Hindu Case        

There seem to be three reasons present to the mind of the Hindus who are opposing this scheme of PAK. They are as under -
1. Because it involves breaking up the unity of India – chapter 5.
2. Because it weakens the defense of India – chapter 6.
3. Because it fails to solve the communal problem – chapter 7.
Is there any substance in these objections? Read on –

Break-up of Unity

Before the Hindus complain about the destruction of the unity of India, let them answer this ‘What unity is there between PAK and Hindustan?

Those Hindus who maintain the affirmative chiefly rely upon the fact that the areas, which the Muslims want to be separated from India, were always part of India. Historically this is no doubt true. Not only was this area a part of India when Chandragupta was a ruler, it was also a part of India when Hymen Tsang, the Chinese pilgrim visited India in the 7th century ad. It is true that when Tsang came, not only Punjab but also what is now Afghanistan was part of India and further the people of Punjab and Afghanistan were either Vedic or Buddhists by religion. But what has happened since Tsang left India?

The invasion of Sind by M Bin Qasim started in 711 a.d followed by a series of terrible invasions by Muhammad of Gazni in 1001 ad. Within a short span of 30 years he invaded India 17 times. He was followed by Mahommed Ghori. Then followed the incursions of Mogal hordes of Chingiz khan, they first came in 1221. Of their inroads the most terrible was under Taimur in 1398. Then came Babur in 1526. In 1738 Nadirshah’s invading host swept over Punjab like a flooded river furious as the ocean. He was followed by Ahmed Shah Abdali in 1761, smashed the forces of the Marathas at Panipat and crushed forever the attempt of the Hindus to gain the ground they had lost to their Muslim invaders.

What was the object behind these Muslim invasions? (BRA has taken this verbatim from the book Indian Islam by Dr Tirus) - The expedition against Sind by M B Qasim was undertaken to punish Raja Dahir of Sind who had refused to make restitution for the seizure of an Arab ship at Debul, one of the sea-ports of Sind. But there is no doubt that striking a blow at the idolatry and polytheism of Hindus and establishing Islam in India was one of the aims of the expedition.

An Utbi the historian of M of Gazni writes “he demolished idol temples and established Islam. He captured, killed, destroying the idolaters and gratifying Muslims. He then returned home and promulgated accounts of violence obtained for Islam”.

Hasan Nizami described M Ghori as – “he purged by his sword the land of Hind from the filth of infidelity and vice, and freed the whole of that country from the thorn of God-plurality and by his royal vigor and intrepidity left not one temple standing”.

Timur in his Memoir explained what led him to invade India, he says – “My object in the invasion of Hindustan is to lead a campaign against the infidels, to convert them to the true faith according to the command of Mohhammad, to purify the land from misbelief & polytheism and overthrow the temples and idols”.

These invasions by Muslims were as much invasions of India as they were war amongst Muslims themselves. Gazni was a tartar, Ghori was an Afghan, Timur was a Mongol, Babur was a tartar, and Nadir shah and Abdali were Afghans. While they had their internecine conflicts they are all united by one common objective and that was to destroy the Hindu faith.

The methods adopted by the Muslim invaders of India are not less significant for the subsequent history of India than the object of their invasions. The object was to create terror against those who refused to convert to Islam or become slaves. Not infrequently the slaughter of the enemy gave s great setback to the indigenous culture of the Hindus as in the conquest of Bihar by Muhammad Bakhtyar Khilji. Tabaquat-I-Nasiri informs us that “great plunder fell into the hands of the victors. Most of the inhabitants were Brahmins with shaven heads. They were put to death. Large number of books were found but no one could explain their contents as all the men had been killed”

“Minhaj-as-Siraj further tells how Mahmud became widely known for having destroyed as many as 1,000 temples, and of his great feat in destroying the temple of Somnath and carrying off its idol, which he asserts he broke into four parts. One part was deposited in the Jami Masjid of Gazni, one he placed at the entrance of the royal palace, third he sent to Mecca & fourth to Medina”.

