Husain, Hinduism, Hindustan: Testing Tolerance

Yassar,

Sadna has a habit of lying thru her teeth. I don’t have much time nor am I inclined to discuss something with an ignorant liar like Sadna.

We are talking about a prominent family in Sindh. The Soomros are the staunchest supporters of the army in Sindh.

Sadna! you are a pathetic liar. Instead of making up stuff as you go, I recommend you do some fact checking before running your mouth allover the net.


Yassar,

Read the Highlighted sections. It is clear that the sindhi leadership was interested in Pakistan because of 1940 resolution. Though, Soomro was probably thinking of independence.

Read about him and his family.
http://www.dawn.com/2005/05/14/fea.htm

Today marks the death anniversary of Allah Bux Soomro, who was assassinated in 1943.

IN THE political history of Sindh, May 14, 1943 will be remembered as a day of great loss. On that day, Allah Bux Soomro, the visionary leader, was murdered in Shikarpur at the age of 44.

It is not clear why he was killed but it is generally believed that elements hostile to Sindh’s centuries’ old tradition of peace among different faiths and creeds were responsible.

Allah Bux Soomro was chief minister when communal riots broke out in Shikarpur. He intervened to stop the trouble. Extremist forces had gathered in Sukkur on the Masjid Manzil Gah issue. Braving all odds, Mr Soomro delivered a moving speech, appealing to the people to remain calm. He assured the Muslims of the right to pray at Masjid Manzil Gah and at the same time assured the Hindus of safe access to Sadh Belo, the way to which passed close to the mosque. Opportunists had stirred up feelings against Hindu traders and the unrest was used to grab Hindu properties. The incident was exploited by Mr Soomro’s political rivals, and he lost the support of the Hindu members. As a consequence, his government was brought down.

Mr Soomro, from a middle class family, began his political career from the local bodies. Then he became chairman of the district council, a member of the Bombay Legislative Assembly, and when Sindh was separated from the Bombay Presidency, his party, the United Party, won 24 seats — the single largest party in the house. But the then Sindh governor invited Sir Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah to form a government. Soomro’s party agreed to sit in the opposition. Allah Bux knew this would not last long. Soon the governor realized his mistake and Mr Soomro was invited to form the government.

In those turbulent times, with the Congress leading its Quit India Movement and the Muslim League formulating its demand for a separate state for the Muslims of India, Mr Soomro kept away from both the Muslim League and Congress. To him the autonomy of Sindh was important and he didn’t see its future in either of the parties.

G.M. Syed writes that Allah Bux held both parties as centralists which could not serve the interests of Sindh. “In my conversations with him, he said that since we have recently won freedom from the Bombay Presidency, we should not take any step that may harm our autonomous status. When I told him that in the recent resolution for Pakistan at the All-India Muslim League session held in Lahore, the point of provincial autonomy had been explicitly mentioned, he said that I was living in an idealist planet and therefore did not know how practical politics worked. In practical politics only might is right.” G.M. Syed adds: “Experience suggests that he was right and I was wrong.”

Mr Soomro had returned the British titles of Khan Bahadur and Order of the British Empire (OBE) while he was chief minister for the second time in reaction to a speech by Winston Churchill in which he had used derogatory language against the leaders of the freedom movement and declared that he wanted to keep India as a colony of the British Empire.

He was removed as chief minister and spent the last days of his life mostly in Shikarpur and kept himself busy in welfare works including flood relief measures.

Allah Bux Soomro was a leader without any pretensions and will he remembered as a great savant of Sindh.

He was murdered by unknown assailants; a year after his government was dismissed.

Dear Sadna,

Regarding Maulana Muhammad Ali (the Gandhi disciple who you quote) as well as your baseless assertions/faulty understanding about/of the Pakistan movement... I suggest you read my ilog.

