Victims of Partition holocaust -1947 to '48 (MUSLIM LEAGUE ATTACK ON SIKHS AND HINDUS)

The very name of the State which the Muslim League envisaged-and achieved-is, in the context in which it was adopted, a standing insult to the Hindus and other non-Muslims living in India. This name-Pakistan-means literally ‘the Land of the Pure’ or of Purity. This implies clearly that Hindus and all that belongs to them credally and materially is impure, defiled and unholy. In a communally-charged atmosphere to have broadcast such an offensive name and concept among the Muslims was to extend an open invitation to racial and communal arrogance, contempt of others, challenges and counter-challenges.

The origin of the Pakistan idea is briefly this: -

Dr. Mohammad Iqbal in his presidential address at the Annual Muslim League Session held at Allahabad in .1930, advocated the establishment of a separate Muslim State or Federation in India on the basis of the Muslims’ separate political identity, in these words: “The Muslim demand for the creation of Muslim India within India is, therefore, perfectly justified. ………. I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state. Self-Government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims at least of North-West India.”.

This was the first hint thrown into the atmosphere of Indian politics of a separate Muslim State or Federation. But the thing at this stage was a vague aspiration, the desire towards a separate state was unformed in anybody’s mind as a concrete programme-symptomatic nevertheless of a dangerous way of thinking and an explosive kind of mentality.

Dr. Mohammad Iqbal’s thesis did not immediately find much support among the Indian Muslims. At the Round Table Conference which was held in London soon after, the Muslim delegates talked in terms only of safeguards and the proportions of seats the Muslims might get in the various legislatures of India in addition to pleas for the creation of a new Muslim-majority province, namely Sind. The official policy of the Muslim League in these years continued to be very much the same-any thought of setting up a separate state being regarded as the vision of an idealist, a poet, but in no way practical politics.

But Dr. Mohammad Iqbal was by no means the only Muslim who thought in terms of a separate Muslim State in India. In the January of 1933 appeared, on behalf of certain Indian Muslim students at Cambridge, headed by Chaudhari Rehmat Ali, a pamphlet entitled Now or Never. This pamphlet advocated a complete break away of the Muslims of North-Western zones of India from the rest of the Indian nation. “India” it said, “is not the name of single country, nor the home of one single nation. It is in fact, the designation of a state created for the first time in history by the British.” The Moslems are shewn in this pamphlet to be altogether separate in their way of life from the other people of India, and hence the unmistakable conclusion is suggested that they must have a separate state of their own. Says the pamphlet, ‘We do not inter-dine, we do not intermarry. Our national customs and calendars, even our diet and dress, are different. Hence the Muslims demand the recognition of a separate national status.’

It is necessary here to point out that the essence of this last argument given above has been repeated ever since 1940 by all Muslim Leaguers, down from Mr. Jinnah. Differences and cleavages have been emphasized and the doctrine of hate and animosity has been preached. Muslim separatism has been bolstered up; all attempts made in the past-comparatively remote and recent-by far-sighted Hindus and Muslims, Kings, poets, founders of faiths and others-have been sought to be written off. This exaggerated account of the cleavage between the Muslim and the Hindu (and Sikh) way -of life led, when factors favour able to such a consummation had developed fully, to the orgy of rioting in Bengal, the N.-W. F. Province, the Punjab and Sind. As a matter of fact, it would have been a surprising thing if after the gospel of hate which the Muslim League had been preaching to the Indian Muslims for so many years, these riots and their accompanying horrors and devastation had not occurred.

The word ‘Pakistan’, which so powerfully caught the imagination of the Muslims of India, and which pinned the vague, floating idealism of savants like Dr. Mohammad Iqbal to a concrete objective and programme, is a coinage of Chaudhari Rehmat Ali, who has been mentioned above. He has been hailed among the Muslims as the founder of Pakistan National Movement. The coinage is said to have been formed from the initial letters of the names of the Provinces designed to compose the original Pakistan -The North-Western zone. These provinces were: Punjab, Afghania (N.-W. Frontier Province) Kashmir and Baluchistan (which contributed the end letters to the name). Apart from this genesis of the name, which perhaps was an afterthought, the name is a Persian compound formation; and an offensive challenge to the non-Muslims, extremely defiant and provoking, is inherent in it. For Pakistan means the Land of the Pure, in this case the Muslims.

