Skip to main content

When a Pak scribe said Modi has 'proved' Jinnah’s two nation theory right...

By Zafar Agha*
It was around nine in the morning on May 24, 2019, a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi stormed the Lok Sabha with 300-plus MPs. It was a call from a journalist friend, Muzamal Suhrawardy, from Lahore, Pakistan. I ignored the call. We liberals had a depressing day the previous evening as the opposition to Modi and BJP collapsed. The results belied reports from the ground and even assessments made by colleagues.
I was in no mood to take yet another call and explain what had happened and why. But Muzamal was persistent. He called again a few hours later. Again, I didn’t pick up the phone. Muzamal, I sensed, wanted to speak on the Indian elections. But I was in no mood to oblige a Pakistani journalist and listen to him having a dig at the rise of the Right in India as has been the case with Pakistan for decades.
We, liberal Indians, had looked down upon them for being citizens of an “Islamic” state in modern times. How could I explain the rise of a ‘Hindu Pakistan’? So, I again ignored the call. But a veteran, he was in no mood to let it go. He called yet again around 1 pm. There was little option left but to take the call. I took it with a sense of resignation and, I must confess, trepidation.
My worst nightmare began unfolding. He began by taunting me: “Agha sahib, why are you avoiding me today?” Even before I could respond, he continued in Urdu: “Arey, ghabraiye nahi. Hum aap ko Pakistan mein political asylum dilwa denge”. I was agitated and reacted rudely by asking what gave him the idea that I would be migrating to Pakistan, a country which I have not visited even once.
Muzamal was now sarcastic: “Well, we established the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and announced it right away in 1947. You pretended to be secular and gloated about it. But now you are finally the Hindu Republic of India”.
He didn’t stop at that and turned the knife in. He had done a TV programme in Pakistan the previous evening in which he focused on how “Modi has proved Jinnah’s two nation theory right”. I felt as if someone had stabbed me at the back. I felt numb. Our conversation ended within seconds. But as I put down the phone, tears rolled down my cheeks.
Muzamal said something that I believe nagged every Indian Muslim since the afternoon of May 23. No one was ready to pose it quite as brutally and bluntly as Muzamal did. But it will be self-deluding not to admit that the results of the election disturbed virtually every Muslim in the country.
My father, like a large number of Muslims, had refused to migrate to Pakistan in 1947. He was a Gandhian whose bedroom had photographs of the Mahatma on the wall. He taught us to value the ‘Ganga-Jamuni tahzeeb’, something that Gandhi and Nehru always talked about. 

Hindu Republic of India?

Yet after spending over three quarters of my life in a secular, liberal India, I was being told by a Pakistani that I, as a Muslim, had no place in the “Hindu Republic of India.’’ It shattered me and left me numb. Staggered, I wondered if this was indeed the end of the road for Indian Muslims in Narendra Modi’s New India.
Whether one likes it or not, that’s what every Indian Muslim is feeling since May 23. Why Muslims alone! All liberal Hindus also feel weighed down with similar sentiments. Indian Muslims, however, are not just in a state of shock. Like me, they have also been forced to wonder if it is not the end of the road for them in this country.
After all, Modi is no dyed-in-wool Hindu leader like Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He is a self-professed Hindutva soldier who is out to build ‘naya Bharat’, based on Golwalkar and Savarkar’s idea of India wherein Indian Muslims will be second-class citizens, a sophisticated word for a sort of slavery in medieval terms.
Muslims will be required to do what Hindus would not, live in ghettos and forget about equality of opportunity, redressal against discrimination and equal treatment before the law. Above all, they will have to learn to keep quiet and not raise their voice against injustice or in favour of what they may perceive to be their legitimate right.
In terms of history, Modi’s second coming in 2019 is no less a crisis for Indian Muslims than 1857 when the British destroyed and dismantled the Mughal Empire and pushed Muslims in north India into a civilisational crisis. The loss of the Mughal Empire was not just a change of power.
It was the collapse of their entire world view wherein their political and social institutions crumbled overnight leaving them clueless because their old world order had collapsed and they had nothing new to look up to - a state of mind that famous Urdu poet and a personal witness to the 1857 mutiny, Mirza Ghalib, described thus:
Iman mujhey rokey hai jo khincheyhai mujhey kufr
Kaba merey peechey hai, kalisa merey aagey.

(Belief restrains me as doubt pulls me on,/ have turned from certainty to complete incertitude)
In somewhat similar fashion, the Gandhian and the Nehruvian idea of India lies shattered with the landslide victory of Narendra Modi. It is just a word between the old India and Modi’s Naya Bharat. 

