“I appeal to the youth of this country that they sit at the feet of this goddess (Nishat un Nisa Begum) to learn the lessons of independence and perseverance.” Famous Indian writer Brij Narayan Chakbast wrote this in 1918 about the freedom fighter Nishat un Nisa Begum.
People knew more about her husband Maulana Hasrat Mohani, who coined the slogan Inquilab Zindabad (Long live revolution). Historians have kept Nishat, like many other women, at the margins of historical narratives. She existed not as a protagonist but as a supporting actor in a play that had her husband as the protagonist.
This happened even though Hasrat admitted that he would have remained an apolitical editor if he had not married her. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad likened her to “a mountain of determination and patience.” Mahatma Gandhi also acknowledged a key role in the Non-Cooperation Movement. By no stretch of the imagination, she was a dependent woman and owed her existence to Hasrat.
Born in Lucknow in 1885, Nishat was home tutored, as was the custom of those times. She knew Urdu, Arabic, Persian, and English. Even before she married Hasrat in 1901 was teaching girls from backward sections of the society at her home. Marriage exposed her to the world of politics. Nishat and Hasrat were among the first Muslims in India to join Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s extremist group of Congress and open a Swadeshi shop in Aligarh. In 1903, the couple started a nationalist Urdu newspaper ‘Urdu e Mualla’. The British did not like it and jailed Hasrat in 1908. After his release, the couple resumed the newspaper. The newspaper had only two employees – Nishat and Hasrat.
Hasrat was again jailed during the First World War. Nishat, who like other Muslim women of her times, used to take a veil, came out in public to defend her husband in the court trial. She wrote letters to leaders, and articles in newspapers, and removed her veil while visiting courts. To go out of one’s house without a purdah was a courageous act.
Hasrat’s friend Pandit Kishan Parshad Kaul wrote, “She (Nishat) took this courageous step at a time when the veil was a symbol of dignity not only among Muslim women but among Hindu women as well”.
In those times Congress and other organizations used to raise public funds to help the families of jailed freedom fighters. Nishat declined to accept her share from it. Pandit Kishan Parshad recalled later that in 1917 when he once visited her in Aligarh he saw her living in abject poverty. Being a friend of Hasrat, he offered her money. Nishat told him, “I am happy with whatever I have”. She later asked him if he could help her in selling the Urdu books printed by their defunct press.
Kishan Parshad told Shiv Prasad Gupta, another prominent freedom fighter from Lucknow about Nishat’s condition. Gupta didn’t take a moment to write a cheque to purchase all the books from Nishat.
When Edwin Montagu visited India in 1917, Nishat was among the representatives of the All India Women’s Conference (AIWC) to meet him. In the meeting, she demanded that all the freedom fighters be released from jail.
Nishat had abandoned the purdah for good. In 1919, she attended the Amritsar Congress session after the Jallianwala Massacre and impressed everyone with her passionate speeches. A Muslim woman, without purdah and participating in politics at par with her husband, she was noticed as a “comrade of Hasrat.”
Nishat and Hasrat were sure that asking for concessions from the British was futile. They moved a resolution for Purna Swaraj (Complete Independence) and not a dominion status at the Ahmedabad session of Congress in 1921 as the party’s goal. Nishat spoke in support of the motion. The resolution was defeated as Mahatma Gandhi opposed the idea. Eight years later, Congress adopted the Purna Swaraj as its goal.
Hasrat was again jailed in 1922 and this time Nishat attended the Congress Session at Gaya without him. She eloquently opposed the participation of Congress members in the Legislative Councils. She said those who wanted complete independence from British rule could not dream of entering the assemblies formed by them.
According to Prof. Abida Samiuddin, Nishat’s politics did not depend on Hasrat alone. She was the first Muslim woman to address a Congress Session. Her work for the popularisation of Swadeshi, the All India Women Conference, correspondences with the nationalist leaders, articles in newspapers, public speeches, and other political activities are proof that she carried her identity in the Indian Freedom Struggle. She was active in workers’ movements till her death in 1937.
source: http://www.awazthevoice.in / Awaz, The Voice / Home> Stories / by Saquib Salim / May 14th, 2023
In the run-up to 2024, with the pendulum poised between a secular or theocratic state, we need to revisit this forgotten chapter of history.
In the end, only three Indians spoke against Partition: Mahatma Gandhi, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (centre) and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (right). (Express Archives)
The hall of the Bharatiya Bhasha Parishad on Calcutta’s Shakespeare Sarani was fully packed when I arrived for the Hashim Abdul Halim Foundation International Seminar. The Foundation is named after a man who was the speaker of the West Bengal Assembly for 29 years. The Iran Society which brings out the journal Indo Iranica is located in his ancestral home. Fuad Halim and Saira Shah Halim, along with their group, were the spirit of this event.
The overhead banner read “Muslims for a United India — Unvisited Histories: Remembering the Azad Muslim Conference, April 27-30, 1947”. Each word of the banner was part of my life although I had never thought of framing it in this way.
In 1947, my family was forcibly evicted from our ancestral place, Panipat, where we had lived for 800 years. No one asked them if they wanted to go to a newly carved country named Pakistan. The women of my family left notes pasted on their front doors, “We are going for a short time; we will return”. Keys were handed to neighbours, tears flowed on both sides. All they could carry were bundles and potlis. They were mostly women; the men of Panipat worked in nearby cities. They would join later. Young men who were studying abroad did not “opt” for the new country until it became inevitable. Seventy-six years later in 2023, I live in Delhi, near the campus of a university, Jamia Millia Islamia. Those who established it in 1920 were fortunately not evicted; they stayed on amidst the communal frenzy because they believed in a united India.
