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| Lop-sided approach: Dehlvi needs to be hailed and educated about J&K | | News ANALYSIS-II | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Oct 13: Maulana Sayeed Athar Hussain Dehlvi, in particular, crossed the Lakshman Rekha when he described the Kashmir problem as a political issue. It is not a political issue. What has been happening in Kashmir Valley since 1947 is the fall-out of the politics of communalism the Kashmiri leaders, without any exception, have been indulging in ever since the state's legal accession to India. They have been behaving in a fashion the All-India Muslim league, the Aligarh School, a section of the Deoband School, to mention only a few, behaved during the days of Indian freedom struggle and ensured the country's partition on communal lines, with the British Government also contributing to the process of rise of communalism and division of India. Dehlvi did reject the idea of the state getting independence, but he and other Muslim scholars and clerics didn't oppose those demanding autonomy/self-rule/self-governance, thus indicating their belief in the kind of approach the Muslim League adopted during the roundtable conferences, held in London in 1931-32, and after the implementation of the Act of 1935.
The Muslim Leaders and similar other people had, it bears recalling, made it loud and clear that the Muslims could not live with the Hindus and that they would not accept anything short of an independent country for the Muslims and they got it. It is, however, a different story that they got Pakistan, but most of the Muslims decided against migration to Pakistan. Chairman of the drafting committee of the Indian Constitution Dr BR Ambedakar had favoured wholesale transfer of Muslim population to Pakistan and wholesale migration of non-Muslim population from Pakistan to India, saying only such an approach could end the Hindu-Muslim conflict in the sub-continent. However, the Congress didn't approve of the counsel of Ambedakar.
The attack of the Muslim scholars and clerics on New Delhi was misplaced. Delhi has always been extraordinarily generous towards the people of Kashmir. In fact, New Delhi has all along ignored Jammu and Ladakh and pampered Kashmir and its people, barring the non-Muslims. Besides, their view that the people of Kashmir are angry with the country (read India) and their assertion that there is unemployment and underdevelopment in Kashmir Valley only indicated their ignorance of the true picture. No one told them in Kashmir and in Jammu that Kashmir is the most prosperous region of the country, that the people of Kashmir (read those demanding independence, Pakistan, autonomy and self-rule) have been ruling the roost in the state and exploiting and humiliating the people of Jammu and Ladakh since 1947, that the Kashmir Valley has reached a saturation point as far as the issue of development is concerned and that while in Kashmir rate of employment is nearly 10 per cent, in the rest of the country it is between 3 per cent and four per cent. At least, media persons should have told Dehlvi and other Muslim scholars and clerics that it is Jammu, which houses more than one million refugees, all Hindus and all victims of two-nation theory, fanaticism, terrorism and neglect, where the people are extremely angry with New Delhi and Kashmiri leaders and their henchmen in Jammu. They should have told Dehlvi that Jammu houses more than one lakh people who do not enjoy citizenship rights. In short, it was incumbent on the part of those who interacted with Dehlvi to educate him and his companions. Alas, they didn't do so; they didn't counter Dehlvi; they didn't educate Dehlvi and others.
The statement of Dehlvi that Islam is not safe in Pakistan was very, very significant. What he said in Jammu was what the Deobandi scholars and clerics preached all through between 1867, when Maulana Muhammad Qasim Nanawtawi founded Dar-ul-Uloom (house of learning) at Deoband in Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, and 1947, when India won freedom. The political organ of the Deoband school, Jamai-ul-Ulama-I-Hind (Association of the Divines of India), it needs to be noted, stood for a united nationalism. It didn't approve of the two-nation theory. It vehemently opposed the Pakistan plan. On the contrary, it stood for a "territorial, as opposed to religious, nationalism." Its arguments against Muslim separatism were: "The Pakistan demand has British support and is nothing but an instrument forged by them to further their policy of divide and rule; Pakistan will split (it did split in 1971) and, therefore, weaken the Muslim India (note these words); our real enemy is British imperialism and our only duty to defeat it, only a united action can achieve this; Muslims left behind India after partition will be at the mercy of the Hindus (note these words); partition will hinder the missionary activities (read conversion) of the Ulema; Muslim League leaders are ignorant of Islam, have no ideology, and are only exploiting the name of Islam for the worldly gain of Muslim vested interests; and Muslim League leaders are incapable of building up an Islamic state (read and note these words very carefully) and their Pakistan will be no better than the Turkey of Mustafa Kamal."
In sum, it can be said that the visit of Dehlvi and other Muslim scholars and clerics created more confusion than clearing the cobwebs of confusion. Their approach was as lop-sided as it was controversial. They talked of India and, at the same time, denounced it. It appeared they visited Jammu and Kashmir only to make common cause with the undesirable elements. (Concluded) |
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