Editor:
Brigadier (r) Usman Khalid
Published by London Institute of South Asia (LISA)
January 2005, 360 Pages 165x230mm
Hard Cover ISBN: 0-9548929-0-9 Price £ 15/-
Paper Back ISBN: 0-9548929-1-7 Price £10/-
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Muslims, Dalits and Sikhs Speak in Unison
The peoples of
South Asia are diverse and yet united by imperial history.
This is a unique book that focuses on the imperialism of
today rather than of yesteryears. The British Empire in
India was partitioned on the basis of the principle of
national self-determination but the principle was spurned by
India soon after independence. India has been following
imperial policies in order to consolidate and expand its
empire but has yet to find a basis for national or imperial
solidarity. This book identifies the scarlet thread through
the events of the last fifty years - the imperial ambitions
of India and Afghanistan. Pakistan, which is not the
successor of any empire but is the manifestation of the will
a nation (Muslims of South Asia), should have been a vehicle
for enabling the other nations of South Asia for
crystallising their national personality and obtaining
national self-determination but it did not take up that
role. Does Pakistan recognise its duty and role now? This
book does not answer the question!
The Muslims of
South Asia were in majority on the Eastern and the Western
periphery of British India while thinly spread across the
rest of India. They considered the option of legal and
constitutional safeguards for decades before they opted for
a ‘sovereign state’. This was the assertion of Islamic
statecraft wherein Darussalam (where Muslims enjoy
political as well as cultural sovereignty) is preferable to
Darulaman’ where Muslims enjoy cultural sovereignty
only. The Untouchables had a powerful organisation and an
eminent leader in the person of Dr B.R. Ambedkar but
M.K.Gandhi seduced him into giving up ‘separate electorate’
in 1932 vide Poona Pact. They lost the opportunity to be
recognised as separate nations. The Sikhs, who are a
separate nation in every sense, also fell into the trap laid
by the Congress leadership. The leader of the Muslims -
Quaid e Azam Muhammed Ali Jinnah – was the only one not to
be taken in by the Congress. Half a century later, the
question before the native peoples of India (the Untouchable
also called Bahujan) is the same. How should they
free themselves from the apartheid and oppression of the
caste system?
India says that
‘geographic consolidation of South Asia’ under Brahmin
supremacy (Akhand Bharat) is desirable and even
inevitable. This book brings on a single platform all the
victims of India’s imperial ambitions to say the exact
opposite - that India is not a nation. Unless India can find
a basis for a compact between its states, its peoples would
be free only if the states of India became sovereign. The
Bahujan were intimidated into accepting ‘joint
electorate’ by the twin strategy of putting the British on
the defensive (by accusing them of divide and rule) and
demonising the Muslims as communal and separatists. Hindu
India presents its polytheism as ‘tolerance’ equates it with
‘secularism’ and uses its illogic to deny human rights to
those who believe in One God – Muslims and Christians. In
carrying out pogroms against Kashmiri Muslims and Punjabi
Sikhs, it sends a chill down the spine of the Bahujan
majority (who are not Hindus) warning they would meet the
same fate if they left the fold of Hinduism in order to
escape the stranglehold of the caste system.
The struggle of
Muslims, Christians and the Sikhs in India is complementary
to that of the Bahujan; it is by wanton massacre of
religious minorities that India keeps the Bahujan
reconciled to bondage and slavery, hesitant to crystallise
and assert their separateness as nations. That is the truth
that has at long last been revealed and recognised.
The book has an
Introduction and eleven more chapters. It is very useful to
read the introduction because it links the chapters written
by eight different authors. The first five chapters are
about India. The first chapter is titled: ‘India in Search
of Imperial Destiny’. In this Usman Khalid explains how
India - that does not have a principle of national
solidarity – has also failed to develop a compact between
its peoples to underpin its unity. India defines itself as
secular in terms that spurn a ‘compact of faiths’. It has
not build a genuine ‘compact of castes’ that M.K.Gandhi
briefly held out a hope for. India could still find a basis
of political unity on the basis of ‘compact of states’ that
would entail the Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir and States of
Assam being allowed their right of separate. Since none of
the three national parties – the Congress, the BJP or the
Communists - are committed to a genuine compact of states,
internal strife in India would continue. It is for the
Bahujan parties – the longest suffering victims of
Brahmanism – to eschew imperial grandeur and allow the
captive peoples their right of self-determination.
In the Second
and the Third Chapters, the most important in the book,
V.T.Rajshekar, Editor of Dalit Voice, describes in detail
how Brahmanism – that is a non-proselytising faith – has
used its polytheism to impose its caste system on the native
peoples of India. Brahmins do not convert (that would allow
the convert to become their equal); they practise
‘statistical inclusion’ to equip themselves with instruments
to first absorb and then degrade them to make the target
community an appendage of its caste hierarchy. Hinduism has
no theology but it has one belief – that Brahmin is superior
by birth. Since all human beings are born equal, this belief
is wrong in fact and is contradicted by experience; the
practice of Untouchability is designed to sustain and
underpin his superiority. Holding the Bahujan
majority in contempt and engage in their humiliation to
please gods is the basis of Hindu culture and society. How
is one to escape the prison house of such a society?
