The Muslim’s first, second and third loyalties
Posted by jagoindia on June 24, 2008
Nationalism and sovereignty
By Prafull Goradia, June 29, 2008
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We are afflicted by two movements which are openly against the idea of national sovereignty. The first is Islam whose followers comprise 15 per cent of India’s population. The Muslim’s first, second and third loyalties are to Allah the Merciful, the Holy Prophet and to the ummah or the world community of his religion. In the words of Maulana Mohamed Ali, the Khilafat movement leader, we (Muslims) are not nationalists but super nationalists, and I as a Muslim say that God made man and Devil made the nation. Ali further said, he belonged to two circles of equal size which are not concentric – one is India and the other is the Muslim world (Gandhi by B.R. Nanda, OUP, page 390). The Khilafat maulanas had insisted and Gandhiji had conceded that the Muslim soldiers of the Indian army would not fight in the event India was invaded by a Muslim army. Early in the 20th century, a Russian inspired Afghan invasion across the Hindukush was considered a live threat. Long before its Pakistan resolution, the Muslim League had endorsed this principle that Muslim will not fight Muslim, no matter whose national he may be.
The second great threat to national sovereignty is the communist movement which considers the nation state an instrument of exploitation in the hands of the rich to keep down the poor. The communist manifesto exhorts the workers of the world to unite. The Internationale is the anthem of the movement. While the Left Front rules the three states of Kerala, Tripura and West Bengal, the Maoists are the violent vanguard of Marxism. And they have moved to some 200 or one-third of India’s districts.
The then undivided Communist Party of India had supported the League’s demand for Pakistan. For the rest of India, it had a two-fold prescription. First, to have an undivided Bengal with a Muslim premier; presumably so that Pakistan could have the whole of Bengal to support it rather than a part as it transpired in 1947. Secondly, to recognise 16 nationalities in the rest of India with each of them having the right to secede from the Union a la the Soviet constitution!
How can Ms Albright and her country ensconced between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans expect other countries to allow their sovereignty to be overridden by disasters like Nargis or tsunami?
(The writer can be contacted at 145, Sunder Nagar, New Delhi-110 003.)
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