Qaum Aur Mulk

kya bahek gaya hai bhai

dau din kay amreekha nay `` timings `` bhula dein

pity thy nation!

Cable services would inject ``secular tendencies`` among the Pakistani youth so the ban on all Indian movies, Indian cable channels in NWFP.

Cable TV gets axe in northwest Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, June 21 (AFP) -

Authorities in Pakistan`s North West Frontier Province on Wednesday banned cable television amid an uproar by Islamic groups.

Provincial governor Muhammad Shafiq made the announcement while speaking at a religious conference.

The cable network service has been ``banned throughout the province from today,`` Shafiq told the gathering of Islamic scholars in this provincial capital bordering Afghanistan.

``The miseries confronted the Muslim world are due to not practising Islam in its true sense,`` he said.

Earlier the local administration cut the services of eight cable operators and sealed their offices in Peshawar`s fashionable Hayatabad district.

The move came as leaders of some religious groups accused cable operators relaying foreign television channels, of promoting ``obscenity and immorality.``

Cable services would inject ``secular tendencies`` among the country`s youth, they said.

The cable operators said they were only relaying programmes already available on channels received in the country through satellite dishes.

They said the operators, like in other parts of the country, had received licences from the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority.

Calling the ban unjustified, they said they would seek redress from courts.

http://www.dailyexcelsior.com/00june06/edit.htm#4

Temples dying in Pakistan

By Firoz Bakht Ahmed

Few people are aware that Pakistan has Vedic temples prima au pareil (unparallel) languishing for want of care and dying a dusty death. Umpteen temples have vanished from the skyline of the prominent cities of Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Sindh and Islamabad. The clue as to how briskly they have disappeared is provided by the fact that at the time of Independence, some 424 Hindi temples dotted the landscape of Karachi alongwith a synagogue, several gurudwaras and a number of churches. Over the years, however, the temples have disappeared one by one, leaving alone only a handful of places where the city`s Hindu residents may worship.

According to Saquib Malik, the features editor of Karachi`s ‘Herald’ monthly, in the year immediately following partition, a majority of Karachi`s temples were converted into Government schools while some were turned into private residences. The rest of the temples remained more or less undisturbed. What is most unfortunate, according to the noted columnist of Karachi`s ‘Dawn’ English daily, Nahid Riyaz, is that the few remaining temples have always been under threat from the city`s notorious land mafia. In many cases, the courtyards and grounds surrounding these structures, have already been encroached. But more shocking is the fact that the custodians of the temples themselves joined hands with the land grabbers. While the administration turns a blind eye to the plunder, a vital part of the city`s cultural heritage is fast disappearing.

From the Pakistani capital Islamabad to Lahore, the motorway is not only very comfortable but also makes a memorable journey owing to the fact that there are many Hindu and Islamic monuments of importance and one such is the historic Katasraj Mandir associated with the Mahabharata legend. Legend has it that here the famous dialogue between Yudhishthira and Yaksha took place. The story goes that here the Pandava brothers went to quench their thirst at the Katasraj Mandir pond, Yaksha, the protector of the pond, allowed them to drink water on the condition they answered their questions. While the four of the Pandavas failed to answer his questions, they were rendered lifeless by him. Yudhisththira finally answered all the questions and had his brothers revived by the Yaksha.

Vijay Goel, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Lok Sabha MP, visited this temple in Pakistan and lamented that it was in a pathetic state in spite of the fact that it has a tremendous following and the cases for its uplift and restoration are in the Lahore High Court. Goel suggested that the Heads of the two countries come together and form a Joint Committee for involving the historians, social activists, planners and media persons for restoration of places of religious importance both in India and Pakistan. He made this suggestion to former Prime Ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto while on his visit to Lahore for the historic Delhi-Lahore bus journey representing the Indian Parliamentary delegation.

