20th century in India

"The fact that Pakistan's army managed to fight the Indians to a standstill is amazing, and much credit should be given to the Pakistan air force for its part in countering its much larger Indian opponent and supporting the ground forces. The PAF was 'well-handled and controlled by the C-in-C, Nur Khan. A tremendous sense of purpose was displayed and attacks were carried out with considerable determination... It is also clear there was excellent cooperation between the army and the air force at all levels, in contrast to poor Indian inter-service liaison."

"India fought a second war with Pakistan over Kashmir in 1965, little more than a year after Nehru's death. Pakistan's ruler at the time, Field Marshal Ayub Khan, personally planned Operation Grand Slam, which he hoped would totally cut Kashmir off at its narrow southern neck from India's Punjab. Ayub was a giant of a man, as tall and sturdy as India's Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri was small and physically frail. But India's army was four times larger than Pakistan's, and quickly dispelled the popular Pakistani myth that one Muslim soldier was “worth ten Hindus.” Operation Grand Slam ground to a halt as soon as India's tanks rolled west across the Punjab border to the environs of Lahore. In three weeks the second IndoPak War ended in what appeared to be a draw when the embargo placed by Washington on U.S. ammunition and replacements for both armies forced cessation of conflict before either side won a clear victory. India, however, was in a position to inflict grave damage to, if not capture, Pakistan's capital of the Punjab when the cease-fire was called, and controlled Kashmir's strategic Uri-Poonch bulge, much to Ayub's chagrin."

"Both sides claimed victory in the conflict, with the Indians demonstrating greater tactifcal skill in the use of armour due to superior crew training. It must be realized that the Indian Armoured Corps had been seduced by Pakistani propaganda and entered the conflict in considerable trepidation, believing the Patton (i.e. M-47s and M-48s) to be vastly superior in terms of firepower, protection and mobility to any tank possessed by the Indians. This concern was reflected in many of the official citations for heroism following the war, one of which commended an NCO for an action against "several of the supposedly invulnerable Pattons...". Indeed, it appears the Pakistanis were victims of their own propaganda and believed the Patton to be virtually indestructible. This led to their rash tactics in assaulting Indian positions frontally and suffering proportionately higher losses among the Pattons, which invariably led their attacks. In the swirling dust of the Sialkot battles, Centurion fought Patton at ranges seldom exceeding 1,000 yards. The robust Centruion with its simple fire control system proved superior to the M-47 and M-48 Pattons equipped with stereoscopic range-finders and sophisticated ballistic computers, which proved too complex for the ordinary Pakistani "sowar"."

"Hostilities with Pakistan were to flare up again in 1965 after the Indian government unilaterally announced that Kashmir and Jammu were henceforth to be regarded as similar in status to the other Indian states. This resulted in some fierce, entirely orthodox fighting for local objectives. Apart from skirmishing in the Rann of Kutch (April-May), Pakistan began infiltration backed by artillery across the Kashmir cease-fire line which showed the effectiveness of guerrilla tactic in such terrain, some 10,000 irregulars keeping 50,000 Indian regulars backed by over 200 guns and mortars fully occupied. Hoping that the Indians were sufficiently distracted in this way, on 1 September 1965 the Pakistanis attacked in the lightly-held Chamb sector north of Jammu where there was good tank country, in great armoured strength and with massive artillery support, and were checked by the Indians only after hard fighting. The Indians in turn mounted a limited offensive astride the axis Amritsar-Lahore on 6 September with the aim of drawing the Pakistani tanks away from Chamb and, as it got under way, the larger mission of inflicting decisive casualties on the Pakistani army. Offensive and counter offensive followed for another fortnight and the fighting died down with little territorial advantage, but the score in terms of tanks clearly favouring the Indians who, the Pakistanis began to perceive, were no push-over."

"The struggle between India and Pakistan was another postcolonial rivalry that tested détente. The core source of antagonism was the region of Kashmir, whose division in 1948 was (and still is) contested by Pakistan. Initially, India had sought a neutral Cold War stance, but after the Sino-Indian War in 1962 it had gravitated toward the Soviet Union. Pakistan, a formerly staunch member of the Western bloc, after its 1965 war with India moved closer to China. In both instances, the United States, immersed in Vietnam, had stayed aloof, but the Soviet Union in 1966 had gained the gratitude of both parties for its positive role as a mediator."

