Get your facts right before you stump on two-nation idea!

Sir Syed Ahmed: Have you heard of him Digvijay?
Get your facts right before you stump on two-nation idea!
By OP Gupta, IFS (Retd)

Digvijay Singh, general secretary of Congress Party, was quoted asserting that Savarkar was the first person to have mooted the two-nation theory, which was later adopted by Jinnah. Insinuation is that Hindutva forces are responsible for Partition. My research shows that Sir Syed Ahmed was the first person to have talked in terms of two-nation theory.

THE two-nation theory basically implies that Hindus and Muslims cannot live in peace and harmony with each other as they with different history and different socio-cultural-religious norms constitute two different nations.

A handful of Congressi, communist and socialist Hindus and some Hindu historians falsely assert time and again that Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883-1966) is the first person to have propounded the two-nation theory. The Hindustan Times of January 28, 2011, has quoted Digvijay Singh, a general secretary of the Sonia Congress Party asserting: "It is a historical fact (that) Savarkar was the first person to have mooted the idea of a two-nation theory..........it was later adopted by Muhammad Ali Jinnah." This is totally false accusation by Digvijay Singh.

Muslim separatism has its roots in Islamic jurisprudence as Qur’an divides humanity into two watertight compartments- momins (Muslims who believe in Muhammad Sahib as the last Prophet) and, kafirs (who do not accept Muhammad Sahib as their Prophet). Under Islamic laws Muslims and non-Muslims do not have equal rights.

There are about 125 verses in Qur’an which are quoted by al Qaeda and jihadi Muslims to incite and justify violence against non-Muslims. Therefore there is inbuilt conflict everywhere between Muslims and non-Muslims, between Hindus and Muslims in India, and, between Muslims and Christians in Indonesia, Nigeria, Egypt, Iraq, UK, USA etc, and; between Jews and Muslims. Shias and Sunnis too are at war against each other.

According to al Qaeda interpretation, Qur’an prohibits friendship between Muslims and non-Muslims. Surah III.28 reads: "Let not the believers take unbelievers for friends......" Surah III.73 "and do not believe but in him who follows your religion." Surah III.12 reads: "Say to those who disbelieve, you shall be vanquished and driven together to hell." Surah IX.29 reads: "Fight those who do not believe in Allah." Surah IX. 123 and 5 also refer. Surah II.221 prohibits giving a Muslim girl in marriage to a non-Muslim and asks to convert a non-Muslim girl into Islam before marriage. Islamic writers and some Hindus often hide these Surahs.

Killing a kafir or an apostate is not always a crime for a Muslim under Islamic laws. On January 4, 2011 a police bodyguard of the Governor of Pakistani Punjab shot dead Governor Salman Taseer. In the court Qadri, assassin commando, accepted that he had killed Taseer but denied it was murder saying he had acted on the directives of the Qur’an and the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed "regarding an apostate" (Dawn, February 14, 2011). So it would be wise for all Hindus to take serious note of above verses of Qur’an.

Most Muslim authors, fundamentalist or liberal, hold the Congress leaders, especially Jawaharlal Nehru personally responsible for Partition of India. They argue that, among others, by refusing to share power in the United Provinces Ministry in 1937; and, by sabotaging the Cabinet Mission Plan in 1946 after first having accepted it Jawaharlal Nehru forced Jinnah to stick for Pakistan. This line was often taken by Pakistan ambassadors in discussions with me.

MJ Akbar in his recent book Tinderbox: The Past and Future of Pakistan, has followed the same Muslim line of putting primary blame on Jawaharlal Nehru for Partition. By implication Muslim authors try to free Indian Muslims of their guilt for Partition though in the 1945-46 elections, bulk of Indian Muslims had wholeheartedly voted for the Muslim League, which was demanding Partition, as the Muslim League won 425 out of 492 seats reserved for Muslims in the central and provincial legislatures.

And, Congress leaders in order to protect Jawaharlal Nehru and as per their Muslim appeasement policy try to divert responsibility for Partition away from Congress and Jawaharlal Nehru to Hindutva forces by resorting to canards and lies about Savarkar, as Digvijay Singh did on January 28.

It is true that Savarkar is the first person to have coined the term ‘Hindutva’ but he is certainly not the first person to have propounded the two-nation theory. Savarkar gave his Hindutva theory in his book Essentials of Hindutva around 1923 in which he said that Hindus constituted a nation.

