By Aparna Pande
This article appeared in Indolink on May 3, 2007
Modern India owes a colossal debt to someone who is now remembered only through Institutes and Colleges set up in his name. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, a journalist, a poet and one of the leading freedom fighters of the Indian National Movement, deserves much more.
Maulana Azad came from a family of leading ulema (Islamic religious scholars), originally from Herat in Afghanistan, who had settled in India during the Mughal emperor Babar’s reign. He receive a traditional Islamic as well as modern education. A master of several languages he was fluent in Hindi, English, Arabic and Persian.
Azad came to prominence as a journalist critical of the British Raj and espousing Indian nationalism. He founded an Urdu weekly in 1912 called Al-Hilal which criticized the British for racial discrimination and for ignoring the needs of the masses. His aim was to encourage the Indian youth to be nationalist. He advocated Hindu-Muslim unity and firmly opposed communal feelings. The 1914 Press Act led to the banning of Al-Hilal. Maulana Azad’s next journal, Al-Balagh, suffered a similar fate.
Maulana Azad was a nationalist Muslim, extremely critical of the separatist and communalist views of the Muslim League. He was perhaps the only prominent Muslim politician who was close to both the left wing of the Congress portrayed by Pandit Nehru and the revolutionaries like Sri Aurobindo.
Maulana Azad was a leading figure in the Khilafat-Non Cooperation Movement, which was the first anti-British mass movement in India, organized jointly by Muslim and Hindu leaders. It was during this movement in 1919-20 that Azad came into close contact with Mahatma Gandhi. The two leaders remained close for the rest of their lives – both were deeply religious and yet did not try to impose their respective religion on others.
Maulana Azad espoused Gandhi’s views and set an example by wearing home-spun khadi. Supportive of Gandhi’s non-violence, the Maulana was pragmatic enough to treat it as a short-term strategy and not a long –term belief.
Rising up the ranks in the Indian National Congress Azad became the youngest President of the party in 1923 at the age of 35. Azad was also President of the Congress party during the critical years preceding independence, in 1940-45.
Maulana Azad also took an interest in the Muslim community’s educational future. He founded the Jamia Millia Islamia in 1920 along with Dr Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari and Hakim Ajmal Khan. Founded in Aligarh the university was later moved to New Delhi. The objective was to set up an institution of higher learning managed by Indians, with no British support or control.
In response to the ‘two nation theory’ of the Indian Muslim League and the League’s 1940 Lahore Resolution, Maulana Azad in his presidential address at the Congress Annual session said: “…Full eleven centuries have passed by …. 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 their 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, namely Christianity.”
Called a ‘dishonest traitor to Islam’ and a ‘mercenary agent of the Hindus’ by the Muslim League, Maulana Azad’s reply was always “I am a Muslim and profoundly conscious of that fact that I have inherited Islam’s glorious tradition of the last thirteen hundred years. I am not prepared to lose even a small part of that legacy. The history and teachings of Islam, its art and letters, its cultural and civilization are part of my wealth and it is my duty to cherish and guard them… But, with all these feelings, I have another equally deep realization born out of my life’s experience, which is strengthened and not hindered by the Islamic spirit. I am equally proud of the fact that I am an Indian, an essential part of the indivisible unity of Indian nationhood, a vital factor in its total makeup, without which this noble edifice will remain incomplete. I can never give up this sincere claim.”
Maulana Azad served in the Constituent Assembly and helped draft India’s constitution. He was also instrumental in getting the approval of the Muslim representatives in the Assembly to end separate electorates and agree to joint electorates.
As modern India’s first Minister of Education at the national level, Azad helped create and implement national programmes for the construction of schools and colleges. Both Maulana Azad and Pandit Nehru believed in the importance of providing social and economic rights and opportunities for women and the less privileged sections of society. Universal primary education for all was another goal the Maulana supported. The need for an institution to supervise and advance the cause of higher education led Maulana Azad to champion the need for a University Grants Commission.
Many public institutions have been named after him – the Maulana Azad Medical College in New Delhi, the Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology in Bhopal, the Maulana Azad National Urdu University in Hyderabad and the Maulana Azad College in Kolkata.
Internationally there is a Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Center for Indian Culture in Egypt.
India has the second largest Muslim population in the world. Indian Muslims have always considered themselves as Indian as they are Muslim. The leading Indian Muslim leader, Maulana Azad, who was and still is the symbol of this view needs to be remembered more than just in the names of certain institutions and colleges.
At a time when within India there are challenges facing the Muslim community, as mentioned in the Justice Sachar Committee Report among others, there is an urgent need to spread the views and ideas of this Nationalist Indian. Azad might be the best role model for Indian Muslims in an era when ideological subversion from radical movements around the world remains a possibility.