Today marks the second Partition Horrors Remembrance Day, which was announced by prime minister Narendra Modi last year to commemorate the victims and sufferings of people during the Partition of India. During the partition of India which had spilt British India into three parts into two countries of India and Pakistan, millions of people were displaced and suffered, while the estimates of deaths due to partition-related death range from 2,00,000 to 20,00,000.
While it is the Muslims who had demanded a separate state Islamic state during the freedom movement, some ‘secular-liberals’ tend to blame Hindus for the demand. The Congress party and others specifically target Veer Savarkar in this regard, claiming that he was the first to propose the two-nation theory. Just like they keep making false allegations regarding his letter to the British govt seeking release from the Cellular Jail, they also keep making this claim that Savarkar had proposed the partition first.
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said in 2020 that Savarkar was first to advocate two-nation theory. He claimed that before the Muslim League had made a formal proposal for partition in its Lahore session in 1940, Savarkar had already advocated the theory. “In the historical sense, the first advocate of the two-nation theory was actually Savarkar, who as the head of the Hindu Mahasabha called upon India to recognise Hindus and Muslims as part of two separate nations three years before the Pakistan Muslim League passed the Pakistan Resolution in Lahore in 1940,” Shashi Tharoor said at Jaipur Literature Festival in 2020.
Similar claims are made by most Congress leaders and people in the left-liberal ecosystem. These claims are based on a comment of Savarkar in his presidential address at the All India Hindu Mahasabha convention in Ahmedabad in 1937. In his speech, Savarkar had said, “India cannot be assumed today to be a unitarian and homogeneous nation, but on the contrary there are two nations in the main; the Hindus and the Moslems, in India.”
While this line seems to suggest that Veer Savarkar proposed the two-nation theory, the fact is completely opposite. Because this phrase was actually taken out of context and almost a distorted version of his speech published by the media at that time. Savarkar himself had said later he never talked about the two-nation theory. “Journalists conveniently published a brief and out-of-context report; this they did so as per their convenience,” Savarkar had said later while clarifying that his comments were taken out of context.
Result of distorted media reports at that time
The statement made by Savarkar in his 1937 speech was:
“Let the Indian State be purely Indian. Let it not recognize any invidious distinctions whatsoever as regards the franchise, public services, offices, taxation on the grounds of religion and race. Let no cognizance be taken whatsoever of man being Hindu or Mohammedan, Christian or Jew. Let all citizens of that Indian State be treated according to their individual worth irrespective of their religious or racial percentage in the general population.
India cannot be assumed today to be a unitarian and homogeneous nation. But on the contrary there are two nations in the main; the Hindu and Muslim. If such an Indian State is kept in view, the Hindu Sanghatanists will, in the interest of Hindu Sangathan itself, be the first to offer their whole-hearted loyalty to it. I for one and thousands of the Mahasabhaites like me have set this ideal of an Indian State as our political goal ever since the beginning of our political career and shall continue to work for its consummation to the end of our life.”
This makes it clear that Savarkar had called for Hindus and Muslims to work together in one common nation, and was not suggesting separate states for them. He had even pointed out the dangers of separation. “And as it has happened in many a country in similar situations in the world, the utmost that we can do under the circumstances is to form an Indian state in which none is allowed a special weightage or representation and none is paid an extra price to buy his loyalty,” he had said in the same speech.
Savarkar also clarified that by the word ‘nation’ in his statement he was not talking about a nation-state. By nation, he meant communities that need to live peacefully in the Indian state. He had said, “We should not confuse between nation and state. Even if the state goes, the nation remains. When the Mussulmans were ruling over us, the government (state) was theirs. But the existence of the Hindus was most certainly intact.”
Talking about how there were several states in India which kept mingling with each other, he had said, “If the Mussulmans want, they could amicably stay with Hindus as a minority community. In the past, nations such as Prussia, Bavaria etc. existed in Germany. But today, they have all together formed the German nation. By law, no one in Germany may call himself Prussian or Bavarian but German only.”
