State of knowledge of Muslims at the Partition

  

 

The 1954 Justice Munir Commission Report on the anti-Ahmadi Riots in Punjab in 1953 was signed by Justices Muhammad Munir and M.R. Kayani.   There may have been other contributors (e.g., Justice Din Muhammad) but they are not acknowledged in the report.

 

Per Wiki, Munir (1895-1979) obtained a Master’s in English from the Government College, Lahore, and L.L.B. from the Punjab University Law College.   Kayani (1902-1962) passed the matriculation examination from Islamia High School, Kohat; did his F.A. from Edwards College, Peshawar, and a master’s degree in English from the Government College, Lahore.

 

The learned Justices found it necessary to address the question of whether the State of Pakistan, still writing its Constitution, should take cognizance of doctrinal differences between the Islamic orthodoxy and the Ahmadis, and declare the Ahmadis to be a non-Muslim minority.

 

Their report contains the following passage:

 

Throughout the three thousand years over which political thought extends, and

such thought in its early stages cannot be separated from religion, two questions have invariably presented themselves for consideration : —

 

(1) what are the precise functions of the State? and

(2) who shall control the State?

 

If the true scope of the activities of the State is the welfare, temporal or spiritual

or both, of the individual, then the first question directly gives rise to the bigger question:

 

What is the object of human life and the ultimate destiny of man? On this, widely

divergent views have prevailed, not at different times but at one and the same time. 

 

The pygmies of equatorial West Africa still believe that their God Komba has sent them into the forest to hunt and dance and sing. The Epicureans meant very much the same when they said that the object of human life is to drink and eat and be merry, for death denies such pleasures. 

 

The utilitarians base their institutions on the assumption that the object of

human life is to experience pleasant sensations of mind and body, irrespective of what is to come hereafter. 

 

The Stoics believed in curbing and reducing all physical desires, and Diogenes found a tub good enough to live in.

 

German philosophers think that the individual lives for the State and that therefore the object of life is service of the State in all that it might decide to undertake and achieve. 

 

Ancient Hindu philosophers believed in the logic of the fist with its natural consequence, the law of natural selection and the struggle for survival. 

 

The Semitic theory of State, whether Jewish, Christian or Islamic, has always held that the object of human life is to prepare ourselves for the next life and that, therefore, prayer and good works are the only object of life. 

 

Greek philosophers beginning with Socrates thought that the object of human life was to engage in philosophical meditation with a view to discovering the great truths that lie in nature and that the business of the others is to feed the philosophers engaged in that undertaking.

 

Islam emphasises the doctrine that life in this world is not the only life given to man but that eternal life begins after the present existence comes to an end, and that the status of a human being in the next world will depend upon his beliefs and actions in this world. As the present life is not an end in itself but merely a means to an end, not only the individual but also the State, as opposed to the secular theory which bases all political and economic institutions on a disregard of their consequences on the next life, should strive for human conduct which ensures for a person better status in the next world. According to this theory Islam is the religion which seeks to attain that object.

 

 

Does this statement “Ancient Hindu philosophers believed in the logic of the fist with its natural consequence, the law of natural selection and the struggle for survival” reflect the actual knowledge of two eminent jurists (at some time, each was a Chief Justice of Pakistan)  or merely their disdain for anything Hindu? 

 

These two jurists received as good an education as any in British India.  If this was the state of their knowledge, it raises the question – if they, and by implication most other Muslims, had better knowledge of their Hindu neighbors, would history have been different?   If it was disdain for Hindus based on more complete knowledge, why was it necessary to include this sentence in their report?