That day I heard speaker after speaker in a hall which remained packed for almost eight hours. They spoke on topics like ‘The Case for a South Asian Union’, ‘1857 Joint Heritage Joint Martyrdom’, ‘Muslims against Partition – Carrying Forward the 1857 Legacy’, ‘Challenging the Two Nation Theory: Maulana Azad and Nationalist Muslims’, ‘The Two Nation Theory: One Thought of Hindu Mahasabha RSS and Muslim League’, ‘Muslims who opposed the Partition of India’, ‘Allah Bux Soomro and Muslim Politics’. These were academics from universities across West Bengal, plus a few from the US and the UK.
The Azad Muslim Conference was the cord that held it all together. It was organised in Delhi in 1940 for three days, its objective: Advocacy for composite nationalism and for a united India, and unequivocal opposition to Partition and the Two Nation Theory. Participants were from the Krishak Praja Party, the Jamiat, Majlis e Ahrar ul Islam, All India Momin Conference, Khudai Khidmatgar, All India Shia Political Conference, Anjuman i Watan Baluchistan and others. Wilfred Smith, a world-renowned orientalist from McGill University in Canada wrote that this conference represented the vast majority of India’s Muslims. The Bombay Chronicle reported that the Muslim attendance was five times that of any event organised by the Muslim League. Allah Bux Soomro, twice premier of Sindh, was its leading light. Born in 1900 in Shikarpur, his fierce commitment to a united India led him to return the honours bestowed on him by the Empire. An equally unequivocal opposer of the two-nation theory was Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. He was born in Mecca, lived in Kolkata and joined the struggle with the guerrilla movement of Jugantar with Rash Behari Ghosh and Shyam Sundar Chakravarty. Azad spoke from every platform, the highest being his addresses as President (twice) of the Indian National Congress , against Partition and for a united India. In his first presidential address in 1923, he spoke for Hindu-Muslim unity, even if it meant a delay in attaining Swaraj.
Three years after the AIMC, Allah Bux Soomro was assassinated by an assailant said to belong to the Muslim League.
As the conference proceeded, layer after layer opened up and, to reword John Keats, I felt as if a “new planet swam into my ken”.
In the last decade, I have heard the following refrain from many quarters: “They demanded Pakistan. So why are they here? The Muslims — expunge, expel, exorcise them.”
Questions: Who asked us? Was there a plebiscite? Was there a “rai shumari”? Who made it happen? Elite Muslims, colonial masters — who suffered?
In his excellent work, Muslims Against Partition, Shamsul Islam writes, “The people of India, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, unitedly challenged imperialist power. This unprecedented unity naturally unnerved the firangis and made them conscious that their rule could flourish only if Hindus and Muslims were divided along communal lines.” The Minister of Indian Affairs, Lord Wood wrote to Lord Elgin, ‘We have maintained our rule in India by playing off one part against another.’ John Lawrence, Administrator of the East India Company, wrote, ‘If Muslims and Hindus have quarrelled, so much better for us; let them slaughter each other…’”
In the end, only three Indians spoke against Partition: Mahatma Gandhi, who said “over my dead body” but succumbed to the Congress; Maulana Abul Kalam Azad who stood his ground and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who wrote to Gandhi, “We Pashtuns stood by you and had undergone great sacrifices for attaining freedom. But you have deserted us and thrown us to the wolves.”
In the run-up to 2024, with the pendulum poised between a secular or theocratic India, we need to recall this forgotten history. In the current din of Muslim hatred is heard the rasping voice of the Minster of State for Law and Justice. At Delhi’s Maharashtra Sadan, he said, “There are very few tolerant Muslims; those who pretend to be tolerant do so to grab the offices of the Vice President, the governor as well as vice-chancellors. As soon as they retire they start spitting poison. They wear the mukhota (mask) of tolerance; tolerant Muslims can be counted on fingers. The basic structure of the nation is Hindu Rashtra.”
I’m ending with two lines from Hafiz Shirazi, quoted in S Abid Husain’s prophetic work, The Destiny of Indian Muslims: “If sorrow raises its dire legion/ To overwhelm people of faith / The Saqi and I will join hands /To wipe it off the face of this earth.”
The writer is former Member, Planning Commission
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> News> Opinion> Columns / by Syeda Hamid / May 11th, 2023
Abdul Bari is not a name that many Indians remember, but Munawwar, a committee member of the Tata Motor Workers’ Union in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, holds the name in high esteem.
“I don’t see a leader like Abdul Bari [coming up] in the near future,” he said. “It is because of his efforts that we still get high tea at just six paisa.”
“Once, Bari went to the Tatas and he was offered tea. He asked them to first offer it to the workers, and then made an agreement which is still benefitting us. Upma, aloo chaap, samosa all for six paisa in the company’s canteens.”
Asked how they pay six paisa when currency that small no longer exists, he says, “We get token of Rs 2 or more and keep using it for weeks.”
Munawwar visits Bari’s grave every year on March 28, the death anniversary of the pre-independence labour leader, to offer flowers. This duty, he says, was assigned to him by the Tatas.
Thinking of labour in the days of capital
Despite the large numbers of workers who struggle to earn a square meal a day, major political parties remain hostile towards them. In the 55-page Congress manifesto, the words ‘worker’ or ‘workers’ appear 15 times; in the BJP’s 45-page manifesto, the words appears only five times – four while referring to Asha and anganwadi workers. ‘Labour’ figures 21 times in the Congress manifesto, and only twice in the BJP’s.
The Congress does talk about ending the workers’ exploitation and improving working conditions. The party’s manifesto details new schemes and promises to implement old ones related to organised, unorganised and contractual labour. But it is anyone’s guess how schemes that have been on hold for so long will suddenly spring to life.
Dilip Simeon, a founding member of the Association of Indian Labour Historians and former professor of history at Ramjas College, says that nobody talks about labour now because “in today’s context, the labour movement is influenced by communal sentiments”.
“If labour is with the BMS [Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh] and Shiv Sena, then this is the weakness of the movement; if the labour movement wants to regain its power, then it has to face this challenge.”
Before independence, Simeon says, regardless of community, “leaders came together to advance the struggle of workers in India. Abdul Bari, Maneck Homi and Hazara Singh were their leaders. A Muslim, a Parsi and a Sikh could all be leaders of a workers’ movement.”
