 तो आम्शकार, तो अपका इक बण्ता आप पर शवागत है. अब देख रहे हैं, हमारा बहुत फी खाज कारिक्रम अप वितियास के पन्नें. हम लोग ये कारिक्रम औमुमल एक हिन्दिमे करते है, हिन्दुस्तानिमे करते है. अगरेजी में बी करते हैं, हमाने जो मैंमान है, उनके खमफर्ट, उनके लिंविस्टिक खमफर्ट क्योंके कई भार क्या होता है, कि the language that we are speaking in or writing, you know, that actually gets on to our tongue, especially when we are talking about matters which are technical or related to some discipline, it happens to me also all the time. I have grown up in North India, I keep on talk, speaking in Hindi, but there are occasions when I have to lapse into English, it comes very automatically. So, we will be talking about a lot of issues today, primarily about, it all stems from the fact that in India today over the last three and a half, four decades, religion has become the major marker of social identities. We first categorize an individual on the basis of the religious identity of a person. Has it always been like that? You know, these questions actually come up, you know, a lot. We are going to be talking to Dr. Amar Sohal, who is a research fellow at Cambridge University, and he has written a very fine book called the Muslim Secular. The book is here, and may I welcome Dr. Amar Sohal, Amar to be, you know, more on a first name term, so please call me Nilanjan also. Congratulations on this very fine book, which I have read, substantial parts of it. I intend to read some more bits of it in the next few weeks, and I intend to speak with you on another subject matter also related to this book also. Today, I am going to be, let me first give an introduction to what this book is about, to our viewers, you know. This book essentially takes a look at the Muslim Secular, Parity and Politics of India's Partition, that is the title of the book. Now, essentially to convey it very simplistically, it is essentially taking a look, analyzing portraying three Muslim nationalist leaders who are active in politics through the national movement and thereafter. You have Dr. Abdul Kalam, you have Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who went away to, you know, stayed in what used to be called the Northwest Frontier Province, stayed there, also called popularly the Frontier Gandhi. And then we have Sheikh Abdullah, the central character, often villainously portrayed by today's Hindutva forces in Kashmir. We will today be talking about the Frontier Gandhi. The reason why I want to talk about the Frontier Gandhi, first of all, or Ghaffar Khan Amal, is that, you know, when my generation was growing up, which is essentially, we started understanding, you know, historical characters or being able to understand a bit of politics through the 1970s and then through the 80s. At that point, the Frontier Gandhi, you know, was an iconic figure in Indian discourse. We all knew about somebody called Frontier Gandhi and felt very bad that he was eventually had to stay in a country into which his heart was not there. I still remember, you know, I had become a journalist by then, that in 1987, 88, you know, when he was conferred the Bharatsanta, the kind of excitement which was there in India. And then the immense sadness which took over India in January 1988 when he passed away and Indian Prime Minister then Rajiv Gandhi went there. There was a bit of a diplomatic tussle between Pakistan and India, whether Rajiv Gandhi should be allowed or not, etc., etc. But the point is that there was a certain amount of, you know, interest around a character like that. That has completely disappeared. It's just a matter of sheer timing that January 1988 when Ghaffar Khan dies, you know, that is the time when the Hindutva forces take off. The Ram Jain Maghoomi, Ayodhya agitation actually takes off in 1988. So it has really been one way. It is a, you know, good for him, you know, that he did not have to see what happened into the India which he dreamt of being part of. Now what, the reason why I want to first pick up Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan from your book is because I want to reintroduce him to today's Indians. You know, who are unaware of the vibrant, you know, discussions which used to happen around him. So let's begin with him. First of all, welcome to this program and thank you very much for sparing time. I know you are sitting in London, you know, trying to squeeze us through all your various research programs and libraries. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here with you and to have this discussion. So let us, you know, essentially to start with, it has to be a beginner's guide to the frontier Gandhi. Why do we call him the frontier Gandhi? That is what today's Indians may want to know. What was it? You know, Pathans or the Pashtuns are normally supposed to be very brave, courageous and violent people. Where does frontier Gandhi, with the notion of non-violence, where does it come in? How does it come in? You know, it's a fascinating story because colonial mythology and, you know, Indian mythology too around the Pashtun has often been about his so-called violence. Yeah, so essentially, you know, he's having to confront this trope, if you like, the stereotype around violence. And this is often how he's remembered as well as an anomaly, if you like. But of course, he's extremely popular as a political leader on the frontier. He builds this Khudai khidmatgaar movement or servants of God movement, which, you