On Monday (11th December), the Urdu portal ‘Rekhta’ took down the book glorifying Islamist Ilmuddin, who killed Mahashay Rajpal in 1929 over ‘blasphemy’. Rekhta removed the book after facing social media outrage. Rekhta portal had displayed a book in its e-books list titled ‘Sawaneh Umri Ghazi Ilmuddin Shaheed’, which means ‘a biography of martyr Ilmuddin’.
This book is written by Mohammad Afzal Hashmi. The 102-page Urdu book was originally published in 1930 by Munshi Azizuddin Tajiran-E-Kutub, Lahore.
The Urdu literary web portal Rekhta operated by Sanjiv Saraf’s non-profit organisation Rekhta Foundation was promoting the biography of an Islamist killer who had killed a Hindu man for alleged ‘blasphemy’ against the Prophet Muhammad. Now, this book has been removed from the website after an outrage on social media.
After this tweet by @theskindoctor13 , social media outrage and calling out extremist material, Rekhta has taken down the book on Ilmuddin. https://t.co/Zy0iPS3Y6S
— The Hawk Eye (@thehawkeyex) December 11, 2023
The current edition of this book with Rekhta was made available by Jamia Hamdard in Delhi. The information surfaced as the annual three-day festival of the Urdu-promoting organisation – Jashn-E-Rekhta – was organised from 8th December to 10th December at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi. Besides Mushaira and other talks in the Jashn-E-Rekhta program, the Rekhta Foundation also has various counters for selling books and other merchandise where many Urdu books were for sale.
Rekhta also keeps many old books in digital format on its website. This biography of Islamist Ilmuddin was one such book. It was contributed by Jamia Hamdard. It means that the Delhi-based university had provided the hard copy of the old publication using which the e-book was made. Rekhta has now removed the extremist material from its website.
Who was this Ilmuddin?
Ilmuddin killed author and publisher Mahashay Rajpal on 6th April 1929 in Lahore. Ilmuddin – a carpenter – was 19 years old at that time. stabbed Mahashay Rajpal in his chest eight times while he was seated on the outer verandah of his shop. Mahashay Rajpal did not survive the attack. The reason for this murder was alleged blasphemy. It was no different than what we see as death threats and beheading threats like ‘Sar Tan Se Juda’ for alleged blasphemy or alleged insult of the Islamic prophet in contemporary times.
Who was Mahashay Rajpal and why was he killed?
Mahashay Rajpal published a book named Rangeela Rasool. He was killed for publishing this so-called satire on Prophet Muhammad. Mahashay Rajpal’s book came in response to two provoking books by Muslims.
In fact, in 1923, Muslims published two books. One was named ‘Krishna, your Gita will have to be burnt’. In this, Muslims made indecent and obscene comments about Lord Krishna. The other book was ‘The Maharshi of the Nineteenth Century’. The book contained derogatory remarks on Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of Arya Samaj.
In 1924, the British banned the book. Several cases were registered against the book under Section 153 A of the IPC. In 1927, Mahashay Rajpal was let off by evidence that what was written in the book was based on facts, so it cannot be said that it increased hatred between the two groups.
When the court pronounced the verdict regarding this book, the Muslims were even more enraged and shaken. They started rioting and there was a demand to behead Mahashay Rajpal. The slogans described how the killing of Mahashay Rajpal is allowed in Islamic Sharia. After receiving death threats for years and surviving two attacks, Mahashay Rajpal was killed by Ilmuddin in 1929.
Rekhta has a history of pro-Islamic anti-Hindu rhetoric under the garb of promoting Urdu literature
Rekhta portal and its annual event named the Jashn-E-Rekhta have a legacy of controversies on issues against Hindu interests. In February 2017, progressive Muslim commentator, renowned columnist and famous television personality late Tarek Fatah was abused and heckled at the Urdu poetry festival Jashn-E-Rekhta held at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi National Centre of Arts. Fatah, who attended the festival as an audience member, was hit with sticks on his back and feet. Slogans like “Modi ka kutta, Tarek Fatah” and “Death to Tarek Fatah” were raised by the protesters.
In 2020, Rekhta also tried to paint the Hindu festival of Diwali in an Islamic colour by calling it a kind of Eid. Rekhta tried to give an Urdu dictionary to Diwali and some popular words related to it through a poster and on this pretext it adopted an Islamic religious agenda.
The words Rekhta gave in this poster were Diwali, gifts, celebrations, holidays, etc. The list of words associated with Diwali also included ‘air pollution’. Cleverly, Rekhta launched this poster in the market during Diwali days and along with describing Diwali as Eid, ‘air pollution’ was also added to the word associated with it. Rekhta’s intention was not to wish a happy Diwali. Instead, it was a blatant attempt at the Islamization of the Hindu festival.
