Jinnah and Partition

Partition is a dark chapter in the history of India and Pakistan. Our independence came at a great loss. There was so much bloodshed that some think more blood was spilled during communal violence related to partition than in the freedom struggle itself. Women were raped, children were maimed, even old were not spared. There was chaos everywhere. The situation was so grim that everybody was fearing that this will result in civil war in both India and Pakistan and international community may have to enter to defuse the situation. Both the countries have evolved from that situation but even now the very mention of independence brings along with it the gory images of violence of partition. And ironically, it is one topic where both India and Pakistan seem to share same thought that Jinnah is responsible for it.

(Before writing any further, I would like to clarify that in this post, the terms Hindus and Muslims dont represent the whole of the community but those persons who are fanatics and though small in number, claim to be the voice of the community. They are the group of persons who are responsible for stereotyping of the respective communities.)

Firstly, I don't agree with this thought. Jinnah was a powerful Muslim League leader but he was not so powerful that he could have carved Pakistan on his own. Too much credit is given to him. Gandhi, Nehru, Sardar Patel, Ambedkar, Maulana Azad, Sarojini Naidu, Rajendra Prasad and many more were equal to him in stature (if not higher). They all may have made efforts to stop him but the fact remains they all failed. Was Jinnah stronger than the British Empire? We could force Churchill to accept giving independence to India but not convince Jinnah to leave the idea of Pakistan? Couldn't we have given him (or Maulana Azad or any other Muslim) the post of PM to dispel his doubts of India turning into a Hindu state? Was the idea of a federal republic with less powers at centre even worse than partition?

In India, Jinnah is seen as a demon, who single handedly divided the country, who sowed the seeds of mistrust between Hindus and Muslims, who is responsible for all the ills being faced by us. This is one of the few topics wherein all the parties are united. (The only other topics I can think of are criminalisation of politics and perks enjoyed by politicians) The reason for this unison is very simple. Congress has to demonise him, otherwise it will have to accept that it, and more importantly Nehru, is also responsible for the biggest massacare in Indian history. Also, it would have proved quite troublesome to court Muslim vote bank. Hence, they blame Jinnah. It would seem that BJP should have taken this opportunity and tried to embarass Congress on this issue. But, even it chose to side with Congress on this topic. This dilemma of the right wing can be traced back to the time of Godse, when some RSS leaders helped him privately while disowning him publicly. The reason for this is that they sensed a chance to use this to polarise Hindus against Jinnah (read Muslims). They chose Communalism over Nationalism.

Meanwhile in Pakistan, the very thought that India's esteemed leaders are also responsible for their existence as independent state is close to blasphemy. After partition, Pakistan was having problems in trying to unite itself. Its leaders chose hatred towards India as the binding material. In these circumstances, they could not place Nehru, Patel and Gandhi on the same level as the martyr Jinnah, who fought for Pakistan till end. Also, we need to understand that the very existence of India as a secular nation is a slap to the two nation theory. If Pakistan accepts that even Indian leaders are responsible for its independence, only than can they break free from the shackles of partition. Only then can they think about future. At present, Pakistan is united only while opposing someone, be it India, US or Musharraf. This negative approach towards nation building must end. And what better way to end it than to undo the first step of this approach.

I have read many articles and blogs wherein the question being asked is how does it matter now? The man died 60 years ago. Whether he was saint or satan doesn't change the things now. But I beg to defer. Partition resulted in not just massive loss of life but also the social fabric of the subcontinent was changed forever. There is still distrust between Hindus and Muslims. Both blame each other for violence. Muslims still consider that they are treated as second rate citizens of India. Hindus think that Muslims should go to Pakistan. This mistrust can only be reduced if both the sides accept that what happened was not because of any one party. They themselves are also responsible. I am not saying that if we accept that other leaders were also responsible for partition than there will be no more communal violence but atleast the general level of trust between the two communities will increase. Hindus need to accept that Jinnah is not the only one who divided our motherland. (Honestly, I don't get this concept of Akhand Bharat because never in our history where we united from Baluchistan to Assam, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari under a single ruler except when under the Britishers, at which time even Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Myanmar were part of British empire, so where exactly does this concept of Akhand Bharat come from?) Muslims need to accept that the fact that their parents didnt leave India even in those turbulent times shows how much they trusted their Hindu neighbours.