I have been asked too many times to stop posting about Gandhi-Jinnah on this board and now even I am quite ashamed.

corr:
Congress went to jail and Jinnah had a veto on India`s constitution and central government for the length of the whole war. Is helping keep Hindus out of national government unjustly an OK thing to do? Who is going to quote a book about that?

#472
The Sindh Chief Minister was labelled a traitor by the Muslim League and Jinnah was very angry with him. Where`s the book on that? Jinnah had a big problem with the Unionists too for having Hindus within their ranks and for including in its party platform the interests of the Hindus within its ranks. Who is going to write a book about that?

It is cowardice to say `Muslim League was a party of Muslims only so had every right to be opposed to Hindu parties in the govt`- that excuse doesn`t work once it demanded Pakistan.

A secretary to the Cabinet Mission wrote in 1946 `` If it was immoral to surrender 80 million Muslims to the Hindus in the whole of India, would it be right to put 48 million nonMuslims at the mercy of the Muslims in Pakistan?``

So many Hindus in Pakistan but the party which demanded Pakistan could be totally opposed to Hindu parties in govt. Which Hindu from Pakistan or Bangladesh is ever going to write about this?


You are accusing the Congress and Gandhi of what Muslim parties themselves did. Muhammad Ali said about Gandhi - something like even a Muslim murderer or thief is better than a kafir like Gandhi(a view no doubt shared by you). But Gandhi is more maligned among `liberal` Muslims for his `extremism` than Muhammad Ali is for his extremism who was after all a Muslim and for a Muslim 100000000 khoon muaaf.

The Congress during Khilafat was trying to forge grassroots links with Muslims which the British couldn`t co-opt as Britain had always done via Muslim leaders since 1906, including Jinnah 1939 onward.

Unlike the way you keep framing the issue, it was not in Congress hands to grant any rights to Muslims, it was wholly and completely in British hands. The Muslims themselves were in the driving seat with respect to their rights from 1906 and as Ambedkar pointed out, often got concessions from the British that even various British commissions examining the concessions thought unfair to the Hindus.

Nothing the Congress ever did could change the symbiosis of Muslim leaders and the British, though via the Khilafat movement, Gandhi certainly tried.

We hear that Jinnah was so opposed to it, sure. What no one points out is that from 1937 Jinnah went all over India telling Muslims that the fact that Congress had withdrawn from the Khilafat movement was proof that Congress was an enemy of Muslims.

What Jinnah wanted was for Congress to come to an agreement with him in the nationalist (read anti-British) movement. The Congress was not denying Muslims any rights as it was in no position to do so, it was simply refusing to become a wholly Hindu nationalist party as Jinnah demanded by designating Jinnah as the sole spokesman of Muslims in its nationalist movement. Every formula short of that demand, Congress was willing to offer to Jinnah.

Jinnah wanted Congress to grant separate electorates and inviolable sovereignty of Muslims down to the local councils level, in other words an India-Pakistan border in every municipality where only Muslims would lead Muslims and have a veto over Hindus irrespective of their numbers. The Congress did not think that was a stable basis for nationhood and wanted to leave separate or virtually separate electorates behind.

After 1940 Jinnah`s demand for parity and later two nations came to forefront and Congress refused to accede to that either but the British certainly were immediately happy to agree in principle. Congress went to jail and Jinnah had a veto on India`s constitution for the length of the whole war. Is helping keep Hindus out of government unjustly an OK thing to do? Who is going to quote a book about that?


btw, which Muslim party since 1906 talked of daal bhaat? Perhaps some parties in Bengal and Unionists briefly under Fazli Hussain, thats all. Not even Jinnah. Economic issues he said were secondary to making sure only Muslim parties could seek Muslim votes. Why deny his own words?

Not imposing a Uniform Civil code at independence was Congress deciding not to take on another battle with Muslims in the violent and communally charged aftermath of Partition. Denial of Sharia is also considered a fit pretext for launching jihad, btw, though the question is are you or any other Muslim honest enough to mention that. I think not.

