Hindus and Moplahs – Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

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Hindus and Moplahs – Mahatma Gandhi

 

Though the letters on the Moplahs trouble and the Mussulman attitude by Messrs Keshav Menon and others have already appeared in the Press, contrary to my wont I publish the two communications for the importance that attaches to them. Possibly the fact of their publication in the pages of Young India will be some balm for the wounds that the Moplahs madness has inflicted on the Hindu heart. The writers were entitled to give vent to their pent up feelings. Maulana Hasrat Mohani is one of our most courageous men. He is strong and unbending. He is frank to a fault. In his insensate hatred of the English Government and possibly even of Englishmen in general, he has seen nothing wrong in anything that the Moplahs have done. Everything is fair in love and war with the Maulana. He has made up his mind that the Moplahs have fought for their religion. And that fact (in his estimation) practically absolves the Moplahs from all blame.

That is no doubt a travesty of religion and morality. But to do irreligion for the sake of religion is the religious creed of Maulana Hasrat Mohani. I know it has no warrant in Islam. I have talked to several learned Mussulmans. They do not defend Hasrat Mohani’s attitude. I advise my Malabar friends not to mind the Maulana. In spite of his amazingly crude views about religion, there is neither greater nationalist nor a greater lover of Hindu-Muslim unity than the Maulana. His heart is sound and superior to his intellect, which, in my humble opinion, has suffered aberration. The Malabar friends are wrong in thinking that the Mussulmans in general have not condemned or have in any way approved of the various crimes committed by the Moplahs. Islam protects, even in war, women, children and old men from molestation. Islam does not justify jihad except under well-defined conditions. So far as I know the law of Islam, the Mop lash could not, on their own initiative, declare jihad. Maulana Abdul Bari has certainly condemned the Moplahs excesses but what though the Mussulmans did not condemn them? Hindu-Muslim friendship is not a bargain. The very word friendship unity or swaraj atrocities committed by the Moplahs on the Hindus are unfortunately too true.

A few prominent Mussulman leaders, it is true, have condemned the Moplahs atrocities But, how far have the Mussulmans in general, exerted to undo the wrongs committed by their co-religionists in Malabar?” “Maulana Mohani justifies the looting of Hindus by Moplahs as lawful by way of commandeering in a war between the latter and the Government. Maulana perhaps does not know that. There was no adversary to the Moplahs at the time that the Hindus could possibly have helped or invited, and the attack on them was most wanton and unprovoked. Maulana justifies the other barbarities committed by the rebels on the ground that they were more by way of retaliation on the Hindus who were suspected to have invited the military or aided them. Does not the Maulana realize that such opinions emanating from him are bound to have disastrous consequences?” excludes any such idea. If we have acquired the national habit, the Moplahs is every whit a countryman as a Hindu. Hindus may not attach greater weight to Moplahs fanaticism than to Hindu fanaticism. If instead of the Moplahs, Hindus had violated Hindu homes in Malabar, against who would the complaint be lodged? Hindus have to find out a remedy against such occurrences, as much as the Mussulmans.

When a Hindu or a Mussulman does evil, it is evil done by an Indian to an Indian, and each one of us must personally share the blame and try to remove the evil. There is no other meaning to unity than this. Nationalism is nothing, if it is not at least this. Nationalism is greater than sectarianism. And in that sense we are Indians first and Hindus, Mussulmans, Parsis, Christians after. Whilst, therefore, we may regret Maulana Hasrat Mohani’s attitude on the Moplahs question, we must not blame the Mussulmans as a whole, nor must we blame the Maulana as a Mussulman. We should deplore the fact that one Indian does not see the obvious wrong that our other brethren have done. There is no unity, if we must continuously look at things communally. Critics may say, “All this is sheer nonsense, because it is so inconsistent with facts. It is visionary.” But my contention is that we shall never achieve solidarity unless new facts are made to suit the principle, instead of performing the impossible feat of changing the principle to suit existing facts. I see nothing impossible in Hindus, as Indians, trying to wean the Moplahs, as Indians, from their error.

I see nothing impossible in asking the Hindus to develop courage and strength to die before accepting forced conversion. I was delighted to be told that there were Hindus who did prefer the Moplahs hatchet to forced conversion. If these have died without anger or malice, they have died as truest Hindus because they were truest among Indians and men. And thus would these men have died even if their persecutors had been Hindus instead of Mussulmans. Hindu-Muslim unity will be a very cheap and tawdry affair, if it has to depend upon mere reciprocation. Is a husband’s loyalty dependent upon the wife’s, or May a wife be faithless because the husband is a rake? Marriage will be a sordid thing when the partners treat their conduct as a matter of exchange, pure and simple. Unity is like marriage. It is more necessary for a husband to draw closer to his wife when she is about to fall. Then is the time for a double outpouring of love. Even so is it more necessary for a Hindu to love the Moplahs and the Mussulman more, when the latter is likely to injure him or has already injured him. Unity to be real must stand the severest strain without breaking. It must be an indissoluble tie. And I hold that what I have put before the country in the foregoing lines is simple selfish idea. Does a Hindu love his religion and country more than himself? If he does, it follows that he must not quarrel with an ignorant Mussulman who neither knows country nor religion. The process is like that of the world-famed woman who professed to give up her child to her rival instead of dividing it with the latter a performance that would have suited the latter admirably. Let us assume (which is not the fact) that the Mussulmans really approve of all that the Moplahs have done. Is the compact, then, to be dissolved? And when it is dissolved, will the Hindus be any better off for the dissolution? Will they revenge themselves upon the Moplahs by getting foreign assistance to destroy them and their fellow Mussulmans, and be content to be forever slaves? Non-co-operation is a universal doctrine, because it is as applicable to family relations as to any other.

It is a process of evolving strength and self-reliance. Both the Hindus and Mussulmans must learn to stand alone and against the whole world, before they become really united. This unity is not to be between weak parties, but between men who are conscious of their strength. It will be an evil day for Mussulmans if, where they are in a minority, they have to depend for the observance of their religion upon Hindu goodwill and vice versa. Non-co-operation is a process of self-realization. But this self-realization is impossible; if the strong become brutes and tread upon the weak. Then, they must be trodden under by the stronger. Hence, if Hindus and Mussulmans really wish to live as men of religion, they must develop strength from within.

They must be both strong and humble. Hindus must find out the causes of Moplahs fanaticism. They will find that they are not without blame. They have hitherto not cared for the Moplahs. They have either treated him as a serf or dreaded him. They have not treated him as a friend and neighbour, to be reformed and respected. It is no use now becoming angry with the Moplahs or the Mussulmans in general. Whilst Hindus have a right to expect Mussulman aid and sympathy, the problem is essentially one of self-help, i.e., development of strength from within. It would be a sad day for Islam if the defence of the Khilafat was to depend upon Hindu help. Hindu help is at the disposal of the Mussulmans, because it is the duty of the Hindus, as neighbours, to give it. And whilst Mussulmans accept help so ungrudgingly given, their final reliance is and must be upon God. He is the never-failing and sole Help of the helpless. And so let it be with the Hindus of Malabar.

 

Reference:

Young India, 26-1-1922