By
Saquib Salim, New Age Islam
15 August
2022
Trailokya Chakravarty, Noted, “The Muslim
Revolutionary Brothers Gave Us Practical Lessons Of Unbending Audacity And
Inflexible Will And Also Advice To Learn From Their Mistakes”
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Muslim
freedom fighters of India
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“The
Musalmans of India are, and have been for many years, a source of chronic
danger to the British Power in India.” - W W Hunter, an English official posted in
India, in his famous book ‘The Indian Musalmans’, published in 1871.
After 1947,
Indian scholars wrote a ‘nationalist’ history of the Indian freedom struggle
and for unknown reasons, they excluded Muslims. For the last seven decades, we
have been reading a history of the Indian Freedom Struggle that has largely
overlooked the contribution of Muslims. The generations brought up over this
narrative believe that either the Indian Muslims were pro-British or aloof from
the freedom struggle.
In this age
of social media, we find people questioning the patriotism of the Indian
Muslims based on this false understanding of the freedom struggle. In fact, almost 30% of the total
martyrs mentioned in ‘Dictionary of Martyrs of India’s Freedom Struggle
(1857-1947)’ launched by PM Narendra Modi in 2019 are Muslims. We must take note that the dictionary
does not account for the martyrs before 1857, which were in large numbers as
well.
Such
falsehoods propagated in the name of history should be challenged. The British
imperialism in India was resisted by the Indians right from its outset and the
Muslims were the flag bearers of this resistance. The British took over Bengal
administratively and economically after defeating the royal armies at the
Battle of Plassey (1757) and the Battle of Buxar (1764). With their win over
the Nawab of Bengal, the British started exploiting the Indians of Bengal
province in an unprecedented fashion. Their ruthless loot resulted in a
famine in 1770, which accounted for the deaths of one-third of the total
population of Bengal.
No wonder
the first popular national resistance to foreign colonial rule arose in Bengal.
A united front of Hindu Sanyasis and Muslim Fakirs rose up in arms against the
British. The
man who led this fight was, Majnu Shah, a Muslim Sufi from Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh).
Majnu was a devotee of Shah Madar, Kanpur, and took up the cause of poor
peasants on the advice of another Sufi saint, Hamiduddin. Almost 2000 Fakirs
and Sanyasis, under his command, would loot the treasures of the British and
British-backed landlords to distribute the money and food among poor exploited
masses. From 1763 till his death in 1786, Majnu was the most dangerous threat
to the British Empire in India. Fakir and Sanyasi forces killed several
officers and soldiers of the British in guerrilla wars. After his death, Musa
Shah took up the leadership of the movement. Hindu Sanyasi leaders, like
Bhawani Pathak, were also there and fought alongside but the colonial records
considered Majnu as the most threatening leader because under him Hindus and
Muslims fought a united war. The ruthless British suppressed this movement a
few years after the death of Majnu but the spirit of nationalism could not be
killed.
The
suppression of the movement led by Fakirs in Bengal did not mean that they
accepted defeat. Fakirs changed their strategy and joined Marathas and other
anti-British forces at the turn of the 18th century. The first major mutiny by
the Indian sepoys of the English East India Company Army in 1806 at Vellore,
which is said to be the inspiration behind 1857, was planned by Holkars, sons
of Tipu Sultan and brother of Nizam of Hyderabad with the help of Fakirs. In every cantonment in South
India, Fakirs propagated the message of nationalism through religious sermons,
songs and puppet shows. When the revolt broke out at several places including Vellore the Indian
revolutionaries were led by Fakirs like Shaikh Adam, Peerzada, Abdullah Khan,
Nabi Shah, and Rustam Ali. Scholar Perumal Chinnian writes, “the Southern
conspiracy was supported by Fakirs and other religious mendicants. The
conspiracy was established in all the army stations by them.”
Within a
few years, the British faced another challenge in the form of three distinct
movements led by Syed Ahmad Barelvi, Haji Shariatullah and Titu Mir
respectively.
Born in
Uttar Pradesh, Syed Ahmad toured a large part of the country and gained
followers in Bihar, Bengal, and Maharashtra. His followers took up arms against
the British and its allies in the areas adjacent to Afghanistan. The movement
posed a challenge to the British for decades. The British painted the movement
as a work of religious fanaticism while in reality, Syed Ahmad tried to forge
an alliance with Marathas against the foreign rulers. After he died in 1831,
Enayat Ali and Wilayat Ali, both from Patna, took up the leadership of the
movement. The wars they led in the frontier region caused the death of
thousands of soldiers of the British army.
