Living Gandhi and King Today: Unbroken Historic Continuity The violence in NWFP caused by mullahs and ML Guards in the Dec1946-June 1947 period is well documented and only dishonest historians can claim ignorance. Bashing Gandhi by a Pakistani is one thing. Bashing Ghaffar Khan and a whole section of Pashtuns by a Pakistani completely falsifying history, is completely another thing. I sympathise deeply with adamkhan. He is having to go down with a ship sunk by ignorants and ignoramuses, and for no good reason. The only hope is that there are more adamkhans than Mantolives in Pakistan.

Living Gandhi and King Today: Unbroken Historic Continuity masanamuthu
It is not a contradiction - the Congress stance was that it would not declare any opinion on the Communal Award and one of Jinnah's conditions post 1937 was that Congress must stop calling the Communal Award a negation of nationalism(that was Gandhi's statement which he wanted repudiated by the Congress).

Gandhi was called a bania by his former Khilafat ally Mohammed Ali because of his implicit and explicit support for no extra quotas for Muslims. The Hindu-Muslim tussle in pre-independence era was over how much extra Muslims could get over and above their population, NOT over their basic rights as is projected by propagandists. Because Gandhi was not in favor of quotas he had absolutely no standing left among Muslims(except the nationalist Muslims).

This is what he said in 1931 at the Round Table Conference:

Gandhiji on the stalemate in communal settlement, Second Round Table Conference, 13 November 1931

I have not been able to read, with the care and attention that it deserves, the memorandum sent to the delegates on behalf of certain Minorities and received this morning. Before I offer a few remarks on that memorandum, with your permission and with all the deference and respect that are your due, I would express my dissent from the view that you put before this Committee-that the inability to solve the communal question was hampering the progress of Constitution-building, and that it was an indispensable condition prior to the building of any such Constitutions. I did not share that view.

The experience that I have since gained has confirmed me in that view and, if you will pardon me for saying so, it was because of the emphasis that was laid last year and repeated this year upon this difficulty, that the different communities were encouraged to press with all the vehemence at their command their own respective views. It would have been against human nature if they had done otherwise. All of them thought that this was the time to press forward their claims for all they were worth, and I venture to suggest again that this very emphasis has defeated the purpose which I have no doubt it had in view. This is the reason why we have failed to arrive at an agreement.

As representing the predominant political organization in India, I have no hesitation in saying to His Majesty's Government and to those friends who seek to represent the Minorities mentioned against their names, and indeed to the whole world, that this scheme is not one designed to achieve responsible government, though undoubtedly, it is designed to share power with the bureaucracy.

If that is the intention- and it is the intention running through the whole of that document-I wish them well, and Congress is entirely out of it. The Congress will wander, no matter how many years, in the wilderness rather than lend itself to a proposal under which the hardy tree of freedom and responsible government can never grow.

I am astonished that Sir Hubert Carr should tell us that they have evolved a scheme which, being designed only for a temporary period, would not damage the cause of nationalism, but at the end of ten years we would all find ourselves hugging one another and throwing ourselves into one another's laps. My political experience teaches me a wholly different lesson. If this responsible government whenever it comes, is to be inaugurated under happy auspices, the nation should not undergo the process of vivisection to which this scheme subjects it: it is a strain which no national Government can easily bear.
...

In my humble opinion the proposition enunciated by Sir Hubert Carr is the very negation of responsible government, the very negation of nationalism. If he says that if you want a live European on the Legislature then he must be elected by the Europeans themselves, well, heaven help India if India has to have representatives elected by these several, special, cut-up groups. That European will serve India as a whole, and that European only, who commands the approval of the common electorate and not the mere Europeans.

This very idea suggests that the responsible government will always have to contend against these interests which will always be in conflict against the national spirit-against this body of 85 per cent of agricultural population. To me it is an unthinkable thing. If we are going to bring into being responsible government and if we are going to get real freedom, then I venture to suggest that it should be the proud privilege and the duty of every one of these so-called special classes to seek entry into the Legislatures through this open door, through the election and approval of the common body of electorates. You know that Congress is wedded to adult suffrage, and under adult suffrage it will be open to all to be placed on the voters' list. More than that nobody can ask.

