girls is up to see that it shall?
Wholesale Shudhi or bag and baggage! Will you believe it that schemes are seriously being considered to include history of Spain in curriculum to inspire a Hindu youths with the idea that what was possible in Spain can be possible in India. Whether it shall or shall not depends on whether the enlightened among the Muslims realize the great menace and take warning betimes. Whether it shall or shall not, depends on whether the youth of Islam perpetuate the sleepy slave mentality of the present day or whether they rise in revolt against all this and setting everything sordid aflame, as did Tariq his little fleet, set their faces to the one great ideal – a renascent Islam, a united Islam, a strong manly Islam!
M.Y.K.
(The Light – October 8, 1947)
