Who opposed Jawaharlal Nehru and why?
In 2024 after an Islamist government was formed under Mohamad Yunus, minorities in Bangladesh are not worried about food, inflation, housing, unemployment, free water and electricity, pothole in the roads, caste system and reservation etc. They are worried about how to save their lives and their children. They are worried about how to save their life, property and honour of their women.
The problem is not new. As soon as Lord Curzon divided Bengal in 1905 to create ‘divide and rule’ policy, fire started burning in East Bengal (now Bangladesh) which has Muslim majority population. Muslim League political party was formed. This party was totally communal as the name suggests and this was not formed in Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay, Karachi or Lahore. It was formed by Khawaja Salimullah in Dhaka (then called Dacca) in 1906. This outfit was created to act as a counter weight to the Indian National Congress and weaken its hands in dealing with the British by not accepting that INC represented all Indians irrespective of religion. Nationalist Indian Muslims were derogatorily called “lap dog of the Hindus” and totally dismissed.
All of this did not happen in isolation. Socially, Hindus and Muslims did not interact, co-dine or inter-marry. It is hard to imagine today. But then, it was easy to play on the insecurities of the people in respect of surrounding communities. There was multi-dimensional apartheid. This was the situation after 1857 mutiny and just before WWI. After the mutiny, the colonial government came down heavily on the Muslims, favouring Hindus, providing them ample role in the administration of the empire - effectively power sharing.
The Bengal Partition 1905, which historian R.C. Majumdar says was the ‘crowning act of Curzon’s folly’ directly unleashed the extraordinary Swadeshi movement spectacularly unnerved the British. The Swadeshi Movement by itself stands as one of the grandest episodes in human history, far greater than the American struggle for independence or even the Civil Rights Movement. The four-fold ramification of the Swadeshi movement industrial, educational, cultural and political—and its spread all over India unnerved the Government of India. It was not long before they realized that a local movement for removing a local grievance was being slowly, but steadily, developed into an all-India national movement against British rule. Lord Minto found it difficult to kill the nationalism.
Curzon re-enlisted the support of the Islamic zealot, Khwaja Salimullah, the Nawab of Dhaka. In February 1904, Curzon had already seduced Salimullah to support the Partition of Bengal. Curzon’s government gave him a loan of ₹ 14 Lakhs at an extremely low rate of interest in return for his support at quelling the protests against the Partition of Bengal. It was the self-same Nawab Salimullah who became the founding Vice President of the All India Muslim League in 1906, which finally succeeded in realizing the Pakistan “vision” that Syed Ahmed Khan had first formulated so early on.
Nawab Salimullah with the full support of the British Government swung into action. The first step was to provoke Hindu hatred in the Muslim community. Which was a rather easy task given the hold the Ulema has on the community. In this vile project, he recruited a fanatic named Ibrahim Khan, who authored and published a piece of the “most virulent anti-Hindu proclamation and an open incitement of the Muslims against the Hindus.” This pamphlet was titled Lal Ishtahar or Red Pamphlet. Here are a few extracts from it.
Ye Musalmans arise, awake ! Do not read in the same schools with Hindus. Do not buy anything from a Hindu shop. Do not touch any article manufactured by Hindu hand. Do not give any employment to a Hindu. Do not accept any degrading office under a Hindu. You are ignorant, but if you acquire knowledge you can at once send all Hindus to jehannum (hell). You form the majority of the population of this Province. Among the cultivators also you form the majority. It is agriculture that is the source of wealth. The Hindu has no wealth of his own and has made himself rich only by despoiling you or your wealth. If you become sufficiently enlightened, then the Hindus wall starve and soon become Mahomedans.
Lal Ishtahar also contained a poem recalling the glories of Arab military conquests in India and elsewhere, and to revive the same glory here and now. The consequences were immediate and brutal.
In East Bengal, there was an outbreak of barbaric violence against Hindus. Comilla (now known as Cumilla, in the Chittagong Divison in Bangladesh) and Jamalpur (now in the Mymensingh Division, Bangladesh) were littered with the blood and dead bodies of Hindus. For four horrific days beginning on 4 March 1907, Comilla was witness to unspeakable Muslim atrocities against Hindus. It was not coincidental that that was the day Nawab Salimullah visited Comilla to ‘put fresh vigour into the anti-Swadeshi agitation’.
When the Nawab was being taken in a procession through the public streets, there occurred a case of assault on Hindus, and looting of a few Hindu, particularly Hindu Swadeshi, shops. These incidents were a signal for a general outbreak of hooliganism involving assault, looting, destruction of properties and arson… On the other hand, the Government officials were full of praise for the Muhammadans…The Comilla riot was followed by various other outbreaks of a similar nature….Consider able bodies of Muhammadans, armed with lathis mustered from time to time and molested the Hindus. As a result there was wide-spread panic among the Hindu minority population in East Bengal. Salimullah and his goon squad had drawn Hindu blood. Very successfully. Now it was time to spread the terror elsewhere. Jamalpur was chosen.
