THIS year marks the 125th anniversary of the founding of Indian National Congress. Many people in India, irrespective of their religious belief, richly contributed to the freedom movement by working in the Indian National Congress. However, due to the majoritarian attitude of Indian leaders and the narrow outlook of those who devise the educational curriculum, minorities' contribution has been totally forgotten.
India has never been a nation in the classical sense of the word as used in the West. The nations in the West were founded on the basis of one language and one culture. But India was never mono-religious, mono-cultural and mono-lingual. Pluralism of all kinds — religious, linguistic and cultural — has been its hallmark. When Indians began to challenge the British Raj, their leaders realised the importance of unity of the people, especially of Hindus and Muslims. One of the slogans of the activists was “Deen dharam hamara mazhab, yeh isai (meaning the British) kahan se aye (Islam and Hinduism are our religions, where these British came from?).
When the Indian National Congress was formed the Muslims too responded enthusiastically. This has never been emphasised by Indian historians. If at all, they focus only on Sir Syed's attitude towards Congress and his advice to Muslims not to join it. But this was an opinion of a section of the Muslim elite which had intensely suffered during the 1857 war of independence and wanted to make up with the British rulers. There were such elements among Hindus, too, especially zamindars, rajas and maharajas.
But Sir Syed's attitude towards Congress was not of hostility but of caution as he wanted Muslims to concentrate on modern education and social change. His role was much more complex. An important thing to note is that Sir Syed had worked tirelessly for Hindu-Muslim unity and had described Hindus and Muslims as two eyes of the bride of India.
It should also be noted that Sir Syed was not a mass leader. He was trying to influence the North Indian Muslim elite as a leader of social and educational change. Also, the Muslim elite, too, was not united behind him. Others like the retired judge of Bombay Court Badruddin Tyabjee joined the Congress along with 300 Muslim delegates in its Mumbai session. He was elected president of the Indian National Congress.
Muslims, in general, welcomed the formation of the Congress party and supported its efforts to achieve India's freedom. I wish to throw some light on this question in this article. First thing I would like to emphasise is that no community should be judged by what few of its people do. Even priorities and programmes differ from people to people.
Quite surprisingly, the most enthusiastic Muslim support for the Congress came from the Orthodox Ulema of Deoband School. I must state here that the Ulema had actively participated in the 1857 war of independence and made great sacrifices. Hundreds of them were awarded harsh jail terms which were then known as kalapani i.e. exiled to Andaman-Nicobar and Malta, an island in the south of Italy. I have visited Malta cemetery and saw graves of hundreds of Ulema who died there and could never return to their country. Some of them were very prominent such as Maulana Fazal Kahirabadi (though there is some confusion with another person of similar name).
Once the Congress was formed, the founder of Darul Ulum, Deoband, Maulana Qasim Ahmed Nanotvi, a prominent alim himself, issued a fatwa urging Muslims to join Indian National Congress and throw the British out of the country. He not only issued a fatwa but also collected scores of such fatwas and published them in the form of a book and named it Nusrat al-Ahrar i.e. for the help of freedom fighters. These Ulema were mass leaders and were determined to expel foreign rulers.
Another eminent Alim Maulana Mahmudul Hasan took part in what came to be known as Reshmi Rumal ' conspiracy' under which Hindus and Muslims had decided to defeat Britishers by passing on messages to others in India for an uprising. Besides Maulana Mahmudul Hasan, several other Ulema and ordinary Muslims took part in this so-called 'conspiracy'.
Another great intellectual who made great sacrifices for the freedom of India was Maulana Hasrat Mohani, also an eminent Urdu poet and revolutionary. The Maulana was an admirer of Bal Gangadhar Tilak who gave the slogan of 'freedom is my birth right'. Mohani used to address him as Tilak Maharaj. Though a Maulana, he was also one of the founders of the Communist party of India in 1925.
Maulana Mohani was frequently jailed for his political activism and was often given harsh punishments which included grinding of one maund (40 kilo) of raw grains in the month of May. But the Maulana never gave in. His passion for freedom of India was non-negotiable. Even Gandhiji, in the long term interest, wanted to accept Home Rule for a transit period. When a resolution for Home Rule was moved in the Ahmedabad session of Congress in 1922, the Maulana had to be kept away for arranging a mushaira so that he does not oppose the resolution. Such was his commitment to complete freedom.
The Khilafat movement has also been grossly misunderstood. In fact it was very intelligent move on the part of Mahatma Gandhi to draw Muslim masses into the freedom movement by extending full support to it. Unfortunately the Muslim elite looked at it from its own biased perspective. But the fact is that due to this movement thousands of Muslims took part in the freedom struggle. It is another matter that the Khilafat movement ultimately collapsed after Kamal Ata Turk's revolution which overthrew the Ottoman Caliphate.
Ali Brothers i.e. Maulana Mohammad Ali and Shaukat Ali were products of this movement. Both of them played a crucial role in the struggle for freedom of India. Their mother was equally committed to the freedom movement. When their mother heard the rumour that her sons Muhammad and Shaukat Ali were thinking of tendering an apology to the British to come out of jail (it was only a rumour) she, a lady observing purdah came on the public stage and said if they ever did so she would never pardon them. Maulana Muhammad Ali had developed sharp differences with Gandhi towards the end of his life but while dying he expressed his wish to be buried in Jerusalem as he did not want to die in 'slave India.'
During the Khilafat movement some Muslims declared India to be Darul Harb (abode of war) and began migrating to Afghanistan to form an interim government to organise jihad against the British.
One Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi was the main figure behind this migration and he did form an interim government under the leadership of Raja Mahindra Pratap as president of the republic of free India, with himself as prime minister. Thousands perished when the King of Afghanistan threw them out under the British pressure. Such was the enthusiasm of Muslim masses for India's independence.
Another charismatic figure in the freedom movement was Maulana Husain Ahmed Madani who strongly opposed the partition of India and in this respect challenged Allama Iqbal, a great poet-philosopher, on the issue of nationalism and wrote a book Muttahida Qaumiyyat aur Islam. He also opposed the two-nation theory of Mohammad Ali Jinnah and argued that it had no Islamic sanction. His book has recently been translated into English by Jami'at al-Ulema-i-Hind. Maulana Husain Ahmed was abused and greeted with garlands of shoes by Muslim League activists.
Nobody can forget the great services of Maulana Azad and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan also called Sarhadi Gandhi to the cause of freedom of India. Both remained committed to the cause of free India and the end of British rule. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was the only leader who never reconciled with the partition of the country and consistently opposed it in the CWC of Congress even when leaders like Nehru and Sardar Patel accepted it as fait accompli. Maulana Azad also gave a convincing statement against the partition.
These Muslim leaders deserved a respectable place in the history of Indian freedom movement. But owing to communal attitude of many of the ruling political leaders, academicians, historians and writers, the rich contributions to the cause of freedom movement by Muslims and the ulema, in particular, have been ignored or forgotten or very casually mentioned in text books. When I visited Gandhi Museum in Madurai which is considered the best (or one of the best) Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was represented by only one photograph. I felt so sad to see that that I pointed out to the director of the Museum the serious omission. He promised me to rectify it.
Today an average Hindu thinks that Muslims have divided India and looks at them with suspicion. The Congress has made no efforts to correct the facts.
The writer is a scholar and chairman of the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, Mumbai.
csss@mtnl.net.
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