“Abdul Bari was so trusted that workers would start their protest first and then ask –what’s our demand?”
Bari was born in 1882, in Bihar’s Shahabad district. He was a student at Patna University in 1919 and was later appointed as a professor of history there, before he started studying law.
He quit to join the Khilafat movement, and actively participated in Gandhi’s civil disobedience movement and salt satyagraha. Bari did not restrict himself to the cause of one social group; he supported several political parties, including the Socialist Party and Swaraj Party, in parallel with the Congress. In addition, he was the voice of the labour movement in India and president of the Jamshedpur Tata Workers’ Union.
What Gandhi said about Bari
The journalist Afroz Alam Sahil has written a book on Abdul Bari, Professor Abdul Bari: Azaadi ki Ladaai Ka Ek Krantikaari Yodhha (Professor Abdul Bari: A Revolutionary Warrior of the Freedom Struggle). The author reveals several stories which won’t be found Indian history books. One such story is around Bari’s mysterious murder, and Gandhi’s reaction to it.
According to a report published by the Times of India on March 31, 1947, Bari was shot dead in the evening of March 28 while on his way home from Khushrupur, 24 miles from Patna. He was then the president of the Bihar Provincial Congress Committee. Following his death, a complete strike was observed, and Tata closed all its plants except essential ones.
Gandhi, in a speech on March 29, 1947, mentioned that he was struck by Bari’s simplicity and honesty. Gandhi added that he was planning to be more closely associated with Bari, and make an appeal to keep his short temper in check as it was not befitting of the highest office in Bihar. Gandhi referred to Bari in the same speech as “a very brave man with the heart of a fakir”. He declared that Bari’s death was the result of an altercation that had ensued between Bari and one Gurkha member of the anti-smuggling force, who was a former member of the Indian National Army.
The author mentions in this book that Bihar’s first Prime Minister (Premium) Barrister Muhammad Yunus had disclosed in an interview to the Orient Press of India that Bari had threatened to disclose the names of some prominent Congress leaders who were involved in the Bihar carnage – just three days before he was killed.
Yunus also said that Gandhi’s statement was given in haste. In his speech, Gandhi had told the audience that there was no politics of any kind in the death, and that it would be unjustified to associate the whole Indian National Army with Bari’s killing just because of one man’s actions.
In another incident discussed in the book, Gandhi arrives at Fatuaha station near Patna in the early morning of March 5, 1947. He travelled from Calcutta to Patna. Bari, chief minister Srikrishna Sinha and others welcomed him on the platform. As soon as Gandhi saw Bari, he laughed and said, “How is it that you are still alive?”
“This book is an attempt at bringing back his identity not just as a leader of the labour movement but a prominent leader of the freedom struggle of India,” the author says. “Professor Bari was one of the biggest leaders of the labour struggle in India. But limiting his role to even that would be unjust, because he was present in every chapter of the independence movement….The speciality of Abdul Bari is that he questioned his own party Congress when it came to the rights of workers.”
In a speech, Bari said, “We are in Congress to serve the poor of this country not to respect Gandhi, Rajendra Babu and Shri Krishna Babu…Lakhs of Indians who walk with them are not there to make them kings but to achieve freedom for this country.”
According to Sahil, “He criticised Gandhi and Rajendra Prasad many times because he was wholeheartedly committed to this struggle. He wanted to organise an all India conference for workers. He had formed the All India Mazdoor Sevak Sangh. He mentioned this in a letter written by him to Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel on 22 June 1946.”
Why commemorate leaders like Bari today? Sahil has the answer. “Today when Muslim youth talk about Muslim representation, they must read more about Bari, the symbol of Hindu-Muslim unity, in order to understand their own political history and determine how it influences their future.”
Afshan Khan is a Delhi-based freelance journalist.
source: http://www.thewire.in / The Wire / Home> Analysis> Labour / by Afshan Syed (headline edited) / May 01st, 2019
In popular memory, historical narratives are more often than not laced with silence, neglect, nostalgia and heroism thus blurring the line between history and fiction. Public memory tends to remember the selective events according to ideological or political conveniences while the whole narrative in its context is often forgotten.
The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre is one such event which stands out in public memory as a solitary incident. Popular imagination puts the killing of hundreds of Indians on 13th April, 1919 at Amritsar as an event completely disassociated from time and space. It is needed that the massacre should be read in context with the time and space.
Why did the people gather at Jallianwala Bagh?
Indian leadership in general supported the war efforts of the British during the World War – I (WWI) on a promise that the country would be granted self rule or some kind of political autonomy after the war would be over. The British, after the war, backtracked on the promise. Rather to check the nationalist voices brought a Rowlett Act in force which enabled police to imprison Indians without evidence. Several Indian Muslims were aggrieved at the humiliation of Turkey and the British believed that it was their only challenge. With the Rowlett Act at their disposal these Pro-Khilafat voices could be easily suppressed. They did not foresee the possibility of Hindus joining hands with the Muslims, and vice versa and pose a problem for their colonial rule.
An artist’s depiction of the scene of massacre
On 18th March, 1919, the Rowlett Act was passed. Mahatma Gandhi along with other nationalist leaders termed it a Black Act and called for a protest movement against the same. The day chosen for protests and strikes was the 30th March that was later changed to 6th April. In Delhi a protest was held on 30th, because of lack of communication, and the police did not hesitate from firing upon the unarmed people. More than 50 protestors were killed in Delhi. The British had cleared their intention of using violence against the non-violent protesters.
On 6th April protests and strikes were held across the country, yet Punjab displayed an exemplary zeal of nationalism. What disturbed the British most was the fact that orthodox Hindus of Arya Samaj and orthodox Muslims of different Wahabi and pan-Islamist organizations joined hands against the British. The most popular leaders of Punjab at the time – Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr. Satyapal, were prohibited from making public statements but still unity could not be broken. At different places people were fired upon but the nationalist sentiments could not be killed.
