Written by: Editor: Dr. Dushka H. Saiyid
Posted on: December 24, 2021 | 
| 中文
Quaid-I-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah was born on this auspicious day, the 25th of December, in 1876. He was hailed as the leader of Hindu-Muslim Unity when he was an active member of the Congress Party, full of idealism and hope for an independent and a pluralist India, free from the shackles of colonialism.
But that was when the leadership of the Congress was with moderates like Pherozeshah Mehta, Dadabhai Naoroji and Gokhale: secular, liberal and constitutionalists. When the Congress met at Surat in 1907, it was split between the moderates and the group led by Tilak. The latter used Hindu religious symbols and had mass appeal, and was a precursor of Gandhi in many ways, but not surprisingly, alienated the minorities. Gokhale told Sarojni Naidu before he died in 1915, that Jinnah “has true stuff in him, and that freedom from all sectarian prejudice which will make him the best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity”. In the 1915 session of the Muslim League (ML), despite opposition of the orthodox elements, the Quaid managed to persuade the ML to hold meetings contemporaneously with the Congress, and to agree to a committee to formulate a single platform of reforms with other political organisations in the name of a United India.
Gandhi’s return and his assumption of the leadership of the Congress, changed all that. He injected both populism and religion into politics, eventually resulting in the violence unleashed at Chauri Chaura in 1922. When at the annual session of Congress at Nagpur in 1920, the audience hooted down the Quaid, and were not willing to hear him, and Gandhi did not intercede on his behalf, the writing on the wall was clear to the Quaid.
Nor was the Quaid taken in by the Khilafat movement, which Gandhi very astutely used to mobilise Muslim support for his civil disobedience movement. The Khilafat as an institution was an anachronism, and its populist appeal did not tempt the Quaid. The Turks themselves abolished the Khilafat in 1924, under the leadership of the great moderniser Ataturk, whom the Quaid ardently admired.
Modi has espoused the same populism as Gandhi, but while non-violence was central to Gandhi’s creed, mob violence is a critical weapon in Modi’s ideological armoury. Hitler used Storm Troopers for terrorising his opponents, in particular Jews. While Modi has very successfully managed to imbue most of India’s Hindu population with hatred of Muslims through a pliant media and changing the text books, transforming the pluralist culture of India into one of a Hindu majoritarian state. The aim seems to be to reduce Muslims to the status of Untouchables. Despite decades of reformist movements, it remains a reviled caste, the burning of whose villages is not an uncommon occurrence, with Ambedkar’s legacy forgotten!
The Quaid stands vindicated as India descends into an orgy of killings and lynchings, mostly of Muslims. The Indian judiciary has failed completely to check the excesses of the executive, or provide protection to the innocent, thrown in jail for supporting the ‘wrong’ cricket team, or simply dissenting and supporting human rights. The BJP government is using a colonial-era law (124A Indian Penal Code), which gives the government the power to incarcerate a victim for life, or the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), a counter-terrorism legislation that empowers the government to hold anyone without a charge for up to 180 days, with little hope of bail.
There were open calls for the genocide of Muslims at the Dharma Sansad ( a religious assembly) in Haridwar, which met from December 17-19. A repeat of the Gujarat killings of 2002, but on a much wider scale, is on the cards. It is ironic that in this horrendous situation, Biden who is crying hoarse about China’s human rights record, should invite Modi to his Democracy Conference earlier this month, while the Muslim world is a silent bystander, Erdogan being a brave exception.
We remain eternally indebted to the Quaid who had sensed the latent prejudice and hostility to Muslims, for giving us a homeland where we can live and develop in peace as a nation. May our leadership realise that it doesn’t take much for a country to descend into violent anarchy. The lynching and burning of Kumara Diyawadanage in Sialkot, who was just doing his job, should send a serious signal to our policy makers. The Quaid’s concept of Pakistan was that of a tolerant, pluralist and a constitutional country!
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