Monday 7 July 2014

The truth about Partition

I have today read Ayesha Jalal's book 'The Sole Spokesman'. In my opinion it is superficial and has made no difference to my view that it was the British who were responsible for the Partition of India, with Jinnah as their main agent ( though ultimately the Congress Party also acquiesed).The same Jinnah who was secular and the ' Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity' in the 1920s later became the main protagonist of the fraudulent two nation theory in the 1930s. Obviously he did this to satisfy his ambition to become the 'Quaid-e-Azam', regardless of the suffering his actions caused to both Hindus and Muslims. His call for Direct Action Day resulted in the terrible Calcutta killings in 1946. And, of course, the Partition resulted in the deaths of 500,000 people, Hindu and Muslim, and the uprooting of millions from their native places. Did this cause any grief to Jinnah ? Not at all. As long his ambition was satisfied he was not bothered about the horrible miseries he had caused.
If you read Jinnah's speeches and his letters ( they have all been published) you will see that from the 1930s onwards he relentlessly preached the 2 nation theory, that Hindus and Muslims are two separate nations, and therefore cannot co-exist together. This was of course humbug.
If you wish to really understand the causes of Partition you must go further back in history. Upto 1857 there was no communal problem. Hindus and Muslims lived in harmony, and with great regard for one another. Hindus used to join in Eid celebrations, and Muslims in Holi and Diwali. The Muslim rulers like the Mughals ( though there is a controversy about Aurangzeb), the Nawabs of Avadh and Murshidabad, Tipu Sultan, etc were thoroughly secular. If you read Ghalib's letters to his Hindu friends like Hargopal Tofta, Munshi Shivnarain Aram, etc you will find how much affection there was between Hindus and Muslims upto 1857.
I may give some examples. Once Holi and Muharram fell coincidentally on the same day on the same day. The Nawab of Avadh, Wajid Ali Shah was a Shia. After taking out the tazia and burying it in the karbala in Lucknow, he enquired why Holi was not being celebrated. He was told that since Holi was a festival of joy, while Muharram was an occasion of sorrow, Hindus had decided not to celebrate Holi that year out of respect for the sentiments of their Muslim brethren. On hearing this the Nawab declared that since Hindus had respected the sentiments of their Muslim brethren, it was the duty of Muslims also to respect the sentiments of their Hindu brethren. He then announced that Holi would be celebrated the same day throughout Avadh, and he himself was the first to play Holi, although it was also Muharram day.
I may give another example. I had once gone to Shringeri in the state of Karnataka. That is the peeth or centre of the southern Shankaracharya ( the adi, or original, Shankaracharya had established 4 peeths for Hindus in the north, west, south, and east). The present Shankaracharya, Bharati Teerth, showed me 30 letters sent by Tipu Sultan with monetary grants to the then Shankaracharya. In one of these letters Tipu Sultan says that it is because of the blessings of the great saint Shankaracharya that his kingdom has prospered, there are good rains, people are happy, etc. Just next to the palace of Tipu Sultan still exists a huge, old Shiva temple.
I can give dozens more of such examples to show that there was no communal problem till 1857. There were no communal riots before that year.
In 1857 the Mutiny broke out, in which Hindus and Muslims jointly fought against the British. After crushing it the British decided that the only way to control India was divide and rule. So directives were sent from London to the British Government in India that all efforts should be made to make Hindus and Muslims fight with each other. You can see details of these directives in B.N.Pandey's speech 'History in the Service of Imperialism' online. The speech was delivered by Prof. Pandey in the Indian Rajya Sabha ( Upper House of Parliament).
All communal riots, artificially engineered by the British authorities began after 1857. The British Collector would secretly call the Hindu Pandit, give him some money, and tell him to start speaking against Muslims, and similarly he would call the Muslim Maulana, give him money, and tell him to start speaking against Hindus. Music was deliberately played by agent provocateurs before mosques at prayer times to provoke Muslims. Cows were killed and thrown in front of Hindu temples by such people to provoke Hindus.
This poison was systematically injected into our society year after year and decade after decade after 1857. The Minto Morley 'Reforms' of 1909 introduced separate electorates for Hindus and Muslims to divide the communities. Every devilish step was taken by the scheming Britishers to sow the seeds of discord between us.
Obviously for this the British had to have local agents, and they chose Jinnah as their main one as he was the most efficient ( though there were others too, including some in the Congress Party).
The purpose of the British for dividing was to keep us weak and disunited by making Hindus and Muslims keep fighting each other, and thus be exploited. Partition in 1947 was also for the same purpose, so that we could continue to be exploited even after the British left, and may not become a highly industrialised state and thus rival for western industry.
I am afraid Ayesha Jalal knows nothing of all this, and hence her book is totally superficial.