Origin of a story: The Afridis and the leader Inquilab

The call for Purna Swaraj  in 1929 led to enthusiastic participation in the subsequent Non-Cooperation movement.  One story in modern histories that emerges from the North-West Frontier Province from that time is as follows (I learned of it on twitter from @LotusTile):

Though Ghaffar Khan's own movement was confined to the settled districts of Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan and Hazara, there were also a series of tribal incursions in the latter part of 1930 against which aerial bombardment was freely used.  The tribal raiders this time significantly refrained from looting villages, and with moving simplicity raised demands for the release of Badshah Khan, 'Malang Baba' (the 'naked fakir', Gandhi) and 'Inquilab' (they had heard the slogan Inquilab Zindabad, and had assumed 'Inquilab' to be another great leader in prison).

This above is from "Modern India 1885-1947" by Sumit Sarkar,  1989.  The source of this charming story is not given.

A search for an earlier source, leads one to "Pilgrimage for Peace - Gandhi & Frontier Gandhi among N.W.F. Pathans", by Pyarelal (1950).

There he writes, quoting a few phrases from Collin Davies, The Problem of the North-West Frontier, 1890-1908:

Round the Khyber and to the south live the much maligned Afridis whom circumstances have forced to become "distrustful of all mankind".  Once, however, this distrust is removed, the Afridi is said to be capable of the greatest devotion, and "may turn out to be your staunchest friend".  In appearance lean and wiry, "his eagle eye, proud bearing and light step" bespeak a freedom born of his wind-swept mountain glens.  The Afridis played a very important part during the two Afghan Wars and during the Civil Disobedience days of 1930, when the brutalities perpetrated on the Khudai Khidmatgars in Peshawar and the other parts of the Settled Districts caused a deep stir among them.

Pyarelal ends the paragraph with a footnote:

There was a delectable story told about them at the time of the Gandhi-Irwin Truce, illustrating their simple faith.  In the conference with the Political authorities their 'terms of peace' were stated to be release of:

            (i) Badshah Khan (Abdul Ghaffar Khan)
            (ii) Malang Baba (Naked Fakir, i.e., Gandhiji), and
            (iii) Inquilab (Revolution)....(Inquilab Zindabad — Long Live the Revolution —being a universal, popular slogan those days, they equated it with some patriotic individual whom the British Government had imprisoned! )

Pyarelal was much closer to these events, but still, this is written in 1950.  Is there anything closer to contemporary?  Further search leads one to "The White Sahibs in India", by Reginald Reynolds (1937).  Reynolds writes:

Mr. Brailsford has written of the "virtual unanimity" of the Indian people in the Civil Disobedience campaign of 1930-31..........

Mr. Brailsford also refers to the omnipresence of Gandhi's photograph (though frequently made illegal).  He found it even "in the wattled hut of an aboriginal tribesman, so poor that he owned nothing else, save his tools and his earthen pots".  Mr. Verrier Elwin, who had long sought for a man who had never heard of Gandhi, found one eventually who proved to have been stone deaf for twenty years.[43]   The present author's experiences in 1930 were similar, and Mr. Horace Alexander, returning to India after two and a half years, was startled at the change.  "Nationalism," he said, "is manifest everywhere."

The endnote [43] reads:

Lessons from the Jungle, p. 132.  Mr. Elwin did, however, eventually find some aboriginals who thought that Gandhi was something to eat.  In an unpublished letter he has recorded an encounter with an Afridi on the frontier.   This man knew of Gandhi, whom he called the Malang (Saint) but thought there was also another great leader in India called Inquilab (Revolution!).

Verrier Elwin was certainly in a position to narrate this story to Gandhi and his entourage.  Had he found the Inquilab misapprehension to be common among Afridis, he would have certainly noted it.  My current guess is that Verrier Elwin lies at the root of the story, which has been embroidered with the telling.  Of course, one could perhaps find official British reports which talk of the Afridis' demands, but those are, at present, beyond my reach.

The End of the Indian National Congress

This below via gandhi-manibhavan.org
Also found in Volume 98 of"The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Electronic Book), New Delhi, Publications Division Government of India, 1999, 98 volumes".
Footnotes from the Electronic Book appear at the bottom of this post.