The most serious disturbance .broke out at Jamalpur in the District of Mymensingh. In addition to the troubles in the town started by the Muslims in the course of which hundreds of Hindus—men and women—had to take shelter in a temple throughout the night, the riot spread to outside area. There were indiscriminate looting and molestation of Hindus in a large number of localities. The Government and the Nawab Bahadur of Dacca had passed orders to the effect that nobody, would be punished for plundering and oppressing the Hindus. Soon after, the image of Kali (Hindu goddess) was broken by the Musalmans and the shops of the Hindu traders were also plundered.
The British war correspondent H.W. Nevinson who visited India during this period gives the following account in his 1908 book, The New Spirit in India:
I have almost invariably found English officers…on the side of the Mohammedan, where there is any rivalry of…religion… in Eastern Bengal this national inclination is now encouraged by the Government’s open resolve to retain the Mohammedan support of the Partition by any means…It was against the Hindus only that all the petty persecution of officialdom was directed. It was they who were excluded from Government posts; it was Hindu schools from which Government patronage was withdrawn. When Mohammedans rioted, the punitive police ransacked Hindu houses… mullahs went through the country preaching the revival of Islam and proclaiming to the villagers that the British Government was on the Mohammedan side, that the Law Courts had been specially suspended for three months, and no penalty would be exacted for violence done to Hindus, or for the loot of Hindu shops, or the abduction of Hindu widows A Red Pamphlet was everywhere circulated, maintaining the same wild doctrines… In Comilla, Jamalpur and a few other places, rather serious riots occurred…lives were lost, temples were desecrated, images broken, shops plundered, and many Hindu widows carried off. Some of the towns were deserted, the Hindu population took refuge in ‘pukka’ houses, women spent nights hidden in tanks, the crime known as ‘group-rape’ increased, and throughout the country districts there reigned a general terror, which still prevailed at the time of my visit.
1906 Dacca (now Dhaka) riot was just the beginning. Anti-Hindu riots happened in 1920s in East Bengal but increased many fold in 1930s as Muslim League gained prominence. The 1940s was living hell for Hindus in East Bengal as the partition approached. The anti-Hindu riots continued throughout 1950s and 1960s in this place which is now called East Pakistan. Millions of Hindu refugees came to India after losing everything in 1950s and 1960s. Then came Pakistani General Yahya Khan’s Operation Searchlight.
Within eight months from the day Pakistan Army Operation Searchlight was launched on 25 March 1971, even by a very conservative Pakistani estimate of 300,000, to Bangladeshi estimate of three million Bengalis were massacred. Nearly 300,000 females were raped (after the war, the UN doctors carried out over 100,000 abortions of females who were, at times, not even in their teens).
When the Operation Searchlight started, there was a massive influx of refugees from East Pakistan to India. Approximately eight million arrived in India within ten weeks. India, a poor country at the time could barely manage refugees in such large numbers. It asked for International help for the refugees and for the prevention of the ongoing genocide in East Pakistan.
Shyama Prasad Mookerjee who was from Bengal, realised the problem as he saw Muslim fundamentalism steadily rising in Bengal since 1906. After independence, Mookerjee proposed ‘complete population transfer’ but PM Nehru ignored it by calling it not feasible. The task was difficult indeed but doable. By not doing it means Hindus are still suffering in East Bengal (now called Bangladesh) and recently their suffering increased after August 2024 regime change. In West Bengal, Muslim population has risen alarmingly due to illegal immigration and vote bank politics. This has led to rapid degredation in law and order. West Bengal has now become a ‘Talibanised’ country with jeh@di goons controlling civilians. One such recent incidence was Sandeshkhali and there are thousands of localised ‘mini-Pakistan’ in West Bengal.
Shyama Prasad Mookerjee suggested ‘total population transfer’ after 1947 Bengal partition
The problem of illegal immigration of Bangladeshi and Rohingyas has impacted almost all the states in India. Assam became the first state to spend crores of rupees to identify foreigners staying there illegally. All these could have been avoided if ‘complete population transfer’ could have happened in 1950s.
This long story only indicates one simple thing, Shyama Prasad Mookerjee was visionary while PM Jawaharlal Nehru was a stupid and blind. Nehru did exactly opposite by signing minority protection pact called Nehru-Liaqat pact in 1960. Pakistan never honoured this minority protection pact. Nehru blindly followed secularism along with Muslim appeasement. There are endless stories of blunders of Nehru.
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Picture source: Google / Respective rightful owner
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0376983617694713?icid=int.sj-full-text.similar-articles.5
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