"The most important departure from determinism during the Cold War had to do, obviously, with hot wars. Prior to 1945, great powers fought great wars so frequently that they seemed to be permanent features of the international landscape: Lenin even relied on them to provide the mechanism by which capitalism would self-destruct. After 1945, however, wars were limited to those between superpowers and smaller powers, as in Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan, or to wars among smaller powers like the four Israel and its Arab neighbors fought between 1948 and 1973, or the three India-Pakistan wars of 1947-48, 1965, and 1971, or the long, bloody, and indecisive struggle that consumed Iran and Iraq throughout the 1980s."

"“The most superficial scanning of the statements produced in connection with the Indo-Pakistan War of 1965 and the Arab-Israeli War of 1967 provides abundant evidence of the continuing power of the jihad concept in its original drastic and military intent. Fighting the unbeliever is a religious duty of the collectivity and secures religious merit; however ‘secular’ the issues, the simple fact of their involving a confrontation between Muslim and non-Muslim suffices for popular sentiment, and hence for governmental direction, to identify the armed dispute as religious warfare. Denials of this fact by the authorities when they address themselves to a Western audience have no meaning beyond constituting an attempt, inevitable in the present international situation, at making their point in a manner likely to be acceptable to a forum averse to the spirit of the religious crusade and altogether disposed to take for granted the separation between religious sentiment and political action.…"

"Pakistani textbooks are particularly prone to historical narratives manipulated by omission, according to Avril Powell, professor of history at the University of London. History by erasure can have its long-term negative repercussions. An example of this is the manner in which the Indo-Pak War of 1965 is discussed in Pakistani textbooks. In standard narrations of the 65 War manufactured for students and the general public, there is no mention of Operation Gibraltar, even after four decades. In fact, several university level history professors whom I interviewed claimed never to have heard of Operation Gibraltar and the repercussions of that ill-planned military adventurism which resulted in India's attack on Lahore.... Because they were not fully informed about the adventurism of their military leaders, they can only feel betrayed that somehow Pakistani politicians once again "grabbed diplomatic defeat from the jaws of military victory”."

"In 1965, when he was thirteen, Salman became aware of another kind of Islam. This was at the time of the short, inconclusive war with India. “There were songs exhorting mujahids to go to war and promising them paradise, heaven. Mobs of people from the city of Lahore, armed only with clubs, set out to fight the holy war against the infidel Hindu. They had to be turned back. They had been charged up by the mullah. The interesting thing was that the mullah was not leading those people. He was sitting safe in his mosque.”"

"The blood-curdling atrocities committed by the Moplas in Malabar against the Hindus were indescribable. All over Southern India, a wave of horrified feeling had spread among the Hindus of every shade of opinion, which was intensified when certain Khilafat leaders were so misguided as to pass resolutions of " congratulations to the Moplas on the brave fight they were conducting for the sake of religion". Any person could have said that this was too heavy a price for Hindu-Moslem unity. But Mr. Gandhi was so much obsessed by the necessity of establishing Hindu-Moslem unity that he was prepared to make light of the doings of the Moplas and the Khilafats who were congratulating them. He spoke of the Moplas as the " brave God-fearing Moplas who were fighting for what they consider as religion and in a manner which they consider as religious ". Speaking of the Muslim silence over the Mopla atrocities Mr. Gandhi told the Hindus: " The Hindus must have the courage and the faith to feel that they can protect their religion in spite of such fanatical eruptions. A verbal disapproval by the Mussalmans of Mopla madness is no test of Mussalman friendship. The Mussalmans must naturally feel the shame and humiliation of the Mopla conduct about forcible conversions and looting, and they must work away so silently and effectively that such a thing might become impossible even on the part of the most fanatical among them. My belief is that the Hindus as a body have received the Mopla madness with equanimity and that the cultured Mussalmans are sincerely sorry of the Mopla's perversion of the teaching of the Prophet""