Goel was dazed to know that at the social level, the people of Pakistan wanted to be close to India as much and that there are no walls and political borders. Their craze for Amitabh Bachchan, Rajesh Khanna, Aamir Khan, Juhi Chawla, Karishma, Kajol and Manisha Koirala was more than the Indians, Goel felt. After talking to the members of the Pakistani Hindu Mahasabha, Goel found that more temples in that country were destroyed after December 6, 1992 in the bloody Babri Masjid aftermath than in the half century after the vivisection of the sub-continent. They told Goel that religious fundamentalism is extremely dangerous, especially for the minorities.

In the days that followed the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition by the frenzied mob in Faizabad, the Hindu temples all across Pakistan came under attack from rioting crowds. The temples that were destroyed in Karachi and Peshawar in those days of unbridled hate, were never rebuilt. Rather, the land on which they were constructed, was quietly sold off to real estate developers. Some temples have been rebuilt but they are few.

The very entrance to Katasraj Mandir is a pathetic one. There`s nothing that can be termed as Mandir except the ruins. In fact, the presence of an old board only indicated that the site is that of the famous Katasraj Mandir where a guard is also placed. There is a plaque by the Archaeological Survey of Pakistan that quotes the history of this temple. ``Katas: Kohistan Mountains, Central Chakwal --- according to the legend of the Mahabharata, when Lord Shiva lost his wife Parvati, he felt so upset that the ponds at the eastern and western ends of the temple got filled by his tears. In Sanskrit it is also known as ‘Katak Sheel’ which means flow of tears. Later on the name got twisted to ‘Katas’. The place is of great significance for the Brahmins.``

Even Al-Bairuni wrote an interesting history of the temple in his ‘Kitab-ul-Hind’ where he depicts that he learnt Sanskrit and science at Katas. Not only this, quite interestingly, he even learnt many Vedic traditions. Renowned historian Panikkar states that ‘Kitab-ul-Hind’ brings a very honest and first-hand account of history at that time. It is also mentioned in Bairuni`s book that Katas happened to be the most revered Mandir after Punjab`s Jwalamukhi Mandir. This fact is also confirmed by Liaqat Ali Khan Niyazi, the Deputy Commissioner of Chakwal. Al-Bairuni also mentioned about other Pakistani temples like Panch Mukhi ka Hanuman Mandir, Nagnath Baba Mandir and Darya Lal Mandir.

The grounds of the famous Nagnath Bawa Mandir in Karachi have been occupied by a businessman housing a soap factory. Though the owner claims to have brought it legally from the Karachi Building Control Authority (KBCA), Hindu residents of the area dispute the claim. The historic importance of this temple is that once Lord Shankar wanted to lead peaceful existence for some time and he came here. He took the permission of Anant Vasudevji, who gladly agreed and desired that the deity visited this place regularly even later on. It was managed by a local trust of the Hindu community that has no influence in the area. Not very distant is the Preedy Police Station adjacent to which is the Preedy Mandir at Sadar. It was occupied by the dreaded land mafia in that area. The trustees of the temple said that it was owing to a nexus between the land grabbers, police and politicians.

Similarly, there is Narayan Mandir, situated at MA Jinnah Road, just opposite the head office of the Karachi Municipal Corporation. Presently, it has been managed by the All-Pakistan Hindu Panchayat Committee and community leaders. It is known for colourful festivals. The shopkeepers on the road have not only encroached upon its premises but also started storing their merchandise in the temple compound. Raja Dharampal Varma, an office bearer, states that initially the shopkeepers said that they were sitting there only to avoid the heat during the summer. But, slowly they started using the premises as a warehouse. That`s why they sealed the rear gate of the temple for fear of an attack by the fanatics.

Narinder Jogi, a former trustee of the temple told that they complained to the authorities but to no avail. They have been pleading their case since Benazir Bhutto was the Prime Minister during her first-term but in vain. ``The corrupt have no fear, for they know even if they are entrapped and an enquiry held and they are found to be guilty and suspended, they will soon walk back or walk to an even better job. It is indeed difficult to fight and win``, rues a disgruntled Jogi.

