Mazhabb aur Dharam.
>
>
>
>Main ne Jo kuch IsLam kay baary main Likhaa hay. uss kay har Lafz par Qaaim
>hoon.
>
>
>
>(Gandhi..)
>
>
>
>Main iss baat ka daawa karta hoon keh main ne ek be-gharz talib ILmm ki
>tarah. paghambar-e-Islam ki zindagi.. .. .. . aur Quran ka mutaLaa kiya
>hay.aur main iss nateejay par pohancha hoon keh Quran ki taleemaat kay
>asLii aJzaa
> Adamm Tashad-dud ke mawafiq hain.
>
>
>
>(Gandhi..)
>
>Alfaaz ki ZanJeer:
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>Ham Khudaa ko sirf iss Liyay kiyon iLzaam dain keh ham Khud aapus main iss
>bina par Lartay hain keh ham issay different tareeqon se daikhtay hain.
>Jaisy Quran. Injeel. Talmood.Ostaa.Ya.Geeta.
>
>
>
>Sooraj (sun) tau Himaliyhaa par bhi ussii tarah chamaktaa hay Jiss tarah
>chatt-yull medaanon par. tau kiya medaaonon kay Log Baraf-Taano kay Logon
>se sirf iss Liyay Jhagraa karain keh wo Sooraj ki Garmii mukhtaliff
>Tareeqon se Mahsoos karty hain?
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>
>
>Ham Kiyon kitabon aur un kay alfaaz ko apny Liyay aisii zanjeerain bana
>Lain Jo bajaaiy iss ke. keh hamari Nijaat aur hamary dilon kay ittay-haad
>ka baa_iss ho. hamain Ghulaam bana day.
>
>
>
>(Young India 18 Sep 1918)
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>
>
>AsLii Johar:
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>Sachii mazhabii Taaleem ka Johar ye hay keh . sab ki Khidmatt ki Jaiy aur
>sab se dosti ki jaiy. main ne ye baat apni maan ki gaudd main sekhii thii..
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>
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>Tumhara Jii Chaahay tau mujhy Hindu samajhny se inkaar kar do. Mary paas
>iss ka koi javaab nahin. Siwaaiy iss kay. keh main iqbal kii mash-hoor
>nazam ka ek misraa parrh doon.
>
>"Mazhabb nahin sikhataa aapus main baer rakhna"
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>
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>apny dost ka dost banna tau Asaan kaam hay.. Lekin aisy shakhss se dostii
>karma. Jo khud ko tumhara dushmann samajhta hay. Mazhabb ka asli Johar hay.
>doosi baat tau mehazz karobaar hay.
>
>(Hareejan 11 May 1947)
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>
>
>Zaherr (Poison) :
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>Mazhab Insaan ko khudaa se. aur aur bani-no-insaan se wabustaa karta hay..
>..
>
>Kiya islaam musims ko sirf islam hi say wabustaa karta hay ? aur hindu-on
>ka Dushman banata hay?
>
>Kiya peghambarr ka peghaam sirf ye thaa keh sirf muslims hii kay darmiyaan
>mohabbatt rahy? Aur hindu-on & ghair muslimon se Jang ho ?
>
>Jo Log ye zaherr muslims kay dilon main ghol rahy hain.wo islaam kay saat
>sab se ziyada buraii kar rahy hain.
>
>
>
>(Hareejan 04 May 1940)
what Gandhi says about Islam and religion.
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star_munir
- Posts: 1670
- Joined: Tue Apr 22, 2003 12:55 am
- Contact:
Gandhi writings going public
Herald News ServicesJanuary 6, 2009
The thought-provoking literary works of Mahatma Gandhi, India's iconic freedom fighter, are set to go public after the copyright on his writings and speeches lapses this month.
Anyone will now be able to publish the writings and speeches of the legendary leader, often referred to as the Father of the Nation, since the copyright on these works expires 60 years after his death.
Gandhi, who pioneered the philosophy of non-violent resistance to the British occupation of India, was assassinated on Jan. 30, 1948 in New Delhi by a Hindu radical.
Gandhi had given his works to the Gujarat-based Navajivan Trust which he founded, but according to the Copyright Act of 1957, works of a person go into the public domain 60 years after their death.
Trust authorities said they did not want to ask the Indian government for an extension of the copyright, based on the leader's philosophies.
"If you consider the spirit of Gandhian thought, one should not ask for such extension. And we have considered this issue and we are not going to ask for such extension," Jitendra Desai, managing trustee of the Navajivan Trust, told Reuters Television.
Since its inception, the Navajivan Trust has published some 300 volumes of Gandhi's works including articles, letters and speeches, as well as translations of his autobiography
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Herald News ServicesJanuary 6, 2009
The thought-provoking literary works of Mahatma Gandhi, India's iconic freedom fighter, are set to go public after the copyright on his writings and speeches lapses this month.
Anyone will now be able to publish the writings and speeches of the legendary leader, often referred to as the Father of the Nation, since the copyright on these works expires 60 years after his death.
Gandhi, who pioneered the philosophy of non-violent resistance to the British occupation of India, was assassinated on Jan. 30, 1948 in New Delhi by a Hindu radical.
Gandhi had given his works to the Gujarat-based Navajivan Trust which he founded, but according to the Copyright Act of 1957, works of a person go into the public domain 60 years after their death.
Trust authorities said they did not want to ask the Indian government for an extension of the copyright, based on the leader's philosophies.
"If you consider the spirit of Gandhian thought, one should not ask for such extension. And we have considered this issue and we are not going to ask for such extension," Jitendra Desai, managing trustee of the Navajivan Trust, told Reuters Television.
Since its inception, the Navajivan Trust has published some 300 volumes of Gandhi's works including articles, letters and speeches, as well as translations of his autobiography
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
There is an interesting video connecting Mahatma Gandhi to Agakhan Palace in Pune.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWtbi4SQZTk
YouTube description:
"Located in Yerwada, Pune, the exquisite Aga Khan Palace is surrounded by the lavish green gardens. It was built in 1892 by Imam Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan III. It is a national monument of India's freedom movement. Aga Khan Palace is also known as Gandhi National Memorial because of its close association with Mahatma Gandhi."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWtbi4SQZTk
YouTube description:
"Located in Yerwada, Pune, the exquisite Aga Khan Palace is surrounded by the lavish green gardens. It was built in 1892 by Imam Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan III. It is a national monument of India's freedom movement. Aga Khan Palace is also known as Gandhi National Memorial because of its close association with Mahatma Gandhi."
Gandhi sandals, glasses to go up for auction
Herald News ServicesFebruary 13, 2009
Mahatma Gandhi's trademark leather sandals and steel-rimmed glasses, as well as his watch, will be auctioned in New York next month.
The items, along with a bowl and plate, were among the ascetic Indian independence leader's most important possessions.
Antiquorum Auctioneers in New York estimates the March 5 sale will fetch at least $20,000 to $30,000.
The simple leather flip-flops were given to a British military officer in 1931, apparently after he took Gandhi's photograph, Antiquorum said.
The round glasses, one of the most familiar details in Gandhi's image, were given to an army colonel.
The officer had asked Gandhi for inspiration and "Gandhi handed over his glasses, saying they were the 'eyes' that had given him vision to free India," the catalogue from Antiquorum says.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Herald News ServicesFebruary 13, 2009
Mahatma Gandhi's trademark leather sandals and steel-rimmed glasses, as well as his watch, will be auctioned in New York next month.
The items, along with a bowl and plate, were among the ascetic Indian independence leader's most important possessions.
Antiquorum Auctioneers in New York estimates the March 5 sale will fetch at least $20,000 to $30,000.
The simple leather flip-flops were given to a British military officer in 1931, apparently after he took Gandhi's photograph, Antiquorum said.
The round glasses, one of the most familiar details in Gandhi's image, were given to an army colonel.
The officer had asked Gandhi for inspiration and "Gandhi handed over his glasses, saying they were the 'eyes' that had given him vision to free India," the catalogue from Antiquorum says.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Gandhi's family condemns auction of his glasses, watch
Herald News ServicesFebruary 16, 2009
The family of Mahatma Gandhi has denounced a planned auction of his belongings as immoral and called for them to be returned to India as national treasures.
Gandhi's sandals, pocket watch and glasses, which the father of the Indian independence movement said gave him "the vision to free India," will be sold at a New York auction house next month.
On Sunday his great-grandson, Tushar Gandhi, joined Indian MPs in demanding their return. Gandhi, 49, who runs the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation in Mumbai, said he has had offers from around the world to donate one month's salary --including one from a poor rickshaw driver who had offered to sell his vehicle--to raise money for the cause. He has questioned the manner in which Peter Ruhe, a German collector, obtained the items.
The watch, he claimed, was a gift from Gandhi to his grandniece, who served as his personal assistant and in whose arms he died after being shot in 1948. He said Ruhe persuaded her to sign an agreement with him and now that she had died he was selling them.
"It is immoral and must be stopped," said Gandhi. "It would be a grave insult to the nation if these items were just sold. They are priceless to India."
The reserve price for the lot is $53,000.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Herald News ServicesFebruary 16, 2009
The family of Mahatma Gandhi has denounced a planned auction of his belongings as immoral and called for them to be returned to India as national treasures.
Gandhi's sandals, pocket watch and glasses, which the father of the Indian independence movement said gave him "the vision to free India," will be sold at a New York auction house next month.
On Sunday his great-grandson, Tushar Gandhi, joined Indian MPs in demanding their return. Gandhi, 49, who runs the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation in Mumbai, said he has had offers from around the world to donate one month's salary --including one from a poor rickshaw driver who had offered to sell his vehicle--to raise money for the cause. He has questioned the manner in which Peter Ruhe, a German collector, obtained the items.
The watch, he claimed, was a gift from Gandhi to his grandniece, who served as his personal assistant and in whose arms he died after being shot in 1948. He said Ruhe persuaded her to sign an agreement with him and now that she had died he was selling them.
"It is immoral and must be stopped," said Gandhi. "It would be a grave insult to the nation if these items were just sold. They are priceless to India."
The reserve price for the lot is $53,000.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
India bids to halt Gandhi auction
Canwest News ServiceFebruary 28, 2009
The Indian government has stepped in to try to stop an auction of rare personal possessions of Mahatma Gandhi in the U. S.
The sale, which includes Gandhi's pocket watch and the eyeglasses he said gave him the vision to see an independent India, has provoked an outcry.
The items were apparently given to a New York auction house by the adopted daughter of Gandhi's grandniece Abha Gandhi, in whose arms he died after being shot in 1948.
Gandhi's great-grandson Tushar Gandhi said he was "overjoyed" by the government's move.
"This is our national heritage. We have to get back every single piece for our future generations," he said.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Canwest News ServiceFebruary 28, 2009
The Indian government has stepped in to try to stop an auction of rare personal possessions of Mahatma Gandhi in the U. S.
The sale, which includes Gandhi's pocket watch and the eyeglasses he said gave him the vision to see an independent India, has provoked an outcry.
The items were apparently given to a New York auction house by the adopted daughter of Gandhi's grandniece Abha Gandhi, in whose arms he died after being shot in 1948.
Gandhi's great-grandson Tushar Gandhi said he was "overjoyed" by the government's move.
"This is our national heritage. We have to get back every single piece for our future generations," he said.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Controversial Gandhi auction going ahead
Herald News ServicesMarch 2, 2009 3:01 AM
An auction of Mahatma Gandhi's iconic round glasses, branded an "insult" by the independence leader's family, will go ahead, the New York-based auctioneers said Sunday.
"The auction will happen on March 5," Antiquorum Auctioneers spokeswoman Michelle Halpern said. "There has been no change."
The auctioneer, Julien Schaerer, said that despite an outcry in India over the sale of the glasses, a watch, a pair of sandals and a plate and bowl belonging to Gandhi, no one had contacted him.