Articles By Gandhi
His Last Will And Testament
January 29, 1948

This constitution was drafted by Gandhiji for the Congress on the eve of his assassination. His intention was to show how the Congress which was till now mainly concerned with achieving political independence might convert itself into an association for the Service of the People (Lok Sevak Sangh), and work for the establishment of a nonviolent society.

---

NEW DELHIJanuary 29, 1948

Though split into two, India having attained political independence through means devised by the Indian National Congress, the Congress in its present shape and form, i.e., as a propaganda vehicle and parliamentary machine, has outlived its use. India has still to' attain social, moral and economic independence in terms of its seven hundred thousand villages as distinguished from its cities and towns. The struggle for the ascendency of 'civil over military power is bound to take place in India's progress towards its democratic goat It must be kept out of unhealthy competition with political parties and communal bodies. For these and other similar reasons, the A. I. C. C. resolves to disband the existing Congress organization and flower into a Lok Sevak Sangh under the following rules with power to alter them as occasion may demand.

Every panchayat of five adult men or women being villagers or village-minded shall form a unit.

Two such contiguous panchayats shall form a working party under a leader elected from among themselves.

When there are one hundred such panchayats, the fifty first grade leaders shall elect from among themselves a second 'grade leader and so on, the first grade leaders meanwhile working under the second grade leader. 

Parallel groups of two hundred panchayats shall continue to be formed till they ,cover. the whole of India, each succeeding group of panchayats electing a second grade leader after the manner of the first. All second grade leaders shall serve jointly for the whole of India and severally for their respective areas. The second grade leader may elect, whenever they deem necessary, from among them- selves a chief who will, during pleasure, regulate and command all the groups.

(As the final formation of provinces or districts is still in state of flux, no attempt has been made to divide this group of servants into provincial or District Councils, and jurisdiction over the whole of India has been vested in the group or groups that may have been formed at any time. It should be noted that this body of servants derive their authority or power from service ungrudgingly and wisely done to their master, the whole of India).

1. Every worker shall be a habitual wearer of khadi made from self-spun yarn or certified by the A.l.S.A. and must be a teetotaller. If a Hindu, he must have abjured untouchability in any shape or form in his own person or in his family and must be a believer in the ideal of inter-communal unity, equal respect and regard for all religions and equality of opportunity and status for all irrespective of race, creed or sex.

2. He shall come in personal contact with every villager, within his jurisdiction.

3. He shall enroll and train workers from amongst the villagers and keep a register of all these.

4. He shall keep a record of his work from day to day.

5. He shall organize the villages so as to make them self-contained and self-supporting through their agriculture and handicrafts.'

6. He shall educate the village folk in sanitation and hygiene. and take all measures for prevention of ill-health and disease among them.

7. He shall organize the education of the village folk from birth to death along the lines of Nai Talim, in accordance with the policy laid down by the Hindustani Talimi Sangh.

8. He shall see that those whose names are missing on the statutory voters rolls are duly entered therein.

9. He shall encourage those who have not yet acquired the legal qualification, to acquire it for getting the right of franchise.'

10. For the above purposes and others to be added from time to time, he shall train and fit himself in accordance with the rules laid down by the Sangh for the due performance of duty.

The Sangh shall affiliate the. following autonomous bodies:

1. A.I.S.A. (All-India Spinners Association)

2. A.I.V.I.A. (All-India Village Industries Association)

3. Hindustani Talimi Sangh (Society for Basic Education)

4. Harijan Sevak Sangh (Society for service' of "untouchables")

5. Goseva Sangh (Society for Cow-protection and Improvement)

FINANCE

The Sangh shall raise finances for the fulfillment of its mission, from among the villagers and others, special stress being laid on collection of the poor man's pice.

- Harijan, 15-2.1948

Footnotes from the Electronic Version:
Acharya Jugal Kishore, General Secretary of A. I. C. C., released this draft to the Press on February 7, with the note: “As something has already appeared in the Press . . . regarding the proposals which Mahatmaji had made concerning changes in the Congress constitution I am releasing the full draft as was handed to me on the fateful forenoon of 30th January. . . .”