Darya Lal Mandir in the vicinity of the Customs House got its name as it is situated just on the edge of the Arabian sea. The story goes that the Hindus living in the areas around this temple sought the blessing of the deity in the sanctum sanctorum before launching their boats in the sea. It is believed that those who sought the blessings, were safe and sound no matter whatever the fury of the tempest used to be. Apart from that they also got the best variety of fish. Basically most of them came from Mohalla Mahigir (fishermen`s locality). Today, they prefer to make their journey without Darya Lal`s blessings, perhaps because a large part of the temple as well as the surrounding area has been encroached upon by the Karachi Hazara Goods Company, transporters and a tea canteen. The company owner and his employees harass visitors to Darya Lal, especially the women.

In Karachi`s famous Hingora Lane, Lyari, the famous Jagdish Mandir was completely destroyed in the aftermath of Babri Masjid debacle. The Pujari, Sant Ram Bhatia, lamented the fact that prior to the Babri Masjid disaster, there was little love lost between the Hindus and Pathans and Balochis living in the neighbourhood. Rather, in the absence of the Pujari, the immediate neighbour Shamsher Khan Diwan took care of the temple premises and opened it if some visitor wanted to see it. Twice Bhatia visited India and each time he left the keys in the possession of Diwan who fully guaranteed its safety. But, after the sad Ram Mandir imbroglio, the very same neighbours accuse the Indian ilks of Pujari to be non-secular and fascist and anti-Muslim. A portion of the Mandir was taken by a madrasa and the remaining part was converted into a warehouse by the Managing Committee of the temple. Today, there is no trace of Jagdish Mandir, where the famous Saint Rishi Gautam used to reside here and even Ganga once appeared here in the form of Gautmi alongwith Shiva Trayambkeshwara Jyotirlinga. Now all this is a legend.

Lyari`s largest Hindu temple was the Panjrapur Mandir. A portion of the temple`s ground has been taken over by an adjacent building after some understanding by the trustees of the temple. After that another portion of the courtyard of the temple was bought by another person for commercial purposes. The construction is still on with the help of Khatu Mal, Member, Pakistani Assembly. Others who sold off the temple premises include the self-proclaimed Mahanta Babu Lal and temple caretaker Kishan Meghwar. Only 6x8 feet portion remains of what is now that Mandir that was spread over 3,000 sq yds. Not very far away from Panjrapur Mandir is the once famous Bhagnari Mandir near Tea Market that was constructed by the Balochi Hindus and was visited by the members of one Lassi tribe. More than half of the temple premises has been occupied by a transporter and a courier company, Al-Rifah.

Laxmi Narayan Panghat Mandir, situated beside the Native Jetty, (Neti-Jeti in the vernacular) once held a special significance for Hindu women, who came here for performing the ritual purification bath. Goddess Laxmi and Lord Narain also appeared here. It was originally here that out of reverence for this pious place that some tears fell from the eyes of Lord Narayan and Bindu Sarovar, a fresh water pound came into being immediately after that. Over the last few decades the devotees numbers have decreased owing to encroachment upon the premises by some politicians and other influential people. The aesthetic beauty of the temple has been marred owing to the construction of the Jinnah Over Bridge Extension. Besides, the women devotees hesitate to visit the site because of late the area has become a hunting ground for lecherous young men, especially during the festivals of Rakhi, Ganpati, Karwa Chauth, Holi and Diwali. Some distance away from this temple used to be the Hanuman Mandir at Frere Market Road that was abandoned after Babri Masjid debacle. Today, a cryptic sign reading KESC-208 is painted on the door.

In a recent judgement, the Chief Justice of Sindh, Kamal Mansoor Alam, realising the lack of confidence in the Pakistani Courts and the frustration of the minorities of that city who have filed umpteen number of petitions against the illegal and forced occupation of the temples, has appointed a ‘Temple Bench’ comprising two fearless judges, Justice Rana Bhagwandas and Sabihuddin Ahmed. He has also ordered it to sit on one day each week to hear cases involving encroachment on temples. This bench has successfully and expeditiously dispensed justice.