"We haven't had any direct interest from the Indian government or from any Indian representative," he said.
"It's in their hands. If some of those wealthy people decide to buy it and give it as a gift to the country, it can be done."
Antiquorum has refused to identify the person it says is the single, private owner of the rare pieces, currently on display in a glass case along with a white orchid.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Herald News ServicesMarch 2, 2009 3:01 AM
An auction of Mahatma Gandhi's iconic round glasses, branded an "insult" by the independence leader's family, will go ahead, the New York-based auctioneers said Sunday.
"The auction will happen on March 5," Antiquorum Auctioneers spokeswoman Michelle Halpern said. "There has been no change."
The auctioneer, Julien Schaerer, said that despite an outcry in India over the sale of the glasses, a watch, a pair of sandals and a plate and bowl belonging to Gandhi, no one had contacted him.
"We haven't had any direct interest from the Indian government or from any Indian representative," he said.
"It's in their hands. If some of those wealthy people decide to buy it and give it as a gift to the country, it can be done."
Antiquorum has refused to identify the person it says is the single, private owner of the rare pieces, currently on display in a glass case along with a white orchid.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Indian tycoon pays $1.8M to bring Gandhi items home
Herald News ServicesMarch 6, 2009 2:06 AM
An Indian tycoon bought Mahatma Gandhi's iconic round glasses and other belongings Thursday for $1.8 million at an auction that proceeded despite the current owner's call to cancel the sale.
Tony Bedi, bidding on behalf of flamboyant billionaire Vijay Mallya, said the purchase meant the revered independence leader's glasses, sandals, pocket watch, plate and bowl would now return to India.
"Basically he was bidding for the country," the white-turbaned Bedi said after the dramatic auction at Antiquorum Auctioneers in New York.
India had bitterly opposed the auction from the start, insisting that Gandhi's belongings were part of the country's national heritage.
Indian businessmen packed the auction room, joining frenzied bidding to ensure the memorabilia did not go to another country. Cheers and clapping broke out when the hammer came down.
But Mallya's gesture raised legal questions and it was unclear when the items could be sent to India.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Herald News ServicesMarch 6, 2009 2:06 AM
An Indian tycoon bought Mahatma Gandhi's iconic round glasses and other belongings Thursday for $1.8 million at an auction that proceeded despite the current owner's call to cancel the sale.
Tony Bedi, bidding on behalf of flamboyant billionaire Vijay Mallya, said the purchase meant the revered independence leader's glasses, sandals, pocket watch, plate and bowl would now return to India.
"Basically he was bidding for the country," the white-turbaned Bedi said after the dramatic auction at Antiquorum Auctioneers in New York.
India had bitterly opposed the auction from the start, insisting that Gandhi's belongings were part of the country's national heritage.
Indian businessmen packed the auction room, joining frenzied bidding to ensure the memorabilia did not go to another country. Cheers and clapping broke out when the hammer came down.
But Mallya's gesture raised legal questions and it was unclear when the items could be sent to India.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
In India, Gandhi’s Halo Glows Less Brightly for Hindu Right and Lower Castes
Excerpt:
The memorial, the Gandhi Smriti, is perhaps the best place in India to contemplate the legacy of one of history’s momentous figures.
Seventy years after his assassination, Gandhi’s global influence is still enormous and his reputation as a force for good remains firmly intact.
Like few others in history, he harnessed the moral firepower of nonviolent resistance, helping wrest India away from the British Empire. His example of what could be achieved with peaceful protest has inspired countless others, across different cultures and different times, from Martin Luther King Jr. to the so-called tank man in Tiananmen Square.
Well into the 21st century, Gandhi’s halo is still bright in most of the world. Barack Obama picked Gandhi as his dream dinner guest.
But in contemporary India, Gandhi is no longer quite so awe-inspiring, or even relevant.
As time goes on, he seems to be falling out of sync with the prevailing trends in Indian politics, although politicians still regularly exploit nostalgia for him.
“I am afraid Gandhi has become marginal,” said Pratap B. Mehta, a political scientist who is the vice chancellor of Ashoka University and former president of the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi. “In modern India, the two dominant forces hate him.”
Among Hindu nationalists, part of the demographic base that powers India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party, Gandhi is seen as weak, Mr. Mehta said.
Hindu supremacists are still angry at him for expressing so much sympathy for the country’s Muslim minority and for allowing Pakistan to split off from India.
Some Hindu nationalists have even built statues of Gandhi’s killer, Nathuram Godse, who was once a member of a Hindu nationalist group that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and many of his political allies also have belonged to. Mr. Godse is India’s real hero, some nationalists say.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/26/worl ... 3053090127
Excerpt:
The memorial, the Gandhi Smriti, is perhaps the best place in India to contemplate the legacy of one of history’s momentous figures.
Seventy years after his assassination, Gandhi’s global influence is still enormous and his reputation as a force for good remains firmly intact.
Like few others in history, he harnessed the moral firepower of nonviolent resistance, helping wrest India away from the British Empire. His example of what could be achieved with peaceful protest has inspired countless others, across different cultures and different times, from Martin Luther King Jr. to the so-called tank man in Tiananmen Square.
Well into the 21st century, Gandhi’s halo is still bright in most of the world. Barack Obama picked Gandhi as his dream dinner guest.
But in contemporary India, Gandhi is no longer quite so awe-inspiring, or even relevant.
As time goes on, he seems to be falling out of sync with the prevailing trends in Indian politics, although politicians still regularly exploit nostalgia for him.
“I am afraid Gandhi has become marginal,” said Pratap B. Mehta, a political scientist who is the vice chancellor of Ashoka University and former president of the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi. “In modern India, the two dominant forces hate him.”
Among Hindu nationalists, part of the demographic base that powers India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party, Gandhi is seen as weak, Mr. Mehta said.
Hindu supremacists are still angry at him for expressing so much sympathy for the country’s Muslim minority and for allowing Pakistan to split off from India.
Some Hindu nationalists have even built statues of Gandhi’s killer, Nathuram Godse, who was once a member of a Hindu nationalist group that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and many of his political allies also have belonged to. Mr. Godse is India’s real hero, some nationalists say.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/26/worl ... 3053090127
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swamidada_1
- Posts: 239
- Joined: Sun Nov 18, 2018 9:21 pm
Hindu Mahasabha leader shoots at Mahatma Gandhi’s effigy to mark his death anniversary Anuja Jaiswal | TNN | Updated: Jan 30, 2019, 20:00 IST 8 AGRA:
In an extremely provocative act, Hindu Mahasabha national secretary, Puja Shakun Pandey on Wednesday shot at an effigy of Mahatma Gandhi with a toy gun to mark his death anniversary and celebrated the day as ‘Shaurya Divas’ in Aligarh. Aligarh police has registered a case against Puja Shakun Pandey, Ashok Pandey and 10-12 unidentified people under sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 149 (unlawful assembly), 295 A (Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings or any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) and 153A (promoting enmity between different groups) of IPC. Aligarh SSP Akash Kulhari said that the matter is being investigated. However, no one was arrested till the filing of this report. In a bid to ”celebrate” Gandhi's assassination, the Hindu Mahasabha activists on Wednesday afternoon garlanded the photograph of NATHURAM GODSE and distributed sweets among the supporters after shooting at an effigy of Mahatma Gandhi. In a one-minute thirty seven second video, it can be seen that Pandey presses the trigger and after that a dark-red coloured liquid starts flowing from the effigy. Mahasabha activists later burnt the effigy amidst slogans of “Mahatma Nathuram Godse Zindabad”. Pandey said that she has started a new tradition today and recreated the entire incident of January 30, the day Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated. She said, “this is exactly what they do every year on Dussehra by burning Ravana”. She said that Gandhi was responsible for India’s partition that led to the birth of Pakistan and Godse killed and his act is admirable.
www.google.com/search?q=Hindu+Mahasabha ... +effigy+to+ mark+his+death+ anniversary
In an extremely provocative act, Hindu Mahasabha national secretary, Puja Shakun Pandey on Wednesday shot at an effigy of Mahatma Gandhi with a toy gun to mark his death anniversary and celebrated the day as ‘Shaurya Divas’ in Aligarh. Aligarh police has registered a case against Puja Shakun Pandey, Ashok Pandey and 10-12 unidentified people under sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 149 (unlawful assembly), 295 A (Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings or any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) and 153A (promoting enmity between different groups) of IPC. Aligarh SSP Akash Kulhari said that the matter is being investigated. However, no one was arrested till the filing of this report. In a bid to ”celebrate” Gandhi's assassination, the Hindu Mahasabha activists on Wednesday afternoon garlanded the photograph of NATHURAM GODSE and distributed sweets among the supporters after shooting at an effigy of Mahatma Gandhi. In a one-minute thirty seven second video, it can be seen that Pandey presses the trigger and after that a dark-red coloured liquid starts flowing from the effigy. Mahasabha activists later burnt the effigy amidst slogans of “Mahatma Nathuram Godse Zindabad”. Pandey said that she has started a new tradition today and recreated the entire incident of January 30, the day Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated. She said, “this is exactly what they do every year on Dussehra by burning Ravana”. She said that Gandhi was responsible for India’s partition that led to the birth of Pakistan and Godse killed and his act is admirable.
www.google.com/search?q=Hindu+Mahasabha ... +effigy+to+ mark+his+death+ anniversary
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swamidada_2
- Posts: 297
- Joined: Mon Aug 19, 2019 8:18 pm
hindustantimes
In Gujarat school shocker, a question on Mahatma Gandhi’s ‘suicide’
A question in a school exam on how Mahatma Gandhi committed suicide has shocked the Gujarat education authorities, prompting them to initiate an inquiry into it.
INDIA Updated: Oct 13, 2019 21:54 IST
A question in a school exam on how Mahatma Gandhi committed suicide has shocked the Gujarat education authorities, prompting them to initiate an inquiry into it.
Another question about boot-legging in dry Gujarat has also irked the education officials.
“Gandhijiye aapghaat karwa maate shu karyu?” (how did Gandhiji commit suicide) was the question asked in Gujarati to Class 9 students during an internal assessment examination of schools run under the banner of ‘Sufalam Shala Vikas Sankul’, an official said.
The Sufalam Shala Vikas Sankul is an organisation of some self-financed schools and educational institutions getting government grants in Gandhinagar.
Besides, another question in an exam paper of Class 12 students was about “writing a letter to district police chief complaining about the rise in sale of liquor in your area and nuisance created by bootleggers”.
“A cluster of self-financed schools and those getting grants included these two questions for internal assessment exams held on Saturday. These questions are highly objectionable, and we have initiated an inquiry. Action will be taken after the report comes in,” Gandhinagar’s district education officer Bharat Vadher told PTI.
The question papers were set by the management of these schools, run under the banner of Sufalam Shala Vikas Sankul, and the state education department had nothing to do with it, he added.
First Published: Oct 13, 2019 21:52 IST
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-ne ... FKcYM.html
In Gujarat school shocker, a question on Mahatma Gandhi’s ‘suicide’
A question in a school exam on how Mahatma Gandhi committed suicide has shocked the Gujarat education authorities, prompting them to initiate an inquiry into it.
INDIA Updated: Oct 13, 2019 21:54 IST
A question in a school exam on how Mahatma Gandhi committed suicide has shocked the Gujarat education authorities, prompting them to initiate an inquiry into it.
Another question about boot-legging in dry Gujarat has also irked the education officials.
“Gandhijiye aapghaat karwa maate shu karyu?” (how did Gandhiji commit suicide) was the question asked in Gujarati to Class 9 students during an internal assessment examination of schools run under the banner of ‘Sufalam Shala Vikas Sankul’, an official said.
The Sufalam Shala Vikas Sankul is an organisation of some self-financed schools and educational institutions getting government grants in Gandhinagar.
