Muslims in Politics of Colonial Bihar-Libre

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South Asian History and Culture
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Muslim resistance to communal
separatism and colonialism in Bihar:
nationalist politics of the Bihar Muslims
Mohammad Saj j ad
a
a
Cent re of Advanced St udy in Hist ory, Al igarh Musl im Universit y,
Al igarh, Ut t ar Pradesh, India
Publ ished onl ine: 08 Dec 2010.
To cite this article: Mohammad Saj j ad (2010) Musl im resist ance t o communal separat ism and
col onial ism in Bihar: nat ional ist pol it ics of t he Bihar Musl ims, Sout h Asian Hist ory and Cul t ure, 2: 1,
16-36, DOI: 10. 1080/ 19472498. 2011. 531601
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South Asian History and Culture
Vol. 2, No. 1, January 2011, 1636
Muslim resistance to communal separatism and colonialism in
Bihar: nationalist politics of the Bihar Muslims
Mohammad Sajjad*
Centre of Advanced Study in History, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India
This article explores the issue of community and nation-making in a relatively less
explored region of colonial India, Bihar. Although engaging with the existing literature
on the theme, it looks into new sources including those in Urdu. The exploration nds
that considerably large sections of Muslims were rmly and consistently opposed to the
communal separatist politics of the Muslim League in the last days of the empire. Their
adherence was to the principle of composite nationalism (muttahidah qaumiyat) and
was articulated through the Imarat-e-Shariah and the Muslim Independent Party (MIP),
whose essential ideological afliation was with the Congress. This afliation was man-
ifested most clearly during and after the Congress ministry (19371939).
The Muslim Leagues victory in 1946 elections of Bihar was far from inevitable.
The Rajendra Prasad Papers, Urdu sources, besides other archival accounts, how-
ever, clearly suggest that the Congress refused to extend necessary cooperation to those
Muslim leaders/political formations (religious/secular and biradri based, most of them
belonging to the Congress itself) which were opposed to the idea of communal sep-
aratism. Rising assertion of the majoritarian communalism of organizations like the
Hindu Mahasabha/RSS and the considerable communalization of the lower strata of
the Congress was no less signicant factor, which is amply testied by the archival
documents (like intelligence reports and ofcial correspondences) of 1940s.
Keywords: Bihar; Muslim politics; anti-colonial struggle; communalism; majoritarian
nationalism
Introduction
The historiography of Indias partition is conned mainly to three provinces of British
India, namely Punjab, Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. This has had much to do with the (mis)
perception that Partition was a Muslim affair rather than a Muslim League affair. However,
historically speaking, the policies and programmes of the Muslim League alone have not
guided the political behaviour of Indian Muslims. At the same time, the failings of the
Congress in shaping the responses of the Muslims have often been ignored. The role
of organizations like the Hindu Mahasabha has also been explored inadequately. An all-
inclusive study of Partition will, therefore, have to equally undertake explorations at two
levels. First, the role of majoritarian communalism articulated not only through organi-
zations like the Hindu Mahasabha but also manifested by the Congress (notwithstanding
its anti-communal ideological commitments).
1
Second, regarding the political behaviour of
the Muslims, a clear distinction has to be made between the politics of territorial separatism
*Email: sajjad.history@gmail.com
ISSN 1947-2498 print/ISSN 1947-2501 online
2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/19472498.2011.531601
http://www.informaworld.com
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South Asian History and Culture 17
and the demanding of adequate/proportionate representation in the power structure. With
this aim, this article explores the political responses of the Muslims to colonialism and
nationalism in Bihar. It will argue that the Muslim demand for adequate representa-
tion in power structures may have produced instances of communal tension, but was not
necessarily linked to a demand for territorial separatism.
Political evolution of Muslims and their response to colonial modernity in Bihar
There are a number of studies on the politics of Muslim separatism. Of these, Francis
Robinsons essay Islam and Muslim Separatism contends that the Muslims have certain
primordial instincts which direct them towards separatism, that they are an innately sep-
arate political entity and that there are always some symbols in their cultural storehouse
which are used for political mobilization and separatism. This, according to him, was the
reason why even western educated politicians like Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar and
M.A. Jinnah slipped into religious nationalism, demanding a homeland for the ummah.
According to Robinson, even prior to the formation of a Muslim middle class and even
before this class began competing with the Hindus for government employment and other
privileges, elements of separatism existed among the Indian Muslims.
2
Farzana Shaikh, on
the other hand, has argued that the Muslim demand for communal separatist representation
emanated from the Islamic ideology of not accepting to be represented by a non-Muslim, as
well as from a sense of historical superiority, grounded in Mughal values.
3
Among other
scholars, Paul R. Brass relies on the theory of elite manipulation and argues that Muslim
separatism originated as an ideology of the upper class and elite (landlords and lawyer
politicians), who attempted to preserve their social privileges from the Hindus.
4
None of
these scholars therefore take note of the communitys espousal of muttahidah qaumiyat
or mushtarka wataniyat (composite nationalism) and the anti-colonial and collaborative
positions (with the Congress) taken by Deoband, Jamiatul Ulema-e-Hind (JUH), Imarat-
e-Shariah (Patna), Momin Conference, Shia Political Conference, Rayeen Conference,
Mansoori Conference and so on.
Contrary to such formulations as available in the existing scholarship on Muslim pol-
itics, Bihar offers the historian a different perspective. As early as 1836, Shah Kabiruddin
of Sasaram khanqah had appealed to the Governor General of India for providing mod-
ern education in English in the madrasa associated with the khanqah where Hindus and
Muslims both received their primary education.
5
The rst literary society called Anjuman-
e-Islamia was established at Arrah (headquarters of the district of Shahabad) in August
1866. The chief patrons included non-Muslims like Babu Surajmal besides Muslims like
Waris Ali Khan and Khuda Bakhsh Khan. The society was open for both the communities.
6
Syed Imdad Alis Bihar Scientic Society, Muzaffarpur, founded in May 1868, had 500
members including an overwhelming number of Hindus. Its fortnightly journal in Urdu,
Akhbarul-Akhyar, was edited by a Hindu, Babu Ajodhya Prasad Bahar. The society had
many branches and a chain of schools even in the villages of the district of Muzaffarpur and
elsewhere. The network was funded by a number of Hindu zamindars. It later developed
into collegiate school and subsequently, in 1899, it was handed over to Langat Singh of the
Bhumihar Brahman Sabha who developed it to the premier college of modern education in
north Bihar.
7
Similarly, in Patna, Zubdatul Madaris, Bihar Literary Society (1873), Bihar
Association (1871), Bihar Upkar Sabha (1876) were all open to both communities. In
March 1884, Shamsul Ulema Mohammad Hasan founded Mohammadan Anglo Arabic
School. It brought out gazetteers in Urdu and English and had many Hindu students on its
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18 M. Sajjad
rolls. Syed Sharfuddin (18561921) established a darul ulum at Bankipur (Patna) on the
Deoband pattern.
The point can therefore be brought home that the movement for education in Bihar
was one arena where the Muslims did not show a particularist or exclusivist orientation,
and contrary to Brass formulation, the more traditional social segments operated in col-
laboration with others in their goal towards a more modern education. When Hindi in the
Nagri script was introduced as the court language in Bihar in January 1881, both Hindus
(particularly Kayasthas) and Muslims unitedly opposed it.
8
In the Patna College as well
as in other schools, not less than 23% of the total students were Muslims whereas their
total population was only 13%.
9
It was no wonder then that when Sir Syed Ahmad Khan
advised the Muslims to stay away from the Congress to avoid another conict with the
colonial masters after 1857 and to concentrate on modern education, the educated Muslim
elites of Bihar explicitly declared that they would go along with the Congress. The fore-
most voice representing this idea came from Syed Sharfuddin. At the Allahabad session of
the Indian National Congress in 1888, he led the Bihar delegates. Wazir Ali Khan of Gaya
also accompanied him. At the Allahabad session, Sharfuddin declared, I am proud to say
we have here amongst us more than 200 Muslims. I hope that at least in my province of
Bihar the Muslims have the fullest sympathy with the objects of the National Congress.
10
Similarly, a large section of the Ulema was associated with the Congress from the very
beginning.