Ghori in his conquest of Ajmer “destroyed pillars and foundations of the idol-temples and built in their stead mosques and colleges, and the precepts of Islam and customs of law were divulged and established”.

Qutb-ud-din Aibak is also said to have destroyed nearly a 1000 temples and then raised mosques on their foundations. The same authors states that he built Jama Masjid, Delhi and adorned it with the stones and gold obtained from temples, which had been demolished by elephants.

Even in the reign of Shah-Jahan we read of destruction of the temples that the Hindus had started to rebuild which has been recorded in the Badhshah-namah – “His Majesty gave orders that at Benaras and throughout the dominions in every place all temples that had been begun should be cast down. It was reported from the province of Allahabad that 76 temples had been destroyed in the district of Benaras”.

Further extreme measures employed to effect change of faith are all too numerous. “On the occasion of his first raid Mahumad is said to have taken half a million Hindus beautiful men & women, were reduced to slavery and taken back to Ghazni”.

To a question put by Sultan Alla-ud-din wanting to know the legal position of the Hindus under Muslim law. The Kazi said, excerpts – “They are called payers of tribute. If the officer throws dirt in their mouth, they must open their mouths wide open to receive it. The due subordination of the Dhimmi is exhibited in this humble payment, and by this throwing of dirt into their mouths. To keep the Hindus in abasement is esp. a religious duty because they are most inveterate enemies of the Prophet and because the Prophet has commandeered us to slay them, plunder them and make them captive saying, ‘Convert them to Islam or kill them or make them slaves and spoil their wealth and property”.

Such is the story of this period of 762 years, which elapsed between advent of M of Ghazni and return of Ahmmedshah Abdali. ‘Friends look at the conditions of Hindus in PAK and Bangladesh. They hardly exist in the former and in the latter Hindus are fleeing to India. Look at what happened to the Kashmiri Pandits. While Muslims of Indian sub-continent talk of religious freedom, protection look at the condition of minorities in Muslim dominated countries esp. in the Middle East, Hypocrisy!’

How far is it correct for the Hindus to say that north India is Aryavarta? Apart from other consequences which have flowed from these invasions have so profoundly altered the culture and character of the northern areas which it now proposed to be included in a PAK that there is not only no unity between that area and the rest of India but that there is as a matter of fact a real antipathy between the two.

The methods adopted by the invaders have no doubt left their aftermath. One is the bitterness between the Hindus and Muslims. This bitterness is so deep seated that a century of political life has not succeeded in assuaging it, or making people forget it. What wonder if the images of these invasions have remained evergreen, as a source of pride to the Muslims, and as a source of shame to the Hindus?

But these things apart the northwestern India was where hordes after hordes of Muslim invaders surged into this area and then scattered themselves in spray over the rest of India. These waves reached the rest of India in thin currents. But while they lasted they left a deep deposit of Islamic culture over the original Aryan culture in the northwest corner of India.

The Muslim invaders no doubt came to India singing the hymn of hate against the Hindus. They were not content with hate and destruction of temples, they did a positive act, namely to plant the seed of Islam. Its growth in Northern India is so thick that the remnants of Hindu & Buddhist culture are just shrubs. The Sikh axe could not fell this growth. Though they became the political masters of North India they could take it back to that spiritual & cultural unity by which it was bound to the rest of India before Hiuen Tsang.

What is the unity the Hindu sees between PAK & Hindustan? If it is geographical unity there in none, it is unity in external things such as ways & habits of life there is none. If unity is to be of an abiding character it must be founded on a sense of kinship, in the feeling of being kindred. In short it must be spiritual. Judged in the light of these considerations, the unity between PAK & Hindustan is a myth.

‘Friends could not agree with BRA more. When Vajpayee went to PAK for his famously infamous Lahore Bus Yatra people in India went overboard hoping for a breakthrough in relations. Cynical as I sounded then I told friends, There is no possibility of PAK and India ever being friends because Muslim PAK was created not out of love for PAK but out hatred for India read Hindus, so as long as India remained a Hindu majority state peace is a pipe dream’.