Hindu-Muslim Unity Inspired by Abul Kalam Azad For Fighting India’s Independence Is Urgently Required
By
Syeda Hameed
February
24, 2021
The
first time I met Maulana Abul Kalam Azad as a small girl when my father took me
to his King Edward Road home in Delhi to wish him for Eid, he left a deep
impact on my childish mind. I can still remember him
reclining on a sofa with a slim cigarette case on the table, his gentle smile
and his reserved manner. I never imagined that I would one day become his
biographer and spend almost half my life studying his life and his works.
As
his 63rd death anniversary was observed earlier this week, I began to think
about his urgent relevance in the 21st year of the 21st century. The fact that
he was the tallest leaders of the freedom movement, standing shoulder to
shoulder with the Mahatma, is not enough. The fact that he was Nehru’s mentor –
India’s first prime minister referred to him as Amir-e-Karvaan, the
leader of the group – is also not enough.
What
matters is that Azad holds the cure to the biggest scourge India faces today:
the communal virus that has seeped into the vital organs of my country. This
slow poison today is more lethal than the great pandemic that hit us in March
2020.
...................................
Also
Read: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad: The
Man Who Knew The Future Of Pakistan Before Its Creation
...................................
Hindu-Muslim
unity
In
1923, as the youngest president of the Congress party, Azad he spoke words that
no one would dare utter today for fear of being hauled up as “anti-national”.
He
said:
“If
an angel was to descend from the Heaven’s and from the heights of Qutab Minar
announce that provided Congress abandons its policy of Hindu-Muslim unity, Swaraj
would be granted in 24 hours, I would turn my back on that Swaraj.
Shunning it for the cost being demanded may delay Swaraj and harm India
for a short period. But abandoning our unity as a price for freedom will be
lethal for all humanity.”
However,
Azad’s mission of Hindu-Muslim unity had begun much earlier. He had grown up in
Kolkata under the strict eye of his disciplinarian father Maulana Khairuddin,
a renowned Sufi pir with thousands of murids but did not follow
his father’s vocation. As a young man of 17 or 18, he secretly became part of
the guerrilla movements Anushilan and Yuagantar, joining hands with
revolutionaries Rash Behari Ghosh and Shyam Sundar Chakravorty.
In
1912 at the age of 24, Azad started a journal called Al Hilal, The
Crescent. The weekly created a storm of interest in Kolkata. In its pages, he
exhorted Muslims to join hands with Hindus and fight for India’s independence.
Quoting verses from the Quran, he told them that their mazhab or
religion required that they join hands with Hindus and adherents of other
faiths to throw out the British.
But
to call Azad a Muslim leader or leader of Muslims is a fallacy. He was not for
one community – he was for all Indians. He could stand before thousands of
Hindus and mesmerise them with his strict adherence to principle and the power
of the spoken word.
‘A
common nationality’
In
1946, he was elected Congress president again. At the party’s Ramgarh
convention, he made a speech that is the best definition of the blending of
cultures that created the mosaic called India.
“Just
as a Hindu can say with pride that he is an Indian and follows Hinduism so also
we can say with equal pride that we are Indians and follow Islam,” he said.
“The Christian can with equal pride say that he is an Indian who follows
Christianity’. He spoke of a thousand years of joint life that has moulded the
two qoms (two nations), the two people, into a common nationality.
“Nature
has fashioned this through hidden anvils and set her seal on it,” Azad said.
“No fantasy and artificial scheming to separate and divide us can break this
unity.”
Healing
a broken nation
Many
of the political positions that are being taken today would have been anathema
for Azad. A lust for power, which is the name of the game today, was definitely
not his game. He could have chosen any portfolio he wanted in the first Cabinet
of free India. He chose education because he knew it was crucial for development
of a broken nation.
He
helped create the three Academies: Sangeet Natak for the performing
arts, Lalit Kala for the visual arts and Sahitya for literature.
He helped create the Indian Council for Cultural Relations for aadaan pradaan,
or reciprocity, of culture around the world. He helped create the University
Grants Commission, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the
Indian Institutes of Technology, public libraries and much more.
Today,
as the world watches India being convulsed by communal hatred, the farmers
protests, student unrest, a draconian campaign against citizens exercising
their democratic right, we are reliving our colonial history – only the players
have changed. Colonialism has been born in a new avatar.
As
I write this piece sitting in my home in Delhi’s Jamia Nagar, I see
these divisive forces everywhere. Jamia Millia Islamia has been in the
forefront of protests against a law that will deprive one section of Indians of
their citizenship rights. Today, security forces have been posted at the gates
of an educational institution that was built as fulfilment of Gandhi’s dream.
Azad
was called a lonely prophet in his time but also Amir of the Karvaan, even by
his staunch critics. His message remains as relevant as ever.
Maulana
Abul Kalam Azad’s death anniversary was on February 22.
A
former member of the Planning Commission of India, Syeda Hameed is the author
of India’s Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Islamic Seal on India’s Independence: Abul Kalam
Azad – a Fresh Look and Maulana Azad, Islam and the Indian National Movement.
Original headline: Six decades after his death,
Abul Kalam Azad’s message of Hindu-Muslim unity is urgently relevant
Source: Scroll.in
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-pluralism/hindu-muslim-unity-inspired-abul/d/124383
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African
Muslim News, Arab
World News, South
Asia News, Indian
Muslim News, World
Muslim News, Women
in Islam, Islamic
Feminism, Arab
Women, Women
In Arab, Islamophobia
in America, Muslim
Women in West, Islam
Women and Feminism