11
In 1899, Afaq Khan set up Boys Association at Darbhanga to popularize the
Congress programmes in the region. The Bihar Provincial Congress Committee held
its rst meeting at the Sonepur fair, which was chaired by Sarfaraz Hussain Khan, and
of the six delegates, two were Muslims, namely Hasan Imam and Najmul Hoda. Ali
Imam was elected the president of the Bihar Provincial Congress at Patna in 1908.
At the Madras session of the Congress, he spoke on the matter of civil liberties and
demanded repeal of the Deportation Regulation. Maulana Shibli Nomani vehemently crit-
icized the Muslim League whereas Mazharul Haq, Sarfaraz Hussain Khan, Ali Imam,
Hasan Imam and so on brought the Leagues provincial branch nearer the Congress. Due
to the overwhelming presence of nationalist Muslims in the Bihar Provincial Muslim
League, it was kept out of the agitation for the separate electorate.
12
In fact, the Bihar
Congress, during its early phase, was dominated by the Muslims rather than the Hindus.
Most prominent of them were Nawab Sohrab Jung, Syed Wilayat Ali Khan, Syed Fazal
Imam and Wazir during its initial phase. Syed Imdad Imam, Syed Amir Husain (1864
1910), Syed Sulaiman Nadvi (18841953), Khuda Bakhsh Khan (18421908), Syed
Sharfuddin (18561921), Salahuddin Khuda Bakhsh (18751931), Mazharul Haq (1866
1931), S.M. Fakhruddin (18681931), Khwaja Md. Noor (18781936), S. Ali Imam
(18691932), S. Hasan Imam (18711933), Sir Sultan Ahmad (18801963), S.M. Zubair
(18841930), S.M. Umair (18941978), Sha Daudi (18751949), Abdul Qaiyum Ansari
(19051974), Manzoor Aijazi (19131969) and Maghfoor Aijazi (19001967) were other
leading gures.
Here it should be reiterated that Instrumentalist thesis of Paul R. Brass and Anil
Seals explanation regarding the Muslim Breakaway
13
fail to explain the case of Bihar,
where, like Uttar Pradesh, the Muslims were far ahead of the Hindus in education and
jobs. However, unlike the Muslims of Uttar Pradesh, the Muslims of Bihar, by and large,
did not chart an exclusivist or antagonistic course from that of the Hindus, either in estab-
lishing their educational institutions or in taking up a position against colonial rule. At
the same time, in the case of Bihar, we cannot make a rigid distinction between tradi-
tionalists and modernists because the Muslim leaders there maintained a more syncretic
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approach. Signicantly, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Bihar, even the
champions of modern education like Noorul Hoda and Khuda Bakhsh Khan (18421908)
remained concerned about religio-cultural traditions. Hence, they revived the old madrasas
and opened up new ones. In fact regarding education, there was not a great deal of con-
ict between the traditionalists and modernists. Each remained committed to both systems
of education, and this blend of tradition and modernity might possibly have helped check
the growth of separatism. These institutions produced many leaders. Shri Krishna Sahay
(First Indian member of the Governors Executive Council of Bihar), Dr. Sachidanand
Sinha, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Alakh Kumar Sinha, Narayan Babu (First Inspector General
of Police, Bihar) and many other luminaries got their primary education at such Anglo-
Urdu/Persian madrasas.
14
It is also instructive to note here that next only to the Bengalis,
the Muslims in Bihar dominated in public employment and the medical and legal profes-
sions. Consequently, in the movement for the separation of Bihar from the Bengal, the
Muslims were at the forefront.
15
In 1905, when the Swadeshi movement was launched against Curzons partition of
Bengal, the leadership of the movement adopted certain mobilizational symbols and meth-
ods, which alienated the Muslims giving way to the rise and growth of communalism.
Bihar, on the other hand, presented a different picture of HinduMuslim relations. Here,
although there was competition between the educationally advanced Bengalis, who were
Hindus (who dominated the government jobs in Bihar also), and the Muslims, this contest
was not expressed in religio-communitarian, particularist/separatist overtones. The con-
trast with Bengal is striking, where the bhadralok (high-caste Hindus of Bengal), afraid
of losing their hegemony, ensured as much delay as possible in the establishment of the
University of Dhaka. As A.K. Biswas puts it:
even after annulment of partition (of Bengal) in 1911, the high caste Hindus ensured as much
delay as possible in the establishment of the University at Dhaka which was one of the essential
conditions for undoing the partition of Bengal . . . the high priests of nationalism, or swadeshi
were frenzied over the prospect of the loss of their hegemony over the Muslims and the lower
castes in Eastern Bengal. By mixing religion with politics, the upper castes made swadeshi an
exclusively Hindu, that too a religious affair and precluded the participation of the Muslims
and the low castes in the agitation which in any case lacked mass support and base.
16
In Bihar, on the other hand, the positivity in HinduMuslim relations had reached such a
high watermark that at the third session of the Bihar Provincial Congress (Muzaffarpur,
1910), when Deep Narayan Singh, in his presidential address, proposed the extending of
the principle of separate electorate to the Hindus in areas where they were the minority, the
Muslim delegates, who were as much as half of the total delegates, supported this proposal
enthusiastically.
17
The Biharee of 20 May 1910 observed that it was difcult to nd any
other province where such an exemplary collaboration between the political life of Hindus
and Muslims existed and that it was an example worthy of being emulated by the rest of
the country. Simultaneously, it was none other than Mazharul Haq (18661931) and Hasan
Imam (18711933) who opposed the extension of the system of separate electorate to the
Muslims in the local bodies. Mazharul Haq said, I shall sacrice ten thousand principles
and ten thousand separate electorates simply with one object, namely, to bring the two
communities together in order that they may work hand in hand.
18
Freedom ghter, activist and writer, Taqi Raheem is emphatic about the role played by
Mazharul Haq in the Lucknow Pact of 1916.
19
According to him, Haq was most instrumen-
tal in bringing the League out of loyalist politics and close to the Congress. Haq had already
presided over the League session of 1915 in Bombay. Here his presidential address was
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20 M. Sajjad
much more daringly patriotic and anti-colonial than that of any other address of a Congress
session thus far. In this session of the League, the Congress had sent a delegation on a good-
will mission, consisting of Lord Sinha, S.N. Banerji, Madan Mohan Malviya, Annie Besant
and above all Gandhiji. Here, to develop a better understanding between the League and the
Congress and also to work out the constitutional reforms, the League appointed a commit-
tee in which as many as nine people were from Bihar. They were Ali Imam (18691932),
Mazharul Haq, Maulvi Fakhruddin, an advocate (18681931), Nawab Sarfaraz Hussain
Khan, Maulvi Ahmad Hussain, advocate from Muzaffarpur, Maulvi Akhtar Hussain, also
advocate from Muzaffarpur, Syed Mahmud and Barrister Syed Md. Naim of Bhagalpur. It
is intriguing therefore that although the Bihar leadership so successfully arrived at a better
political understanding between the communities in 1916, in the subsequent period, the
region suffered from one of the most consequential communal riots in the history of the
time. This was the Shahabad riots of 1917.
Political unity and social divide: HinduMuslim relations, 19171937
According to Papiya Ghosh,
20
the Shahabad riots very decisively polarized the texture of
Bihar politics. This riot was mainly on the issue of cow slaughter. Ever since the 1880s,
organizations like Gaurakshini Sabha, Sanatan Dharma Sabha, Hindu sabhas and Arya
Samajs had started proliferating in Bihar. After 1908, the Gwala movement also emerged.
21
Since 1893, communal riots also became frequent occurrences. The Shahabad riots, how-
ever, surpassed the intensity of all previous riots. In October 1917, enquiry into the riots
started. Mazharul Haq put together the report of the Bihar Congress and the League,
which dismissed the details of the mosques deled, women raped and in particular of
women throwing themselves into wells to escape rape. Apparently, this was to avert the
accentuation of the crisis and communal tensions.
In the tenth session of the All India Muslim League (1917), Hindu leaders were con-
demned and at its special session, it condemned the Bihar Muslim League for grossly
neglecting the aftermath of the riots. In fact, to avoid any communal polarization, Hasan
Imam (Chairman of the joint meeting of Bihar Provincial Congress Committee, Bihar
Provincial Association and the provincial branch of the Muslim League) had preferred
not to mention the riots and had conned himself on the follow-up details of the Lucknow
Pact and its application to Bihar. In Papiya Ghoshs words, This not surprisingly alienated
the Muslims. Gandhi, then deep into the Champaran Satyagraha, explained his inability
to move to Shahabad . . . His message to the Hindus was that they were to try to stop
the daily wholesale slaughter of cows. . . .