On April 9, Muslims came out to celebrate Ram Navami across Punjab. This was becoming too much for the British. In Amritsar Saifuddin and Satyapal oversaw a grand Ram Navami procession where Muslims were as zealous as Hindus were. It led the British to arrest the two leaders and sent them to an unknown location. The people gathered at the Deputy Commissioner’s office to register their protest and they were fired upon. Many were killed. The fear of a Hindu-Muslim unity was so frightening for the British that even after Jallianwala Massacre they arrested and killed Muslims for participating in Ram Navami celebrations.
Ghulam Jilani, who was an Imam of a mosque, was arrested on 16th April with Khair Din for leading the Ram Navmi processions. Police tortured them in the most horrific and inhuman fashion by inserting sticks up in their anus until their excreta and urine would not come out. Khair Din died of the torture while Jilani survived to narrate the ordeal. More than a hundred Muslims were tortured in this manner to celebrate Ram Navmi.
On the other hand in Lahore, on receiving this news, in an unprecedented manner more than 25,000 Hindus and Muslims gathered in Badshahi Mosque and Hindu leaders, like Rambhaj Datta, addressed the people from the pulpit of the mosque. In Lahore, not only the British used bullets but also brought their loyalists into the picture.
A few sold out Indians like the leaders of Muslims League issued statements that allowing Hindus into the mosque and addressing from pulpit amounted to the sacrilege. Still, most of the Muslims in Punjab were supporting the war cry of the protestors: Hindu-Musalman ki Jai (Victory to Hindu-Muslims).
Visitors clicking pictures at Jallianwala Bagh
It was noted in a government report tabled at the British Parliament, “It (Hindu-Muslim) union had only one purpose, a combined attack on the government.”
Meanwhile, on 13 April, the Baisakhi Day, a meeting was scheduled at Jallianwala Bagh, near Golden Temple, to protest the arrests of Saifuddin and Satyapal. Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs gathered at the Bagh. Colonel Dyer with his troops entered the place and fired upon the unarmed protesters. A gory story of blood, death and massacre happened that each and every Indian knows by heart. Hundreds of Indians died. The tale of this massacre became folklore and inspired generations of revolutionary Indians like Bhagat Singh, Ram Mohammad Singh Azad and others. But, what we miss out is that the British did not stop at this. Punjab remained a laboratory of British atrocities.
The next day, April 14, people in Gujranwala woke up to find a beheaded calf at a public place. It did not take a rocket science to decipher a sinister plot to cause enmity between Hindus and Muslims. People gathered and protested such malicious attempts of the government to disturb the peace. Frustrated at their failed attempt and seeing that the unity has strengthened even further, army airplanes were called in to bomb the city. Yes, you are reading it correctly.
Within two decades of the invention of aero planes and less than a decade of its first military use in WWI when the technology was novel even for armies the British used it upon the innocent civilians of Punjab. A fleet of three planes dropped bombs and fired machine guns on the city and adjacent rural areas. Bombs were dropped at schools, hostels, mosques, marriage ceremonies etc. The government report specifically mentioned that the district is dangerous because followers of Arya Samaj and orthodox Muslim Wahabis like Fazal Ilahi and Zafar Ali Khan had joined hands. An armoured train with machine guns mounted in it was also used to kill along the railway tracks in Gujranwala.
The tales of torture, suppression and killings was repeated allover Punjab. While Jallianwala Bagh rightly gets its mention in our books and survived the public memory the causes behind it and a long trail of violence proceeding and succeeding the event have been forgotten. The very fact that the British used their worst form of violence to counter Hindu-Muslim unity itself speaks about the power of this unity. We need to remember the cause for which our forefathers and foremothers had laid down their lives.
(Saquib Salim is a historian-writer)
source: http://www.awazthevoice.in / Awaz, The Voice / Home> Story / by Saquib Salim / 2021
“The Indian National Army (INA) has now crossed the Indo-Burmese border and in the course of the struggle for the liberation of the people of India from the British Yoke, we have now reached Moirang, the ancient citadel of Manipur. Our commitment is the march to Delhi and the unfurling of the Tricolour Flag then at Lal Quila.
Many had died on our way to reach near Moirang and many would die on our way to Delhi. However, the expulsion of the enemy from the sacred soil of India is a compulsion for us… Freedom of India is very near and near at hand. We shall win it and we shall have progress and prosperity of the people of India after it.” Colonel Shaukat Ali Malik of Azad Hind Fauj addressed these words to a large gathering at Moirang in Manipur on 14 April 1944 after hoisting the National Tricolour. In this way, Moirang became the first liberated territory of India, which came under the administration of Azad Hind Sarkar headed by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.
Col. Malik led INA’s victory march over Moirang, liberated the Indian territory, unfurled the national flag, and established a national government.
In his recently published book, Professor Kapil Kumar wrote, “Col. Malik while commanding the Unit, always led from the front and displayed Great feats of Bravery in difficulties achieving successes at various places. Netaji conferred upon him the great honour of Tamgha-e-Sardar-e-Jang.”
Kumar also lists several Indians from Manipur who joined INA forces. Prominent among them were Mairembam Koireng Singh, who later became CM of Manipur, and Naqi Ahmed Chaudhary, an INA soldier from Manipur who helped Col. Malik with the local language and terrain.
But, the importance of this operation goes beyond the hoisting of the flag and establishment of civilian government.
In the official newsletter of Azad Hind Fauj, Dr. M. R. Vyas one of the most trusted men of Netaji explained the importance of the victory of Moirang. He wrote, “When the INA first entered India, it appeared as if they would launch a direct assault on Imphal, the capital of Manipur. The British, in this expectation, concentrated powerful forces, consisting of 3 divisions and 2 motorized brigades at Imphal. However, the INA troops avoided any such frontal attack which would necessarily have meant big losses. Instead, the Indian and the Japanese High Command planned for the rendering impotent of a powerful enemy force by encircling it.”
