Author: Tripuraneni Hanuman Chowdary
Publication: Drthchowdary.net
Date:
URL: http://drthchowdary.net/front/viewArticle/849
Disturbed by the mass exodus of Hindus engineered by the Muslim League government in east Pakistan in 1949, Sardar Patel went to Calcutta. At a mammoth public meeting in the Maidan, he declared that if this exodus and the torment of Hindus in east Pakistan does not stop, he would not hesitate to liberate a few districts of East Pakistan adjoining west Bengal and settle the Hindu population of that wing of Pakistan in a secure territory. That was in 1949. Liaquat Ali Khan was the Prime Minister. He and the Muslim League might not have cared if Jawaharlal Nehru said these words but for Sardar thought word and deed were one. The liberation of Hyderabad from the Islamist Nizam and Razakars in Sept 1948 showed up Sardar Patel for what he was. Terrified by the public statement of Sardar Patel the Prime Minister of Pakistan Liaquat Ali Khan rushed to India. He met Jawaharlal Nehru whom he knew as the great friend and protector of Muslims. A draft of a pact was worked out between the two Prime Ministers. It came for ratification by the Indian Cabinet. It provided inter-alia, promises to give due representation for Muslims in India’s services. In the Cabinet meeting Sri N.V.Gadgil referred to this obnoxious clause and with great passion denounced it as going against secularism for which the Congress under Gandhi’s leadership fought for so long. How could secular India give communal representation in government organs, he thundered.
Jawaharlal Nehru was furious. He said he had committed this to the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Sri Gadgil then said "India is a democracy. Its government has a cabinet which is jointly responsible and no one can make international commitments on behalf of the government without prior cabinet approval. He was opposed to this provision in the draft pact, called Nehru-Liaquat Ali Pact. He did not yield to Nehru’s anger and threats. He stood his ground. At the instance of Sardar Patel, the meeting was postponed.
To save face a redrafted document was sent through Gopalaswmy Iyengar, Nehru’s trusted servitor to Sardar Patel. That was because Nehru knew that Gadgil was Sardar Patel’s ally and if Patel agreed, Gadgil would relent. Without giving any opportunity to Gopalaswmy Iyengar to talk about that redrafted document, the Sardar put it in his pocket, and dismissed Iyengar. Next day in the Cabinet meeting no such thing came up for discussion. The final so called Nehru-Liaquat Ali Pact did not contain anything about representation for Muslims in government organs.
The Constituent Assembly of India convened on the 9th of Dec 1946. The Muslim League members boycotted it. There was not a single Congress Muslim in the Constituent Assembly as all Muslims voted only for Muslim Leaguers. On the 13th of December Jawaharlal Nehru moved the Objectives Resolution Sri M. R. Jayakar, a venerable liberal leader moved a counter resolution proposing postponement of the Objectives Resolution to a future date so that in the meanwhile, the Muslim League members could be persuaded to join the Constituent Assembly. The Muslim League members while boycotting had also planned to obstruct the Assembly work as much as possible. Their leader Khaliquzzaman only would attend the Consembly and intervened now and then only to obstruct the progress of constitution making. Soon thereafter, he left to Pakistan.
After the partition of India such of the Muslim League members who did not go away to Pakistan started attending the Constituent Assembly. They were promptly admitted into the Congers party at the instance of Jawaharlal Nehru. They demanded separate electorate and proportionate representation, the same tune as before partition Sri H.C.Mukherjee, a Christian opposed both these demands. He said that communal representation is harmful and destructive of the unity of India. Homi Modi, the Parsi member went further and said that every type of reservation is harmful to the nation. Another member, Smt. Rajkumari Amrith Kaur, a Christian from the royal family of Patiala but a strict follower of Mahatma Gandhi and the first lady in the Cabinet of free India also opposed communal representation and reservations. Sri K.M.Munshi and Sardar Patel had very deftly handled the unrepentant and recalcitrant Muslims in the garb of Congress. In fact, at their instance Begum Aizaz Rasul stood up to denounce communal representation and reservations. That was how the patriots; nationalists in the Congress Party despite Jawaharlal Nehru and his Muslim lieutenants were able to do away with separate electorate for Muslims and other minorities and representation for them based upon their religions.
