India, Bharat & Pakistan
The Constitutional Journey of a Sandwiched Civilisation
Author: J Sai Deepak
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Pages: 607 | Price: Rs. 799
Pax Indica which literally translates into peace and prosperity under Indian rule is in the vogue of late. India and Pakistan, two countries born out of the depths of the partition and rooted in the river of trauma, anguish, hope and despair, have forever changed the lives of millions of people in South Asia. The lives of the people inhabiting these two countries have been intersected and shaped by culture, language, customs etc. However, Pakistan as a country is veering towards the abyss. It is in this light, that the engineer turned lawyer J Sai Deepak has written a voluminous book India, Bharat & Pakistan – The Constitutional Journey of a Sandwiched Civilisation. It is the second book of the Bharat Trilogy which begins with the smash hit best-selling book India that is Bharat- Coloniality, Civilisation & Constitution. The first book performs an incisive analysis of decoloniality and the history of European colonisation and its impact on Bharatiya consciousness and civilisation.
The second book delves deep into the theoretical, social and religious underpinnings of the origins of Pakistan. The author in his podcast interview with Smita Prakash of Asian News International has emphatically argued, and rightly so, that Pakistan first existed as an imagination. The author argues in the first chapter titled ‘The Seeds of Pakistan’ that the formation of Pakistan was not one of the events that many historians belonging to the Left political spectrum consider to be an aberration. The author argues that the notion of Pakistan was anchored in the teachings of the controversial Islamic scholar and theologian Shah Waliullah Dehlavi, whose propagation of Wahhabi ideas and objectives in India sowed the seeds of Pakistan. Sai Deepak has also given an exhaustive account of the different schools of ‘Indian’ Wahhabism such as Barelvi, Deobandi, Aligarh movement etc.
The architect of the two-nation theory, according to J Sai Deepak as he writes in his second chapter, is Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, founder of Mohammedan Anglo Oriental College. He argues that the reason behind Khan’s exhortation to his co-religionists to study English is the restoration of Islamic state power in India in the pre-British period in the long run, and, in the short run to keep Hindus out of the power matrix of pre-Independent India.
Sai Deepak has dedicated an entire chapter on the partition of Bengal and its aftermath, highlighting, in the process, the nature of separatist demands which manifested itself in the opposition of Muslim elites to the anti-partition movement of Bengal of 1905. A particular focus of the book has been the Indian Councils Act of 1909 which introduced the devious concept of a separate electorate. This is mentioned in the fifth chapter of the book. The author has highlighted in that chapter how the Muslim League and the British government’s tacit support to this demand contributed ultimately to the crystallisation of the idea of Pakistan and Pakistani identity.
The author has also dedicated three chapters to the Khilafat movement, traversing in the process the Home Rule Movement, First World War and its associated impact. The author argues that support for the Khilafat movement didn’t originate with Mahatma Gandhi’s full backing to it, but the tacit support that the two main proponents of the Home Rule Movement – Annie Besant and Bal Gangadhar Tilak – provided with the aim of bolstering the legitimacy of the cause of the Home Rule Movement.
Sai Deepak asserts in the eighth chapter of the book that the Congress support to the Khilafat movement, especially Mahatma Gandhi’s full backing to the Khilafat movement and his carte blanche to the Ali brothers, Hasrat Mohani was a Himalayan blunder because of the fact that while the Indian National Congress by providing their backing to this movement hoped to cement Hindu-Muslim unity, the Khilafists were exclusively aiming for the restoration of the power of the Ottoman caliph and the restoration of the Jazirat-Ul-Arab i.e. the Islamic holy places under the control of the Ottoman Sultan. They weren’t at all, thinking about the need to cement their Indic identity.
The last chapter of the book is dedicated to riots that took place in Malegaon, Kohat in the North West Frontier Province, Malabar etc.
The book is quite brilliant to say the least, the author has given incisive details into the theoretical underpinnings of the Pakistani identity. Scores of references have been cited in each chapter with the penultimate chapter having over two hundred references. The author has drawn information from the works of Daniel Argov, Qeyamuddin Ahmed, Jadunath Sarkar, Radhakumud Mukherjee, R.C. Majumdar etc. The extensive referencing to each chapter makes it hard to deny the authenticity of facts and figures. The book, however, is quite controversial in nature, this is evident from the fact that the author holds the moderate leaders of the Indian National Congress responsible for perpetuating European coloniality through their passive methods of protest against the British government.
The author has coined a new term ‘Middle Eastern Coloniality’ to highlight the almost eight hundred years of Islamic rule of India and its restoration by people like Syed Ahmed Khan. He has argued that ‘European Coloniality’ and ‘Middle Eastern Coloniality’ found it quite convenient to cooperate and continue their mutual partnership.
Almost half of the book has accounts of the different British parliament, Congress and Muslim League speeches and deliberations of their sessions which makes the flow of reading it a bit difficult and monotonous.
In conclusion, it can be said that, notwithstanding the exhaustive nature of the book, it is unputdownable in nature and is vital to the understanding of how the various layers of colonialism work and how it is imperative that people, especially the youth of this generation must understand the roots and historical background of our arch nemesis neighbour.
–The writer is currently working as a Research Associate at Defence Research and Studies (dras.in) and is a columnist. The views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
–The writer is currently working as a Research Associate at Defence Research and Studies (dras.in) and is a columnist. The views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
