Exposing Prejudices, Breaking Myths

Book Review :

Freedom Movement and Indian Muslims
by Santimoy Ray

 National Book Trust
 2011, Delhi

I

How many people from this part of South Asia know the name of Soomru Allah Bux, (1900-1943) a legendary leader from prepartition India, who fought against the communal politics of Muslim league, was popular enough to defeat it’s candidate to the state assembly and wielded so much support among the masses that he could even become Chief Minister of Sindh in early 40s. As a chief minister he was opposed to the British war efforts in 1941 and openly supported Gandhiji’s Quit India resolution. History records the tragic fact that he was assassinated by an hireling of the British imperialists (14 th May 1943) who was close to the communal politics of the League.Or for that matter how many people have heard about Mayzada Hashina Begum, a leader of Calcutta scavengers and sewerage cleaners, who fought for their rights, courted jail during second world war, ’fought against police oppression, social injustice and obscurantist ideas of mullahs and confronted boldly rabid communal approach of Muslim Leaguers !’

The book ’Freedom Movement and Indian Muslims’ written by late Santimoy Ray, (1914-1999) - a renowned freedom fighter, educationist and crusader for communal harmony, who had been part of the historic Jugantar revolutionary party since his young age and faced a decade of imprisonment - not only provides many such important details , which have remained largely hidden from the eyes of concerned people but also brings forth the role of Indian Muslims on a broader canvas of anti-imperialist struggle. His contention is that "[t]he main reason to exclude struggles of 18 th and 19 th centuries by conventional luminaries is a conscious or (may be) an unconscious endeavour to blackout the role of the peasantry - both Hindus and Muslims - and of the tribals, more particularly of the heroic and positive role of the Muslim community in India to end the British rule in India."

The book ’dedicated to those martyrs of Pakistan and India who laid down their lives in protecting the minorities’ was first published by People’s Publishing House in 1979, and has been reprinted by National Book Trust, should be translated in all Indian languages as it can help millions of people to get out of the stereotypes they are still carrying about the ’other’ community.

Divided into six chapters the book covers around two centuries of British rule and the militant struggles which arose against it. Starting from the ’Revolt of Sannyasis and Fakirs (1763-1800), and Wahabi Revolt (1820-70) the book moves on to ’Phase of Emerging Nationalism’ (1857-1905), Epoch of Armed Struggle (1900-34) , and ends by discussing ’National Mass Struggle and Indian Muslims’ (1919-34 , 1934-47). A significant part of the Appendix which comprises of an extract from Prof Sumit Sarkar’s work , and Sedition Committee Report on Muslim participation in the revolutionary movement before 1 st world war is the ’incomplete list of Muslim martyrs in the freedom movement’’. The fourty plus page list of martyrs belonging to Muslim religion has been culled from various sources which starts from the martyrs of the Wahabi movement like Abdullah (hanged 1871), Ahmadullah (born 1808, death in Andaman Jail 1881) and proceeds with revolutionaries of ’Agniyug" (the phase of what has been popularly known as ’revolutionary terrorism’) ; Anti-Rowlatt Act movement and Jalianwala bagh tragedy and concludes at the Royal Indian Navy revolt of 1946. It also includes martyrs of the Kisan and workers movement and a supplementary list of martyrs of 1857 war has also been included. At one place elsewhere in the book the author expresses regret that he has to ’name these revolutionaries ..as Muslims’(Page 79) but he explains the rationale behind it as to ’expose the illogicality and baselessness of the anti-Muslim attitude of the Hindu pundits of history’ and expresses the hope that the reader would appreciate the purpose.

What prompted the author to take up this work is worth emphasising. In the Preface itself the author elaborates on the ’perversion of history in school and college textbooks’ and the manner in which Muslims are stigmatised at various levels - ranging from them being considered ’foreigners’ or a ’separate cultural identity’ and ’betrayers of the national struggle’ - and how it had been ’the deliberate policy of the British rulers during post-mutiy period’ to generate more acrimony and strifes amongst various communities and groups . The discipline of history writing - on the framework drawn by James Mill - became an important tool here, which led to depiction of Muslim tyranny over subject people - the Hindus - and the resistance of Rajputs etc became their postwar themes. For a layperson it may be told that Mill periodised Indian history into three periods – Hindu civilisation, Muslim civilisation and the British period which was largely accepted largely without question and this understanding has stayed with us for almost two hundred years. According to Prof Romilla Thapar :
" Mill argued that the Hindu civilisation was stagnant and backward, the Muslim only marginally better and the British colonial power was an agency of progress because it could legislate change for improvement in India. In the Hindutva version this periodisation remains, only the colours have changed: the Hindu period is the golden age, the Muslim period the black, dark age of tyranny and oppression, and the colonial period is a grey age almost of marginal importance compared to the earlier two.

There is no doubt that colonialists succeeded in influencing/impacting Indian historiography so much so that when (according to author) India witnessed stirring phases of Hindu-Muslim unity one witnessed knighthood for Dr Jadunath Sarkar whose four volume study on ’The Falll of Mughal Empire’ well served the cause of British imperialism. The author cannot hide his derision for one of the leading light of this ’school’ - the ’eminent historian Dr R. C. Mazumdar ’ who had explained his philosophy in the 1968 Diwali number of the ’Organiser’ in such words -’ that all the Muslims should go to Pakistan to solve the knotty problem of communalism’.