22
Consequently, the Muslim League leaders
came under increasing pressure to break with the Congress. In a series of hugely
attended meetings organized by the Muslims from all classes, the leadership was thor-
oughly rejected by the community, which strongly denounced the politics of Hasan
Imam, Mazharul Haq, Safaraz H. Khan and Jinnah. Simultaneously, the Gaurakshini
movements went on gaining momentum. Communal tension further increased due to
the Shudhi movement in the 1920s and 1930s, particularly after 1923, when the focus
was on converting the Malkana Muslim Rajputs back to Hinduism. Conversions were
mostly in the Shahabad area. At the same time, the issue of the conversion of Hindus
in Malabar and the Multan riots became recurrent issues even in the speeches of
Rajendra Prasad and Shri Krishna Sinha, and Sinha was associated with the Hindu
Mahasabha for several years. Retrospectively, therefore, Syed Mahmud was to say that
after 1923 the Muslims turned increasingly towards intransigent leaders in the face of
the Shudhi movement and the Congress could not be accepted as a secular body as
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it had a tendency to combine communalism in culture with nationalism in politics.
23
The Khilafat Committees inaction over the Shudhi issue added to the resentment among
the Muslims.
24
After the Lucknow Pact (1916), the most important political development was the
Champaran Satyagrah. As early as in 1914, Khan Bahadur Fakhruddin, from the platform
of the Bihar Provincial Conference, had moved a resolution pressing the government to
institute an enquiry into the conictual relation between the European planters and the
ryots of Tirhut, whose grievances, he said, were genuine.
25
It is a lesser known fact of his-
tory that Peer Md. Moonis was one of the most prominent leaders who had organized and
mobilized the peasantry of Champaran. A teacher in the Bettiah Guru Training School, his
service was terminated due to his anti-colonial activities. Moonis was a regular columnist in
the Hindi daily Pratap, Kanpur, and was counted amongst the leading Hindi journalists of
the day. The then S.D.O. of Bettiah, W.H. Louis, called him a connecting link between the
educated class and the ryots.
26
It was none other than Moonis who led the delegation that
met Gandhiji in Lucknow in 1916.
27
Other important Muslim leaders who organized the
peasants were Shaikh Gulab and Adalat Hussain.
28
Hasan Imam gave nancial assistance
to Gandhiji when he came to Champaran.
For the following years, the enthusiastic participation of the Muslims in the Non-
cooperation and Khilafat movements is too well known to be repeated here. However, there
are some signicant developments, which are worth mentioning in the context of Bihar.
The Bihar Provincial Congress Committee ratied the Nagpur resolution of 1920
and appointed several district committees. Sha Daudi for Muzaffarpur, Maulvi Zakaria
Hashmi for Saran and Shah Md. Zubair for Monghyr were appointed to popularize the
Non-cooperation programme in the respective districts. In Arrah, it was Mahfuz Alam.
Government educational institutions were boycotted and the Bihar Vidyapeeth was set
up with Mazharul Haq as the Chancellor. Abdul Bari (18821947), a Socialist leaning
Congressman and a famous leader of workers, joined it as a teacher. Sha Daudi made the
arrangement for the examination of the students. In the National Council of Education for
Bihar, Masher Haq, Sha Daudi, Nazir Ahmad, Qazi Abdul Wadood, Qazi Ahmad Hussain,
S.M. Zubair and Maulvi Wirasat Rasul were included.
Sha Daudi and the Aijazi brothers of Muzaffarpur were extremely successful in form-
ing panchayats to adjudicate the cases of villagers as the courts were boycotted. Daudi
himself had given up a very lucrative practice in the Muzaffarpur court. Due to the remark-
able organizing capacity of Daudi and the Aijazi brothers, the Tirhut Division had become a
danger zone in ofcial circles. Here, the Congress machinery was at its highest efciency.
The volunteer corps organized by Daudi and the Aijazis became a serious concern for
the government. On 30 October 1921, Daudis house at Muzaffarpur was raided by the
police, because it was the headquarters of the Central Board of Control for the National
Volunteer Corps/Sewa Samitis.
29
Yet, the period of 19251928 witnessed a widening
divide between the Hindus and the Muslims. The municipal and the District Board elec-
tions of 19241925, says Kamta Chaubey, left a legacy of bad blood between the two
communities in Bihar.
In these elections, several important Congress Muslims lost, namely Hadi Hussain,
Sha Daudi and others. The former was a candidate for vice president of the Gaya District
Board and the latter was a candidate for chairman of the Muzaffarpur District Board.
Both of them were extremely prominent Congressmen yet they were not voted for by
the Hindu Congressmen. It was all the more distressing because Daudi was defeated by
a European planter Danby, who evidently secured a good number of votes from the Hindu
Congressmen. This breach of trust made Daudi suspicious of Hindus and the Congress.
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22 M. Sajjad
This was the decade when the Arya Samajs Shudhi movement was also very active in
Bihar. Even more telling was the defeat of no less a person than Mazharul Haq in the
elections of the Bihar Legislative Council. Haq, in utter disgust, retired from politics. He
retired at a time when he was needed the most to contain the monster of communalism.
Maulana Azad wrote a letter (dated 20 August 1926), persuading him to accept the presi-
dency of the Congress (for the Guwahati session, 1926) but he did not relent. Nevertheless,
he, along with Daudi, toured the whole of Bihar to work for communal harmony in the
midst of recurrent riots.
30
The Bihar Provincial Conference of 1925 was presided over by
S.M. Zubair and the district conference of Banka was presided by Daudi to popularize
khadi.
31
In many villages like Kapasi, Muslim women were seen engaged in weaving and
spinning,
32
and despite worsening communal relations, no important Congress Muslim
leader took recourse to the doctrine of separatism. Rather, in a special meeting in the
Anjuman Islamia Hall, Patna, on 8 May 1927, they decided for joint electorates rather
than separate electorates. The hall was packed to its capacity, with Ali Imam, Fakhruddin,
Sarfaraz H. Khan, Daudi, Khan Bahadur M. Ismail, Syed Abdul Aziz being the notable
participants.
33
Muslim politics in Bihar, up until at least 1928, says Kamta Chaubey, was liberal, non-
communal and nationalist to the core and opposed to the principle of separate electorates.
It was due to the inuence of a group of committed nationalist leaders from Bihar that
even the Bihar Muslim League remained ideologically close to the Congress. According to
Shashi Shekhar Jha, [A] Notable feature of the Bihar Muslim League was the absence
of communal character . . . perhaps the leadership of Mazharul Haq and other eminent
Muslims as also the natures of political activities were responsible for it.
34
On 20 March
1927, Muslims had a meeting in Delhi where Daudi, S.M. Zubair and other leaders were
present. They had experienced the limitations of separate electorates. Hence, they were
pressing against the separate electorates but simultaneously demanding the reservation of
seats for minorities in the legislature. S.M. Zubair had already emphasized this point in
the provincial conference of the Congress at Purulia in 1926.
35
The Muslims gave up the
demand of separate electorates for which Jinnah and Iyengar also played an instrumental
role. It was a gesture of the Muslims, which according to Taqi Raheem had impressed even
the Hindu Mahasabha leaders like Moonje, Kelkar, Jayakar and Aney, and it was ratied
by the AICC at Bombay in May 1927. It is evident therefore that the ssures created in the
HinduMuslim relationship during the elections of 19241926 had been redeemed to an
extent, thanks to Daudi and Zubair. This went a long way in presenting a formidable united
opposition against the all-white Simon commission.
On 30 January 1928, under Daudis presidentship, a conference was held at the
Anjuman Islamia Hall, Patna, where it was resolved to put a stiff resistance against the
Simon commission. In Muzaffarpurs Jama Masjid, Daudi delivered a stirring speech to
mobilize people against the commission. He himself led a demonstration of students in
Patna.
