Saumyen's Pages
As recent as last year, I walked through the final few years to India’s Independence and partition in his detailed personal diary - my octogenarian uncle had written meticulously over 60 years before he passed away in 1997 – incidentally, on the golden jubilee day of India’s freedom. His personal experience and so of millions, was not pleasant in coping with the period – that we, the next generations of Independent India, cannot directly relate to.
The diary narrates his stories, his personal views of incidents that he witnessed or read in local newsprints and the depth of his passionate writing fuels my recent interest to read similar stories – covered in great details and with different perspectives by Indian and foreign authors (Reference below). Uncle pens many events – artificial food scarcity and death of three million (that is 6 times more than the British Empire losses in WWII) in Bengal famine in 1942-44 when people came to his house begging for food – “ektu fan de, maa” (give me starch water of boiled rice); passion of India’s protest – violently in many places – against the unjust arrest of Gandhi and other Congress leaders at the start of Quit India movement (1942); Muslim League’s ‘Direct Action Day’ in August 1946 and advertent inaction of Huseyn Surhawardy government in Bengal in the first few days of communal riots in Calcutta (‘Great Calcutta killing’) and Noakhali and the subsequent backlash in Bihar.
His diary describes his family’s unplanned migration (like 3.6 million others) from his own home in East to unknown West of Bengal after partition, his lucky escape - unlike thousands - from facing death from a close quarter in communal riots; the refugees’ pain, agony, anger, frustration and death in hurriedly created temporary shelters with practically no health and hygiene and in many occasions, no food. The period of 1943-47 is the worst and most documented story of communal violence between Muslims and non-muslims (primarily Hindu and Sikh) in India’s modern history – killing a million, uprooting 10 million and impacting countless. The available literature has many interpretations of causes and responsibilities of such a devastation – but one key fact remains - our priceless independence was costly.
The vivisection of Bengal and Punjab (with a ‘butcher’s axe’ instead of a ‘surgeon’s scalpel’) - hurriedly finished in 6 weeks with practically no prior understanding of ground reality and without humane touch - by an English Barrister - Cyril Radcliffe - in a short and his only trip to India - was kept in secret by India’s last Viceroy Mountbatten - only to be declared after the 15th August celebration. “The result was exactly what everyone had predicted (about the plan): technically feasible, in practical application a disaster” (Lapierre & Collins, 2007). The grand Independence Day celebration was attended by 6 lakhs people in Delhi but thousands of people in hundreds of border villages in Punjab and Bengal could not celebrate because they would not know to which dominion they were going to belong. Gandhi who had made multiple futile efforts to convince his political comrades and opponents to stop partition - finally agreed to Mountbatten’s request to spend the Day in Calcutta trying to cement the communal divide. To avoid the inauspicious day of 15th August (as per some astrologers), the first independent government declared the birth of new India in the Constituent Assembly 15 mins before midnight while inauspicious time continued for millions of displaced Indians for some more years.
The partition announcement in early June - even before declaration of plan in Aug - generated apprehension and uncertainty in people of the two most impacted provinces - Punjab and Bengal. Punjab in particular witnessed a series of unprecedented communal riots - at a time when the British soldiers and many demoralized administrative officials were on their mood to go back to UK (‘out home” for many) and Indians in army (65% either Muslims or Sikhs – both so far loyal to the British but now affected by division of their provinces) were morally disturbed and busy in their allocation between the two newly created dominions.
Neither the British Government nor the Congress and Muslim League - surprisingly (often raises questions on their touch with ground reality!) foresaw such massive communal fallout – the origin as per some historians, dated back to Congress’ reluctance in accommodating Muslim League in Interim government in 1937 (that lasted for two years) and resultant permanent disharmony between the two parties with Muslim League publicly demanding Pakistan in 1940 (Wolpert, 2009). Finally, a new nation Pakistan – “based on religion - was born in adversity, with an incoherent set of borders, opposed by its more powerful neighbour”. The partition costed a million innocent lives and an estimated loss of 8 Billion dollar in property that West Punjab migrants had left behind in the newly formed Pakistan. Whether a delayed timeline for final handover of power would have saved so many lives remained an untested hypothesis!