know, dominates frontier politics for 15 plus years. So in many ways, where does this frontier Gandhi label come from? I guess it kind of takes his own agency away a little bit, but there is some, you know, it does make some sense because like Gandhi, he was also interested in the principle of sacrifice, right? Both of these figures wouldn't dare take a life, right? But they will willingly sacrifice their own. And their belief was that non-violence was the only way to achieve lasting moral change in the society. Because you can, through non-violence, not only achieve the goals of the oppressed and, you know, reform their lives and improve their lives, but you also have the hope of softening the heart, and this is the kind of language they would use, softening the heart of the oppressor too, right? So really, this is the principle of non-violence is one they share in common. However, you know, Abdulla Far Khan works through this idea in very different ways. He uses Pashtoon themes. You know, there's the Pashtoon Wali, which is the ethical code of the Pashtoons, which is an inherited code, which he, you know, remakes or repackages for non-violent politics. He takes concepts like forgiveness, reciprocity between different people and turns them into principles for non-violent action against the colonial state. And also to resolve Pashtoon issues among themselves, among different tribal factions. And so he's doing that. And on the other hand, he's also drawing on Islamic ideas of fortitude or suburb, right? And, you know, hardships are to be faced with perseverance, right? He uses that idea and takes that idea from Islam. So in a sense, he's not just copying Gandhi, often the kind of what we think when we think of a frontier Gandhi. He's doing something much more than that. He's actually anchoring non-violence or non-violent political action in Pashtoon and Islamic themes and then joining them up to a larger Congress movement of course. Right. You know, there is a general supposition in India, especially the India of today. Is that Muslims in India, Muslim leaders in India, especially during the national movement, most of them were in favor of the pro-nation theory of the Muslim League. That is the state of Pakistan. But in your book, you actually make out that, you know, you argue that the three persons about whom you write, you become Maulana Azad, Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Sheikh Abdullah, they were opposed to the Muslim League, not just opposed to the Muslim League, but they were also not the mere acolytes of the other nationalist leaders, that is Gandhi and Nehru. So that means that they had clearly well demarcated their own individual space. They were not just somebody who were actually, you know, hanging onto the portails of Gandhi and Nehru. Especially this is true about Maulana Azad because he became, you know, he was part of the Nehru ministry and a very important minister handling education portfolio at that particular time. So where does the thing which I am trying extremely curious to understand from you that where does Abdul Ghaffar Khan's, you know, stands against the Muslim League against a separate Muslim kingdom, his understanding is visualization of the Indian state, you know, like I read, you know, that you actually point out that he argued that pan Islamism is collapsing and that the future of Indian Muslims lies in a political alliance with the Hindus of the country. Where does that imagination come from? Absolutely. And so see there are many, there are many things going on here and it's worth breaking some of these things down. The first point is that people like Abdul Ghaffar Khan and it's true of Sheikh Abdullah and Azad as well, Maulana Azad as well that they believe that Muslims are so powerful in India in the sense that they don't have to worry about the prospect of being a disempowered minority. Or, you know, weak minority in a united India. They have provinces of their own right. They also have the largest Muslim population in the world. This idea that there are minority that is under threat is a misnomer. It's a possibility in a divided India but not in a united one. And so Abdul Ghaffar Khan famously says, you know that we are 90% Pashtoon Muslim Muslims in the Pashtoon province are 90%. The idea that we can be dominated by outsiders whether the British or whether in an independent India from Delhi doesn't make much sense to me. And so what he ends up doing and it's the same for Abdullah as well. They end up anchoring Islamic identity in the region. So Pashtoon identity, Kashmir identity becomes wrapped up in a kind of cultural Islam. And by doing that, they end up being able to negotiate on very different terms in Delhi. They're not worried so much about what to do with our religious identity. We have a regional home for that. So once we establish that regional home, we can have a relationship in Delhi with other Indians, whether Hindu or Sikh or Christian and so on, on very different terms. So this idea that we need Pakistan or we need something separate doesn't play out in the same way as it does for Juna, who of course is coming from a minority position. Of course Azad then confronts that in different ways but that's a whole other story. So for Abdul Ghaffar Khan, there's no threat of Hindu dominance and so that's what plays into it. The other second point which is also very important is that if you have a partition, he believes, if you have a partition, you