Winston Churchill Was Fond Of Iqbal's Poetry!
By Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
24 January 2024
Winston Churchill's antipathy for the people of British
India is well-known. He never missed an opportunity to condemn and castigate
them, including M K Gandhi. He was actually a racist for whom the colour of
skin did matter. Yet, there was one Muslim whose creative genius impressed the
fastidious Churchill and that man was Dr Muhammad Iqbal.
Winston Churchill as writer – Wikipedia
Winston Churchill passed away on January 24, 1965.
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Now researchers at Hull and Reading Universities in England
are of the view that having read Nicholson, Gibb, Griffith and Spofforth's
English translations of Iqbal's Urdu and Persian works, Churchill was convinced
that Iqbal would get the Nobel in Literature sooner or later. But that never
happened. Ironically, Churchill himself got the Nobel for Literature (!) in
1953 and his role as a peacemaker was ignored by the Nobel Committee.
On 16 October 1953, Prime Minister Winston Churchill learned
that he had won the Nobel Prize in Literature. His private secretary, Anthony
Montague Browne recalled that day. “Churchill deeply wished to be remembered as
a peacemaker…. I remember vividly his early and touching joy, which turned to
indifference when he learned that it was for Literature and not for Peace.”
Churchill thought of the Peace Prize as the ultimate
acknowledgment of his life’s work. He had been a resolute peacemaker since the
early 1900s. He helped to end the Boer War, negotiated the Irish Treaty,
engineered a Middle East settlement, and promoted a Jewish national home. For
the last twenty years his efforts for peace through strength were unduplicated.
Now he was trying to ward off a Cold War and a potential nuclear conflagration.
But it was not to be.
Coming back to Churchill rooting for Iqbal's Nobel (Iqbal's
name was suggested for both the categories, viz, Peace/Literature), it's said
that Iqbal's universality (not his mysticism) appealed to Churchill. Till the
late 30s, Iqbal wrote on universality and universal values. Islam started
obfuscating Iqbal's sublime poetry after the age of 40.
Since Iqbal and Churchill both had a similar vision of a
Supreme Human (Ubermensch in German) sans any divine intervention and
participation, they liked each other a lot. Iqbal's Persian professor at
Cambridge, Reynold A Nicholson even arranged their meeting at his place in
Cambridge.
It's a pity that just a handful of influential whites
promoted Iqbal in the West. Churchill was one of them! Further research is
required in this field because The Economist reported in 1941 that Churchill
enquired whether someone could get the Nobel posthumously? Iqbal already passed
away in 1938. This rather unknown facet of Churchill's persona needs to be
highlighted.
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A regular
columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative
religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed articles to the
world's premier publications in several languages including Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/winston-churchill-iqbal-poetry/d/131576
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