Nevertheless, the M.L. Nehru Report was seen as unsatisfactory by a section of the
Muslim leadership. They had insisted on demands like a one-third reservation of seats
for Muslims, federation with complete provincial autonomy and creation of Sind province
out of Bombay, which were denied. Sha Daudi and Maulana Sajjad (died 1940) were
most critical of the report. They called a meeting in Patna in December 1928, but it was
to no avail. Shah Muhammad Umair, retrospectively, subjected his party (the Congress)
to severe criticism by saying that in exchange of the joint electorate, conceding one-third
of the seats of the central assembly would not have been a bad bargain. While writing
his autobiography in the Hazaribagh Jail during 19421944, he further commented that
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it particularly unjustied on the part of the Congress to not accommodate the Muslim
Leagues demand, when it had conceded reserved seats to the Harijans after the Poona Pact
(1932).
36
The Congress denial of reserved seats to the Muslims propelled Daudis retirement
from politics, which was indeed a big loss for the Congress as he was one of the greatest
leaders of Bihar. Mazharul Haq had already retired from politics (and subsequently died in
1931). This was a time when the Hindu Mahasabha leaders were increasing their inu-
ence in the Congress, and the share of Muslims in the politics of the Bihar Congress
had started to decline visibly. It was being taken over by the upper-caste Hindus, mostly
Bhumihars and Rajputs. In fact, the rise of the Bhumihars in education, politics and bureau-
cracy is a subject that remains to be fully explored and elaborated. Swami Sahajanand
Saraswati (died 1950) was the rst leader to start organizing the Bhumihars and was
associated with the Bhumihar Brahman Sabha (founded in 1889 at Patna by the Raja of
Benaras, among many others). However, he subsequently gave up addressing caste issues
of the Bhumihars and engaged himself in the politics of peasant radicalism. Later, Sir
Ganesh Dutt Singh (18681943) emerged as their leader, who remained loyal to the Raj,
entered the reformed Legislative Council and occupied inuential portfolios of education
and local self-government.
37
This position helped him distribute patronage to his caste-
brethren. Later, this patronage was extended to the Bhumihars by Shri Krishna Sinha, who
occupied the premiership/chief ministership of Bihar during 19371939 and then during
19461967.
Despite their grudges against the Congress, Muslim leaders like Syed Mahmud (1889
1971), S.M. Zubair and Abdul Bari (died 1947) had remained with the party. Abdul Bari
gained much popularity among the workers in Jamshedpur during the 1920s and 1930s.
S. Mahmud came in to ll the gap created by Daudi and Haq. In 1930, at Lahore, Mahmud
was elected General Secretary of the AICC. The Maulanas Sajjad, Nuruddin Bihari, Usman
Ghani, Abdul Wahab Darbhangwi, Abdul Wadud were active within the Congress and
during the Civil Disobedience Movement. Seeing their popularity and mobilizing capac-
ity, they were put behind the bars. Their anti-League position remained consistent and, in
March 1929, they set up the All India MuslimNationalist Party. By July 1930, its provincial
branch was opened in Bihar with Maulana Sajjad as its president. Overwhelming partic-
ipation of the Muslims (in the Civil Disobedience Movement) in Saran, Champaran and
Muzaffarpur was due mainly to Syed Mahmuds organizational ability, and in Jamshedpur,
Shahabad and Patna it was due to Abdul Bari. In these years, all these districts had a number
of inuential Muslim leaders associated with the Congress.
38
Taqi Raheem says that as the Bihar Muslims, in the hope of ghting colonialism, had
given up the demand for separate electorates, their demand for reservation of one-third
of the total seats in the central assembly for the Muslims (under joint electorate) should
have been conceded as it was done in the case of Harijans with the Poona Pact of 1932.
[It may be noted that the McDonald Award under the scheme of separate electorate had
offered only 72 reserved seats to the Harijans in the central assembly, but after the Gandhi
Ambedkar (Poona) Pact of 1932, as many as 147 seats were reserved for them in exchange
of the Harijans giving up separate electorate.] However, the Congress, under the pressure
of Hindu Mahasabha, failed to accommodate this demand, which added to the Muslims
woes against the Congress. Unfortunately, this was the time when two great leaders in
Bihar, Hasan Imam and Ali Imam, passed away. The situation made it increasingly more
difcult for the nationalist leaders like Syed Mahmud, Abdul Bari and S.M. Umair to keep
the Muslims with the Congress. This was the backdrop against which the elections of 1937
came to be held.
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24 M. Sajjad
Denying share of power to the Muslims, 1937
Many Muslims, though having grievances against the Congress, did not switch over to the
League and instead formed a nationalist party, the Muslim Independent Party (MIP), which
was ideologically akin to the Congress. It was led by Maulana Sajjad of Imarat-e-Shariah,
a legal and spiritual institution that was set up in Phulwari Sharif, Patna, in 1921 for the
implementation of the shariat (Islamic law) and had a formidable mass base even in the
remotest villages.
39
In the 1937 elections, the Congress and the MIP contested elections
with seat adjustments. The MIP won 15 out of 40 reserved seats and the Congress won
5 seats. The League was unable to secure any seats.
Such ideological afnity and electoral adjustment gave rise to an impression in the
public mind that the Congress and MIP would jointly form the government in Bihar.
The Congress, however, reneged on the tacit understanding, giving a rude shock to the
Muslims. The Congress, on the issue of Governors discretion, initially refused to form
the ministry.
40
Accordingly, the MIP, being the second largest party, formed its ministry
(for about 120 days during AprilJuly 1937), though making it clear that it would give way
to a new ministry as soon as the Congress reconsidered its decision. However, there took
place a sort of Hindu backlash against the MIP, whereby, according to Taqi Raheem, even
the Socialists were embittered by the fact of the MIPs formation of the interim ministry.
41
Raheems account indicated the growth of misgivings among the Muslims so far as their
perception of the Hindu political class was concerned.
At about the same time, the Advocate General of Bihar, Sir Sultan (18801963), was
replaced with Baldev Sahay. Sir Sultan had been the only Muslim Advocate General in
India, and his removal proved to be another step in the growing apprehension among the
Muslims. Yet another cause of disaffection was the preference given to Shri Krishna Sinha
(by the Congress) over Syed Mahmud for the Premiership of Bihar.
42
As the share of the
Muslims in the organizing and building of the Bihar Congress had been signicant, they
had expected proportionate share in the power structure. The reluctance of the Congress to
give proportionate power to the Muslims was the major reason for the growth of the Bihar
branch of the Muslim League, which until 1937 was almost non-functional.
In his study, Jawaid Ahmad
43
has named the increased Shudhi campaign of the Arya
Samaj for creating communal tensions in Bihar. According to him:
[T]here was a good prospect of HinduMuslim rapprochement in Bihar. The Bihar Congress
was in a position to curb separatist euphoria and communal instinct by projecting the Congress
Muslims to the forefront of the movement but the Bihar Congress intoxicated with electoral
politics and unwilling to share power with the Muslims, failed to bring the prospect of Hindu
Muslim amity to a reality.
The Congress denial of power-sharing proved fatal. The League could exaggerate and
magnify the grievances of the Muslims. However, contrary to the claims of the apolo-
gists of the Congress, the grievances were not completely unfounded and hence cannot
be ruled out summarily. There may be reasons to look at the Pirpur and Shareef Reports
(these were the enquiry reports of the Muslim League about excesses committed or dis-
crimination perpetrated against Muslims by the Congress ministries during 19371939)
with some doubt as they were made use of by the League as an instrument to alienate
the Muslims away from the Congress, but the one written by the consistently anti-League
Imarat-e-Shariahs Maulana Sajjad cannot be dismissed as baseless. The Jamiatul Ulema-
e-Hind, Imarat-e-Shariah and MIP had started with supporting the Congress, had opposed
the League and had expected to have a share in governance. But in 1939, Sajjad had to reach
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the inevitable conclusion that the Congress was communalist to the core. He wrote a
22-page-long letter to the Congress High Command cataloguing the grievances of the
Muslims against the Congress ministry. This letter was written after the Congress resigned
from the ministry in 1939 and was supposedly meant for the Congress to do a self
examination of its failings and errors.
44
Mushirul Hasan, in his paper on the Muslim Mass Contact Programme of the Congress
ministry (19371939), clearly says, within two years of its launching, the Mass Contacts
Campaign ran into serious trouble not so much due to the Muslim Leagues opposition or
the lack of Muslim support, but because of Congress own reluctance to pursue it with
any vigour or sense of purpose.