"Beginning with the year 1920 there occurred in that year in Malabar what is known as the Mopla Rebellion. It was the result of the agitation carried out by two Muslim organizations, the Khuddam-i-Kaba (servants of the Mecca Shrine) and the Central Khilafat Committee. Agitators actually preached the doctrine that India under the British Government was Dar-ul-Harab and that the Muslims must fight against it and if they could not, they must carry out the alternative principle of Hijrat. The Moplas were suddenly carried off their feet by this agitation. The outbreak was essentially a rebellion against the British Government The aim was to establish the kingdom of Islam by overthrowing the British Government. Knives, swords and spears were secretly manufactured, bands of desperadoes collected for an attack on British authority.... But what baffled most was the treatment accorded by the Moplas to the Hindus of Malabar. The Hindus were visited by a dire fate at the hands of the Moplas. Massacres, forcible conversions, desecration of temples, foul outrages upon women, such as ripping open pregnant women, pillage, arson and destruction— in short, all the accompaniments of brutal and unrestrained barbarism, were perpetrated freely by the Moplas upon the Hindus until such time as troops could be hurried to the task of restoring order through a difficult and extensive tract of the country. This was not a Hindu-Moslem riot. This was just a Bartholomew. The number of Hindus who were killed, wounded or converted, is not known. But the number must have been enormous."

"They murdered and plundered abundantly, and killed or drove away all Hindus who would not apostatize. Somewhere about a lakh of people were driven from their homes with nothing but the clothes they had on, stripped of everything. Malabar has taught us what Islamic rule still means, and we do not want to see another specimen of the Khilafat Raj in India. How sympathy with the Moplahs-is felt by the Muslims outside Malabar has been proved by the defence raised by them for their fellow believers, and by Mr. Gandhi himself, who stated that they had acted as they believed that religion taught them to act. I fear that this is true ; but there is no place in a civilized land for people who drive away out of the country those who refuse to apostatise from their ancestral faiths."

"It would be well if Mr. Gandhi could be taken into Malabar to see with his own eyes the ghastly horrors which have been created by the preaching of himself and his "loved brothers," Mohammed and Shaukat Ali. … Mr. Gandhi asks the Moderates to compel the Government to suspend hostilities, i.e., to let loose the wolves to destroy what lives are left. The sympathy of the Moderates is not, I make bold to say, with the murderers, the looters, the ravishers, who have put into practice the teachings of paralysing the Government of the N.C.O.'s, who have made "war on the Government" in their own way. How does Mr. Gandhi like the Mopla spirit, as shown by one of the prisoners in the Hospital, who was dying from the results of asphyxiation? He asked the surgeon, if he was going to die, and surgeon answered that he feared he would not recover. "Well, I'm glad I killed fourteen infidels," said the Brave, God-fearing Mopla, whom Mr. Gandhi so much admires, who "are fighting for what they consider as religion, and in a manner they consider as religious." Men who consider it "religious" to murder, rape, loot, to kill women and little children, cutting down whole families, have to be put under restraint in any civilised society."

"Mr. Gandhi was shocked when some Parsi ladies had their saris torn on, and very properly, yet the God fearing hooligans had been taught that it was sinful to wear foreign cloth, and doubtless felt they were doing a religious act; can he not feel a little sympathy for thousands of women left with only rage, driven from home, for little children born of the dying mothers on roads in refugee camps ? The misery is beyond description. Girl wives, pretty and sweet, with eyes half blind with weeping, distraught with terror, women who have seen their husbands backed to pieces before their eyes, in the way “Moplas consider as religious”, old women tottering, whose faces become written with anguish and who cry at a gentle touch and a kind look waking out of a stupor of misery only to weep, men who have lost all – hopeless, crushed, desperate. I have walked among thousands of them in the refuge camps, and some times heavy eyes would lift as a cloth was laid gently on the bare shoulder and a faint watery smile of surprise would make the face even more piteous than the stupor. Eyes full of appeal, of agonized despair, of hopeless entreaty, of helpless anguish, thousands of them camp after camp, “Shameful inhumanity proceeding in Malabar “says Mr. Gandhi Shameful inhumanity indeed. Wrought by the Moplas, and where are the victims, saved from extermination by British and India swords. For be it remembered the Moplas began the whole home business; the Government intervened to save their victims and these thousands have been saved. Mr. Gandhi would have hostility suspended – so that the Moplas may sweep down on the refugee camps, and finish their work”. Let me finish within beautiful story told to me. Two Pulayas the lowest of the submerged classes, were captured with others and given the choice between Islam and Death. These, the outcast of Hinduism, the untouchables, so loved the Hinduism which had been so unkind a step-mother to them, that they chose to die Hindus rather than to live Muslim. May the God of both, Muslim and Hindus send his messengers to these heroic souls, and give them rebirth into the faith for which they died.”"

