December 30, 2006

 In 1940 Jinnah once the ‘Ambassador of Hindu Muslim unity’, himself, installed the idea of India’s partition by launching the Pakistan Resolution, on the basis of ‘two nation theory’. His action compelled large no of scholars, like Dr Rafiq Zakria,( author of Jinnah :The Man Who Divided India) to argue that in the final outcome Jinnah alone was responsible for India’s partition, because in 1929-30 his self pride and ‘ego’ was hurt when Gandhi began to dominate the Indian political scene and Congress rejected Jinnah’s Fourteen Point constitutional demands for the Muslims.

Hence Jinnah in the ‘midst of his political wilderness’ and sheer frustration returned from London to organize the Muslim League as the ‘instrument of aggressive Muslim separatism’ with the single intention ‘to do everything in his power to divide Hindus and Muslims ’. From 1934 onwards, the scholar stresses, Jinnah’s policy was no ‘settlement ‘and ‘no cooperation’ . He was ‘hell bent’ on showing Gandhi and the Congress that he and his followers could ‘destroy their dream of a united India.’

It may be right to say that Jinnah, in 1934, was in the ‘midst of his political wilderness’, however, the facts inform us that the former was quite passionate to ‘dig the bitter past’ and reach an amicable political settlement like the Lucknow Pact between the Muslims and the Hindus. Similarly in 1935, instead of erecting permanent barriers between the Muslims and the Hindus Jinnah tried to convince all those Muslims who were suspicious of Gandhi and Congress’s motives to establish a Ram Raj in the following words, ‘it is not going to be a Hindu Government, but an Indian Government in which the Muslims will not only have a fair and just treatment but also that they will be treated as the equals of the Hindus’. During 1935-37 he personally requested Gandhi to exert his ‘great influence’ on the Congress to conduct an ‘honourable settlement’ between the Hindus and Muslims. But Mr. Gandhi quite interestingly rejected any such Hindu Muslim settlement, not due to any political reasons but, because ‘only I see no day light’ in such political compromises. Jinnah again tried to persuade Gandhi by providing him the support of ‘ The eighty million Muslims … to fight for the freedom of mother India’ if the majority assured them that the rights of minorities would be ‘secured in any scheme of a democratic constitution’. Gandhi again discouraged the scheme by saying that he had no time for it , and the latter must have consulted Mr. Azad, whom, Gandhi considered his ‘guide’ for the Hindu Muslim question.

The above stated attitude of Gandhi was quite consistent with his traditional political strategy viz the communal issue i.e., no compromise on power through dialogue as the national policy to secure some class interests. And since his incapability to resolve the communal conflict at the Round Table Conferences (1930-32) ; and the grant of political rights to the Muslims and the Untouchables by the British Communal Award 1934, Gandhi became more belligerent to settle any communal issue through negotiations and pacts. He declared communal issues irrelevant and advised the Sikhs, Muslims and others to agree unconditionally on the future constitution of India without asking for any communal or political concessions from the Hindu majority. With such a ‘farsighted national’ policy Gandhi would have hardly been persuaded by Jinnah or any other leader of minorities to conduct a political deal that could pacify insecurities among the minorities and tie up their welfare with the unity of India. It is in this context that one can argue that Jinnah only played a role in India’s partition after 1940 by organizing and leading the disappointed and frustrated Muslims towards separation. But the root cause behind this Muslim resentment and frustration which the former led seemed to be the direct result of the politics of caste orthodoxy , propagated by Gandhi and implicated through the two and a half years of ‘one party rule’ of the Congress.

