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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Gandhi, the moulana of Muslim appeasement-IV
V SUNDARAM
    H V Seshadri in his seminal book called: 'The Tragic Story of Partition', published in 1982 rightly summed up the Congress Party's disastrous philosophy and policy of Muslim appeasement in these words: 'Congress had been, from its very inception, caught in an ideological trap laid by the British: that the Congress could lay claim to be a national body only if all the religious communities in this land would come together on its platform; then alone would the British Government consider it as representative of all Indians and look into its demands. However, nowhere in the world was this strange interpretation of the concept of 'NATION' and 'NATIONAL' accepted or practised. 'NATIONALISM' was not something to be equated with arithmetical calculations or juxtapositions of certain groups inhabiting the country. It was, essentially, a sentiment, an attitude of thinking and feeling in terms of 'NATION' as an organic hole. It is a spirit of total commitment to national interests and national values� a commitment overriding all other personal or parochial interests. In the Indian context, it implied the sub-ordination of one's loyalties to one's caste, sect, religious faith, language, etc to the supreme call of the country. It also implied an uncompromising will which would brook no compromise or 'Horse trading' with any group which would strike at this basic loyalty.' Political horse-trading has become the main overriding activity of the UPA Government under Dr Manmohan Singh today.
    After the tremendous national awakening following the partition of Bengal in 1905, a national movement in which thousands of Muslims also participated along with their Hindu brothers, really shook up the British Government of Lord Minto, the then Viceroy of India. He wanted to wean away the Muslims from the national mainstream. Thus he plotted with some communal Muslim leaders of East Bengal and managed to arrange a pre-meditated Muslim deputation under the leadership of His Highness the Aga Khan to wait on Viceroy Lord Minto at Simla on 1 October, 1906. Lord Minto advised them to create a separate and exclusive political organisation for the Muslims of India and thus was born the All-India Muslim League under the leadership of Nawab Salimullah Khan on 30 December, 1906 with H H Aga Khan as its permanent President.
    From that moment Muslims of India started voting communally, thinking communally, listening only to communal election speeches, judging the delegates communally, looking for constitutional and other reforms only in terms of more relative communal power in order to express their grievances communally. This attitude gave a big impetuous to a political movement among Muslims inspired by a separate religious consciousness. It threw up a class of communal Muslim leaders who would vie with one another in inciting and catering to the fanatic religious feelings of their co-religionists. This in other words, was a device for building up a fiercely anti-Hindu and anti-national leadership to counterblast the nationalist Congress leadership. This established trend led to the emergence of Jinnah and his demand for Pakistan. Aga Khan wrote in his memoirs: 'Lord Minto'sacceptance of our demands was the foundation of all future constitutional proposals made for India by successive British Governments and the final, inevitable consequence was the partition of India and the emergence of Pakistan.'
    The original foundation of Congress policy of Muslim appeasement of which Mahatma Gandhi was the Maulana and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru the Mulaazim, was in fact born in1888 itself at the 4th Congress session in Allahabad under the Presidentship of Badruddin Hussain Tyabji when an official resolution was passed to the following effect: 'he Congress shall not discuss any fresh subject or pass any fresh resolution which the Hindu or Mohammedan delegates as a body oppose unanimously or nearly unanimously.' Thus the Congress virtually granted the power of veto to Muslims, however small their number might be in the Congress, to torpedo any policy or programme of the Congress. Having once accepted this slippery, treacherous and quicksand-like position vis-à -vis the Muslims of India, it is no wonder that the Congress started on the downward journey with increased speed as days passed. Mahatma Gandhi went down on bended knees before Ali Brothers in the days of Khilafat movement in 1921, and again went down crawling and creeping at the feet of Jinnah in 1947. After independence, Nehru considered it his bounden duty to treat the Hindus of India as sacrificial goats in order to quench his thirst for Muslim infatuation through his pernicious policy of secularism and Muslim appeasement duly enshrined in Articles 29 and 30 of the Indian constitution. Indira Gandhi amended the Indian constitution to confirm the first class secular special status of the Muslims in India and to relegate all the Hindus of India to the 'communal' degradation of a position of politically condemned second class citizens. As H.V.Seshadri rightly concludes: 'This was how the Congress� in place of educating the Muslims in lessons of the true content of emotional integration, i.e., making them realise the dangers of separatism and persuading them to share the common national aspirations and joys and sorrows of the rest of their countrymen� began pampering their divisive tendencies.'
