[Reader-list] What if Jaswant was a Muslim

[Inder Salim]

perhaps, is similar to what if Hussain was a Hindu

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 2:19 PM, Kshmendra Kaul<kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Dear Javed
>
> The poser (alone) "What if Jaswant was a Muslim" is (in my opinion) not only interesting but important.
>
> It is surprising that it has not come up prominently in the analyses and debates around Jaswant Singh's book on Jinnah (as far as I know).
>
> Kshmendra
>
> --- On Sat, 8/22/09, Javed <javedmasoo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> From: Javed <javedmasoo at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Reader-list] What if Jaswant was a Muslim
> To: "sarai list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
> Date: Saturday, August 22, 2009, 9:18 AM
>
>
> From: "Sherwani Mustafa" <sherwanimk at yahoo.com>
>
> ‘Mr. Jaswant Singh! What if you were a Muslim? –Dr. M.K.Sherwani
>
> ************ ********* ********* ********* ***
>
>      The real motive of Mr. Jaswant Singh in praising Jinah and
> asserting that Muslims in India were treated as ‘aliens’
> notwithstanding, he deserves all praise for bringing this reality
> before  full public glare. Demonizing Jinah, it is a historical fact,
> was a conspiracy hatched by Nehru and Patel to put the entire blame
> of partition on Muslims of India , so as to project them as a
> hallucination for unifying the divergent Hindu society. The Congress
> was successful in this venture and kept Muslims under psychological
> fear so that they would resign themselves to their subordinate status
> in Indian polity. It was the reason of this ugly legacy that political
> assertion by Muslims has always been branded as their pre-partition
> mindset. The Congress experiment was so successful that different
> so-called secular parties which emerged during the course of time
> also deliberately followed this experiment so as to perpetuate the
> Muslim status as a vote bank. Its impact  was so pernicious that the
> whole concept of ‘secularism’ has come to revolve around it directly
> or indirectly, and the community has always remained content with the
> false promises of ‘security’. Parties may come and go, Muslims may
> rush from one to another, but their fortune is unlikely to change
> except for a few doles off and on.
>
>               Mr. Jaswant Singh is fortunate that he is not a Muslim
> otherwise  he would have been prosecuted for sedition or associated
> with ‘Lashkare-Toiba.’ To make the point specific, I am producing my
> own article which had expressed almost the similar views, and the
> consequence was the 15 years ordeal with criminal prosecution under
> sections 124a( sedition) of Indian Penal Code. The fact itself speaks
> of how Muslims have been looked upon with suspicious eyes.
>
> ( This article was published  in Radiance Viewsweekly , Delhi in 28
> October- 3 November,1984 issue. On the basis of this article , the
> Government of India launched in 1985, criminal proceedings under
> sections 124a (sedition) and 505(b)  of Indian Penal Code. The
> Criminal case (State  VS Ameenul  Hasan Rizvi and others) numbering
> 159 of 1985 continued at Tees Hazari Courts, Delhi till 25 July, 2000
> .Besides myself, the other two accused were  the editor, Syed Ameenul
> Hasan Razvi  and Printer, Mohammad Iqbal Warakwala. After the
> acquittal , I wrote a book ‘SECUALR  HORROR -  A TRUE STORY OF
> FIFTEEN YEAR ORDEAL WITH  INDIAN SECULARISM’ in which I  narrated my
> harrowing experiences  during the trial of the case. It was published
> in 2002 by Pharos Media  and Publishing Pvt. Ltd., D-84, Abul Fazal
> Enclave,1, Jamia Nagar, New Delhi ,25. (<www.milligazette. com>online
> bookstore)
>
>
>
> Dr. Mustafa Kamal Sherwani, LL.D.