Salman Rashid, a freelance Karachi journalist, states that such unauthorised temple occupations are not raised overnight in a manner that would escape the notice of the officials, nor they can remain concealed. Such illegal activity bears testimony to the indifference of the authorities. At the same time, he maintains that the question of the illegal occupation of temples in Pakistan and mosques in India is a very sensitive one. The two countries` administrators must bear this in mind that if a temple is burnt in Pakistan, the ones to suffer will be the innocnt Indian Muslims and their mosques and if a similar incident takes place in India where a mosque is harmed, the innocent Pakistani Hindus have to bear the brunt.

Rashid maintains that this is very unfortunate and with the presence of custodians of law, the law of the jungle must not prevail. The two governments must respect the places of worship of all the communities. Rashid quoted the Karachi Governor Moinuddin Haider saying that one single most heinous crime in the religious realm of the sub-continent was the destruction of Babri Masjid. Let`s hope sanity and better sense prevails and the religious places of all the communities remain safe, not only in the sub-continent but elsewhere even - for they are the harbingers of harmony for those who are attached to them in the heart and mind.

mr. yasser...

a very well wirtten article. reading your article my faith in secularism has been further strenthened. no society, no nation and no man can preach the message of hate and survive. one day or the other such a society will perish. i hate to say this but if pakistan goes on like the way it is, it might just collapse. and that would be a great setback to india, `cause in the happiness and prosperity of pakistan lies the happiness and prosperity of india.

but having said this, i must mention that india is no better. with people like bal thakeray spreading venom against muslims, i can see india too going the same direction.

So Asif your peer is superseding God in judging people and giving the certificaticate of Wali-ul-Allah.

From your post it appears that he also has certificate of Heaven and hell.

Why bother so much with prayer and fasting etc, if your Pir can give certificate to all and sundry.

Interestingly this has gone on ...when I was not paying attention

Glad you all liked my article :)

-Pakistan Zindabad

-Quaid e Azam Zindabad

-Jiye Bhutto

-Imran Khan for PM

-Yasser Hamdani

Fuzair: actually mr.jinnah quad-i-azam was a Musli m and he was buried according to sunni rites though he was born and raised in a shiah family [ref: jinnnah: the search for saladin-akbar .ahmed]. also although many ulama and mullahs opposed him they were from mostly the deobandi school of thought and mawdudi was definitely a deobandi too. the ahl-e-sunnat ulama on the whole SUPPORTED the creation of pakistan and in fact grandshaykh hazrat pir sayyid jama`at ali shah sahib qudsirruhu declared that he would not pray janaazah over any of his murids who did not vote for the muslim league and mr.jinnah. furthermore such scholars of ahle sunnah were instrumental in getting the masses to vote for jinnah. Grandshsykh even went so far as to declare in the All-India Ahle Sunnat Conference in Muradabad (?) that quad-e-azam was a wali Allah...



therefore please dont put words into my mouth.

Prophet or not.

Politics is seen in the context of outcome.

I am not denying the importance of Gandhi in Indian politics, nor his contribution to Muslims particularly in post-partition period. Nor his philosophy of non-violence. He was admired by great Muslims of his time like Azad etc.

But we are discussing an event which put the sane elements of Muslim politics in background.

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/88aug/obrien.htm

The Indian state came into being amid the scenes of communal-religious carnage that accompanied the partition of the subcontinent between mainly Hindu India and entirely Muslim Pakistan. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, had resolutely rejected the idea of a secular state that could encompass both Hindus and Muslims. In his presidential address to the Muslim League at Lahore in 1940, Jinnah declared: ``Islam and Hinduism are not religions in the strict sense of the word, but in fact different and distinct social orders, and it is only a dream that the Hindus and Muslims can ever evolve a common nationality.... To yoke together two such nations under a single state ... must lead to a growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the government of such a state.``



Yet in the event, the fabric of India`s secular state proved tougher than that of confessional Pakistan. Pakistan originally consisted of eastern and western sections, connected by a common religion but different in language and culture. The religious bond proved insufficient, and East Pakistan in 1971 seceded and became the independent state of Bangladesh. Secular India, however, has held together. There are now almost as many Muslims in India as there are in Pakistan. Muslims and Hindus in India may perhaps not have ``evolved a common nationality,`` but they -- and Sikhs also, so far -- have managed to live together, within one state, for more than forty years now, whereas the ``common nationality`` of the Muslims of Pakistan burst asunder after twenty-four years.

