Editorials round the corner ::

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Editorials round the corner ::

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Dear friends, here I will post some of the finest editorials from Indian newpapers...

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I am republishing two letters- one, written to Rajiv Gandhi, then Prime Minister of India by Salman Rushdie (published in NY Times on October 19, 1988), and second, a response to Rushdie from Rafiq Zakaria, a well known Islamic scholar and a congressman defending the (published in Illustrated Weekly Of India on October 23, 1988). These letters are very important today as we debate about Rushdie’s ‘forced’ or ‘schemed’ absence from Jaipur Lierature Festival and his novel, The Satanic Verse, still banned in India and in many countries. -Editor

Salman Rushdie’s Open Letter to Rajiv Gandhi (1988)

Dear Rajiv Gandhi:
On Oct. 5, the Indian finance ministry announced the banning of my novel, ”The Satanic Verses,” under Section 11 of the Indian Customs Act. Many people around the world will find it strange that it is the finance ministry that gets to decide what Indian readers may or may not read. But let that pass, because at the end of the notification of the ban an even stranger statement appeared.
The ministry – I am quoting from The Press Trust of India’s report -”added that the ban did not detract from the literary and artistic merit of Rushdie’s work.” To which I can only reply: Thanks for the good review.
The book was banned after representations by two or three Muslim politicians, including Syed Shahabuddin and Khurshid Alam Khan, both members of Parliament. These persons, whom I do not hesitate to call extremists, even fundamentalists, have attacked me and my novel while stating that they had no need actually to read it. That the Government should have given in to such figures is profoundly disturbing.
A further official statement was brought to my notice. This explained that ”The Satanic Verses” had been banned as a pre-emptive measure. Certain passages had been identified as susceptible to distortion and misuse, presumably by unscrupulous religious fanatics and such. The banning order had been issued to prevent this misuse. Apparently, my book is not deemed blasphemous or objectionable in itself, but is being proscribed for, so to speak, its own good!
This really is astounding. It is as though, having identified an innocent person as a likely target for assault by muggers or rapists, you were to put that person in jail for protection. This is no way, Mr. Gandhi, for a free society to behave.
Clearly, your Government is feeling a little ashamed of itself and, sir, it has much to be ashamed about. It is not for nothing that just about every leading Indian newspaper and magazine has deplored the ban as, for example, ”a Philistine decision” (The Hindu) or ”thought control” (Indian Express).
It is not for nothing that such eminent writers as Kingsley Amis, Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard have joined International PEN and India’s association of publishers and booksellers in condemning the decision. The right to freedom of expression is at the foundation of any democratic society, and at present, all over the world, Indian democracy is becoming something of a laughing-stock.
When Syed Shahabuddin and his fellow self-appointed guardians of Muslim sensibilities say that ”no civilized society” should permit the publication of a book like mine, they have got things backwards. The question raised by the book’s banning is precisely whether India, by behaving in this fashion, can any more lay claim to the title of a civilized society.
Let us try to distinguish truth from falsehood in this matter. Like my zealous opponents, you will probably not have read ”The Satanic Verses.” So let me explain a few simple things. I am accused of having ”admitted” that the book is a direct attack on Islam. I have admitted no such thing, and deny it strongly. The section of the book in question (and let’s remember that the book isn’t actually about Islam, but about migration, metamorphosis, divided selves, love, death, London and Bombay) deals with a prophet – who is not called Mohammed – living in a highly fantastical city made of sand (it dissolves when water falls upon it).
He is surrounded by fictional followers, one of whom happens to bear my own first name. Moreover, this entire sequence happens in a dream, the fictional dream of a fictional character, an Indian movie star, and one who is losing his mind, at that. How much further from history could one get?
In this dream sequence I have tried to offer my view of the phenomenon of revelation and the birth of a great world religion; my view is that of a secular man for whom Islamic culture has been of central importance all his life.
Can the finance ministry really be saying that it is no longer permissible, in modern, supposedly secular India, for literature to treat such themes? If so, things are more serious than I had believed. From where I sit, Mr. Gandhi, it looks very much as if your Government has become unable or unwilling to resist pressure from more or less any extremist religious grouping; that, in short, it’s the fundamentalists who now control the political agenda.
You know, as I know, that Mr. Shahabuddin, Mr. Khurshid Alam Khan and their allies don’t really care about my novel. The real issue is the Muslim vote.
I deeply resent my book being used as a political football; what should matter to you more than my resentment is that you come out of this looking not only Philistine and anti-democratic but opportunistic.
Mr. Prime Minister, I can’t bring myself to address finance ministries about literature. In my view, this is now a matter between you and me. I ask you this question: What sort of India do you wish to govern? Is it to be an open or a repressive society?
Your action in the matter of ”The Satanic Verses” will be an important indicator for many people around the world. If you confirm the ban, I’m afraid I, and many others, will have to assume the worst. If, on the other hand, you should admit your Government’s error and move swiftly to correct it, I will be the first to applaud your honorable deed.

Salman Rushdie

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Rafiq Zakaria’s Open Letter to Salman Rushdie