V.T.Rajshekar reaches the same conclusion that Dr Ambedkar
reached – convert to egalitarian religions - Buddhism, Islam
or Christianity.
Multi- party
democracy has made it possible for identities other than
Hindu identity to assume electoral importance. No one party
can now form a government at the centre; it would always be
a coalition of parties including region and caste-based
parties. However, in most states there is more than one
party representing an ethnic group or caste. That permits
the Congress and the BJP to have permanent allies among low
castes and deprived ethnic groups. This has given a new
lease of life to national parties and the importance of the
caste and region vote is on the decline. It is once again
‘back to the drawing board’ situation. V.T.Rajshekar has
come up with the answer: Dalit nucleus of the Bahujan
majority should make alliances with those even more
oppressed – Muslims, Sikhs and Christians – and articulate
an Ambedkerite view of the world. This is indeed a bold new
vision of India. He holds out the hope and a promise that
Ambedkar era (Dr. B.R.Ambedkar – 1893-1956- is considered by
the Bahujan to be the ‘father of the nation’) would
begin as the Gandhi Yog (20th Century)
comes to an end.
The next Chapter
is written by Dr Gurmit Singh Aulakh, President of the
Council of Khalistan – Khalistan Government in exile. He
introduces the readers with the tenets and the history of
the Sikh faith. This is necessary because the Indian
Constitution denies them their separate identity as a faith
but recognises their language – Punjabi. They have succeeded
in getting their separate Punjab Province but Haryana and
Himachal Pradesh were separated in a manner that their
nation was split into three. To add insult to injury, their
capital Chandigarh is federal territory and they have to
share their capital with Haryana. After the failure of all
those machinations, the Indian Army carried out an assault
Durbar Sahib (Golden Temple), which is the Makkah of the
Sikhs - in June 1984. The massacre of Sikhs that followed
cast the die. The Indian propaganda that the Sikh
‘rebellion’ was crushed is convincingly debunked. He says
that the Sikh nation was declared dead twice before in
history and it rose like phoenix to regain sovereignty every
time it was declared ‘dead’. In the next Chapter by Dr
Awatar Singh Sekhon, an authority on Sikh history, he
asserts that the Sikhs are not a part of the Indian nation.
The Sikh representatives in the Indian parliament refused to
sign and endorse the Constitution that denies them a
separate identity. The assault on Durbar Sahib in June 1984
is the watershed that made Khalistan inevitable.
The Second part
of the book deals with Pakistan and Afghanistan. The first
chapter in this part is written by Syed Ali Geelani –
Chairman of All parties Hurriyet Conference of Kashmir. He
gives an accurate and authentic view of the Kashmiri
struggle for freedom. He puts the blame for the long
suffering of the people on ‘secularist’ leadership of the
Muslims in Kashmir who have been close to Hindu leaders of
the Congress Party and remain unmindful of the interests and
the aspirations of the Muslim majority. He also blames the
Pakistani leaders for being almost eager to be taken in by
India’s delaying tatics and false promises. Despite the
Kashmiri right to self-determination being better upheld by
law and power equation than of Palestine, the ineptitude of
Pakistani leaders and diplomats has robbed it of wide
international support that their struggle for freedom should
have enjoyed. However, he is confident that the Kashmiri
resistance would not give up and he urges the Government of
Pakistan to deal with Kashmir as an issue of
self-determination and not a territorial dispute.
The next Chapter
is titled ‘Two Nation Theory Revisited’. In this Usman
Khalid deals with important issues of ideology in Pakistan.
He describes the Two Nation Theory and claims wider validity
for it. He believes that it is a model polity that can
provide the rationale and the basis for all those nations
where people of several faiths speaking different languages
live together. He claims that Pakistan is founded on Islamic
statecraft; it is Darussalam where Muslims enjoy
political as well as cultural sovereignty. He believes that
the Muslims in India should join the Bahujan to
crystallise new national identities and secure their right
of national self-determination. He says that despite
difficulties Pakistan has lived up to its ‘sovereign
purpose’; it has abided by the compulsions of Islamic
Solidarity and its role has helped liberate Afghanistan and
Central Asian Republic. However, he is dissatisfied with the
resolve shown by Pakistan in the pursuit of its prime
purpose – liberation of Jammu and Kashmir. This chapter,
like this book, fills a vacuum in providing Pakistani view
of Pakistan’s purpose, its history and its objectives with a
critical eye.