>
> Chairman,All India Muslim Forum, Lucknow , India
>
> sherwanimk at yahoo. com
>
> ************ ********* ********* ********* ***
>
> Secularism    vis-à-vis Hindu Chauvinism
>
> ************ ********* ********* *
>
>      When we talk of secularism  it does not denote the meaning  and
> definition  of a particular system  which carries the same connotation
> and practice in all the states, characterized  by this word. What the
> essence of the word ‘secularism’ is, depends  upon a variety of
> factors  existing  in a particular state , e.g.  the composition of
> the society , the potentiality of  the minority groups and the
> prevailing international circumstances. To my mind the concept of
> secularism  presupposes  the existence of more than  one religious
> entities  otherwise  there can be nothing  towards which the state
> may show a secular outlook.
>
>              Human history has made it abundantly clear  and a
> free-lance  thinker does admit  that some societies adopt  secularism
> in  a real sense  of the word  without any fluctuations, and  some
> have to adopt it reluctantly  just for the sake of a safe survival  in
> the international community. For example, the  Islamic secularism ,
> though in the contemporary parlance termed as  theocracy, is the real
> manifestation  of what the secularism  in fact signifies, because it
> envisages a real responsibility  of the majority community  towards
> the religious freedom  and social and economic protection  of all the
> religious groups. One may easily witness this secularism  in all the
> states which have been declared  as Islamic  Republic. The  other
> category is very well represented  by our Indian  secularism  which in
> practice is  nothing short of Hinduism, and which in  turn is  the
> synonym of  Indian nationalism.
>
> Shrewd Via Media
>
>         In this context , if we dispassionately  analyze the  reasons
> which  compelled our national leaders , including a staunch  Hindu
> like Mr. Patel, to adopt secularism ,and  tolerate in India, such a
> large number of Muslims, especially when the country was partitioned
> on Hindu-Muslim basis , and Pakistan was declared a Muslim state , we
> may easily conclude that it was on account of circumstantial
> constraints  and not a voluntary act. Our national leaders were well
> aware of the fact  that there are so much inherent  contradictions in
> the Hindu society  that it was not and  can never be  united by
> common  fundamental religious principles, and , therefore,  the only
> device to introduce  a certain spirit of coherence in it  was the
> hypothetical  deterrence of Muslim  domination.
>
>                Thus ever since independence , the communal riots were
> engineered  with twin objectives, i.e. the subjugation of Muslims  and
> the initiation of the process  of unification amongst Hindus.As
> regards secularism, it rather thrust itself  upon the leaders  because
> India as a declared  Hindu state  could never survive  in the
> international community for two reasons. Firstly, Hinduism is a
> territorial concept, and as a religion has nothing to offer in the
> international arena  in order to compete with other dominant
> religious philosophies of  the world, i.e. Islam and  Christianity,
> and secondly,  as a theocratic state  it could not survive  in the
> wake of the overwhelming  Muslim population and  the oil-rich  Islamic
> states in the world. Thus, the only  way open to our national leaders
> was to discover  a shrewd via media  which could, on the one hand,
> make Hindu philosophy as the  salient feature of  the Indian
> administration,  and ,on the other, use the pretext of secularism  to
> show its credentials in the outside world.
>
>         It was from this viewpoint that  secularism was adopted  as a
> hypocritical measure , and the nationalism was sought to be
> interpreted  in the context of Hinduism. As a part of this strategy,
> the Muslim culture was gradually sought to be eliminated , though
> religious freedom to the extent of prayer  was accorded, and  the
> Muslims were looked upon  with suspicious eyes  as the symbol of
> disruptive forces  and anti-national elements. Whenever there are
> reports of  conversions  of Hindus to Islam in a voluntary manner – a
> practice which is guaranteed by  the Constitution – a lot of hue and
> cry is  raised against it , saying that the foundations of Indian
> secularism  are based upon the Hindu majority. Besides,  in every
> department and  at every place , there is so much depiction of  Hindu
> culture, either by way of idols of gods  and goddesses  or otherwise ,
> that even a cursory glance  makes one believe  that India  is not a
> secular but  a Hindu state.