45
In the early 1939 it was scrapped, as it was only a
brainchild of Nehru. Most of the inuential Congress leaders remained either opposed
to or unenthusiastic about it. Shah Muhammad Umairs remarks corroborate it: In fact,
right since very beginning, the Congress was considering the existence of the nationalist
Muslims as a dead body (laasha-e-be jaan) . . . and by the time wisdom dawned upon it that
only through this [Muslim Mass Contact] Programme could it strengthen the nationalist
Muslims, all the organs of the Mass Contact had withered away.
46
The Congress right wing came out with the bitter criticism against its Muslim Mass
Contact Programme, with the outcome that Abul Kalam Azads pamphlet, Congress and
Musalmans, could not be distributed on the lame excuse of lack of funds. B.S. Moonje
proposed to Bhai Parmanand and Raja Narendra that all the Hindu Mahasabhites should
join the Congress to counter the effect of Muslim inux into the partys organizational
structure. His indictment of the Congress was also an indication of the Mahasabhite hold on
the district units of the Congress, and Mushirul Hasan concludes: Congress own position
regarding Communal activities of its members remained dangerously vague.
47
Despite such differences, however, a fairly large section of the Muslim leadership
remained committed to the idea of a composite nationalism and consistently opposed to
the League. Syed Mahmud, Abdul Bari, Jameel Mazhari (the famous Urdu poet) and a
host of popular mass leaders were still with the Congress. Jameel Mazhari (died 1982) was
the publicity ofcer of the Congress ministry of Bihar. When it resigned in 1939, Mazhari
also resigned.
48
In November 1940, Maulana Sajjad, the great nationalist leader who had exercised
political and religious inuence on the Muslims, passed away. This weakened the Muslim
politics of composite nationalism at a time when the Leagues separatism was becoming
rapidly strident. At this time, Abdul Qaiyum Ansari had emerged on the political rma-
ment as a promising leader of tremendous popularity. He was the leader of the Momin
Conference.
49
Apart from him, Syed Mahmud, Abdul Bari, Comrade Ali Ashraf, Manzar
Rizvi (leader of the working class in Dalmianagar), Maghfoor Ahmad Aijazi and his elder
brother Manzoor Aijazi (Muzaffarpur) were active leaders. A large number of Muslims
were engaged in the anti-colonial struggles during the Second World War under the inu-
ence of these leaders. Ali Ashraf, Peerzada Syed Shah Sulaiman and Chaudhry Abul
Hasnat of Arrah went to jail for their erce anti-colonial activities.
Majlis-e-Ahrar, Momin Conference, Rayeen Conference, Shia Political Conference,
Mansoori Conference were quite popular among the relevant groups and were vehemently
opposed to the League. It is to be noted that although Abdul Qaiyum Ansari (1905
1974) of the Momin Conference subjected the Muslim League to criticism for being a
party of the upper-caste feudal elites, he never said anything against the Congress which
had the similar class base. On 14 April 1940, Maulana Sajjad refuted the Pakistan res-
olution of the Muslim League.
50
On 19 April 1940, some of the Congressmen observed
Hindustan Day against the Leagues observances of Pakistan Day at several places. In
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26 M. Sajjad
July 1940, at a village of Bhagalpur, a famous journalist of Purnea, Syed Abdullah (of
the All India Azad Muslim Conference), convened a meeting of Muslims opposed to
the League.
51
In that meeting, the League and Jinnah were subjected to most severe criti-
cism. The issues of an English daily of Patna, The Searchlight (3 January30 April 1940),
edited by Murli Manohar Prasad, a Congressman, give reports about frequent meetings of
the Momin Conference, Rayeen Conference, Shia Conference in several districts of Bihar
where they had vehemently opposed the two-nation theory. The Azad Conference meet-
ings, repudiating Jinnah and his two-nation theory, continued in several district towns and
even villages, in the following years, particularly in 1942.
52
It alarmed the Muslim League,
but to counter the anti-League propaganda, there was no leader of required stature in Bihar.
It, therefore, sent K. Nazimuddin from Bengal, who convened a Pakistan Meeting on
29 April 1944 at Jamui, Monghyr. According to an ofcial report, The attempted reor-
ganization of the Muslim League . . . however [was] not making much progress in the
province. The local Shias [were] (however) very critical of the Pakistan Scheme which
they describe(d) as fraud.
53
At the same time, the activities of the RSS were also on the rise in Bihar. On 15 August
1943, Savarkar had told in a conference at Nagpur, the RSS Headquarter, We Hindus are a
nation by ourselves and it is a historical fact that Hindus and Muslims are two nations, and
B.S. Moonje, in the same conference had noted, let our proportion in the army be increased
and every problem will be automatically solved.
54
Earlier on 26 March 1939, Savarkar, in
his address to the eighth session of the Hindu Mahasabha, at Monghyr, had said, Congress
was manned and managed by Hindus who . . . (have), nowfallen in wrong track by complete
adherence to the Muslim vagaries and that Hindustan belonged to Hindus and none other
than the Hindus would rule it. He also referred to Nazi Germany by saying, Mahasabha is
as much national as the National Government in Germany, and lambasted the Congress for
giving meaningless concessions to minorities. He further declared that all branches of the
Bengal Hindu Sabha be instructed to establish gymnasiums in every village to introduce
lathi, dagger play and to hold physical tournaments periodically and promote physical train-
ing among women.
55
In the subsequent session of the Bihar Hindu Sabha, S.P. Mukherji,
in his presidential address, said, one of the tasks of the Hindu Mahasabha will be to build
up a national militia.
56
Intelligence reports
57
warned that the organizational proliferation
of the RSS had gained an alarming pace, intruding into the educational institutions and
recruiting students and teachers, indulging in lathi (stick) drills with use of certain uni-
form and performance of exercises of a military nature, particularly since October 1943.
Its branches were spread across 11 districts lying in the northern half of the province
along the Ganges, besides 30 other mofussil branches. These activities had continued
in deance of the administrative prohibition. Prof. Diwakar, the general secretary of the
provincial wing of the RSS, also visited Monghyr and Sasaram in April 1944 mobilizing
gatherings of the students, with a view to revitalizing local activities.
58
These develop-
ments were felt to be a danger to the law and order which warranted the Government
of India to issue a general instruction to all the provinces, If any Provincial government
considers it necessary in the interest of law and order to proceed openly against RSS, it
should not hesitate to do so. . . .
59
It is also to be noted that although the administrative
measures taken against the RSS were much stringent in the Punjab, Central Provinces,
Ajmer, Marwar, in Bihar no such measures were taken,
60
even though the high ofcers
of the security and intelligence agencies of the government of Bihar were asking to do
so, in view of the fact that many military deserters, dismissed/discharged police person-
nel were joining the private armies of the communal political organizations, most notably
the RSS.
61
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The lower units of the Congress and Hindu Mahasabha/RSS were almost synony-
mous; they identied the League and other Muslim constituencies as synonymous/
interchangeable entities. This overlap of the Mahasabha and the Congress was corrob-
orated by the Hindu Mahasabha itself, when it was declared, the Hindu Mahasabhites
should not look upon the Congress as untouchables and that the Hindus were the mainstay
of the Congress, and if they were weak the Congress would also be weak.
62
This stance of
the lower Congressmen alienated the Muslims, with communal tension and riots looming
large. Growing communal polarization after 1937, rapid rise of the Hindu Mahasbha/RSS
and the Muslim League caused communal riots more frequently in several towns of Bihar,
either on the issue of Mahabiri Jhanda processions or on cow slaughter. In 1940, after
the Lahore Resolution of the Muslim League (which was construed as demanding Indias
partition along HinduMuslim lines) the religious tension was even more palpable.
As a consequence of this communal polarization, hereafter, the Jamiatul Ulema,
Imarat-e-Shariah, Congress Muslims all suffered a denite erosion of their mass base.
However, leaders like Comrade Ali Ashraf had an abiding inuence and the Communists
in general were gaining much popularity among the Muslims. It was this section of the
Muslim leadership which helped in containing the Muslim alienation to a considerable
extent after 1942. Therefore, during the Quit India Movement, fairly large sections of the
Muslims remained with the national movement. Many of the participants are alive and
still live in the same areas.
63
K.K. Datta gives a long list of such Muslim freedom ghters
who had been in the forefront of the movement. The noteworthy point here is that even
when the Muslims were disillusioned with the Congress and even when very few of them
were actually at the forefront of the party, Muslim participation in the activities of the
party remained signicant.
