Communal Award of 1932 and
Indian Muslims.
History of India states that on 4th August, 1932 the
then British Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald announced to grant a separate
electorate to the Sikh, Muslims, Dalits ( then called as the Depressed classes
or the untouchable ) communities of India. This announcement is popularly known
as “ The Communal Award”. These stated separate representations were to be
provided for the Muslims, Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo – Indians, Europeans,
etc and the depressed classes were to be assigned a number of seats to be
filled by election from special constitution in which voters belonging to the depressed classes only could vote.
This meant that the voters belonging to these special
categories had to be given right and freedom to elect the representatives
belonging to their religion and thus their communities. many leaders of the
then Indian society had welcomed this step as they felt that a number of
elected leaders will vocalize the specific needs of their communities and shall
help in a better development of their community.
Then came the open revolt against this Award by none other
than Sri Mohan Das Karamchand Gandhi aka
the modern day “Father of Nation”. Gandhiji was against the move of the British
Rule to carve as separate electorate for the oppressed classes ( the Dalits )
and to vocalize this he went on an indefinite hunger strike from the September,
20 in 1932. A mass upsurge was generated by the supporters of Gandhiji to save
his life and Dr. Bhimrao R Ambedkarji, a supporter of this dual electorate, was
compelled to soften his stand on this issue. A series of talks and negotiations
resulted in a pact between caste Hindus and the depressed classes resulted in
Poona Pact on 24th. September, 1932 . On 25th September,
1932 the resolutions were announced in a public meeting held at Bombay ( now Mumbai )
confirming that amongst Hindus none shall be regarded as untouchable by reason
of birth and will have the same rights in all the social institution as the
other Hindus have. A total of 148 seats were reserved for the depressed classes
out of the general electorate seats through joint electorate.
It is highlighted that Poona
Pact was a victory for the depressed classes to gain a higher social order
in the Indian society and the tag of untouchable would become a part of history
after 1932. This may be practically be true but the truth was that Poona Pact
had adverse effect of all these communities that were a part of the Communal
Awards.
The process of alienating these communities have continued
till date in one form or the other and I shall consider the Muslim Community
here for the purpose of clarity in putting this Pact as the fore father of all
the ills that encompass India today.The last recorded Census based on the caste
in pre-independence India was in 1931. Note this was the base of the Communal
Award of 1932 and then the Poona Pact on 25th September,1932 The
outcome of this Census show the backward castes as the part of the general castes.
History of Muslim rule in India stresses the invasion or
coming of Babur from 1526 which remained
in various forms till the fall of Bahadur Shah Zafar in 1857 which means that
we can safely assume that India was under the influence of Islam and Muslim
rulers for more than three centuries. Then the Company rule and British Colony
was established in Indian subcontinent comprising of present day India, Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan.
The Muslim Rule was influenced by the cultures and religion
( Islam ) of the people coming from Western Asia through the present day Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Iran, Iraq, and part of Euro- Asian belt. This admixture of
food, clothing, rituals, cultures and religion reached India with an
aim to control the resources in these areas. The benefits were mainly accrued
through the natural resources, gold, agricultural products, animal, skilled
craft persons and builders of an inter cultural standards. The cultural life
around the temples and baudh vihars
had already diluted in the North India and had
shifted to further South and Eastern regions. The movements of the armies of
these Muslim rulers were greatly hindered due to the topography of North and
South divide of Indian peninsula. However the regents of these Rulers had
control over the lives of Indians in a way that the local culture and religious
fervor got intermingled to an extent which is still very difficult to separate
and identify them as which is indigenous and which is not.
Without going into the details of these times we find that
the system of jurisprudence was widely influenced and defined by the tenets of
Holy Quran. The Court of law had separate channel of functioning which was
independent to the status of the rulers often at crosshead with the ruling
elites. The point to stress here is that the justice was delivered despite the
pressures from the rulers in accordance with the Sharia of Islam and the needs of jurisprudence. Only the learned
and the just courtiers were appointed from the non-Islamic backgrounds who were
God Fearing and had faith ( Emaan ). The examples like Birbal are still exemplified.
Muslim rule in India is a part of our history and
we have to realize that a nation has to go through all this, good or bad, best
or worst phases of socio-cultural life. We seldom find exclusive details of the
history in our libraries with could develop a sense of pride and a wider
understanding of the life in Indian context. Most o f the books and Journals
available today have been removed, burnt, modified and edited so as to suit the
needs of the ruling classes over a large part of the history. The objective
outlook is lost in the showcasing of the ruling and victorious. The defeated
are removed from the shelves and part of the history. The viewpoints of an
event are lost in the glorification and awards of the winners. No one cares to
preserve the losers. This is a sad part of a history.