>
>           In other words, what is done  by a Hindu or  under the
> nomenclature of  Hinduism, howsoever anti-national it may be , is
> brought within the precincts of nationalism, but whatever is done by a
> Muslim , howsoever replete with nationalism it may  be,  is bound to
> be branded as  anti-national : thus leading to an inevitable
> conclusion  that nationalism and Hinduism  are the two facets of one
> single phenomenon , and communalism and anti-nationalism  are the
> inseparable ramifications of Islam.
>
>           Muslim heroes are always condemned  as foreign invaders, and
> Hindus who revolted against  the well-established  Muslim
> administrations  are heralded as nationalists  who gave up their lives
> for the preservation of Indian nationalism. If the South Indian Hindus
> oppose Hindi , it is a regional problem, and if a Muslim does it , he
> is a communal element. If Professor  Vasudeo Singh  vociferously
> criticizes his own  party’s decision  about Urdu, he remains as much
> faithful to the party and the nation as ever, but if a Muslim Minister
> or legislator  even praises the government’s decision  in this regard,
> it is interpreted  by the persons like Mr. Balraj Madhok  as the
> Muslims’ reversion to  the pre-partition  policies.
>
>            If the Hindus of South  burn the effigy of Ram  and worship
> Ravan, it is nothing but the regional differences  in Hindu rituals ,
> but if a Muslim makes  even a fair comment in these sensitive matters
> , it is his attempt at destroying  the Hindu culture. If Hindu
> scholars  produce misleading historical facts  to convince the masses
> that Taj Mahal and Qutub Minar  were built by Hindu rulers, they are
> praised  for their wonderful research work, but  if a Muslim dares to
> present  the correct picture , he is pooh-poohed  as the supporter of
> those  who allegedly  ruined the Hindu society  and its culture.
>
>          If the same trends continue, the time is not far off , when
> shocked by  the  overwhelming  rush of Hindu  devotees  to the mazars
> of Muslim sufis , some  brilliant Hindu scholar  may startle the
> nation  by proving through his  astonishing research work  that the
> great saints  like Khwaja  Moinuddin  Chishti of Ajmer, Hazrat
> Nizamuddin Auliya  of Delhi , Haji Waris Ali Shah  of Deva, Hazrat
> Shah  Mina of Lucknow and many others  were in fact Hindus  and their
> names were changed  under the Muslim rule.
>
>              Apart from the above , the developments in Punjab may
> well establish  that the sophisticated arms  allowed into golden
> temple  and nothing else done  by the Sikhs  was termed as  a
> separatist or secessionist  activity  till the time  they did not
> vehemently  assert  that they are non-Hindus . Once the government was
> convinced  that by saying that  Sikhism was  totally distinct from
> Hinduism, the Sikhs really  mean business , the separatist tendencies
> could no longer be tolerated . Paradoxically , the government and
> Hindu masses  are still bent upon  inculcating into the minds of Sikhs
> that they are Hindus , and their secessionist trends are being
> brushed aside  as a momentary aberration  of one of the two  real
> brothers  against  the other.
>
>             Not only this , the dismissal of Farooq Abdullah’s
> ministry  was hailed all  over  the country , and the opposition
> parties raised voice  against it  just for the namesake, because
> fortunately or  unfortunately, he happened  to be a Muslim. This may
> just be contrasted  with the similar fortune  of Mr. N.T.Rama Rao
> which triggered off the nation wide outcry, resulting into his
> reinstatement. The controversial  and the most sensitive cow tallow
> scandal  was hushed up and given a silent burial  as the persons
> involved in it  were the Hindus , the great devotees of cow. God
> forbid, had there been even the remotest  association  of Muslims in
> it , the country would have certainly  witnessed  nation wide
> communal riots.
>
>            In view of the above facts, no impartial observer can evade
> the logical  conclusion that  under the garb of secularism, India is
> a Hindu state, and  Hinduism is a symbol of nationalism . Therefore,
> it is my  humble suggestion  that either  India be declared  a Hindu
> state  or secularism  must be observed  and practised  in its letter
> and spirit.
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