Besides, another question in an exam paper of Class 12 students was about “writing a letter to district police chief complaining about the rise in sale of liquor in your area and nuisance created by bootleggers”.
“A cluster of self-financed schools and those getting grants included these two questions for internal assessment exams held on Saturday. These questions are highly objectionable, and we have initiated an inquiry. Action will be taken after the report comes in,” Gandhinagar’s district education officer Bharat Vadher told PTI.
The question papers were set by the management of these schools, run under the banner of Sufalam Shala Vikas Sankul, and the state education department had nothing to do with it, he added.
First Published: Oct 13, 2019 21:52 IST
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-ne ... FKcYM.html
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swamidada_2
- Posts: 297
- Joined: Mon Aug 19, 2019 8:18 pm
His killer said he was ‘the Father of Pakistan’
Gandhi's and Jinnah’s core principles can yet help in normalizing India-Pakistan relations.
Sudheendra Kulkarni
“Who was the first Hindu who sacrificed his life for Pakistan?” I asked a prominent businessman in Lahore when I visited Pakistan a couple of years ago. He is a proud Pakistani and also passionate about peace and friendship between our two countries estranged since birth in 1947. He did not know the answer, and was startled when I said, “It was Mahatma Gandhi.”
Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist, on 30 January 1948. The place was Birla House in New Delhi, where the Mahatma (which means “a great soul”) held all-religion prayer meetings every day.
The British had left barely six months earlier, ending their colonial rule of nearly 200 years and dividing the ancient land into two independent and sovereign nations. The reason for Partition (that “Muslims and Hindus are two separate nations”), and the manner in which it took place, had produced a horrendous communal bloodbath and the largest cross-border migration in human history.
Delhi at the time was teeming with Hindu-Sikh refugees from West Pakistan, just as Muslim refugees were pouring into Lahore, Karachi and other places. The atmosphere in India’s capital was charged with not only anti-Pakistan but also anti-Muslim anger.
In one of the manifestations of this anger, many Hindus and Sikhs strongly objected to the Holy Quran being recited, along with hymns from scriptures of other religions, at the Mahatma’s prayer meetings. An anguished Gandhi had undertaken an indefinite fast for the protection of Muslims – it was to be the last of numerous fasts he had undertaken in his life.
Among the conditions he put for ending his fast were: (a) All the mosques in Delhi converted into homes and temples should be restored to their original use; (b) Muslims should be allowed to move freely in the city, and also to travel without danger in trains; (c) No economic boycott of Muslims.
He ended the fast after six days, and only after the leaders of Hindu and Sikh communities accepted his conditions. A peace pledge signed by nearly 200,000 people read: “We the Hindu, Sikh, Christian and other citizens of Delhi declare solemnly our conviction that Muslim citizens of the Indian Union should be as free as the rest of us to live in Delhi in peace and security and with self-respect and to work for the good and well-being of the Indian Union.”
Earlier, on 15 August 1947, when India was born as a free nation (Pakistan had come into existence the previous day), Gandhi was not in Delhi to participate in the celebrations. He was in Calcutta in a bid to extinguish the flames of deadly communal violence. His comrade in this successful endeavor was Muslim League leader Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy, who later became Pakistan’s prime minister.
In a city where Hindu and Muslim mobs were previously attacking each other, many of the same people jointly took out peace marches in its streets and by-lanes, shouting “Mahatma Gandhi ki jai”. Nearly seven hundred thousand people attended his prayer meeting on the 21st of August held at Park Circus. Here is an unbelievable fact: At the Mahatma’s urging, the flags of both India and Pakistan were flown side by side by the Congress and the League volunteers at the meeting.
Before his peace mission in Calcutta, he had gone to Noakhali (now in Bangladesh), which had become another cauldron of communal killings. For many weeks, he travelled barefoot from village to village preaching the message of peace and harmony. The somber song that he and his small band of followers sang was ‘Ekla Chalo Re’ (Walk Alone), by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore.
If no-one heeds your call — then walk alone
If no-one looks back towards your unpredictable path,
Then with thorn-pricked and bloodied feet, walk alone.
About this epic effort, Lord Mountbatten, Britain’s last viceroy (he briefly continued as India’s first governor-general) wrote to Gandhi on 26 August 1947: “In the Punjab we have 55,000 soldiers and large-scale rioting on our hands. In Bengal our forces consist of one man and there is no rioting. As a serving officer, as well as an administrator, may I be allowed to pay my tribute to the One Man Boundary Force, not forgetting his second in command, Mr Suhrawardy?”
To this, Gandhi replied: “Am I right in gathering from your letter that you would like me to try the same thing for Punjab?” On the last day of his life, he received a Sindhi delegation and said to its members, “Tell Khuhro (Mohammed Ayub Khuhro, chief minister of Sindh at the time of Partition) I want to visit Sindh to re-establish peace. Let him consult Jinnah and inform me telegraphically.” Alas, he died before he could go to Karachi and meet Jinnah.
But not every Hindu was happy about Gandhi’s call for Hindu-Muslim unity and India-Pakistan amity. Militant Hindu groups had never accepted his philosophy of Satya (truth), Ahimsa (non-violence) and communal harmony, and had even accused him of being pro-Muslim and pro-Pakistan.
Front page of Dawn on January 31, 1948, carrying the news of Gandhi's assassination.
In a statement before the court (‘Why I Killed Gandhi’), Godse flayed what he called “Gandhi’s persistent policy of appeasement towards the Muslims”. What he said further explains why I regard Mahatma Gandhi as the first Hindu who laid down his life for Pakistan.
“Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so, he had failed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled before Jinnah’s iron will and proved to be powerless,” said Godse.
Godse was hanged for his crime on 15 November 1949.
Why Pakistanis have misunderstood Gandhi
This year (2nd October) marks Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary. I do not know whether this anniversary has any significance for the people or the government of Pakistan. Unfortunately, both India and Pakistan have followed a troublesome trajectory since 1947 in which the people of one country hardly pay tribute to great personalities from the other. Nevertheless, Pakistanis who care for an objective understanding of their own history cannot be indifferent to the life, legacy and teachings of one whose name is inseparable from the making of Pakistan.
My guess is that just as Quaid-i-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah is misrepresented – indeed, he is villainised – in the Indian narrative of the freedom struggle, Gandhi too is largely falsified in Pakistan. Barring those who have studied his life to a reasonable extent, popular misunderstanding about him owes largely to two factors. First, he is seen as a Hindu leader who was the supreme guide to a party (Congress) that was, in the eyes of those who campaigned for Pakistan, a “Hindu party” that wanted to establish “Hindu Raj” after the British left. The fact that he looked and behaved like a Hindu ascetic, and sometimes used Hindu religious idioms (“Rama Rajya” to connote his idea of an Ideal State), was held against him by pro-Pakistan campaigners.
Sadly, it is largely ignored that his Hinduism was diametrically opposed to that professed by the likes of Godse. He was uncompromisingly against the claim made by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, whose political affiliate BJP is now ruling India) that India is a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ (Hindu Nation). His allowing recitation of the Holy Quran in his daily prayer meetings, despite threats from Hindu fanatics, is just one of the many proofs that his Hinduism was tolerant, inclusive, liberal, and respectful towards all other faiths. Indeed, in the history of our subcontinent – rather, in the history of the entire world – no leader made inter-religious harmony as central an agenda in his or her political struggle as Gandhi did.
What did Gandhi think about Islam? Pakistanis – indeed, Muslims around the world – should listen to his following words. “Islam enjoins an admiration for the Creator of the World and His works. As the West was in a dreadful darkness, the dazzling star of Islam shining in the East brought light, peace and relief to the suffering world. The Islamic religion is not a mendacious religion. When the Hindus study this religion with due respect, they, too, will feel the same sympathy as I do for Islam. I have read the books telling about the life-style of the Prophet of Islam and of those who were close to him. These books generated profound interest in me, so much so that when I finished reading them I regretted there being no more of them. I have arrived at the conclusion that Islam’s spreading rapidly was not by the sword. On the contrary, it was primarily owing to its simplicity, logicality, its Prophet’s great modesty, his trueness to his promises and his unlimited faithfulness towards every Muslim that many people willingly accepted Islam.”
‘Two Nations’ theory and ‘Two States’ theory
The second factor that has prevented many Pakistanis from having an unbiased view of Gandhi is his perceived opposition to India’s Partition – and hence to the creation of Pakistan as a separate nation. To proud and patriotic Pakistanis, this is understandably unacceptable. But the historical truth is more complex than how it is perceived.
True, Gandhi did not favour India’s division – and certainly not on the basis of the ‘Two-Nations’ theory. The reason for this is explained by noted scholar Bhikhu Parekh in his book Gandhi's Political Philosophy — A critical examination. It says: “Gandhi defined India in civilisational, not territorial, terms and was far more concerned about the integrity of civilisation rather than its territorial boundary. Indian civilisation was for him plural and synthetic and not only tolerated and respected but positively cherished diversity and differences. With all its limitations and occasional quarrels, India had been a ‘happy family’ to which all its children were privileged to belong.”
Gandhi was however agreeable to the ‘Two-States Theory’ – that is, Pakistan as a separate State with a confederal link with India on the basis of equality. Nothing illustrates this better than the lengthy talks he held, at his own initiative, with Jinnah between 9 and 27 September 1944. Gandhi met Jinnah as many as 14 times at the latter’s residence in Bombay. Simultaneously, the two leaders also exchanged as many as 24 letters, which are of immense educative value for both Indians and Pakistanis.
In his very first letter to Jinnah on 11 September 1944, Gandhi stated: “My life mission has been Hindu-Muslim unity, which I want for its own sake but which is not to be achieved without the foreign ruling Power being ousted”. Unimpressed, Jinnah wrote back: “The only solution of India’s problem is to accept the division of India as Pakistan and Hindustan.”
Gandhi then endorsed the principle of sovereign states on the basis of self-determination, in areas predominantly inhabited by Muslims in the north-western and eastern parts of India. “You can call it Pakistan if you like,” he told Jinnah. To this extent, he accepted the kernel of the Lahore Resolution. “I have therefore suggested a way out,” he said. “Let there be a partition as between two brothers, if a division there must be.”
The talks broke down because Jinnah did not yield. History might have been different if those talks had not broken down and similarly, history would have been different if some Congress leaders at the time, especially Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel, had not been utterly dismissive about the Muslim League, and offered to have serious talks with the League on the future constitutional arrangement for post-British India. Thus, both sides were responsible for the grave trust deficit that developed between them. As a result, both failed to imagine, mutually agree on, and peacefully implement an indigenous concept of an inclusive India-Pakistan Family-State different from the west’s Westphalian model of a Nation-State. Such a concept, rooted in our common spiritual-civilisational wisdom, could have avoided the division of Punjab, Bengal and Kashmir, and could also have averted mass killings and panic cross-migration of populations. Had both Gandhi and Jinnah lived longer, some of the mistakes could still have been corrected. Alas.
The rest is history, full of tragedies – India-Pakistan wars; Pakistan’s own division and the blood-soaked secession of Bangladesh; problems faced by the minorities in both countries; the rise of religious extremism and terrorism; ceaseless hostility between two nuclear-armed neighbours and their ever-rising military spending; total absence of socio-economic and cultural cooperation; poverty and deprivation afflicting large sections of the two populations; and, above all, the agony of Kashmir.
This birth-defect of the two nations was foreseen by the great Pakistani-Indian poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, who mournfully wrote in August 1947:
Ye daagh daagh ujaalaa, ye shab-gaziida sahar,
Vo intizaar thaa jis-kaa, ye vo sahar to nahin
These tarnished rays, this night-smudged light –
This is not that Dawn for which, ravished with freedom,
We had set out in sheer longing.
I have described Faiz as a Pakistani-Indian poet because he had himself said Pakistan was his mankooha (one he was wedded to) and India was his mahbooba (beloved). He had deep respect for Mahatma Gandhi.
