On Tuesday, April 11, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi while addressing a public meeting organized by the United Democratic Front (UDF) workers in Kerala’s Wayanad made several assertions regarding India’s freedom struggle, one such being that India was built on the foundation of ‘non-violence’.
“Our nation was built on the foundation of truth, non-violence, equality, and justice,” Priyanka Gandhi said as she asserted that “when the institutions are failing to be checks and balances for the government, It is the job of the people of India’s job to be checks and balances for the government.”
Contrary to the Congress leader’s assertions, the foundation of independent India was laid on anything but non-violence. Even our school textbooks taught us that ‘Baapu’ got us freedom from the British colonialists through his non-violent movement. However, it has been a bloody history of ours which is not often talked about. It anyways does not make sense that a country that fought two world wars would be deterred by non-violence and let go of its treasure-India.
While the true history and horrors of Direct Action Day, the Khilafat Movement, and many such pertinent episodes related to the Indian freedom struggle may not have found a place in the mainstream discussion as the emphasis was laid on the ‘Ganga Jamuni Tehzeeb’ and other imaginary notions. Our school history books drastically watered down the Indian Independence struggle and painted a romantic picture that a man with a stick in his hand singlehandedly brought us freedom.
Here are some of the chapters of our Independence history which were carefully watered down.
Two-Nation Theory
The proponents of the ‘Two-Nation Theory’ were the original ‘Tukde-Tukde Gang’. Two Nation Theory was first touted by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, the founder of the Aligarh Muslim University. Khan had in 1876 said that he was convinced that Hindus and Muslims could never be one nation owing to the distinctiveness of their way of living and religion. Years later, in 1888, Khan had asserted that if the British leave India with all their canons and weapons, who would rule this country as he argued that both Hindus and Muslims cannot sit on the same throne, adding that one must conquer the other. “It is necessary that one of them should conquer the other. To hope that both could remain equal is to desire the impossible and the inconceivable. But until one nation has conquered the other and made it obedient, peace cannot reign in the land.”
Other than Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, Allama Mohammad Iqbal who is widely known for writing ‘Saare Jahan Se Accha, Hindustan Hamara’ had years later contradicted himself only to push for a separate ‘Muslim’ country.
In 1910, the poet happened to write Tarana-e-Milli for children to contradict own words he had written six years before. The Islamic fundamentalist nature of Muhammad Iqbal became entirely evident as he wrote, “Cīn o-ʿArab hamārā, Hindūstāṉ hamārā, Muslim haiṉ ham, wat̤an hai sārā jahāṉ hamārā” in the Tarana-e-Milli, which was composed in the same meter and rhyme scheme as ‘Sare Jaha Se Achcha’.
Interestingly, Muhammad Iqbal was also one of the lawyers who represented the murderer of Mahashay Rajpal who had published the book named ‘Rangeela Rasool’. He also praised the murderer identified as Ilmuddin, who was later conferred with the title of ‘Ghazi’ (warrior of faith) by Pakistan for killing Mahashay Rajpal in 1929.
It is important to note that this very two-nation theory laid the foundation for the demand for the creation of a separate Islamic nation, Pakistan, and the bloodshed that ensued.
Indians fought the British war
It is a known fact that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi who is portrayed as the patron saint of non-violence throughout his life had extended support to the British during the First World War. Over 1.5 million Indian soldiers fought from the British side because MK Gandhi decided so. As pointed out by Congress leader, Shashi Tharoor in this (article), during this time, there were hardly any rebellions against the British as the Indian nationalists did not take advantage of the situation by “even inciting disturbances”. Apparently, the Congress like true ‘allies’ rallied behind the British oppressors.
Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire during the Great War, a report published by the War Office in 1922, states that at the end of 1919, 53,486 Indian soldiers had died, 64,350 had been wounded, and 2,937 were still missing. Nevertheless, a few pages earlier, the same book provides an “approximate” number of 47,746 Indians who were “killed, died of wounds, died,” and asserts that an additional 65,126 were injured. It is, however, not very difficult to comprehend that the actual number may have been way higher.
Jallianwala Bagh Massacre: The unasked reward of fighting the British war
Even when World War I concluded in 1919 and Britain prevailed with the assistance of Indian soldiers the Britishers did not keep their promise. Instead of allowing for self-government, the British enforced the Rowlatt Act, which banned and censored the press, imprisoned political activists without charge, and detained anyone suspected of treason against the Empire without a warrant. General Reginald Dyer gave the order to his troops to open fire on 15,000 unarmed and defenseless men, women, and children in April 1919, resulting in the horrifying Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
Interestingly, while the horror of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre still brings tears to people’s eyes, Gandhi somehow forgave the British General.
Khilafat Movement
Muslims in India launched the Khilafat movement (1919–1924) to support the Caliphate in Turkey. MK Gandhi also offered his support to this, hoping that Muslims would do the same for his nationalist struggle.
As a result of the Moplah Muslims’ senseless zeal, nearly 10,000 Hindus were brutally murdered, thousands of Hindu women were raped, and Hindu temples were desecrated. The Moplah Muslims engaged in a murderous rampage during the Malabar Massacre in 1921, slaughtering Hindus in the most heinous ways possible. Over the years in our school history books, this has been whitewashed as ‘Muslims’ struggle for Indian Independence’ while it was their movement to establish an Islamic state in India.
Direct Action Day
Muhammad Ali Jinnah gave a call that we would have “either a divided India or a destroyed India” on the streets of Calcutta on August 16, 1946, calling on fellow Muslims throughout India to participate in a “Direct Action Day.”
Nothing like the rampage that ensued had ever been witnessed in India. Over the course of three days, almost 10,000 people were killed, and up to 15,000 were injured by sword-wielding men.
Noakhali Riots
The Noakhali riots, which began on October 10, 1946, were a series of loosely coordinated murders, mass rapes, kidnappings, and forced conversions of Hindus to Islam, as well as looting and arson of Hindu properties, carried out by the Muslim community in the Noakhali district of the Chittagong Division of Bengal (now Bangladesh). Around 5,000 people were slain during the unrest, which lasted for nearly a week.
Partition
There are tales of male family heads murdering their own daughters to prevent the women from being raped by the Islamist hordes. In her book The Other Side of Silence, Urvashi Butalia narrates an incident from the Thoa Khalsa village in the Rawalpindi district (now in Pakistan) wherein 90 Sikh women jumped into a well to save their honour from the ‘enemies’.
Many lost their homes and were forced to leave countries where their family had resided for many generations. In a matter of days, a centuries-old tie to their home country came to an end.
With Ambedkar Jayanti around the corner, it is also the right time to recall that architect of the constitution was in favour of a complete population exchange at the time of partition.
When someone asserts that the foundation of India was laid on non-violence, they are lying to the Indian people and blatantly covering up the horrors the people of this country endured. Such assertions also belittle the sacrifices of freedom fighters like Bhagat Singh, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, and countless others.
To call Indian Independence history as ‘non-violent’ is a disgrace and disservice to thousands who were killed in the various massacres leading to 15th August 1947 and even beyond.