One word more as to the so-called Untouchables.
I can understand the claims advanced by other Minorities, but the claims advanced on behalf of the Untouchables, that to me is the 'unkindest cut of all'. It means the perpetual bar sinister. I would not sell the vital interests of the Untouchables even for the sake of winning the freedom of India. I claim myself in my own person to represent the vast mass of the Untouchables.

Let this Committee and let the whole world know that today there is a body of Hindu reformers who are pledged to remove this blot of Untouchability. We do not want on our register and our census Untouchables classified as a separate class. Sikhs may remains such in perpetuity, so may Muhammadans, so may Europeans. Will Untouchables remain in perpetuity? I would rather that Hinduism died than that Untouchability lived...I am speaking with a due sense of responsibility, and I say that it is not a proper claim which is registered by Dr. Ambedkar when he seeks to speak for the whole of the Untouchables of India. It will create a division in Hinduism which I cannot possible look forward to with any satisfaction whatsoever.

I do not mind Untouchables, if they so desire, being converted to Islam or Christianity. I should tolerate that, but I cannot possibly tolerate what is in store for Hinduism if there are two political divisions set forth in the villages. Those who speak of the political rights of Untouchables do not know their India, do not know how Indian society is today constructed, and therefore I want to say with all the emphasis that I can command that if I was the only person to resist this thing I would resist it with my life.

Living Gandhi and King Today: Unbroken Historic Continuity masanamuthu
"
Exactly, in order to avert VIOLENCE people like Mahathma Gandhi could have gone to any depths of dhimmitude, like offering Jinnah the PM, accepting communal quotas in electorates / army / jobs etc.. etc.. much higher in proportion to their respective population."

In fact Gandhi and Congress didn't accept these, from 1928 onward, that is why there was partition. The reason why India is a parliamentary democracy is because Gandhi and rest of Congress refused to surrender one man one vote even to avert Partition.

In 1935, Congress were willing to accept some version of Communal Award plus(which had the weightages etc)but Jinnah pushed too hard by refusing even that compromise.

Jinnah's refusal to accept Congress legislative majorities in 1937 even with Communal Award in place was the final straw on camel's back where Congress was concerned. They never offered him anything except talks after that.

Living Gandhi and King Today: Unbroken Historic Continuity masanamuthu
Gandhi had a lot of conditions attached to Jinnah being offered prime ministership which are usually not mentioned - Jinnah accepting a Congress majority legislature (something Jinnah had not done since 1937) for one. Mountbatten was to personally decide any issue when Jinnah's hypothetical govt and Congress majority legislature disagreed. Another condition was that Jinnah would end all the ongoing violent campaigns, and yet another was that the British would the same offer of assuming power to Congress if Jinnah refused this offer.

It was not dhimmitude zactly, it was trying to avert partition and end the violence.

Living Gandhi and King Today: Unbroken Historic Continuity PS: I'll also point out that Gandhiji never ever supported violence even during NCM - the violence was why he eventually called it off. I don't see Samajwadi Party eshewing violence ever.

Living Gandhi and King Today: Unbroken Historic Continuity masanamuthu
I don't think so. Gandhi learnt his lesson in the Khilafat movement.

Living Gandhi and King Today: Unbroken Historic Continuity Except the Khidmatgars of course, who were even more determinedly nonviolent than Congress Hindus ever were.

Living Gandhi and King Today: Unbroken Historic Continuity Yeah the Khilafat movement taught Gandhi that nonviolence was not a useful tool where Muslims were concerned, rather Muslims took it as a Hindu weakness if they(Hindus) chose to refrain from violence.

Living Gandhi and King Today: Unbroken Historic Continuity PS: And Gandhi wrote on 28 Jan 1948 "I have not the slightest doubt that if we show the least bit of slackness over Kashmir, Hyderabad and Junagadh are going to meet with the same fate."

Living Gandhi and King Today: Unbroken Historic Continuity masanamuthu
Gandhi supported dispatching Indian troops to fight jihadi and Pak Army raiders in J&K in 47-48.