On February 2, 1948, two days after Gandhi’s assassination, he penned a heartfelt tribute in The Pakistan Times, Lahore, (he was then the editor of the newspaper). “[We] are convinced,” he wrote, “more than ever before that very few indeed have lived in this degenerate century who could lay greater claim to immortality than this true servant of humanity and champion of downtrodden….Though he is dead, he will live through ageless life.”
Gandhi and Jinnah claimed both India and Pakistan as their own
In his insightful book Jinnah vs. Gandhi, Roderick Matthews writes: “Jinnah and Gandhi have each been acclaimed as the ‘father’ of a modern state, but parenthood has not been kind to either of them.” Today’s Pakistan is a far cry from what Jinnah had envisioned. Similarly, Gandhi would have been deeply concerned at the prevailing socio-political and economic realities of India. Narendra Modi’s ruling party has even got a person who praised Godse as a “patriot” elected to parliament.
Yet, any hope of ‘aman’ and amity between India and Pakistan can be realised only if the people and ruling establishments in our two countries rediscover the core principles and visions of Gandhi and Jinnah. They were both leaders of immense courage, and both were driven by lofty ideals of humanism. A few days before his assassination, Gandhi had the audacity to declare at his prayer meetings: “Both India and Pakistan are my country. I am not going to take out a passport to go to Pakistan… Though geographically and politically India is divided in two, at heart we shall be friends and brothers helping and respecting one another and be one for the outside world.”
Similarly, Jinnah was far from being an “anti-Hindu” and “anti-India” leader he is prejudicially made out to be in India. During his 1948 visit to Dacca, the capital of then East Pakistan, he had assured the Hindu community: “Do not be afraid, do not leave Pakistan because Pakistan will be a democratic state and the Hindus will have the same rights as the Muslims.” More astonishingly, in his address to the All India Muslim League Council meeting in Karachi in December 1947, he stated: “I tell you that I still consider myself to be an Indian. For the moment I have accepted the Governor-Generalship of Pakistan. But I am looking forward to a time when I would return to India and take my place as a citizen of my country.”
It is well documented that he wished to return to Bombay and live in the beautiful mansion (‘Jinnah House’) he had built for himself. “You do not know how I love Bombay,” he had told Sri Prakasa, India’s first high commissioner to Pakistan. (I would like to reiterate here my longstanding demand before the Government of India. It should hand over ‘Jinnah House’ to the Government of Pakistan, so that the latter can establish its consulate in that historical building. The building should also house an India-Pakistan Friendship Centre.)
Gandhi was in favour of an innovative solution to the Kashmir dispute by making it belong to both India and Pakistan. On his part, Jinnah wanted India-Pakistan ties to be as close and cooperative as those between USA and Canada. “Nothing was nearer to his heart” than friendly relations with India, the Quaid-i-Azam told Paul Alling, the first US ambassador to Pakistan, on 26 February 1948. He also informed the ambassador that he had told Nehru, Gandhi and others that “Pakistan desired defensive understanding with India on a military level…with no time limit, similar perhaps to the (US) arrangements with Canada.”
Surely, we Indians and Pakistanis owe it to our common past to revisit the lives of these two great men – both, coincidentally, Gujaratis – who, despite differences, dreamt of a harmonious future for our two countries, claiming, moreover, both to be their own.
Lest I be misunderstood, I would like to state categorically that what is proposed is not ‘Akhand Bharat’, a merger of India and Pakistan. Partition cannot be undone. Pakistan is, and will remain, a separate, independent and sovereign nation. Indians must not only accept this reality but also sincerely wish Pakistan to remain united and become more stable, cohesive, democratic and prosperous. But must we, Indians and Pakistanis, not learn the right lessons from history and begin to live as good neighbours, remaining true to the dreams of Gandhi and Jinnah, and never forgetting that there is, and will always be, a good lot of Pakistan in India and India in Pakistan?
Sudheendra Kulkarni served as a close aide to India’s former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He is the author of Music of the Spinning Wheel: Mahatma Gandhi’s Manifesto for the Internet Age. He is the founder of ‘FORUM FOR A NEW SOUTH ASIA — Powered by India-Pakistan-China Cooperation’.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1495554/his-k ... f-pakistan
Gandhi's and Jinnah’s core principles can yet help in normalizing India-Pakistan relations.
Sudheendra Kulkarni
“Who was the first Hindu who sacrificed his life for Pakistan?” I asked a prominent businessman in Lahore when I visited Pakistan a couple of years ago. He is a proud Pakistani and also passionate about peace and friendship between our two countries estranged since birth in 1947. He did not know the answer, and was startled when I said, “It was Mahatma Gandhi.”
Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist, on 30 January 1948. The place was Birla House in New Delhi, where the Mahatma (which means “a great soul”) held all-religion prayer meetings every day.
The British had left barely six months earlier, ending their colonial rule of nearly 200 years and dividing the ancient land into two independent and sovereign nations. The reason for Partition (that “Muslims and Hindus are two separate nations”), and the manner in which it took place, had produced a horrendous communal bloodbath and the largest cross-border migration in human history.
Delhi at the time was teeming with Hindu-Sikh refugees from West Pakistan, just as Muslim refugees were pouring into Lahore, Karachi and other places. The atmosphere in India’s capital was charged with not only anti-Pakistan but also anti-Muslim anger.
In one of the manifestations of this anger, many Hindus and Sikhs strongly objected to the Holy Quran being recited, along with hymns from scriptures of other religions, at the Mahatma’s prayer meetings. An anguished Gandhi had undertaken an indefinite fast for the protection of Muslims – it was to be the last of numerous fasts he had undertaken in his life.
Among the conditions he put for ending his fast were: (a) All the mosques in Delhi converted into homes and temples should be restored to their original use; (b) Muslims should be allowed to move freely in the city, and also to travel without danger in trains; (c) No economic boycott of Muslims.
He ended the fast after six days, and only after the leaders of Hindu and Sikh communities accepted his conditions. A peace pledge signed by nearly 200,000 people read: “We the Hindu, Sikh, Christian and other citizens of Delhi declare solemnly our conviction that Muslim citizens of the Indian Union should be as free as the rest of us to live in Delhi in peace and security and with self-respect and to work for the good and well-being of the Indian Union.”
Earlier, on 15 August 1947, when India was born as a free nation (Pakistan had come into existence the previous day), Gandhi was not in Delhi to participate in the celebrations. He was in Calcutta in a bid to extinguish the flames of deadly communal violence. His comrade in this successful endeavor was Muslim League leader Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy, who later became Pakistan’s prime minister.
In a city where Hindu and Muslim mobs were previously attacking each other, many of the same people jointly took out peace marches in its streets and by-lanes, shouting “Mahatma Gandhi ki jai”. Nearly seven hundred thousand people attended his prayer meeting on the 21st of August held at Park Circus. Here is an unbelievable fact: At the Mahatma’s urging, the flags of both India and Pakistan were flown side by side by the Congress and the League volunteers at the meeting.
Before his peace mission in Calcutta, he had gone to Noakhali (now in Bangladesh), which had become another cauldron of communal killings. For many weeks, he travelled barefoot from village to village preaching the message of peace and harmony. The somber song that he and his small band of followers sang was ‘Ekla Chalo Re’ (Walk Alone), by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore.
If no-one heeds your call — then walk alone
If no-one looks back towards your unpredictable path,
Then with thorn-pricked and bloodied feet, walk alone.
About this epic effort, Lord Mountbatten, Britain’s last viceroy (he briefly continued as India’s first governor-general) wrote to Gandhi on 26 August 1947: “In the Punjab we have 55,000 soldiers and large-scale rioting on our hands. In Bengal our forces consist of one man and there is no rioting. As a serving officer, as well as an administrator, may I be allowed to pay my tribute to the One Man Boundary Force, not forgetting his second in command, Mr Suhrawardy?”
To this, Gandhi replied: “Am I right in gathering from your letter that you would like me to try the same thing for Punjab?” On the last day of his life, he received a Sindhi delegation and said to its members, “Tell Khuhro (Mohammed Ayub Khuhro, chief minister of Sindh at the time of Partition) I want to visit Sindh to re-establish peace. Let him consult Jinnah and inform me telegraphically.” Alas, he died before he could go to Karachi and meet Jinnah.
But not every Hindu was happy about Gandhi’s call for Hindu-Muslim unity and India-Pakistan amity. Militant Hindu groups had never accepted his philosophy of Satya (truth), Ahimsa (non-violence) and communal harmony, and had even accused him of being pro-Muslim and pro-Pakistan.
Front page of Dawn on January 31, 1948, carrying the news of Gandhi's assassination.
In a statement before the court (‘Why I Killed Gandhi’), Godse flayed what he called “Gandhi’s persistent policy of appeasement towards the Muslims”. What he said further explains why I regard Mahatma Gandhi as the first Hindu who laid down his life for Pakistan.
“Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so, he had failed his paternal duty inasmuch as he has acted very treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power and his doctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled before Jinnah’s iron will and proved to be powerless,” said Godse.
Godse was hanged for his crime on 15 November 1949.
Why Pakistanis have misunderstood Gandhi
This year (2nd October) marks Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary. I do not know whether this anniversary has any significance for the people or the government of Pakistan. Unfortunately, both India and Pakistan have followed a troublesome trajectory since 1947 in which the people of one country hardly pay tribute to great personalities from the other. Nevertheless, Pakistanis who care for an objective understanding of their own history cannot be indifferent to the life, legacy and teachings of one whose name is inseparable from the making of Pakistan.
My guess is that just as Quaid-i-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah is misrepresented – indeed, he is villainised – in the Indian narrative of the freedom struggle, Gandhi too is largely falsified in Pakistan. Barring those who have studied his life to a reasonable extent, popular misunderstanding about him owes largely to two factors. First, he is seen as a Hindu leader who was the supreme guide to a party (Congress) that was, in the eyes of those who campaigned for Pakistan, a “Hindu party” that wanted to establish “Hindu Raj” after the British left. The fact that he looked and behaved like a Hindu ascetic, and sometimes used Hindu religious idioms (“Rama Rajya” to connote his idea of an Ideal State), was held against him by pro-Pakistan campaigners.
Sadly, it is largely ignored that his Hinduism was diametrically opposed to that professed by the likes of Godse. He was uncompromisingly against the claim made by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, whose political affiliate BJP is now ruling India) that India is a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ (Hindu Nation). His allowing recitation of the Holy Quran in his daily prayer meetings, despite threats from Hindu fanatics, is just one of the many proofs that his Hinduism was tolerant, inclusive, liberal, and respectful towards all other faiths. Indeed, in the history of our subcontinent – rather, in the history of the entire world – no leader made inter-religious harmony as central an agenda in his or her political struggle as Gandhi did.
What did Gandhi think about Islam? Pakistanis – indeed, Muslims around the world – should listen to his following words. “Islam enjoins an admiration for the Creator of the World and His works. As the West was in a dreadful darkness, the dazzling star of Islam shining in the East brought light, peace and relief to the suffering world. The Islamic religion is not a mendacious religion. When the Hindus study this religion with due respect, they, too, will feel the same sympathy as I do for Islam. I have read the books telling about the life-style of the Prophet of Islam and of those who were close to him. These books generated profound interest in me, so much so that when I finished reading them I regretted there being no more of them. I have arrived at the conclusion that Islam’s spreading rapidly was not by the sword. On the contrary, it was primarily owing to its simplicity, logicality, its Prophet’s great modesty, his trueness to his promises and his unlimited faithfulness towards every Muslim that many people willingly accepted Islam.”
‘Two Nations’ theory and ‘Two States’ theory
The second factor that has prevented many Pakistanis from having an unbiased view of Gandhi is his perceived opposition to India’s Partition – and hence to the creation of Pakistan as a separate nation. To proud and patriotic Pakistanis, this is understandably unacceptable. But the historical truth is more complex than how it is perceived.