will institutionalize hatred in this place. Indians, Hindus and Muslims have a history of both love and hatred. Shruti Kapila has written a brilliant book on this called Violent Fraternity and the way we understand Hindus and Muslims having this relationship in modern times which is both positive and negative. And Abdul Ghaffar Khan, like all Indian political thinkers, understands this very well and he thinks that if you have a Pakistan and a Hindu majority India, you will essentially have these two diametrically opposed states battling off against each other and what that'll do is all that hatred, all that antagonism will be elevated and all that love and friendship will be pressed down or somehow shunted to one side. So that's another very important reason why he believes from a very ethical position and he's a very ethical thinker, we might get into that. Partition has to be refused because it divides people up and will produce this kind of angst and anxiety in the subcontinent for decades to come and who is to say he was entirely wrong? There is something which comes to my mind because having spent a greater part of the four decades that I have been a journalist and writing essentially about the rise and growth of the Hindu right wing in India. One of the points which is constantly made by what we call the Sangh Parivar is that India is secular because of the Hindus. India is a tolerant country because of the Hindus. Whereas we find that a lot of intolerance within the political actors of the Hindu right wing today and also what comes across in your book is also something which is absolutely diametrically opposite about this. I would like to hear from you about this. Yeah absolutely. So I think the thing is that and I think you will agree with me that religion can be manipulated or mobilized for both positive and negative projects. And I think that's true of Hinduism and Islam. For instance these figures they are quite interested in the heritage of Hinduism in India. They also kind of make this point that actually Hinduism has enshrined within it a tolerance which assists the project of Indian nationalism. But they also argue that Islam has within it an idea of the universal. That is to say that Islam believes that we shouldn't be divided on the basis of race, on the basis of difference and that's a special idea for them which they want to enshrine in the nation essentially. They basically take the view that if you divide land up or divide territory up and pit one set of human beings against the other that is a contravention of Islam. So in a way the creation of Pakistan is a contravention of Islam according to them because Muslim universalism is so important. It has baked into it the idea of positive human relations. So I would say that it's very convenient for Hindu nationalism today or versions of Muslim nationalism of yes the year perhaps to make the claim that these are separate religions, these are separate systems and they can't meet in some way. And certainly the idea that it's the Hindus who have allowed space for the Muslims that is one argument but these guys are kind of reframing it slightly differently and saying that Islam and Muslims can also make space for the other which is perhaps not a very convenient or popular argument today. You mentioned Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the organization which he floated the Kudai Khidmakar and then let's look at the trajectory. They do become part of the Congress. He becomes part of the Congress at some point. So within the Congress how does he function? Is he as the word which I picked up from one of the reviews to your book? Is he an acolyte of the Gandhi and the other Congress leaders at that time Nehru is on his way to becoming a big stall word of the Congress through the 1930s when Abdul Ghaffar Khan merges his organization into the Congress. So what is his space within the Congress and how does he articulate his worldview of the Indian nation? I definitely would say that he is of course an ally of these figures but he is also an independent thinker. That's the most important to understand. Where is his independent thinking? How is it different from that of Gandhi and Nehru? So there are a few things. A really important thing here is to understand that one of the reasons why he has been dismissed so easily is because his language is caught up in Pashtun concepts from this inherited code of the Pashtuns. So he is using ideas of honour, obligation, reciprocity and these things are tied up in that ethical code. People and historians have also been guilty of this. I have just kind of dismissed him as a Pashtun thinker therefore and therefore only interested really in what happens to the Pashtuns and everything to do with the Congress really is some kind of opportunistic alliance. That's how it's been understood. But it's not like that at all because he uses these things. He thinks that look everyone is capable of upholding the honour of their friends. If I agree to protect you, you can agree to protect me and we do so not out of self-interest but because we want the better future we don't want to be in this colonised situation anymore and we also love each other and so there is a lot of nation building that goes on at Congress sessions trying to understand each other's cultures meeting Bengalis, meeting people from the south of India and trying to get them to understand Pashtun culture and vice versa and that's how you