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June 16, 2002
EXCERPTS: Right, not favour
Dr Mohammad Shah writes about the growth of pan-Islamic sentiments in Muslim Bengal of the pre-1947 era
The British and European attitude towards the interests of the Muslims in general, and Indian Muslims in particular, shocked the Muslims and turned them into staunch Pan-Islamists. But when, due to Western domination, Pan-Islamism became an almost unachievable goal, the Indian Muslims turned to territorial nationalism to achieve independence from colonial rule.
The Muslim press believed that the demand for privileges for the Indian Muslims was a matter of right, not favour. The Mihir-o-Sudhakar viewed the establishment of the Muslim League as a measure to achieve the political unity of the Muslims of different parts of India to promote their well-being. It called upon the Indian Muslims to rise and promote this objective of the League. In March 1908 it appealed to all Muslims, including the educated ones, the pleaders, and the public servants to work for the advancement of their community in all spheres. In May 1908, referring to the progress of the Hindus, it deplored the dearth of highly educated Muslims ready to take up the Muslim cause, and appealed to them to lose no time in taking up the cause of their national advancement.
The Muslim press played a great role in urging the Muslim community to uplift itself from its backwardness. In a letter to the Soltan of June 26, 1908 one Khademul Islam exhorted all Muslims to shake off their lethargy, do their best to encourage industry, the arts and the sciences and to make their own community truly great. He believed that a nation’s greatness lay in its commerce and the Muslims should have, therefore, promoted the growth of commerce among themselves.
The Mihir-o-Sudhakar urged the newly established Anjuman-i-Mussalman Bangla (headquarters at Murshidabad) not to confine its activity to presenting addresses to high officials and sending up memorials to the government praying for favours, but to seek to raise subscriptions for establishing hostels and funds for scholarships, and to set up more madressahs and maktabs with a view to popularizing education among the Muslims to protect them from the “influences which were working for their ruin”, and to act as a unifying force for the entire community.
The Comrade maintained that any true patriot of India working for the evolution of Indian nationality would have to accept the communal individuality of the Muslims as the basis of his constructive effort. It termed those who had gone about proclaiming that the Muslims should join the Congress as ‘soft-headed’ and ‘self-advertising’, because the government had revoked the Partition of Bengal and because Persia and Turkey were in trouble.
It blamed the London branch of the All-India Muslim League for talking of closer cooperation between the Hindus and Muslims, because the Muslims of Tripoli and Persia had been the victims of European aggression and thus the issue of communal individuality of the Indian Muslims was being confused with Indian nationality. The paper asked whether the Hindu ‘communal patriots’ (who maintained the idea that the Muslims were foreigners, and did not belong to India) had become less militant than before and had they grown more mindful of Muslim interests, and had the issues which divided the two communities lost their intensity and meaning. The paper emphasized that the communal sentiments must change and identical interests must emerge before the Hindus and Muslims could be welded into a united nation.
The Mohammadi supported the proposals of the London Muslim League to foster good feelings between Hindus and Muslims and to form an Advisory Council composed of representatives of both communities to take part in the deliberations between the Muslim League and the Indian National Congress. But it refused to give up the sacrifice of cows on the occasion of Eid (the festival of sacrifice) in response to Hindu pressure.
Although the hostile European attitude towards Turkey during the Balkan Wars and the Hindu sympathy for the Turks during that crisis promoted Hindu-Muslim cooperation in political matters, some leaders from Bombay and Sindh took exception to the All-India Muslim League’s conduct in following the lead of the Congress in political agitation. One of them emphasized that the Muslims should work in cooperation with the Hindus, but always with a keen eye on their own rights and interests, and the time had not yet come for the Muslims to stand on the same political platform as the Hindus.
Excerpts from
Pan-Islamism in India and Bengal
By Dr Mohammad Shah
Royal Book Company BG-5, Rex Centre Basement, Zaibunnisa Street,
Karachi-74400
Tel: 021-568 4244
Email:
royalbook@hotmail.com
ISBN 969-407-269-7
218pp. Rs495
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