True, Gandhi did not favour India’s division – and certainly not on the basis of the ‘Two-Nations’ theory. The reason for this is explained by noted scholar Bhikhu Parekh in his book Gandhi's Political Philosophy — A critical examination. It says: “Gandhi defined India in civilisational, not territorial, terms and was far more concerned about the integrity of civilisation rather than its territorial boundary. Indian civilisation was for him plural and synthetic and not only tolerated and respected but positively cherished diversity and differences. With all its limitations and occasional quarrels, India had been a ‘happy family’ to which all its children were privileged to belong.”
Gandhi was however agreeable to the ‘Two-States Theory’ – that is, Pakistan as a separate State with a confederal link with India on the basis of equality. Nothing illustrates this better than the lengthy talks he held, at his own initiative, with Jinnah between 9 and 27 September 1944. Gandhi met Jinnah as many as 14 times at the latter’s residence in Bombay. Simultaneously, the two leaders also exchanged as many as 24 letters, which are of immense educative value for both Indians and Pakistanis.
In his very first letter to Jinnah on 11 September 1944, Gandhi stated: “My life mission has been Hindu-Muslim unity, which I want for its own sake but which is not to be achieved without the foreign ruling Power being ousted”. Unimpressed, Jinnah wrote back: “The only solution of India’s problem is to accept the division of India as Pakistan and Hindustan.”
Gandhi then endorsed the principle of sovereign states on the basis of self-determination, in areas predominantly inhabited by Muslims in the north-western and eastern parts of India. “You can call it Pakistan if you like,” he told Jinnah. To this extent, he accepted the kernel of the Lahore Resolution. “I have therefore suggested a way out,” he said. “Let there be a partition as between two brothers, if a division there must be.”
The talks broke down because Jinnah did not yield. History might have been different if those talks had not broken down and similarly, history would have been different if some Congress leaders at the time, especially Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel, had not been utterly dismissive about the Muslim League, and offered to have serious talks with the League on the future constitutional arrangement for post-British India. Thus, both sides were responsible for the grave trust deficit that developed between them. As a result, both failed to imagine, mutually agree on, and peacefully implement an indigenous concept of an inclusive India-Pakistan Family-State different from the west’s Westphalian model of a Nation-State. Such a concept, rooted in our common spiritual-civilisational wisdom, could have avoided the division of Punjab, Bengal and Kashmir, and could also have averted mass killings and panic cross-migration of populations. Had both Gandhi and Jinnah lived longer, some of the mistakes could still have been corrected. Alas.
The rest is history, full of tragedies – India-Pakistan wars; Pakistan’s own division and the blood-soaked secession of Bangladesh; problems faced by the minorities in both countries; the rise of religious extremism and terrorism; ceaseless hostility between two nuclear-armed neighbours and their ever-rising military spending; total absence of socio-economic and cultural cooperation; poverty and deprivation afflicting large sections of the two populations; and, above all, the agony of Kashmir.
This birth-defect of the two nations was foreseen by the great Pakistani-Indian poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, who mournfully wrote in August 1947:
Ye daagh daagh ujaalaa, ye shab-gaziida sahar,
Vo intizaar thaa jis-kaa, ye vo sahar to nahin
These tarnished rays, this night-smudged light –
This is not that Dawn for which, ravished with freedom,
We had set out in sheer longing.
I have described Faiz as a Pakistani-Indian poet because he had himself said Pakistan was his mankooha (one he was wedded to) and India was his mahbooba (beloved). He had deep respect for Mahatma Gandhi.
On February 2, 1948, two days after Gandhi’s assassination, he penned a heartfelt tribute in The Pakistan Times, Lahore, (he was then the editor of the newspaper). “[We] are convinced,” he wrote, “more than ever before that very few indeed have lived in this degenerate century who could lay greater claim to immortality than this true servant of humanity and champion of downtrodden….Though he is dead, he will live through ageless life.”
Gandhi and Jinnah claimed both India and Pakistan as their own
In his insightful book Jinnah vs. Gandhi, Roderick Matthews writes: “Jinnah and Gandhi have each been acclaimed as the ‘father’ of a modern state, but parenthood has not been kind to either of them.” Today’s Pakistan is a far cry from what Jinnah had envisioned. Similarly, Gandhi would have been deeply concerned at the prevailing socio-political and economic realities of India. Narendra Modi’s ruling party has even got a person who praised Godse as a “patriot” elected to parliament.
Yet, any hope of ‘aman’ and amity between India and Pakistan can be realised only if the people and ruling establishments in our two countries rediscover the core principles and visions of Gandhi and Jinnah. They were both leaders of immense courage, and both were driven by lofty ideals of humanism. A few days before his assassination, Gandhi had the audacity to declare at his prayer meetings: “Both India and Pakistan are my country. I am not going to take out a passport to go to Pakistan… Though geographically and politically India is divided in two, at heart we shall be friends and brothers helping and respecting one another and be one for the outside world.”
Similarly, Jinnah was far from being an “anti-Hindu” and “anti-India” leader he is prejudicially made out to be in India. During his 1948 visit to Dacca, the capital of then East Pakistan, he had assured the Hindu community: “Do not be afraid, do not leave Pakistan because Pakistan will be a democratic state and the Hindus will have the same rights as the Muslims.” More astonishingly, in his address to the All India Muslim League Council meeting in Karachi in December 1947, he stated: “I tell you that I still consider myself to be an Indian. For the moment I have accepted the Governor-Generalship of Pakistan. But I am looking forward to a time when I would return to India and take my place as a citizen of my country.”
It is well documented that he wished to return to Bombay and live in the beautiful mansion (‘Jinnah House’) he had built for himself. “You do not know how I love Bombay,” he had told Sri Prakasa, India’s first high commissioner to Pakistan. (I would like to reiterate here my longstanding demand before the Government of India. It should hand over ‘Jinnah House’ to the Government of Pakistan, so that the latter can establish its consulate in that historical building. The building should also house an India-Pakistan Friendship Centre.)
Gandhi was in favour of an innovative solution to the Kashmir dispute by making it belong to both India and Pakistan. On his part, Jinnah wanted India-Pakistan ties to be as close and cooperative as those between USA and Canada. “Nothing was nearer to his heart” than friendly relations with India, the Quaid-i-Azam told Paul Alling, the first US ambassador to Pakistan, on 26 February 1948. He also informed the ambassador that he had told Nehru, Gandhi and others that “Pakistan desired defensive understanding with India on a military level…with no time limit, similar perhaps to the (US) arrangements with Canada.”
Surely, we Indians and Pakistanis owe it to our common past to revisit the lives of these two great men – both, coincidentally, Gujaratis – who, despite differences, dreamt of a harmonious future for our two countries, claiming, moreover, both to be their own.
Lest I be misunderstood, I would like to state categorically that what is proposed is not ‘Akhand Bharat’, a merger of India and Pakistan. Partition cannot be undone. Pakistan is, and will remain, a separate, independent and sovereign nation. Indians must not only accept this reality but also sincerely wish Pakistan to remain united and become more stable, cohesive, democratic and prosperous. But must we, Indians and Pakistanis, not learn the right lessons from history and begin to live as good neighbours, remaining true to the dreams of Gandhi and Jinnah, and never forgetting that there is, and will always be, a good lot of Pakistan in India and India in Pakistan?
Sudheendra Kulkarni served as a close aide to India’s former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He is the author of Music of the Spinning Wheel: Mahatma Gandhi’s Manifesto for the Internet Age. He is the founder of ‘FORUM FOR A NEW SOUTH ASIA — Powered by India-Pakistan-China Cooperation’.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1495554/his-k ... f-pakistan
Gandhi Jayanti 2021: Remembering the Mahatma
By hindustantimes.com, New Delhi
PUBLISHED ON OCT 01, 2021 08:00 AM IST
Saturday, October 2, 2021, will be the 152nd birth anniversary of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
On Saturday, October 2, 2021, the nation will pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi on what will be the 152nd birth anniversary of the “Father of the Nation.” Gandhi Jayanti, as the occasion is known, coincides this year with the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, which was inaugurated on March 12 by prime minister Narendra Modi, on the 91st anniversary of a significant event in Gandhi's life, the Dandi March.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who shares his birthday with another legendary personality, former PM Lal Bahadur Shastri (born 1904), was born on October 2, 1869, in Porabandar, in present-day Gujarat. A lawyer whose life changed through his experiences in South Africa, Gandhi played the most significant role in India's independence movement, holding demonstrations through non-violent means.
Though it is commonly believed that the title “Mahatma” was bestowed upon Gandhi by India's first Nobel laureate, “Gurudev” Rabindranath Tagore, the Gujarat government has disputed this, claiming instead that this title was given by a local journalist from Saurashtra. However, the leader is also commonly referred to as “Bapu” (father).
Gandhi is the most frequently invoked Indian personality by world leaders, most of whom, during a visit to India, visit his resting place in Delhi. US president Joe Biden quoted the freedom fighter during his meeting with PM Modi at the White House last week.
Internationally, October 2 is observed as the Day of Nonviolence in remembrance of the “Mahatma.” In India, it is a full holiday, and one of three national festivals, along with Republic Day (January 26) and Independence Day (August 15).
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-ne ... 02639.html
By hindustantimes.com, New Delhi
PUBLISHED ON OCT 01, 2021 08:00 AM IST
Saturday, October 2, 2021, will be the 152nd birth anniversary of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
On Saturday, October 2, 2021, the nation will pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi on what will be the 152nd birth anniversary of the “Father of the Nation.” Gandhi Jayanti, as the occasion is known, coincides this year with the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, which was inaugurated on March 12 by prime minister Narendra Modi, on the 91st anniversary of a significant event in Gandhi's life, the Dandi March.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who shares his birthday with another legendary personality, former PM Lal Bahadur Shastri (born 1904), was born on October 2, 1869, in Porabandar, in present-day Gujarat. A lawyer whose life changed through his experiences in South Africa, Gandhi played the most significant role in India's independence movement, holding demonstrations through non-violent means.
Though it is commonly believed that the title “Mahatma” was bestowed upon Gandhi by India's first Nobel laureate, “Gurudev” Rabindranath Tagore, the Gujarat government has disputed this, claiming instead that this title was given by a local journalist from Saurashtra. However, the leader is also commonly referred to as “Bapu” (father).
Gandhi is the most frequently invoked Indian personality by world leaders, most of whom, during a visit to India, visit his resting place in Delhi. US president Joe Biden quoted the freedom fighter during his meeting with PM Modi at the White House last week.
Internationally, October 2 is observed as the Day of Nonviolence in remembrance of the “Mahatma.” In India, it is a full holiday, and one of three national festivals, along with Republic Day (January 26) and Independence Day (August 15).
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-ne ... 02639.html
BBC
Mahatma Gandhi: The US shrine that claims to hold India independence leader's ashes
Sat, January 29, 2022, 10:15 PM
Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi's ashes have turned up in various places over the years
This day marks 74 years since Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, revered as father of the nation, was assassinated. Savita Patel reports from a spiritual retreat in California that claims to be holding his ashes, perhaps the only ones outside India.
Inside Lake Shrine, a spiritual retreat on the famous Sunset Boulevard, just minutes away from Hollywood, is the Gandhi World Peace Memorial. Built in 1950 by the retreat's founder, Paramahansa Yogananda, it lies amid lush gardens and waterfalls with a view of the ocean. And it contains an ancient stone sarcophagus from China which reportedly holds a brass and silver coffer containing Gandhi's ashes.
After Gandhi's funeral in 1948, his ashes were divided into more than 20 portions and dispatched across India so people around the country could mourn his death by holding memorials. Some portions even ended up outside the country.