Dear Mr Rushdie,

I have read with interest your open letter to our Prime Minister Mr Rajiv Gandhi, in which you have pleaded for a review of the ban on your book The Satanic Verses.
You have made fun of the fact that the order was issued by the finance ministry. Well, your information is half-baked. It was reported in the press that the decision was taken by the entire cabinet; but as the ban is to be executed by the customs, which falls under the finance ministry, no other ministry could have issued it.
This aside, it is for Rajiv Gandhi to reply to your letter: he may ignore it as most heads of government do.
I am not one of those, who has not read your book. I have, and am interested to know from you the replies to some questions, as I feel they may help me to understand you better and also for you to plead your case more effectively. We, in India. are ever so worried about communal violence, which erupts on the slightest pretext, we cannot allow a writer, whatever be his motive, to provoke it.
You say in your letter to Mr Gandhi that you ‘strongly deny’ that your book is ‘a direct attack on Islam’. Further, that ‘the section of the book in question…. deals with a prophet who is not called Muhammad’.
I have read your book. Like you, I have also been a student of Islam. Your statements, therefore, surprise me. I feel you are going back on your own objective just to get the ban lifted. Maybe I am wrong. I will, therefore, appreciate if you will clarify your position by replying openly to the following questions:
1. What is the significance of the title of your book The Satanic Verses? Has it not some historical connection? Do not the verses which refer to the three goddesses, condemned as Satanic and repudiated by Allah, the same as your reference to them in your novel? Your words are so clear that no other inference seems possible: “These verses are banished from the true recitation, al-qur’an. New verses are thundered in their place.” “Shall He have daughters and you sons?” Mahound recites. “That would be a fine division!” “These are but names you have dreamed of, you and your fathers. Allah vests no authority in them.”
2. Is Jahilia not the same word as used in Muslim annals for “the era of ignorance”—Jahilia means ignorance—the era before the advent of Islam? Your description is so apt:
“The city of Jahilia is built entirely of sand, its structures formed of the desert whence it rises. It is a sight to wonder at: walled, four-gated, the whole of it a miracle worked by its citizens, who have learned the trick of transforming the fine white dune-sand of those forsaken parts—the very stuff of inconstancy—the quintessence of unsettlement, shifting, treachery, lack-of-form—and have turned it, by alchemy, into the fabric of their newly invented permanence. These people are a mere three or four generations removed from their nomadic past, when they were as rootless as the dunes, or rather rooted in the knowledge that the journeying itself was home.”
3. Whom had you in mind when you delineated the character of Mahound? Do your descriptions of his various activities not fit those of the Prophet Muhammad? I can quote passage after passage to show the coincidence, but it will be too lengthy; moreover most of them are so offensive that I shudder to reproduce them.
4. From where have you drawn the names of the three goddesses: Lat, Uzza and Manat? They are certainly not the products of your imagination? No one reading about them in your book can think otherwise.
5. Is Hamza not the same as Prophet Muhammad’s uncle of the same name? And are his encounters with Hind, as depicted by you, not representative of what happened in the early annals of Islam?
6. Is Abu Simbel in your novel not a reflection of Abu Sufiyan, the inveterate enemy of the Prophet? And Hind, whom you characterise so graphically, not his wife?
7. Is Salman—your namesake—called Persian in your book, not the same as Salman Farsi, a companion of the Prophet?
8. Is Bilal not the first Muezzin of Islam, whom you describe as “the slave Bilal, the one Mahound freed, an enormous black monster, this one, with a voice to match his voice”?
9. Is Zamzam, referred to in your novel, not the well held sacred by Muslims? Here is your description: “The city’s water comes from underground streams and springs…, next to the House of the Black Stone.”
10. Does the description of the “Black Stone” in your novel not fit that of Ka’aba? Here are your words: “The graves of Ismail and his mother Hagar the Egyptian lie by the north-west face of the House of the Black Stone, in an enclosure surrounded by a low wall.”
These are some of the coincidences; there are many others. You, unlike most authors, have not mentioned that the characters in your novels do not bear any resemblance to persons living or dead. Can you, with your hand on your heart, say that they really don’t resemble the characters and situations in the life of the Prophet of Islam. And if they do. what should the authorities do to control a likely occurrence which you as well as I know may disturb the tranquillity of the land.
I have not referred to your section on Ayesha; I found it rather confusing, where you have cleverly mixed fact with fiction. This does not apply, I feel, to your section on Mahound, which represents, to use your own words” the result of five years of work on Islam, which has been central to my life’. Apart from the Muslim politicians, whom you mention in your open letter to Mr Gandhi, you will be surprised that some of our best intellectuals-both writers and poets—have come out against you: they are J P Dixit, Nissim Ezekiel, Jean Kalgutkar, Vrinda Nabar, Vaskar Nandy, V Raman and Ashim Roy. In a letter to The Indian Post they refer to your statement that you knew Islam best and that was why you had talked about it and observe: ‘How does he ”talk”about this religion? Its founder is named Mahound. Rushdie has not invented this name. This was the name given to the Prophet Mohammed by his European detractors as a term of abuse (‘Ma’ from ‘Mahomet’ added to ‘hound’) and used frequently in various European eschatologies as a creature belonging to the lowest depths of Hell, as the Devil himself.’
After analysing your treatment further, they summarise your approach thus:
How has Rushdie treated the other pillars of Islamic faith? Ayesha, the youngest wife of the Prophet and the one who is regarded as one of the highest authorities of the Traditions is shown as “clad only in butterflies, leading an entire village, lemming-like into the Arabian Sea”. The Ka’aba, regarded by the Muslims as the only consecrated spot on earth, is treated no better. Disguised as the “Tent of Black Stone called Ten Curtains”, it has twelve prostitutes with names of the twelve wives of Mahound to add ”the tempting spices of profanity”. These “tempting spices” were apparently necessary to increase the number of pilgrims. Then what else remains of the basic core of the Islamic faith? The prophet is the Devil, the law-givers are sexual perverts, and the Ka’aba and the Haj examples of depravity and greed. The Koran is of course only a collection of satanic verses.
The signatories conclude:
‘We, the undersigned, are all non-Muslims. We are, therefore, obviously not subscribers to the Islamic faith. We believe that any critique of that faith has to be restrained, reasoned and full of the spirit of respecting diverse cultures and faiths. India’s unity and harmony demands it. It is for such harmony and unity that we demand that the ban on this book be not lifted.’ What have you to say, Mr Rushdie, to these friends who are no friends of Mr Rajiv Gandhi and are known upholders of freedom of expression?
Lastly, as one born to Muslim parents and brought up, I think, under Islamic traditions, may I ask you whether you honestly believe that your book will not upset Muslims. Mr Khushwant Singh, who holds you in high esteem, advised your publisher, Penguins, against its publication as he felt that it would injure the religious feelings of Muslims and may disturb the law and order situation. Mr Zamir Ansari, Penguins’s representative in India, confirmed this to me though he said a confidential advice sought by Penguins should not have been publicised by Mr Singh. But that is another matter. The fact remains that Mr Singh is no friend of the Government of India—in fact he is one of its most bitter critics—and his opinion has been unequivocal. So is that of Mr M V Kamath, an eminent journalist, who never finds anything right with Mr Rajiv Gandhi. He said that Mr Rushdie’s book is full of ‘despicable ideas’. If Nehru was alive he would have banned it.
I ask you in the same manner as you have asked Mr Gandhi, our prime minister, whether you consider this ban as really uncalled for, in view of the danger that many persons in public life feel it poses to communal harmony and peace in India. Is democracy a licence to do or undo anything by anyone or everyone?
Some idealists in the past might have dreamt of it; but is it really practical?
May I also remind you that it was Lord Macaulay who incorporated the need for such a ban in our legal system to prevent disorder; it is not Mr Rajiv Gandhi’s invention. Mr Soli Sorabjee, whose legal eminence is undisputed, has argued against the ban; but he is a poor judge of public reaction. That is why,like his mentor Mr Nani Palkhivala, he wanted to be in politics but gave up the idea. The Times of India, in its editorial, has answered both you and him effectively:
‘No, dear Rushdie, we do not wish to build a repressive India. On the contrary we are trying our best to build a liberal India where we can all breathe freely. But in order to build such an India, we have to preserve the India that exists. That may not be a pretty India. But this is the only India we possess.
‘Do not pontificate, Mr Rushdie; be logical and face the facts. Answer your critics if you can.

Yours truly,
Rafiq Zakaria

Since then when we were parted From Eden went a wandering, Our hearts have known the sorrow Of dreams that stay alingering. Our traveller will search out Memories in the alley, Where cling remembrances From old Lucknow to Delhi.
To the land of our forefathers Take back to them these feelings: Oh! you who go to India
Carry to them our greetings. Can we ever forget so
The earth of our ancestors? The wind which wafts in memories
Of brothers and of sisters, The gurgling of the Ganga
The Yamuna swirling fast, The friendships of our younger days,
Dalliances of the past. Oh! you who go to India
Affection fills our yearnings, Oh! you who go to India
Carry to them our greetings. The earth on which we grew up
That cradle of our growing, We were cradled in her bosom,
We were nourished by her loving. And now that we are adults
Our fancy returns in flight To each particle of her dust,
Each star that lights her night. This message of our friendship
This pledge of our deep feelings: Oh! you who go to India
Carry to them our greetings. On your lovely plains and mountains
The blessings of all glory, The world bows down in homage
To the splendours of your story.
The awesome Himalayas: We pay to them our tribute,
The Ganga and the Yamuna— The rivers of our youth.
From all of us our loving,
Our very special feelings: Oh! you who go to India
Carry to them our greetings. The spring upon your branches:
We send to you our greetings. The sights we see no longer:
We send to them our greetings. The stars that twinkle in your sky:
We send to those our greetings. The years that have escaped us:
We send our friends our greetings. These jottings of affection,
These fragments of our feelings: Oh! you who go to India
Carry to them our greetings. Our plighted troth is solemn,
Our promise is not to break the beauty of our friendship,
The fate which we must make. The pride of our affection,
Our unity of heart, Must bind us close together— Not keep us far apart.
These are the gifts that you bear, These tokens of our feelings: Oh! you who go to India
Carry to them our greetings.