Unfortunately, this is not the first series of communal riots – though this scale remains unparallel in Indian modern history. There were atleast one riot every five years during 1800-50, atleast one in every two years in 1870-1920 and more than 15 every year between 1920-30.
Fast forward another 73+ years, independent India has a painful history of recurrent communal violence - mostly low-intensity – except a few known ones with bigger impacts. The statistics of impact is usually not available due to many well-known reasons - no or delayed publication of the riot reports by the government, corruption within police who hold the best data, powerful influence of involved groups, financial compensation related politics etc.
Historical analyses of Indian Hindu–Muslim riots show - even for the ones with bigger impacts, the triggers were local, individual events or are linked to the political developments of the day or to pre-electoral and electoral battles – mostly fuelled by unscrupulous, amoral politicisation of such events (referred to as "institutionalized riot systems" by Brass, 2003).
For example, rivalry between Hindu and Muslim smugglers/ criminals (Assam 1968 – 80+ killed; Andhra Pradesh 1978, Aligarh 1978), theft from a religious place (West Bengal, Bihar and Orissa 1964 – 300+ killed - unofficial death figure of a few thousands), procession of religious festival through areas of other community (Maharashtra 1970 - 200+ killed, Bihar 1979 – 120+ deaths), apparently minor quarrel between Muslim and Hindu youths/ students (Delhi 1974, Aligarh 1961), dispute over individual or community land (UP 1982 – 40+ death). Other causes of recent past include the desecration of religious sites, indiscrete loud music, the overlapping schedules of religious festivals and celebrations (Id, Muharram, Durga Puja, Holi, and Ganapati among others), the slaughter of cows, intruding pigs and disrespect shown toward women ("eve-teasing"). The causes and impacts of some known riots during 1947-86 were analyzed by Graff and Galonnier (2013).
If such small events or incidents can be channelized for communal riots, is there a volatility among religious communities that is either deliberately created or nurtured? Are some potentially triggering non-secular elements left unaddressed over the years?
The literature on this subject carries various interpretations – sometimes contradicting each other and perhaps written in the aegis of politics. The violence in pre-independence is often squarely blamed on non-secular policies of the colonial government, whereas transition from the colonial legacy in a hybrid form has underlined potential causes of communal disharmony even today (cases cited above) – and many are related to personal and family practices or codes (rather than religious per se).
However, in some cases social, political, and economic conflicts are interpreted as communal ones and hence it is necessary to trace the complexities of non-religious kinds that determined relationships among the religious groups or conflicts. Such problems did not necessarily exist between Hindus and Muslims as monolithic religious groups but there were complex relations between various religious sects with a range of belief systems and forms of worship.
Secularism - Interpretations
My objective here is not to rediscover and focus on inter-community relations or conflicts but to highlight a few elements that more than seldom, question our secular identity vis-à-vis an ideal secular state, where 1) no religion should be established by law as the official state religion and 2) all citizens should have the freedom to practice their own religious beliefs.
Starting with the name that should rightly reflect the spirit of secularism, Congress rejected a proposal in 1947 to name the newly emerged dominion ‘Hindustan’ – and instead retained the name ‘India’ – post separation of the new country ‘Pakistan’. This helped avoid the religious branding of the country to her citizens and the world when India, in principle, decided for a secular state. However, the understanding of ‘secularism’ was subject to interpretations by our early Constitution makers.
B. R. Ambedkar argued in favour of a form of “composite culture” that, in India, is called “secularism.” K M Munshi, a member of the Constitution Committee, argued in favour of a Uniform code that encompasses religious and personal laws – to clearly articulate secularism in the Constitution. He commented during the debate on civil code, “religion must be restricted to spheres which legitimately appertain to religion and the rest of life must be regulated, unified and modified … the most important problem is to produce national unity in this country”.