"During the past one hundred years not fewer than 51 outbreaks of Moplahz fanaticism have been recorded. The West Coast Spectator3 of July 6, 1922, prints part of a song which is sung by Moplah braves. It describes in detail the loveliness of the houris (virgins) that wait with caparisoned horses to take straight to heaven all those faithful that die in battle, and it is said that every Moplah on the warpath carried with him a copy of this song. ... The nature of these outbreaks has been well summed up in a decision of the three judges that sat on the Special Tribunal, Calicut, to try some of the principal offenders. They say in part, For the last hundred years at least, the Moplah community has been disgraced from time to time by murderous outrages. In the past these have been due to fanaticism. They generally blazed out in the Ernad Taluk (county), where the Moplahs were ... their untutored minds were particularly susceptible to the inflammatory teachings that Paradise was to be gained by killing Kafirs. They would go out on the warpath, killing Hindus, no matter whom ... no grievance seems to have been necessary to start them on their wild careers.... Their intention was, absurd as it may seem, to subvert the British Government, and substitute a Khalifate Government by force of arms. ... In the rebellion of 1921 it was certainly not agrarian troubles that started them on their mad career. The evidence now clearly shows that the Khalifate and Non-Cooperation agitation must be given credit for having inflamed the minds of the Moplahs with a vain hope of swaraj (self-rule) and eternal bliss.... There are no doubt agrarian difficulties in Malabar as there are serious tenancy difficulties, but from personal observation, I would say that the Hindu coolies of the Mohammedan tenants of the Brahmin and Nair landlords are worse off than their employers. ... [T]he Hindu population fell easy prey to their (i.e., the Molpah) rage and the atrocities committed defy description.... The tale of atrocities committed makes sad reading indeed. A memorial submitted by women of Malabar to Her Excellency the Countess of Reading mentions such crimes as wells filled with mutilated bodies, pregnant women cut to pieces, children torn from mother's arms and killed, husbands and fathers tortured, flayed, and burned alive before the eyes of their wives and daughters; women forcibly carried off and outraged; homes destroyed; temples desecrated ... not less than 100 Hindu temples were destroyed or desecrated; cattle slaughtered in temples and their entrails placed around the necks of the idols in place of garlands of flowers; and wholesale looting. No fiendish act seems to have been too vile for them to perpetrate. ... There were, during the rebellion, many cases of forced conversion from Hinduism to Mohammedanism. There was a double difficulty about restoring these people to their old faith. In the first place there is a severe penalty resting on any Mohammedan that perverts ... and in the second place there is really no door save birth into Hinduism.""

"... With Koran in one hand and the sword in the other these lawless bands marched through rich villages forcing conversion or death on the unwilling Hindu population of the locality. The houses of those Hindus and other non-Muslims have been broken into and properties, valued at several lakhs of rupees, have been looted and carried away. Inmates of houses were tortured. Men, women and children were murdered in cold blood. Age and sex mattered not to then. Hindu temples were destroyed; the images were broken; the temple jewels were carried away. The landed aristocracy of the place were subjected to a most cruel treatment. People in large numbers have been forced to leave off their belongings and flee for life to the town of Calicut where they have now taken refuge. The European community also have suffered much at the hands of the rioters, and it is miraculous that some of them have been able to make good their escape across the troubled area into Calicut. Such is the nature of the tragedy enacted in Malabar."

"You are aware of a Muslim group in Kerala called the Moplahs. The only contribution of these people in the Freedom movement was that, during the Khilafat agitation of 1921, they carried out a brutal massacre of Hindus in Malabar. They plundered thousands of Hindu homes and burnt Hindu villages, they raped Hindu women and destroyed Hindu temples. But you know what? Such of those Moplahs as are still alive are honoured by the Governmnt of India as 'freedom fighters' and given monthly pension on that basis!"