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Misdirected ire

Jobs, jobs and jobs. That was the central theme of U.S. President Barack Obama's State of the Union address this year. Not surprising at all because there are 13.5 million Americans who are unemployed today, and the jobless rate, though on the decline in the last three months, is still at an uncomfortable 8.5 per cent. And then, of course, there is the small matter that this is election year in America and the State of the Union address is one of the few opportunities Mr. Obama has to grandstand in the remaining period of his Presidency. It is, therefore, natural that he hit out at the outsourcing of jobs, yet again, though this time his ire was directed mostly against manufacturing companies. The President proposed that companies which outsource jobs should be denied tax benefits just as those that create them in the U.S. should be rewarded. While Mr. Obama's electoral compulsions are defensible, what is not is his understanding of why American companies, especially in the high-tech manufacturing sector, are moving jobs overseas. The simple fact is that it is not just cheap labour that is driving American companies overseas; it is also the availability of trained labour per se, in the required numbers, and the existence of efficient supply chains for high-tech gadgetry. The withdrawal of tax breaks might work if it were just the first reason; unfortunately for the President, this is not the case.
Apple is one of America's most admired companies but almost all its products are manufactured overseas. And cheap labour is not the only reason. As a recent article in the New York Times points out, Apple was forced abroad by the availability of talent, and in the huge numbers that it required. That such talent came relatively cheap was a bonus. While America leads in innovation, the fact is that it lags in producing the kind of trained workforce that high-tech companies need. This is something Mr. Obama has conceded in his address, saying that these companies have twice as many openings as the availability of such workers. Investing in education and training as the President promised will help but that will only be in the long-term. American corporations are competing in a global market and national commitments mean little to them. What is important is efficiency and these corporations will migrate to wherever they can find it in the world. Impeding them in their quest will not help but boomerang on Mr. Obama and the U.S. Preventing outsourcing is protectionism and as the Great Depression of the 1930s showed, protectionism worsens an economic recession. It can only be hoped that such populist rhetoric does not get sanctified as legislation in the run-up to the election.

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Is it school or jail?


Education is now at the mercy of ruthless schools that exploit students unreservedly. The innocent pleasures of childhood are ripped off as young children are dumped in a cage called school in the name of education. Excessive homework, intimidating impositions, bossy teachers, their draconian measures crush the tender children. Abnormal sessions which don't allow children time to even have food are a trend in many schools that boast of their achievements.
Even maths sums, their methods that need to come out spontaneously, are memorised. Like a leach that extracts blood, the management drains the children of physical stamina. Their brain is totally exhausted with nothing left, except the imposed knowledge that is transient. The child's originality and all-round development are being nipped in the bud.
Of course, one can give substantial acclamation to these schools as they are training students to become weight-lifting coolies. If the ephemeral knowledge imposed could not fetch them anything significant in their life, they are at least assured of a labourer's job for their survival.
Almost every child has become child Jesus. Jesus carried the Cross at 30 but now every five-year-old has become a Jesus to bear the cross of books. R.K. Narayan's words in Parliament, commenting the size of the school bag, are apt to recall. He said that “his heart bled whenever he saw young boys and girls going to school laden with books which they could hardly carry. This burden did not improve their minds; it only made them hunchbacks.” Heavy backpacks are one of the most distressing and unpleasant aspects of school life for many children.
Play and activity are part and parcel of juvenile life. “What we learn with pleasure we never forget,” articulates Alfred. Poignantly, the present generation in the aforementioned schools is hardly cognisant of games, with not even a play hour in a week or even a playground. Homework, impositions, next day tests — the list goes on and enervates them until midnight. They scarcely witness the pleasurable morning or have recreation and games in the evening. Thirteen periods a day with dragged out timings and Sunday special classes debilitate them ultimately. The following lines from Blake's poem, The School Boy, unveil the yearning of the school boy whose Sunday has been stolen by his austere teacher:
“To go to school in a summer morn, o!
It drives all joy away;
The little ones spend the day,
In sighing and dismay.”
Convent children are forced to wear uniforms quite unaccommodating to our climate. The socks, shoes, belt and tie exasperate children, depleting their gusto to listen to the lessons.
“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lightning of a fire,” declares W.B. Yeats. To illuminate and refine the mind is the real goal of education, and not the mere collection of data. Lamentably, those schools that enforce information are renowned for their remarkable achievements in the contemporary context. One cannot impute blame solely to these hostile schools. Parents have a major share in this. Any school that imposes and insists on immoderate workload and incarcerates their students for a maximum number of hours is reckoned as an ideal institution. What to do? Our children should get attuned to the competitive world is the conviction of the literate as well as illiterate parents. The excessive stress and untold agony caused by these schools will mar their mental growth. If this situation continues, we should cope with the hard reality that we are creating not the pillars of India but robots that oblige their masters. Had we ever peeped into the unvoiced feelings of these tender buds, their repressed angst would have dismayed us.
Value-based education is the need of the hour as white-collar crime is on the rise day by the day. Right living, modesty, spiritual advancement, code of conduct, sense control, patriotism and non-violence should be considered mandatory aspects of education. Let us ruminate on these and cogitate about sparing children time for pivotal issues like yoga, meditation, ethics, values, etiquette, netiquette and play as part of the academic curriculum which will irrefutably generate an innovative, honest, generous, selfless generation. Our children are no more the birds with broken wings in an aviary. Let us create an academic ambience where children do not find education an encumbrance and go to school without tears.

(The writer is a Professor of English, Sreenivasa Institute of Technology and Management Studies, Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh. Her email ID is v.sunitha@rediffmail.com)

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This article was published on August 4, 2007 in Karan Thapar’s column Sunday Sentiments in Hindustan Times