The BJP had been accusing Indira Gandhi for long now for inserting the word ‘secularism’ in Indian Constitution which will surely be dropped sooner than later as LK Advani promised on several occasions. It will be the formal realisation of the RSS vision of a Hindu Rashtra. And, Muslims are now aware what it might mean for them to live in a Hindu Rashtra. Frankly, it would be somewhat similar to what Pakistani Hindus are going through in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, which virtually translates into ‘no’ rights for the minorities, especially Muslims.
There are Muslims in India though who believe Indian Muslims got nothing much in the last 70-plus years in India. Riots bordering on massacres, genocide and pogrom like 2002 in Gujarat but on earlier occasions as well, crumbs of a handful of second-rate jobs in the government and a few slices of power courtesy the Muslim quota are what the balance sheet records.
Yet Indian Muslims never felt so hopeless even in the aftermath of the frenzy of Partition. Educated Muslim elite like us proudly clung to the Nehruvian idea of India even after the cathartic, humiliating and devastating experience of the Babri Mosque demolition on December 6, 1992. Now even that fig leaf, they feel, is gone with Narendra Modi’s second term.
It’s a dark tunnel ahead for Indian Muslims who feel like sitting ducks, or headless chickens if you like, in Modi’s Naya Bharat. Incidents of mob violence, public jeering, hate speech on social media and lynchings are enough to make Muslims feel permanently insecure. What follows now is anyone’s guess.
The story of Indian Muslims is a sad story of the community’s decline and decay. But the Indian political establishment alone cannot be blamed for the fate that stares so starkly at Muslims in India now. Communities cannot advance on entitlements alone. Governments don’t make the fate of a community.
Instead, wise communities make and unmake governments and thus write their own fate.
A community needs to have a vision of its own to advance in times they live in. But Indian Muslims, unfortunately, love to live in their ‘glorious’ past. Only a handful of reformers like Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, who established the Aligarh Muslim University, tried to link the community with modern times.

Minority welfare "ignored"

Indian Muslims in post-Independence India left their fate to avowedly secular parties who, not surprisingly, succumbed to social and business lobbies. Hindus being the dominant majority in this country, successive governments ignored minority welfare. When they were persuaded to think of doing something for the community on a large scale, they would be accused of minority appeasement and suffer from withdrawal symptoms.
What little was initiated by various governments, they were sabotaged by the bureaucracy. The Manmohan Singh government, for instance, came out with the Sachar committee report which recommended welfare schemes targeting minorities. But the benefits rarely trickled down to the intended beneficiaries. Indian Muslims rarely responded to calls of the conservatives led by the clergy on political issues. 
Yet, emotive religious issues like the demolition of the Babri mosque and their personal law were exploited by the clergy. Most such movements fuelled by highly emotive campaigns received little support among Indian Muslims but ended up strengthening the ‘Hindu Right’. Still, secular parties encouraged conservative Muslim leadership as their spokesperson. It annoyed liberals and the Hindu Right alike.
In the last five years, they lay low despite provocations. They kept their fingers crossed, bowed their head and hoped the storm would pass. The Modi government’s move to abolish even the Muslim Personal Law didn’t provoke Muslims to take to the street as they had done on various other occasions. They hoped against hope and felt their silence would be reciprocated with restraint and not provoke any Hindu backlash.
But after the election results, the Indian Muslims are both dejected and confused. The second largest community in the country, 170 million of them, constitute a little less than Pakistan’s population. And the Indian Muslims numerically are more than the population of Bangladesh. But they are in a bind and unable to figure out what they must do to break the impasse.
But if history is any guide, even such grim times tend to pass. The nightmare of 1857 and the horrors of Partition are now distant memories. The worst doesn’t last forever.
Muzamal’s offer to help me migrate to Pakistan, where he assured me that he had already identified a house I could move in to, is, however, not the first such proposal made to my family. When we were growing up in our hometown Allahabad, my late father told us about the visit by a Sikh gentleman. Refugees were pouring in from Pakistan and a reverse stream of Muslims was taking the train to Pakistan.
The Sikh gentleman showed my father pictures of two bungalows that he owned in Lahore and offered to exchange them for my father’s two bungalows in Allahabd. When we asked our father why he declined the offer, he calmly told us:
“Beta, hamarey purkhey yahan dafan hain. Phir Hindustan hamara watan hai, hum isko chor kar kaisey chaley jatey. Achchey burey waqt to atey jatey hain, watan sey jao to phir woh thodi wapas milta hai" (My son, our ancestors are buried here. Besides, India is our homeland. How could I have deserted my homeland? Good and bad times come and go. One need not desert one’s homeland in troubled times. Once you lose your homeland, you are unlikely to get it back).
The overwhelming majority of Indian Muslims in 1947 thought like my father and stayed back. When the founder of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, could not tempt the Muslim millions to migrate to the ‘Islamic state of Pakistan’, how could my friend Muzamal sway me?
India is our motherland. Why should we quit it for the fear of Hindutva? We believed Mohammad Iqbal when he wrote, “Sarey Jahan sey Achcha, Hindustan hamara”. Our faith in the country and its future remains intact.
---
*Editor-in-chief, Quami Awaz. A version of this article first appeared in National Herald