Haji
Shariatullah and his son Dudu Miyan took up arms in Bengal to resist the
tyranny of rich landlords. They led peasants to revolt against the indigo
planters and other British agents. The movement they led is known as Faraizi
movement.
Titu Mir
also led a movement of poor masses against the British-backed landlords. He
formed his army and set up a popular administration. In 1831, Titu was killed
during a battle with the British. Hundreds of his supporters were arrested and
hanged, including his deputy, Ghulam Masum.
Meanwhile,
the Movement started by Syed Ahmad remained a grave danger to British rule in
India. Enayat Ali, Wilayat Ali, Karamat Ali, Zainuddin, Farhat Husain, and
others led an armed struggle against the British. In Patna, as soon as the news
of the revolt of 1857 reached, all the prominent leaders were arrested before
they could act. Still, Pir Ali launched a revolt in Patna. Though not a part of
the larger movement himself the British believed that he had their support. Pir
Ali, Waris Ali, and other Muslim revolutionaries were executed in Bihar during
the revolt of 1857.
The First
War of the National Independence of 1857 had a long history of planning behind
it. In
1838, the English government arrested Mubariz ud-Daula for plotting a
nationwide revolt against the foreign rule. The investigations revealed that Raja Ranjit
Singh, Gaekwars, Satara, Jodhpur, Bhopal, Patiala, Rohilla Pathans, and several
Nawabs, rajas and Zamindars had agreed upon the plan. Raja Ranjit Singh had
actually sent his troops to help Mubariz and contacted Persian and French
powers for help. The plan, because of a few traitors leaked out, Mubariz was
imprisoned where he died in 1854 and the revolt took place two decades later.
In 1845,
again a plan for a nationwide war of independence was discovered by the
English. Khwaja Hasan Ali Khan, Malik Kadam
Ali, Saif Ali and Kunwar Singh of Bihar were trying to raise a large army with
the help of several royals like Bahadur Shah Zafar, Scindias, and Nepal Naresh. Again a few Indians sold themselves to the
foreign rulers and told the English about this grand design to overthrow them.
The role of
Muslims in 1857 is no secret. The unity of Hindus and Muslims in 1857
threatened the British like never before and they resorted to a policy of
divide and rule after that. Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah of Faizabad, Fazl-e-Haq of Khairabadi, Imdadullah Muhajir Makki of
Muzaffarnagar, and Azimullah Khan, an associate of
Nana Saheb, were prominent in propagating the need of taking up the arms
against the colonial rule. For years before 1857, they were propagating these
ideas among sepoys as well as civilians.
The sepoys
at Meerut revolted against their British masters on 10 May 1857. Leaders of
these sepoys were Sheikh Peer Ali, Ameer Qudrat Ali, Sheikh Hasan ud-Deen, and
Sheikh Noor Muhammad. More than half of the 85 sepoys, who
revolted initially, were Muslims. The sepoys were soon joined by the civilians. And the revolutionaries marched on to Delhi and
proclaimed Bahadur Shah Zafar as the emperor of India. Delhi was liberated. In
Lucknow, Begum Hazrat Mahal took up arms against the British and led one of the
longest resistance movements during the revolt. Maulvi Ahmadullah was also fighting
the British with his forces and attained martyrdom during a battle. In his book on the revolt, Veer
Savarkar dedicated several pages to the valour and martyrdom of Ahmadullah.
In Muzaffarnagar, Imdadullah led a
popular revolt with the help of Qasim Nanautvi, Rashid Gangohi, and others
liberated Shamli and Thana Bhawan. A national government was set up. These revolutionaries were later
defeated as the British recaptured the region. Nawab of Jhajjar, Abdur Rehman,
was also hanged by the British for fighting for his motherland. The list is
unending. The British records mention several Muslims who fought them in 1857.
For example, an anonymous Burqa-clad Muslim woman
killed several English soldiers in Delhi before getting arrested.
In Bihar,
Kunwar Singh was leading the revolt of 1857. Zulfiqar was one of his most trusted
comrades with whom Kunwar was discussing every plan. After liberating Arrah the civil
government installed by Kunwar had his most trusted allies and there were
several Muslims. The government had “Shaikh Ghulam Yahea as Magistrate. Shaikh
Muhammad Azimuddin, an inhabitant of Milky Tola in the town of Arrah, was
appointed Jamadar (treasurer) of the eastern Thana: Turab Ali and Khadim Ali,
sons of Dewan Shaikh Afzal, were made Kotwals (Police officers in charge of a
city)”
The revolt
did not succeed. Bahadur Shah was exiled to Burma, several were hanged and many
more were transported for life to Andaman. But, the zeal for freedom did not
die.