As early as 1917 the realist and moderate leadership of Congress applied the real political approach to the anxieties and reservations of Muslim minority by conducting a quid pro-quo type power sharing deal (Lucknow Pact) with the League. The pact by accepting the special arrangements for the Muslims acknowledged their separate identity. It was the masterpiece of statesmanship by Tilak and Jinnah, and the latter, due to his peace efforts for cementing the relations between the two warring communities received the title of ‘an Ambassador to Hindu Muslim unity’ The continuation of the Lucknow Pact spirit could have discouraged the circumstances that led to the League’s demand for the creation of Muslim land in 1940. But this did not happen because Congress in 1919-20 was taken over by the caste oriented politics of Mahatma Gandhi. A disciple of Gohkle and a successful mass leader of the Indians in South Africa, Gandhi began to dominate the Indian political scene in a manner unparalleled in British-Indian history. Though trained in the western education and traits, Gandhi’s own obsession with the principle of political mobilization under the name of ahimsa or non-violence, quickly took him away from the politics of moderation. Key to his strategy was to inspire and recruit the bulk of emotionally spirited masses, under the authority of religion, in order to paralyze the government at an extent to achieve political concessions. Keeping this logic in mind Mahatma appealed to the religious sentiments of masses, presenting himself as a saint cum politician and in this way claimed to be the ‘Great Soul’ of India. Hindu-Muslim unity for Mahatma was as important a mission as Swaraj or freedom for India, but in the end he failed to preserve it , mainly because, intentionally or unintentionally, he exposed himself as a “sanatanist” (orthodox) Hindu, who aimed to universalize Hinduism with its strategically upper caste serving ideology of caste. For Nehru Gandhi’s Hindu mantra ‘with our (Hindu) background and tradition was the right policy for us (Hindus)’.But since the Muslims did not share Gandhi and Nehru’s historic- religious past, Gandhi’s obsession to revive ‘Ram Raja’ as an ultimate goal for India, quite unfortunately appeared to them as a desire of the Hindu who wanted to revive the golden Hindu age of Ram; the age in which the Cow was worshipped as god, and where the caste system did not have any active political role for lower and foreign castes.

For centuries the Hindu caste system, that was derived from sacred Hindu text of Vedas and Upanishads, has been the root cause of India’s weakness. It, by investing power permanently in the hands of the upper caste Brahmins and their strategic allies the Kshatriyas (the administrators of military) and Vaishyas(the caretakers of money and finances) , stands for a complete loss of identifications between the upper castes and the lower caste masses. Contrary to follow the realist path of his predecessors like Tilak, Gandhi carried the pro-Brahaminic caste agenda, with a two fold policy to restrict power to the hands of the upper ruling castes by implementing a policy of no consolidation with other interest groups on the basis of political concessions on one hand ; and secondly, by making obsessive attempts to present the Congress as the sole representative of entire nation in order to become the sole successor of colonial India. And in order to implement and justify the above political strategy he used the logic and power of orthodox Hinduism and its hereditary caste ideology. This political policy was bound to cause frictions , disunity and weakness in the Indian freedom movement led by the Congress. This had direct implications on the Muslim of India, majority of which included a body of converts from the lower caste Hindus and those were treated no better than the Untouchables in almost every part of the country.

Following the politics of caste, Gandhi declared that ‘in caste system occupation is determined by heredity’. That means regardless of how talented a person may be , if he was born in a lower caste he was to follow the ‘profession of his forefathers, i.e., to serve the upper caste Hindus with his ‘bodily labour’. For the same reason Gandhi refused to provide assurance to the Lower caste regarding their presentation in the future Indian Cabinet because it would ‘harm the (interests of the ) country’. Similarly the matrimonial relations between the upper and the lower caste could destroy the rigid supremacy of the upper castes, hence though Gandhi declared untouchablity as an evil but he also insisted that Swaraj (independence) would only be achieved if Indians remained opposed to ‘inter-marriage’ and ‘inter-dining’. The lower castes can acquire education, but as far as ‘the way of earning, his living is concerned’ Gandhi’s decision was that ‘ he must follow the occupation of the caste to which he belongs’

Similarly following the creed of caste hierarchy and in a quest to avert mass eruption against the traditional social order he propagated that the prestige and powers of the feudalism should be retained even at the expense of the just rights of peasants. For Gandhi the ‘social boycott’ of the peasants against the cruelty of landlords is an ‘instrument of violence’. However he did encourage the peasants to cooperate with the Congress when it asked them to ‘suspend the payments of taxes to Government’ at the same time warning them that there is no justification ‘at any stage of non-Cooperation (that) we would seek to deprive the Zamindars (landlords) of their rent’ , no matter how harsh the latter was viz a viz the peasants. It is the Peasants who have to sacrifice and must ‘abide by the terms of their agreement with the Zamindars whether such is written or inferred from custom. Where a custom or even a written contract is bad, they may not try to uproot it (contract or power) by violence or without previous reference to the Zamindars (landlords).’