""For some years past, the province of Malabar has been disgraced by a succession of outrages of the most heinous character, perpetrated by the Mappilas on Hindus. Bodies of Mappilas have openly attacked Hindus of wealth and respectability, murdered them under most horrible circumstances, burnt their houses or given them up to pillage, and finally wound up their crimes by throwing away their lives in desperate resistance to the police and military. While on former occasions, the fanatic Mappilas spared women and children, they had in the last outrage put to death men, women, children, even the infants sucking at the breasts of their mothers, guests and servants, in short every human being, found in the house of attack." (p. 636)."

"An open statement made by national leaders of Indian National Congress when the Khilafat movement was in full swing also attracts our attention. “Truth is more important than the amity between Hindus and Muslim s in our Swaraj. Hence to Moulavi sahib with his followers and Mahatma Gandhi we speak. The atrocities committed by Muslim s on Hindus are simply true. For a true follower of nonviolence and noncooperation the actions of Moplah insurgents cannot be approved of. What for they are to be congratulated? For looting the Hindu houses? Or converting forcibly Hindus to Islam? For massacring innocent Hindu men, women and children? For raping Hindu women? For desecrating Hindu temples and destroying them? Was it that those who committed these atrocities were sacrificing their lives for their religion?”"

"We have read the Chapter of crimes committed in Malabar, of the destruction of public and private property, the looting of Government Treasuries and Sub-Treasuries, the defiling of Hindu temples and also of the forcible conversion of Hindus to Islam, with great horror and real grief."

"Shortly after the worst of all riots between Moslems and Hindus, when the Moplah Mohammedans butchered hundreds of unarmed Hindus and offered their prepuces as a covenant to Allah, these same Moslems were stricken with famine; Gandhi collected funds for them from all India, and, with no regard for the best precedents, forwarded every anna, without deduction for "overhead," to the starving enemy."

"On Thulam 11, (Malayalam calendar) afternoon, while I was coming back to my house with my cattle, some Muslim s caught hold of me and Palappuarm Arumukhan. After some time, Konnara Muhammad Koya Thangal came fully armed, handcuffed and took us to Vazhakkat mosque. From there we were shifted to Konnar mosque. It was ten “nazhikas” (two and half nazhikas makes an hour) past evening. There they locked us up along with some other people. It was Muhammad Koya Thangal who had instructed to lock us in a room. They gave only one time food a day. We spent 10 days in that room. Then Muhammad Koya Thangal converted me to their religion and gave me a Muslim cap to wear. When they asked me whether I had the willingness to believe in “Din”, a person was standing wielding a sword next to me. If I said “no” they will kill me. I had seen this with 18 others who said “no” and were hacked to death. Hence I had to agree. Then a Muslim barber came and shaved my head and a Thangal asked us to recite “Kalima”. I was named Abdul Rehman. Then the Thangal gave me a cloth to wear and a Thorthu mundu (a thin bath towel). After some days they took me to Kondotty. On 18th when I was taken for bath under the control of a Muslim sentry, the Moplahs ran away seeing a set of people carrying military goods. I ran away from their custody immediately."

"It was while we were drinking kanji at the house that some Muslim s came. They took away the cattle and yields of ginger and yam. I was also taken away. Since many Muslim s knew me, I was returned unhurt. Variyankunnath Kunjahammad Haji and Chembrasseri Thangal have filled up three wells with dead bodies. They split the middle of women by pulling their legs apart before dumping in the well. Kunjahammad haji and Chemprasseri Thangal together have converted a lot of Hindus."