Has an injustice been done to Kiran Bedi? That’s the question I had hoped to explore in an interview with her this evening. Alas, after accepting and reconfirming, she pulled out without giving a convincing explanation! So now I shall share with you what I would have asked and let you decide for yourself.
The key issue is the claim she made to this newspaper on the 26th of July: “Merit has been compromised … I have an outstanding record”. Is she correct? It all turns on her record. If it is outstanding then, indisputably, she should have been made Delhi’s Commissioner of Police and by denying her the job the Government has acted unjustly. But if her record is not outstanding or, in fact, is questionable, the answer could be very different.
So here are the questions I would have put had she not wriggled out of the interview:-
1. To begin with, you’ve received neither the Indian Police Medal for Meritorious Service nor the President’s Police Medal for Distinguished Service. Given that these are routinely awarded after completing a certain number of years of service, isn’t your not getting them proof that your record is neither meritorious nor distinguished?
2. Secondly, is it true that on 4 separate occasions you failed to complete your tenure and at least twice left your post without permission which is tantamount to desertion of duty?
(She didn’t complete her tenure as Superintendent of Police in Goa, DIG (Range) in Mizoram, Inspector General (Prisons) Tihar Jail and Inspector General of Police in Chandigarh. The posts that she left without permission were Goa, in 1983, and Mizoram, in 1992. Speaking to the Sunday Observer on the 27th September 1992, she said of Mizoram: “I left without asking”. Her letter of 25th January 1984 to the Inspector General of Police in Goa, Mr. Rajendra Mohan, establishes that she left on leave that had not been sanctioned.)
3. Let’s examine your conduct in some of the critical posts you’ve held. Is it not a fact that as DIG (Range) in Mizoram the Governor issued a formal note of displeasure against you for leaking information to the press?
4. Is it true that when President Venkatraman visited Mizoram the Governor became aware of your plans to disrupt the visit and informed the Intelligence Bureau that you could not be trusted with classified information and security? Again, this is said to be part of your service record.
5. Now let’s come to Chandigarh, where you were Inspector General for 41 days. Is it not true that the Adviser to the Administrator wrote to the Home Ministry to ask for your removal on the grounds that your presence in Chandigarh was “not in public interest”?
(In her authorized biography ‘I Dare!’, its claimed Mrs. Bedi asked to be posted out of the city. However, UNI, on the 18th May 1999 claims: “In a sudden move, the Union Home Ministry today transferred Chandigarh Inspector General of Police Kiran Bedi with immediate effect.” I’ve been told the Administrator, after obtaining orders for Mrs. Bedi’s removal, permitted her to request a transfer on personal grounds to save face.)
6. You were accused of instigating junior police officers to defy the administration because you disagreed with certain suspension orders issued at the time. The press said you were “sowing seeds of rebellion”.
7. In 1988 you were a central figure during the lawyers strike of that year. Even your authorized biography admits that the Wadhwa Commission, which investigated the matter, “found fault with Kiran”. The press has claimed he called you “a chronic liar”.
8. I put it to you, Mrs. Bedi, that far from “an outstanding record”, your service record is good reason why you don’t deserve to be Police Commissioner?
9. In fact, if your service record was so good, wouldn’t the Lt. Governor, Tejinder Khanna, whose Special Secretary you were during his first tenure, have insisted on your appointment as Police Comssioner? The fact that he didn’t shows that he too thinks you are not fit for the job.
10. Finally, you’ve said Dadwal’s appointment was wrong not just because your merit was overlooked but also your seniority. But if you don’t deserve the job on merit should you get it because of seniority?
Of course, Kiran Bedi does have considerable strengths. She’s brave, she leads from the front, her constables are fond of her and she’s outspoken. And I’m sure there’s more. So, as far I’m concerned, it’s an even greater pity I could not ask her these questions about her service record. Her answers would have established if her record is outstanding or if we’ve been misled into believing it is. Her silence means we don’t know. But what should we make of her decision to cancel her 3 month protest leave and resume office?

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Foreign affairs gone local



By Swapan Dasgupta


Earlier this month, New Delhi witnessed the release of a quasi-official report entitled ‘Non-Alignment 2.0’. The report attempted to set out the broad contours of a foreign policy doctrine that would indicate carrying forward the contested legacy of Jawaharlal Nehru and, for good measure, his foremost gladiator V.K. Krishna Menon.


Regardless of the understandable wariness of some members of the committee to be typecast and slotted into a compartment, the driving force behind Non-Alignment 2.0 was explicitly political. First, it was aimed as a soft answer to those, notably in the Congress and Left parties, who have aired their misgivings of a definite pro-US tilt in foreign policy. Secondly—and this is being spoken of openly by members of India’s rarefied ‘strategic community’—Non-Alignment 2.0 is said to provide an intellectual foundation for a post-Manmohan Singh approach to foreign policy by the Congress establishment. It was, to put it bluntly, aimed as a policy primer for the Congress’ designated heir apparent, an attempt to inject his candidature with a cerebral gloss.


According to the report, a future policy of India must be centred on three “core objectives”. “to ensure that India did not define its national interest or approach to world politics in terms of ideologies and goals that had been set elsewhere; that India retained maximum strategic autonomy to pursue its development goals; and that India worked to build national power as the foundation for creating a just and equitable world order.”


It is unlikely that too many people will find the proposed thrust towards “strategic autonomy” and “national power” objectionable, even if they feel that linking common sense to the chequered history of Nehruvian non-alignment is gratuitous. That India must take decisions based on enlightened self-interest, rather than ideological grandstanding, is obvious but a point worth re-stating. Equally, it is crucial to emphasise that any visionary scheme to right all the accumulated wrongs of the world cannot be contemplated unless India lives up to its potential as an emerging economic power.


Perhaps India needs to remind itself that the preachiness of Nehru and Menon were often seen as presumptuous because New Delhi’s ‘national power’ was purely notional. It had become a euphemism for sloth, incompetence and flawed decisions based on “ideologies and goals that had been set elsewhere.” A country that led a “ship-to-mouth” existence in the 1960s had no credible basis to pontificate on the immorality of US policy during the Cold War. Nor is the historical baggage associated with ‘national power’ enhanced by the revelation in the Mitrokhin Archive that there was a queue of ministers in Indira Gandhi’s Cabinet outside the Soviet embassy offering confidential government papers.


The past history of Indian non-alignment, it is clear, does not inspire automatic confidence in the ability of this doctrine to serve as a guiding light for the challenges of the 21st century. But even if, for the sake of argument, we are able to disentangle historical baggage from the principles set out by the authors of Non-Alignment 2.0, a recognition of ground realities is necessary.


Till the Nehruvian edifice came crashing down following the ignominious collapse of the Soviet Union, there was an unstated national consensus that drove Indian foreign policy. The consensus had as much to do with the dominant position of the Congress in domestic politics as with intellectual acceptance of Nehru and Indira Gandhi’s legacy—even the short-lived Janata Government didn’t deviate from the consensus. However, today, despite the apparent lack of interest in the political class with diplomacy, Indian foreign policy has become far more contested.


The most significant impediment to the projection of ‘national power’ overseas is the emergence of regional interests in foreign policy. In the past few months, the assertion of regional power in a coalition led to the derailment of the Teesta waters accord with Bangladesh and a commitment by the Prime Minister to vote for a resolution in the UN Human Rights Commission condemning the excesses of the Sri Lankan military against Tamil civilians. In the Indian context, the assertion of regional interests in decisions governing foreign policy may seem unique. However, evolved democracies such as the US—with a diverse, multi-ethnic population—have a rich experience of keeping one eye on domestic politics in matters affecting foreign policy. The vocal Irish lobby, the powerful Jewish lobby and the fiercely anti-Castro Cuban émigré lobby in Florida have traditionally exercised their hold over the US State Department. To these can be added commercial lobbies and, in recent times, the vocal human rights industry that played an important role in shaping US attitudes towards the Balkans, Libya and, now, Sri Lanka.


The problem with India is that the assertion of ‘national power’ has been a rarefied, elite preoccupation and insulated from the larger political process. The mandarins of the Ministry of External Affairs have been traditionally insensitive to domestic political impulses. They have seen diplomacy in a way reminiscent of the Congress of Vienna and the Congress of Berlin in the 19th century. Their inability to handle democracy contributed to the mismatch of perceptions of Bangladesh with Kolkata. Likewise in the case of Sri Lanka, there was inadequate groundwork to secure an all-party consensus.


