Vol. 8 · pages 186–190

161 PAKISTAN : HINDU ALTERNATIVE TO PAKISTAN departure from Sabarmati for Delhi, Sarojini Devi wrote to me that speeches and homilies on peace would not do. I must find out an effective remedy. She was right in saddling the responsibility on me. Had I not been instrumental in bringing into being the vast energy of the people ? I must find the remedy if the energy proved self-destructive. * * * “I was violently shaken by Amethi, Sambhal and Gulbarga. I had read the reports about Amethi and Sambhal prepared by Hindu and Musalman friends. I had learnt the joint finding of Hindu and Musalman friends who went to Gulbarga. I was writhing in deep pain and yet I had no remedy. The news of Kohat set the smouldering mass aflame. Something had got to be done. I passed two nights in restlessness and pain. On Wednesday I knew the remedy. I must do penance. “It is a warning to the Hindus and Musalmans who have professed to love me. If they have loved me truly and if I have been deserving of their love, they will do penance with me for the grave sin of denying God in their hearts. “The penance of Hindus and Mussalmans is not fasting but retracting their steps. It is true penance for a Mussalman to harbour no ill-will for his Hindu brother and an equally true penance for a Hindu to harbour none for his Mussalman brother. “I did not consult friends—not even Hakim Saheb who was close with me for a long time on Wednesday—not Maulana Mahomed Ali under whose roof I am enjoying the privilege of hospitality. “But was it right for me to go through the fast under a Mussalman roof? (Gandhi was at the time the guest of Mr. Mahomed Ali at Delhi). Yes, it was. The fast is not born out of ill-will against a single soul. My being under a Mussalman roof ensures it against any such interpretation. It is in the fitness of things that this fast should be taken up and completed in a Mussalman house. “And who is Mahomed Ali ? Only two days before the fast we had a discussion about a private matter in which I had told him what was mine was his and what was his was mine. Let me gratefully tell the public that I have never received warmer or better treatment than under Mahomed Ali’s roof. Every want of mine is anticipated. The dominant thought of every one of his household is to make me and mine happy and comfortable. Doctors Ansari and Abdur Rehman have constituted themselves my medical advisers. They examine me daily. I have had many a happy occasion in my life. This is no less happy than

162 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES the previous ones. Bread is not everything. I am experiencing here the richest love. It is more than bread for me. “It has been whispered that by going so much with Mussalman friends, I make myself unfit to know the Hindu mind. The Hindu mind is myself. Surely I do not live amidst Hindus to know the Hindu mind when every fibre of my being is Hindu. My Hinduism must be a very poor thing if it cannot flourish under influences the most adverse. I know instinctively what is necessary for Hinduism. But I must labour to discover the Mussalman mind. The closer I come to the best of ? Mussalmans, the juster I am likely to be in my estimate of the Mussalmans and their doings. I am striving to become the best cement between the two communities. My longing is to be able to cement the two with my blood, if necessary. But, before I can do so, I must prove to the Mussalmans that I love them as well as I love the Hindus. My religion teaches me to love all equally. May God help me to do so ! My fast among other things is meant to qualify me for achieving that equal and selfless love.” The fast produced Unity Conferences. But the Unity Conferences produced nothing except pious resolutions which were broken as soon as they were announced. This short historical sketch of the part Mr. Gandhi played in bringing about Hindu-Moslem unity may be concluded by a reference to the attitude of Mr. Gandhi in the negotiations about the Communal Settlement. He offered the Muslims a blank cheque. The blank cheque only served to exasperate the Muslims as they interpreted it as an act of evasion. He opposed the separate electorates at the Round Table Conference. When they were given to the Muslims by the Communal Award, Mr. Gandhi and the Congress did not approve of them. But when it came to voting upon it, they took the strange attitude of neither approving it nor opposing it. Such is the history of Mr. Gandhi’s efforts to bring about Hindu-Moslem unity. What fruits did these efforts bear ? To be able to answer this question it is necessary to examine the relationship between the two communities during 1920-40, the years during which Mr. Gandhi laboured so hard to bring about Hindu-Moslem unity. The relationship is well described in the Annual Reports on the affairs of India submitted year by year to Parliament by the Government of India under the old Government of India Act. It is on these reports* that I have drawn for the facts recorded below. * The series is known as “India in 1920” & so on.