Living Gandhi and King Today: Unbroken Historic Continuity adamkhan
Did you see this:
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C05%5C18%5Cstory_18-5 -2008_pg3_4

BOOK REVIEW: Mullahs and wars in Tribal Areas by Khaled Ahmed

Frontier of Faith: Islam in the Indo-Afghan Borderland;
By Sana Haroon; Hurst & Company London 2007;
Pp254; Price £25;
Special Price £15.95;
Available at bookstores in Pakistan

Syed Ahmad Shaheed of Rai Bareilly has finally won his battle in 2008, albeit at the cost of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan which embraced the Deobandis in the hope of making itself acceptable but to no avail

Sana Haroon has written an excellent book that will help us understand the killing fields of the Tribal Areas of Pakistan today. This month (April 2008) the local Al Qaeda warlord and alleged killer of Ms Benazir Bhutto, Baitullah Mehsud of Wana, convened a big conference of the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Aurakzai Agency near the tomb of Haji Turangzai to proclaim that his emirate had come to stay. He was himself not there for fear of being killed by an American drone but his deputy representing Bajaur was there as were warriors from all other tribal areas including Malakand in the NWFP.

The book explains the role of the local mullah in Pakhtun society and traces his journey from mystical faith to the hardline Deobandi one which was actually more suited to the stark highlander’s life of challenges rather than the quietism of the sufi from the plains. Haji Turangzai actually stands at the axis of change in the spirituality of the Tribal Areas and his war against British Raj fits him for the homage of those who are fighting the global hegemony of America and punishing with suicide-bombing such American allies as Pakistan.

Historically the Pakhtun of the Tribal Areas were ruled by their tribal code Pakhtunwali intertwined with faith through the agency of their mullahs. The mullahs were mostly a part of the chain (silsila) of mystics — mostly Qadiriya — who decided the matters of sharia in the light of their jurisprudence and in deference to the tribal code. Gradually the mullahs all changed to the Mujaddadiya chain of mysticism, which meant they became militant rather than quiescent in the qadiri tradition. We at least have one evidence about when the change actually began.

Ahmed Shah Abdali had induced descendants of Mujaddid Alf Sani to move to Kabul after his raid of Delhi in 1748. On their arrival, and with patronage from the court of Ahmed Shah, and later Timur Shah (1772-93) and Shah Zama (1793-1800), they gained pre-eminence at the Afghan court. The were also granted lands in Kabul, Kohistan, Jalalabad, Kandahar and Herat where the influence of the Naqshbandiya-Mujaddidiya line grew to its strongest (p.41). It is Alf Sani’s majuddadi militancy that informs the Pakhtun personality.

The piri-muridi tradition was strong among the Pakhtuns till another great man in the tradition of Naqshbandiya-Mujaddadiya chain became their patron in chief, Shah Waliullah. The big tradition of the warlord mullah in the Tribal Areas must begin with Abdul Ghafur (1793-1878) of upper Swat who got his early education at Hazrat Ji of the Mujaddadiya silsila in Peshawar who found him in violation of the tariqa, after which he joined a Qadiri-Suhrawardiya-Chistiya teacher of a multiple order. Ghafur became the akhund whose line was to be the owners of Swat because he fought on the side of Amir Dost of Afghanistan against Ranjit Singh and won for his Yusufzai followers the lands of Swat and Mardan. The ‘Miangul’ descendants of Ghafur were first known as akhund but were later called wali.

Akhund Ghafur set up the throne of Swat and in 1849 put Syed Akbar Shah on it as Amir of Swat, the Syed being a former secretary of Syed Ahmad of Rai Bareilly, but after his death took the throne himself. He kept his line with the Mujaddadi chief mullah of Kabul open and derived a lot of power from the Kabul throne through the mystic silsila. His military might was respected in the region surrounding Swat, but his authority spread far and wide when he accepted, as murid, Mullah Najmuddin of Hadda, a khalifa or appointed deputy of Syed Ahmad of Rai Bareilly. (Syed Ahmad of Rai Bareilly had come to the Frontier from Delhi to defeat the Sikhs and establish an Islamic state, but was killed at Balakot in today’s Hazara district in 1831.)