Dr Mu’min
Chowdhury has written the next two chapters on the secession
of East Pakistan. All the books written on the story of
secession – whether by Indian authors or Pakistani
bureaucrats – give the Indian point of view. They either say
that it was a spontaneous reaction to misguided actions of
Yahya regime, or product of discrimination and oppression by
West Pakistan. Dr Mu’min Chowdhury disproves both the
theses. He proves that the secession was the result of
Indian Intelligence working tirelessly starting even before
Pakistan came into being. India was helped by political
ineptitude of the provincial as well as the federal
government that did not know how to deal with subversion and
treachery. Failure to deal with enemy agents among
academics, bureaucrats and journalists brought about the
secession of East Pakistan. India is still pursuing the same
themes and the same methods for subversion. He says Pakistan
seems to have learnt little from its experience. If his
advice is heeded and the revelations in this book, rather
than the Indian version of events, became a part of
political discourse in Pakistan, we would benefit from the
trauma of 1971.
Dr Syed
Inayaullah Andrabi, writing on Kashmir: the Problem and the
solution, says that the Kashmiri struggle against non-Muslim
rule started decades before 1947. He believes it would
continue indefinitely until success. He warns India as well
as Pakistan that they add insult to injury by treating the
Kashmir as a territorial dispute. By having resisted Indian
occupation continuously since 1989, the Kashmiris have
written a new chapter of history with their blood. There is
no going back now - no leader can compromise the struggle
and allow the blood of martyrs to be wasted. He says that
the Kashmiris are a part of the Pakistani nation and
Pakistan – in fact the entire Muslim Ummah – has a
duty to show solidarity with them and liberate their
territory. He believes that as long as there is a resistance
movement inside Kashmir and Pakistan remains strong in its
power and in its commitment to its role and purpose, the
people of Jammu and Kashmir are bound to secure ‘Azadi’.
He also believes that if India became a sans imperial
country by the Bahujan articulating and asserting a
new vision of India, the Kashmiri struggle for freedom would
be facilitated.
The last chapter
is written by Abidullah Jan on ‘Union of Pakistan and
Afghanistan: impossible or inevitable’. His thesis is very
new, very convincing and very exciting. He says that
Afghanistan and Pakistan have been under the sphere of
influence of opposite camps during the Cold War. Afghanistan
had its eyes on Pashtun inhabited areas of Pakistan. Its
imperial view of itself (as successor of Durrani Empire)
drove Afghanistan into the Soviet camp. Pakistan, in
contrast, is driven by the compulsions of ‘Islamic
solidarity’ that is the polity of Pakistan. It does not know
how to deal with a Muslim country that considers it an
enemy. The fallout of the Afghan hostility in internal
politics of Pakistan – ethnic nationalism – is equally
perplexing. On top of that, the American ‘think tanks’ keep
making dire predictions that Pakistan and Afghanistan would
fracture along ethnic seams. The thesis of Abidullah Jan is
that there is bound to be an equal and opposite popular
response to the outside forces bent upon the break up of the
two countries. That response would inevitably be the
unification of both countries that have bonds of common
faith, shared history and culture, and economic
interdependence. Pakistan and Afghanistan have more in
common with each other than with countries the American
‘think tanks’ would like to hand over their territory to. He
believes that when going gets tough, the Americans are
likely to make peace with ambient forces that want the union
of the two countries rather than continue to pursue the
objective of their disintegration. The Union of Pakistan and
Afghanistan, he say succinctly, is the policy of neither but
the destiny of both.
The Two Nation
Theory, far from being dead, is the philosophy that makes
nations out of captive peoples long used to internal
oppression or foreign rule. The Muslims of South Asia
realised that they were a separate nation and eventually
decided they wanted a country of their own. The entire focus
of the politics of the Congress Party shifted to
discrediting the Muslim demand for Pakistan and their leader
– Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The anti Muslim League
campaign by the Congress was determined and fierce. It had
two effects: 1) it made the Muslims equally determined and
unflinching of any sacrifice in their struggle for Pakistan;
2) the heat generated so intimidated all the other nations
and stake holders – the Untouchables, the Sikhs, non-Hindu
tribal peoples and princely states - that they gave up their
legal and national rights and virtually merged their
identity into that of the Hindus. British India was
partitioned on the basis of the Two-Nation Theory wherein
the Muslims were one nation and everybody else was the other
nation. Described as ‘everybody else’ India has no principle
of national solidarity; India defines itself as ‘nemesis of
Islam’.
This is a wholly
different view to the one articulated by the Brahmin
intelligentsia that does not only dominate political
discourse in India but also in Pakistan. The objective of
this book is to present the liberating forces operating in
South Asia as such - Islam as the theology of liberation
that promises to liberate every people (not just the
Muslims) and Pakistan as the model of a modern and universal
polity that can help all the captive peoples of India to be
free of internal oppression and international imperialism
and make South Asia – a region tyrannised for so long – a
bulwark against tyranny.
Dr. Kaniz F.Yusuf
Former Vice Chancellor Quaid e Azam University
Islamabad, Pakistan
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