That is again part of the same framing, where barring the pre-independence nationalist Muslims who worked on the ground and went to jail, the trend in Muslim leadership has been to demand authority but take no responsibility. For that there are the Hindus.

About Sindh`s politics... Is that an invitation to HP to come and set you right?

AllahBux Soomro (and after him his son Rahim Bux) and Jinnah were personal friends... Allahbux and Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto were the two people, Jinnah would stay with - so much for calling him a traitor.

Allah Bux refused to come to an agreement with the Muslim League or the Congress primarily because he believed that both parties were all India parties while he had a Sindhi nationalist vision . As far as I know he was never described as a traitor by anyone - especially since he never was part of the Muslim League or the Congress. He also had been defeated and was out of power- concentrating on welfare programme

His assassination was probably at the hands of the Hurs of Sindh who had been upset with him for non-political reasons.

Here is why you don`t have a point Sadna...

Unlike the Congress Party which purported to speak for all indians, Muslim League claimed to speak for Muslim community. Despite this clear policy, the Muslim League appointed Jogindranath Mandal as its Interim Government member... Meanwhile Congress, which claimed to speak for Indians, on numerous occasions only nominated Hindus on positons of power - as documented by Maulana Azad- its his words not mine... Please read again.
(BTW - irrelevant to this discussion...You still haven`t provided the citation for your claim that Azad and not Nehru was the candidate for PM-ship)..

Similarly for separate electorates- that was not a Jinnah demand as he had opposed for a very long time the separate electorates as an attempt to divide and rule by the British... but after 1936 Jinnah did think that Congress was a Hindu Party (a claim that was reaffirmed by Azad`s confession)... The top down approach Sadna is a term I used for pre-Gandhian India which could have won dominion status earlier... Once the masses got involved it was never top down... and Pakistan was won through a mass movement- which is what upsets Indians so much.

The issue here- may I repeat- is not your understanding of Pakistan Movement, which is in any event prejudiced and colored and unsubstantiated.

The issue here is with your usage of the words “Dal Bhat” ... I am not even going to go into the usage of Dal Bhat … instead I will proceed with your argument…

1-Was it Daal Bhat when Gandhi pandered to the Khilafatists against the advice of secular leadership like Jinnah? Was it Daal Bhat when Gandhi made excuses for calls of Jehad and killing of Kafirs by his new found Mullah allies?

2- Was it Daal Bhat when Congress coopted the JUH and Majlis-e-Ahrar tasking them to call Jinnah “Kafir-e-Azam” and Pakistan “Kafiristan”.

Congress always pandered to the Muslim sentiments (which were religious and not just daal bhat) like Khilafat and particularism of the Islamic Mullahs … always and used these sentiments against the Muslim League which was speaking for the legitimate rights of Muslims …

The issue is not with tasking Muslim leaders with Muslim issues… the issue was tasking the unrepresentative Mullahs the leadership of the community. Tell me – is it E Ahamed or even Banatwallah of Indian Union Muslim League, a communal party, who have given this bounty? Or is it a Muslim member of a secular left party who has? Was Mr Qureshi ever a Muslim Leaguer?

Accept the responsibility… all regressive legislation in India pertaining to Muslims largely has to do with Congress’ covenant, a faustian bargain if you may, with the Mullahs of Deoband designed to discredit true leaders of the Muslims who the Congress regards as “Communalists”… I know that you know all of this and it is this ideological confusion and guilt that this in reality has to do with you guys more than us which is forcing you to react the way you do.


Yours sincerely,

YLH

#463 by bjkumar


[And just to add this follow-on thought.

Both Manto and Ajeya are very much in that ``blame game`` mud-slinging. Perhaps flip sides of the same coin.

When I asked about solutions - each of them wimped out!

But that result was expected, anyway! ]

Not that I need an excuse, or owe you a on-time reply, but just as a FYI - the Chowk server was down when I tried to post my response.

You are an idiot if you think that wimping out/ bravery are at issue for posters at Chowk. You are only fighting a brave fight in your imagination. This is a two-bit site where all kinds of people spend some time.