"I was just 12 years old when the mutiny started but had ceased to be a child by then and was looking after household matters. The mutiny originated at Thirurangadi. The aim of Moplahs was to massacre unarmed and hapless Hindus. At the time of mutiny, army was at Tirur. The place was known as Peril and consisted of Perancheri joint family houses and the residences of some harijans. Some places were bushy forests and others devoid of human residences. Each day we used to hear terrifying news about the mutiny. We were afraid that our life is getting shorter every day and any moment will fall prey to the daggers of the Muslim s. I do not remember the date. But one evening a group of mutineers reached the Puthantheru. (Keraladhiswarapuram) Without any provocation the Moplahs came to the weaver’s lane. They came with raised swords and burning torches shouting “Takbir”. Immediately they started entering houses and creating trouble. Six people including a Chettiyar were hacked to death by the Moplahs. The rioters who came to Puthan theru were some locals and those who came from Nilambur. There was the house of a gold smith by name Velayudhan. The Moplah rioters burned his place to ashes. When they started torching all the houses the Harijans started crying loud. After the atrocities in the weaver’s lane the Moplahs came to this side. People scrambled for life and ran here and there. Afraid of death and with a wish to save lives they wanted to escape to some safe place. But all around it was dark. Finally every one including me hid our selves in a Bushy forest. We saw them at a distance. With a round turban on head and burning torches in hand they were marching, chanting war cries to destroy everything found on the way. They were searching for people in all the houses and threw out everything from there. When they saw the temple of Peril family goddess they became mad with rage and set fire to the temple. I silently wept seeing the temple considered by all of us Hindus as very sacred, being burned to ashes. I recognized some of the insurgent Muslim s in the light spread by indiscriminate torching. Among them locals like Mukkattil Alavi, Koyakkutty, Pari Moideen etc were also there. The hatred they had for Hindus was reflected fully in the cruel deeds they did during the insurgency. After causing wide spread destruction the rioters withdrew with cries of Takbir."

"They also torched the house. Then they looted many houses in the locality and set fire to all of them. Many men were caught and with hands tied to their back, they were skinned (flayed) at the same time. Many were cut with swords several times from top to bottom and quite a few were dumped half living - half dead with partial body cuts, in a well. Two people were killed on the road. An eighty year old man lying sick for the last ten months was also slashed to death from his house. Of 36 killed 33 were dumped into the well. Of them three were Embranthiris. (Brahmin cast) They were priests of temples owned by the king at Thuvvur, Puthur Vettakkorumakan kavu, and Kaikkattiri. They had destroyed the temple and broken the idols. Because of these atrocities my women relatives and children along with other Hindu women and children had to run to the army camp at Pandikkad with nothing except the dress they wore."

"From November onwards the insurgency again started. By 6th people were being openly hacked to death. On 7th night, many families nearby, about 125 people in all, including aged, young, children, women etc- started going to Ariyallur in a group. The fear was about being sighted by Moplahs. The children were crying. At that time the Moplahs evoked more fear than the darkness. Whatever could be carried was on our shoulders. Like that we reached near Panampuzha kadavu. Then we heard sounds from the front screaming “Please do not kill.” I was in the middle of the group. It was known that about 150 Moplahs were attacking from the front. We started running back. By then the Moplahs started attacking from the back also. Without any consideration for old or young, men or women they hacked everyone to death. The wails of those who were half dead were miserable. There were shouts of “Where these sons of bitches are going, slash their heads”. I also got sword cuts on my head, neck and palm. With so many injuries I also ran. I had run over the dead bodies of several men and women. Not less than 100 were dead. Everyone’s ornaments, utensils and money were all looted. Those who were left as living corses writhed with unbearable pain. The road was full of blood. I was almost unconscious while running. I jumped into a river to kill myself. But where I fell, water was shallow. When the cold water drenched my body some confidence came back."

"One morning almost 65 people including women had come to my house. These low cast people who came, complained that their houses were torched and had run away for safety. They also said that the previous night about 43 people were slashed to death. Many houses were looted. This had happened at Thuvvur, a place almost 3 miles from Maranghatt. The temple priest and his brother were killed. The insurgents caught hold of 50 Hindus. Of which they let off 7. The other 43 were hacked to death. The Thuvvur well is notorious. The people were hacked and corpses dumped in a well. Those seven were among those who came running. This was told to me by the same people who saw the carnage. My anxiety increased ten times. I did not know what to do. Different thoughts emerged. Many opined that we should leave the place. But no one knew where to go. This carnage and looting took place on Sunday, 9th of Kanni (Malayalam month). After this we decided to start the next day after lunch. We took the idol of the family Deity and other important records and came to Marattu."

"[They are] brave God-fearing people who were fighting for what they consider as religion, and in a manner which they consider as religious."

