Sirajuddin Aziz
“The picture of a Muslim man being beaten brutally became the defining image of the recent religious riots in India’s Capital. Muhammad Zubair, who survived the attack in North East Delhi, told the BBC’s Hindi Correspondent Debalin Roy, “there were thousands of people in the crowd and many of them started beating me. They hit me with rods and sticks so many times that I lost the count after a while”. He was attacked while returning home from the mosque.” ….. I tried to turn back but some people spotted me and soon a mob surrounded me. They started beating me. I was bleeding from head, they hit me so hard….. started to lose consciousness. They were chanting “Jai Shri Ram” (hail lord ram), beat up the Muslims, beat up the Muslims,” The rioters thought he had died and left him on the street.” …. No one who saw the photo thought I would survive”. Zubair says further, “the incident has not broken his faith in humanity… They broke my body, not my soul…… people who do horrible acts cannot be from any religion.”
The above text is quoted verbatim, as appearing on the BBC footage of the Delhi riots — I haven’t altered a single word. Only a courageous Muslim would say, those who do horrible acts cannot be from any religion. Eyes start to bleed, when you watch the gruesome manner, in which this poor Muslim of India is being tortured to death, by a frenzied crowd. I strongly urge my readers to see this footage, so that we, as a nation, can value fully our independence.
Planning to execute cruelty is possibly the worst sin any human can commit. Only a vile mind and a cowardly corrupt inner self can plan and inflict pain on fellow humans for personal pleasure. Rabindranath Tagore, the celebrated writer says, “Man is worse than an animal when he is an animal”. He said so in 1916; one cannot but admire the Nobel Prize winner for the foresight, he had about his future compatriots (read Modi and Amit Shah). Can any expect civility from savager?
In the same 1916 AD, the Indian National Congress chose Jawaharlal’s Father, Motilal Nehru to draft alongside a budding young Muslim lawyer, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, principles that would form the Charter of Cooperation with Muslim League. This led to the commonly known “Lucknow Pact”. The unanimity was so pre-dominant over the principles of engagement, that the frontline leading light, the nightingale of Indian politics Sarojini Devi Naidu hailed Mr. Jinnah as the “Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity”.
Much, before the partition, Mr. Jinnah, the epitome of being, ‘Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity’ had begun to realize the distinction between the two were many and the areas of governance were few. He, after returning from London announced, “We are different beings. There is nothing in life which links us together. Our names, our clothes, our foods – they are all different; our economic life, our educational idea, our treatment of women, our attitude to animals ……. etc, we challenge each other at every point of the compass”. Here, we have a changed Jinnah, now working to establish the Muslim League as the Party of the entire Muslim community of India. And he succeeded Thank God for that. In 1939, the British invited Mr. Jinnah to address a message over Radio to all the Muslims of India on the occasion of Eid. The Quaid had arrived.
Jinnah’s mind was always hunting for freedom. He ultimately snatched freedom from the clutches of the British and the Indians. The plight of Indian Muslims today mocks human sense of justice. It is no violation of any notion or principle, when a man seeks for himself to be secure, to be happy, to build his family, to protect from harm, he whom he loves and to do what pleases him, without restraint or compulsion. Our Quaid stood up for the task.
Renunciation of liberty is surrender to slavery. Liberty is the reward of struggle. Today an average Indian Muslim denied of liberty desires death – Zubair Muhammad’s pictures on BBC are a testimony to this. Mr. Gandhi, wherever you are, know it that seventy long years of struggle by the Kashmiris to let the fetter fall, hasn’t happened … they await to do so, despite the unthinkable odds of insane atrocities, being committed upon them by Narendra Modi and his cohorts. All Kashmiris and Muslims in India have proven it is better to starve, suffer and take pain, than be a fat slave. They have decided to stand on feet and not be upon their knees. Easier said than done. But freedom exacts a price. My compatriots value your independence.
The menacing clouds of Indian arrogance over Kashmir for the last seven decades all have had silver linings, the time is high, when the sunshine of freedom will break through. It is but natural and divine for it to happen. Muslims will accept no less than a complete victory. Honor will be regained.
Congress, at least prima facie has been friendly towards Muslims. It had towering Muslim members, who also believed that Muslims could co-exist with Hindus; just as much as Nehru and Gandhi, also believed so. The likes of Vallabhai Patel were handful then. Narendra’s BJP is the blossomed plant that has had RSS as its seedlings. The assassin of Gandhi, Nathuram Godse, was an active RSS member.
Indian historians blame necessarily Jawarharlal Nehru for having offered Pakistan on platter to Jinnah. In doing so they actually attempt to demean the struggle and — fight of our Quaid. This attitude is well reflected by a well-known Indian Muslim. M.J Akbar, who in his biography of Nehru says, “Pakistan was created by Jinnah’s will and Britain’s willingness – not by Nehru’s willfulness”.
Mr. Jinnah’s mind was a workshop, where he worked day in and day out, calibrating his moves; defining and sharpening his objectives, on how to seek independence from both the British and the Hindu zealots. He was insanely possessed of a singular objective – a homeland for the Muslims of India. This sincerity of purpose reflects so well in the elegant arrangement of his priorities and by the thoroughness of his conviction – The majority Hindus, would dominate and deprive the Muslim minority of its rights.
Despite the Muslims blood that flowed in the rivers of the Punjab, at the hands of the murderous Hindus, during the partition — Partition was not a tragedy. It was a boon, a victory for the Muslims of India. Today, Quaid’s vision is a QED of his belief and conviction. The two-nation theory is proven. And the creation of Bangladesh is not an anti-dote to the theory; it actually is a historical re-affirmation that Muslims are a different community. Bangladesh is not part or negation of the West Bengal, it is independent.
Peace and freedom go together. How can there be peace when you are in fetters and shackles. Narendra Modi doesn’t know, when pushed to the wall, humans have great tenacity to get new and fresh strength with every blow.
Many of my countrymen should know, with better understanding that those who have freedom, rarely appreciate its true value; ask those disposed of it. Like our Muslim brothers in the India-occupied Kashmir, the rest of Bharat and Burma; only then, we will be able to thank enough, our founder, The Quaid-e-Azam.
Dear Mr. Jinnah, the Muslims of the sub-continent salute you with profound thanks from the core of their hearts, for having carved a Muslim homeland, called my beloved Pakistan. Thank you, Sir.(The writer is a free lance contributor)