10 comments:

  1. Short but informative message !!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Exact history replicated in Andhra Pradesh
    Congress playing the role of British and KCR mimicking Jinnah
    KCR was in TDP just like Jinnah in Congress- British rulers wanted to weaken Indian unity and central congress wanted a weak AP
    We never learn from history

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Katju ji with your long stint in colonial judiciary of post British India, how can we ignore the decisive role played by employees of this institution in criminalizing the community leaders and further polarizing the Indians of post British India and dividing them by branding them terrorists and separatists under dubious laws and proving your(judiciary’s) loyalty to the state. Will you be liberal enough to expose the role of your institution as an integral tool of state machinery, how it has ruined and incisively eroded the social fabric of Indian communities by criminalizing the community leaders and leaving the communities leaderless to ensure continued wilfull subjugation and slavery for unhindered economic exploitation. How this coercive colonial institution has ruined the social fabric by invading and substituting formal social mechanisms and still remains on attacking the community leaders and community organizations that try to maintain the social norms. How the Judges in UK, USA succeed in unearthing the truth and how accused voluntarily accept the guilt and on the contrary here in India how judges and courts succeed in alluding the truth by selectively making evidences admissible under dubious laws of evidence that were designed to subvert the process of reaching to the truth and prolonging the trials and betraying the spirit of justice.
      I have been shamelessly posting comments on your Facebook page and blog too and found that, you make comments on everything under this sun but not on this most important aspect of colonial coercive criminal justice system of India from where you retired. Hope this time you respond and enlighten this slave of post-colonial colonialism.

      Delete
  3. Justice Katju, I too agree that British policies since 1857 played a huge rule in creation Hindu-Muslim divisions in India. However, given that background I think it is not right to paint Jinnah as the sole villain responsible for Pakistan. If you read Maulana Azad's book India Wins Freedom, you see that the Congress had been marginalizing Muslims at so many stages that it is a testament to his greatness that he still remained a proponent of unity and stayed in India. He gives so many examples when a Muslim or other non Hindu Congress member was the leader of Congress in some state or city, several of the leading figures tried to (and succeeded in) replacing them with Hindu congress members. In fact if it weren't for Gandhiji it would have been much worse, but even with his prescence there was a clear alienation of Muslims by Congress during the later stages of freedom struggle.

    Jinnah is to blame for the two nation theory, but such a view did not arise in a vacuum, and the behaviour of many Congress leaders such as Sardar Patel was equally to contribute.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Alright we all agree , know that the Brits were hideous and manipulative. But what do we see today, what did we see for 60 years of Congress rule?

    The Religion card was used by the Congress systematically to divide and rule. The BJP is what it is today by dividing people further. Can we deny that we have , still in our midst hideous ones far more hideous than the Brits?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Really Great Article. I read this full article. I must say this is brilliant selection!

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So the Muslims are innocent indeed!

      Delete
    2. Ummm ... So the Muslims are innocent indeed. All riots and violence after partition is also the work of the British !. Elimination of Hindus and Sikhs in West and East Pakistan also must be a British work. What a NEWS

      Delete
    3. Katju ji with your long stint in colonial judiciary of post British India, how can we ignore the decisive role played by employees of this institution in criminalizing the community leaders and further polarizing the Indians of post British India and dividing them by branding them terrorists and separatists under dubious laws and proving your(judiciary’s) loyalty to the state. Will you be liberal enough to expose the role of your institution as an integral tool of state machinery, how it has ruined and incisively eroded the social fabric of Indian communities by criminalizing the community leaders and leaving the communities leaderless to ensure continued wilfull subjugation and slavery for unhindered economic exploitation. How this coercive colonial institution has ruined the social fabric by invading and substituting formal social mechanisms and still remains on attacking the community leaders and community organizations that try to maintain the social norms. How the Judges in UK, USA succeed in unearthing the truth and how accused voluntarily accept the guilt and on the contrary here in India how judges and courts succeed in alluding the truth by selectively making evidences admissible under dubious laws of evidence that were designed to subvert the process of reaching to the truth and prolonging the trials and betraying the spirit of justice.
      I have been shamelessly posting comments on your Facebook page and blog too and found that, you make comments on everything under this sun but not on this most important aspect of colonial coercive criminal justice system of India from where you retired. Hope this time you respond and enlighten this slave of post-colonial colonialism.

      Delete
  6. Hello, My Name Is Toko Glucoberry !!! I wanted to thank you for this great read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post. Obat Perut Kembung Obat Kolitis Ulseratif
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    ReplyDelete