163 PAKISTAN : HINDU ALTERNATIVE TO PAKISTAN Beginning with the year 1920 there occurred in that year in Malabar what is known as the Mopla Rebellion. It was the result of the agitation carried out by two Muslim organizations, the Khuddam-i-Kaba (servants of the Mecca Shrine) and the Central Khilafat Committee. Agitators actually preached the doctrine that India under the British Government was Dar-ul-Harab and that the Muslims must fight against it and if they could not, they must carry out the alternative principle of Hijrat. The Moplas were suddenly carried off their feet by this agitation. The outbreak was essentially a rebellion against the British Government. The aim was to establish the kingdom of Islam by overthrowing the British Government. Knives, swords and spears were secretly manufactured, bands of desperadoes collected for an attack on British authority. On 20th August a severe encounter took place between the moplas and the British forces at Pirunangdi. Roads were blocked, telegraph lines cut, and the railway destroyed in a number of places. As soon as the administration had been paralysed, the Moplas declared that Swaraj had been established. A certain Ali Mudaliar was proclaimed Raja, Khilafat flags were flown, and Ernad and Wallurana were declared Khilafat Kingdoms. As a rebellion against the British Government it was quite understandable. But what baffled most was the treatment accorded by the Moplas to the Hindus of Malabar. The Hindus were visited by a dire fate at the hands of the Moplas. Massacres, forcible conversions, desecration of temples, foul outrages upon women, such as ripping open pregnant women, pillage, arson and destruction— in short, all the accompaniments of brutal and unrestrained barbarism, were perpetrated freely by the Moplas upon the Hindus until such time as troops could be hurried to the task of restoring order through a difficult and extensive tract of the country. This was not a Hindu-Moslem riot. This was just a Bartholomew. The number of Hindus who were killed, wounded or converted, is not known. But the number must have been enormous. In the year 1921-22 communal jealousies did not subside. The Muharram Celebrations had been attended by serious riots both in Bengal and in the Punjab. In the latter province in particular, communal feeling at Multan reached very serious heights, and

164 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES although the casualty list was comparatively small, a great deal of damage to property was done. Though the year 1922-23 was a peaceful year the relations between the two communities were strained throughout 1923-24. But in no locality did this tension produce such tragic consequences as in the city of Kohat. The immediate cause of the trouble was the publication and circulation of a pamphlet containing a virulently anti-Islamic poem. Terrible riots broke out on the 9th and 10th of September 1924, the total casualties being about 155 killed and wounded. House property to the estimated value of Rs. 9 lakhs was destroyed, and a large quantity of goods were looted. As a result of this reign of terror the whole Hindu population evacuated the city of Kohat. After protracted negotiations an agreement of reconciliation was concluded between the two communities, Government giving an assurance that, subject to certain reservations, the prosecution pending against persons concerned in rioting should be dropped. With the object of enabling the sufferers to restart their businesses and rebuild their houses, Government sanctioned advances, free of interest in certain instances, amounting to Rs. 5 lakhs. But even after the settlement had been reached and evacuees had returned to Kohat there was no peace and throughout 1924-25 the tension between the Hindu and Musalman masses in various parts of the country increased to a lamentable extent. In the summer months, there was a distressing number of riots. In July, severe fighting broke out between Hindus and Musalmans in Delhi, which was accompanied by serious casualties. In the same month, there was a bad outbreak at Nagpur. August was even worse. There were riots at Lahore, at Lucknow, at Moradabad, at Bhagalpur and Nagpur in British India; while a severe affray took place at Gulbarga in the Nizam’s Dominions. SeptemberOctober saw severe fighting at Lucknow, Shahajahanpur, Kankinarah and at Allahabad. The most terrible outbreak of the year being the one that took place at Kohat which was accompanied by murder, arson and loot. In 1925-26 the antagonism between the Hindus and the Muslims became widespread. Very significant features of the Hindu-Muslim rioting, which took place during this year were its

165 PAKISTAN : HINDU ALTERNATIVE TO PAKISTAN wide distribution and its occurrence, in some cases, in small villages. Calcutta, the United Provinces, the Central Provinces and the Bombay Presidency were all scenes of riots, some of which led to regrettable losses of life. Certain minor and local Hindu festivals which occurred at the end of August, gave rise to communal trouble in Calcutta, in Berar, in Gujarat in the Bombay Presidency, and in the United Provinces. In some of these places there were actual clashes between the two communities, but elsewhere, notably at Kankinarah—one of the most thickly populated jute mill centres of Calcutta— serious rioting was prevented by the activity of the police. In Gujarat, Hindu-Muslim feeling was running high in these days and was marked by at least one case of temple desecration. The important Hindu festival of Ramlila, at the end of September, gave rise to acute anxiety in many places, and at Aligarh, an important place in the United Provinces, its celebration was marked by one of the worst riots of the year. The riot assumed such dangerous proportions that the police were compelled to fire in order to restore order, and five persons were killed, either by the police or by riots. At Lucknow, the same festival gave rise at one time to a threatening situation, but the local authorities prevented actual rioting. October saw another serious riot at Sholapur in the Bombay Presidency. There, the local Hindus were taking a car with Hindu idols through the city, and when they came near a mosque, a dispute arose between them and certain Muslims, which developed into a riot. A deplorable rioting started in Calcutta in the beginning of April as an affray outside a mosque between Muslims and some Arya Samajists and continued to spread until 5th April, though there was only one occasion on which the police or military were faced by a crowd which showed determined resistance, namely, on the evening of the 5th April, when fire had to be opened. There was also a great deal of incendiarism and in the first three days of this incendiarism, the Fire Brigade had to deal with 110 fires. An unprecedented feature of the riots was the attacks on temples by Muslims and on mosques by Hindus which naturally led to intense bitterness. There were 44 deaths and 584 injured. There was a certain amount of looting and business was suspended, with great economic loss to Calcutta. Shops began to reopen soon after the