Why did Ambedkar Advocate Partition of India?
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar believed that a strong and united nation bound by a common destiny is better than a large but incoherent one. What social realities in the pre-independence India convinced him in favour of creation of Pakistan? In his book “Pakistan, or, The Partition of India”, he highlights three issues:
Continuous rivalry between Hindus and Muslims
During the Muslim rule, Muslim population felt to be the master of Hindus. The British occupation brought them down to the same level as Hindus. And the talk of British leaving the country made them aware of the possibility of becoming subjects of the Hindus. This perceived humiliation and fear of losing the Islamic identity created emotional insecurity in Muslims. On the other hand, Hindus too, had apprehensions about falling back to the days of Islamic dominance.
“The other feature is the “preparations” which the Muslims and Hindus are making against each other without abatement. It is like a race in armaments between two hostile nations. If the Hindus have the Benares University, the Musalmans must have the Aligarh University. If the Hindus start Shudhi movement, the Muslims must launch the Tablig movement. If the Hindus start Sangathan, the Muslims must meet it by Tanjim. If the Hindus have the R. S. S. S., the Muslims must reply by organizing the Khaksars. This race in social armament and equipment is run with the determination and apprehension characteristic of nations which are on the war path. The Muslims fear that the Hindus are subjugating them. The Hindus feel that the Muslims are engaged in reconquering them. Both appear to be preparing for war and each is watching the “preparations” of the other.”
Both communities felt a constant need to match each other in the competition. Any prospect of social reform raised the question of potential impact on the balance of power vis-a-vis the rival community. As Bernard Shaw pointed out:
“A conquered nation is like a man with cancer; he can think of nothing else. . . .A healthy nation is as unconscious of’ its nationality as a healthy man of his bones. But if you break a nation’s nationality it will think of nothing else but getting it set again. It will listen to no reformer, to no philosopher, to no preacher until the demand of the nationalist is granted. It will attend to no business, however vital, except the business of unification and liberation.”
Instead of perpetually living in such a fearful and suspicious environment, Ambedkar perceived, it was better that both the communities part their ways. Living as separate nations would provide them liberation from the fear of domination by other and resultant everlasting social stagnation.
Incessant Muslim demands for special privileges
The product of the insecure psyche was never ending Muslim demands for special status and entitlements. These were some of the demands by Mr. Jinnah in the year 1938:
- Muslim personal law and culture should be guaranteed by statute.
- The Muslims’ right to call Azan and perform their religious ceremonies should not be fettered in any way.
- Muslims should have freedom to perform cow-slaughter.
- The ‘Bande Mataram’ song should be given up.
- Muslims want Urdu to be the national language of India and they desire to have statutory guarantees that the use of Urdu shall not be curtailed or damaged.
- The tricolour flag should be changed or alternately the flag of the Muslim League should be given equal importance.
On the ground of political importance of their community, Muslims also demanded 50% share in everything. Ambedkar found this demand so ridiculous that he compared it to the language of Hitler.
“But with this new demand of 50 per cent. the Muslims are not only seeking to reduce the Hindu majority to a minority, but they are also cutting into the political rights of the other minorities. The Muslims are now speaking the language of Hitler and claiming a place in the sun as Hitler has been doing for Germany. For their demand for 50 per cent. is nothing but a counterpart of the German claims for Deutschland Uber Alles and Lebenuraum for Tthemselves, irrespective of what happens to other minorities.”
Similarly, he criticized the demand to recognize Urdu as the national language.
“Their claim for the recognition of Urdu as the national language of India is equally extravagant. Urdu is not only not spoken all, over India but is not even the language of all the Musalmans of India. Of the 68 millions of Muslims, only 28 millions speak Urdu. The proposal of making Urdu the national language means that the language of 28 millions of Muslims is to be imposed particularly upon 40 millions of Musalmans or generally upon 322 millions of Indians.”
Muslims took advantage of the weaknesses of the Hindus, Ambedkar felt. He thought many of their demands were to spite Hindus.