Nehru (1961) outlined his views, “it is perhaps not very easy even to find a good word in Hindi for ‘secular’ ... (but) what it means is that it is a state which honours all faiths equally and gives them equal opportunities.” But Nehru’s “equally” is slightly misleading, as the state has not observed a clear-cut equidistance vis-à-vis each religious community.
It took 29 years (42nd Amendment 1976) to include “Secular” in Preamble of the Constitution when the government argued before the Supreme Court that the word secular was added to reassure the nation that minorities would be safe. Political opponents of Mrs. Indira Gandhi argued, (1) since freedom of faith was already included in the Preamble, ‘Secular’ was nothing but a hollow word added for purely political reasons and (2) the introduction was to reassure the Muslims who were unhappy with the government’s introduction of mass sterilization programs – affecting their religious sentiments.
However, the debate around the inclusion is less important than the execution of the tenet of secularism. In fact, true to the ruler’s intent of governance, the tenets and characteristics of the term ‘secular’ have undergone series of changes over time.
Unfortunately, notwithstanding the need for social harmony, the term – even today – is absolutely corrupted by political parties for advancing their short-term gains and inciting the divide among the otherwise economically deprived masses.
Secularism: Colonial Period
Most of the documented conflicts in British India were between Muslims and Hindu or more appropriately, non-Muslims. The ‘colonial secularism’ was deliberately orchestrated by the then British government for administrative convenience - often referred to as ‘divide and rule’ policy. As Viceroy Dufferin (1887) placed it: “the diversity of races .. and the presence of a powerful Mohamedan community are undoubtedly circumstances favourable to the maintenance of our rule”. There are multiple evidences of the same.
First, in pre-Colonial rule in India, the rulers were directly associated in running the religious institutions – a policy that the British deliberately moved out of as early as 1840 (after a flipflop of taking government control in 1817 and then transferring back to Trustees). Though government officials in England were entangled with the administration of Churches there, colonial officials did not want to associate with ‘false’ (Non-Christian) India houses of worship like temples and mosques and therefore, from governance point of view, the administration of these houses of worship should rest of the Indian trustees – and positioned that as part of secular nature of administration. While the façade to that was ‘secular’, this policy change from pre-colonial rule in turn, increased communal politics and conflicts at local levels.
Secondly, the census starting 1881 reinforced the recording of binary religion – ‘Hindu’ and ‘Muslim’ to bring the divide of the people from these religions to the fore. If an Indian belonging to a religion that was not recognized, was classified as Hindu.
While the definition of Muslim includes ones, who adheres to Islam’s minimum beliefs, definition of a Hindu is not simple. There are theological, anthropological and constitutional definitions of a Hindu. Swami Vivekananda refered to Hindu as those who lived on either side of Indus. Even the Persians (who pronounced S as H) referred to the dwellers of Indus river as Hindu (Sindhu) more than 3000 years ago – the definition is based on geography.
A Hindu is a person who willingly refrains from calling himself anything else. ‘A person who eats beef, visits the Haji Ali Dargah, denies the authority of the Vedas or even denies that he is a Hindu might still be considered to be one’ (Galanter, 2000). Interestingly, Hindu included 5 major castes and 5000 subcastes – 1886 for the Brahmins alone! Moreover, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains are covered under ‘legal Hinduism’ as they come under the statutes of the Hindu code – introduced in free India in 1950 – and are related to personal laws.
The division in Census was ‘distinct’ and deliberate – so was the identity that could be used for administrative purpose by the British government and nurtured for political purpose by the parties in existence then.
Thirdly, in 1909, voters (only select ‘British subjects in India’ were eligible to vote) were divided on the basis of religion when elections were introduced to legislative bodies. Viceroy Minto introduced separate electorates with ‘double vote’ (directly for legislative councils and also for Municipal Corporations) for Muslims. The system encouraged radical people with equally radical thoughts in the elections – e.g. Muslim League demanded creation of Pakistan as their electoral success as the election was only based on Muslim votes.
