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Blast from the past

Blast from the past

Author: Priyadarsi Dutta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: October 29, 2002

Sita ka Chinala was a pamphlet written by a Muslim rabble-rouser in Lahore in 1927, alleging that Sita, wife of Lord Rama, was a woman of loose morals. Hindus countered with Rangilla Rasul and Risala Vartman.

The rage over Rangilla Rasul authored by Rajpal extended far out of Lahore that summer and had repercussions in the North-West Frontier Province and beyond. Its echo beyond the Durand Line was more severe: A well-known mullah exhorted the Afridis and Shinwaris near the Khyber Pass to expel their Hindu neighbours from Afghanistan. Around 450 Hindus left Khyber, but 330 returned by the end of the year. On April 6, 1929, Rajpal whose scurrilous piece on the Prophet had caused so much excitement was murdered in his bookshop at Lahore by certain ilamdin. The episode has been described by BR Ambedkar in his Thoughts on Pakistan.

Do we hear an echo of the past in Muslim conduct even now, when the community's percentage has decreased by half in truncated India? Take the recent riots in Sholapur, Maharashtra. An American Catholic priest Jerry Falwell made slanderous remarks about Prophet Mohammed. Muslims of the district town urged clueless Hindu traders to shut shop to observe a bandh. Their refusal was met with 'direct action' that developed into three-hour riots foiled only by rain. Five lives were lost.

The Muslim population has gone up by two percentage points in Maharashtra between 1951 and 1991-from 7.61 to 9.66 per cent (Religious Demography of India, Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai). Whether it is the Bombay blasts or the Sholapur riots, the increased numbers clearly manifests themselves in the will to fight it out.

Evidence keeps piling that bigoted Muslims do not believe in civilised responses. Some lunatics burning a part of the Al Aksa mosque in Jerusalem can lead to disturbances in Hydera-bad. The US's hunt for Osama bin Laden can prompt Muslim mobs to vandalise property on Park Street, Calcutta, after Friday namaz, while raising "Osama is our hero" slogans in Bengali. Had India not been partitioned, Muslim bigots would have ensured the imposition of a blasphemy law, so as to meet any criticism of Islam with the death penalty. If Falwell's remarks against Prophet Mohammed can lead to bloody riots, why was Maulana Masood Azhar not executed for the sin of naming a terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed? Probably because Azhar fights Hindu kafirs, Falwell doesn't.

Such skewed psychology could be discerned during the Khilafat Movement. Muslims were more concerned about the restoration of the Caliph in Turkey-who ironically had been overthrown by Turkish Muslims under Kemal Ata-turk-than the achievement of swaraj in India. The Khilafat Movement came first (Oct 27, 1919, was observed as the All-India Khilafat Day) and Non-Cooperation 10 months later.

The Bhagat Singh trio was executed on March 23, 1931. When Congress workers (Gandhiji did little to save Singh) persuaded shopkeepers in Kanpur to observe a bandh the next day, Hindus did, but Muslims refused. Worse, they responded by looting Hindu shops. Ambedkar notes: "On 25th ... disorder, arson, loot, murder spread like wildfire. Five hundred families abandoned their houses ... In the same slaughter Mr Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi lost his life." The de-nationalising, de-Indianising influence of Islam is clear from these two riots separated by a gap of 60 years. The Indian Bhagat Singh was not an issue for them, the American Falwell is.
 


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