The viability of the secular and democratic system in India is a remarkable phenomenon, and one that has received less attention in the West than it deserves. Yet there have been continuing challenges, both internal and external, to India`s secular democracy, and to the very existence of an Indian state.

Re: The Drivels of Asif_N #60

Mr. Jinnah, by all accounts, drank whisky, ate ham, married a non-Muslim (although she went through a sham conversion I believe), raised a daughter who married a Kaffir (not even Ahle-Kitab!) and generally despised all mullahs, ulemas, etc. He was certainly NOT a Muslim by any stretch of your interpretation of this honor. As proof, I offer the title of Kaffir-e-Azam conferred upon Mr. Jinnah by none other than Maulana Maududi, one of the greatest Islamic thinkers of the 20th century.

So, inspite of the fact that Mr. Jinnah is the Father of the Country, by your reckoning, he should not have been allowed to hold any responsible post within the government.

So, should we, by your reckoning, have made Maududi the leader of the nation, inspite of the fact that he fought against Pakistan`s creation?

To Sigalph et al.

Sorry for the late reply--I`ve been away.

To answer you briefyl and succintly (I hope).

In my envisioned non-Wahabi/Deobandi/taliban-like Islamic State for Pakistan the ruler will have to be a Muslim male simply because an Islamic state has religious as well as political aspects and therefore having a non-Muslim citizen as the head of an Islamic state would be oxymoronic --a bit like having a Jew as the head of the Papal State! Apart from this all other positions will be open to all except that judges will have to be muslims as the legal system would be 100% based on shariah courts. Other than this all the citizens will be dealt equally under the Law--if a Muslim kills someone he will be subject to the same punishment as if a non-Muslim killed someone and so on. Everyone will be permitted to practise their own faith in their home but all the public holidays will be Islamic ones. If two citizens wish to get married they will be able to but Islamic law will apply (all the courts will be shariah based) so that if say a muslim lady wanted to marry a non-Muslim man she will not be able to do so in an islamic court of law and will be no-longer considered a muslim as per shar`iat although they will then be legally married but not as muslim husband-and -wife (i.e. they`ll have to do the ceremony in accordance with another ceremony). A good model of my ideal state is the Ottoman State at the time of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror and after. (See Halil Incalik`s The Ottoman Empire 1500-1700?)

I would drastically cut the military by 2/3s and spend the money on building an infrastructure for Pakistan and investing in education and health. Peace with India would be a priority; i would ban the `jihadi` groups...

In reply to krashid, #58 :



Mahatma Gandhi attempted to wake up a sleeping people. For this you curse him.

Mahatma Gandhi tried what was in his power to get Indian society to solve its problems, whether with the British or within itself, in a non-violent way.

For this you curse him.

A Prophet arose and taught everyone to speak the truth. And each person started telling the other how annoying, how stupid the other person was -- this was after all, each person`s perception of the truth. Now who was at fault -- the Prophet or the people with their narrow outlook.

A Prophet arose and taught everyone to fight against injustice. And the people started killing their neighbors in the name of righting injustices to themselves -- it seems the neighbors looked at them with squint-eyes. Who was at fault -- the Prophet or the people ?

-arun gupta

Mac Gupta #57

Your lengthy quotation is quiet good.

In politics as you yourself confess, the result of Gandhiji`s politics was that insane elements from both sides Muslims and Hindus got ascendency.

If you see how this movement has pushed the sane elements of Muslims into background you will realize what was the impact.