The new Mujaddadi wave rolled back the earlier maverick mysticism fitfully represented by such ‘heretic’ saints as Pir Roshan Bayazid Ansari (1525-1560) who united the Pakhtuns against the Mughals and remained true to the reputation of warrior mystics. The Mujaddadis rejected Pir Roshan’s cutting down of the namaz and other central tenets in the tradition of Mansur Hallaj. (Former cricket captain Majid Khan’s son cricketer Bazid Khan is named after the Pir-e-Roshan.) The great tradition that came to Swat was given in the hands of the Hadda Mullah of Mohmand. He came to Swat and proclaimed an eclectic silsila led by the Mujaddadi school.

Hadda Mullah fought Amir Abdur Rehman Khan of Kabul on the one hand and battled the British on the other. As a pupil of Syed Ahmad Shaheed of Rai Bareilly who fought South India’s most immaculate jihad in the Frontier, Hadda Mullah created a stronghold in 1897 when he saw his follower from Kabul Sadullah Khan Sartor Faqir fighting the British at Malakand. The Miangul line of Akhund Ghafur was soon disenchanted by the politically suicidal but heroic strategies of Hadda Mullah and broke from their family silsila to go to the less warlike school of Manki Sharif.

But the Akhund Ghafur-Hadda Mullah legacy was moved forward by one Fazl Wahid Haji Sahib of Turangzai (1842-1937), which was really the teachings of Mujaddid Alf Sani and Shah Waliullah. Turangzai is supposed to have gone to Deoband in India’s Saharanpur to learn the Quran where he saw the most militant of all clerics Maulana Mahmudul Hasan preparing a group of pupils to go to Hijaz in Saudi Arabia. He insisted on going to haj with Maulana Mahmudul Hasan and seemed to have repeated the experience of Shah Waliullah himself when he came under the Wahabi influence of Haji Imdadullah in Makka. Haji Turangzai’s first bayt was with Imdadullah, the one he took at the hand of Hadda Mullah was his second.

Although the descendants of Akhund Ghafur like Miangul Aurangzeb the Wali of Swat greatly revered the great Mujaddadi tradition their rule in Swat was less stringent than in Mohmand and Bajaur where Haji Turangzai left behind a strong Deobandi-Wahhabi influence that was to coalesce with the Arabs who arrived in the region with Al Qaeda. Baitullah Mehsud is claiming from the Mianguls the legacy of Akhund Ghafur while the family of the Wali is keen to take the governance of Swat away from Peshawar and reactivate the soft shariat of the Wali. The Pakistan army could therefore be facing the tradition of the Wali and the larger challenge of Haji Turangzai legacy represented by Baitullah Mehsud.

But if the Pakistan army loses, the next rout will be that of the representatives of the Wali who are in the habit of quickly leaving Swat after indirectly supporting Maulana Fazlullah of TNSM. The legacy of Haji Turangzai is in the ascendant. Syed Ahmad Shaheed of Rai Bareilly has finally won his battle in 2008, albeit at the cost of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan which embraced the Deobandis in the hope of making itself acceptable but to no avail. *

Delhi Under Fright, Innocent Targeted stuka
After hearing about the Pan shop I was somehow convinced you would have visited there, dunno why. Its scary that my hunch out of the blue was right but very glad to see that you are safe.

It\'s Politics Uber Alles In Kashmir ..... And India d_m
I meant to mention. It was Mufti Mohammed Syed the father, who was CM, not the daughter, Mehbooba Mufti. Congress had more seats but since the PDP insisted, the Mufti became CM first, not Ghulam Nabi Azad.

It\'s Politics Uber Alles In Kashmir ..... And India d_m
According to me, yes, Advani could have highlighted the Amarnath religious angle and talked of Hindu religious rights without being disqualified. I see it as somewhat significant that he didn't, but I don't know how long the restraint will last.

It\'s Politics Uber Alles In Kashmir ..... And India anil
Yup. Indians need to be more stout-hearted and stoic than they appear on chowk.com.

It\'s Politics Uber Alles In Kashmir ..... And India d_m
Advani said it was not a Hindu vs Muslim issue, not a Jammu vs Kashmir issue, it is a separatists vs nationalists issue. Which is benign on the face of it but we have to see whether the message remains benign throughout the rigours of a general election campaign.