Opinion Syeda Hameed writes: Why NCERT books need to acknowledge Maulana Azad

His stamp was everywhere: From the first IIT in Kanpur to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, from the three Akademis — Sangeet, Sahitya and Lalit Kala — to the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and public libraries. He commissioned the translation of Mahabharata and Ramayana into Persian so the Islamic world would become aware of India’s glorious heritage. But his first love remained “Basic Education” based on Gandhian principles of the use of mother tongue and work-by-hands. He, with his core team consisting of my father and Humayun Kabir, mentored by his friend and comrade, Jawaharlal Nehru, drove this most important agenda for the nation for a decade from 1947 to 1958.

In 1912, as a 24-year-old Azad began his literary career. His main objective was to inspire Muslims to join Hindus in the independence struggle. Very early, he withdrew himself from his family tradition of Piri Muridi and became deeply involved with the revolutionary movements Anushilan and Yugantar, referred to as the guerrilla movements of West Bengal. His comrades were Shyam Sundar Chakravarthy and Rash Behari Ghosh. For the same objective, he was inspired by West Asian revolutionaries from Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Turkey. Names like Jamaluddin Afghani, Sheikh Muḥammad ʿAbduh and Sheikh Rashid Raza feature in his writings, especially his journal Al Hilal, which was launched in Calcutta in 1912. He challenged the might of the British empire and told Muslims that it was their religious duty to join the Hindus and form a common front against imperial forces. His speeches, letters, addresses and writings are even more relevant today when the world sits at the brink of darkness and all its attendant evils.

In 1923, when he was elected Congress president (1923), the youngest to date, the policy of divide and rule had become the creed of the empire. Azad was a formidable force standing in the way of this machination. The government of the day used its most lethal instruments to curb his voice: House arrest, imprisonment, banishment, sedition charges.

Today, as we grapple with similar forces, it is important to recall what he said at the Congress Session in Delhi on December 15, 1923: “Today, if an angel were to descend from heaven and declare from the top of Qutab Minar that India will get Swaraj within 24 hours provided she relinquishes Hindu-Muslim unity, I will relinquish Swaraj. Delay in the attainment of Swaraj will be a loss for India but if our unity is lost, it will be a loss for the entire mankind.”

This remained his consistent stand all his life. From all platforms, he spoke of the composite culture that is the bedrock of India. He equally berated Muslims and Hindus for propagating false dreams that they will one day bring back bygone ancient cultures. He said nature has moulded this composite culture on her anvil for centuries and placed her seal upon it. This, he said, is the logic and fact of history. “Let us begin fashioning our common future destiny.”

He spoke without an iota of doubt about how the debacle of Indian Muslims has been the result of the colossal mistakes committed by the Muslim League’s misguided leadership. He exhorted the Muslims to make common cause with their Hindu, Sikh, Christian fellow countrymen because this is what their Quran exhorts them to do. In his translation and explication of the Quran, he wrote about all revealed, spiritual and religious texts of the world – Vedas, Upanishads, Bible and Torah. He reminded his readers that the Quran speaks of 1,24,000 prophets who were sent, from time to time, for the guidance of humanity. Therefore, it is incumbent for a Muslim to respect and revere all religions.

It was two months after August 1947, when the worst communal killings had taken place, that he made an address from the steps of Jama Masjid. Azad as the Prophet, the witness, the oracle explained, once again, his ideals and philosophy to the dispirited and disillusioned Delhi Muslims: “… it was not long ago when I warned you that the two-nation theory was dead knell… I said that the foundations which you have trusted were breaking up very fast. To all these, you turned a deaf ear. Time sped fast and now you have discovered the so-called anchor of your fate has set you adrift to be kicked around by fate.” Then, he said, almost plaintively, with the pain of a father whose progeny had gone wrong: “The partition of India was a fundamental mistake. The manner in which religious differences were incited, inevitably, led to the devastation that we have seen with our own eyes”.

Today, India is experiencing deadly convulsions within the currents of politics of hate. Azad’s words spoken at the 1940 Congress Convention about the “joint wealth of Hindu-Muslim ittehad” are confronted with distorting history via school curriculums and calls for violence against Muslim genocide at “Dharam” Sansads.

The tallest figures of the freedom movement from Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru to Maulana Azad and Sardar Patel exhorted Muslims to live as equal citizens. That we will do with dignity and without fear.

The writer is former Member, Planning Commission