Pakistan, as has been told above, was originally conceived to comprise only the North-Western areas of the Punjab, Sind, Kashmir, the N.-W. Frontier Province and Baluchistan. But in a later concept of the thing, issued in the form of a revised version of the original scheme, it was devised to comprise, besides the areas originally ear-marked for it, also Assam and Bengal in the East, and Hyderabad and Malabar in the South. In addition to these extensive strongholds of Muslim power in the North-West, in the East and the South, beleaguering non-Muslim India from all strategic points, were also to be several smaller though by no means too small, Muslim pockets, studded all over the country-one in the United Provinces, one in the heart of Rajputana and another still in Bihar. Thus, the Muslims of all India, and not only those of the Muslim majority areas, were to have independent countries of their own, parcelling out India into so many new Muslim-dominated States.

This process in its conception carried with itself certain very far-reaching, and in the light of the communal developments of 1946 and 1947, very significant and pregnant corollaries. Rehmat Ali, whatever else he might be, has been quite fertile in the devising of catching, though somewhat megalomaniac names. Besides Pakistan, he has been responsible for the concept of India as Dinia, a cleverly suggestive anagram. Dinia would be the continent which, if not at the moment the home of an Islamic State, was such in immediate conception, waiting to be converted and subordinated to Islam through the proselytising and conquering zeal of its sons. Bengal and Assam, conceived as a joint Muslim-majority area by a logic partial to Muslim reasoning, was rechristened by Rehmat Ali Bang-i-Islam or Bangistan, redolent of the Feudal Moghal name of Bengal, Bangush, which has been offensive to the Hindu, suffering for centuries under the hell of the Muslim. The Muslim Homelands parcelled out of Bihar, the U. P. and Rajputana (the Ajmer area, where is the shrine of the great Muslim Saint, Khawaja Muinuddin Chisti) were to be called respectively Faruquistan, Haideristan and Muinistan. Hyderabad, ruled over by a Muslim Prince, with its 86% Hindu population, was to be called Osmanistan, after the name of the present Nizam; and the Moplah tracts of Malabar were named Moplistan. There would, besides, be areas known as Safistan and Nasaristan. On the map of India (or Dinia) as drawn by Rehmat Ali, non-Muslim areas make unimpressive, miserable patches, interspersed on all sides with Muslim states, born out of conflict with Hindu India, and pursuing a set policy of converting, conquering and amalgamating this Hindu India into themselves. Such was the conception of Pakistan, at any rate the first push, made popular among the Indian Muslims by the tremendous force of propaganda which communal and fanatical zeal could lend to the Muslim League of which we have been witnessing the grimly tragic consequences since August, 1946.

All this mentioned above was elaborated by Rehmat Ali in 1940, the year in which his concept had been so far successful that the Lahore Session of the Muslim League passed the famous Pakistan Resolution, adopting the achievement of an independent ‘Muslim State’ out of the United India of British formation, as the immediate goal of the Muslim League policy. Rehmat Ali’s Pamphlet of 1940 was entitled Millat of Islam and the Menace of Indianism. By the Menace of Indianism was implied the conception of the Indian Muslims as a separate nation, who must refuse to be of India, and must demand a separate state or several ‘states’ to be in alliance with one another, for themselves. The elucidation of this conception by Rehmat Ali is very revealing for a student of the trends forming the Indian Muslim mentality of the last decade or so.

In 1942 Rehmat Ali came out with still another Pamphlet, called The Millat and its Mission. In this Pamphlet, apart from the concept of India as Dinia or the land which was destined to be converted in its entirety to Islam and to Muslim hegemony, there was a very revealing attitude about minorities. As has been pointed out by all, those who have been critical of the programme of Pakistan, the problem of minorities to be left in Pakistan and Hindustan would be the chief stumbling block of any future policy in these states. Vast Hindu-Sikh and Muslim minorities would be left in Pakistan and Hindustan respectively, and to settle with them would require imagination, tact and a high degree of fairness. The Muslim League advocates of Pakistan have been prolific with assurances of fair treatment towards minorities-assurances never seriously meant to be kept, and broken in the most unworthy manner in all the territories which became part of the Pakistan State. What the Muslim Leaguers had been planning all these years was really to drive out minorities from Pakistan, and in this way to solve the minority problem. Listen to the illuminating remarks of Rehmat Ali on minorities. Says Rehmat Ali:

‘What is the fundamental truth about minorities……… remember that, in the past ‘Minorityism’ has ever proved itself a major enemy of the Millat; that at present it is sabotaging us religiously, culturally, and politically even in our national lands; and that in the future, it would destroy us throughout the Continent of Dinia and its dependencies, Hence the Commandment (one of the seven commandments laid down in the pamphlet “The Millat and its Mission”), Avoid ‘Minorityism’, which means that we must not leave our minorities in Hindu lands, even if the British and the Hindus offer them the so-called constitutional safeguards. For no safeguards can be substituted for the nationhood which is their birthright. Nor must we keep Hindu and/or Sikh minorities in our lands, even if they themselves were willing to remain with or without any special safeguards. For they will never be of us. Indeed, while in ordinary times they will retard our national reconstruction, in times of crisis they will betray us and bring about our redestruction.