Fourthly, the British, in the name of secularism, introduced uniform codes for Hindu and Muslim law of contract, evidence and crime without much opposition by Indians but allowed separate personal laws - relating to marriage, succession. Contrary to a Uniform Civil Code that existed in England, the existence of different personal laws was also done to minimize opposition to their rule – though personal law was more to do with social or family practices than religion per se.
Saying so, they acted on some specific family practices – that were unacceptable to ‘British principles of morality and justice’ but only after internal assessment that this would not raise unrest in army and thereby could potentially threat the British rule. Interestingly, when they even tried to touch ‘inhuman’ practices, namely Sati, widow remarriage, raising age of consent for sexual intercourse (from 10 years to 12) etc., the conservative Hindus opposed – as they impacted their ‘private sphere’ (and not religious).
Such was the scale of the cruel, inhuman practices of Sati that between 15 April and 15 Oct 1804 itself, 115 Hindu widows were burnt alive in the area of 30 miles in Calcutta alone! Finally, this was abolished in 1829 – thanks to effort of select intelligentsia (Dwarkanath Tagore, Ram Mohan Roy) and pressure of Christian missionaries from England. Some social practices continued and insulated from legislature – namely, sacrificing children by drowning, female infanticide, exemption of Brahmins in Benaras from receiving death sentence for murder. They could only be legally stopped after major conflicts with the conservatives in the 19th century! (ref: Chandrachud, 2020)
Fifthly, conversion from Hindu, Muslim religion to Christianity was not a crime (though the reverse was a crime in England) – propagating the secular nature of laws.
Historically, Islam spread even to South in India was more to conversion than through conquest. “India’s Muslims were not an immigrant population but mostly low-caste Hindus who preferred the freedom and spiritual promise that Islam offered – it was more attractive to be considered equal before God and to live a life with the promise of salvation and paradise than under the rigidity of caste and the weariness of endless cycles of reincarnation” (White-Spunner, 2017). Throughout the freedom movement, Congress did not accept this aspect of conversion and therefore, not aggressively focused on addressing caste issues in Hindu society – except possibly reservation in the Constitution of lower castes/ tribes.
In short, we inherited a colonial secularism that more than often helped the Raj in governance and administration. On the other hand, the long-standing conflict between Congress (perceived as a Hindu party) and Muslim League (formed to cater to the interest of Muslims) leading to partition – only questioned the backbone of secularism in existence at the start of the independent dominions.
Secularism: Independent India
While some aspects of colonial secularism that might have paved the way for communal divide, it is equally intriguing why the learnings from the past did not eliminate the issue post-independence.
When Indian rulers from the Congress took charge, the colonial secularism underwent changes – but some components did not reflect truly secular characteristics – seemed to be deliberate by the architects of the Constitution and might reflect the social and religious fabric and understanding of India of that time.
First, equal voting rights for all adult citizens was introduced in place of separate electorate. Interestingly, while the reservation for minorities were removed in an apparently out-of-procedure mode, the reservation of SC & ST was retained.
Secondly, immediately after independence, when most of the senior Muslim leaders moved to Pakistan, the Muslims in India were politically more vulnerable – first time under the Congress – popularly treated as a Hindu party, even by the British. To affirm the secularity of governance, the leaders were taking firm stance with regard to the secularization of the state and concerning the issue of communal relations. For instance, the guarantee was offered by the Article 25 of the 1950 Constitution: "...all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practice and propagate religion..."
But right to profess/ propagation comes with another related issue - conversion of religion. Independent India discouraged inter-religion conversions legally in many ways. Though not explicitly included in the Constitution, the Hindu Code of the 1950s discouraged conversion of Hindus to other religions by force, frauds or material inducements – supported by laws from some State legislatures over the years. The Supreme Court also upheld that the Constitution provides right to propagate but not convert. The terms “force, frauds or material inducements” remain subject to legal or social interpretations – and the subject of religious conversion (including conversion for marriage) continues to be an element of conflicts even today (Candrachud, 2019).