Gandhi as a true caste orthodox had genuine fears to justify his overwhelming emphasis on the caste discriminations. The new democratic political structure , introduced by the British government , sowed the seed of competitive politics in India by transforming both the Muslims and the Lower Hindu class into the serious contenders of power. This is a fact that prior to the advent of Gandhi (1920) many parts of the country witnessed the united and common struggle of the anti-Brahmin groups, consisting of the Muslims and Lower classes headed by Dr. Ambedkar, struggling for the homogenization of power through the open protest against the caste prejudices. It is interesting to note that this minority alliance consisted of the Muslims and the Lower class , formed the majority of the population and hence not only posed as a political blow to the supremacy of Congress but also rendered Congress a microscopic minority of the upper and middle caste Hindus .The anti-caste Muslims-Lower class alliance described Congress headed freedom movement as Hindu, upper castiest and Brahaminic; and the latter in reply branded both the lower castes and the Muslims as minorities, and communalists or pro –imperialists. The situation was also a shock to the Congress’s claim that she alone represented all the communities of India, who said to include the Muslims and hence the government should negotiate power with her rather than the All India Muslim League or any other Muslim party. More over the success of this alliance would make the lower classes free and independent of the upper castes and as well as seriously curtailing the vote bank of the Congress on permanent basis. No doubt the continuity of this situation was alarming for the ruling classes of Congress, as it could potentially reverse the balance of power between the majority and minority. Against this bitter reality Gandhi an upper caste Hindu, and a strategic ally of Brahmin Nehru’s and the Hindu Capitalists emerged as a saviour of the ruling community. At the critical juncture of the Round Table Conference (1930) he passionately claimed that he in his person to be the ‘sole spokesman’ of all the communities of India, with the insistence that the Congress alone that stood for the Sikhs, the Muslims and the untouchables; hence the British Government should settle the terms for the transfer of power only with the Congress headed by him. In order to win over the votes and hearts of the lower class masses he elevated their spiritual status; by declaring them the ‘children of God’; by describing untouchablity as an evil ; and by launching for them a ‘Temple and School Entry Movement’ . But given this he kept them socially and politically under the sovereignty and mastery of the upper and the middle classes of Hindus, headed, at the time, by the Congress. Since a lower caste labourer could never execute the job of a Brahmin, according to the caste ideology of Gandhi, and a Brahmin could never find himself in the position of a lower caste labourer , in Gandhi’s concept of the ‘Indian family’, the political and economic patterns of superiority and inferiority were bound to remain .

The above stated strategy, i.e. universalization of caste Hinduism, on one hand made him the undisputed Mahatma of Hindu India, and on the other it successfully broke the momentum of the anti Brahmin movement led by the Muslim-Lower caste alliance. But it left serious implications on the Muslims, of whom many were converted from lower castes. Muslims who already suspected the Hindu majoritarian rule and their habit of absorption, in the wake of universalization of caste based society, anticipated the decline of their own status and prestige as a first rate nation. Things had become more complex because in the view of caste Hindus, all Muslims, high and low, like the lower caste , were polluted and held an inferior status in the socio –religious hierarchy. This situation caused disparities between the Muslims as a whole and upper caste Hindus throughout India, particularly in Bengal, Malabar and in the Punjab. It had also left Indian polity with an open question that; how could the leader of the majority with an overwhelming obsession with orthodox Hinduism ever be in a position to deal the other minorities like the Muslims equally and democratically?

The fatal implementation of Gandhi’s politics of caste orthodoxy can be observed through the Congress rule (1937-39) in India. For the political realists ranging from Sir Coupland to Ambedkar and Sir Moon, to S.K. Majumdar the League-Congress Coalition Ministries was important because despite its weakness, the League not only represented the majority of the Muslims but was still the only party capable of organizing a ‘common Muslim opposition throughout India.’ One can argue that the formation of coalition ministries particularly in the U.P. where the League was strongest could have transformed the decades of bitterness into a strategic friendship. But the Congress chose the opposite track. The Congress offered to take two or three ministers of the League in the U.P, only if the League submerged herself into the Congress by becoming the member of the Congress, and that the Muslim League group in the U.P. Provincial Legislature should cease to function as a separate group, and that the Muslim Parliamentary Board in the U.P. would be dissolved. For B.R Ambedkar no political party could ever accept such humiliating conditions. But the significant thing for us is that once in power the Congress’s solution to the communal problem was to dissolve the existence of the ‘minority’ by merging it into the majority and in this way the problem would naturally cease to exist.

In the quest to destabilize the Muslim colour of the Muslim League, Congress decided to contact the Muslim masses directly under an ill fated “mass contact” campaign . Congress maintained that there was no religious or “communal issues” at all between the Hindus and the Muslims ; and the real problem was economic ; and that not League but only Congress was in a position to protect the poor Muslim peasantry from poverty and economic pains. This campaign pushed significant no of Muslim clerics to join the League, since in the wake a Muslim mass contact movement by a Hindu organization, they foresaw a threat to Islam and their own religious authority over the ordinary Muslims. The stronger the Congress’s insistence on democracy under its ‘Mass Contact’ movement the greater became the Muslims anxieties of the Hindu Raj. And the more aggressive the tone of the Congress on this issue, hence, the greater the power of the Muslim League grew. The Muslim League took full advantage of the situation. Jinnah painted the mass contact movement as an attempt by the Congress to ‘weaken and divide’ and ‘break the Muslims’, and recruited thousands of orthodox and non orthodox Muslims in the Muslim League.