In 1863, tribal
in North West Frontier Province stormed the British territories and entered
into a war. The British, though registered a victory, had to face one of the
stiffest military challenges. They lost more than a thousand of its English
soldiers. Intelligence reports pointed towards a financier in Ambala. The man was Jafar Thanesri.
During the raid police found
several letters which established him as the principal financier of the war in
NWFP. He channelled money, men and arms from different parts of the country to
the war front. Yahya Ali of Patna and nine others were also charged for waging
the war against the Queen. What followed was a series of arrests and trials
across India.
People were
arrested in Ambala, Patna, Malda and Rajmahal. Ahmadullah, Yahya Ali, Jafar,
Ibrahim Mandal, Rafique Mandal and others were arrested and transported to Andaman.
These revolutionaries celebrated martyrdom over life, hence the British decided
not to hang them but to send them to the Andamans. In 1869, Amir Khan and
Hashmat Khan were arrested in Kolkata. Norman, the Chief Justice, sentenced
them to the Andaman. The
sentence was avenged by Abdullah by assassinating Norman in 1871 and after a few months Sher Ali killed the viceroy, Lord Mayo, in the
Andaman .
Bipin
Chandra Pal, in his autobiography, credited these trials and killings as an
important influence on his political career. Another famous revolutionary,
Trailokya Chakravarty, noted, “the Muslim revolutionary brothers gave us
practical lessons of unbending audacity and inflexible will and also advice to
learn from their mistakes”.
In
Maharashtra, Ibrahim Khan, a Rohilla leader, and Balwant Phadke launched a
guerilla war against the British. They provided a tough resistance through the
1860s and 70s, and threatened the British in south India.
Meanwhile,
in 1885, Indian National Congress (INC) was formed to voice the apprehensions
of the emerging educated middle class. Badruddin Tayyabji and Rahmatullah Siani
were two of the earliest members and presidents of Congress. Later on, M.A
Ansari, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Hasrat Mohani, Abul Kalam Azad, and others remained
associated with the largest political outfit of India.
In 1907,
peasants in Punjab started agitation against the canal colonies. Along with
Lala Lajpat Rai and Sardar Ajit Singh, Syed Hyder Raza was one of its prominent
leaders. The movement is seen as a precursor to later Ghadar movement.
During the
First World War (1914 - 18), the British intercepted three letters written on
silk cloth. The letters were written by Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi to Maulana
Mahmood Hasan and pointed towards a global plan to overthrow the British rule
in India. Ubaidullah was named as one of the
most dangerous Indians for the British in the Rowlatt Committee Report.
He formed armed groups,
preached anti-British ideas and formed a provisional government in Kabul. The
Prime Minister of the government was Maulana Barkatullah. The government had to
have an army as well, which would attack India to free it. But, the plan failed
because of the leaked silk letters and the end of the World War. The plan was called Silk Letter
Movement and 59 freedom fighters, mostly Muslims, were charged for waging the
war against the Empire. Maulana
Abul Kalam Azad, Abdul Bari Firangi Mahli, Ubaidullah Sindhi, Maulana Mahmood,
Husain Ahmad Madni and M.A Ansari were few of them. Maulana Mahmood and Madni
were arrested in Makkah and imprisoned in Malta.
Maulana
Abul Kalam Azad, who is often seen as a token Muslim in a largely Hindu
dominated Congress, was a freedom fighter whom the British feared. His name
occurred in different CID reports for planning armed revolutions. At least 1700
freedom fighters took oath to die for the cause of freedom as members of
Hizbullah, a revolutionary organisation formed by Azad. Al-Hilal, a paper
edited and published by him, was banned for propagating the revolutionary
nationalist ideas. Azad established Darul Irshad, a madrasa, to popularise the anti-colonial
ideas. For his organization, Hizbullah, Jalaluddin and Abdur Razzak were
prominent recruiters, who also united Hindu and Muslim revolutionaries of
Bengal. No wonder, Azad was jailed many times and was the President of INC when
the Quit India Resolution of 1942 was passed.
The Silk
Letter Movement was not the only resistance movement during the World War.