Thirdly, Indian secularism has not meant that the government abstains from intervening in religious matters – a departure from both colonial view and possibly secularism. Section 44 abandoned the policy of religious non-interference (in place from 1772). On the contrary, the state has decisively intervened in religious affairs in certain cases—by banning animal sacrifices, for instance, and by ensuring that temples are accessible to Dalits. The recent attempt of the Kerala government to execute the court order for allowing entry of women into Sabarimala temple faced severe protests by conservative religious groups.
Fourthly, India’s secular approach as one of “principled distance”—not equidistance (Jaffrelot, 2019). The government has sometimes applied different standards to different religious communities. For example, the state reformed Hindu personal laws according to a series of new Hindu code bills without imposing similar changes on religious minorities. Muslims, for instance, were allowed to retain personal law (that governs marriage and succession).
Ambedkar as the law minister, tried for a codified personal law in 1949 on matters like marriage (inter-caste marriages, monogamy) and divorce, succession, minority and guardianship, and adoption and maintenance but faced severe opposition for its non-uniformity across religious groups. After the code was passed in 1955-56 with some changes, a Uniform civil code exists today for Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs and others in India and there is none for Muslims, Christians, Parsis and Jews. Hindu Mahasabha, one of the proponents of the Uniform Civil code including personal laws, opposed the same. The demand by the current ruling party in India possibly had its origin there.
Fifthly, Contrary to the expected secular elements where the State would be disallowed from making any kind of religious interventions including the reservation system, the directive principle to protect cows - all of which the Constitution went ahead with.
Government in temple administration (1926 Madras Hindu Religious Endowment Act), ban on cow slaughter, ban on inter-faith conversions in some parts, introduction of “God’ in constitutional oath are a few examples.
Specific to banning of cow slaughter, the independent India included that as part of Directive principles (passed not on religious but on economic background that cows are useful in India’s agrarian economy). While a central law was opposed and defeated in the Parliament in 1952, many states enacted laws after independence (that was withheld later by the Supreme Court on the ground it did not violate the right to religion). There are some modifications of the State laws over time and the 2017 Central law was put on hold in the Court. The issue continues to create religious conflicts even after 70 years of freedom!
Sixthly, the Indian state subsidizes different religious pilgrimages (albeit not necessarily to the same extent), including Sikhs going to Pakistan for pilgrimage, Hindus visiting Amarnath Cave in Jammu and Kashmir and Muslims going to Mecca for the Hajj. The state also contributes financially to major religious celebrations such as the Hindu Kumbha Mela (2019 festivities in Prayagraj costed about USD 600 million). The state funding always raises avoidable questions about the intent and extent of the government of being impartial to one or the other.
Lastly, Hindu traditionalists - who formed the right wing of the dominant Congress Party and well represented in the Constitution making body - paid attention to cultural features, like the defence of traditional Hindu (or Ayurveda) holistic medicine and the linguistic pre-eminence of Hindi over Urdu, which many Indians then regarded as a foreign language.
In practice, the concept of principled distance has not meant that the state does not interfere or interferes equally in all religions or to the same degree or in the same manner in all cases. Also, most of the recent incidents of communal conflicts have had their origin in the apparent deviations that created opportunities for political parties to instigate communal flare.
Summary
Congress in initial years after formation was mainly interested in attaining some legislative power within the British rule and remained an elite group – aloof from the masses – till Gandhi – a spiritual person with a unique philosophy of non-violence - reoriented the Party to reach the poor in 1920s and touched social issues – more relating to untouchability. However, the religion-based politics remained distinct. Barring intermittent and temporary success in Indian independence history, the politics using religion remained (and existence of religious distinction in society) – often blamed to the cunningness of the colonial governance.