64
Taqi Raheem thus expressed his dismay to see that almost
all Hindu historians and intellectuals, in order to cover up the faults of their leaders, keep
saying that it was the Muslims of Bihar and UP who divided the country and created
Pakistan.
65
The most serious impact on the Congress Muslim support base, however, came dur-
ing and after the elections of 1946. (The elections for the central Assembly were held in
OctoberNovember 1945, and those for the provincial assembly were held in February
March 1946.) In these elections the Congress resorted to every kind of means to defeat
the League, including extending support to pro-British candidates, and creating sectarian
divides among Muslims. At this time, even Maulana Maududi, founder of the Jamaat-e-
Islami (1941), opposed the Leagues demand of Pakistan, even though it was for his own
narrow interests. In other words, when the League went to the elections, it stood by itself.
Yet, it was able to win 34 out of 40 Muslim seats in Bihar. The nationalist Muslim organiza-
tions lost most of the seats in the elections of 1946, largely because of a resources crunch
and less because of the Leagues popularity. According to a contemporary source, The
nationalist Muslim bodies had scarce resources; the Momins and the Jamiatul Ulama were
poor communities.
66
The Muslim leaders of the District Congress Committees had started
demanding that at least Rs. 10,000 had to be allocated for every Muslim seat to win.
67
The nationalist Muslim organizations demanded an assurance from the Congress regard-
ing the appointment of Muslim teachers in primary schools but Rajendra Prasad (who had
important say within the Congress particularly with reference to Bihar) refused to assure
anything except religious freedom. This gesture of the Congress leadership created dif-
ferences amongst the nationalist Muslims affecting the prospects of the Congress in the
elections of 1946. The Congress also refused to come out with a joint manifesto, although
it did form the Nationalist Muslim Board. As a result, the campaign for the election
remained confused and uncoordinated as later confessed by Rajendra Prasad himself.
68
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28 M. Sajjad
Nevertheless, mere electoral victory of the League did not make the idea of Partition
welcome to all Muslims. The Muslims of Bihar continued contesting the League and its
two-nation theory regardless of their disenchantment with the Congress. In Muzaffarpur,
the Aijazi brothers along with others campaigned from house to house on bicycles in 1946
1947. Maghfoor Aijazi had set up the All India Jamhoor Muslim League, in 1940, to
oppose Jinnahs scheme of Pakistan. He had been active, since 1940, to oppose Jinnahs
Pakistan (notwithstanding his disillusionment with the Congress, which he had joined
in 1920 and built it up so assiduously).
69
Maulvi Ahmad Ghafoor and Sayeedul Haq of
Darbhanga, Fazlur Rahman of Patna, Qazi Md. Husain of Gaya, Haz Md. Sani of Bettiah,
Qazi Md. Ilyas of Begusarai, Md. Noor of Purnea and Isa Rizwi of Sheikhpura were still
active in the Congress.
In Siwan, Abdul Ghafoor of the Forward Block (future chief minister of the Congress-
led government in Bihar) and Zawar Husain of AISF (future vice chancellor of Bihar
University, Muzaffarpur) were active and popular mass leaders working for the Congress
candidates. Maulana Shah Mohiuddin, sajjada nashin of Khanqah-e-Mujibiya, Phulwari
Shareef, had great spiritual inuence on the Muslims of Bihar. He had people with him
such as Abdus Samad Rahmani, Usman Ghani and Ahmad Husain who campaigned for
the Congress. However, the greatest help came from Qaiyum Ansaris Momin Conference.
Of the six Muslim seats won by the Congress in 1946, ve were of the Momin Conference
and the sixth (Syed Mahmud) was won largely with the Momin Conferences support.
Among the Socialists, Abul Hayat Chand Kazmi, Ahad Fatmi and Razi Azimabadi put up
an effective resistance to the League. Manzar Rizwi, Ali Ashraf and S. Habeeb Ali Amjad
dominated the Communist Party in Bihar and effectively inuenced public opinion against
the League.
The riots of October 1946 (after the elections, when the Congress had formed its
ministry on 16 April 1946), however, became the turning point in Bihars nationalist
politics.
70
The riots across Bihar broke out after a strike (hartal) in Patna against the
Noakhali riots. On 25 October, Anti-Noakhali Day was observed, at a meeting organized
by Jagat Narayan Lal, the districts leading Congressman. (It should be noted here that
Jagat Narayan Lal was one of the leaders who took the initiative for the Shudhi cam-
paign in the 1920s and was a member of both Hindu Mahasabha and the Congress.) On 26
October, various Muslim villages were attacked, and the rioting spread to other districts.
71
The Raj, the Congress and the League give different estimates of total casualties differing
from 6 to 50,000. There were instances of women jumping into wells to save themselves
from being raped. The sheer size of the violent mobs created panic. Congress workers
while visiting the affected areas in Chapra came across mobs consisting of close to 50,000
people.
72
To add fuel to the re, accounts of the East Bengal happenings from the Calcutta
press were republished in the local press with additional inammatory comments. On
25 October, Anti-Noakhali Day, a Hindu procession consisting of important Congress
leaders paraded through the streets of Gaya holding the portraits of Gandhi and Nehru
and shouting slogans such as Noakhali ka badla le kar rahenge and Hindustan Hinduon
ka nahin kisi ke baap ka (We shall take revenge of the Noakhali killings and Hindustan
belongs only to the Hindus and not to somebody elses father).
73
Taqi Raheem, an eyewit-
ness, also recalls that in the consequent meeting the Congress leaders including K.B. Sahay
and Murli Manohar Prasad (the editor of the pro-Congress/nationalist English daily, The
Searchlight) delivered extremely inammatory speeches and provoked the crowd.
74
Of the riots which started from Chapra on 26 October 1946, one of the most fatal was
that of Biharshareef.
75
For a long time, Biharshareef had been the educational, cultural,
religious and spiritual centre of the Muslims and had given the national movement leaders
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like Maulana Sajjad, Syed Sulaiman Nadvi (18841953) and Dr. A. Rahman. This riot,
therefore, greatly affected the Muslims of Bihar. According to ofcial records, This riot
had convinced them that if power is transferred to the Congress then the Muslims wouldnt
have even the right to assemble and protest for their legitimate democratic rights.
76
The then viceroy Wavell also testied the complicity of the Congress in the riots.
He noted that like Uttar Pradesh, the lower strata of the Congress did the planning of
the outbreaks of the riots and they [the riots] were undoubtedly organized and orga-
nized very thoroughly by supporters of the Congress.
77
This was corroborated when
some Congressmen confessed before Gandhi to having taken part in the riots.
78
On his
part, Jawaharlal Nehru also admitted that some Congressmen with inclinations towards the
Hindu Mahasabha were involved in these riots.
79
Such developments gave much space to
the discourses of the League which alleged that relief works were being obstructed at the
instance of the Congress-led administration. The League attempted to simulate the exo-
dus of the refugees to Bengal and to collect and concoct blackmailing material against the
Bihar Government.
80
The migration continued even after the leader of the Bihar Muslim
League, Abdul Aziz, advised against it. Papiya Ghosh therefore noted:
It is the implications of the disillusionment among Muslim supporters of the Congress that
provide an insight into the visible resolve to migrate from Bihar. . . . For example, when the
Secretary of the Telmar Congress Committee refused to take shelter in the house of the nearby
Khusraupur zamindar household of the Hussains, he was condent that no one would touch
a Congress Muslim.
Not long after, he was killed along with 16 members of his family. The Momins were among the
worst sufferers, in Biharsharif despite the fact that they had been supporters of the Congress.
They alleged that many people high up in the Congress had taken part in the riot.
81
Ghosh therefore argues that During the 1946 riot in particular the abducting Hindu, rein-
forced by the Hindu Raj of the Congress, became a major factor in transforming Pakistan
into an imminent inevitability.
82
After the 1946 riot, the disaffection and alienation of Muslims rendered even the
most inuential and popular nationalist organizations like the Imarat-e-Shariah ineffec-
tive during the last 5 months of colonial rule. They had all along championed the cause of
muttahidah qaumiyat (composite nationalism) in conformity with the Congress, whereas
the Congress had, by that time, come to embrace the two-nation theory. This complete
turnaround by the Congress left the Imarat-e-Shariah in confusion about its course of
action. The assassination of Abdul Bari on 28 March 1947 by a local constable created
further distrust between the Hindus and Muslims. Prof. Abdul Bari was then the president
of the provincial Congress. The clarication that the assassination was accidental and not
communally motivated came much later, that is, after independence.