In any case - if I refute 10 out of your 10 points, you ask me a counter question on number 10, completely ignoring the other nine. That shows a lack of self-respect. Case in point - posts 453 and 459.

Anyway go ahead and keep tilting at windmills.

#459 by bjkumar

[Honestly, most people who have spent a bit of time here are well aware that the solutions do not come out of this or ANY web site.]

Well, YOU are the one who said the following:

``I don`t see any solutions mentioned in your response. Are you giving up? ``

I am a simple guy, easily confused. Are you trying to confuse me?



[Most of the time, the end result has been that individuals get defensive and dig into their heels.]


How is that relevant, if your position is that ``solutions do not come out of this or ANY web site``.



[However, the fact that people can talk about their feelings is a good thing - it means that they are not out there expressing those same feelings using more destructive means. At least that`s how I see it.]


Except for people like ali_1, haroonellahi, ahmedmadani, urstruly etc, I don`t think any of the other Muslim interactors here are about to give up their privileged existences to blow people up. So this is a moot point too.




[(Sometimes I even think that only solution will come from time - as new generations emerge who are not trapped into the old mindset. I notice it here in USA a lot - and perhaps it is also happening in the subcontinent.) ]

As I said before, increased affluence might cure some of the ``Ummah zindabad`` mindset.



[ - and unlike some here, I do not see an underlying difference between different segments of populations which occupy diffeerent geographies. We are the same people with the same underlying strengths and weaknesses. ]

That`s what the jews thought about the Germans before the Nazi party came to power.



[The ability to question long-held beliefs must never be undervalued. Most innovation in our day-to-day life results from that. The ability to stand up to fierce criticism is also a rare quality and must never be undervalued.]


That`s good. But many people (like the eminent Ms. Varsey) confuse contrariness with intellectual insight.



[I urge you to try to come up with an honest answer to the question of ``solutions`` rather than staying stuck on the ``blame game`` - a game which gets played all over the world in various manifestations - something long-term immigrants have encountered everywhere over time. ]


Okay. Don`t blame the jihadis..... Don`t blame the Taliban..... Dont`t blame the terrorists..... Don`t blame Osama....

How am I doing?



[Think it over. ]

I have. Many times. Over and over.



[(Note: I need to take TYO to an academic event, so I must take leave - perhaps I can pick up the threads later.) ]

Have a safe trip.

Re: #460 by myself

Yasser,

For your moving around Pakistan incognito. May I suggest a burqa?

:)

No Pakistani Hindu Sindhi will dare write a book about that of course.

Re Azad quote - Yeah and how many Hindu ministers did Muslim League want to appoint in Sindh, where Jinnah threw a tantrum because a Muslim party was in govt in alliance with a Hindu party? No Pakistani Hindu Sindhi will dare a book about that of course. The Muslim Chief Minister of Sindh who spurned an alliance with Muslim League in favor of one with a Hindu party(it might have been Congress offering support from outside) was labelled a traitor to the Muslim cause and was shot to death a few years later.

#464 Sadna

[...well take up Indian citizenship....]
Manto is not eligible for Indian citizenship unless - (1) he sneaks in and lives there for five years, or (2) he gets married to an Indian citizen (Aisha may object).

Seriously, the army rules Pakistan - practically always has ruled that country - and Manto is not in a position to share his true feelings on that issue - after all, he has to live under the same rules as anybody else over there. Therefore, it is unfair to ``rub it in``.

The top-down approach appears more like a ``trickle down`` theory except that instead of wealth, it is power that is trickling down - the guy at top holds all the power and people below only get what is released to them - and precious little makes it to the grass-roots.

#461
It doesn`t matter what ``you Pakistanis`` say about me, the ordinary Muslim in Pakistan still doesn`t have a vote by right. He has a vote only when his leaders and military see fit, period.

Ranting and raving at how vile and deceitful sadna is will not give the ordinary Muslim in Pakistan his vote.