Nehru visualised India’s problem economic and social with religion merely an excuse used by various groups to further their own economic position – the situation still prevails. On the other hand, “Jinnah was never a religious leader as such; to him India’s Muslims were rather a political body” (White-Spunner, 2017). All parties (Congress, Muslim League and the British under Viceroy Mountbatten) prioritised transfer of power first with focus on “speed” – though each had different reasons for doing so. The religious conflicts during the transfer of power were not anticipated by leaders from India, Pakistan and Britain – the result was the largest ever communal riots in Indian modern history – most ghastly in Punjab and a little less in Bengal.
The partition – 3 years after Bengal famine - was a worry for the majority of rural poor - more for apprehension of food availability (and no repetition of 1942-44 situation) and continuity of livelihood than the change of power. Bengal faced lower intensity of riots (vis-à-vis Punjab) after partition – also due to stricter administrative controls by West and East Bengal Chief Minsters, timely deployment of army and relatively less hectic migration on either side (migration continued till 1960s and possibly till Bangladesh war).
Over the decades of independence, we have demonstrated our inability and possibly lack of political intent (“to further economic position of select groups”) to eliminate the social menace. Politics has – time and again - diverted attention of the poor or deteriorating economic conditions of select groups to engage into religious conflicts – when these groups per se are mostly busy and interested in food-cloth-shelter.
Moreover, historically communal conflicts have been ignited first in urban areas (with higher unemployment and more close habitation of religious groups) and then spread, in some cases, to rural areas. It is surprising that with relatively higher level of income, education and infrastructure, the conflicts appear and as reflected in the cases mentioned above, mostly due to small and personal incidents – related to the deviations from secular constituents or ambiguity in constitutional or legal interpretations.
As we have seen now, Brass’s ‘institutional riots system’ is not new – elements of fire were always there – be it in Colonial secularism or ambiguities in Indian secularism post-independence. My uncle and millions faced the brunt of fire directly - in the worst possible way and thousands of unfortunates across religions have continued to feel the heat from time to time even today. Even when the fire is ignited by political parties, the solution interestingly, is again political – backed by legal changes to seal the deviations or ambiguity and focus on economics. Let the pages of diary of the future generation not have an unwanted bloody blot!
----------------------------------------
References:
Brass, Paul R (2003): The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India; Oxford University Press
Chandrachud, Abhinav (2020): Republic of Religion; Penguin Random House India
Jaffrelot, Christophe (2019): The Fate of Secularism in India; carnegieendowment.org, April 04, 2019
Graff, Violette and Galonnier, Juliette (2013): Hindu-Muslim Communal Riots in India (1947 – 1986); SciencesPo, 15 July 2013
Lapierre, Dominque and Collins, Larry (Revised version 2007): Freedom at Midnight; Vikas Publishing, New Delhi
Sisson, R. and S. Wolpert (eds): Congress and Indian Nationalism - The Pre-Independence Phase; University of California Press, 1988 (Indian Reprint by Rawat Publications, 2017)
Shubham, Utkarsh (2019): Who is a Hindu? State the Categories of Persons to whom Hindu Law Applies; https://lawcorner.in/; 19 October 2019
Sinha, Rakesh (2012) Ed.: Secular India – Politics of Minorityism; Vitasta Publishing Pvt Ltd
Tunzelmann, Alex von (2007): Indian Summer – The Secret History of the End of an Empire; Simon & Schuster UK Ltd.
Violette Graff, Juliette Galonnier (2013): Hindu-Muslim Communal Riots in India (1947-1986); SciencesPo, 15 July 2013.
White-Spunner Barney (2017): Partition – The Story of Indian Independence and the Creation of Pakistan in 1947; Simon & Schuster UK Ltd.
Wolpert, Stanley (2009): Shameful Flight – The Last Years of the British Empire in India, Oxford University Press
(The views are personal)
Rethink
Indian Secularism: Past and Present
We didn't start the fire … always burning …since…
(June 2021)