This appeared in Harijan under the title “His Last Will and Testament”.

In his article “The Fateful Friday”, in Harijan, Pyarelal writes: “The whole of the 29th had been so cram-full with work that at the end of the day Gandhiji felt utterly fagged out. “My head is reeling. And yet I must finish this,” he remarked to Abha, pointing to the draft constitution for the Congress which he had undertaken to prepare, and then, “I am afraid I shall have to keep late hours.”

The next morning Gandhiji revised the draft and gave it to Pyarelal to “go through it carefully”. He added: “Fill in any gaps in thought that there might be. I wrote it under a heavy strain.” When Pyarelal took the revised draft to him he “went through the additions and alterations point by point with his characteristic thoroughness and removed an error in calculation that had crept in in regard to the number of panchayats.”

More on Jinnah's retirement plans

Jinnah Papers, First Series, Volume IV, No 77 (pages 136-137) record that on August 1, 1947,  Jinnah received a Rs 10,000 earnest money payment from Jaydayal Dalmia and executed an agreement with him for the sale of  Jinnah's property of No. 10 Aurangzeb Road, New Delhi.  The total sum was for Rs 300,000 to be paid on or before January 10, 1948.  Jinnah planned to transfer possession on or before August 31, 1947.

Jawed Naqvi, in The Dawn, November 7, 2017, "Two daughters and sons-in-law", borrows from Sheela Reddy, "Mr and Mrs Jinnah: the Marriage that Shook India":

When Jinnah was rumoured to be considering selling his Bombay home in 1941, Dina [Wadia] broke her long silence to pen a letter to ‘My darling Papa’.

Dated April 28, 1941, the letter is reproduced in Reddy’s book. It reads: “First of all I must congratulate you — on having got Pakistan, that is to say, the principle has been accepted. I am so proud and happy for you — how hard you have worked for it.”

Dina then comes to the subject of her primary interest. “I hear you have sold ‘South Court’ to Dalmia for 20 lakhs. It’s a very good price and you must be very pleased,” she writes. “If you have sold [it], I wanted to make one suggestion of you — if you are not moving your books, could I please have a few of Ruttie’s old poetry books — Byron, Shelley and a few others and the Oscar Wilde series?”

Jinnah’s reply was to summarily dismiss the purported house sale as a “wild rumour”.

So what to make of Dina Wadia's letter to her father on 2/5 June 1947, as reproduced in the Jinnah Papers, Volume I, Part II,  No. 525, pages 984-985?  Dina Wadia started the letter on June 2nd and continued it on June 5th.  Intervening was June 3rd, when the Mountbatten Partition plan was announced.  For now, just quoting the relevant sentences:

I am sorry that you didn't sell South Court [2] as I know you want to—I believed you had because I read about it in the Forum Magazine and didn't think they would print a complete falsehood.  As you say, people do indulge in wild rumours.  F.E. Dinshaw's house I believe has been sold to Mullaji for 19 lakhs fifty thousand.  I am not sure if this is certain.

[2] South Court was the name of Jinnah's residence at Mount Pleasant Road, Malabar Hill, Bombay.

We are told "On 9 August 1943, the first anniversary of Quit India Day, Joachim and Violet Alva founded FORUM, a weekly news magazine which became known for its championing of the cause of independence. " I wonder if this is the magazine mentioned above.

Regarding the meeting with the Muslim members of the Constituent Assembly of India, Choudhry Khaliquzzaman, in "Pathway to Pakistan" recounts:

Mr. Jinnah himself realized the grave dangers to Muslims who after the partition were to be left in India.  I remember that in 1 August 1947, a few days before his final departure for Karachi, Mr. Jinnah called the Muslim members of the Constituent Assembly of India to his house at 10 Aurangzeb Road to bid farewell to them.  Mr. Rizwanullah put some awkward questions concerning the position of Muslims who would be left over in India, their status and their future.

