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A History of Mixing: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad

The following is an excerpt from the tail end of the article "India's sawdust Caesar" by A. G. Noorani in Frontline, Volume 32, Number 25, December 12-25, 2015.



Indian nationalism had no more eloquent and erudite advocate than Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. What he said on March 2, 1940, in his presidential address to the Ramgarh Session of the Congress is as relevant now as it was then. It is quoted in extenso: "It was India's historic destiny that many a human race and culture and religion should flow to her, finding a home in her hospitable soil, and that many a caravan should find rest here. Even before the dawn of history these caravans trekked into India and wave after wave of newcomers followed. This vast and fertile land gave welcome to all and took them to her bosom. One of the last of these caravans, following the footsteps of its predecessors, was that of the followers of Islam. This came here and settled here for good. This led to a meeting of the culture-current of two different races. Like the Ganga and Jumna, they flowed for a while through separate courses, but nature's immutable law brought them together and joined them in a 'sangam.' This fusion was a notable event in history. Since then, destiny, in her own hidden way, began to fashion a new India in place of the old. We brought our treasures with us, and India too was full of the riches of her own precious heritage. We gave our wealth to her and she unlocked the doors of her own treasures to us. We gave her, what she needed most, the most precious of gifts from Islam's treasury, the message of democracy and human equality.

"Full eleven centuries have passed by since then. Islam has now as great a claim on the soil of India as Hinduism. If Hinduism has been the religion of the people here for several thousands of years, Islam also has been a religion for a thousand years. Just as a Hindu can say with pride that he is an Indian and follows Hinduism, so also we can say with equal pride that we are Indians and follow Islam. I shall enlarge this orbit still further. The Indian Christian is equally entitled to say with pride that he is an Indian and is following a religion of India, Christianity.

"Eleven hundred years of common history have enriched India with our common achievements. Our languages, our poetry, our literature, our culture, our art, our dress, our manners and customs, the innumerable happenings of our daily life, everything bears the stamp of our joint endeavour. There is indeed no aspect of our life which has escaped this stamp. Our languages were different, but we grew to use a common language; our manners and customs were dissimilar, but they acted and reacted on each other and thus produced a new synthesis. Our old dress may be seen only in ancient pictures of bygone days; no one wears it today. This joint wealth is the heritage of our common nationality and we do not want to leave it and go back to the times when this joint life had not begun.

"If there are Hindus amongst us who desire to bring back the Hindu life of a thousand years age and more, they dream, and such dreams are vain fantasies. So also if there are any Muslims who wish to revive their past civilisation and culture, which they brought a thousand years ago from Iran and Central Asia, they dream also and the sooner they wake up the better. These are unnatural fancies which cannot tke root in the soil of reality. I am one of these who believe that revival may be a necessity in a religion but in social matters it is a denial of progress.

"The thousand years of our joint life has moulded us into a common nationality. This cannot be done artistically. Nature does her fashioning through her hidden processes in the course of centuries. The fact has now been moulded and destiny has set her weal upon it. Whether we like it or not, we have now become an Indian nation, united and indivisible. No fantasy or artificial scheming to separate and divide can break this unity. We must accept the logic of fact and history and engage ourselves in the fashioning of our future destiny."