However, he had added that if Muslims want to go a separate way, Hindus can’t do anything with that. He had said, “Hindus are a nation unto themselves. Considering this, the Hindus should continue the freedom struggle by consolidating themselves irrespective of whether the Mussulmans come with them or not. If they so desire, they may stay here, else they shall go where it pleases them.”
Therefore, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar never proposed the two-nation theory, he had actually called for Hindus and Muslims to work together in a common state. His comments were distorted media immediately after his speech in Ahmedabad, and the distorted version still continues today, even used by well-read persons like Shashi Tharoor to peddle their own agenda.
Savarkar acknowledged the split between the two communities
While Savarkar had appealed to Hindus and Muslims to work together, he had realised that there was a huge fissure between the two communities, and he was not delusional about the non-existent communal harmony that many believed in. In the same 1937 speech, he highlighted how there were conflicts between Hindus and Muslims for centuries.
Savarkar had said, “As it is, there are two antagonistic nations living side by side in India. Several infantile politicians commit the serious mistake in supposing that India is already welded into a harmonious nation, or that it could be welded thus for the mere wish to do so. These our well-meaning but unthinking friends take their dreams for realities. But the solid fact is that the so-called communal question is but a legacy handed down to us by centuries of cultural, religious and national antagonism between the Hindus and the Moslems. When time is ripe you can solve them, but you cannot suppress them by merely refusing recognition of them”.
Savarkar had made it clear that there are no harmonies between Hindus and Muslims, and the problem will not go away by ignoring or hiding it. In this comment also, he used the word nation to mean different communities in the same state and didn’t mean nation-state.
It is also alleged that in 1943, Savarkar had said that he has no objection to Jinnah’s two-nation theory. But this was also a distorted media report, and he had clarified within days that he never made such comments. Some reports cite his book Hindu Rashtra Darshan for the comment, but actually, the book doesn’t mention it, and therefore it is a completely fake claim that Savarkar endorsed Jinnah.
The Two-Nation Theory
Did Veer Savarkar ‘propose’ two-nation theory? How Islamists and Congress have lied about the idea that is inherent in Islamic theology
Syed Ahmad Khan said in 1876, “I am convinced now that Hindus and Muslims could never become one nation as their religion and way of life was quite distinct from each other.” Seven years later, he voiced similar sentiments. He said, “Friends, in India, there live two prominent nations which are distinguished by the names of Hindus and Mussalmans…To be a Hindu or a Muslim is a matter of internal faith which has nothing to do with mutual relationships and external conditions…Hence, leave God’s share to God and concern yourself with the share that is yours…India is the home of both of us…By living so long in India, the blood of both have [sic] changed.”
Khan made several statements in the following years proposing the two-nation theory and gaining supports from Muslims. He said that after British leaves with their army and weapons, it will be impossible for Hindus and Muslims to live together and share power. He had said that they will need to conquer the other, and there will be no peace until that happens.
Savarkar was born in 1883, therefore the two-nation theory predates him.
Partition and violence
Even before the two-nation theory was officially adopted by Jinnah, Muslims had started working towards partition by spewing hate and violence on Hindus, before Savarkar’s 1937 speech. In 1921, the Moplah Massacre led to the killing of hundreds and thousands of Hindus in Kerala.
Annie Besant spoke of the massacre in her book ‘The Future of Indian Politics’, “They murdered and plundered abundantly, and killed or drove away all Hindus who would not apostatize. Somewhere about a lakh of people were driven from their homes with nothing but the clothes they had on, stripped of everything. Malabar has taught us what Islamic rule still means, and we do not want to see another specimen of the Khilafat Raj in India.”
Then in 1929, Mahashay Rajpal was murdered for publishing Rangeela Rasool, a satirical take on the domestic life of the prophet Mohammed. The killer was defended in court by Jinnah himself and Muhammad Iqbal.
All this continuous violence had culminated in the Direct Action Day on 16th August in 1946, when Mohammed Ali Jinnah gave a call for nationwide protests demanding the creation of Pakistan. It had resulted in the Great Calcutta Killing, which saw the streets of Kolkata littered with corpses. The violence then spread to Noakhali in Bengal, Bihar, Rawalpindi and several other places in the country.