Ghadar Movement was another movement in which several Muslims took part and
attained martyrdom. Rahmat Ali was hanged in Lahore for trying to instigate
mutiny among soldiers. The efforts bore fruit in Singapore, when, in February,
1915, 5th Light Infantry consisting mostly Muslims from Punjab revolted. The
soldiers captured Singapore for a few days. The revolutionaries were later
defeated, captured and shot dead.
Another
misconception prevalent among Indians is that the Bengali revolutionaries were
Hindus. Interestingly, the revolutionary organizations with Hindu religious
overtones, like Jugantar and Anushilan had many active Muslim members. Sirajul
Haq, Hamidul Haq, Abdul Momin, Maksuddin Ahmad, Maulvi Ghayasuddin, Nasiruddin,
Razia Khatun, Abdul Kader, Wali Nawaz, Ismail, Zahiruddin, Chand Miyan, Altaf
Ali, Alimuddin, and Fazlul Kader Chowdhury were few of the Bengali Muslim
revolutionaries who took up arms along with Hindus. Many of them were sent to
Andamans or killed.
After the
World War, the British introduced a draconian Rowlatt Act. The Indians
protested against the act and many leaders were arrested. At Jallianwala Bagh
people were massacred when they were protesting against the arrest of Saifuddin
Kitchlew. The proportion of Muslims killed at Jallianwala was quite high.
Around this time, 1919 onwards, Abdul Bari Firangimahli, Mazharul Haque, Zakir
Husain, Mohammad Ali, and Shaukat Ali emerged as the mass leaders. Women like
Bi Amma, Amjadi Begum, and Nishat al-Nisa also jumped into the freedom
struggle.
In Tamil
Nadu, Abdul Rahim organised the workers during the 1930s against the oppressive
colonial rule. V. M Abdullah, Sharif Brothers, and Abdul Sattar were other
prominent Muslim leaders in South India who led nationalist movements and
braved torture and imprisonments.
Khan Abdul
Ghaffar Khan led pathans posed a non-violent challenge to the British. In 1930,
the British fired upon a crowd protesting against the arrest of Ghaffar Khan at
Qissa Khwani Bazar, Peshawar. Hundreds of pathans laid their lives for the
service of the motherland.
Faqir of Ipi, Mirza Ali Khan, and Pir of Pagaro, Sibghatullah, raised their armies in the 1930s in Waziristan
and Sindh respectively to fight the British during the World War. In a larger
scheme of things, Subhas Chandra Bose and Axis Powers allied with their armies
in order to liberate India.
In 1941,
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose escaped from house arrest. The man who played an
important role in the escape was Mian Akbar Shah. Netaji reached Berlin and
formed a Free India Legion. Abid
Hasan, became his confidant here and served as secretary. Abid was his only associate who accompanied him on a famous submarine
journey from Germany to Japan. In 1943, Netaji formed Azad Hind Sarkar and Azad
Hind Fauj. Here several Muslims like, Lt. Col. Aziz Ahmad, Lt. Col. M.K Kiani,
Lt. Col. Ehsan Qadir, Lt. Col. Shah Nawaz, Karim Ghani, and D.M Khan became
ministers with important portfolios. Azad Hind Fauj faced reverses in war and
its soldiers were taken prisoners by the British. Rashid Ali’s imprisonment
became a symbol of Hindu Muslim unity when Hindus and Muslims across the
political affiliations came out on Kolkata road demanding his, and other Azad
Hind Fauj soldiers, release in 1946. The police fired upon the protesters
killing dozens of Indians. Elsewhere, in Mumbai and Karachi, the Royal Navy
revolted in support of Azad Hind Fauj. Anwar Husain was one of the prominent
martyrs of this revolt as Colonel Khan led the soldiers in revolt at Mumbai
port.
India
gained independence on 15 August, 1947. It was a costly affair. The cost was
the Indian lives. The lives we paid were neither Hindu, nor Muslim. The lives
belonged to the Indians. Those who laid their lives were Indians first, and
Hindus or Muslims later. Here again, Muslim leaders like Allah Bux Somroo, K.
A. Hamied, Faqir of Ipi, Abdul Qayyum Ansari, Abul Kalam Azad and others fought
against the divisive communal politics of Muslim League to stop the partition.
Tragically, more than seven decades later people have forgotten this important
aspect of our freedom struggle and try to divide this great struggle along
petty sectarian lines.
Source: Glorious Role of Muslims in Indian
Freedom Struggle
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-politics/muslims-indian-freedom-struggle/d/127721
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