"Moplahs as a class have always been poor. Most of them were cultivating lands under the petty landlords called Jenmies, who are almost all Hindus. The oppression of the Jenmies is a matter of notoriety and a long-standing grievance' of the Moplahs that has never been redressed though unsuccessful attempts were made several times to ease the s1tuation by means of legislature. The rebellion has reduced the poverty-stricken Moplah community to still lower depths of destitution. The forcible conversions have placed the community in bad odor with the Hindus in general anti Jenmiesin particular, and the Government has also no love for the people who have not long ago fought pitched battles with it. Hindus have had their vengeance through the military who burnt the Moplah houses and the Mosques wholesale. Thousands of Moplahs have been killed, shot, hanged or imprisoned for life and thousands are now languishing in jail. Of those who are left behind several thousands are paying fines in monthly installments in lieu of imprisonment for two years. These people are always under the thumb of the Police. The few who have escaped death, jail or fine are not in any happier condition. They are frightened out of their wits and are constantly living in terror. Some of the people I talked to in the out-of-way places were trembling with fear m spite of the assurance given to them that I was their friend and the object of my visit was only to help them if I can."

"Soon after, [Mahatma Gandhi] did something much worse; he praised the 'brave' Moplah butchers of Hindus in Malabar for "being true to their religion as they understood it", and denounced the British Government of India for putting down the gangsters. (Moplahs who got killed by the British are now being hailed as freedom fighters!)"

"In 1969, in response to the demands of the Muslim League in Kerala and as a reward for its political support, the United Front ministry of E.M.S. Namboodiripad redrew the boundaries of Kozhikode and Palghat districts so as to carve out the new, predominantly Muslim district of Malappuram. Denounced by its opponents as ‘the illegitimate child of the old Two Nation theory,’ Malappuram—‘Moplastan’ to its critics— combined within a single district those taluks which forty-eight years before, in 1921, had been the scene of the Mappilla rebellion."

"Honoured Editor, I request you to publish the following facts in your paper. According to the Press reports from Malabar which you will have got, Hindu-Muslim Unity in Malabar has thoroughly ceased to exist. It appears that the report that Hindus are forcibly converted (by my men) is entirely untrue. Such conversions were done by the Government Party and Reserve Police men in mufti mingling themselves with the rebels (masquerading as rebels.) Moreover, because some Hindu brethren, aiding the military, handed over to the military innocent (Moplahs) who were hiding themselves from the military, a few Hindus have been put to some trouble. Besides, the Nambudiri, who is the cause of this rising, has also similarly suffered. Now, the chief military commander (of Government) is causing Hindus to evacuate from these Taluks. Innocent women and children of Islam, who have done nothing and possess nothing, are not permitted to leave the place. The Hindus are compulsorily impressed for military service. Therefore, several Hindus seek protection in my Hill. Several Moplahs, too, have sought my protection. For the last one month and a half, except for the seizure and punishment of the innocent, no purpose has been achieved. Let all the people in the world know this. Let Mahatma Gandhi and Moulana know it. If this letter is not seen published, I will ask your explanation at one time."