If what you are arguing(who knows what it is you are arguing apart from that sadna is evil and deceitful) is that the only solution for India`s Muslims today is to have exclusively separate electorates and exclusively separate political parties as Jinnah demanded, well take up Indian citizenship and then argue it. You will find a friend in Syed Shahabuddin who supported the Shah Bano amendment arguing that Muslims must have total and inviolable sovereignty over their own affairs. You will find a friend in the Muslim Personal Law Board which says that Muslim personal law cases must not be judged in Indian courts, there must be a separate Sharia court system of Qazis set up all over India so that Muslims do not have nonMuslims or nonreligious Muslims judging their cases.

The fact remains that there are no short cuts for Muslims (or anyone else) on the subcontinent. It is only grassroots activism (or bottom up approach in mohar11`s words) in Muslim communities in favor of women`s rights, discarding of harmful patriarchal traditions and modern education which can bring real change in their condition. The top down approach and that of making deals with and between Muslim leadership at the top (as was also demanded by Jinnah) hasn`t worked.

And just to add this follow-on thought.

Both Manto and Ajeya are very much in that ``blame game`` mud-slinging. Perhaps flip sides of the same coin.

When I asked about solutions - each of them wimped out!

But that result was expected, anyway!

Is chowk down?

Anyway- I`ll catch your responses later.

Dear Sadna,

Please refrain from falling back on the same pattern of ``you Pakistanis`` which is the hallmark of your otherwise intellectually and academically bankrupt arguments.

Here is the Azad quote (remember you still have to produce the ``citations`` for suggesting that Azad was being considered for premiership- a fact you made up in your right royal style and then insisted was there)


The first was the case of Mr. Nariman, a Parsee and an acknowledged leader of the local Congress in Bombay, who was generally expected to lead the provincial government. Sardar Patel and his colleagues could not reconcile with such a leadership of non-Hindu Chief Minister where ``the majority of members in the Congress Assembly Party were Hindus.`` [p. 16]

``Mr. Nariman was naturally upset about the decision. He raised the question before the Congress Working Committee. Jawaharlal was then President and many hoped that in view of his complete freedom from communal bias; he would rectify the injustice to Nariman. Unfortunately this did not happen. ... He [Jawaharlal] sought to placate Patel and rejected Nariman`s appeal. ... Nariman was surprised at Jawaharlal`s attitude, especially as Jawaharlal treated him harshly and tried to shout him down in the meeting of the Working Committee.`` [p. 16-17]

``Nariman had lost the case even before the enquiry began. It was finally held that nothing was proven against Sardar Patel. None who knew the inner story was satisfied with this verdict. We all know that truth has been sacrificed in order to satisfy Sardar Patel`s communal demands. Poor Nariman was heart broken and his public life came to an end.`` [p. 17]

``A similar development took place in Bihar. Dr. Syed Mahmud was the top leader of the province when the elections were held. He was also a General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee and as such he had a position both inside and outside the province. When the Congress secured an absolute majority, it was taken for granted that Dr. Syed Mahmud would be elected the leader and become the first Chief Minister of Bihar under Provincial Autonomy. Instead, Sri Krishna Sinha and Anugraha Narayan Sinha who were members of the Central Assembly, were called back to Bihar and groomed for the Chief Ministership. Dr. Rajendra Prasad played the same role in Bihar as Sardar Patel did in Bombay.`` [p. 17]

``These two instances left a bad taste at the time. Looking back, I cannot help feeling that the Congress did not live up to its professed ideals. One has to admit with regret that the nationalism of the Congress had not then reached a stage where it could ignore communal considerations and select leaders on the basis of merit without regard to majority or minority.`` [p. 18]


This is Azad`s confession in my opinion. Congress was after 1930s a Hindu Party which alienated its former cadres (Especially Jinnah who was after all the greatest Congressman whether you like it or not) into going the other route... Poor Simpleton Azad realised it much too late.