Sunday, December 31, 2006

Gandhi, the Moulana of Muslim appeasement

Posted on 26 December, 2006
Mahatma Gandhi was a devout Hindu, yet he turned more and more anti-Hindu after 1920 as his public life progressed. - By V Sunderam


It is a well known fact of history that although personally Mahatma Gandhi was a devout Hindu, yet he turned more and more anti-Hindu after 1920 as his public life progressed. The driving passion of his political life was to throw the British out of India. In order to achieve this objective, he was obsessed in his conviction that Hindu - Muslim unity was absolutely necessary and indispensable. There can be two views or more on whether he was right or justified in holding these convictions. However, the irrefutable fact is that again and again he demonstrated his combat readiness to sacrifice or sell out vital Hindu interests, Hindu honour and Hindu blood all the time in deference to the feelings of minorities in general and Muslims in particular. To quote the appropriate words of Prafull Goradia in this context: 'For Mahatma Gandhi, no price was too great for appeasing Muslims, so that they did not oppose Hindus. That he did not understand the Muslims was proved by the conduct of the Muslim League and by the vivisection of the country.'

After the Mutiny of 1857, the incidence of Hindu-Muslim riots in India had come down sharply. By lending support to the Khilafat Movement of Ali Brothers in 1920, Mahatma Gandhi inaugurated a new era of a fresh wave of Hindu-Muslim riots. Mahatma Gandhi was a confused man. How could his Satyagraha which was to be effective for attaining our Swaraj could be equally effective for saving the Caliph on his Turkish throne. Gandhi did not understand that restoration of the Caliph would only result in making him again a shining symbol of Pan-Islamism or the Supranationalism of Islam as a world religion with its people forming the Ummah. This inherent impending danger was clearly foreseen by Sir.Sankaran Nair, a Member of the Viceroy's Executive Council in 1922. In his book prophetically titled as 'Gandhi and Anarchy' published by Tagore and Company, Madras in 1922 he wrote: 'It is impossible to believe that Gandhi and his adherents are not aware that this claim of the Mahomedans to be judged only by the Law of the Koran, is a claim which is the fons et origo of all Khilafat claims of whatever kind. It is well to be clear about this, for not only does the acceptance of the claim mean the death knell of the British Empire or Indo-British Commonwealth, WHATEVER NAME WE MAY CARE TO GIVE TO THE GREAT FRATERNITY OF NATIONS TO WHICH WE BELONG, BUT SPECIFICALLY AS REGARDS INDIA IT MEANS A REAL DENIAL OF SWARAJ. FOR IT INVOLVES MAHOMEDAN RULE AND HINDU SUBJECTION.' Thus Sir Sankaran Nair clearly saw the danger signal when Mahatma Gandhi was leading the Muslims of India to convert the Hindus into permanent Serfs. Dr Manmohan Singh's recent declaration on Muslim hegemony is only a logical culmination of the process initiated by Mahatma Gandhi and clearly foreseen by Sir Sankaran Nair in 1922.

During the Moplah rebellion in Kerala in 1921, thousands of Hindu men, women and children were killed by the Muslims. Hundreds of women were raped. And yet Gandhi supported the Moplahs and not the Hindu victims of Moplah violence and oppression. In fact Gandhi had no sympathy for the Hindus. Mahatma Gandhi wrote in his 'Young India', 'it is wrong to say that Islam has employed force. No religion in this world has spread through the use of force. No Musalman, to my knowledge, has ever approved of compulsion.' Does this not show that Gandhi practiced political deception? According to Gandhi, the Moplah Muslims were guilty of no crime.

But the politically spurious and culturally disastrous view of Mahatma Gandhi on the Moplah rebellion was not shared by Lord Reading, the then Viceroy of India and Sir.Sankaran Nair, a member of his Council. Sir.Sankaran Nair wrote: 'For sheer brutality on women, I do not remember anything in history to match the Malabar rebellion. It broke out on 20 August, 1921. Even by the 6 September, the results were dreadful. There was complete breakdown of Civil Government resulting in widespread disorder, in political chaos, in anarchy and in ruin.' Let us contrast this with Mahatma Gandhi's conclusion: 'The Moplahs are among the bravest in the land. They are god-fearing.' How did Gandhi overlook the brutal fact that Moplah Muslims were men-slaughtering, children-strangling and women-raping? I am asking this question in the light of the speech of Lord Reading, viceroy of India, on 20th of August 1921: 'A few Europeans and many Hindus have been murdered, communications have been obstructed. Hindu temples sacked, houses of Europeans and Hindus burnt. According to reports Hindus were forcibly converted to Islam... The result has been the temporary collapse of the Civil Government and offices and courts have ceased to function and ordinary business has been brought to a standstill. European and Hindu refugees of all classes are concentrated at Calicut and it is satisfactory to note that they are safe there. One trembles to think of the consequences if the forces of order had not prevailed for the protection of Calicut. Those who are responsible for causing this grave outbreak of violence and crime must be brought to justice and made to suffer the punishment of the guilty.'

Annie Besant wrote a series of articles in her journal 'New India' on 29 November and 6 December 1921 under the caption Malabar's Agony. She challenged the stand taken by Mahatma Gandhi on the peaceful and humanitarian overtures of the Moplah Muslims towards non-Muslims in Malabar. The shock of the Moplah riots was so widespread that a Committee of Distinguished Citizens was appointed to tour the affected areas. The Committee consisted of K P Keshava Menon, Secretary Kerala Provincial Committee, T V Mohammed, Secretary, Ernad Khilafat Committee, K Madhavan Nair, Secretary, Calicut District Congress Committee and K V Gopal Menon. In their fact-finding report they concluded: 'Truth is infinitely of more paramount importance than Hindu Muslim unity or Swaraj and therefore we tell the Maulana Sahib and his co-religionists and India's revered leader Mahatma Gandhi� IF HE TOO IS UNAWARE OF THE EVENTS HERE� that atrocities committed by the Moplahs on the Hindus are unfortunately too true and that there is nothing in the deeds of Moplah rebels which a true non-violent, non-co-operator can congratulate them for.. Their wanton and unprovoked attack on the Hindus, the all but wholesale looting of their houses.. Brutal murder of inoffensive Hindus, men, women and children in cold blood without the slightest reason except that they are Kafirs... Their wholesale conversion through threat of death.'

Mahatma Gandhi treated the report of the above Committee with Islamic contempt. Mahatma Gandhi and the Working Committee of the Congress shamelessly whitewashed the criminal atrocities committed by the Moplah Muslims against the Hindus of Malabar by passing the following resolution:

'The Working Committee places on record its sense of deep regret over the deeds of violence done by Moplahs in certain areas of Malabar, these deeds being evidence of the fact that there are still people in India who have not understood the message of the Congress and the Central Khilafat Committee, and calls upon every Congress and Khilafat worker to spread the message of non-violence even under the gravest provocation throughout the length and breadth of India.'

This was political rascality of the meanest kind. Gandhi's callousness rose to Himalayan heights when he wrote the following in 'Young India' on 29 September : 'We have forgotten the divine out of dying for our faiths without retaliation... 'Be the Moplahs be ever so bad, they deserve to be treated as human beings.'

Dr Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, Arjun Singh, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan, Karunanidhi and many other known Islamists in Indian politics owe the fountain head of their infatuation for the peace loving and compassionate Muslims to the sage like wickedness of Mahatma Gandhi detailed above.

(The writer is a retired IAS officer)

http://newstodaynet.com/2006sud/06dec/2612ss2.htm

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