Comments on Shorish Kashmiri's 1946 interview of Mowlana Abul Kalam Azad - the case of Pakistan and India

[Note: After posting my comments, I was told that the entire interview was a hoax and not a real one. That explains why the purported predictions of the Mowlana was made to appear so perfect, almost unbelievable. Still I shall leave the original posting for the time being. So the posting below still is based on before-the-fact kind of information, i.e., assuming that there was such an interview.]

Recently my attention was drawn to an interview with the Mowlana Abul Kalam Azad that was conducted by journalist Shorish Kashmiri for a Lahore based Urdu magazine, Chattan, in April 1946. It was a time when the Cabinet Mission was holding its proceedings in Delhi and Simla. In that interview the Mowlana is credited with the prediction for dismemberment of Pakistan and even the military rule there.

I have been an avid reader of Mowlana's writing for many years. Many of my essays on Islam, esp. my short commentary of Surah al-Fatiha: The Meaning behind the Beginning of the Beginning - have drawn heavily from Mowlana's tafsir of the Qur'an. He was probably the best of the ulemas in the British India in the last days of the colony. There is little doubt that he was a true, sincere leader of Indian national independence who strove hard to make a case for all Indians, irrespective of caste and creed, to live together in a united India. His characterization of Jinnah in the interview was fair and shows once again that Jinnah was a true ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity, well until the late 1930s when he saw first hand how the Hindu communal forces had treated Muslims and what was to come if a united India came into existence. In my opinion, the Mowlana was fighting a losing battle and Jinnah was right when he championed the cause of Pakistan. It was the dirty communal Hindu leadership, the likes of Patel, that pushed Pakistan through our throat, a theme that was also to emerge in Jaswant Singh's latest book: Jinnah India- Partition Independence. As an ardent student of Eqbal Ahmed, I believe that the day Gandhi mixed religious symbolism in politics he basically seeded communal politics.

The Mowlana was right though in questioning: "when and where Islam provided for division of territories to settle populations on the basis of belief and unbelief. Does this find any sanction in the Quran or the traditions of the Holy Prophet? Who among the scholars of Islam has divided the dominion of God on this basis? If we accept this division in principle, how shall we reconcile it with Islam as a universal system?" It was for the same reasons that most of the ulema in India, including Mowdudi, objected to the creation of Pakistan. They were also too apprehensive of the secular Muslim leadership that was to rule the new country. The only justification I could cite for the cause of Pakistan from the Qur'an is its call for the believers to migrate if they could not practice Islam. Surely, India by then had not become that bad requiring its Muslim minorities to migrate. Nonetheless, the situation of Muslims varied depending on where they lived - wherever they were away from the community of Muslims the situation was quite bad. The Hindus were a highly discriminatory bunch - back in the pre-partition days of India and even today. There are approx. 13% Muslims living inside India today. That is like one in eight. And yet when it comes to government jobs, they represent 2% of the workforce. (For details, see my 2003 article on "Minorities in the Indian Sub-continent" about the despicable state of affairs of Muslims in India.) Even the Mowlana who was the president of Indian National Congress was not given an important ministerial portfolio outside education. True that India had chosen some Muslims to become her ceremonial head - the President, but such appointments were a charade to hide the dirty truth under the rug - the impoverishment of minorities. As to the discrimination of Muslims in Bengal at the hands of Hindus, the least said the better. Tomes can be written on that subject alone!

Far from Kashmiri's un-Islamic assertion giving Mowlana almost a knowledge of the future, we know for sure that the Mowlana's statement - "In future India will be faced with class problems, not communal disputes" - was proven wrong. There has not been a year when communal riots did not occur in India. In that context, Bangladesh fared better than India, and even Pakistan, if we can ignore the Shia-Sunni sectarian violence there. And Bangladesh would not have been a reality today had it not been for the emergence of Pakistan some 62 years ago.

Interestingly, the elements that led to the breakup of Pakistan are still present there for India. But thus far, such factors have not contributed to its dismemberment. Is it simply its democratic character or some other factors that act as the glue to keep things together in India?

Comments

  1. My dear friend the interview is an obvious forgery.

    http://pakteahouse.wordpress.com/2009/12/01/the-man-who-forged-an-interview-shorish-kashmiris-maulana-azad-hoax/

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  2. Are you sure? I thought it was a real one?

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  3. The above link provided by Yaseer hamdani does not prove that the interview was a fraud. He has analyzed the interview and feels it is a fraud. That is all. He is entitled to his opinion but to say that the interview is a fraud, we need more than just an opinion. We need proof.
    The interview with Shorish kashmiri was published in the urdu publication Chattan in April 1946. If someone can get a copy of that, it would be proof. Until it is disproved, I would take that article as proof enough. It has been seriously discussed in many forums including in many TV news Shows in pakistan.
    Maulana Azad has said similar things in an address to muslims at Jama Masjid, Delhi on October 23, 1947. You can read the speech here:
    http://therepublicofrumi.com/archives/kalam01.htm
    Sridhar

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