We therefore see that in Bihar, where the Muslim communities strongly favoured
the idea of composite nationalism and opposed separatism, the two-nation theory had the
support of the communalized lower strata of the Congress, the Hindu Mahasabha and
the Arya Samaj. The Bihar Provincial Muslim League (BPML), on the other hand, though
weak had charted out a course entirely different from that of the All India Muslim League,
to the effect that though they were not opposed to the two-nation theory per se they did
oppose Pakistan. In the face of the riots of 1946, they, in April 1947, demanded an inde-
pendent homeland within Bihar itself. They asked what will happen to the ve million
Muslims of Bihar, who . . . are surrounded by a hostile majority all over the province
83
and stated that their salvation lay only in having a homeland of their own within the
province of Bihar where they could develop socially, politically and economically. The
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30 M. Sajjad
reason for such a demand, given by the BPML General Secretary, Jafar Imam, was that
both the Congress-led administration in Bihar and the common cadres of the Congress
were complicit in the massacre of the Muslims of Bihar in 1946.
84
It therefore becomes quite clear that the tilt towards separatist politics took place largely
because of the communalization in the wake of the 1946 riots rather than due to the ideo-
logical appeal of the Muslim League and the idea of Pakistan. In fact Syed Abdul Aziz, the
leader of Bihar Muslim League, kept persuading the Muslims not to migrate from Bihar.
As for the Congress, its refusal to incorporate the Muslims in the power structure in a
judicious proportion and its lower units being dominated by the Hindu Mahasabhites led
to its alienation of most of the nationalist Muslim leaders. Yet, some like Syed Mahmud
expressed their sense of betrayal many years thereafter. Despite all their grievances none
of them went over to the League. They remained rmly committed to the composite or
united nationalism and kept contesting the two-nation theory till the very end.
85
Shah
Muhammad Umair, the Congress leader, lambasted the Ailaan-e-Pakistan of the Muslim
League (Lahore session, 1940) as khaufnaak aur gustakhana qadam (dreaded and outra-
geous step). Simultaneously, he also bemoaned the Muslim dilemma by recalling an Urdu
couplet:
Khudawanda yeh terey saadaah lauh bandey kidhar jaayen
Ke sultani bhi aiyaari hai darweshi bhi aiyaari.
86
(Oh God where should these simpletons go
When being both master and slave are perdy.)
Conclusion
Bihar offers new challenges to the historians of modern India (dealing particularly with
nationalism, communalism and separatism in Bihar, which still remains a broadly unex-
plored area). Deeper explorations into the dynamics of Bihar politics will surely explode
many a myth dominant in the existing historiography. It is important to understand that
although the meta-narratives of Congress nationalism need to be challenged anyways, there
is also a need to realize that these meta-narratives, which rely on high-own ideas, such
as the Congress socialism and secularism, often had absolutely no meaning at the provin-
cial and local levels. Thus, there existed a vast disparity between the political principles and
rhetoric voiced by the national Congress leadership and the operation of the Congress units
at the district and mofussil level. A study of nationalist politics in Bihar may also help us
understand the assertions of the marginalized social groups/castes/biradris of Muslims,
who had become involved in the processes of democracy during the colonial period. It
may explain why the composition of Muslim leadership of post-Independence Bihar has
been relatively less feudal, almost non-conservative and relatively more connected to the
masses.
87
The Bihar Muslims history of democratic participation ensured the success
of the movement for making Urdu the second ofcial language in independent India. It
created employment avenues in government ofces, which considerably contributed (par-
ticularly since 1980s) to the emergence of a sizeable middle class among Muslims, this
despite the fact that Bihar does fall among the most backward provinces of India in socio-
economic terms.
88
In addition, such explorations may also help us understand the quest of
Muslims for intra-community democratization in Bihar, where the assertion of marginal-
ized social groups/castes/biradris of the Muslims had started during the colonial period.
89
Often referring to their roles in ghting British imperialism as well as in resisting the
Muslim Leagues separatism, various communities of the lower-caste Muslims (Pasmanda
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Biradris) of Bihar (more notably the Momins/Ansaris, Mansooris, Quraishis and Idrisis)
and the popular religious organizations like the Imarat-e-Shariah re-organized and took
recourse to constitutional democratic methods of mobilization and agitation in the post-
colonial India. It helped them gain their own space in the structures of power in Bihar, as
compared to the Muslim communities of the adjacent provinces of Uttar Pradesh and West
Bengal.
90
On account of such mobilizations, 37 out of a total of 41 castes of the Muslims
of Bihar have been enlisted as backward communities and have secured reservations (pos-
itive discrimination/afrmative action) in public employment, and in rural and urban local
bodies, and preferential treatment in the welfare schemes of the government.
Acknowledgements
I am thankful to Prof. Mushirul Hasan (JMI, New Delhi), Dr. Amir Ali (JNU, New Delhi), Kathinka
Sinha Kerkhoff (ADRI, Ranchi), Prof. R.K. Trivedi (AMU, Aligarh), Prof. Ayesha Jalal, Dr. Rizwan
Qaiser and Mr. Naved Masood for their comments and suggestions. Prof. Farhat Hasans suggestions
(particularly to explore Deoband inspired groups/institutions in Bihar) have also been of immense
help. The late Prof. Papiya Ghosh (19532006) had extended all help. Finally, I am grateful to the
two anonymous referees who reviewed the article for SAHC.
Notes
1. For communal orientations of the leaders of the provincial and district units of the UP Congress
see Gould, Congress Radicals and Hindu Militancy and for that of Bengal, see Chatterji,
Bengal Divided.
2. Robinson, Islam and Muslim Separatism: A Historiographical Debate.
3. Shaikh, Community and Consensus in Islam, 235.
4. Brass, Muslim Separatism in United Provinces, 16786.
5. Imam, Role of Muslims in the National Movement, 1920.
6. Jha, Origin and Development of Cultural Institutions in Bihar.
7. Sajjad, Sir Syeds Movement for Modern Education in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, 18197; also see
Sinha, Syed Imdad Ali Khan.
8. The HindiUrdu dispute in colonial Bihar is an under-explored subject; even Christopher R.
King has not delved much into Bihar.
9. Raheem, Tehreek-e-Azadi Mein Bihar ke Musalmanon ka Hissa, 99.
10. Report of the Indian National Congress, 1888, 128, cited in Chaubey, Muslims and Freedom
Movement in India, 11.
11. Imam, Role of Muslims in the National Movement, 27.
12. Sinha, Hindustan Review, 110.
13. This view argues that rather than social cleavages being the determining factor in political
mobilization, it was the activity of elites, who used these cleavages as an instrument for politi-
cal mobilization. Brass, Muslim Separatism in United Provinces; Seal, Emergence of Indian
Nationalism.
14. Sajjad, Resisting British Colonialism and Communal Separatism, 1718; also see Raheem,
Tehreek-e-Azadi, 100.
15. See Chaudhury, Creation of Modern Bihar; Ashraf, The Muslim Elite; Chaubey, Muslims and
Freedom Movement in India.
16. Biswas, Paradox of Anti Partition Agitation and Swadeshi Movement of Bengal 1905, 3857.
17. Chaubey, Muslims and Freedom Movement in India.
18. Ahmad and Jha, Mazharul Haq, 12.
19. Raheem, Tehreek-e-Azadi.
20. Ghosh, Community Questions and Bihar Politics 191723.
21. Gwala, also called Ahir, is a caste falling in the shudra category of the fourfold division of
Hindu society. They are known for living by rearing cattle and milking cows. Inspired by the
Hindu revivalist movement of the Arya Samaj (its founder Dayanand Saraswati vehemently
denied existence of caste hierarchy in the early Vedic age), they organized themselves to
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32 M. Sajjad
demand Kshatriya status and started wearing the sacred thread called janeu. This movement of
the Gwalas, for Kshatriya status, is also known as Janeu Andolan. See Chaudhry and Shrikant,
Bihar Mein Samajik Parivartan Ke Kuch Aayam, 7083; and Jha, Lower Caste Peasants and
Upper Caste Zamindars in Bihar, 5505.
