How Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel And Jawaharlal Nehru Disagreed On Delhi’s Post-Partition Areas With ‘Hamare Log’ And Muslims – Creating Muslim Zones And Mini-Pakistans
By Nazima Parveen
17 January,
2021
The
Muslims’ right to claim on space, after partition, was denied silently as well
as violently. This led to the evolution of communal demography in Delhi. The
Muslim population was forced to leave areas like Paharganj, Karol Bagh, Sabzi
Mandi and the surrounding localities where they were in a minority. Muslims
living in mixed areas of Old Delhi, including areas that were not directly
affected by communal violence, also decided to take shelter either in refugee
camps or at their relatives’ living in Muslim-dominated pockets.
Jama Masjid, New Delhi |
Photo by Suraj Singh Bhisht | ThePrint
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These
spontaneous (sometimes forced) but always less organised forms of internal
movement of Muslim populations to areas perceived to be ‘safe’ paved the way
for the creation of an administratively unclear and politically provocative
category called the ‘Muslim zones’.
There was
also a grave risk that Muslim residents could be ‘pushed out’ of their areas as
the ‘evacuated’ Muslim properties were to be allocated to Hindu and Sikh
refugees. There were a number of incidents in which RSS workers and other right-wing
Hindu political elements started threatening Muslim neighbours once an evacuee
house was occupied by Hindu or Sikh refugees even in Muslim-dominated areas.
Nehru
termed this a deliberate ‘pushing out’ of the Muslim population. The peace
committees, voluntary bodies formed to promote communal harmony in times of
violence, requested the government to stop rehabilitation of Hindu and Sikh
refugees in Muslim-dominated areas.
The city
space in Delhi was thus finally reconfigured on the basis of communal identity.
Nehru strongly supported this as a temporary arrangement to ensure the safety
and protection of Muslims. It was also done to secure the rights of Muslims who
were now called ‘evacuees’ after moving from their houses to refugee camps.
The government
made special arrangements at the later stage for the transfer of Muslims from
mixed and Hindu-dominated areas to these ‘Muslim zones’. Few Muslim households
situated in mixed areas were also forcibly evacuated by the authorities. They
were told to vacate their houses and move to designated areas for their safety.
After hectic deliberations of the emergency committee, chief commissioners and
military officers were directed to devise schemes for additional protection and
more intensive patrolling of these selected Muslim areas in order to restore
confidence amongst Muslims in the city.
The notion
of ‘Muslim zones’ came into being in this way as ‘risk management’ tactics. In
that sense, the areas for the first time came to be clearly arranged, quite
involuntarily, on the lines of established categorisation: ‘Hindu-dominated’,
‘Muslim-dominated’ and ‘mixed’. In fact, the numerical strength of the
community in crisis became an important administrative principle in the
official discourse.
The Muslim
zones had no ‘legal’ sanction. In fact, they came into being by an order issued
directly by the national government during the state of emergency.
The local
government bodies, which had a number of clerks and Babus (government servants)
sympathetic to the RSS, implemented the official orders selectively. In the
wake of Partition and related violence, local officials clearly distinguished
between Hamare Log (our people) and
Pakistani Musalmans (Pakistani Muslims) when it came to prioritising between
Hindu and Sikh refugee rehabilitation and Muslim resettlement. Azad made a
powerful observation about the functioning of local bodies in Delhi. He noted
that the administrative officers ‘were divided into two groups.
The larger group looked up to Sardar Patel and
acted in a way which they thought would please him. A smaller group looked up
to Jawaharlal and me and tried to carry out Jawaharlal’s orders.’ This group of
people drew inspiration from Sardar Patel as, according to him, Sardar Patel
stood completely against Gandhi and Nehru on the issues of protection and
resettlement of the Muslim population in Delhi.
According
to Azad, Sardar Patel declared his position by clearly differentiating between Hamare Log and Muslims during his
discussions with Gandhi on many occasions. In this situation, the security of
these zones largely remained the responsibility of the peace committees, which
continued to guard evacuee properties during riots with the help of local
residents and some refugees working as volunteers. It was only after prolonged
deliberation that the local administration and police provided protection to
these localities.
