Title: Allah Baksh versus Savarkar

Author: Anil Nauriya

Source: The Hindu
Date: 14/05/2003 Type: Website Language: English
Keywords:
http://www.hinduonnet.com/stories/2003051401081000.htm
Allah Baksh versus Savarkar
By Anil Nauriya
Since many of the contrary voices, like those of Allah Baksh, represented the un
ifying tendency within India, their muffling has fed Hindutva. SOON AFTER the as
sassination of the legendary Allah Baksh on May 14, 1943, a young Sikh in Lahore
wrote an elementary biography of the murdered leader. The first part of the tit
le of the book by Jagat Singh Bright was "India's Nationalist No 1". Today, 60 y
ears after the killing, India barely remembers Allah Baksh and his resounding ch
allenge to Muslim separatism through the Independent (or Azad) Muslims Conferenc
e that this Sind Premier organized in Delhi in April 1940, a month after the Mus
lim League passed its Partition resolution at Lahore. The Conference, presided o
ver by Allah Baksh, shook up the British establishment.
Azad wrote: "The session was so impressive that even the British and the Anglo-I
ndian press, which normally tried to belittle the importance of nationalist Musl
ims, could not ignore it. They were compelled to acknowledge that this Conferenc
e proved that nationalist Muslims were not a negligible factor". This all-India
Conference, which Nehru described in his `The Discovery of India' as "very repre
sentative and very successful" is today a forgotten event. The man who organised
it may not even have existed so far as most of our historians are concerned. In
stead, the portrait of V.D. Savarkar, who denied Indian nationalism in order to
assert Hindu nationalism, hangs in the Central Hall of Parliament. Serious quest
ions arise about contemporary political parties, including the Congress. What ma
kes it possible for persons essentially opposed to its ideals to make a home in
and flourish in the Congress, especially in the post-1969 years? There are both
political and intellectual roots to this crisis. There was a time when it was th
e Congress which influenced its allies. Allah Baksh was not in the Congress. But
his Ittehad or United Party in Sind was a close ally sympathetic to Congress pr
ogrammes. His letter to the Viceroy after the Quit India Movement of 1942, prote
sting against Churchill's speech in the British Parliament, and returning his ti
tles, was remembered even till the 1960s as one of the classic documents of Indi
an freedom. Gandhi and Nehru were in prison at the time. Subhas Bose went on rad
io to compliment Allah Baksh. As a result of Allah Baksh's letter he was dismiss
ed from the Premiership of Sind even though he still had a majority in the Assem
bly. Ultimately, he lost his life upholding the concept of Indian nationalism.
Congress ideological alliances in recent decades are merely alliances to protect
its electoral, legislative and parliamentary positions. The ideological factor
is missing. The doyen of the Indian socialist movement, Acharya Narendra Deva, h
ad anticipated this when he once chided the Congress for opening its doors to fo
rmer members of the RSS and the Muslim League. The Jana Sangh and then the BJP a
lliances have also had electoral and legislative objects. But the Hindutva organ
isations have taken care to protect and even strengthen their ideological positi
on as well. The recent BJP alliance with the BSP in Uttar Pradesh is being resen
ted by saffron cadres precisely on the ground that a blank cheque has been given
to Mayawati.
Alliances are necessary and are often made in politics. But if alliances made be
tween a tradition that led the struggle for freedom and other traditions result
in erasure of vital ideological positions this cannot but have consequences for
the country. When Indira Gandhi's Congress faction came together with the CPI af
ter 1969 the Union Education Ministry presently went to Nurul Hasan. Historiogra
phy was placed largely in the hands of well-intentioned but uni-dimensional hist
orians analytically oriented towards the pre-independence CPI. The Congress-CPI
alliance was probably necessary. But its impact on the intellectual front was no
t well worked out by the two sides and was skewed. These historians wrote in an
age when they were tempted to assume that the Congress dominance would be there
forever or, if replaced, would be replaced only by a formation in which the Left
would play a major role. They, therefore, concerned themselves primarily with t
he vindication of the pre-Independence CPI, or variations upon this theme. Congr
ess, including socialist, history � for example, the Congress and Congress Soc
ialist role in creating and advancing the all-India peasant movements � went b
y default. Political training for Indian nationalism was neglected.
The Congress as an organisation hardly took note of what was happening with its
own support. Today the effects of this can be noticed in the cultural sphere as
well. Urdu poets like Saghar Nizami who stood up for India in the 1940s are larg
ely forgotten. Other poets who backed sectarian movements are considered definit
ionally and pre-emptively progressive by virtue of their membership of the Progr
essive Writers' Association. Similarly, after 1989 when the Congress justly inco
rporated Ambedkar also into its ideological pantheon, it so forgot itself that f
amous Dalit leaders such as Juglal Chaudhury and Chaudhri Beharilal who had supp
orted the Congress since the Non-Cooperation Movement of 1920 and who had repeat
edly been imprisoned in the freedom movement were largely eliminated from nation
al historical memory. While the Congress has been willing, even if by default, t
o erase its ideological heritage, the BJP has throughout not only protected its
own but has also sought to build up a basis for it, albeit often a synthetic one
.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Hamza Alavi circulated a paper seeking to furnish an exp
lanation of the Pakistan movement as one reflecting primarily the perceptions an
d interests of "Muslim professionals and the salariat" of northern India. The th
esis had an appreciable circulation. If scrutinised closely, it gives rise to se
veral questions. From the point of view of the Muslims in India, their chief con
cerns apart from security of life and property, remain education and employment.
So if the Alavi thesis were accepted, the Pakistan movement in northern India f
ailed to solve the very problem for which it had received support in the 1940s.
Anglocentric writings, which were tied to British foreign policy and strategic o
bjectives and continued to exercise influence in the South Asian former colonies
, suffered from a dichotomy with respect to Indian nationalism. They critiqued I
ndian nationalism. But they did not adequately critique the Muslim separatism wh
ich evolved into Pakistani nationalism. The result was that most dissidents or o
pponents of Indian nationalism were glorified, while the Muslim opponents of Mus
lim separatism and of Pakistani nationalism were barely mentioned. These contrar
y voices, like those represented by Allah Baksh, were sought to be silenced, as
were the subaltern and artisan voices among the Muslims. This was although the d
oubts expressed through these voices stood vindicated by history so far as the i
nterests of Muslims within post-Partition India were concerned. These voices hav
e also acquired a renewed resonance in the context of prospects for enhanced coo
peration within South Asia. Indian scholarship, however, largely failed to chall
enge the Anglocentric dichotomy. This was partly because the dominant scholarshi
p in India since the 1970s, being overly self-conscious about the specific line
which the CPI took on Pakistan in the 1940s, could not decide whether to challen
ge or to reinforce the Anglocentric dichotomy. Even when it discussed these voic
es it could portray them only as victims of Indian nationalism. There were outst
anding exceptions. Santimoy Ray's `Freedom Movement And Indian Muslims', publish
ed by People's Publishing House in 1979, had presented the relevant facts not on
ly on this but also on considerable subaltern involvement in the national moveme
nt since 1919. But this work was not followed up in the same spirit.
Since many of the contrary voices, like those of Allah Baksh, represented the un
ifying tendency within India, their muffling has fed Hindutva. Savarkar's portra
it now occupies the space created partly by this Anglocentric elimination.