22. Ghosh, Community Questions, 199.
23. Mahmud, HinduMuslim Cultural Accord.
24. Ghosh, Community Questions, 207.
25. Bihar Herald, April 25, 1914.
26. Chaudhry and Shrikant, Bihar Mein Samajik Parivartan Ke Kuch Aayam, 38.
27. Acharya Shivapujan Sahay, Peer Md. Moonis: Vyakti aur Kriti, 79, cited in Chaudhry
and Shrikant, Bihar Mein Samajik Parivartan Ke Kuch Aayam, 38. Also see Shrikant, Peer
Muhammad Munis.
28. Raheem, Tehreek-e-Azadi, 158.
29. Chaubey, Muslims and Freedom Movement in India, 151; Sha Daudi Papers and Maghfur
A. Aijazi Papers, NMML, New Delhi. I am thankful to the Daudi and Aijazi Memorial
Committees of Muzaffarpur for their papers. Also see my essay on Sha Daudi in Jamia Urdu
Quarterly.
31. Desai, Gandhiji in Indian Villages, 23283.
32. Gandhi, Young India, 19241926.
34. Jha, Political Elite in Bihar, 11231.
35. Siddiqi, Maimaar-e-Qaum, Shah Mohammad Zubair.
36. Umair, Talaash-e-Manzil, 915.
37. See Benipuri, Mujhe Yaad Hai. For a brief prole of Ganesh Dutt, see Sinha, Some Eminent
Bihar Contemporaries.
38. Raheem, Tehreek-e-Azadi, 288. Ghosh notes that from the 1920s onwards and particularly
during the Civil Disobedience Movement of early 1930s, the Congress could widen its base
among the Bhumihars, Rajputs and several intermediate and low castes but that the Muslims
in general kept aloof from the movement and in certain places were positively hostile to
Congress mobilization efforts, The Civil Disobedience Movement in Bihar, 1778. Although
not disagreeing with her explanation about the tension between the Muslims and the Congress,
it is difcult to agree that the Muslims in general kept aloof from the Congress in 1930
1934. Her own sources in the very same book and her other essays and other works discussed
here testify that, compared to the adjacent provinces, participation of Bihar Muslims in the
Congress was considerably high. See Sajjad, Bihar Muslims Response to the Two-Nation
Theory, 194047. Also see Raheem, Tehreek-e-Azadi.
39. See Rahmani, Taareekh-e-Imarat and Miftahi, Imarat-e-Shariah: Deeni Jiddo Johad Ka
Raushan Baab. Also see Ghosh, Muttahidah Qaumiyat in Aqalliat Bihar: The Imarat-e-
Shariah, 192147, 120.
40. The Congress insisted that it would form the ministry only after an assurance from the governor
that he would not use his special/discretionary powers. The deadlock in Bihar continued from
April to July 1937; till then the MIP, the second largest party, formed its ministry under Md.
Yunus, making it clear that it would give way to the Congress, once it decided to accept ofce.
The plea of the MIP was that the Act of 1935 itself provided for governors special powers, and
the very fact that the Congress contested elections on the basis of the act was evidence of the
Congress acceptance of the condition (governors special powers). Some Urdu sources indicate
that the MIP wished to form a coalition ministry with the Congress, which was not acceptable
for the latter even in July 1937. See Rehmani, Maulana [Sajjad] aur Majaalis-e-Qanoon Saaz,
13951.
42. Azad, India Wins Freedom, 167.
43. Ahmad, British Experiment of Responsible Government, 237.
44. AICC Papers. No. G-42/1939.
45. Hasan, The Muslim Mass Contact Campaign, 153.
46. Umair, Talaash-e-Manzil, 25.
47. Hasan (ed.), Indias Partition: Process, Strategy and Mobilization, 1539.
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49. See Ansari, CongressMomin Relation.
50. This refutation appeared in Naqeeb, an organ of the Imarat-e-Shariah, with the title, Muslim
India aur Hindu India ki Scheme par ek aham Tabserah on April 14, 1940.
51. The All India Azad (or Independent) Muslim Conference was rst convened in April 1940 by
Maulana Azad and other Congress leaders. In his address to the Conference, Maulana Azad,
the then President of the Congress, put forward proposals for overcoming the constitutional
deadlock and challenged the Muslim Leagues claim to represent the Muslims of India. On 28
April 1940, the conference passed a resolution which included a declaration beginning: India,
with its geographical and political boundaries, is an indivisible whole and as such it is the
common homeland of all citizens, irrespective of race or religion, who are joint owners of its
resources. Mansergh, The Transfer of Power, 293.
52. Ibid.
53. Fortnightly report for the second half of April 1944, File No. 18/4/44-Home Political (I),
National Archives of India (NAI).
54. The Hindu, August 17, 1943.
55. Mathur, Hindu Revivalism and the Indian National Movement, 62.
56. Ibid., 112. For more details on the rapid rise of the Hindu Mahasabha during 19371947, see
Ralhan (ed.), Hindu Mahasabha, vol. 1, 33942, 418, 4317 and vol. 2, 571, 724, 74953.
Also see Wadhwa, Hindu Mahasabha, 192847.
57. File No. 28/3/43-Home Political-(I) NAI; and File No. 18/2/44 Home Political-(I), NAI.
58. Fortnightly report for the second half of April 1944, File No. 18/4/44-Home Political (I),
National Archives of India (NAI).
59. File No. 28/3/44-Home Political, dated 21/04/1944.
60. File No. 28/3/43, Home Political (I), NAI.
61. DIG-CID, Bihar, July 22, 1944, Government of Bihar Pol. (Spl.) File No. 558/44, Bihar State
Archives (BSA).
62. Mathur, Hindu Revivalism and the Indian National Movement, 195.
63. I have interviewed more than a dozen of such people in the villages of Muzaffarpur and the
surrounding districts.
64. See Datta, Freedom Movement in Bihar, 36, 58, 64137.
66. Rajendra Prasad to Sardar Patel, November 7, 1945. Rajendra Prasad Papers No. 7-5/45-6.
67. Abul Nasr Abdul Baes to Rajendra Prasad. Rajendra Prasad Papers No: 7-5/45-6. Also see
Mahajan, Independence and Partition, 215.
68. Mahajan, Independence and Partition, 217.
69. Interview with Asghar Aijazi, son of Maghfoor Aijazi, Muzaffarpur, in December 2000. Also
see my essay on Maghfur Aijazis life in Tahzibul Akhlaq.
70. See Ghosh, The 1946 Riot and the Exodus of Bihari Muslims to Dhaka. For details of the
riots, see Tucker, Indias Partition and Human Debasement, 18094.
71. Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi, 63247. Pyarelal obtained details from various issues of English
dailies like The Searchlight and The Statesman of OctoberNovember 1946. Also see
Damodaran, Broken Promises, Chapter 6, and Ghosh, The 1946 Riot.
72. Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi, 636.
73. CID SB 40/1946 cited by Ghosh, The 1946 Riot. Also see Aajiz, Abhi Sun Lo Mujh Se, 93.
74. Raheem, Tehreek-e-Azadi, 5212, also see Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi, Chapters XXV, XXVI.
75. Damodaran, Broken Promises, 34156.
77. Mansergh, The Transfer of Power, 13940.
79. Nehru to Patel, November 5, 1946, in Gopal (ed.), SWJN (Second series), 64.
81. Ghosh, The 1946 Riot, 282.
82. Ghosh, The Virile and the Chaste in Community and Nation Making, 82, 91.
84. Ghosh, Partitions Biharis, 235. Also see Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi, 6812.
85. Such impressions are also expressed by the Congress leader Shah Mohammad Umair in his
Urdu autobiography Talaash-e-Manzil.
86. Ibid., 26.
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34 M. Sajjad
87. This is in sharp contrast with Uttar Pradesh where the Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu was and
is a private efdom of a particular family . . . [it] is less a pressure group than an extension
of Congress itself or at least the extension of a particular Congress [parliamentarian] MP,
Hayatullah Ansari. See Sonntag, The Political Saliency of Language in Bihar and UP, 6.
Also see Hasan, Quest for Power.
88. For details, see Sajjad, Post Colonial Bihar Muslims.
89. Ghosh, Enumerating for Social Justice. Also see Ghosh, Partitions Biharis.
90. See Sajjad, Post Colonial Bihar Muslims.
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