‘Muslim
zone’ was an administratively unclear and politically provocative spatial
category.
In the
backdrop of this contest over refugee rehabilitation in Muslim concentrated
areas, a new, powerful political metaphor—mini Pakistan— emerged, which became
a stereotypical reference point in the years to come.
The Muslim
zones were said to pose a ‘serious threat’ to internal security, especially
when Delhi’s displaced Muslims started returning from refugee camps in 1948.
The reversed migration of Muslims from Pakistan also contributed to the growing
controversies around Muslim zones.
A long
debate took place in Lok Sabha on 11 August 1952. Sardar Hukam Singh, an active
Sikh politician from Punjab, raised the issue of Muslim zones of Delhi in the
discussion. Although Muslim zones were outside the jurisdiction of the
custodian of evacuee property, Singh highlighted the need to rehabilitate Hindu
and Sikh refugees in the evacuee houses situated in Muslim zones. Singh argued
that the ‘liberal attitude’ of the Indian government towards Muslims encouraged
by ‘lofty ideals’ of the nation would lead to delay in the process of
rehabilitation of Hindu and Sikh refugees. He said:
The
custodian is not allowed to go there…. Possession has not been taken. The
Jamiat is keeping possession of them and distributing as it likes. It is not
permitted that any Hindu or Sikh might go inside that. There are Muslim zones
for past five years and this is being continued up to date. What right have
they? Is this loyalty to India that they can keep those doors closed? Those
zones are closed to [sic] everybody. Even the custodian cannot go and take
possession … people are lying on the streets, but these houses should be kept
intact…!
He further
argued that there were two sets of Muslims: ‘honest Muslims’ and ‘others’. An
honest Muslim, according to him, ‘would [not] be threatened [by the custodian
of evacuee property] and be obliged to leave this country’. But there are others,
according to him, ‘who have no intention of living here’ but have stayed on
only with the intention of strengthening Pakistan financially by keeping their
properties and businesses intact on both sides.’ Hukum Singh insisted that this
category of Muslims should be brought under the evacuee property law.
The
partition of India transformed the fuzzy religious identity of space into
concrete social and political categories. The Muslim zone and/or Muslim ilaqe,
placed bizarrely in a wider secular Indian space, emerged as a powerful urban
category in this period. The melting-pot thesis of Nehru saw these homogenised
units as a temporary measure to protect the community and eventually integrate
them into an India-specific secular-modern framework. But the sense of
insecurity and fear of the community intensified. The description of Muslim
zones as ‘mini Pakistans’ further established Muslim-dominated localities as
strong markers of Indian Muslim identity.
Subsequent
communal violence transformed these areas into ‘communally sensitive areas’
and, more generally, ‘Muslim ghettos’. The parallel discourse of ‘Hindu
Rashtra’, which at least till the 1950s was expressed as the demand for Akhand
Bharat, continued to refer to Pakistan in relation to Indian Muslim identity,
marking Muslim residential areas as usurped territories within the sacred Hindu
space. In later years, this allegation gradually started characterising
Muslim-dominated spaces as symbols of ghettoisation, associating them with the
alleged Muslim tendency of separatism.
The
proponents of both ideas—secular India and Hindu Rashtra —expected the Muslim
community to leave aside their religious identity and join the national
mainstream. The question of Indian-ness of Muslim identity, in this sense, was
never dissociated from the idea of Pakistan. For the Hindu nationalists, it was
a tool to keep the discourse of Akhand Hindu Rashtra alive. On the other hand,
protection of the Muslim minority, even after the making of Pakistan, became a
political imperative for Indian secularism.
Original Headline: How ‘Muslim zones’ and
‘mini-Pakistans’ came about in Delhi
Source: The Print
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-politics/how-sardar-vallabhbhai-patel-jawaharlal/d/124105
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