Let’s Not Use The Debate On Horrors Of Partition Into A Tool To Spread Hatred Against India’s Muslims

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Let's ensure that the debate on Horrors of Partition does not become a tool to spread hatred against India's Muslims.

Syed Khalique Ahmed

NEW DELHI—Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced to observe August 14 as “Vibhajan Vibhishika Smriti Divas, or Partition Horrors Remembrance Day in memory of millions of people who were displaced and many others who lost their lives during the Partition of India in 1947.

In a tweet on Saturday, he said that he was announcing #PartitionHorrorsRemembranceDay “to remind us of the need to remove the poison of social divisions, disharmony and further strengthen the spirit of oneness, social harmony, and human empowerment.” 

Having been announced by PM Modi on the eve of the 75th Independence Day, we hope that Modi means what he says. We don’t question PM’s intentions, but India was never communally as polarized as it finds itself today after Modi took over the reign of the country on May 26, 2014, as 14th Prime Minister of the country. But, unfortunately, we have not witnessed any credible efforts Modi or his government has initiated to reduce the communal temperature of the country that has directly hit the Muslim minority all across the country, including the national Capital. So, mere remembrance of the horror is not enough. We should introspect what we as a nation have done to curb the agents of hatred who are working round the clock to divide the communities. If we have not done enough to counter the hate advertising, we must do it now and do it immediately because the forces of hatred are working at a much faster speed.

We have all seen how Modi remained “Maun” (silent) when Northeast Delhi burnt for three days in February 2020. As many as, 53 persons were killed, 40 of them Muslims. Hundreds of others were injured, and properties, residential and commercial, valued at hundreds of crores of rupees were destroyed. Neither Modi nor his Home Minister Amit Shah found time to visit the areas hit by anti-Muslim violence that was reported to be the worst after 1947 communal violence in India’s independent history. Many of the victims have not yet been able to return to their houses and restart their businesses due to various reasons. Unexpectedly, Muslim youths, men and women, and their Hindu friends, who had very strongly and in an organized manner, opposed Modi’s Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) purportedly to snatch citizenship of Indian Muslims and reduce them as foreigners in their own country, were held as conspirators in the violence and booked under stringent UAPA, an anti-terror law. Many of them are still languishing in jails, with their educational and academic career being at risk. However, no action was taken against those like BJP’s Kapil Mishra, who had threatened to take law and order into his own hands if anti-CAA protesters were not removed, or people like Anurag Thakur, who at a public meeting raised slogans like “Desh ke gaddaron ko/Goli maro sa*** ko” (shoot the traitors). 

Such language used by people belonging to the ruling party encourages the agents of hatred and violence. Surprisingly, Thakur is currently a minister in Modi’s government. Yet, Modi did not do anything to fight the hate propaganda against Muslims.

A few days ago, we saw how the right-wing workers, led by a BJP leader, raised slogans to massacre Muslims in India. It happened at Jantar Mantar in the heart of New Delhi, which is just at a stone’s throw distance from the country’s Parliament. The chief organizer of the event, who happens to be a Supreme Court advocate, was arrested but let out on bail because the charges levelled by police against him were frivolous.

India witnessed a new type of violence after 2014 when Muslims traveling in trains, buses, and roads were targeted by lynch mobs on one or the other pretexts to intimidate the Muslim community. Modi initially kept mum on the issue for months together, and when he finally spoke after a lot of criticism on social media, he was very vague. He did not directly criticize those involved in mob attacks on Muslims. 

We also know about the infamous Gujarat anti-Muslim pogrom in 2002 that resulted in the massacre of over 1200 people, mostly Muslims, and displacement of more than half a million people from their homes after the Godhra train burning incident when Modi was the Chief Minister of the state. Modi administration allowed the “kar sevaks” and BJP activists to parade the bodies of the victims of the train burning incident in Ahmedabad and other towns that generated hate against Muslims as Muslims were accused of being behind the train torching incident without any investigation. And what happened after was three days of continuous attacks on innocent Muslims throughout the length and breadth of the state, with security people finding it difficult to control the situation because the violence had spread to rural areas as well.

As Hindu right-wing politicians, academicians, historians, and intellectuals hold Muslims responsible for Partition followed by massacres on both sides and accuse Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru of having maintained a stoic silence on it, any debate on the horrors of Partition as announced by the PM is likely to exacerbate further the communal polarization that has engulfed the entire nation for the last six years. News portals like opindia.com have already started pouring venoms by publishing fabricated history of the Partition. One of the articles by K Bhattacharjee has dubbed Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, founder of Aligarh Muslim University, as divisive when every one knows how much Sir Syed worked for unity between Hindus and Muslims. In one of his speeches, Sir Syed is reported to have said, “We (Hindus and Muslims) eat the same crop, drink water from the same rivers and breathe the same air. As a matter of fact Hindus and Muslims are the two eyes of the beautiful bride that is Hindostan. Weakness of any one of them will spoil the beauty of the bride (dulhan)’. According to historians’ assessment, about two million people were killed on both sides – India and Pakistan – during Partition riots. Millions of people migrated on both sides of the Indo-Pak border to find new homes for the safety of their lives. 

We need to remind that Muslims formed the vanguard of the freedom movement, whether it was the 1857 revolt against the British rulers known in history as India’s first war of independence. It was after this that the British regime targeted Muslim nobility and landlords in North India. Many Muslim zamindars were killed, their properties confiscated and gifted to those who supported the British against the Muslim freedom fighters. During the second freedom movement, Muslims were again not behind any other community. They fought shoulder to shoulder with Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, and other communities for freedom, went to jails and made great sacrifices. The largest number of those imprisoned in “kalapani” (Andaman and Nicobar island ) happened to be Muslim religious leaders who stood up against the British tyranny. However, Muslim contribution to India’s freedom movement is being gradually erased by the government.

We hope history is not used to vilify a community and make them the further target of hate and violence. We should take lessons from history, both pre-Independence and post-Independence periods. The government must organize programmes for all communities and cultural groups and strengthen “the spirit of oneness and social harmony,” as tweeted by PM Modi. Let’s not perpetuate the horror as the country has already suffered so much from the horrors of repeated communal riots, mob lynching, etc.

If, in the name of remembering the horror of Partition, the divisive forces are allowed and encouraged to spit venom against Muslims, PM’s announcement will not serve the purpose of “oneness and social harmony.” On the contrary, it will only further the agenda of divisive forces who want to intimidate and marginalize the minorities, particularly the Muslim community. We need to remember that the holocaust in Germany did not begin with gas chambers but with the propaganda of hatred against the Jews. The massacre of Muslims in Bosnia did not begin suddenly but through long years of hate spread by Croats and others against Bosniaks who happen to be Muslims. Likewise, the massacre of Muslims in Myanmar did not begin abruptly, but long years of a campaign against them being of foreign origin and created hatred in the local population against Rohingyas, who are all Muslims. We hope that PM would call on his party leaders and others to exercise caution that the debate on horrors of Partition does not convert into an intellectual exercise of spreading hatred against India’s Muslims.

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