In cultural and social affairs the Congress, under the instructions of Gandhi, introduced two outstanding campaigns — Vidya Mandirs scheme and Wardha Educational scheme, along Hindu lines and under Hindu names. The Vidya Mandirs was denounced by the Muslims since it was not possible for them to get education in the temples where the idles are worshipped. The Muslims also complained about the Wardha Educational scheme, which aimed to instil the superiority of Hindu culture, Hindu traditions, and the greatness of Mahatma Gandhi, into Muslim minds. In text books the religious teachings of Muslims had been wiped with the introduction of Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence and the defining of Muslim heroes as the invaders of India. On the educational issues the resentment among the Muslims was so strong that they brushed aside Muslim League’s advices and launched a direct action against the Vidya Mandirs Scheme.

Last but not the least the Congress set up a state with in state type ‘parallel system’ of government, in which the civil bureaucracy, the provincial ministers, and the members of the legislatures were made only answerable to the Congress ‘High Command’ The Congress party flag was declared a national flag; and the anti Muslim song Bande Mataram was adopted as a national anthem. The whole atmosphere gave the impression of a totalitarian regime in which rule of law was overridden by the setting up of the Congress police stations in districts, where the private police of the Congress started investigating the crimes2. More over the descion to set up a Military Department by the official Congress ministry of the U.P with the intention to raise a militant force of 500,000 Hindus, ‘strong to be brigaded with other provincial forces in a great ‘National Army’ of Hindus, appeared to the Muslims and other minorities as if the Hindus were a ruling caste and the others merely their subjects. For the purpose of fairness however, it must be admitted that the administrative grievances had also been raised by the Hindus of the Muslim ruled provinces. But given this it is also a fact that where the Hindus on the basis of their over all permanent numerical strength felt more secure and satisfied, from 1937 onwards the Muslims became more insecure, more frustrated and more concerned about their future which was dwindling under the Hindu raj of Gandhi’s India, for an indefinite period.

The countrywide Muslim reaction against this contradictory and partisan policy of the Congress changed the course of Indian history. Prior to the Elections of 1936 the League was only popular in the Hindu-majority areas. But the expulsion of the League from the national course had convinced the Muslims, rightly or wrongly, that they had been deliberately kept outside the power deal distinctly because of their religion. It also placed the Muslims into a dilemma that if absorption and not partnership was the political pattern of the Congress , then what would be the condition of the Muslims when an All India Federal Government came into being? The fear of the Hindu Raj, which was earlier reflected in the policies and personality of Mahatma Gandhi, was materializing, and sparked fears among the Muslim camps. This fear compelled the Muslim Chief Ministers of the Punjab, Bengal and Assam, who hitherto opposed the communal politics of Muslim League, to join the All India Muslim League with their millions of Muslim voters. It made Jinnah the sole spokesman of the Indian Muslims and turned the League into a power she had never reckoned before.

Congress attitude

The above attitude of the Congress also provided an opportunity to the Muslim League to formulate the Peer Pur Report in which the injustices and oppression of the Congress against the minorities were presented with an emotional appeal to the religious sentiments of the Muslims. This may be an exaggerative account but it is also a fact that from 1937 onwards the Congress dealt with the social and cultural issues from a Hindu perspective. Regardless of the democratic outlook of the Congress, for the politically literate Muslims the Hindu rule of the Congress meant the dominance of the Hindu merchant class, the ascendancy of Hindus in employment and, the monopoly of Hindu industrialists and money lenders in every commercial avenue. The ‘democratic’ India under Congress meant the political eclipse of the Muslim politics.

But one still believes that prior to the Lahore Resolution there was a roam for rapprochement between the two warring communities. Being a leader of the majority community, Gandhi hold such an influence on the will and actions of his co-religionists that according to Robert Payne, if he would have ordered Indians to march towards Himalayas, millions of Indians would have followed him. By wielding such an overwhelming authority on the majority , he emerged as the most important force who could settle the terms with minorities. But in 1938 when the Muslims approached Mahatma Gandhi to ask the Congress for a political deal with the Muslims, the latter replied that he could not exert any pressure on the Congress for any settlement because ‘I do not represent the Congress’. Now the above statement was as contradictory as the politics of Gandhi itself. It tried to explain two things that either he was powerless to control his Congress or he merely acted upon his traditional policy of one party one rule by denouncing the political concessions to the Muslim minority.

