From: ag3l+@andrew.cmu.edu (Arun K. Gupta)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: A short excerpt
Date: 11 Apr 92 18:11:41 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.odtmjRq00iQCQ3E11I
Organization: Physics, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

A short excerpt leading upto the next essay:


The Socio-Political Condition of Muslims in India

by A.U. Shaikh, I.A.S. (Retd.)

We, the Muslim midnight children have survived half a century of jeers,
tears and no cheers. We have paid a terrible price for the sins of
partition, for which, according to Maulana Azad's frank admission, the
Indian Congress stalwarts were as responsible as others because it was
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru who torpedoed the Maulana's solution of a
federated India which was acceptable to Mohammed Ali Jinnah, but which
was certainly not to the liking of Lord and Lady Mountbatten.

The bathos and the pathos of the Indian Muslims' tryst with destiny
becomes all the more harrowing when we remind the post-partition Muslim
children of India that they deserve better.

For their forefathers like Tipu Sultan and nameless soldiers of the
first war of Independence (1857), right up to the Indian National Army,
and even after Freedom, Brigadier Usman and  Corporal Hameed of Patton
tanks fame, made supreme sacrifices for India. Indeed, even today,
Muslims would, if they could, mingle their blood with their fellow
Indian brothers to defend the honor and integrity of this land.

We may recall as old wives' tales the stories of Hasrat Mohani and
Maulana Mohammed Ali Jauhar having proposed and seconded the full
Indian Independence Resolution at the Indian National Congress Session
at Ahmedabad. I saw the other day the astonishment writ large on the
faces of Aligarh University students as though they were rustics of
Goldsmith's Village Schoolmaster when I told them that the "Quit India"
slogan was handed on a piece of paper to Gandhiji on Bombay on 9th
August 1942, by a Muslim socialist, Yusuf Meheralli, and none else.

They reminded me of Mohammed Madare, the Muslim bodyguard of Shivaji,
who carried him and his son Sambhaji on his shoulders from out of their
incarceration at Agra Fort by Aurangzeb, which incident Sir Jadunath
Sarkar [note: Sir J.S. wrote some of the early and influential
histories of India] conveniently forgot to mention in his volumes of
the history of the period.  Similarly, they reminded me of the Peshwas'
Topkhana Chief Ibrahim Gardi who boldly replied to the Abdali that by
fighting for the Peshwas he was only true to his salt. So were the
handful of Durrani soldiers who defended the Rani of Jhansi.

Indian history books do not carry such national integration truths. Nor
does history recall that Shri Chhatrapati's father Shahajiraje Bhosale
and uncle Sharfujiraje Bhosale were the benediction of a Muslim saint
of Ahmednagar, Shah Sharfuji.

No, they must debunk everything Muslim, including the Taj, the musical
maestros and their khandans and the like. Let us hope that the
much-publicised 75% national core and 25% of the chauvinistic
linguistic states' local core that will make up the new curriculum in
school and college textbooks will be more authentic in letter and
spirit.

***
[excerpt concluded]
***
[The above was taken from"The Muslim Situation in India",
edited by Iqbal Ansari,  which is a publication of a seminar
held by the Institute of Objective Studies in New Delhi, July 4-5,
1987.

On May 22-23, 1987, there were riots in and around Meerut.
These cast a long and gloomy shadow on the deliberations reported
here.]
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian