BY MIR ARDUL AZIZ
THERE is no doubt that Muslims of the South Asian subcontinent demanded Pakistan because they wanted to set up a state according to Islamic ideals and traditions but it is equally true that one of the main reasons of the establishment of Pakistan as an independent state was the fear of the Hindu domination in an undivided India. The domination would not have been only economic and political but also religious. What is known as religion in the strict sense of the term would also have been in danger.
The term secularism does not necessarily mean absence of religion; it pertains to the aspects of life which concern only this world. Hindu leaders of Congress, before partition, used this term for nationalism of the brand not confined to any particular religious group in British India, but that was for the profession. When it came to practice, the Muslims of the subcontinent came to know that it stood for something entirely different.
Elections to the provincial legislatures were held in British India as sequel to the adoption of the Government of India Act 1935 and two years later, Congress came to power in eight of the fifteen provinces of British India, The governments that were setup ‘were out and out Hindu governments. They left no stone unturned to efface the culture, the educational system and the very existence of the Muslims from these provinces, In a way, the then Congress Raj was a blessing in disguise for the Pakistan Movement. The Muslims of the subcontinent came to know beforehand what sort of rule was waiting for them if they did not demand a separate homeland for themselves.
Secularism was the stock-in-trade of leaders like Motilal Nehru, his son Jawahar Lal Nehru, Te} Bahadur Sapru and a host of the progressives in the Congress Party. As regards Mr, Gandhi, he never minced matters, as for himself, he would say: “They who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means, Formed there are no politics sans religion. Politics bereft of religion are a death adder because they kill the soul”,
This was said by Gandhi long before the independence of India, ‘What his followers and disciples did and said after the exit of the British, left no doubt in the minds of anybody that the purpose of the Congress was and is the formation of a Hindu rule, a Ram Rajiya and make the people of other religions subservient to the Hindu rule, Purshottam Das Tandon, a former president of the Congress said on the first anniversary of the independence of India.
“There should not be any more talk of separate culture and language in the Indian union. There should be no room for such persons in the Indian union who advocate separate culture and separate language for particular community. Such persons cannot change their outlook and pledge their unstinted loyalty to the Indian Union. They should quit India and sooner they do the better for them and India. If Muslims are anxious to stay in Indian union which is a secular state, they will have to adopt Hindi as their script. Muslims in India haye to win the confidence of their fellow countrymen and government not by words but by deeds. They must stop looking to Pakistan for inspiration and make India’s culture their own’.
India adopted the Dharma Chaicra as its flag. It was not without reason that in the All India Hindu Mahasabha session at Calcutta, V.D. Savarkar, leader of this communalist and anti-Muslim party, said:
“It is a matter of great pleasure to all that the flag of freedom is flying over Bharat Varsha today. Call it a secular flag if you will but it is at the same time our Hindu flag. There is that Asoka Chakra inscribed on it” We may not be able to justify the plunder of the temple at Somnath by Mahmud of Ghazni, But what he did is part of history and it is at the same time correct that hands of clock cannot be moved backwards. A mosque was constructed by Aurangzeb Alamgir. But the secular government of no less a person than the socialist and secular Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru decided to demolish the mosque and construct a Hindu temple, a “mandir” instead. On November 13, 1947, only three months after Swaraj came to India, Sardar Patel, the Deputy Prime Minister of India, took a vow not to rest till the Somnath temple was rebuilt, Preparations started and the machinery of the secular state came into action, records Prem Nath Bazaz, the noted Kashmiri writer, in the story of Struggle for Freedom between the U.P. Congress regime and the Indian Sugar Syndicate that six annas out of the price of every maund of sugar would be collected by the syndicate for the Somnath temple, To quote Mr. Bazar.
“When everything was ready and time to lay the foundation of the temple came, instructions were issued to Indian ambassadors all over the world to collect material for the religious ceremony which would accompany the laying of the foundation”.
On May 11, 1951, amidstchanting of hymns Dr. Rajendra Prashad, President of the secular state of India, installed the Jyotilingam in partly constructed temple of ‘Somnath. As the ceremony began ‘guns boomed and fired 101 salyoes, the traditional crimson and kesri flag fluttered in the breeze and thousands raised the cry: “Har Har Mahadev, Jai Somnath”.
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru said that the decision to demolish the ‘mosque constructed by Aurganzeb and construct a temple instead was a Cabinet decision and it was necessitated by Hindu sentiment.
And this sentiment has persisted throughout the past four decades, has been the reason of more than ten thousand anti-Muslim riots in’ India, which have taken a toll of thousands of Muslim lives in different parts of Bharat This has been the actual motive behind the Indian grab of Kashmir which has become the very bane of relations between India and Pakistan,
A number of communalist, fascist and terrorist organizations of Hindus are functioning in India’ under the very nose of the “secular” regimes that have been in’ power there from time to time. “There is the RSS, the Bhartiya Janata Party and the Vishaw Hindu Parishad.
A six inches long three pronged_ ‘weapon has been fashioned out and thousands of volunteers all ‘over India are trained to use it against the “enemies”, Last year somebody moved the Calcutta High Court to ban the publication of the Holy Quran in India. Dozens of Muslims were killed protesting against this move. Now there is a move in Delhi, set afloat by a Hindi journal, that at least 27 “ayats” of the Holy Quran should be deleted as they suggest that war be declared on non-Muslims. It may be noted that the Holy Quran is the most tolerant of all the books of religion, It clearly says that there is no comp vision in religion, It allows the Muslims to fight against them and who fight against them and drive the Muslims out of their ancestral home. But the yellow eyed visionaries of the Hindu society refuse to read these lines of the Holy Quran. All this shows that India is a secular state only in name. It is out and out Hindu State in which no other religion will be tolerated. The current tussle with Sikhs is not just denial of ‘certain basic rights to Sikhs but is a logical consequence of the sinister design to wipe out Sikhism.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 2, 1987