What Indian foreign policy needs is an attitudinal shift. Diplomacy is increasingly becoming linked to the political process and the ‘strategic community’ is unprepared to cope with it.



Asian Age/ Deccan Chronicle, March 23, 2012 (http://www.deccanchronicle.com/columnists/swapan-dasgupta/foreign-affairs-gone-local)

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As Indian as they come :: Barkha Dutt

Swimming in the sea of India’s cultural complexity has taught me that I can no longer carry my agnosticism lightly.
Time has convinced me that my resistance to institutionalised religion is the defining character flaw of the progressive elite; a discordant note in an otherwise full-throated symphony; a disconnect so deep that sometimes people like me are just left watching from the side lines at the tumultuous fight for India’s future; spectators, not participants because we speak the language of disbelief.
But there are times, I am grateful that I am neither Hindu nor Muslim, but just a devout skeptic. Right now, is one such.
Despite the lonely corner non -believers like myself inhabit, I am reasonably confident that the ordinary Indian is as mystified as me by the hysterical debate that has consumed our media these past few weeks.
The theme song, actually it was a duet, went something like this-Hindutva is simmering under the surface, waiting to leap out from the political grave into the warm embrace of a new life; and “moderate Muslims” must speak, not just speak, they must shout, scream, holler, be heard, so that there is no “backlash.”
Apparently, the horrific twin blasts at Varanasi have given all this the force of an emergency. If I were either Hindu or Muslim, I would be deeply insulted at the generalised and simplistic assumptions made about me, my intelligence, and most importantly, my faith.
On the evening of the blasts, Renuka Narayanan went on NDTV and said “Varanasi is to Hinduism what Mecca is to Islam, this is the seat of Hinduism that has been attacked.” I can still feel the slight shudder that went down my spine. The stakes seemed so high.
Gujarat 2002; New Delhi 1984, has made us forever fearful. The fear isn’t entirely misplaced; every terror attack, especially those targeted at the nerve centres of faith, pushes us that much closer to the edge; to the precipice of polarisation.
But the argument lapsed into absurdity, when the politicians began talking. If the Varanasi blasts were a consequence of the UPA’s “minority appeasement”, then how does one explain the shadow of terror that tailed India during the NDA regime? From Kandahar to the Parliament attack?
If the blasts were a result of this government being “soft on terror” then how does one explain that there is no empirical difference in the level of violence today, when compared with last year? And has a shrill BJP forgotten that Atal Behari Vajpayee’s lasting legacy is the creation of a peace process with Pakistan and a peace initiative with Kashmiri separatists?
Bihar was proof that the NDA is a combative, shrewd political force that the UPA cannot afford to be complacent about. But surely there was a lesson in it for the BJP as well- another state won not on the strength of religious mobilisation but on the promise of change.
Even the complex caste arithmetic could not save a Lalu Prasad Yadav; clearly identity politics could only travel this far, if governance and development were not equal companions on the journey.
So no matter what the public opinion pundits write (and I suspect, even the BJP’s master strategists may just have lifted the idea off the edit pages), I would argue that in the absence of an extraordinary event, religious identity is now more the EX-factor, than a decisive, intangible, X factor; Hindutva I think has served its time and outlived its political utility.
All generalizations are a gamble, but I would take the risk and say that Middle India (as distinct from both the fundamentalists and the liberals) wants to travel down the Middle Path; the age of shrill rhetoric is over, Indians, are increasingly impatient with extremism of any kind, in any faith, Hindu or Muslim.
I’m pretty sure that the ordinary Hindu, angry as he or she may be about the assault in Varanasi, and before that, Ayodhya, will also find L K Advani’s Rath Yatra disingenuous and unnecessary; a poor caricature of himself.
I’m equally sure, that if I were a Muslim in India today, I’d feel under siege; claustrophobically caught between those who claim to speak on my behalf, and those who are demanding that I must speak up as a “moderate.” Lost in the cacophony of argument is the clarity of exactly what we are asking them to speak up against.
If it’s about the politicians like Haji Yaqoob Qureshi, the minister in Uttar Pradesh who dared to declare a reward of Rs 51 crore for the Danish cartoonist’s head, Muslim after Muslim that I have interviewed has condemned him and asked that he be removed from the state government.
It’s a non-Muslim chief minister who continues to keep him in public office. It’s India’s party in power, the Congress, that continues to maintain a shameful silence on his utterances; the same Congress that will use textbook rules to secure a vindictive expulsion of Jaya Bachchan from Parliament is conveniently inert when it comes to Qureshi.
And it’s the Marxists, who need to march with Mulayam, who are silently looking the other way. So aren’t newspaper columnists framing the question incorrectly? Sure, there is a conspiracy of silence, but look who is not talking.
Or is it the anti-Bush protests that we are alarmed by and object to? Apparently the worry is that Indian Muslims are joining hands with the Global Islamic Community, if they march against Bush; that this heralds the ominous arrival of Political Islam at our doorstep. But isn’t this a wildly insecure, and mostly hysterical reaction?
First, the protests spoke for a fragment of Muslim opinion, and it would be presumptuous to assume that the protestors represented 14 million people.
Secondly, so what if they don’t like Bush? Why isn’t their right to protest legitimate? This weekend, on We the People, a cross section of Muslims made the same point: to oppose George Bush’s politics in Iraq is not the same thing as opposing a nuclear deal that’s clearly good for India.
To lose that distinction is to question the patriotism of the Indian Muslim, not just a dangerous argument, but also a deeply offensive one.
Mehbooba Mufti from Kashmir summed it up when she said the cause of an Independent Kashmir had been championed by Islamic militants from as far as Sudan and Afghanistan, but never by an Indian Muslim outside of the valley.
Are we becoming like the United States? Fearful of minorities? Alarmed at their assertion, superior and scornful about their conventions? Unable to see them as anything but the “other?”
Finally, are media clichés the biggest disservice at a time like this? What or who do we mean by a Moderate Muslim? Mohammed Ali Jinnah was barely a believer, hardly followed the Quran, but created Pakistan.
So who is “moderate” enough for us, and who sets the benchmarks? The day of the blasts, I got a call from a member of the Muslim Personal Law board, scared and worried about a “backlash”, wanting to condemn the blasts on national television, so that nobody misunderstood their response. The subtext is clear.
Fifty-nine years after India was born, in a country where there are more Muslims than there are in Pakistan, we are still asking Muslims to wear their nationalism like an identity card; we are still asking for proof of loyalty. This is not their failure. It is ours.
Cant help but praise her. !