    Five years before the Khilafat surrender of Mahatma Gandhi to the Ali Brothers in 1921, the Congress party in a suicidal bid to snatch the 'INITIATIVE' from the British hands embarked upon a new adventure in 1916. It decided to enter into a pact directly with the All-India Muslim League on the basis of a mutually agreed upon formula in lieu of the Morley-Minto reforms of 1909. This was how both Congress and Muslim League came to hold their annual sessions simultaneously in 1916 at Lucknow. And here was born the Lucknow Pact blessed by all the leading stalwarts of the Congress at that time. What was the upshot of the Lucknow Pact? It not only put its seal of Congress approval on the principle of separate electorates to the Muslims but also granted them weightage ie, greater representation than what their population warranted. In terms of the actual percentage among the elected Indian representations to the various Provincial Assemblies, the Muslims were granted 50 per cent in Punjab, 30 per cent in UP, 40 per cent in Bengal, 25 per cent in Bihar, 15 per cent in Central Provinces and Berar, 15 per cent in Madras Presidency and 33 per cent in Bombay Presidency. This new Lucknow accord gave Muslims a greater share in the Provincial Assemblies than what was granted in the 1909 Morley-Minto Reforms. To crown it all, in the Imperial Legislative Council, the Muslim representation was enhanced to one-third of the Indian elected members to be elected by separate Muslim electorates in the several provinces. Through the Lucknow Pact, the Congress gave its political sanction to the following major dangerous doctrines:
  * The right of Muslims to separate communal electorates and communal representation.
  * The claim of All-India Muslim League to speak for the entire Muslim community in India. That is how Jinnah got his irrevocable right to speak on equal terms with Mahatma Gandhi before the British Government.
    Among the top leaders of the Congress, Madhan Mohan Malavya was the only man who raised his strong voice of protest against the Lucknow Pact. Lucknow Pact was tragically followed by Mahatma Gandhi's Khilafat movement in 1921 which gave birth to two long-range catastrophic results. Firstly, Muslim fanaticism secured a position of political prestige in Indian politics which it enjoyed under Gandhi and later after independence under Nehru, followed by Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao. And today it is enjoying the same privilege under Dr Manmohan Singh. Dr.Manmohan Singh's surrender today to Muslim fanaticism is logical culmination of all this historical development starting from the Lucknow Pact in 1916.
    Mahatma Gandhi gave his political and moral approval to the Islamic character of Moplah outrage in Malabar in 1921. When Khilafat Muslim leaders like Ali Brothers and many others sent telegrams to Moplah criminal rebels extolling them as heroes fighting for the glory of their religion, Mahatma Gandhi outdid them by issuing a statement to the effect: 'The Moplah rebels are a brave, God-fearing people who were fighting for what they consider as religion, and in a manner which they considered religious.'
    Annie Besant was outraged by the attitude of Mahatma Gandhi towards the Moplah rebels. Her sharp and biting comments on the Islamic character of Moplah carnage are worth outing: 'Malabar has taught us what Islamic rule still means, and we do not want to see another specimen of the Khilafat Raj in India. How sympathy with the Moplahs is felt by the Muslims outside Malabar has been proved by the defence raised by them for their fellow believers and by Mr Gandhi himself who has stated that the Moplah rebels had acted as they believed that their religion taught them to act. I feel that this is true; but there is no place in a civilised land for people who drive away out of the country those like Hindus who refuse to apostatize for their time honoured and ancestral faiths.'
    (To be contd...)