AG Noorani, a Muslim critic of Hindutva, wrote in The Frontline of March 2003; "He (Savarkar) pronounced the two-nation theory, first, in 1923 in his essay Hindutva and next in 1937 in his presidential address to the Mahasabha". According to Noorani, in 1923 Savarkar wrote: "We Hindus are bound together not only by the love we bear to a common fatherland and by the blood that courses through our veins... but also by the tie of the common homage we pay to our great civilisation - our Hindu culture... we are one because we are a nation, a race and own a common Sanskriti (civilisation)."

In this 1923 quote, Savarkar merely asserted Hindus being a Nation without conceding that Muslims too constituted a nation. So this quote does not support Noorani’s charge that Savarkar propounded the two-nation theory in 1923.

According to Noorani, Savarkar at the Ahmedabad session of Hindu Mahasabha in 1937 said: "I warn the Hindus that the Mohammedans are likely to prove dangerous to our Hindu Nation... India cannot be assumed today to be a unitarian and homogenous nation, but on the contrary there are two nations in the main: the Hindus and the Moslems in India." So it is in 1937 that one could say that Savarkar too talked about Muslims constituting a nation.

At his 1937 presidential address at Ahmedabad, Savarkar said Hindus and Muslims were two-nations and called for a scientific study of the Muslim separatist problems, and, how to accommodate Muslims in united Hindustan. In fact, the Hindu Mahasabha led by Savarkar had opposed the very creation of Pakistan.

Political insinuation of this Jaichandi canard (that Savarkar was the first to moot this theory in 1923) is to blame the Hindutva forces for Partition. Congress Party spreads this canard so as to absolve itself as well as Jawaharlal Nehru of the guilt of half cooked Partition which caused death and rape of millions of Hindu men and women.

Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (1817-1898) of the Aligarh Muslim University fame is the real godfather of the two-nation theory, as he is the first person to have advocated that Muslims of India were a separate nation.

Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada, a Pakistani writer, in his book Evolution of Pakistan (The All-Pakistan Legal Decisions, Nabha Road, Lahore, 1963) has proudly asserted that (page 48): "Sir Syed was the first statesman who openly denounced Hindu domination and declared that Mussalmans are a separate nation."

Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada has written in his book Evolution of Pakistan chapter 3: (i) In 1867, in his conversation with Mr Shakespeare, Commissioner of Benares, Sir Ahmed said; "Now I am convinced that both these nations (Hindus and Muslims) will not join wholeheartedly in anything." (page 48, Pirzada). (ii) In a speech in 1883, Sir Syed said, "Now suppose that all the English were to leave India... then who would be the rulers of India? Is it possible that under the circumstances the two-nations-the Muslims and the Hindus-could sit on the same throne and remain equal in power? Most certainly not. It is necessary that one of them should conquer the other and thrust it down. To hope that both could remain equal is to desire the impossible and the inconceivable." (Page 49 Pirzada). (iii) In his letter dated 14th November 1911, Syed Ameer Ali wrote to Sir Mohammed Shafi that "the only sound basis of cooperation is a modus vivendi by which two-nations (i.e. Hindus and Muslims) may work together for the common good whilst retaining their own communal existence and their communal rights"(page 69, Pirzada).

KK Aziz in his book Rahmat Ali-A Biography (Vanguard 45, The Mall, Lahore) has quoted Sir Syed Ahmed Khan saying: (i) 1867... "Hindus and Muslims are two-nations; they will never join together in anything". (ii) 1883....... "One of the two-nations, Hindus and Muslims must conquer the other, the two cannot remain equal" (iii) 1883...... "India contains many nationalities and they are unfit to have representative institutions." (quoted by Khaliqazzaman) (iv) 1888....... "India is not a nation and can never become one".

Allama Muhammad Iqbal’s presidential address to the Muslim League on December 29, 1930 was the first deployment of the two-nation theory from a political party forum.

Thus, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (1863 and 1883), Syed Ameer Ali (1910), Iqbal (1930) and other Muslim leaders much before Savarkar (1937) had propounded the two-nation theory which was later used by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in forcing Partition of India. But in true Jaichandi style Shri Digvijay Singh, a Hindu, has chosen to level false charge against another Hindu, Savarkar.