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Maulana Abul Kalam Azad: The Man Who Knew The Future Of Pakistan Before Its Creation

by Shorish Kashmiri, Matbooat Chattan, Lahore
Congress president Maulana Abul Kalam Azad gave the following interview to journalist Shorish Kashmiri for a Lahore based Urdu magazine, Chattan, in April 1946. It was a time when the Cabinet Mission was holding its proceedings in Delhi and Simla. Azad made some startling predictions during the course of the interview, saying that religious conflict would tear apart Pakistan and its eastern half would carve out its own future. He even said that Pakistan’s incompetent rulers might pave the way for military rule. According to Shorish Kashmiri, Azad had earmarked the early hours of the morning for him and the interview was conducted over a period of two weeks. This interview has not been published in any book so far — neither in the Azad centenary volumes nor in any other book comprising his writing or speeches — except for Kashmiri’s own book Abul Kalam Azad, which was printed only once by Matbooat Chattan Lahore, a now-defunct publishing house. Former Union Cabinet Minister Arif Mohammed Khan discovered the book after searching for many years and translated the interview for COVERT

Q: The Hindu Muslim dispute has become so acute that it has foreclosed any possibility of reconciliation. Don’t you think that in this situation the birth of Pakistan has become inevitable?
A: If Pakistan were the solution of Hindu Muslim problem, then I would have extended my support to it. A section of Hindu opinion is now turning in its favour. By conceding NWFP, Sind, Balochistan and half of Punjab on one side and half of Bengal on the other, they think they will get the rest of India — a huge country that would be free from any claims of communal nature. If we use the Muslim League terminology, this new India will be a Hindu state both practically and temperamentally. This will not happen as a result of any conscious decision, but will be a logical consequence of its social realities. How can you expect a society that consists 90% of Hindus, who have lived with their ethos and values since prehistoric times, to grow differently? The factors that laid the foundation of Islam in Indian society and created a powerful following have become victim of the politics of partition. The communal hatred it has generated has completely extinguished all possibilities of spreading and preaching Islam. This communal politics has hurt the religion beyond measure. Muslims have turned away from the Quran. If they had taken their lessons from the Quran and the life of the Holy Prophet and had not forged communal politics in the name of religion then Islam’s growth would not have halted. By the time of the decline of the Mughal rule, the Muslims in India were a little over 22.5 million, that is about 65% of the present numbers. Since then the numbers kept increasing. If the Muslim politicians had not used the offensive language that embittered communal relations, and the other section acting as agents of British interests had not worked to widen the Hindu-Muslim breach, the number of Muslims in India would have grown higher. The political disputes we created in the name of religion have projected Islam as an instrument of political power and not what it is — a value system meant for the transformation of human soul. Under British influence, we turned Islam into a confined system, and following in the footsteps of other communities like Jews, Parsis and Hindus we transformed ourselves into a hereditary community. The Indian Muslims have frozen Islam and its message and divided themselves into many sects. Some sects were clearly born at the instance of colonial power. Consequently, these sects became devoid of all movement and dynamism and lost faith in Islamic values. The hallmark of Muslim existence was striving and now the very term is strange to them. Surely they are Muslims, but they follow their own whims and desires. In fact now they easily submit to political power, not to Islamic values. They prefer the religion of politics not the religion of the Quran. Pakistan is a political standpoint. Regardless of the fact whether it is the right solution to the problems of Indian Muslims, it is being demanded in the name of Islam. The question is when and where Islam provided for division of territories to settle populations on the basis of belief and unbelief. Does this find any sanction in the Quran or the traditions of the Holy Prophet? Who among the scholars of Islam has divided the dominion of God on this basis? If we accept this division in principle, how shall we reconcile it with Islam as a universal system? How shall we explain the ever growing Muslim presence in non-Muslim lands including India? Do they realise that if Islam had approved this principle then it would not have permitted its followers to go to the non-Muslim lands and many ancestors of the supporters of Pakistan would not have had even entered the fold of Islam? Division of territories on the basis of religion is a contraption devised by Muslim League. They can pursue it as their political agenda, but it finds no sanction in Islam or Quran. What is the cherished goal of a devout Muslim? Spreading the light of Islam or dividing territories along religious lines to pursue political ambitions? The demand for Pakistan has not benefited Muslims in any manner. How Pakistan can benefit Islam is a moot question and will largely depend on the kind of leadership it gets. The impact of western thought and philosophy has made the crisis more serious. The way the leadership of Muslim League is conducting itself will ensure that Islam will become a rare commodity in Pakistan and Muslims in India. This is a surmise and God alone knows what is in the womb of future. Pakistan, when it comes into existence, will face conflicts of religious nature. As far as I can see, the people who will hold the reins of power will cause serious damage to Islam. Their behaviour may result in the total alienation of the Pakistani youth who may become a part of non-religious movements. Today, in Muslim minority states the Muslim youth are more attached to religion than in Muslim majority states. You will see that despite the increased role of Ulema, the religion will lose its sheen in Pakistan.

Q: But many Ulema are with Quaid-e-Azam [M.A. Jinnah].
A: Many Ulema were with Akbare Azam too; they invented a new religion for him. Do not discuss individuals. Our history is replete with the doings of the Ulema who have brought humiliation and disgrace to Islam in every age and period. The upholders of truth are exceptions. How many of the Ulema find an honourable mention in the Muslim history of the last 1,300 years? There was one Imam Hanbal, one Ibn Taimiyya. In India we remember no Ulema except Shah Waliullah and his family. The courage of Alf Sani is beyond doubt, but those who filled the royal office with complaints against him and got him imprisoned were also Ulema. Where are they now? Does anybody show any respect to them?