“The second thing that is noticeable among the Muslims is the spirit of exploiting the weaknesses of the Hindus. If the Hindus object to anything, the Muslim policy seems to be to insist upon it and give it up only when the Hindus show themselves ready to offer a price for it by giving the Muslims some other concessions.”
“Another illustration of this spirit of exploitation is furnished by the Muslim insistence upon cow-slaughter and the stoppage of music before mosques. Islamic law does not insist upon the slaughter of the cow for sacrificial purposes and no Musalman, when he goes to Haj, sacrifices the cow in Mecca or Medina. But in India they will not be content with the sacrifice of any other animal. Music may be played before a mosque in all Muslim countries without any objection. Even in Afghanistan, which is not a secularized country, no objection is taken to music before a mosque. But in India the Musalmans must insist upon its stoppage for no other reason except that the Hindus claim a right to it.”
He also noticed and lamented the appeasement policy of the Congress:
“The first thing which the Congress has failed to realize is that there is a difference between appeasement and settlement, and that the difference is an essential one. Appeasement means buying off the aggressor by conniving at his acts of murder, rape, arson and loot against innocent persons who happen for the moment to be the victims of his displeasure. On the other hand, settlement means laying down the bounds which neither party to it can transgress. Appeasement sets no limits to the demands and aspirations of the aggressor. Settlement does. The second thing the Congress has failed to realize is that the policy of concession has increased Muslim aggressiveness, and what is worse, Muslims interpret these concessions as a sign of defeatism on the part of the Hindus and the absence of the will to resist. This policy of appeasement will involve the Hindus in the same fearful situation in which the Allies found themselves as a result of the policy of appeasement which they adopted towards Hitler.”
Hostility of Islamic doctrine against non-Muslims
Ambedkar was afraid that due to the fundamental nature of the Islamic doctrine, every Muslim would be a Muslim first and Indian afterwards. From the numerous utterances of Muslim leaders that they do not accept the obligation to maintain India’s freedom, he cites two. The first by Dr. Kitchlew in Lahore in 1925:
“If we remove British rule from this country and establish Swaraj, and if the Afghans or other Muslims invade India, then we Muslims will oppose them and sacrifice all our sons in order to save the country from the invasion. But one thing I shall declare plainly. Listen, my dear Hindu brothers, listen very attentively! If you put obstacles in the path of our Tanzirn movement, and do not give us our rights, we shall make common cause with Afghanistan or some other Musalman power and establish our rule in this country.”
The second quotation he provides is by Maulana Azad Sobhani in his speech made on the 27th January 1939 at Sylhet:
“The English are gradually becoming weak. . . .they will go away from India in the near future. So if we do not fight the greatest enemies of Islam, the Hindus, from now on and make them weak, then they will not only establish Ramrajya in India but also gradually spread all over the world. It depends on the 9 crores of Indian Muslims either to strengthen or to weaken them (the Hindus). So it is the essential duly of every devout Muslim to fight on by joining the Muslim League so that the Hindus may not be established here and a Muslim rule may be established in India as soon as the English depart.”
More interesting is the excerpt from an interview with the poet Dr. Rabindra Nath Tagore by the editor of a Bengalee paper in 1924:
“. . .another very important factor which, according to the poet, was making it almost impossible for the Hindu-Mohamedan unity to become an accomplished fact was that the Mohamedans could not confine their patriotism to any one country. . . .The poet said that he had very frankly asked many Mohamedans whether, in the event of any Mohamedan power invading India, they would stand side by side with their Hindu neighbours to defend their common land. He could not be satisfied with the reply he got from them. He said that he could definitely state that even such men as Mr. Mahomed Ali had declared that under no circumstances was it permissible for any Mohamedan, whatever his country might be, to stand against any other Mohamedan.”
The element of Jihad from the 1857 war of independence didn’t escape from Ambedkar’s sharp eyes.
