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.