[My question: Mr. Rizwanullah = Maulvi Rizwanullah, Muslim Leaguer from Gorakhpur?]

I had never before found Mr. Jinnah so disconcerted as on that occasion, probably because he was realizing then quite vividly what was immediately in store for the Muslims.   Finding the situation awkward, I asked my friends and colleagues to end the discussion.  I believe as a result of our farewell meeting Mr. Jinnah took the earliest opportunity to bid goodbye to his two-nation theory in his speech on 11 September 1947 as the Governor-General designate of Pakistan and President of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan:

Now, if we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous, we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor. If you will work in co-operation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet, you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges, and obligations, there will be on end to the progress you will make....I cannot emphasize it too much. We should begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority communities, the Hindu community and the Muslim community— because even as regards Muslims you have Pathans, Punjabis, Shias, Sunnis and so on, and among the Hindus you have Brahmins, Vaishyas, Khatris, also Bengalis, Madrasis and so on—will vanish. Indeed if you ask me, this has been the biggest hindrance in the way of India to attain the freedom and independence and but for this we would have been free people long ago. ..You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State.

The last meeting of the All-India Muslim League Council was held in Karachi on December 14-15, 1947. (I'm relying on "Encyclopedia of Political Parties Series, All India Muslim League, Volume 2" Editor-in-Chief O.P. Ralhan for this). Quote, emphasis added:

"A member interrupted and asked the Quaid-i-Azam if he would once again be prepared to take over the leadership of the Muslims of India in the present hour of trial.  The Quaid-i-Azam replied that he was quite willing to do so if the Council gave its verdict in favour of such proposal.  He recalled his statement at the time of the achievement of Pakistan that his job had been done, and with the achievement of Pakistan, the cherished goal of the Muslim nation, he wanted to lead a retired life.  But if called upon, he was quite ready to leave Pakistan and share the difficulties of the Muslim in the Indian Union and so lead them."

It would seem that Jinnah saw his retired life to be in Pakistan, not in Bombay, if this account is relied upon. (My problem with it is that O.P. Ralhan does not adequately identify the sources.)

In the July 30th 1947 story that Jinnah contradicted, we had this (emphasis added)

It is said that a large number of Muslim members felt sore and asked a series of questions as to their position and fate and the help that they should expect from the Pakistan Government.  Mr. Jinnah is reported to have said that they should not expect any help from the Pakistan State and must rely on themselves and fit in with the new conditions.

In the December 14-15th meeting, (emphasis added)

The Quaid-i-Azam recalled the charges that were being levelled against Pakistan and its leaders about the betrayal of the Muslim masses in the Indian Union.  He said, he was full of feelings for the Muslim masses in the Indian Union, who were, unfortunately, facing bad days. He advised the Indian Muslims to organize themselves so as to become powerful enough to safeguard their political rights.  A well-organized minority should be powerful enough to protect its own rights—political, cultural, economic and social.  On his part, he assured them of his full realization that the achievement of Pakistan was the outcome of the labour and toil of the Muslim in India as well as of those who were now enjoying its fruits.  Pakistan would help them in every possible way.

 

Jinnah's retirement plans

It is claimed, e.g.,

After becoming Governor General of Pakistan Jinnah maintained his citizenship of India. Just FYI. He was planning on going home and retiring in Bombay.

The evidence for this claim is supposed to be Jinnah Papers, Volume IV, page 142.

Let us systematically examine the two parts of this claim.

1. Citizenship.
2. What is in the Jinnah Papers.

 Jinnah may have at some occasion expressed a wish to retire to Bombay,  but evidence cited above does not say anything about it.   And "maintained his citizenship of India" has no meaning.  It also contradicts what he said on March 30, 1946 in his interview in Delhi by Norman Cliff, Foreign Editor, News Chronicle (of London).