When the British govt formally announced the partition and transfer of power in June 1947, it caused one of the most horrific chapters in modern Indian history as millions of people died during the population transfer. The scenes of trains filled with corpses of Hindus and Sikhs arriving from Lahore to Amritsar are well documented. The western and eastern borders of India with newly formed West Pakistan and East Pakistan saw massive killings, most of which had taken place in Punjab and Bengal, two states split between the two countries.
Women were raped, and entire families were wiped out but even then, it was not to be the worst that India would see. The partition of the country would spark migrations of the population to an extent hitherto unheard of. There are stories of how the male head of the family killed their own daughters because they did not want the women to be raped by the Islamist hordes.
People lost their homes, they had to flee lands their ancestors had lived in for generations and generations. Centuries-old connection to their native land ended in a matter of days. And yet, after all the horrors Hindus had to endure, the Indian Secular State for its own cynical objectives did not even provide an opportunity for national mourning and reconciliation.
The horrors of the past continue to haunt generations to this day. The ‘Partition Horrors Remembrance Day’ is only the first step, a lot more should be done to ensure that India never forgets the horror in its past. It is necessary because those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.
Muslims and demands of Islamic state
While Muslim League had demanded and achieved partition, and now separatists in Kashmir are doing the same, it is not an India-specific issue. Muslims worldwide refuse to live in secular nations, and demand separate countries based on religion.
And such separatism is often justified with allegations of persecution. But such allegations were often dubious, if not downright ridiculous. As Sitaram Goel says in his book ‘Muslim Separatism: Causes and Consequences’, “If the Hindus sang Vande Mãtaram in a public meeting, it was a ‘conspiracy’ to convert Muslims into kãfirs. If the Hindus blew a conch, or broke a coconut, or garlanded the portrait of a revered patriot, it was an attempt to ‘force’ Muslims into ‘idolatry’. If the Hindus spoke in any of their native languages, it was an ‘affront’ to the culture of Islam. If the Hindus took pride in their pre-Islamic heroes, it was a ‘devaluation’ of Islamic history. And so on, there were many more objections, major and minor, to every national self-expression. In short, it was a demand that Hindus should cease to be Hindus and become instead a faceless conglomeration of rootless individuals.”
He continued, “On the other hand, the ‘minority community’ was not prepared to make the slightest concession in what they regarded as their religious and cultural rights. If the Hindus requested that cow-killing should stop, it was a demand for renouncing an ‘established Islamic practice’. If the Hindus objected to an open sale of beef in the bazars, it was an ‘encroachment’ on the ‘civil rights’ of the Muslims. If the Hindus demanded that cows meant for ritual slaughter should not be decorated and marched through Hindu localities, it was ‘trampling upon time-honoured Islamic traditions’. If the Hindus appealed that Hindu religious processions passing through a public thoroughfare should not be obstructed, it was an attempt to ‘disturb the peace of Muslim prayers’. If the Hindus wanted their native languages to attain an equal status with Urdu in the courts and the administration, it was an ‘assault on Muslim culture’. If the Hindus taught to their children the true history of Muslim tyrants, it was a ‘hate campaign against Islamic heroes’. And the ‘minority community’ was always ready to ‘defend’ its ‘religion and culture’ by taking recourse to street riots.
What Sitaram Goel wrote was not imaginary, as we can see the exactly same things happening around us today. Now we have cancellations of Hindu festivals as they offend Muslims. We have seen on ban on Hindu religious processions through ‘Muslim areas’. And we have seen increasing demand for Shariah law provisions like beheading for allegations of blasphemy.
The demands for a separate state usually begin with allegations of persecution followed by forcing their own laws in areas where they are in the majority, which leads to demands for Sharia law to be applicable in their localities, a distinct legal code separate from national law, and before long escalates into full-blown separatism. The initial stages of it are observed in France where President Macron has decided to take the battle against Islamism.
