The fate of Indian Muslims was sealed in 1947 when, based on two-nation theory, they got divided in two countries: India and Pakistan, which later became three, adding Bangladesh to the list. It had come at the cost of bloody civil riots in which hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered and millions were left homeless.
On this occasion, the great poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz wrote:
The leprous daybreak, dawn night's fangs have mangled -- This is not that long-looked for break of day, Not that clear dawn in quest of which those comrades Set out, believing that in heaven's wide void Somewhere must be the stars' last halting-place, Somewhere the verge of night's slow-washing tide, Somewhere the anchorage for the ship of heartache.
One might ask: why could the partition of India be not avoided? It’s difficult to answer. Hindus blame Muslim leadership, Muslims blame Hindu leadership, and sometimes both blame the British. Interestingly, there is some truth in each one of these claims, as the historian Ramchandra Guha notices in his book India After Gandhi. He suggests that Nehru and Gandhi made error in their judgements in their dealings with the Muslim League, and tries to please mullahs instead of making a common cause with Jinnah who was much more secular. Then, 1930s onwards, Jinnah also began to stoke religious passions in Muslims, which led to his call to Direct Action Day, the day that set in train the bloody trail of violence. And of course, there were the British who welcomed and furthered the animosities between Hindus and Muslims, continuing their divide-and-rule policy.
Still, when you look at the rationale behind the partition, there are two ideas that decided the fate of Indian Muslims at that point in history. These were:
- Muslims cannot live with non-Muslims
- Muslims can live with non-Muslims
It can be argued that the second idea is often articulated in different terms (Muslims can’t live with Hindus, Muslims can’t live if Hindus are in majority, Muslims need their own political system, etc), but if you trace all these ideas you always get to the basic proposition that Muslims need a separate homeland.
This idea, which laid down the foundation of two-nation theory, was articulated by Pakistan’s founding father Mohammad Ali Jinnah in his Muslim League Presidential Address in 1940:
The problem in India is not of an intercommunal but manifestly of an international character, and must be treated as such... It is a dream that Hindus and Muslims can evolve a common nationality, and this misconception of one Indian nation has gone far beyond the limits, and is the cause of most of our troubles, and will lead India to destruction, if we fail to revise our actions in time. The Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs, and literature. They neither intermarry, nor interdine together, and indeed they belong to two different civilisations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their aspects on and of life are different.
On the other hand, there were — and there still remain — a large group of Muslims that believed that Muslims can live with non-Muslims in India. Here is what Maulana Abul Kalam Azad said in a Congress Presidential address in the same year:
It was India's historic destiny that many human races and cultures should flow to her, finding home in her hospitable soil, and that many a caravan should find rest here... Eleven hundred years of common history (of Islam and Hinduism) have enriched India with our common achievements. Our languages, our poetry, our literature, our culture, our art, our dress, our manners and customs, the innumerable happenings of our daily life, everything bears the stamp of our joint endeavour... These thousand years of our joint life have moulded us into a common nationality... Whether we like it or not, we have now become an Indian nation, united and indivisible. No fantasy or artificial scheming to separate and divide can break this unity.
The unity was broken, nevertheless, when India and Pakistan became two separate nation-states on 15 August, 1947. The fate of Indian Muslims was thus sealed and it has kept hanging in confusion since then. The confusion arises because of a simple question which leads to two different worldviews, two different perspectives of history and ultimately two different political destinies. And the question is this: Can Muslims live with non-Muslims?
Reference books:
India After Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha
Note: Check out the previous episodes of this series.
The Story of Indian Muslims Part 1
Kalampedia 