By your own admission it lead to worst form of communal politics.

I do not think that there is much truth in the opinion that Gandhi withdrew the non-cooperation movement because he feared Muslim unity. His motives for joining the Khilafat movement was to promote unity and to awaken the people, and he did not regret awakening them. His motive for withdrawing was simply that violence was not acceptable to him.

Yes, the effect on the Khilafat movement turned out to be devastating, esp. because shortly thereafter the Turks themselves ended the issue.

-arun gupta

http://web.mahatma.org.in/books/bio/nmain.htm

COMMUNAL FRONT

If the rift in the Congress ranks on council-entry was one disappointment to Gandhi after his release from gaol, the division between Hindus and Muslims was another and greater.

The Hindu-Muslim unity of the heyday of the non-co-operation movement was now a mere memory. Trust had given way to distrust. Apart from the riots which periodically disfigured several towns, there was a new bitterness in politics and in the Press.

A number of Hindu leaders, such as Lajpat Rai, Madan Mohan Malaviya and Shraddhanand, felt that the Muslim masses had received a dangerous awakening through the coalescence of the Khilafat and non-co-operation movements, and that it was necessary for Hindus to adopt measures of self-defence against Muslim communalism, which was the more dangerous because it appeared to them to have the backing of the British Government.

Many Muslim politicians who had been in the forefront of the Khilafat movement had also second thoughts and felt that they had too readily joined hands with the Congress, in fighting for a new order in which the position of the Muslim community was not likely to be too secure.

In an atmosphere of mutual suspicion and fear every incident was twisted and every move of one community was suspect to the other. The Moplah outbreak in 1921, in which the Muslims of Malabar had wreaked their fanaticism on their Hindu neighbours, was a painful memory to the Hindus. The shuddhi movement for the conversion of non-Muslims to Hinduism and the sangathan movement for the unity of Hindus evoked counter-blasts from Muslims in the form of tabligh and tanzim movements. The new proselytizing twist to Hindusim was resented by the Muslim intelligentsia who, paradoxically enough saw nothing wrong in the conversion of non-muslims to Islam.

But there was no room for logic in an atmosphere clouded by hazy memories and vague misgivings. The very Muslims who, as a gesture to their Hindu neighbours, had voluntarily given up cow-slaughter during the favourable climate of 1920-22, now insisted on ostentatiously exercising it as a religious obligation. The Hindus asserted the equally provocative right to play music before mosques while conducting their religious processions. Then there were the endless wrangles about discrimination in favour of one community or the other in the distribution of official patronage.

In the Punjab a Muslim Minister, Fazl-i-Hussain, who later became a member of the Viceroy`s Executive Council, was accused by Hindu and Sikh leaders of a deeply- laid plan to oust the minarets [sic] from positions of vantage held by them in the administration. But Fazl-i-Hussain, like many other Muslim politicians, believed that a certain amount of weightage was necessary to bring his co-religionists on a par with the Hindus.

There were not a few who put down the tension to the non-co-operation movement and its alliance with the Khilafat cause, and blamed Gandhi for having played with the masses and roused them prematurely.

`The awakening of the masses,` wrote Gandhi, `was a necessary part of the training. I would do nothing to put the people to sleep again.`

However, he wanted this awakening to be diverted into constructive channels. The two communities had to be educated out of the mental morass into which they had slipped. Through the pages of his weekly journals, he gave his own diagnosis of the communal disease; a whole issue of Young India was devoted to the subject.

He argued that the Hindu-Muslim tension could never have taken the form it did if the country had understood his method; the doctrine of non-violence held the key not only to the political freedom of the country but also to peace between the communities. A civilized society which had given up violence as a means of settling individual disputes could also eschew violence for reconciling differences between groups.

Disagreements could be resolved by mutual tolerance and compromise, private arbitration, and in the last resort by appeal to the courts. Hearts could never be united by breaking heads.