Gandhi on exemplars of simplicity

{original post here}

In Harijan of July 17, 1937, Mahatma Gandhi wrote about what he hoped for from the Congress ministries that were assuming office in the various provincial governments.  Excerpt {highlights added}

Then the personal behaviour of Ministers. How will Congress Ministers discharge themselves? Their Chief, the Presidentt of the Congress, travels third class. Will they travel first? The President is satisfied with a coarse khadi dhoti, Kurta and waistcoat. Will the Ministers require the Western style and expenditure on Western scale? Congressmen have for the past seventeen years disciplined themselves in rigorous simplicity. The nation will expect the Ministers to introduce simplicity in the administration of their Provinces. They will not be ashamed of it, they will be proud of it. We are the poorest nation on earth, many millions living in semi-starvation. Its representatives dare not live in a style and manner out of all correspondence with their electors. The Englishmen coming as conquerors and rulers set up a standard of living which took no account whatsoever of the helpless conquered. If the Ministers will simply refrain from copying the Governors and the secured Civil Service, they will have shown the marked contrast that exists between the Congress mentality and theirs. Truly there can be no partnership between them and us even as there can be none between a giant and a dwarf.

Lest Congressmen should think that they have a monopoly of simplicity and that they erred in 1920 in doing away with the trousers and the chair, let me cite the examples of Aboobaker and Omar. Rama and Krishna are prehistoric names. I may not use these names as examples. History tells us of Pratap and Shivaji living in uttermost simplicity. But opinion may be divided as to what they did when they had power. There is no division of opinion about the Prophet, Aboobaker and Omar. They had the riches of the world at their feet. It will be difficult to find a historical parallel to match their rigorous life. Omar would not brook the idea of his lieutenants in distant provinces using anything but coarse cloth and coarse flour. The Congress Ministers, if they will retain the simplicity and economy they have inherited since 1920, will save thousands of rupees, will give hope to the poor and probably change the tone of the Services. It is hardly necessary for me to point out that simplicity does not mean shoddiness. There is a beauty and an art in simplicity which he who runs may see. It does not require money to be neat, clean and dignified. Pomp and pageantry are often synonymous with vulgarity.

Mahatma Gandhi on the use of Indian Armed Forces - 2

This is an excerpt from a speech by Sardar Patel given on October 1, 1948.
You can read the whole speech here.

I am proud of the Air Force, for their doings in the short period, both in Kashmir and Hyderabad; for their work for the relief operations, for removing the refugees, for supply the necessities of the army in Kashmir.  While people talk of our failing to follow Gandhiji’s teachings, I wish to give you one example which I remember from his conversation.  When Srinagar was touch and go, when we wanted to put our Army in Srinagar and when the Air Force was asked that they had to carry the Army and all its requirements quickly, they did it with wonderful speed; and if we had been late by twenty-four hours the whole game would have been lost.   That is the work which you have done, which is written in letters of gold in the history of Freedom.  We are proud of you.   But what Gandhiji said to me was “I feel so proud when I hear the noise of these airplanes.   At one time, I was feeling very miserable and oppressed when I heard this.  But when this Kashmir  operation began, I began to feel proud of them and every airplane that goes with materials and arms and ammunition and requirements of the Army.  I feel proud.”  Because he felt injustice over Kashmir by the raiders.  And he said: “Any injustice on our land, any encroachment on our land should either be defended by violence, if not by non-violence.”  “If you can defend by non-violence, by all means do it; that is the first thing I should like.   If it is for me to do, I would not touch anything, either a pistol or revolver or anything.   But I would not see India degrading itself to be feeling helpless.   Therefore, when the Air Force has performed this miracle of saving Srinagar by its organized strength and the co-operation it gave to the Army, I feel proud of them and I feel happy.”  That is what he said.

Therefore, those who say that we do not follow the preachings or teachings of the Mahatma, we tell them: “Perhaps you from a distance know better about Mahatma’s teachings than we who have all our life with him know.  Thank you very much.  We will not take our lessons from you, but we will go our own way.  We must go our own way.   We have got small lights.  We must work according to our own lights.