Why Muslim India Demanded Separation?
Because there was Nothing common
between the two major communities-Hindus
and the Muslims.
The Muslims of India bore the main brunt of defeat in the 1857 War of Independence. From 1858 up to 1870 nearly all British politicians, authors and administrators unhesitatingly blamed the Muslims for the uprising. The British holding the Muslims mainly responsible for the war, singled them out for repression. They turned on Muslims as their real enemies. The failure of the war proved much more disastrous to Muslims than to the Hindus. All sorts of employment, great and small, were gradually snatched away from them and bestowed on people of other races, particularly the Hindus. In these difficult times, when Muslims in India were sliding into ignorance and retrogression, a towering figure, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, possessing great foresight and courage appeared on the scene. Foreseeing the domination of Western civilization over India, he zealously concentrated on popularizing and organizing Western education among his community. For this he worked hard to reconcile the Muslims to the government as well as to the Hindu community. As a result of his untiring efforts for reconciliation between the British and the Muslims, general opinion against the Muslims being disloyal began to change gradually. He advised his fellow Muslims to seek adjustment with Western ideas and education and took steps to restore mutual trust between the British and the Muslims by simultaneously defending Muslims against the British charges of disloyalty. Syed Ahmad was convinced that the only hope for the advancement of the Muslim community lay in their acquisition of Western learning.
In 1857, the War of independence was fought valiantly with Muslims in the vanguard. As portrayed by Syed Ahmad the following were the causes of the war:
- "The war was the outcome of the frustrations and the accumulated wrongs of decades on the part of the British rulers in whom the people had lost all faith;
- Active patronage given by the rulers to Christian missionaries led to the belief that the government wanted to interfere with people’s religion;
- The rapacity of money-lending classes and the unusually heavy rates of revenue assessments had ruined many families financially and undermined their allegiance to the British;
- The disbandment of the princely armies and dissolution of native durbars gave rise to widespread unemployment;
- Indigenous industries were throttled by the competition of cheap machine made goods imported from Britain;
- Government had kept itself isolated from the people by neither associating them with the administration nor listening to their grievances;
- The Muslims did not join the war out of sheer perversity; they had an understandable case against the government, for the rigours of the administrative system bore harshly upon them;
- The systematic exclusion of Muslims from higher administrative ranks, which they had practically monopolized in the past under successive dynasties had caused great unrest. Sir Syed’s analysis is true but it smacks of a thesis that if the British had been a little more considerate to the Muslims, probably the things could not have taken the shape of a revolt. This is not correct because it was neither a revolt nor a mutiny. It was a War of Independence motivated by the people’s desire to be free and be the masters of their own destiny. Therefore, causes cited by Sir Syed could at best be called the contributory factors and not the fundamental ones".
The continuation of various efforts for uplift of Muslims is known as the Aligarh Movement of which he was the moving spirit. During the lifetime of Sir Syed, the Aligarh Movement passed through the following phases;
- "Healing of the breach between the ruler and ruled by assuring the British of Muslim’s loyalty and the necessary adjustment to and compromises with the new order;
- To bring about the closer understanding between the two, it was considered necessary to awaken the minds of the people to European Literature. Non-communal in outlook, it projected people’s feelings and emotions on topics of current interest".
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