To Gandhi, the points of friction between the two communities seemed a travesty of true religion. Was it religion that drove a group of Hindu worshippers to lead a procession noisily before a mosque just as the `faithful` knelt for prayer? Was it a religious obligation laid on the Muslim to lead cows to slaughter to wound the feelings of his Hindu neighbours? And what was the use of proselytizing when the conversion was not a moral or spiritual uplift, but `crossing from one compartment to another`, with one thing on the lips and another in the heart?

As for the competition for jobs, there were, after all, a limited number to go round. Gandhi was prepared to concede special educational facilites to communities which were relatively backward to qualify for higher appointments, but to make religion instead of merit the criterion of employment was to cut at the root of the administration.

By probing into the causes of antagonism, and by appealing to the good sense of the communities, Gandhi had hoped to restore sanity. But communal tension showed no signs of abatement. There ware outbreaks at Sambhar, Amethi and Gulbarga. A riot in Kohat in September 1924 was particularly serious: 155 Hindus were killed and practically the whole Hindu population was driven out of the town. This carnage hurt him deeply, the more so as he felt that the awakening, which the non-co-operation movement brought about, had run into destructive channels:

`Have I not been instrumental in bringing into being the vast energy of the people? I must find the remedy, if the energy proved self-destructive



. . . Have I erred, have I been impatient, have I compromised with evil? I may have done all these things or none of them ...

All I know is what I see before me. If real non-violence and truth had been practised by the people, the gory duelling that is now going on would have been impossible.`

Out of this personal anguish, Gandhi sought a way in a twenty-one day fast. The fast, which was undertaken at Delhi in Maulana Mahomed Ali`s house, was intended to purify himself, `because the strength of the soul grows in proportion as you subdue the flesh`.

It was also to recover the power to react on the people: `It is warning to Hindus and Mussulmans who have professed to love me. If they have loved me truly and if I have been deserving of their love, they will do penance with me . . . To revile one another`s religion, to make reckless statements, to utter untruth, to break the heads of innocent men, to desecrate temples or mosques is a denial of God. The world is watching some with glee and some with sorrow, the dog-fight that is proceeding in our midst.`

The country`s reaction to the fast was instantaneous. A `Unity Conference` was convened at Delhi and met within a week of the commencement of the fast. The 300 delegates included the Metropolitan of India Dr Westcott, Annie Beasant, the Ali brothers, Swami Shraddhanandand and Madan Mohan Malaviya.

The conference affirmed the freedom of conscience and religion, but condemned the use of compulsion and violence. It passed a number of resolutions designed to generate goodwill and to dissipate mutual suspicion.

On the morning of October 8, 1924, twenty-one days after he had begun it, the Mahatma broke his fast in the presence of leaders of all the communities. As the chanting of the verses from the Koran and the Upanishads mingled with Christian hymns, C. F. Andrews noted that `hearts were drawn together`.

But this harmony was not to last long. Within a few months Gandhi had to confess that bitter experience had taught him that those who took the name of unity meant disunion, that the leaders of the two communities were fighting not for loaves and fishes, but `fighting like the proverbial dog, not for the bone but for the shadow`.

In January 1927, he told a meeting at Commila in Bengal that the Hindu- Muslim problem had passed out of human hands into God`s hands.

The appeal for religious toleration, which he made and which had been dramatized by his twenty-one-day fast, had fallen on deaf ears; his penance had only an ephemeral effect on the warring factions.

Communal outbreaks continued to occur in different parts of the country. Fazl-i-Husain told the Simon Commission that between 1922 and 1927, out of 4,750 riots in the Punjab, only fourteen were communal riots and were confined to eight towns. Limited though these riots were to some of the bigger towns, they nevertheless vitiated the political atmosphere giving a setback to nationalist forces. There was also the suspicion that the local officers did not always apply the right amount of force at the right time to nip the mischief in the bud.

There is no doubt, however, that communal tension had been aggravated by political factors.