“This is the gist of the Commandment. It may be expanded into the factual statement that

“(a) To leave our minorities in Hindu lands is:-

(1) To leave under Hindu hegemony 35 million Muslims who form no less than 1/3 of the whole Millat, which in her struggle for freedom has no allies in the continent.

(2) To deny their resources to the cause of the Millat at a time when she needs the maximum contribution of every one of her sons and daughters.

(3) To devote their lives and labour to the cause of the Hindu Jati. I hope people who argue that an equal number of (35 millions) Hindu and Sikh minorities in Pakistan, Bangistan and Osmanistan will be working for the Millat overlook the fact that the work of one can never compensate for that of the other………”

India, or whatever remained of India, was itself to be considered Dinia, an important Islamic concept. The author explains that it means it “would be the continent which, if not at the moment the home of an Islamic State, was such in immediate conception, waiting to be converted and subordinated to Islam through the proselytising and conquering zeal of its sons.”

I wonder if they use this term for Europe now?

To reinforce still further the lesson and the determination for the total elimination of minorities, Rehmat Ali argues further on, more uncompromisingly,

“(b) To keep Hindus and/or Sikh minorities in our lands is:

“(1) To keep in Muslim lands 35 million Hindus and Sikhs who form no more than 1/8 of the total strength of the force opposing the Millat in the Continent of Dinia.

(2) To condemn to permanent servitude our 35 million brethren living in Hindu Dinia, i.e., outside Pakistan, Bangistan and Osmanistan. The reason is that unless and until we accept this commandment we cannot liberate them from the domination of ‘Indianism’.

(5) To forget even the unforgettable lesson taught to us by the disappearance of our own Pak Empire¹ and of the Turkish Empire, namely that one of the major causes of their decline, defeat and downfall was the treachery and treason of their religious, racial and political minorities.”

Thus, in a thorough and relentless way Rehmat Ali has pleaded for the total elimination of minorities from Pakistan. How deeply the lesson sank into the minds of the Muslim League and the average Muslim, will be seen from the pronouncements given below of the leaders of Muslim opinion in India from Qaid-i-Azam Jinnah downwards, on the question of Minorities and the exchange of population. It was this lesson, thoroughly learnt, which led to the hounding out of the non-Muslim populations from Eastern Bengal (1946), N.-W. Frontier Province (1946 and 1947), Western Punjab, Sind and its adjoining areas, and now from the East Bengal Province of Pakistan.

Mr. Jinnah replying to a question seeking suggestions for the restoration of peace in India, said: “In view of the horrible slaughter in various parts of India, I am of the opinion that the authorities, both Central and Provincial, should take up immediately the question of exchange of population to avoid brutal recurrence of that which had taken place where small minorities have been butchered by the overwhelming majorities.

“The Viceroy-because he alone can do it-as the representative of the Crown and as the Governor-General with powers that are vested in him, should adopt every means and measures to restore, first, peace and order. In the present conditions there is no room for reason, intelligence and fair-play. Negotiations in these conditions can hardly yield fruitful results and produce a settlement satisfactory to both parties.”

It may be pointed out here that exchange of population has been in the mind of all Muslim exponents of Pakistan, or whatever the Muslim State designed to be carved out of India has been called. Dr. Latif of Hyderabad (Deccan), in his book The Muslim Problem in India, in spite of the temperate language used by him and the reasoned way in which he has made out the case for creating Hindu and Muslim zones, has advocated the exchange of population. On this problem he says, “One of the objects of the transitional constitution² is to facilitate and prepare the ground for migration of Muslims and the Hindus into the zones specified for them so as to develop them into culturally homogeneous States.

The caste system almost surely started out as a class system and was somewhat fluid.

But it has been hardening ever since, and became much less fluid than any Western class system could, as the doctrines of reincarnation and karma made the mistreatment of the lower castes entirely logical, right and proper, as it is punishment for sins committed in a previous life.

No society based on Judeo-Christian beliefs could ever be quite so calm about mistreating the lower classes.

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