So, the capture of Moirang “brought about the virtual encirclement of Imphal, thus rendering an entire British force of 60,000 – 80,000 men impotent of launching a major counter-offensive. This force became dependent on air supplies, which, from their very nature, are limited and insufficient for big operations.”
The plan was to further annihilate this British force with the onset of Monsoons. For more than two months, INA under Col. Malik remained in total control and kept attacking the British posts from there. The British would have faced a humiliating defeat if US Air Force wouldn’t come to their rescue.
More than 100 US fighter planes bombed Moirang and Bishnupur in Manipur. Fleets of B-25, P-51, and A-31 started bombing INA positions and civilians on 8 May 1944. Hundreds of these US fighter planes bombed civilian areas, INA positions, bridges connecting Myanmar to Manipur, and any supply line available to the Indians. The scale of US operations in Moirang is a testimony to the importance of this victory.
source: http://www.awazthevoice.in / Awaz, The Voice / Home> Stories / by Saquib Salim / April 14th, 2023
Close to the Shwedagon Pagoda in Myanmar, this dargah is the last tribute to the Mughal ruler and poet.
The main hall at the Dargah of Bahadur Shah Zafar Photos: Subhadip Mukherjee
Myanmar (Burma) has some uncanny ties with India when it comes to the freedom struggle. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was imprisoned in Mandalay and the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, who was also imprisoned, later died in Yangon (Rangoon).
If one visits Yangon, then one must visit the Dargah of Bahadur Shah Zafar. It is an irony of sorts when one thinks of the last Mughal emperor not being able to spend the last days of his life in a country where his ancestors once ruled. For the British, Bahadur Shah Zafar was more like a threat; they were constantly worried that he could be used as a proxy leader for another attempt at a revolt in India.
The Dargah of Bahadur Shah Zafar in Yangon
After being arrested from Humayun’s Tomb during the Sepoy Mutiny on September 19, 1857, he was spared the death sentence and negotiated a life in exile instead. They thought it was better to have him sent to exile in Myanmar, and considering his health, they were almost certain that he would never set foot in India again. Bahadur Shah Zafar left Delhi along with his wife, two sons, and some close support staff on October 7, 1858.
More than a rebellious ruler, Bahadur Shah was more into poetry and that’s exactly how he spent the sunset years of his life in Myanmar. The British were paranoid and even prevented him from getting supplies of pen and paper fearing that he would pass messages to his supporters back in India.
Life in Yangon
Room next to the main hall, housing the tombs
He lived in a small wooden house that was located very near Shwedagon Pagoda. If you are visiting Yangon, then you’ll find Shwedagon Pagoda as one of the major landmarks in the city. His life was miserable out here with a very limited supply of food and without any pen and paper. So, as a last-ditch attempt, he started using charcoal and scribbled poetry on the wall of his home.
His life came to an end at the age of 87 on November 7, 1862. By then, he was completely bedridden and unable to eat or drink. A very unfortunate end to the last Mughal emperor of India.
Memorial plaques inside the dargah
Even after his death, the British were paranoid and hurriedly buried him without giving him the last respect that he deserved as the last emperor. Just a small plaque was placed on top of the grave and the rest was kept as simple as possible. This was purposely done to prevent his followers from making this place into a pilgrimage spot.
Four years later, his wife also passed away in Yangon and was buried right next to him.
The Lost Grave
The Lost Grave
With time, people simply forgot about this grave just exactly as the British wanted. To make matters more complicated no official records were kept as to the exact place where he was buried.
The discovery of the grave happened by chance in the year 1991 during an expansion work of a prayer hall that was being carried out by labourers. Two graves were found with small inscriptions on top of them. While one had the name Bahadur Shah Zafar, the one next to it was that of his wife Zinat Mahal.
Further excavation was carried out on the two graves and upon opening up the grave of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the skeletal remains were found wrapped in a silk shroud.
Interiors of Bahadur Shah Zafar Memorial Hall at the dargah
After this discovery and realising the importance of the grave, it was decided to restore and renovate the graves and the surrounding area. With support from the local community, the local government, and further support from the Government of India, a permanent structure was constructed over these two graves. A dargah was constructed at this very spot making it fit for the last Mughal emperor.
Dargah of Bahadur Shah Zafar
Original grave of Bahadur Shah Zafar at the basement
The dargah has two levels, the top level has a large prayer hall and a room with three decorated tombs. These tombs are that of Bahadur Shah Zafar, Zinat Mahal, and his granddaughter Raunaq Zamani. The surrounding walls in this room have only three known photographs of the emperor and poetry written by him lamenting his life in exile.
Kitnaa hai badnaseeb ‘Zafar’ dafn ke liye do gaz zamin bhi na mili kuu-e-yaar mein
Bahadur Shah Zafar
There is however another secret to this place. There is a room located in the basement of the dargah. This is the room where the original grave of Bahadur Shah Zafar was located when it was discovered. The grave now has been converted into a decorated tomb. This is the very place where the last Mughal emperor was buried and was thought would be forgotten. But as luck would have it, it is now somewhat fit for an emperor. It’s sad that Bahadur Shah Zafar could never return to the country he once ruled. He remained in exile even after he died in Myanmar.
The Kolkata Connection
A representative from the Dargah reading poetry written by Bahadur Shah Zafar
Bahadur Shah Zafar along with his wife Zinat Mahal were also accompanied by their two sons Jawan Bakht and Jamshed Bakht. His sons never left Burma and settled there and ultimately died there only. Jamshed Bakht had two sons. One of his sons, Mirza Bedar Bakht, came back to India and settled in Kolkata. He married Sultana Begum with whom he had five daughters. Mirza Bedar Bakht had a very quiet life living in a slum and earning by sharpening knives and scissors. He died in the year 1980 in this very city and was buried here in Kolkata.