The Congress-Khilafat alliance in 1920-22 had pushed communal leaders into the background. As we have already seen, one of the greatest anxieties of the Government during those years was the concord between Hindu and Muslim leaders. The rift between the two communities for which the Government had eagerly waited so long came after the suspension of the mass civil disobedience in 1922.

The revocation of the aggressive programme was a blow to Congressmen, but it was a greater blow to the protagonists of the Khilafat. While Congressmen could wait for Swaraj for months and even years, the cause of Khilafat could not brook delay.

Eventually the Khilafat was killed by the Turks themselves when, under Kemal Ataturk, they dethroned and banished the Sultan Caliph and declared Turkey a republic. The raison d`etre of the Khilafat movement was destroyed; the movement went to pieces, and its workers and sympathizers, bewildered and without a programme, found themselves adrift.

There is something in Subhas Chandra Bose`s criticism in his book Indian Struggle that if the Khilafat organization had not functioned separately, its members would not have drifted to Muslim sectarian bodies.

One wonders, however, whether Muslim participation in the nationalist movement in 1920-22 would have been achieved without the khilafat organization. And in any case the denouement was no more foreseen by Gandhi than by the Khilafat leaders themselves.

The political vacuum in the country after Gandhi` arrest and the dissensions among Congress leaders gave a chance to forces, which had been submerged under popular pressure in 1920-21, to re-emerge.

The legislatures became cockpits for the rival communal claims. These wrangles were not unwelcome to the British. `The more it is made obvious,` wrote Lord Birkenhead to Lord Reading, `that these antagonisms are profound and affect immense and irreconcilable sections of the population, the more conspicuously is the fact illustrated that we and we alone can play the part of the composer.`

The communal problem in the nineteen-twenties was thus reduced to the struggle for fruits of political power between the professional classes of the two communities. It was a scramble for crumbs which the Government offered to political India.

Gandhi had advised in his presidential address at the Belgaum Congress (1924) that `majorities must set the example of self-sacrifice`. The `blank cheque` which he later offered to the Muslim was ridiculed by them, and resented by the Hindus, but it epitomized his approach to this squabble for seats in legislatures, and jobs under the Government. The Hindus indeed blamed the Mahatma for bartering away Hindu interests.

In the course of the negotiations through successive Unity Conferences and All-Parties Conferences the Hindus tended to deal with Muslims as the British Government dealt with Nationalist India: they gave concessions but it was often a case of too little and too late.

Though in the pages of Young India from 1925 onwards Gandhi continued to devote occasional attention to the Hindu-Muslim problem, he had almost despaired of a solution. He saw theurban intelligentsia split into antagonistic groups but felt he could not react to it:

`Their method is not my method, I am trying to work from bottom upward.`

Continued at

http://web.mahatma.org.in/books/bio/bchap30.htm

-arun gupta

MacGupta #49

I agree with you as far as the content of speech is concerned.

But it is true that when Muslims start gaining ascendendency and some unity Gandhiji decided to withdrew and that was stabbing blow for Muslims. Jinnah was practically out of politics and Muslim politics was in disarray.

Gandhi`s reasons might be genuine. You have to look an event from different perspective. An event can be looked upon by different angles.

For example for me issue of Kashmir is the will of Kashmiris to decide their own destiny. For you it is the preservation of secularism, and integrity of India.

Gandhi probably was better than hawks like Patel and Motilal Nehru.

In reply to #53, F_K :

It is even more difficult to unlearn what you know when you are not willing to be intellectually honest.

From what I know of the primary sources of Islam, there is no prescription there-in of

- what the different parts of government are(e.g., legislature, executive, judiciary) are,



- how they are to be instituted (e.g., elections, who the electorate is, if elections; or appointed, appointed by whom ?, etc.),

- and what the limits on their powers are (e.g., what taxes are permitted, not permitted, etc.)

That is why even whom should have succeeded the Prophet in leading the Muslim community was (and continues to be) a matter of dispute.

There is plenty of jurisprudence -- criminal and civil stuff; but little else on these matters.

I would love to be contradicted with specific examples.

-arun gupta