    (The writer is a retired IAS officer)
    e-mail the writer at vsundaram@newstodaynet.com<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Gandhi, the moulana of Muslim appeasement-IV
V SUNDARAM
    H V Seshadri in his seminal book called: 'The Tragic Story of Partition', published in 1982 rightly summed up the Congress Party's disastrous philosophy and policy of Muslim appeasement in these words: 'Congress had been, from its very inception, caught in an ideological trap laid by the British: that the Congress could lay claim to be a national body only if all the religious communities in this land would come together on its platform; then alone would the British Government consider it as representative of all Indians and look into its demands. However, nowhere in the world was this strange interpretation of the concept of 'NATION' and 'NATIONAL' accepted or practised. 'NATIONALISM' was not something to be equated with arithmetical calculations or juxtapositions of certain groups inhabiting the country. It was, essentially, a sentiment, an attitude of thinking and feeling in terms of 'NATION' as an organic hole. It is a spirit of total commitment to national interests and national values� a commitment overriding all other personal or parochial interests. In the Indian context, it implied the sub-ordination of one's loyalties to one's caste, sect, religious faith, language, etc to the supreme call of the country. It also implied an uncompromising will which would brook no compromise or 'Horse trading' with any group which would strike at this basic loyalty.' Political horse-trading has become the main overriding activity of the UPA Government under Dr Manmohan Singh today.
    After the tremendous national awakening following the partition of Bengal in 1905, a national movement in which thousands of Muslims also participated along with their Hindu brothers, really shook up the British Government of Lord Minto, the then Viceroy of India. He wanted to wean away the Muslims from the national mainstream. Thus he plotted with some communal Muslim leaders of East Bengal and managed to arrange a pre-meditated Muslim deputation under the leadership of His Highness the Aga Khan to wait on Viceroy Lord Minto at Simla on 1 October, 1906. Lord Minto advised them to create a separate and exclusive political organisation for the Muslims of India and thus was born the All-India Muslim League under the leadership of Nawab Salimullah Khan on 30 December, 1906 with H H Aga Khan as its permanent President.
    From that moment Muslims of India started voting communally, thinking communally, listening only to communal election speeches, judging the delegates communally, looking for constitutional and other reforms only in terms of more relative communal power in order to express their grievances communally. This attitude gave a big impetuous to a political movement among Muslims inspired by a separate religious consciousness. It threw up a class of communal Muslim leaders who would vie with one another in inciting and catering to the fanatic religious feelings of their co-religionists. This in other words, was a device for building up a fiercely anti-Hindu and anti-national leadership to counterblast the nationalist Congress leadership. This established trend led to the emergence of Jinnah and his demand for Pakistan. Aga Khan wrote in his memoirs: 'Lord Minto'sacceptance of our demands was the foundation of all future constitutional proposals made for India by successive British Governments and the final, inevitable consequence was the partition of India and the emergence of Pakistan.'
    The original foundation of Congress policy of Muslim appeasement of which Mahatma Gandhi was the Maulana and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru the Mulaazim, was in fact born in1888 itself at the 4th Congress session in Allahabad under the Presidentship of Badruddin Hussain Tyabji when an official resolution was passed to the following effect: 'he Congress shall not discuss any fresh subject or pass any fresh resolution which the Hindu or Mohammedan delegates as a body oppose unanimously or nearly unanimously.' Thus the Congress virtually granted the power of veto to Muslims, however small their number might be in the Congress, to torpedo any policy or programme of the Congress. Having once accepted this slippery, treacherous and quicksand-like position vis-à -vis the Muslims of India, it is no wonder that the Congress started on the downward journey with increased speed as days passed. Mahatma Gandhi went down on bended knees before Ali Brothers in the days of Khilafat movement in 1921, and again went down crawling and creeping at the feet of Jinnah in 1947. After independence, Nehru considered it his bounden duty to treat the Hindus of India as sacrificial goats in order to quench his thirst for Muslim infatuation through his pernicious policy of secularism and Muslim appeasement duly enshrined in Articles 29 and 30 of the Indian constitution. Indira Gandhi amended the Indian constitution to confirm the first class secular special status of the Muslims in India and to relegate all the Hindus of India to the 'communal' degradation of a position of politically condemned second class citizens. As H.V.Seshadri rightly concludes: 'This was how the Congress� in place of educating the Muslims in lessons of the true content of emotional integration, i.e., making them realise the dangers of separatism and persuading them to share the common national aspirations and joys and sorrows of the rest of their countrymen� began pampering their divisive tendencies.'