"There was a lot of demand for Bapu's ashes," says his great-grandson Tushar Gandhi. Bapu, as Gandhi was fondly known by those close to him, was assassinated just months after India won independence from Britain in August 1947.
He says he had heard some 20 years ago that some of Gandhi's ashes were being stored at Lake Shrine and had contacted them, but never received a response.
"Holding them goes against Bapu's wishes as he had said that once he was no more, his ashes should not be kept, but disposed of," he adds.
But Brother Ritananda, one of the monks who now runs the shrine, says: "We will not overturn what our guru established." He adds that the ashes were a gift to Yogananda and people upset about their existence must make peace with it.
The monk said that it is aware that Gandhi's descendants have in the past requested for the ashes to be returned or disposed.
He says he has never seen the box containing the ashes but recalls watching a video of Yogananda placing it in the sarcophagus before it was encased.
There is no other evidence to support the claim that there is a box containing ashes at the shrine, far less that those ashes belong to Gandhi.
The sarcophagus at Lake Shrine is said to hold a portion of Gandhi's ashes
The ashes are believed to have come from VM Nawle, a publisher and journalist based in the Indian city of Pune, who was a friend of Yogananda.
Parmahansa Yogananda was born as Mukunda Lal Ghosh in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and later moved to the US, where he started Lake Shrine.
His autobiography describes a short 1935 visit to Gandhi's ashram in Wardha in western Maharashtra state. It says he met the leader, and even showed him and others at the ashram some yoga poses. He described Gandhi as a "tiny 100-pound saint who radiated physical, mental, and spiritual health… this statesman has matched wits and emerged the victor in a thousand legal, social, and political battles". He also vowed to set up a memorial for him.
But the biography doesn't explain how Mr Nawle ended up in possession of what he claimed were Gandhi's ashes - Yogananda's biography quotes lines from the publisher's letter to him: "Regarding Gandhi's ashes, I may say that [they] are scattered and thrown in almost all important rivers and seas, and nothing is given outside India except the remains which I have sent to you after a great ordeal."
"That could not be true," says Tushar Gandhi, who is also the author of Let's Kill Gandhi, a book that delves into the leader's assassination and its aftermath.
The ashes of Mahatma Gandhi being carried through the streets of Allahabad in 1948.
Gandhi's ashes were taken to the Triveni Sangam in a procession after his death in 1948
"Some of Bapu's ashes were immersed in South Africa in 1948 itself. Whether they were sent out officially or someone just carried it with them, we don't know," he adds.
"I don't know who collected and sent the ashes to Paramahansa Yogananda. A committee of cabinet members and eminent Gandhians of that time was in charge [of distributing the ashes]."
After the funeral, most of Gandhi's ashes were immersed in Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh. The city lies on the banks of the holy Ganges river and close to the Triveni Sangam, the point where the Ganges meets the Yamuna river and the mythical Saraswati river, a confluence Hindus consider sacred. Many of them disperse the ashes of family members here as the holy water is believed to offer salvation to the soul.
Gandhi, a devout Hindu, wished for his ashes to be dispersed in a similar manner.
But not all of them were immersed. Over the years they have turned up in various places.
In 2019, some of Gandhi's ashes were stolen from a memorial in central India. Some turned up as recently as a decade ago in South Africa. "My aunts and cousins immersed them in Durban Bay," Tushar Gandhi says.
Before that, he adds, the Gandhi family received another portion of ashes from a museum - they had been bequeathed to them by an Indian businessman whose father had known Gandhi. Those ashes were immersed in Mumbai city in 2008.
The Gandhi Peace Memorial in California
The Gandhi Peace Memorial at Lake Shrine was built in 1950
He also found out, through press reports, about an urn containing Gandhi's ashes in a bank locker in Orissa (also known as Odisha) state in the name of a former bureaucrat. These were immersed at Triveni Sangam in 1997.
The last of Gandhi's ashes - that we know of - in India lie at the Aga Khan Palace in Pune city. They are encased in a marble structure, next to a tomb of his wife, Kasturba (She was cremated on the palace premises).
Tushar Gandhi says he understands the reasons someone might be inclined to hold on to them.
"When I immersed the ashes in Triveni Sangam [in 1997], there was a temptation to keep the brass urn in which they were stored for years. But then I thought - I will surely keep it carefully, but what if later, at some time, it can't be maintained in a proper condition? So I donated it to The National Gandhi Museum in Delhi."
While he respects everybody's right to revere Gandhi and believes Lake Shrine maintains its ashes with care, he adds that the family would be hurt if they were ever desecrated.
"Hence, my request is for the ashes to be disposed of properly."
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/us ... 15339.html
Mahatma Gandhi: The US shrine that claims to hold India independence leader's ashes
Sat, January 29, 2022, 10:15 PM
Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi's ashes have turned up in various places over the years
This day marks 74 years since Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, revered as father of the nation, was assassinated. Savita Patel reports from a spiritual retreat in California that claims to be holding his ashes, perhaps the only ones outside India.
Inside Lake Shrine, a spiritual retreat on the famous Sunset Boulevard, just minutes away from Hollywood, is the Gandhi World Peace Memorial. Built in 1950 by the retreat's founder, Paramahansa Yogananda, it lies amid lush gardens and waterfalls with a view of the ocean. And it contains an ancient stone sarcophagus from China which reportedly holds a brass and silver coffer containing Gandhi's ashes.
After Gandhi's funeral in 1948, his ashes were divided into more than 20 portions and dispatched across India so people around the country could mourn his death by holding memorials. Some portions even ended up outside the country.
"There was a lot of demand for Bapu's ashes," says his great-grandson Tushar Gandhi. Bapu, as Gandhi was fondly known by those close to him, was assassinated just months after India won independence from Britain in August 1947.
He says he had heard some 20 years ago that some of Gandhi's ashes were being stored at Lake Shrine and had contacted them, but never received a response.
"Holding them goes against Bapu's wishes as he had said that once he was no more, his ashes should not be kept, but disposed of," he adds.
But Brother Ritananda, one of the monks who now runs the shrine, says: "We will not overturn what our guru established." He adds that the ashes were a gift to Yogananda and people upset about their existence must make peace with it.
The monk said that it is aware that Gandhi's descendants have in the past requested for the ashes to be returned or disposed.
He says he has never seen the box containing the ashes but recalls watching a video of Yogananda placing it in the sarcophagus before it was encased.
There is no other evidence to support the claim that there is a box containing ashes at the shrine, far less that those ashes belong to Gandhi.
The sarcophagus at Lake Shrine is said to hold a portion of Gandhi's ashes
The ashes are believed to have come from VM Nawle, a publisher and journalist based in the Indian city of Pune, who was a friend of Yogananda.
Parmahansa Yogananda was born as Mukunda Lal Ghosh in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and later moved to the US, where he started Lake Shrine.
His autobiography describes a short 1935 visit to Gandhi's ashram in Wardha in western Maharashtra state. It says he met the leader, and even showed him and others at the ashram some yoga poses. He described Gandhi as a "tiny 100-pound saint who radiated physical, mental, and spiritual health… this statesman has matched wits and emerged the victor in a thousand legal, social, and political battles". He also vowed to set up a memorial for him.
But the biography doesn't explain how Mr Nawle ended up in possession of what he claimed were Gandhi's ashes - Yogananda's biography quotes lines from the publisher's letter to him: "Regarding Gandhi's ashes, I may say that [they] are scattered and thrown in almost all important rivers and seas, and nothing is given outside India except the remains which I have sent to you after a great ordeal."
"That could not be true," says Tushar Gandhi, who is also the author of Let's Kill Gandhi, a book that delves into the leader's assassination and its aftermath.
The ashes of Mahatma Gandhi being carried through the streets of Allahabad in 1948.
Gandhi's ashes were taken to the Triveni Sangam in a procession after his death in 1948
"Some of Bapu's ashes were immersed in South Africa in 1948 itself. Whether they were sent out officially or someone just carried it with them, we don't know," he adds.
"I don't know who collected and sent the ashes to Paramahansa Yogananda. A committee of cabinet members and eminent Gandhians of that time was in charge [of distributing the ashes]."
After the funeral, most of Gandhi's ashes were immersed in Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh. The city lies on the banks of the holy Ganges river and close to the Triveni Sangam, the point where the Ganges meets the Yamuna river and the mythical Saraswati river, a confluence Hindus consider sacred. Many of them disperse the ashes of family members here as the holy water is believed to offer salvation to the soul.
Gandhi, a devout Hindu, wished for his ashes to be dispersed in a similar manner.
But not all of them were immersed. Over the years they have turned up in various places.
In 2019, some of Gandhi's ashes were stolen from a memorial in central India. Some turned up as recently as a decade ago in South Africa. "My aunts and cousins immersed them in Durban Bay," Tushar Gandhi says.
Before that, he adds, the Gandhi family received another portion of ashes from a museum - they had been bequeathed to them by an Indian businessman whose father had known Gandhi. Those ashes were immersed in Mumbai city in 2008.
The Gandhi Peace Memorial in California
The Gandhi Peace Memorial at Lake Shrine was built in 1950
He also found out, through press reports, about an urn containing Gandhi's ashes in a bank locker in Orissa (also known as Odisha) state in the name of a former bureaucrat. These were immersed at Triveni Sangam in 1997.
The last of Gandhi's ashes - that we know of - in India lie at the Aga Khan Palace in Pune city. They are encased in a marble structure, next to a tomb of his wife, Kasturba (She was cremated on the palace premises).
Tushar Gandhi says he understands the reasons someone might be inclined to hold on to them.
"When I immersed the ashes in Triveni Sangam [in 1997], there was a temptation to keep the brass urn in which they were stored for years. But then I thought - I will surely keep it carefully, but what if later, at some time, it can't be maintained in a proper condition? So I donated it to The National Gandhi Museum in Delhi."
While he respects everybody's right to revere Gandhi and believes Lake Shrine maintains its ashes with care, he adds that the family would be hurt if they were ever desecrated.
"Hence, my request is for the ashes to be disposed of properly."
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/us ... 15339.html
Re: what Gandhi says about Islam and religion.
Jinnah and Gandhi
Muhammad Ali Siddiqi Published September 11, 2022
HECTOR Bolitho’s biography, Jinnah: Creator of Pakistan, doesn’t get the attention it deserves, even though it was the Quaid-e-Azam’s first biography in English by an internationally recognised author. American writer Stanley Wolpert mentions him only briefly in his classic, Jinnah of Pakistan, while the young Pakistani writer Yasser Latif Hamdani in his Jinnah: A Life, totally ignores him. Maybe, on a humble personal level, the Bolitho book has had a lasting impression on me because I read it in my intellectually formative years at college.
Like all biographies, the Bolitho book covers every phase of Jinnah’s life — from childhood, through his navigation of the Muslim cause, and up to his death. But what adds to the book’s readability for the layperson is his emphasis on some of the traits in Jinnah’s character and the contrast with Mahatma Gandhi.
Both were great men of the kind history produces in centuries, both had respect for each other despite acute political differences and both negotiated face to face and through correspondence at a level that truly revealed the inherent greatness in their character.
On some of Jinnah’s obsessions, like that with personal cleanliness, Bolitho dwells at considerable length and quotes eyewitnesses that to my knowledge other books missed. They included doctors, friends and two personalities that fascinated Jinnah – Liaquat Ali Khan and his charismatic wife, Ra’ana.
Both were great men of the kind history produces in centuries.
As for the differences between Jinnah and Gandhi, a most interesting account has been given by a doctor who treated them both. Not named by Bolitho, the doctor said of Jinnah: “As a politician, he kept his distance. Gandhi was unclothed before his disciples: Jinnah was clothed before his disciples: that was the difference between them. Gandhi was an instrument of power: Jinnah was power. He was a cold rationalist in politics; a man with a one-track mind, but with great force behind it. That was the fundamental difference between them.”