build the nation in this way through direct communication, through direct relations through these meetings because there is of course this divide there is a trust deficit also because the British have said that once we leave the Pashtuns are going to come and swallow you this is what they say and then likewise there is the myth of Hinduraj being perpetuated not just by the British but by others also so there is this effort to kind of it's a real effort to undo this thing through social relations between Indians so that's one thing, sorry no, listening to you so one question arises in my mind that having made so much effort of a united India you know which are space for across religious identities when finally India goes into partition when the Montfarton plan mates and the Congress leaders accept he must have been terribly heartbroken because he did not, his politics did not have space in Pakistan what eventually came out we all know that in the Pashtuns the referendum there and he stayed out of the referendum the notion of an independent Pashtunistan did not exist in the referendum so he would have been terribly heartbroken I can't imagine that how he lived four decades, the last four decades of his life with so much of pain and anguish in his heart yeah I mean he also had you know to just go back slightly to your previous question and link it to this one which he's very impressed by the Nehruvian model so he's speaking on his own terms but he's also impressed with the idea of the socialist state you know a strong socialist state which can enact development and reform especially in agriculture equality, economic equality all yeah as well so there's that going on so yeah he's extremely heartbroken because that vision comes crumbling down he also thinks that the Congress has this idea of linguistic provinces there's talk about this ever since the 1930 Karachi conference of the Congress there's thought that you know you can have linguistic be divided up states in India like we do today after the reorganization and so he's attached to that idea as well he's not like Abdullah who wants to retain political power in a very concentrated sense in Kashmir he's actually quite interested in Nehruv's idea of a strong social center which is something that socialist center which is something that historians have previously kind of looked beyond so that vision comes crumbling down partition of course for him is a terrible thing it's great for Juna because Juna believes that you know this is the only way to protect the minority and it's one argument but for Abdul Ghaffar Khan this is a betrayal of trust he started with that whole thing about trust and obligation you protect me, I'll protect you that crumbles down he thinks that the Congress has reneged on its pledge if you like it's defaulted on the promise that it's made and he sees this as a great betrayal the referendum question is very interesting because the referendum is also extremely unfair according to him because it's the only province which gets a referendum why does it get a referendum because it's the only Muslim province in India which has a Congress government whereas all the other provinces got to choose through their assemblies so indirectly the assemblies the members of the assembly chose whether to put Sindh or UP into India or Pakistan respectively for the frontier that was a problem because the Congress would have voted in the assembly to take the frontier into India that would have meant a very strange geographical situation something a little like what you had with eastern-west Pakistan is eastern-west Pakistan there would have been a north-west frontier of India and the rest of India here exactly and so in fact some of the Khuda-e-Hidmat guys this comes out in Mukulika Banerjee's book from quite a while ago about the anthropology of the movement and some of these figures tell her in that book that we could have had this if Pakistan could be eastern-west why can't India have been like that but it was thought that this would be an impractical kind of situation and it wouldn't have worked that was the consensus within Congress as well with the Muslim League and the British of course so this kind of singling out of the frontier on ethical terms Gopal Khan thinks it's terrible and it's injustice because it's been treated differently because before when you had the battle between the Congress and the Muslim League in the frontier it was a clear battle between secularism and communalism now the Congress was kind of accepting so-called communalism but really if it was to come into India it would be unusual at this point and because it's Muslim it should have a referendum and that was thought to be and Gopal Khan could never find political space in Pakistan he kept on going in and out of Pakistani jails I think that is how a large part of his four decades were spent that way that's right and I think actually Gopal Khan provides a great template for what Pakistan might look like because after independence he basically says well you know I rejected the partition of India but we've had it now what to do the Pashtuns are in Pakistan let's try and make Pakistan a good thing let's try and turn it into a good thing but it can't just be a state for Muslims it has to also be a state for minorities it also has to understand that Muslims are a state among Sindhis and Punjabis and Pashtuns and so on and therefore they should have provincial rights in this country and