    Five years before the Khilafat surrender of Mahatma Gandhi to the Ali Brothers in 1921, the Congress party in a suicidal bid to snatch the 'INITIATIVE' from the British hands embarked upon a new adventure in 1916. It decided to enter into a pact directly with the All-India Muslim League on the basis of a mutually agreed upon formula in lieu of the Morley-Minto reforms of 1909. This was how both Congress and Muslim League came to hold their annual sessions simultaneously in 1916 at Lucknow. And here was born the Lucknow Pact blessed by all the leading stalwarts of the Congress at that time. What was the upshot of the Lucknow Pact? It not only put its seal of Congress approval on the principle of separate electorates to the Muslims but also granted them weightage ie, greater representation than what their population warranted. In terms of the actual percentage among the elected Indian representations to the various Provincial Assemblies, the Muslims were granted 50 per cent in Punjab, 30 per cent in UP, 40 per cent in Bengal, 25 per cent in Bihar, 15 per cent in Central Provinces and Berar, 15 per cent in Madras Presidency and 33 per cent in Bombay Presidency. This new Lucknow accord gave Muslims a greater share in the Provincial Assemblies than what was granted in the 1909 Morley-Minto Reforms. To crown it all, in the Imperial Legislative Council, the Muslim representation was enhanced to one-third of the Indian elected members to be elected by separate Muslim electorates in the several provinces. Through the Lucknow Pact, the Congress gave its political sanction to the following major dangerous doctrines:
  * The right of Muslims to separate communal electorates and communal representation.
  * The claim of All-India Muslim League to speak for the entire Muslim community in India. That is how Jinnah got his irrevocable right to speak on equal terms with Mahatma Gandhi before the British Government.
    Among the top leaders of the Congress, Madhan Mohan Malavya was the only man who raised his strong voice of protest against the Lucknow Pact. Lucknow Pact was tragically followed by Mahatma Gandhi's Khilafat movement in 1921 which gave birth to two long-range catastrophic results. Firstly, Muslim fanaticism secured a position of political prestige in Indian politics which it enjoyed under Gandhi and later after independence under Nehru, followed by Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao. And today it is enjoying the same privilege under Dr Manmohan Singh. Dr.Manmohan Singh's surrender today to Muslim fanaticism is logical culmination of all this historical development starting from the Lucknow Pact in 1916.
    Mahatma Gandhi gave his political and moral approval to the Islamic character of Moplah outrage in Malabar in 1921. When Khilafat Muslim leaders like Ali Brothers and many others sent telegrams to Moplah criminal rebels extolling them as heroes fighting for the glory of their religion, Mahatma Gandhi outdid them by issuing a statement to the effect: 'The Moplah rebels are a brave, God-fearing people who were fighting for what they consider as religion, and in a manner which they considered religious.'
    Annie Besant was outraged by the attitude of Mahatma Gandhi towards the Moplah rebels. Her sharp and biting comments on the Islamic character of Moplah carnage are worth outing: 'Malabar has taught us what Islamic rule still means, and we do not want to see another specimen of the Khilafat Raj in India. How sympathy with the Moplahs is felt by the Muslims outside Malabar has been proved by the defence raised by them for their fellow believers and by Mr Gandhi himself who has stated that the Moplah rebels had acted as they believed that their religion taught them to act. I feel that this is true; but there is no place in a civilised land for people who drive away out of the country those like Hindus who refuse to apostatize for their time honoured and ancestral faiths.'
    (To be contd...)
    (The writer is a retired IAS officer)
    e-mail the writer at vsundaram@newstodaynet.com<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->