Though not an ambitious man in an ordinary sense, Gandhi did not seem to be free of ambition itself. Gandhi himself in his own person, reflected a tradition of wielding power which could hardly be described as democratic. He was the ‘permanent super President’ of Congress who was answerable to none except ‘his inner voice’. With the strategic use of his superficial ideas, he gained a prophet-like hold on his colleagues and the masses of India; Mahatma, on the dint of his purified and spiritual reasoning, was a ‘law unto himself and so he would remain to the end of his life’. The Congress under him ceased to be a democratic organization, for Gandhi was no democrat, as Mahatma confessed himself, he was a dictator, and Congress under him was merely a one man show. His complete monopoly over the Congress could be evaluated from the fact that , according to the member of the Working Committee of the Congress Mr. Ram Manohar Lohia, the Congress could not pass a single resolution or decision without his consent, and if for some reason a decision was reached against his wishes or without his consent he always intervened and used his ‘kings veto’ to compel the Congress to ‘do what Gandhi wished it to do it’3. The economic plan of Das (to redress the financial anxieties of minorities)and a Real politick approach of S. Bose towards the resolvement of Hindu-Muslim dispute did not succeed because Gandhi did not accept them. The Congress lost realist nationalists like Jinnah, S. Iyenger, F.K.Nariman, and S.Bose who were eligible to solve the communal problem of India as early as 1920s, because they criticized Gandhi’s utopian ideals and in this way posed a threat to Mahatma’s dominant position. Hence they either had to leave or suffer expulsion from the Congress commanded by Gandhi. Though It is hard to say that Gandhi was against the national interests of India but equally it is easy to argue, that since dictatorship is an absolute antithesis to democracy and democratic alliances, Mahatma Gandhi who was not a politician in the ordinary sense and was rather a prophet of caste Hinduism - an autocrat, he might never have been in a position to resolve the sensitive and dedicated task of a diplomatic settlement between the two warring nations of India in order to prevent the partition. It was also natural that with such an autocratic and centralized outlook and ‘permanent super President’; the Congress was unable to exhaust the political criteria of diplomacy, rapprochement, or a conciliatory attitude towards the minority, which later culminated into the demand for the partition of India.

Thus in Gandhi’s politics of unrelated ness towards Muslims and his strategic use of religion and caste ideology to preserve the traditional balance of power in favour of Congress , the Muslims saw the decline of their socio-political status from the first rate to the second rate community. The Gandhian solution to the Hindu-Muslim problem appeared to be communal. His efforts to emphasize religious and moral unity, with the ambition to monopolize power, appeared to the Muslims as an attempt to depoliticize them, and as a result they became increasingly hostile and antagonistic. This antagonism flourished and nurtured between the two communities, from 1920 to 1947 to such an extent that Ambedkar described the whole phase as civil war between the Hindus and Muslims interrupted by small intervals of peace .

Where Gandhi’s nationalism identified itself with that of Hindus, Jinnah in 1940 came forward with the Muslim demand for Pakistan as an alternative to Gandhi’s nationalism.

In the 1940’s, Gandhi had forced him to use religion as a force to safeguard the Muslim nation in the Congress dominated game of power politics. He declared the Congress as the instrument to impose the Hindu Raj at the expense of the Muslims. And he did not have to struggle hard to prove the anti Muslim designs of the Congress to the Muslims, and merely cited the references and incidents of the Congress authoritarian rule to prove his point. He accused the Congress of doing ‘nothing to insure security for the Muslims’ , and openly denounced Gandhi as the one man responsible for converting the Congress ‘into an instrument for the revival of Hinduism’ for the establishment of ‘Hindu Raj’. Next came the famous Lahore or Pakistan Resolution for the establishment of the ‘independent states’ where the Muslims were in the majority. Jinnah’s demand was based on the ‘two nation theory’, i.e., the Muslims and Hindus were two different nations on the basis of their distinct culture and religion. And since the Muslims ‘could neither get justice nor fair play’ from the majority, and therefore needed a separate land to practise their distinct code of life in accordance with the principles of Islam.

From 1940 onwards Muslim League and Jinnah did not reject Gandhi’s use of religious language, they rather appreciated the honesty of the latter in presenting Congress as a Hindu body and in this way justified the creation of Pakistan on

the basis of the ‘two- nation theory’.

— The writer teaches International Relations at Government College University Lahore and authored two books: Gandhi and the Partition of India (2005) and International Relations and Political Theory (2006).

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