Q: Maulana, what is wrong if Pakistan becomes a reality? After all, “Islam” is being used to pursue and protect the unity of the community.
A: You are using the name of Islam for a cause that is not right by Islamic standards. Muslim history bears testimony to many such enormities. In the battle of Jamal [fought between Imam Ali and Hadrat Aisha, widow of the Holy Prophet] Qurans were displayed on lances. Was that right? In Karbala the family members of the Holy Prophet were martyred by those Muslims who claimed companionship of the Prophet. Was that right? Hajjaj was a Muslim general and he subjected the holy mosque at Makka to brutal attack. Was that right? No sacred words can justify or sanctify a false motive.
If Pakistan was right for Muslims then I would have supported it. But I see clearly the dangers inherent in the demand. I do not expect people to follow me, but it is not possible for me to go against the call of my conscience. People generally submit either to coercion or to the lessons of their experience. Muslims will not hear anything against Pakistan unless they experience it. Today they can call white black, but they will not give up Pakistan. The only way it can be stopped now is either for the government not to concede it or for Mr Jinnah himself — if he agrees to some new proposal.
Now as I gather from the attitude of my own colleagues in the working committee, the division of India appears to be certain. But I must warn that the evil consequences of partition will not affect India alone, Pakistan will be equally haunted by them. The partition will be based on the religion of the population and not based on any natural barrier like mountain, desert or river. A line will be drawn; it is difficult to say how durable it would be.
We must remember that an entity conceived in hatred will last only as long as that hatred lasts. This hatred will overwhelm the relations between India and Pakistan. In this situation it will not be possible for India and Pakistan to become friends and live amicably unless some catastrophic event takes place. The politics of partition itself will act as a barrier between the two countries. It will not be possible for Pakistan to accommodate all the Muslims of India, a task beyond her territorial capability. On the other hand, it will not be possible for the Hindus to stay especially in West Pakistan. They will be thrown out or leave on their own. This will have its repercussions in India and the Indian Muslims will have three options before them:
1. They become victims of loot and brutalities and migrate to Pakistan; but how many Muslims can find shelter there?
2. They become subject to murder and other excesses. A substantial number of Muslims will pass through this ordeal until the bitter memories of partition are forgotten and the generation that had lived through it completes its natural term.
3. A good number of Muslims, haunted by poverty, political wilderness and regional depredation decide to renounce Islam.
The prominent Muslims who are supporters of Muslim League will leave for Pakistan. The wealthy Muslims will take over the industry and business and monopolise the economy of Pakistan. But more than 30 million Muslims will be left behind in India. What promise Pakistan holds for them? The situation that will arise after the expulsion of Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan will be still more dangerous for them. Pakistan itself will be afflicted by many serious problems. The greatest danger will come from international powers who will seek to control the new country, and with the passage of time this control will become tight. India will have no problem with this outside interference as it will sense danger and hostility from Pakistan.
The other important point that has escaped Mr Jinnah’s attention is Bengal. He does not know that Bengal disdains outside leadership and rejects it sooner or later. During World War II, Mr Fazlul Haq revolted against Jinnah and was thrown out of the Muslim League. Mr H.S. Suhrawardy does not hold Jinnah in high esteem. Why only Muslim League, look at the history of Congress. The revolt of Subhas Chandra Bose is known to all. Gandhiji was not happy with the presidentship of Bose and turned the tide against him by going on a fast unto death at Rajkot. Subhas Bose rose against Gandhiji and disassociated himself from the Congress. The environment of Bengal is such that it disfavours leadership from outside and rises in revolt when it senses danger to its rights and interests.
The confidence of East Pakistan will not erode as long as Jinnah and Liaquat Ali are alive. But after them any small incident will create resentment and disaffection. I feel that it will not be possible for East Pakistan to stay with West Pakistan for any considerable period of time. There is nothing common between the two regions except that they call themselves Muslims. But the fact of being Muslim has never created durable political unity anywhere in the world. The Arab world is before us; they subscribe to a common religion, a common civilisation and culture and speak a common language. In fact they acknowledge even territorial unity. But there is no political unity among them. Their systems of government are different and they are often engaged in mutual recrimination and hostility. On the other hand, the language, customs and way of life of East Pakistan are totally different from West Pakistan. The moment the creative warmth of Pakistan cools down, the contradictions will emerge and will acquire assertive overtones. These will be fuelled by the clash of interests of international powers and consequently both wings will separate. After the separation of East Pakistan, whenever it happens, West Pakistan will become the battleground of regional contradictions and disputes. The assertion of sub-national identities of Punjab, Sind, Frontier and Balochistan will open the doors for outside interference. It will not be long before the international powers use the diverse elements of Pakistani political leadership to break the country on the lines of Balkan and Arab states. Maybe at that stage we will ask ourselves, what have we gained and what have we lost.
The real issue is economic development and progress, it certainly is not religion. Muslim business leaders have doubts about their own ability and competitive spirit. They are so used to official patronage and favours that they fear new freedom and liberty. They advocate the two-nation theory to conceal their fears and want to have a Muslim state where they have the monopoly to control the economy without any competition from competent rivals. It will be interesting to watch how long they can keep this deception alive.

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I feel that right from its inception, Pakistan will face some very serious problems:
1. The incompetent political leadership will pave the way for military dictatorship as it has happened in many Muslim countries.
2. The heavy burden of foreign debt.
3. Absence of friendly relationship with neighbours and the possibility of armed conflict.
4. Internal unrest and regional conflicts.
5. The loot of national wealth by the neo-rich and industrialists of Pakistan.
6. The apprehension of class war as a result of exploitation by the neo-rich.
7. The dissatisfaction and alienation of the youth from religion and the collapse of the theory of Pakistan.
8. The conspiracies of the international powers to control Pakistan.
In this situation, the stability of Pakistan will be under strain and the Muslim countries will be in no position to provide any worthwhile help. The assistance from other sources will not come without strings and it will force both ideological and territorial compromises.

Q: But the question is how Muslims can keep their community identity intact and how they can inculcate the attributes of the citizens of a Muslim state.
A: Hollow words cannot falsify the basic realities nor slanted questions can make the answers deficient. It amounts to distortion of the discourse. What is meant by community identity? If this community identity has remained intact during the British slavery, how will it come under threat in a free India in whose affairs Muslims will be equal participants? What attributes of the Muslim state you wish to cultivate? The real issue is the freedom of faith and worship and who can put a cap on that freedom. Will independence reduce the 90 million Muslims into such a helpless state that they will feel constrained in enjoying their religious freedom? If the British, who as a world power could not snatch this liberty, what magic or power do the Hindus have to deny this freedom of religion? These questions have been raised by those, who, under the influence of western culture, have renounced their own heritage and are now raising dust through political gimmickry.
Muslim history is an important part of Indian history. Do you think the Muslim kings were serving the cause of Islam? They had a nominal relationship with Islam; they were not Islamic preachers. Muslims of India owe their gratitude to Sufis, and many of these divines were treated by the kings very cruelly. Most of the kings created a large band of Ulema who were an obstacle in the path of the propagation of Islamic ethos and values. Islam, in its pristine form, had a tremendous appeal and in the first century won the hearts and minds of a large number of people living in and around Hejaz. But the Islam that came to India was different, the carriers were non-Arabs and the real spirit was missing. Still, the imprint of the Muslim period is writ large on the culture, music, art, architecture and languages of India. What do the cultural centres of India, like Delhi and Lucknow, represent? The underlying Muslim spirit is all too obvious.
If the Muslims still feel under threat and believe that they will be reduced to slavery in free India then I can only pray for their faith and hearts. If a man becomes disenchanted with life he can be helped to revival, but if someone is timid and lacks courage, then it is not possible to help him become brave and gutsy. The Muslims as a community have become cowards. They have no fear of God, instead they fear men. This explains why they are so obsessed with threats to their existence — a figment of their imagination.
After British takeover, the government committed all possible excesses against the Muslims. But Muslims did not cease to exist. On the contrary, they registered a growth that was more than average. The Muslim cultural ethos and values have their own charm. Then India has large Muslim neighbours on three sides. Why on earth the majority in this country will be interested to wipe out the Muslims? How will it promote their self interests? Is it so easy to finish 90 million people? In fact, Muslim culture has such attraction that I shall not be surprised if it comes to have the largest following in free India.
The world needs both, a durable peace and a philosophy of life. If the Hindus can run after Marx and undertake scholarly studies of the philosophy and wisdom of the West, they do not disdain Islam and will be happy to benefit from its principles. In fact they are more familiar with Islam and acknowledge that Islam does not mean parochialism of a hereditary community or a despotic system of governance. Islam is a universal call to establish peace on the basis of human equality. They know that Islam is the proclamation of a Messenger who calls to the worship of God and not his own worship. Islam means freedom from all social and economic discriminations and reorganisation of society on three basic principles of God-consciousness, righteous action and knowledge. In fact, it is we Muslims and our extremist behaviour that has created an aversion among non-Muslims for Islam. If we had not allowed our selfish ambitions to soil the purity of Islam then many seekers of truth would have found comfort in the bosom of Islam. Pakistan has nothing to do with Islam; it is a political demand that is projected by Muslim League as the national goal of Indian Muslims. I feel it is not the solution to the problems Muslims are facing. In fact it is bound to create more problems.
The Holy Prophet has said, “God has made the whole earth a mosque for me.” Now do not ask me to support the idea of the partition of a mosque. If the nine-crore Muslims were thinly scattered all over India, and demand was made to reorganise the states in a manner to ensure their majority in one or two regions, that was understandable. Again such a demand would not have been right from an Islamic viewpoint, but justifiable on administrative grounds. But the situation, as it exists, is drastically different. All the border states of India have Muslim majorities sharing borders with Muslim countries. Tell me, who can eliminate these populations? By demanding Pakistan we are turning our eyes away from the history of the last 1,000 years and, if I may use the League terminology, throwing more than 30 million Muslims into the lap of “Hindu Raj”. The Hindu Muslim problem that has created political tension between Congress and League will become a source of dispute between the two states and with the aid of international powers this may erupt into full scale war anytime in future.
The question is often raised that if the idea of Pakistan is so fraught with dangers for the Muslims, why is it being opposed by the Hindus? I feel that the opposition to the demand is coming from two quarters. One is represented by those who genuinely feel concerned about imperial machinations and strongly believe that a free, united India will be in a better position to defend itself. On the other hand, there is a section who opposes Pakistan with the motive to provoke Muslims to become more determined in their demand and thus get rid of them. Muslims have every right to demand constitutional safeguards, but partition of India cannot promote their interests. The demand is the politically incorrect solution of a communal problem.
In future India will be faced with class problems, not communal disputes; the conflict will be between capital and labour. The communist and socialist movements are growing and it is not possible to ignore them. These movements will increasingly fight for the protection of the interest of the underclass. The Muslim capitalists and the feudal classes are apprehensive of this impending threat. Now they have given this whole issue a communal colour and have turned the economic issue into a religious dispute. But Muslims alone are not responsible for it. This strategy was first adopted by the British government and then endorsed by the political minds of Aligarh. Later, Hindu short-sightedness made matters worse and now freedom has become contingent on the partition of India.
Jinnah himself was an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity. In one Congress session Sarojini Naidu had commended him with this title. He was a disciple of Dadabhai Naoroji. He had refused to join the 1906 deputation of Muslims that initiated communal politics in India. In 1919 he stood firmly as a nationalist and opposed Muslim demands before the Joint Select Committee. On 3 October 1925, in a letter to the Times of India he rubbished the suggestion that Congress is a Hindu outfit. In the All Parties Conferences of 1925 and 1928, he strongly favoured a joint electorate. While speaking at the National Assembly in 1925, he said, “I am a nationalist first and a nationalist last” and exhorted his colleagues, be they Hindus or Muslims, “not to raise communal issues in the House and help make the Assembly a national institution in the truest sense of the term”.
In 1928, Jinnah supported the Congress call to boycott Simon Commission. Till 1937, he did not favour the demand to partition India. In his message to various student bodies he stressed the need to work for Hindu Muslim unity. But he felt aggrieved when the Congress formed governments in seven states and ignored the Muslim League. In 1940 he decided to pursue the partition demand to check Muslim political decline. In short, the demand for Pakistan is his response to his own political experiences. Mr Jinnah has every right to his opinion about me, but I have no doubts about his intelligence. As a politician he has worked overtime to fortify Muslim communalism and the demand for Pakistan. Now it has become a matter of prestige for him and he will not give it up at any cost.