“The curious may examine the history of the Mutiny of 1857; and if he does, he will find that, in part, at any rate, it was really a Jihad proclaimed by the Muslims against the British, and that the Mutiny so far as the Muslims were concerned was a recrudescence of revolt which had been fostered by Sayyed Ahmad who preached to the Musalmans for several decades that owing to the occupation of India by the British the country had become a Dar-ul-Harb. The Mutiny was an attempt by the Muslims to reconvert India into a Dar-ul-lslam. A more recent instance was the invasion of India by Afghanistan in 1919. It was engineered by the Musalmans of India who, led by the Khilafatists’ antipathy to the British Government, sought the assistance of Afghanistan to emancipate India.”
To establish a successful self-government, he rightly believed, obedience to the authority is essential.
“But in practical and work-a-day world, if the elements brought under one representative government are disproportionate in numbers, the minor section will have to work under the major section; and whether it works under the major section or not will depend upon how far it is disposed to obey the authority of the government carried on by the major section…willingness to obey the authority of Government is a factor equally necessary for the success of any scheme of self-government.”
“This willingness to obey and comply with the sanctions of a government depends upon certain psychological attributes of the individual citizens and groups…According to this view deference and sympathy are, therefore, the two most powerful factors which predispose a people to obey the authority of its government.”
“Willingness to render obedience to the authority of the government is as essential for the stability of government as the unity of political parties on the fundamentals of the state. It is impossible for any sane person to question the importance of obedience in the maintenance of the state. To believe in civil disobedience is to believe in anarchy.”
He alludes to the tenet of Islam which says that in a country which is not under Muslim rule, wherever there is a conflict between Muslim law and the law of the land, the former must prevail over the latter, and a Muslim will be justified in obeying the Muslim law and defying the law of the land. “How far will Muslims obey the authority of a government manned and controlled by the Hindus?”, he asks. He refers to the statement by Khwaja Hasan Nizami in a manifesto on Hindu-Muslim relations issued in 1928:
“Musalmans are separate from Hindus; they cannot unite with the Hindus. After bloody wars the Musalmans conquered India, and the English took India from them. The Musalmans are one united nation and they alone will be masters of India. They will never give up their individuality. They have ruled India for hundreds of years, and hence they have a prescriptive right over the country. The Hindus are a minor community in the world. They are never free from internecine quarrels; they believe in Gandhi and worship the cow; they are polluted by taking other people’s water. The Hindus do not care for self-government; they have no time to spare for it; let them go on with their internal squabbles. What capacity have they for ruling over men? The Musalmans did rule, and the Musalmans will rule.”
Summing up the discussion, Ambedkar points out the social wall which divided the Hindus and the Muslims.
“It cannot but be matter of the deepest regret to every Indian that there is no social tie to draw them together. There is no inter-dining and no inter-marriage between the two. Can they be introduced? Their festivals are different. Can the Hindus be induced to adopt them or join in them? Their religious notions are not only divergent but repugnant to each other, so that on a religious platform, the entry of the one means the exit of the other. Their cultures are different; their literatures and their histories are different. They are not only different, but so distasteful to each other that they are sure to cause aversion and nausea. Can anyone make them drink from the same fount of these perennial sources of life? No common meeting ground exists. None can be cultivated. There is not even sufficient physical contact, let alone their sharing a common cultural and emotional life. They do not live together. Hindus and Muslims live in separate worlds of their own. Hindus live in villages and Muslims in towns in those provinces where the Hindus are in a majority. Muslims live in villages and Hindus in towns in those provinces where the Muslims are in a majority. Wherever they live, they live apart. Every town, every village has its Hindu quarters and Muslim quarters, which are quite separate from each other. There is no common continuous cycle of participation. They meet to trade or they meet to murder. They do not meet to befriend one another. When there is no call to trade or when there is no call to murder, they cease to meet. When there is peace, the Hindu quarters and the Muslim quarters appear like two alien settlements. The moment war is declared, the settlements become armed camps. The periods of peace and the periods of war are brief. But the interval is one of continuous tension. What can mass contact do against such barriers? It cannot even get over on the other side of the barrier, much less can it produce organic unity.”
Photo: Columbia University, USA
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00routesdata/1900_1999/ambedkar/atcu/atcu.html
Reference: Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, “Pakistan, or, The Partition of India”
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00ambedkar/ambedkar_partition/