The rule of Muslims is seldom discussed in open and the
stories of individual Kings and emperors have been made to represent the sum
total of the ruling Class of Muslim rule in India. This does not represent the
totality of the work that was done in more than three hundred years. A variety
of system of ruling, jurisprudence, revenue collection, welfare activities, buildings
and constructions and skill development took place which has been ignored to
show that these are not important to learn or know today. It is difficult to
conclude that that everything was not favorable for the native Indians ( Mul
Nivasi ). The religions were adopted voluntarily through marriages, conversion
through the religious peers and the aim to get closer to powerful people might
have been some of the reasons to convert to Islam. The fact is that we find a
majority of converted Indian Muslims removed far away from the seat of power even
when the women from the Muslim elite ruled.
The marginalized and the converted
Muslims were removed to the periphery of the society motivated again by the
religious identities and personalities who are mentioned in Holy Quran. The
faith in Islam on enduring the present day hardships among the Muslims was
cleverly interwoven into the fabric of religious piousness by the Maulvis
of that time. Various sub- castes have been formed and propagated around
such personalities which decided their traditions, from birth till death,
marriages and rituals although they were under a single banner of Islam. Marriages
were used to control the leaders o f these sub-castes ( based mainly of the
kind of menial jobs they were assigned in the hierarchy of Muslim rule ) . We
still find strong remnants of these sub-castes in the present day old-cities of
Delhi, Bhopal, Hyderabad, etc in India.
When Muslim were controlling the Indian Subcontinent the
Christian arrived here, first to propagate Christianity and then to rule. The
fact may be disputed that why did Christians target India so late when they could have
done earlier also ? The fact remains that the spread of Christianity was mainly
followed by the trade links as these Churches were ( and still are ) sponsored
by the traders, businessman, ship-owners, sailors and manufacturers. The
military help was provided by the British to ensure the establishment of a
colony for making routes for plunder of cheap labour, minerals, markets and
favourable weather conditions for the manufacturing of for eg. indigo for the
markets in Great Britain.
The enemy in the market economy was shown as the enemy of
Christianity. Islam was put as the number one enemy in the Indian sub continent
in order to gain sympathy of the Hindus in the region and gain power. The system
of jurisprudence that was practiced for so long in India was replaced by the British System. We find full
attempts to tarnish the Muslims and Islam by replacing almost all the system we
find in present day India.
British Government replaced slowly almost all the laws related to governance,
jurisprudence, education, revenue, tax collection, buildings, land records,
classification of cultures ( tribal and Non-tribal, Hindus and non-Hindus
,etc.), census, religious bodies and the culture with imposing English as the
pseudo- Official language.
Muslims were the prime targets of the colonial powers in India as they
had to be removed from the minds of the majority of the Indians as the ruling
class. Muslims had remained elusive in terms of – laws to govern them, educate
them, rule them and had separate culture of their own. The convert to Islam
were the privileged lot till the Muslims rule so it was difficult for them to
adjust to the new rule of the British Government. The philosophy of Islam was targeted
by the British and many new schools of though were promoted and funded by them
to divide the unity of Muslims. The philosophy of Islam is so strong that the
religious doctrines were doctored in favor of those who submitted to the British
Rule. The pilgrimages to Mecca
were started to be sponsored by the British for those who supported them. The
books and schools were openly funded for the Muslims coming under their
patronages. Thus we find that all the institutions,
historical events, monuments and personalities related to Islam and Muslims
were either destroyed or made irrelevant by the British rulers. This made a
serious impact on the mindset of Muslims under the British Rule which could
never establish the supremacy of Christianity as a religion and Christians as a
better alternative to Muslim rule.
We find this continuing in the present world where any thing
related to Islam and Muslims is degraded. The Muslims still do not criticize
the British Rule in open and they keep silent when confronted with the question
on Islam and their culture. When the Muslims gain self-respect in their culture
will is very difficult to answer but the results are not very encouraging for
the modern world. We are seeing a removal of the ills from the Islam form of
governance as can be seen in Egypt,
etc where the autocratic rulers are being removed from power by the young
people who understand where they stand
in the present day world.
The Indian Muslim Youth is not clear as to what is
considered to be Modern and what is ritualistic. The old religious dogma are
continuously being broken by the modern technologies and where can you find the
Muslim- youth in chains ? Almost every
where in the world.
A golden opportunity was lost by the British rulers when the
steps that would have benefited the Christian Rule in India through the Communal Award in
1932. The compromise done under Poona Pact never ever benefited the tribal and
the dalits , who are also struggling for the Third Independence in India.
No comments:
Post a Comment