Q: It is clear that Muslims are not going to turn away from their demand for Pakistan. Why have they become so impervious to all reason and logic of arguments?
A: It is difficult, rather impossible, to fight against the misplaced enthusiasm of a mob, but to suppress one’s conscience is worse than death. Today the Muslims are not walking, they are flowing. The problem is that Muslims have not learnt to walk steady; they either run or flow with the tide. When a group of people lose confidence and self-respect, they are surrounded by imaginary doubts and dangers and fail to make a distinction between the right and the wrong. The true meaning of life is realised not through numerical strength but through firm faith and righteous action. British politics has sown many seeds of fear and distrust in the mental field of Muslims. Now they are in a frightful state, bemoaning the departure of the British and demanding partition before the foreign masters leave. Do they believe that partition will avert all the dangers to their lives and bodies? If these dangers are real then they will still haunt their borders and any armed conflict will result in much greater loss of lives and possessions.

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Q: But Hindus and Muslims are two different nations with different and disparate inclinations. How can the unity between the two be achieved?
A: This is an obsolete debate. I have seen the correspondence between Allama Iqbal and Maulana Husain Ahmad Madni on the subject. In the Quran the term qaum has been used not only for the community of believers but has also been used for distinct human groupings generally. What do we wish to achieve by raising this debate about the etymological scope of terms like millat [community], qaum [nation] and ummat [group]? In religious terms India is home to many people — the Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Parsis, Sikhs etc. The differences between Hindu religion and Islam are vast in scope. But these differences cannot be allowed to become an obstacle in the path of India gaining her freedom nor do the two distinct and different systems of faith negate the idea of unity of India. The issue is of our national independence and how we can secure it. Freedom is a blessing and is the right of every human being. It cannot be divided on the basis of religion.

Muslims must realise that they are bearers of a universal message. They are not a racial or regional grouping in whose territory others cannot enter. Strictly speaking, Muslims in India are not one community; they are divided among many well-entrenched sects. You can unite them by arousing their anti-Hindu sentiment but you cannot unite them in the name of Islam. To them Islam means undiluted loyalty to their own sect. Apart from Wahabi, Sunni and Shia there are innumerable groups who owe allegiance to different saints and divines. Small issues like raising hands during the prayer and saying Amen loudly have created disputes that defy solution. The Ulema have used the instrument of takfeer [fatwas declaring someone as infidel] liberally. Earlier, they used to take Islam to the disbelievers; now they take away Islam from the believers. Islamic history is full of instances of how good and pious Muslims were branded kafirs. Prophets alone had the capability to cope with these mindboggling situations. Even they had to pass through times of afflictions and trials. The fact is that when reason and intelligence are abandoned and attitudes become fossilised then the job of the reformer becomes very difficult.
But today the situation is worse than ever. Muslims have become firm in their communalism; they prefer politics to religion and follow their worldly ambitions as commands of religion. History bears testimony to the fact that in every age we ridiculed those who pursued the good with consistency, snuffed out the brilliant examples of sacrifice and tore the flags of selfless service. Who are we, the ordinary mortals; even high ranking Prophets were not spared by these custodians of traditions and customs.

Q: You closed down your journal Al-Hilal a long time back. Was it due to your disappointment with the Muslims who were wallowing in intellectual desolation, or did you feel like proclaiming azan [call to prayer] in a barren desert?
A: I abandoned Al-Hilal not because I had lost faith in its truth. This journal created great awareness among a large section of Muslims. They renewed their faith in Islam, in human freedom and in consistent pursuit of righteous goals. In fact my own life was greatly enriched by this experience and I felt like those who had the privilege of learning under the companionship of the Messenger of God. My own voice entranced me and under its impact I burnt out like a phoenix. Al-Hilal had served its purpose and a new age was dawning. Based on my experiences, I made a reappraisal of the situation and decided to devote all my time and energy for the attainment of our national freedom. I was firm in my belief that freedom of Asia and Africa largely depends on India’s freedom and Hindu Muslim unity is key to India’s freedom. Even before the First World War, I had realised that India was destined to attain freedom, and no power on earth would be able to deny it. I was also clear in my mind about the role of Muslims. I ardently wished that Muslims would learn to walk together with their countrymen and not give an opportunity to history to say that when Indians were fighting for their independence, Muslims were looking on as spectators. Let nobody say that instead of fighting the waves they were standing on the banks and showing mirth on the drowning of boats carrying the freedom fighters.