so what he ends up suggesting is a kind of socialist, developmentalist but federal country for Pakistan which is secular and democratic and all the rest it's a kind of you might even dare I say a Nehruvian type of vision for the other country this is what he posits and so I think what I'd like to think is that progressive Pakistanis might yet resurrect from some of the research I've done perhaps a vision of their country which is quite different to the one that emerges I was actually thinking we can continue to talk about such important characters and history for hours and we'll still not be able to discuss everything but this particular medium has very severe limitations and I was actually wondering that how do I exactly start summing this up you give me one word you hope that the progressive people in Pakistan resurrect Abdul Ghaffar Khan question is that what can Indians Muslims as well as the Hindus what can they learn and why is it necessary to resurrect Ghaffar Khan now at the moment in extremely intellectually as well as community wise divided in a badly splintered and full of prejudice that kind of India which exists at the moment why is it necessary I mean it's a huge question but we are actually grappling with this all the time of course of course here's a thinker who is a humanist who uses Islam for universal ends he interprets Islam in such a way that it can encompass difference and I think there's absolutely when you think about the way Indian Islam has developed of the partition in that trajectory in fact and whatever other forces may or may not say about it maybe the example to take here is from something that happened in 1930 there was a massacre in Peshawar when Khuda-e-Hid-Mukhars were protesting during the civil disobedience movement which was absolutely across the country and this is really when they came to fame in many ways the Khuda-e-Hid-Mukhars because they were shot by British soldiers as they were protesting and in the afternoon in April 1930 a battalion from Garwal in Uttarakhand or today's Uttarakhand were to take over from these British soldiers and they were led by a man called Chandrasingh and Chandrasingh refused to shoot the Pashtuns he said they are just demanding their rights how can I shoot these people how can I ask my soldiers to shoot these people and Abdul Ghaffar Khan celebrates this moment because Chandrasingh and his soldiers are basically taken off and tried in the courts and so on and he thinks it is a fantastic moment because here the nation has been made here the Hindus the Hindu soldiers have stood up actually refused to fire on them despite orders from the government so they refused and they therefore made the nation through this act of non-violence and they created national love and in many ways I thought of that moment when the protests happened around the CIA where you saw people come together from different communities but for what was a Muslim course that was whether the Muslims are Indians or not whether they are to be given rights or not and so maybe we can take something from that whether we are Muslims or Hindus or others thank you Amar very much actually there has been a growing feeling within a large number of people in India especially the Hindus which has been spread by the Santh Parivaar that the Muslims always wanted a separate nation for themselves they were given one a large number of them went away those who did not go away they must stay here on our terms that is the way it is actually spread out so Abdul Ghaffar Khan becomes important because he stands contrary to against this narrative which has been built here is one of the tallest Muslims who were part of the national movement who actually fought for independence from the British did not want a separate country for the Muslims but wanted a united India so that is why it is very important that we understand more about Abdul Ghaffar Khan at the moment in India and your book is a very valuable contribution at this time and I am sure that whenever you get the opportunity to travel in India you would be meeting in people you would be talking about the book and about these three very important Muslim leaders that not everyone wanted a separate country for the Muslims that they very much had the vision of the united India where religious identity was not the most important part thank you very much and congratulations Amar can you repeat something just one thing Muslim political thinking has often been associated with Jinnah and rightly so he was successful in achieving but Muslim political thinking is a plural domain and it includes figures such as just as among the Hindus there was Nehru and Gandhi there was also Sabarkar this is a debate which of course includes figures like Ambedkar also and Periyar Antikas figures so this is a debate which encompasses all these figures and really that is our heritage in many ways and it's worth exploring all facets of it even among the Hindus in today's India not every Hindu in any way the Sangh Periyar wants them to think there are a large number in fact the majority of Hindus are against the vision of the Sangh Periyar and that is what possibly is the biggest hope for us and we will keep on talking about the Abdul Ghafal Khan and the Sheikh Abdul Laj and the Maulana Azads to be able to convince those who actually believe in the other narrative that Muslims always wanted a separate country for themselves thank you very much Amar thank you very much Amar