In terms of their cleanliness habits, he said “Gandhi used to say ‘Cleanliness is not next to Godliness. It is Godliness.’ He was scrupulously clean in all his physical habits, yet he would perform dirty work and spoil his hands, in doing some kindness for the poor. Jinnah was not like that. His cleanliness was a personal mania. He would wash his hands … several times a day. But he did not wish to touch people: it was as if he wished to be immaculate and alone.”
Bitterness never cropped up between them and they behaved in a manner that was sometimes astonishing. Once the Quaid had some problem with one of his feet and couldn’t go to the gate to receive Gandhi when he came to his Bombay home for one of their lengthy talk sessions. Gandhi sat down on the floor, removed Jinnah’s shoe and sock, examined his affected foot and promised to send him a home remedy. The medicine arrived next day, and even though Jinnah didn’t use it he thanked Gandhi for his gesture.
Yet neither of the two great men in whose hands was the destiny of a subcontinent gave up their views on partition. Gandhi made several proposals which seemingly accepted partition but with clauses that Jinnah didn’t find acceptable.
Arguing against Jinnah’s two-nation theory, Gandhi wrote to him: “I find no parallel in history of a body of converts and descendants claiming to be a nation apart from the parent stock. If India was one nation before the advent of Islam, it must remain one in spite of the change of faith of a large body of her children. You do not claim to be a separate nation by right of conquest but by reason of acceptance of Islam. Will the two nations become one if the whole of India accepted Islam?”
Jinnah’s reply was historic and like all his utterances and writings consisted of words that turned the reply into textbook stuff for future students of Pakistan’s history. He wrote back: “We maintain that Muslims and Hindus are two major nations by any definition or test as a nation. We are a nation of a hundred million, and what is more, we are a nation with our own distinctive culture and civilisation, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of values and proportion, legal laws and moral codes, customs and calendar, history and traditions, aptitudes and ambitions: in short, we have our own distinctive outlook on life and of life. By all the canons of international law we are a nation.”
Gandhi’s assassination on Jan 30, 1948 by a Hindu fanatic “shocked” the Quaid, who called him “one of the greatest men produced by the Hindu community.”
Bolitho’s book begins with a single quote on the page after the flyleaf: “Failure is a word unknown to me.” — Jinnah
The writer is Dawn’s External Ombudsman and an author.
Published in Dawn, September 11th, 2022
https://www.dawn.com/news/1709508/jinnah-and-gandhi
Muhammad Ali Siddiqi Published September 11, 2022
HECTOR Bolitho’s biography, Jinnah: Creator of Pakistan, doesn’t get the attention it deserves, even though it was the Quaid-e-Azam’s first biography in English by an internationally recognised author. American writer Stanley Wolpert mentions him only briefly in his classic, Jinnah of Pakistan, while the young Pakistani writer Yasser Latif Hamdani in his Jinnah: A Life, totally ignores him. Maybe, on a humble personal level, the Bolitho book has had a lasting impression on me because I read it in my intellectually formative years at college.
Like all biographies, the Bolitho book covers every phase of Jinnah’s life — from childhood, through his navigation of the Muslim cause, and up to his death. But what adds to the book’s readability for the layperson is his emphasis on some of the traits in Jinnah’s character and the contrast with Mahatma Gandhi.
Both were great men of the kind history produces in centuries, both had respect for each other despite acute political differences and both negotiated face to face and through correspondence at a level that truly revealed the inherent greatness in their character.
On some of Jinnah’s obsessions, like that with personal cleanliness, Bolitho dwells at considerable length and quotes eyewitnesses that to my knowledge other books missed. They included doctors, friends and two personalities that fascinated Jinnah – Liaquat Ali Khan and his charismatic wife, Ra’ana.
Both were great men of the kind history produces in centuries.
As for the differences between Jinnah and Gandhi, a most interesting account has been given by a doctor who treated them both. Not named by Bolitho, the doctor said of Jinnah: “As a politician, he kept his distance. Gandhi was unclothed before his disciples: Jinnah was clothed before his disciples: that was the difference between them. Gandhi was an instrument of power: Jinnah was power. He was a cold rationalist in politics; a man with a one-track mind, but with great force behind it. That was the fundamental difference between them.”
In terms of their cleanliness habits, he said “Gandhi used to say ‘Cleanliness is not next to Godliness. It is Godliness.’ He was scrupulously clean in all his physical habits, yet he would perform dirty work and spoil his hands, in doing some kindness for the poor. Jinnah was not like that. His cleanliness was a personal mania. He would wash his hands … several times a day. But he did not wish to touch people: it was as if he wished to be immaculate and alone.”
Bitterness never cropped up between them and they behaved in a manner that was sometimes astonishing. Once the Quaid had some problem with one of his feet and couldn’t go to the gate to receive Gandhi when he came to his Bombay home for one of their lengthy talk sessions. Gandhi sat down on the floor, removed Jinnah’s shoe and sock, examined his affected foot and promised to send him a home remedy. The medicine arrived next day, and even though Jinnah didn’t use it he thanked Gandhi for his gesture.
Yet neither of the two great men in whose hands was the destiny of a subcontinent gave up their views on partition. Gandhi made several proposals which seemingly accepted partition but with clauses that Jinnah didn’t find acceptable.
Arguing against Jinnah’s two-nation theory, Gandhi wrote to him: “I find no parallel in history of a body of converts and descendants claiming to be a nation apart from the parent stock. If India was one nation before the advent of Islam, it must remain one in spite of the change of faith of a large body of her children. You do not claim to be a separate nation by right of conquest but by reason of acceptance of Islam. Will the two nations become one if the whole of India accepted Islam?”
Jinnah’s reply was historic and like all his utterances and writings consisted of words that turned the reply into textbook stuff for future students of Pakistan’s history. He wrote back: “We maintain that Muslims and Hindus are two major nations by any definition or test as a nation. We are a nation of a hundred million, and what is more, we are a nation with our own distinctive culture and civilisation, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of values and proportion, legal laws and moral codes, customs and calendar, history and traditions, aptitudes and ambitions: in short, we have our own distinctive outlook on life and of life. By all the canons of international law we are a nation.”
Gandhi’s assassination on Jan 30, 1948 by a Hindu fanatic “shocked” the Quaid, who called him “one of the greatest men produced by the Hindu community.”
Bolitho’s book begins with a single quote on the page after the flyleaf: “Failure is a word unknown to me.” — Jinnah
The writer is Dawn’s External Ombudsman and an author.
Published in Dawn, September 11th, 2022
https://www.dawn.com/news/1709508/jinnah-and-gandhi
Re: what Gandhi says about Islam and religion.
Gandhi and Jinnah
Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry Published February 25, 2024 Updated 30 minutes ago
The writer, a former foreign secretary, is chairman Sanober Institute Islamabad.
AS relations between India and Pakistan remain frosty, a theatrical play in Washington has stirred conversations on peaceful coexistence, inter-faith harmony, and the need for a fresh look at the history of the two countries. The play Gandhi and Jinnah return home, discussed at the Karachi Literature Festival last week, describes how far the two countries have drifted from the vision of their respective founding fathers, Gandhi, the Mahatma, and Jinnah, the Quaid-e-Azam, who both hailed from Gujarat and played central roles in the struggle for independence.
Gandhi had envisioned that India would be a united, secular and pluralistic country once the British left. Fondly called Bapu, he built his freedom struggle on the principle of non-violence, famously remarking that an eye for an eye would make the whole world blind.
Jinnah, too, was a strong proponent of peace, harmony and pluralism, as clearly stipulated in his speech of Aug 11, 1947. He also was not opposed to the unity of India per se, as he had accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946. However, Jinnah was concerned that the legacy of parliamentary democracy the British were leaving behind would keep the Muslim minority perpetually subservient to the rule of the Hindu majority. He did not wish to see British Raj replaced by Ram Raj. Jinnah’s efforts to create Pakistan were essentially aimed at enabling the Muslims of India to protect their political, economic, and cultural rights.
Seventy-six years later, if Gandhi and Jinnah were to, fictionally, return home in 2024, they would find their respective countries to be very different from the ones they had envisioned. Gandhi would find India on course to becoming a Hindu nationalist state, with shrinking space for minorities, growing communal violence, mosques being replaced with mandirs, and the Ayodhya syndrome in full swing to make India a Hindu rashtra. He would be particularly dejected to find that his own state Gujarat had seen the worst kind of violence against Muslims in 2002.
The hostility between India and Pakistan serves neither country well.
For his part, if Jinnah were to return home in 2024, he would find his country mired in corruption, religious extremism, lawlessness, unemployment and poverty. He would be grieved to see a country blessed with such fertile land, minerals, mountains, and splendid coastline ranking depressingly low in social and economic indicators.
The play, conceived by Akbar S. Ahmad, the Ibne Khaldun chair at the American University, Washington, and directed by Manjula Kumar of Global Performing Arts, sends out a powerful message that in the interest of peace, both countries must return to the vision of their founding fathers.
Another, perhaps more important, message that Akbar S. Ahmad sends through this play is that the prevailing hostility between India and Pakistan does not serve either country well. The past cannot be changed. There is a need to look at each other afresh as friends and neighbours.
Jinnah had envisioned India and Pakistan living in peaceful coexistence, much like the US and Canada. He even maintained his residence in Mumbai. Gandhi was opposed to partition. Yet, when it happened, he used all his influence on the Indian government to ensure that Pakistan got its share of financial and other dues, signalling his advice for a peaceful coexistence.
For the past seven decades, mutual mistrust has bedevilled relations between India and Pakistan. Since 2016, the two have suspended all bilateral contacts. Such a hostile environment deepens misunderstanding between the two countries. Dialogue is not a favour by one to the other, but an essential means with which to address each other’s concerns. For Pakistan, a resolution of the Kashmir dispute in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiri people is a high priority. For India, the issue of cross-border terrorism is important, which incidentally has also assumed urgency for Pakistan, given the evidence that recently emerged that India had sent assassins to Pakistan to kill so-called anti-India elements, much like what it did lately in Canada and the US. India and Pakistan must, therefore, engage to address these and other issues in order to pave the ground for creating a good-neighbourly relationship.
It is clear that there is a gloomy future for South Asia if India and Pakistan live in perpetual hostility. The play Gandhi and Jinnah return home was a creative way to drive home the message that during these times of hostility, it is worth restudying the lives and works of Jinnah and Gandhi and appreciate how their goals were ultimately common in the desire to see prosperity for their peoples in a post-colonial South Asia. And that they never envisioned nor desired such a hostile relationship that has set back both countries.
Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2024
https://www.dawn.com/news/1816929/gandhi-and-jinnah
Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry Published February 25, 2024 Updated 30 minutes ago
The writer, a former foreign secretary, is chairman Sanober Institute Islamabad.
AS relations between India and Pakistan remain frosty, a theatrical play in Washington has stirred conversations on peaceful coexistence, inter-faith harmony, and the need for a fresh look at the history of the two countries. The play Gandhi and Jinnah return home, discussed at the Karachi Literature Festival last week, describes how far the two countries have drifted from the vision of their respective founding fathers, Gandhi, the Mahatma, and Jinnah, the Quaid-e-Azam, who both hailed from Gujarat and played central roles in the struggle for independence.
Gandhi had envisioned that India would be a united, secular and pluralistic country once the British left. Fondly called Bapu, he built his freedom struggle on the principle of non-violence, famously remarking that an eye for an eye would make the whole world blind.
Jinnah, too, was a strong proponent of peace, harmony and pluralism, as clearly stipulated in his speech of Aug 11, 1947. He also was not opposed to the unity of India per se, as he had accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946. However, Jinnah was concerned that the legacy of parliamentary democracy the British were leaving behind would keep the Muslim minority perpetually subservient to the rule of the Hindu majority. He did not wish to see British Raj replaced by Ram Raj. Jinnah’s efforts to create Pakistan were essentially aimed at enabling the Muslims of India to protect their political, economic, and cultural rights.
