Swaraj versus Jihad

The freedom movement was a struggle for the subcontinent’s soul WE USED TO think—at least, so we were taught in our textbooks— that behind the two-nation theory was a tussle between communalism and secularism. That was, of course, our internal struggle between Indians themselves. Our external enemy was British colonialism.

But now, let me venture to say, we understand much better. The actual fight of the 20th century, as far as the Indian subcontinent is concerned, was between Swaraj and Jihad.

That is why we need to dive into history or should I say “distory” a bit. We must remember that when it came right down to the wire, or should I say knife’s edge, every Hindu leader, whether right or left or centre, was a proponent of Swaraj. Should I give examples?

Sure: Lokmanya Tilak, Dadabhai Naoroji, Rabindranath Tagore, Annie Besant, Lala Lajpat Rai, Mahatma Gandhi, Sri Aurobindo, and yes, Veer Savarkar, to name only a few.

All of them spoke or wrote about India’s freedom, often quite directly, in terms of the ancient Upanishadic idea of Swaraj, albeit adopted to the modern notion of political autonomy from British imperialism. Motilal Nehru not only formed the Swaraj Party, in conjunction with Chittaranjan Das and others, but also renamed his home “Swaraj Bhavan”. What about Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose? Let us not forget that he named the newspaper he founded in 1922 as Swaraj and renamed the Andamans “Swaraj Dweep” after the INA took control of the archipelago.

Babasaheb Ambedkar? He didn’t use the word but thought that Swaraj for the “untouchables” was not so much from the British but from upper-caste dominance. To that extent he collaborated with the former rather than the latter.

And the Muslims? Yes, it would be unfair to leave out several who accepted Swaraj as an ideal even if they sometimes preferred the Persian-Urdu word “Azadi”. Obvious names like Badruddin Tyabji, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, among several others, readily come to mind. They embraced the vision of composite, rather than religious, nationalism aligned closely with the pluralism and inclusiveness of Swaraj.

How did we fail to understand or recognise this fundamental fight between Swaraj and Jihad? Why did absolutely no one, at least to my knowledge, frame India’s existential struggle in these terms? Instead, why did we repeatedly and to this day define the freedom movement as a battle between nationalism and imperialism?

Now, let’s look at the other side. Yes, it would not be right to tar everyone from Muhammad Iqbal, who first proposed the idea of a separate Muslim state, to Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who brought it to fruition, to our contemporary, the “Failed Marshal” Syed Asim Munir, with the same jihadist brush.

But we must be clear that the idea of a Muslim state in the subcontinent was violent and blood-soaked from the very start. It was underwritten by the idea of Jihad, even if not so-stated explicitly in the beginning. The Moplah massacre during the failed Khilafat movement, Direct Action Day of August 16, 1946, the Partition bloodshed, the invasion of Kashmir in October 1948, right down to the genocide of Bangladeshi Hindus in present times—if these are not instances of the Jihadist mentality, what else? Therefore, with time, it has become amply evident that the two-nation theory is actually both the justification and the demand for Jihad against the Hindus and other “kafirs”.

Yes, the “Jihadist Genie” was out of the bottle a long while back. It is only that we refused to see it or pay attention. What is its playbook? When in trouble, go kill a few Hindus—as in Pahalgam?

Even today, the backbone of Pakistan, our hostile neighbour, is an unbending and inveterate section of the leadership who endorse Jihad.

Going back in time, we also see quite clearly that Jihadis received theological sanction from influential Deobandis and Barelvis. But we must never overlook or ignore the fact that the modern Muslim elite, whether emanating from Aligarh Muslim University or other so-called “secular” institutions, were often wolves in sheep’s clothing Jihadists. The biggest Jihadist ideologue was also the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami, Maulana Abul A’la Maududi. These religio-social-political alliances were ably and amply supported by Islamist movements in different parts of the region.

Many will not like this line of inquiry for it will point not only to global Islamist revival movements, such as Wahhabism, or more recent political variants, such as the Muslim Brotherhood. Islamist radicialism and terrorism can easily be traced to religious, ideological, and political programmes and crusades such as these. That they often did, and continue to, find support in the Islamic scriptures such as the Quran and the Hadith is a matter not of conjecture but historical record.

How did we fail to understand or recognise this fundamental fight between Swaraj and Jihad? Why did absolutely no one, at least to my knowledge, frame India’s existential struggle in these terms? Instead, why did we repeatedly and to this day define the freedom movement as a battle between nationalism and imperialism? Or independence versus colonialism? Even Hindu nationalism versus Muslim communalism?

But never as Swaraj versus Jihad. Why were—and are—we so blindsided?

Except Sita Ram Goel, I cannot think of anyone who even comes close to articulating the struggle for the subcontinent’s soul as a tussle between Swaraj and Jihad. And even he does not use these precise terms.

One obvious reason, which may be traced to the Mahatma, was that no sacrifice was too great for unity. Which, in turn, led us down, especially during successive Congress governments, the slippery slope of bottomless appeasement.

Except Sita Ram Goel, I cannot think of anyone who even comes close to articulating the struggle as a tussle between Swaraj and Jihad. And even he does not use these precise terms. One obvious reason, which may be traced to the Mahatma, was that no sacrifice was too great for unity

But, perhaps, we can return to the deeper causes of why prominent Hindu and secular thinkers overlooked, to modify the metaphor, the Jihadist tiger in the room while repeatedly hailing the Swarajist elephant.

One more aside, however, is necessary. Our hardline communists, mostly Hindu, but also otherwise, possibly thought of Jihad as just another form of revolutionary violence, albeit sanctioned by another theology. The cult of violence creates strange bedfellows, or should I say, blood-brothers?

If you read Savarkar’s Indian War of Independence, it is also filled with war cries and streams of blood.

But for now, the template I have proposed, of Swaraj versus Jihad, can afford us a radically different understanding of the freedom movement, Partition, and the continuing conflict in our region. Certainly, it challenges conventional historiography, whether imperialist, nationalist, leftist, or Hindutvavadi, while grounding itself in the socio-political and religious complexities and conflicts of the Indian subcontinent.

If India’s freedom movement and struggle to create a post-colonial pluralistic and multicultural democratic republic is reimagined as a continuing and long-drawn fight-to-the-finish between Swaraj and Jihad, our future course of action may become clearer, both in terms of sva-bodh (knowing oneself) and shatru-bodh (knowing the enemy).

Hindu-Muslim fault linesIndian freedom strugglejihadLokmanya TilakMaulana Abul Ala Maududinationalismswaraj