Comments

TRENDING

'Enough evidence' in Indian tradition to support legal basis for same-sex marriage

By Iyce Malhotra, Joseph Mathai, Sandeep Chachra*  The ongoing hearing in the Supreme Court on same-sex marriage provides space for much-needed conversations on issues that have hitherto remained “invisible” or engaged with patriarchal locker room humour. We must recognize that people with diverse sexualities and complex gender identities have faced discrimination, stigma and decades of oppression. Their issues have mainly remained buried in dominant social discourse, and many view them with deep insecurities.

Savarkar 'criminally betrayed' Netaji and his INA by siding with the British rulers

By Shamsul Islam* RSS-BJP rulers of India have been trying to show off as great fans of Netaji. But Indians must know what role ideological parents of today's RSS/BJP played against Netaji and Indian National Army (INA). The Hindu Mahasabha and RSS which always had prominent lawyers on their rolls made no attempt to defend the INA accused at Red Fort trials.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Victim of communal violence, Christians in Manipur want Church leadership to speak up

By Fr Cedric Prakash SJ*  The first eleven days of May 2023 have, in many ways, been a defining period of Indian history! Plenty has happened in a rapid-fire stream of events. Ironically, each one of them are indicators of how crimes and the criminalisation of society has become the ‘new norm’; these include, the May Day rallies with a focus on the four labour codes which are patently against the rights of workers; the U S Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released its Annual Report on 1 May stating that conditions for religious freedom in India “continued to worsen in 2022”; the continued protest by the Indian women wrestlers at Jantar Mantar for the expulsion of the chief of the Indian Wrestlers Federation on very serious allegations; the Elections in Karnataka on 10 May (with communalism and corruption as the mainstay); the release of the fake, derogative and insensitive film ‘The Kerala Story’; the release of World Free Press Index on 3 May which places India

Delhi HC rules in favour of retired Air Force officer 'overcharged' for Covid treatment

By Rosamma Thomas*  In a decision of May 22, 2023, the Delhi High Court ruled in favour of petitioner Group Captain Suresh Khanna who was under treatment at CK Birla Hospital, Gurugram, between April 28 and May 5, 2021, for a period of eight days, for Covid-19 pneumonia. The petitioner had to pay Rs 3,55,286 as treatment costs, but the Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS) only reimbursed him for Rs 1,83,748, on the basis of government-approved rates. 

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Unlike other revolutionaries, Hindutva icon wrote 5 mercy petitions to British masters

By Shamsul Islam*  The Hindutva icon VD Savarkar of the RSS-BJP rulers of India submitted not one, two,or three but five mercy petitions to the British masters! Savarkarites argue: “There are no evidences to prove that Savarkar collaborated with the British for his release from jail. In fact, his appeal for release was a ruse. He was well aware of the political developments outside and wanted to be part of it. So he kept requesting for his release. But the British authorities did not trust him a bit” (YD Phadke, ‘A complex Hero’, "The Indian Expres"s, August 31, 2004)

India joining US sponsored trade pillar to hurt Indian farmers, 'promote' GM seeds, food

Counterview Desk  As many as 32 civil society organisations (CSOs), in a letter to Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal on the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) and India joining the trade pillar, have said that its provisions will allow the US to ensure a more favourable regulatory regime “for enhancing its exports of genetically modified (GM) seeds and GM food”, underlining, it will “significantly hurt the livelihoods of Indian farmers.”

Savarkar 'opposed' Bhagat Singh's, Netaji's dream of India, supported British war efforts

By Shamsul Islam* In a shocking development, the student wing of the RSS put the busts of martyrs Bhagat Singh and Subhash Chandra Bose with Savarkar's on one pedestal at the University of Delhi late in the night on August 20, 2019. Bhagat Singh sacrificed his life for a socialist-democratic-secular republic and Netaji raised Azad Hind Fauj (INA) consisting of people of all religions and regions for armed liberation of India.

Undermining law, breastfeeding? Businesses 'using' celebrities to promote baby food

By Rajiv Shah  A report prepared by the top child welfare NGO, Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India (BPNI), has identified as many as 15 offenders allegedly violating the Indian baby food law, the Infant Milk Substitutes Feeding Bottles, and Infant Foods (Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) Act 1992, and Amendment Act 2003 (IMS Act), stating, compliance with the law “seems to be dwindling by the day.”