Elaborating on the exclusive approach of this conservative school of history in the introduction he returns to Dr Mazumdar again and tells how he refused to give any importance to the great uprising of 1857 and who wanted us to go at least 700 years back - when Bakhtiar Khilji first conquered pats of North India to write the ’history of India’s freedom movement’.

Of course the author is happy that a ’new generation of historians have cropped up’ to meet the ’challenge of the pernicious philosophy and cult of hatred - which creates thousands of Nathuram Godses - and many of the earlier theories of Dr Jadunath Sarkar and Dr Mazumdar ’have been mutilated and nearly demolished’

II

The first chapter ’Revolt of Sannyasis and Fakirs (1763-1800) dwells upon the first flag of revolt against the establishment of British rule in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa which was unfurled by Majnusha, leader of a band of Fakirs along with Bhawani Pathak, leader of a band of Sannyasis. These fakirs and sannyasis mainly belonged to religious orders like madaria sect among Muslims and saiba sect amongst Hindus. Although they were not properly organised but ’could successfully inspire oppressed peasantry’. Their forces could inflict series of defeats on the British armies. By 1800 this ’first uprising against the firingis came to an end’ but left an indelible imprint upon future struggles like the ’wahabis and revolutionaries of Agniyug - known as terrorists’. The second chapter focusses on the ’Wahabi revolt’ (1820-70) which ’was one of the earliest, most consistent and protracted and the "most remarkably anti-British" movements which dominated the nineteenth century" (Page 4). It wielded influence from Peshawar to Dhaka and also made inroads in southern states. The sixties decade witnessed (1863-65) a series of trials by which leaders of this "seditious community"" were arrested and sent to jail or given capital punishment. But all such prisoners stood valiantly on the face of the tremendous torture. IN 1872 one Mohammed Sherali, a wahabi convict of Andaman Jail assasinated Lord Mayo while he went to visit Portblair jail.
Chapters three deal with the phase of emerging nationalism and the changes in the nature of resistance put up by the Indian masses and the changed modus operandi of the Britishers as well. One notices that the ’Muslim mind’ cannot be considered a monolith now and one can categorise the ’Muslim mind into modernist and traditionalist’ or ’pro-British and anti-British’ The modernist or pro-British Muslim leaders felt dismayed at the growing frustration of Muslims, declining aristocracy and their retinue including ulemas. They opposed the ’suicidal resistance of the wahabis and particularly negative attitude of the ulemas.. They wanted that Muslim masses accept British rule as salvation and appealed the Muslim masses to educate themselves on western lines.The traditionalist represented by the ulama continued in the same vein and ’looked beyond the immediate communal gains to the historical growth of India’s national liberation struggle’. The founders of Darul Ulema Deoband represented ’the rebellious spirit of the disgruntled Muslims’ since the days of the wahabi movement.
The author brings forth an important point that a significant chunk of the Muslims from the then Bengal province had opposed the partition of Bengal - which was supposed to be a smart move on part of the British colonialists to divide the Hindus and Muslims. According to him

"The documents in government archives pertaining to the movement against partition of Bengal ..prove that throughout East Bengal in different districts a good number of mass meetings were held. (Page 30)" He discusses a mammoth gathering in Calcutta on 7 th August 1905 where the main resolution was seconded by Maulvi Hasibuddin Ahmed."

Chapter four starts with the advent of agniyug, ’an age of militant nationalism’ the birth of various secret revolutionary societies in India Mitramela in Tamil Nadu, Abhinav Bharat in Maharashtra, Atmaunnati Anushilan. Suhrid, Sadhana, Brati, Sadesh Bandhab Samities in Bengal, Bharatmata Samiti in Punjab and ends with the sacrifices by revolutionaries under the leadership of Surya Sen. While discussing the martyrdom of Khudiram Bose at the age of eighteen who belonged to the Jugantar group of the Anushilan Samiti (11 August 1908) it mentions the role of an ’unnamed Muslim lady who had given him shelter before his arrest’ who was known to be the sister of Moulvi Abdul Waheed.

The author narrates an experience when Dr Alam, a leader from Punjab who toured Muslim majority provinces preaching against communalism, had given his presidential address to the second annual meeting of the Bengal provincial students’ conference held in August 1928 at Mymensingh town. He writes with candidness that he still remembers his words "We must fight British imperialism with all our might ; but before that we must fight communalism everywhere and always. "

The last chapter discusses the trial of the INA prisoners Shah Nawaz, Dhillon and Rashid Ali and how it electrified the whole country from Kashmir to Cape Camorin. There were demonstrations in major cities of undivided India when Rashid Ali Day was observed by Muslim League, Congress, Communist Party, Forward Bloc. A mighty demonstration of around 2 lakh people was held in Calcutta.

The author concludes his monograph with the words that while rise of Muslim League and its ultimate triumph is being recognised as a dominant negative feature the positive contribution of the Muslim community in India went unrecognised among many knowledgeable people.He ends with a note " This is a basic malady of the Indian social situation which needs to be ruthlessly rooted out if India wants to survive and prosper as a civilized community in the world."

email : subhash.gatade@gmail.com