How ignoble it is for the Congress and other so called secular parties in India now to compete to promise reservations and proportional representation to Muslims and how shameful it is that some intellectuals (Js. Rajinder Sachar, Kuldip Nayar etc.) are pleading for reservation for Muslims in government & educational institutions on the basis of their ever increasing population. These (Manmohan Singh, I.K.Gujral, Khushwant Singh included besides Rajinder Sachar and Kuldip Nayar) are the ones who fled from the Islamic state of Pakistan and have taken refuge in India! Their integrity and their strength of conviction could be believed only if they go back to the land where they were born (which is Pakistan) since partition and exert themselves to use their punditry in the Islamic state of Pakistan to get for the remnant Hindus and Sikhs (reduced from 19% in 1947 to 1% now) what they are seeking to provide for Muslims in India.
While the former Muslim Leaguers like Begum Aizaz Rasul (chastened by the guilt of what they wrought-partition of India) pleaded for termination of the British given boon (acquiesced in by national, ‘secular" Gandhi-Nehruvian Congress) of separate electorate, weighted (33 1/3% for 25%) reserved representation, the "nationalist" Muslims in Congress led by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad argued for continuance of the British conferred weighted communal representation*. Sardar Patel once famously said that the only nationalist Muslim he knew was Jawaharlal Nehru! It was Sardar Patel ably and notably supported by Christian, Sikh and Parsi leaders in the Consembly that put an end to constitutional provision for Muslim separatism.
It would be clear to every serious and sincere and studious student of India’s history since the birth of the Indian National Congress in 1885 and of the Muslim League in 1906 that Congress, under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi and Pt. Nehru has unwittingly helped the growth of Muslim separatism and birth of Pakistan and later, after the death of Sardar Patel under eth Nehruvian "secularism", Muslims have been helped to revive their pre-1947 two-nation mentality through measures like Nehru-sponsored Haj subsidy (Rs. 700 cr in the year 2007-’08), Minority Commission, Minority Educational Institutions, Minority State Finance Corporations, Minority Welfare Ministries and now on to minority reservations. Taking a leaf from Muslims , Christians also have started playing the minority card. And the Christian Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh , late Dr Y.S.Rajasekhar Reddi, under the being patronage of the foreign-born, Christian supremo, and Bharata Bhagya Vidhaatri, Sonia (Maino) Gandhi of Congress(I) and UPA; introduced subsidy (Rs. 20,000) for every Christian’s pilgrimage to Jerusalem, + Rs. 15,000 for Christians’ (and Muslims’) marriage; created a separate Christian State Finance corporation and gave 179 government orders (G.Os) sanctioning crores of rupees for the construction of churches (and some 19 GO s for repair and construction of mosques). He even, boldly and publicly declared that "his is a government of minorities"
The Sachar Committee report leading to the Muslim First program of converting 90 districts in India into Muslim -stans; the Ranganath Mishra report to extend reservations to dalit -castes among (the casteless) Muslims and Christians, the competition between "secular" parties to give ( more than the other) reservations to Muslims are all the outgrowth of Nehruvian "secularism" in India. It is in effect a more sinister and virulent replay of the pre-1947 communal politics. The only difference is that while the Congress had then acquiesced in the birth of Islamic states in a part of India, the current "secular" politics will lead to dismemberment of remanent India into 90 Muslim states, some Christian states and Hindus would once again revert to rule by alienated people of alien faiths.
* These two non-secular, communal orders were stayed by the High Court of A.P on a PIL by he author and another person
*Source: P. 201, "Pilgrimage to Freedom" by Kulapati K Munshi & Record of Debates in the Consembly and its sub -committees. |