Working for more than a decade in the book retail and publishing industry, Subhadip Mukherjee is an IT professional who is into blogging for over 15 years. He is also a globetrotter, heritage lover and a photography enthusiast.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph Online / Home> My Kolkata> Historical Landmark / by Subhadip Mukherjee / April 03rd, 2023
Moulvi Allavuddin was sent to cellular jail in Andaman on June 28, 1859.
Moulvi Syed Allavuddin
Moulvi Syed Allavuddin who was a spiritual leader used to exhort the people of Nizam State, one of the strongest princely states of South India, to rebel against the British hegemony. He stood at the forefront of the direct fight against the British Government.
Moulvi Syed Allavuddin was a native of Hyderabad, the capital of the erstwhile Nizam princely state. He intensified his rebellious activities soon after the First war of Independence of India was started in 1857.
A rebellion started in Aurangabad which was part of Nizam State. The rebels who took part in the revolutionary activities in Aurangabad, escaped arrest and came to Hyderabad. They were arrested by the Nizam state police and kept in jail. The people and prominent citizens of Nizam state were angry when Nizam rejected their plea to release the arrested rebels. They met in Mecca Masjid on July 17, 1857, and decided to attack the British Residency in Hyderabad.
That afternoon at 4 pm about five hundred people led by Moulvi Allavuddin and another revolutionary leader Patan Turrebaz Khan marched ahead from Sultan Bazar with war cries to attack the British Residency, a symbol of British Supremacy. Nizam Nawab, being a friend of the British, informed the English officers of the imminent attack. The armies of the English and the Nizam moved strategically and confronted the attackers with additional forces.
Firing continued between the two sides throughout the night. The rebels retreated as the enemy forces gained an upper hand. The angry armies of the British and the Nizam cracked down on the people of Hyderabad. An award of four thousand rupees was announced on the head of Moulvi Syed Allavuddin.
Moulvi went underground. After taking shelter for one and half years from his close friend named Peer Mohammed, he started consultations with freedom fighters and revolutionaries like Syed Bhikkoo, Syed Lal, and Mohammed Ali to put an end to the hegemony of the British on his land and people. At last British forces arrested and sent Moulvi Allavuddin to the cellular jail in Andaman on June 28, 1859.
After leading a miserable life of 25 years as a prisoner, Moulvi Syed Allavuddin passed away in 1884.
source: http://www.siasat.com / The Siasat Daily / Home> News> India / by Syed Naseer Khan / April 03rd, 2023
“The Dargah (Ajmer Sharif) is undoubtedly a danger-center….the sedition is more or less confined to the Dargah and that it is very difficult to get evidence of what goes on there.” The Above excerpt is from a secret report submitted to the British Government by Intelligence officials in 1922.
A common man may not think that the Dargahs, shrines, and Sufi centers were at the forefront of the Indian Freedom Struggle. For reasons unknown, most people believe that Ajmer Dargah played no, or little, role in the struggle. The fact is that it acted as a center of nationalist activities so much so that the British Government snooped over the activities in Dargah.
The official committee which was formed after Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in its findings pointed out that the Indians were planning a popular uprising against the British. The plan was discussed by nationalists at the Urs under the leadership of Maulana Abdul Bari Firangimahli.
The spies regularly updated the government on the nationalist activities in the Dragah. In 1920 they reported that more than 5,000 people attended a meeting at Idgah which was addressed by Lala Chand Karan who asked people to fight the British because they promote cow slaughter, massacred people in Punjab, and cause disunity between Muslims and Hindus. The same report notes that the Pesh Imam of the Ajmer Dargah prayed for the defeat of the British after which Maulvi Moinuddin asked people to renounce the titles bestowed upon them by foreign rulers.
Another report from 1921 notes that anti-British speeches were being delivered at the Dargah during Friday prayers.
In 1922, intelligence officers again reported that Urs at the Dargah would be an occasion where the nationalists would be meeting to discuss nationalist ideas.
An intelligence report from 1922 contains the most explosive information. The report claimed that Muslims and Hindus in Rajputana had taken an oath of allegiance with Maulvi Moinuddin of Ajmer. Under his instructions, they were preparing for a war against the British.
An armed militant organisation Jamiat ul-Thaba was founded and arms had been procured from different places in the country. Jamiat ul-Thaba passed a resolution and declared that the British were enemies of religion, nation, and country and that revenge would be taken from them.
75 years have passed since Independence and most of us are unaware of the role of Ajmer Dargah in winning this independence.
source: http://www.awazthevoice.in / Awaz, The Voice / Home> Story / by Saquib Salim / April 02nd, 2023
A new book questions political wisdom about competitive communalism before and after Independence.
Former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Image Courtesy: PTI
The prevailing political wisdom of the day is to chastise Jawaharlal Nehru, his Congress party, and their inclusive vision for the republic. Given this, one is caught in a fix if a published work subjects the Congress-Nehruvian performance to criticism. The republican and constitutional vision of India, and its plans and goals were outcomes of a prolonged anti-colonial mass agitation, which multiple ideological and identitarian political formations joined, complemented and contested.
Besides the aligned or contending forces, intellectuals and activists of various 19th and 20th-century hues also provided inputs. Privileged Muslims articulated some strands, including the exclusionary right-wing politics of communal separatism. Though represented by the Muslim League, and its sole spokesman MA Jinnah, they straddled nearly every shade of political articulation, ranging from Left to Centre, from those who advocated separatism to its vociferous opponents.
Unfortunately, the academic and popular domains popularise Muslim separatism more than their resistance to separatism. Academic studies also focus too much on Uttar Pradesh (earlier the United Provinces of Agra and Awadh). Gyanesh Kudaisya (2002) characterised this province as India’s heartland in terms of population and geographic size but also narrative-making for the Indian polity.