The main problem is that we as a nation shy away from debate. This topic is so important that we should have debates about this. But those debates will only benefit if we enter these debates with an open mind. Banning books, raising slogans or staging demonstrations does no good, it only raises the suspicions of the fence-sitters. If the leaders are so sure that Nehru or Patel had no role in the partition, then they should be open to debate.

I may be wrong. My ideas may be flawed. But I am certain about one thing, unless one heals the wounds of the past, one cannot progress to the future.

JAI HIND!!!

Why is religion being treated as a business??

Continuing with the violence in Orissa over conversions and re-conversions, i don't understand what exactly are the holy men of both the religion doing there....

The people there are really backward and whatever developmental work that is done for them is commendable....but over here we have two sets of "holy men" who are exploiting them....Hinduism doesn't believe in conversions and even Christianity doesn't believe in forced conversion....the work being done by missionaries all over India is really great but it is also true that many of them do indulge in forceful conversions in remote places...Jesus didn't force his followers to be with him....He did not give them allurements and freebies....a person who claims to work for the downtrodden should not ask for any favour in return...by asking the poor and ignorant tribals to convert, they are exploiting them...here we have a large population of tribal christians who don't even know much about Christianity and who still continue to worship their nature Gods.....Jesus wanted his message to spread not a mere increase in number of his followers.....

Also, i don't understand the term re-conversion....it is the same as conversion....whether the person was born as christian or converted to Chritianity doesn't make a difference....if u are asking him to convert to Hinduism it is conversion and nothing else.....you may call it fancy names like re-conversion or home-coming....but that will not change the truth.....every person has a right to choose his religion.....all must respect it......

I also believe that all religions have the right to be preached...but it should only be preached not forced to anybody....also if you are giving allurements or using force to convert people to your religion then you are insulting your religion by accepting the fact that your religion is not good enough to survive without these tactics......every religion is the same because it shows the path of salvation....there is one God who is called different names by different people....just as there are multiple paths to reach a place, there are multiple paths of religion to attain salvation....

Also, i strongly believe that religion is a personal matter and hence there should be a ban on mass conversions.......if a person identifies with another religion then only ahould he be allowed to convert but what happens in case of mass conversions is many just join the bandwagon and convert without even knowing much about it....see the classical case of dalits converting to Buddhism just because Ambedkar did it....and then the self-proclaimed leaders of these groups showcase the converts as trophies....humans are much more then trophies.....

In the end i just hope that the religious men continue to do the thing God has chosen them to do and that is preaching virtues and serving the needed self-lessly and leave the business to businessmen....religion should not be treated as a commodity which has to be sold...

Violence Vs Religion

For the past many weeks we are facing violence in many parts of India in the name of religion. Some fanatics are burning Christians in the name of Ram....i don't consider those perpetrators of violence as Hindus because any person who claims to follow in the ideals of Ram can not do so....those persons are insulting Hinduism.....

Firstly i challenge all the fanatics to show me even one Veda, Upanishad, Purana, etc. where god has asked us to convert others....it is because Hinduism doesn't believe in conversion....in Hinduism u practice or not u r Hindu.....Valmiki was Hindu even wen he was a bandit...even ravana was attacked because he was cruel not because he belonged to raksha kula ( who also were considered Hindus only).....so what is this all talk about conversion to Hinduism all about????I being a Hindu by birth cant myself pin point a special day or event wherein i can claim that that day onwards i became hindu then what conversion ceremony are they following???

And violence in the name of religion is the worst....tolerance is the most important virtue....see the efforts made by Krishna to prevent mahabharata....see the chances given by Ram to ravana....these chances were given in spite of injustice being done, cruelty being committed.....and here violence is done because some persons decided to take another road to salvation....even in Hinduism we have so many gods and goddesses...so shouldn't tomorrow Maheshwaris (followers of Shiv) get up and kill Vaishnavs (followers of Vishnu)....

If burning churches and killing humans was not a lesser crime they even indulge in rape....the followers of Krishna, the one who helped Draupadi in her chir-haran, becoming dushashan.....the worshippers of Durga and Kali taking advantage of hapless girls.....and the biggest irony is they call themselves Bajrang Dal after baal brahmachari Hanuman.....Hinduism teaches us that women are to be respected.... revere her as mother, love her as sister and take care of her as daughter.....so this act is totally against Hinduism...

Nobody has the right to commit crime in name of god....be it Ram or Allah or Jesus....

I will continue about conversions and re-conversions in my next post.