Seventy-six years later, if Gandhi and Jinnah were to, fictionally, return home in 2024, they would find their respective countries to be very different from the ones they had envisioned. Gandhi would find India on course to becoming a Hindu nationalist state, with shrinking space for minorities, growing communal violence, mosques being replaced with mandirs, and the Ayodhya syndrome in full swing to make India a Hindu rashtra. He would be particularly dejected to find that his own state Gujarat had seen the worst kind of violence against Muslims in 2002.
The hostility between India and Pakistan serves neither country well.
For his part, if Jinnah were to return home in 2024, he would find his country mired in corruption, religious extremism, lawlessness, unemployment and poverty. He would be grieved to see a country blessed with such fertile land, minerals, mountains, and splendid coastline ranking depressingly low in social and economic indicators.
The play, conceived by Akbar S. Ahmad, the Ibne Khaldun chair at the American University, Washington, and directed by Manjula Kumar of Global Performing Arts, sends out a powerful message that in the interest of peace, both countries must return to the vision of their founding fathers.
Another, perhaps more important, message that Akbar S. Ahmad sends through this play is that the prevailing hostility between India and Pakistan does not serve either country well. The past cannot be changed. There is a need to look at each other afresh as friends and neighbours.
Jinnah had envisioned India and Pakistan living in peaceful coexistence, much like the US and Canada. He even maintained his residence in Mumbai. Gandhi was opposed to partition. Yet, when it happened, he used all his influence on the Indian government to ensure that Pakistan got its share of financial and other dues, signalling his advice for a peaceful coexistence.
For the past seven decades, mutual mistrust has bedevilled relations between India and Pakistan. Since 2016, the two have suspended all bilateral contacts. Such a hostile environment deepens misunderstanding between the two countries. Dialogue is not a favour by one to the other, but an essential means with which to address each other’s concerns. For Pakistan, a resolution of the Kashmir dispute in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiri people is a high priority. For India, the issue of cross-border terrorism is important, which incidentally has also assumed urgency for Pakistan, given the evidence that recently emerged that India had sent assassins to Pakistan to kill so-called anti-India elements, much like what it did lately in Canada and the US. India and Pakistan must, therefore, engage to address these and other issues in order to pave the ground for creating a good-neighbourly relationship.
It is clear that there is a gloomy future for South Asia if India and Pakistan live in perpetual hostility. The play Gandhi and Jinnah return home was a creative way to drive home the message that during these times of hostility, it is worth restudying the lives and works of Jinnah and Gandhi and appreciate how their goals were ultimately common in the desire to see prosperity for their peoples in a post-colonial South Asia. And that they never envisioned nor desired such a hostile relationship that has set back both countries.
Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2024
https://www.dawn.com/news/1816929/gandhi-and-jinnah
Re: what Gandhi says about Islam and religion.
Jinnah’s children
Bina Shah Published June 1, 2024 Updated about 23 hours ago
The writer is an author. She has been recently appointed the inaugural Writer-in-Residence at AKUFAS
WE still haven’t figured out exactly who Mohammad Ali Jinnah — Quaid-i-Azam — is or was, even in 2024. Westernised liberal secular, or champion of religious freedom for Muslims? Brilliant statesman or failed politician who played the religion card? This national confusion swirls as we consider whether Jinnah’s personal life really was a reflection of what he intended Pakistan to become.
In Jinnah’s Constituent Assembly speech of Aug 11, 1947, he declared his support for peace, harmony, and pluralism. He envisioned Pakistan and India living as tranquil neighbours. Eminent Pakistani scholar Prof Akbar S. Ahmed supports this interpretation of Jinnah’s intentions in his play Gandhi and Jinnah that was presented at this year’s KLF.
Lawyer Yasser Latif Hamdani, author of the biography Jinnah: A Life, posited that Jinnah’s personal beliefs in secularism matched his political ones — that he was opposed to bringing religion into politics. Islamic fundamentalists are the ones who turned Pakistan into a fundamentalist state completely the opposite of what Jinnah wanted.
Renowned publisher Ameena Saiyid, who has overseen the publication of scores of books about Jinnah, agrees that Jinnah envisioned a secular, egalitarian country with Muslims living in peace with Hindus, Christians, Parsis, and open borders with India. She recalls multiple tense conversations she held with his daughter Dina, on the phone and in person. “It was as if she needed to unburden herself and talk about her great disappointment with what her father wanted and what the country had become.”
Each generation seeks to interpret the meaning of Pakistan anew.
But others say that Jinnah never intended for Pakistan to be divided from India in this manner. Historian Ayesha Jalal states in her 1985 seminal work, The Sole Spokesman, that Jinnah brandished the possibility of a partition on a religious basis only to secure more protections for the Muslims in a united India. Congress rejected this idea and actually made Partition a reality, one that Jinnah did not really believe in.
Anatol Lieven writes in Pakistan: A Hard Country that the “slogan of Pakistan” was used by Jinnah to win control over the Muslim League, and to force Congress to agree to a United India where Muslims shared power with Hindus. His vision of a secular Pakistan where Muslims would be “people of state” was one idea; another, that Pakistan could exist as an autonomous entity in a wider, united South Asia. But a lack of numbers in Congress meant that Jinnah had to rely on “Muslim street power” to persuade others of his political strength.
This introduction of religion into politics gave rise to the obscurantist Pakistan we live in today. Ameena Saiyid believes Jinnah is held hostage to people who want his endorsement of their ideas and opinions. “His name, imagined life, and politics are being used to influence others in the narrative … In the process, the real Jinnah has become blurred, even disappeared.”
In literary critic Roland Barthes’s groundbreaking 1967 essay ‘The Death of the Author’, it is argued that once a text is published, it loses its connection with the author’s intentions and becomes subject to reader interpretations. In fact, it is the reader’s interpretation that has primacy over any other. Barthes says we cannot precisely detect what the author intended, which is not the point anyway.
Perhaps if we imagine Quaid-i-Azam, the founder of the nation, as a text that Mohammad Ali Jinnah authored in order to achieve his own political ends, we begin to see why he is interpreted so differently by so many in Pakistan. Perhaps the same can be applied to the idea of Pakistan, another interlinked ‘text’ that we try to interpret and study, like a Rosetta Stone from 1947. As Barthes said, “text is a tissue drawn from innumerable centres of culture”. But unlike the Rosetta Stone, Jinnah’s ‘text’ cannot be ‘deciphered’, only ‘disentangled’ from its cultural contexts.
If Pakistan is a concept, and the story of the Quaid is a ‘text’, that text is open to the interpretation of scholars, historians, biographers as well as regular citizens, students, even schoolchildren. The intention behind Pakistan’s creation will always be contested, as each generation seeks to interpret the meaning and intent of Pakistan anew. Wise old men may shudder at this approach but it does offer a certain dynamism for a nation continuously trying to reinvent itself amid today’s challenges.
Jinnah’s influence on Pakistan is undeniable — without him, we would not exist. But it’s time we face the future with a sense of him standing firmly behind us as we create a new sense of meaning, belonging and purpose in the 21st century. We can only succeed in resolving our crisis of identity when we think of ourselves as Jinnah’s children, not Jinnah’s orphans.
The writer is an author. She has been recently appointed the inaugural Writer-in-Residence at AKUFAS.
Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2024
https://www.dawn.com/news/1837005/jinnahs-children
Bina Shah Published June 1, 2024 Updated about 23 hours ago
The writer is an author. She has been recently appointed the inaugural Writer-in-Residence at AKUFAS
WE still haven’t figured out exactly who Mohammad Ali Jinnah — Quaid-i-Azam — is or was, even in 2024. Westernised liberal secular, or champion of religious freedom for Muslims? Brilliant statesman or failed politician who played the religion card? This national confusion swirls as we consider whether Jinnah’s personal life really was a reflection of what he intended Pakistan to become.
In Jinnah’s Constituent Assembly speech of Aug 11, 1947, he declared his support for peace, harmony, and pluralism. He envisioned Pakistan and India living as tranquil neighbours. Eminent Pakistani scholar Prof Akbar S. Ahmed supports this interpretation of Jinnah’s intentions in his play Gandhi and Jinnah that was presented at this year’s KLF.
Lawyer Yasser Latif Hamdani, author of the biography Jinnah: A Life, posited that Jinnah’s personal beliefs in secularism matched his political ones — that he was opposed to bringing religion into politics. Islamic fundamentalists are the ones who turned Pakistan into a fundamentalist state completely the opposite of what Jinnah wanted.
Renowned publisher Ameena Saiyid, who has overseen the publication of scores of books about Jinnah, agrees that Jinnah envisioned a secular, egalitarian country with Muslims living in peace with Hindus, Christians, Parsis, and open borders with India. She recalls multiple tense conversations she held with his daughter Dina, on the phone and in person. “It was as if she needed to unburden herself and talk about her great disappointment with what her father wanted and what the country had become.”
Each generation seeks to interpret the meaning of Pakistan anew.
But others say that Jinnah never intended for Pakistan to be divided from India in this manner. Historian Ayesha Jalal states in her 1985 seminal work, The Sole Spokesman, that Jinnah brandished the possibility of a partition on a religious basis only to secure more protections for the Muslims in a united India. Congress rejected this idea and actually made Partition a reality, one that Jinnah did not really believe in.
Anatol Lieven writes in Pakistan: A Hard Country that the “slogan of Pakistan” was used by Jinnah to win control over the Muslim League, and to force Congress to agree to a United India where Muslims shared power with Hindus. His vision of a secular Pakistan where Muslims would be “people of state” was one idea; another, that Pakistan could exist as an autonomous entity in a wider, united South Asia. But a lack of numbers in Congress meant that Jinnah had to rely on “Muslim street power” to persuade others of his political strength.
This introduction of religion into politics gave rise to the obscurantist Pakistan we live in today. Ameena Saiyid believes Jinnah is held hostage to people who want his endorsement of their ideas and opinions. “His name, imagined life, and politics are being used to influence others in the narrative … In the process, the real Jinnah has become blurred, even disappeared.”
In literary critic Roland Barthes’s groundbreaking 1967 essay ‘The Death of the Author’, it is argued that once a text is published, it loses its connection with the author’s intentions and becomes subject to reader interpretations. In fact, it is the reader’s interpretation that has primacy over any other. Barthes says we cannot precisely detect what the author intended, which is not the point anyway.
Perhaps if we imagine Quaid-i-Azam, the founder of the nation, as a text that Mohammad Ali Jinnah authored in order to achieve his own political ends, we begin to see why he is interpreted so differently by so many in Pakistan. Perhaps the same can be applied to the idea of Pakistan, another interlinked ‘text’ that we try to interpret and study, like a Rosetta Stone from 1947. As Barthes said, “text is a tissue drawn from innumerable centres of culture”. But unlike the Rosetta Stone, Jinnah’s ‘text’ cannot be ‘deciphered’, only ‘disentangled’ from its cultural contexts.
If Pakistan is a concept, and the story of the Quaid is a ‘text’, that text is open to the interpretation of scholars, historians, biographers as well as regular citizens, students, even schoolchildren. The intention behind Pakistan’s creation will always be contested, as each generation seeks to interpret the meaning and intent of Pakistan anew. Wise old men may shudder at this approach but it does offer a certain dynamism for a nation continuously trying to reinvent itself amid today’s challenges.
Jinnah’s influence on Pakistan is undeniable — without him, we would not exist. But it’s time we face the future with a sense of him standing firmly behind us as we create a new sense of meaning, belonging and purpose in the 21st century. We can only succeed in resolving our crisis of identity when we think of ourselves as Jinnah’s children, not Jinnah’s orphans.
The writer is an author. She has been recently appointed the inaugural Writer-in-Residence at AKUFAS.
Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2024
https://www.dawn.com/news/1837005/jinnahs-children