The former landed elites of the Muslims of this region, whom David Lelyveld (1978) called the “Kutchery Milieu”, were in the forefront and mainstay of the Muslim League. An important Muslim League leader from Lucknow, Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman (1889-1973), candidly and proudly proclaimed this in his 1961 memoir, Pathway to Pakistan. Quoting Maulana Azad, he writes, “All students of Indian politics know that it was from the U.P. that the League was reorganised. Mr Jinnah took full advantage of the situation and started an offensive which ultimately led to Pakistan.” Interestingly, in the late 1930s, Khaliquzzaman was the mayor of Lucknow and allied at least once with the Hindu Mahasabha. After Partition, it took him a long time to migrate to the other side of the border.
Against this backdrop, Aishwarya Pandit’s Claiming Citizenship and Nation: Muslim Politics and State Building in North India, 1947-1986, published by Routledge in 2021, is a critical intervention. She writes, “Given the demographic dominance of U.P. Muslims in some constituencies, the threat of revival of ‘Muslim communalism’ continued to impact their politics. In the colonial period, the United Provinces had remained central to Muslim politics around issues of representation, minority safeguards and language.”
Pandit disagrees with Kudaisya and proposes in her introductory chapter that the Uttar Pradesh Congress opposed the Centre’s move to “introduce minority and cultural safeguards after 1947”. Her book examines the intersections of law, identity and property and notes region-specific Muslim—and anti-Muslim—politics and articulations. Notably, she includes in her work the tensions that prevailed within the Muslim community over contemporary concerns.
Pandit says the new Muslim leadership that emerged after independence articulated the weaknesses of Nehruvian secularism, particularly concerning their religious, cultural and identitarian concerns. Further, from the mid-1970s onward, “Fatwa and Ulema politics acquired the centre stage”. Her study ends in 1986, a period that, according to her, “signaled the continuation of Hindu counter mobilisation, which set in the 1950s around the [Babri] Masjid-[Ram] Temple issue [of Ayodhya], the issue of minority appeasement and personal law and also coincided with the dipping fortunes of the Congress party in Uttar Pradesh”.
In her effort to discover reasons for the Congress party’s decline in Uttar Pradesh, she argues that Muslims here [and in Bihar] “made some surprising alliances including those with the Jan Sangh in the 1960s and 70s”. Pandit attempts to absolve Muslims of the responsibility for this, and “challenges the widespread view that Muslims acted as a secure and stable ‘vote-bank’ for the Congress after independence”.
This is where the book would provoke many to raise a few questions that have been left unasked or unanswered. Terminating the study in 1986—and not a few years later—may have excluded the author from raising some crucial questions. Hindu counter-mobilisation got massive support from the Shah Bano issue that raged from May 1985 to April 1986, other than the ‘nationalisation’ of the local Ayodhya dispute, which Pandit chooses not to examine. Scholars, even those not inclined to the right, often sidestep Muslim contributions to communalising narratives that fed Hindu majoritarianism, weakening India’s fragile pluralist secularism.
On 15 January 1986, at a Momin Conference session at the Siri Fort Auditorium in Delhi, then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi announced his intention to amend the law to nullify the Supreme Court’s April 1985 verdict in favour of Shah Bano. Driven out of her home in 1975, 43 years after her marriage, Bano had approached the courts seeking maintenance. Given instant triple divorce in 1978—inside a trial court in Indore—the case moved from the High Court to the Supreme Court. In May 1986, the Rajiv Gandhi-led government passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act following strident Muslim protests in January that year against the progressive judicial verdict that granted Shah Bano alimony. The law passed in Parliament reversed the maintenance the court had said she was entitled to.
The Urdu memoir, Karwan-e-Zindagi, published in 1988 by Maulana Abul Hasan Ali Miyan Nadvi (1914-1999), makes the conservative Muslim approach to this issue pretty clear. In Volume 3, Nadvi triumphantly writes about how he persuaded Rajiv Gandhi not to accept the proposition that many Islamic countries had reformed their personal laws. He rejoices in accomplishing his effort to stymie similar reforms in India. He says his arguments had a particular psychological impact on Rajiv Gandhi—“Woh teer apney nishaaney par baitha—My arrow hit its target”. Nadvi includes a candid confession: “Our mobilisation to protect the Shariat in 1986 complicated the Babri Masjid issue and vitiated the atmosphere in a big way—“Iss ney fiza mein ishte’aal wa izteraab paida karney mein bahut bara hissa liya,” he writes.
Nadvi admits in his memoir that he had promised to Rajiv Gandhi he would persuade the Waqf Boards to make an endowment available to maintain abandoned women. But this issue remains unaddressed until today. Aishwarya Pandit, rather than exploring the clergy politics of Lucknow’s Nadvi, jumps over to Delhi’s “Imam” Bukhari and his demagoguery and rhetoric.
Nadvi’s politics of 1985-1986 needs to be read with Nicholas Nugent, who writes in his book, Rajiv Gandhi: Son of a Dynasty, published by BBC Books in 1990, that the Congress High Command decided in early 1986 to play the Hindu card like the Muslim women’s bill played the Muslim card. Nugent writes, “Ayodhya was supposed to be a package deal…a tit for tat for the Muslim women’s bill…Rajiv played a key role in carrying out the Hindu side of the package deal by such actions as arranging that pictures of Hindus worshipping at the newly unlocked shrine be shown on television.”
On 1 February 1986, within an hour of the Faizabad district court judgment, the lock of the Babri Masjid was opened. The “deal” between the Prime Minister, the Muslim clergy and the Momin Conference’s Ziaur Rahman Ansari, who died in 1992, had been struck a month earlier. Ansari’s biography, Wings of Destiny, written by his son Fasihur Rahman and published in 2018, refers to this series of events. Yet, nagging questions remain: who wanted the locks opened and why? After all, elections were four years away, and Rajiv Gandhi did not have a direct electoral stake in the event, except for a few reverses in by-elections for the Congress party.
A sizeable section of Hindus was peeved after Nehru reformed, though more symbolically than substantively, Hindu Personal Laws in the 1950s, but left out Muslim Personal Laws. This aspect is brought out by Reba Som in February 1994, in “ Jawaharlal Nehru and the Hindu Code: A Victory of Symbol over Substance ?”
Put another way, what the votaries of Hindutva call Muslim appeasement is the State appeasing the conservative and patriarchic Muslim clergy. Quite often, liberal and left scholars and activists hold the position that reforms must emerge from within the Muslim communities. Nevertheless, competitive communalism adversely affected the Congress party in the electoral sphere. First, the ex-Socialist forces, comprising the backward classes and Dalits, replaced Congress with the Bharatiya Janata Party. Pandit disappoints on this count in her sixth chapter despite delving into primary archival sources on all issues raised in her immensely readable book.
In the third chapter, Pandit discusses Hindi-Urdu battles and blames the ruling Congress for the deficits in State support for Urdu. She misses out that the protagonists of Urdu in Uttar Pradesh also share some blame for the idioms and methods of political mobilisation they didn’t employ for the Urdu cause. Selma K. Sonntag (1996) provides a more informed comparative assessment of the Urdu politics of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
Besides Urdu and personal laws, another central controversy has been the minority status of the centrally-funded Aligarh Muslim University. Pandit touches upon this subject but leaves out too much. She does not concern herself with the academic performance or research at the university, which has refrained from examining Muslim concerns such as communal strife, caste among Muslims, patriarchy, and Muslim under-representation. Just a few months before his unfortunate death in 2010, Omar Khalidi candidly raised these issues. Could these deficits possibly have contributed to the disjunctions between State and society as also between India’s Muslims and the Aligarh Muslim University?
Quite often, the ruling party had to yield to pressures from Muslim conservatives and reactionaries, perhaps because despite massive funding to the university, it did not foster enough progressive Muslim opinion-makers and leaders. If true, this would limit the university’s contribution to resisting competitive communalism and can explain why the support base of the ruling Congress deserted it, eventually leading to the rise of what scholars such as Edward Anderson, Christophe Jaffrelot and Deepa Reddy call Neo-Hindutva.
Possibly because of this omission, this book does not help figure out why Uttar Pradesh Muslims could not throw up the kind of ‘Pasmanda movement’, or the short-lived Left-inspired gender movement Tehreek-e-Niswan, which emerged in adjacent Bihar in the 1990s.
Why Muslims in Uttar Pradesh failed to strengthen post-independence movements for citizenship rights and confined themselves to emotive religious, cultural and identitarian issues is a vital but unanswered question. Thus, this book ignores this pertinent question: to claim citizenship, and for the secularization of the state and society, how to strike a balance with rights for religious communities? This approach of the author doesn’t allow her to deal, even when discussing Muslim assets, with why Uttar Pradesh Muslims did not employ their wealth for capacity-building of their community, as South Indian Muslims did and still do, in the spheres of education, and health? Why did they remain highly dependent upon the State?
Notwithstanding these limitations of perspective, Pandit’s considerably well-researched book delves into untapped and under-tapped primary sources. Her analysis of a wide range of evidence and her articulation is lucid. True to its claim, it is a valuable contribution toward understanding post-independence Uttar Pradesh.
The author teaches modern and contemporary Indian History at Aligarh Muslim University. The views are personal.
source: http://www.newsclick.in / News Click / Home> India> Politics / by Mohammad Sajjad / February 20th, 2023
The first mutiny of World War I was led mostly by young men from villages of Hisar, Rohtak, Meham and Gurgaon districts of Haryana. The Singapore Mutiny, which is known as the first mutiny of WW-I and left an indelible mark on India’s freedom struggle, started on February 15, 1915. It was led by Muslim soldiers who belonged to British army’s 5th Light Infantry Brigade.
Even as the world observes the centenary of the Great War, the sacrifice of these soldiers has been all but forgotten as most of the soldiers and their descendants migrated to Pakistan after Partition.
The brigade mainly comprised Rajput Muslims and Pathans and had been sent from Madras to replace the Yorkshire Light Infantry in Singapore. They reached there in October 1914 and were to leave for Hong Kong in February. On the day of embarkment, a rumour spread that they were actually being sent to Turkey and would have to fight Muslims there.
Singapore Mutiny shook the foundation of British rule in Asia
A rumoured triggered the Singapore revolt. The sepoys killed British officers and seized ammunition. The mutiny went on for 5 days. Eight hundred Indian sepoys of the British army killed 47 British nationals; 200 sepoys faced court martial; 73 were given a range of punishments.
As many as 41 sepoys were shot by a firing squad in front of 15,000 spectators at Outram Prison in Singapore.
In his book “The Mutiny in Singapore”, author Sho Kuwajima has argued that the mutiny not only caught the British off-guard but also shook the foundation of British rule in Singapore and forced the British to reconsider their strategy in Asia.
“The mutiny had a great impact on India’s freedom struggle. Freedom fighters, including Ghadarites were vindicated when finally in 1946, the British decided to leave following the naval revolt of February 19, 1946 when they felt that their protective shield, the armed forces, had itself turned against them,” said historian Malwinder Jit Singh Waraich, who has penned a number of books on the freedom struggle.
Four of those executed in public were from Jamalpur (Hisar), three from Jatusana (Gurgaon) and two from Balyali (Hisar). According to Phul Chand Jain’s Swatantarta Sainik Granth Mala, most of these people belonged to Jamalpur, Paten, Balyali, Kirawad and Balliya Ali in Hisar; Jatusana, Karmpur and Kheri Nangal in Gurgaon; Garhi, Kani and Kahnaur in Rohtak. One sepoy each was from Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, Karnal and Nabha in Punjab.
“These villages were gripped by violence of Partition, so, there is not much trace of their memories now,” says documentary filmmaker Daljit Ami, who is making a film on the Singapore Mutiny and has visited these villages a number of times. In the course of his research, he came across just one man who had heard about these heroes and their Haryana connection.
According to historians, the Singapore Mutiny was followed by the Russian soldiers’ mutiny in 1917 and a series of mutinies in the French armies.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> India News / by Sarika Sharma / TNN / July 05th, 2014
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