"But their most terrible outbreak, mainly due to the Khilafat agitation, took place in August, 1921, and is described in the official report as follows : “During the early months of 1921, excitement spread speedily from mosque to mosque, from village to village. The violent speeches of the Ali Brothers, the early approach of Swaraj as foretold in the non-co-operating press, the July resolutions of the Khilafat Conference — all these combined to fire the train. Throughout July and August innumerable Khilafat meetings were held, in which the resolutions of the Karachi Conference were fervently endorsed. Knives, swords, and spears were secretly manufactured, bands of desperados collected, and preparations were made to proclaim the coming of the kingdom of Islam. On August 20, when the District Magistrate of Calicut, with the help of troops and police, attempted to arrest certain leaders who were in possession of arms at Tirurangadi, a severe encounter took place, which was the signal for immediate rebellion throughout the whole locality. Roads were blocked, telegraph lines cut, and the railway destroyed in a number of places. The District Magistrate returned to Calicut to prevent the spread of trouble northwards, and the machinery of Government was temporarily reduced to a number of isolated offices and police stations which were attacked by the rebels in detail. Such Europeans as did not succeed in escaping — and they were fortunately few — were murdered with bestial savagery. As soon as the administration had been paralysed, the Moplahs declared that Swaraj was established. A certain Ali Musaliar was proclaimed Raja, Khilafat flags were flown, and Ernad and Walluvanad were declared Khilafat kingdoms. The main brunt of Moplah ferocity was borne, not by Government, but the luckless Hindus who constituted the majority of the population . Massacres, forcible conversions, desecration of temples, foul outrages upon women, pillage, arson and destruction — in short, all the accompaniments of brutal and unrestrained barbarism, — were perpetrated freely until such time as troops could be hurried to the task of restoring order throughout a difficult and extensive tract of country. “As the rebellion had spread over a wide area, the troops available in the Malabar District were unable to cope with the situation, and strong reinforcements had to be sent; and by the middle of October these amounted to four battalions, one pack battery, a section of armoured cars, and other necessary ancillary services. As the rebels took to the hills, it was some time before they could be caught in appreciable numbers. By the end of the year 1921 the situation was well in hand, and the back of the rebellion was broken. An idea of the fierceness of some of the fighting may be gained from the night attack at Pandikad, on which occasion a company of Gurkhas was rushed at dawn by a horde of fanatics who inflicted some 60 casualties on the Gurkhas and were only beaten off after losing some 250 killed. Throughout the campaign casualties among the Government troops totalled 43 killed and 126 wounded; while the Moplahs lost over 3,000 in killed alone. A great tragedy marked the end of the rebellion. On Novemebr 19, 1921, a batch of seventy Moplah prisoners was being conveyed by train, but through the neglect of the guards there was no arrangement for ventilation in the closed coach in which they were put, and all of them died by asphyxiation. ”"

"If you read the poem called “Duravastha” composed by the great poet Kumarasan who was a contemporary and who personally witnessed these sad incidents you will get a true picture of the Muslim revolt called “Moplah rebellion”. In the introduction to the poem, Kumarasan states like this: “Moplah rebellion which originated in the southern Malayalam district, in 1097 Chingam, (Malayalam month of Aug-Sept) has written a blood stained chapter in the history of Kerala. That typhoon, which shook not only Kerala but the whole of India in one way or other due to the ferocious and satanic cruelties inflicted (on a section of people) defeating all faculties of contemplation is now luckily almost extinct. It is true that the Hindu society which has escaped and come out of the mouth of this rebellion, tasting the coarseness of its tongue and sharpness of its canine teeth and jaws, and imbibed with poisonous fangs, are representatives of an ancient culture………”"

"“Is it that the evil Muslim s dare assault the weak and forlorn women belonging to the royal status?”.. “Let those who saw remain silent, those who only heard, let them talk” is an old Malayalam humorous saying. Many historians posing as intellectuals are doing exactly this. Their stand is that what was witnessed by Sri. Kumaranasan is not the truth and the Moplah rebellion was really a progressive revolution. Immediately after the Muslim s started onslaughts against Hindus, the Indian National Congress withdrew itself from the Khilafat movement and the Congress Working Committee passed a resolution condemning the atrocities. According to the statistics released by Aryasamaj, tens of thousands of Hindus have been forcibly converted to Islam during the time."

"The first considerable religious riot in India under British rule was the so-called Mopla rebellion of 1921 which occurred in Malabar as an offshoot of the Khilafat Movement. The Moplas burst into unprecedented violence against the British, following upon the Khilafat Committee’s call for the same addressed to the believing population of Malabar. As it turned out, most of the casualties in this jihãd were Hindus rather than the British. Hundreds of Hindu women jumped into wells to save their honour, others being ravished and slaughtered with absolute indifference by blood-thirsty mujãhids. Hundreds of corpses of Hindu women as well as children were recovered from the wells after the end of the riots. The call for this jihãd had been pronounced by the Ali Brothers, Hasrat Mohani, and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. Mahatma Gandhi himself acknowledged these atrocities as part of Islam’s holy war. He referred to the mujãhids as “God-fearing Moplas” and said: “They were fighting for what they consider as religion and in a manner which they consider as religious.” Needless to say, such manner of fighting for such a cause is the essence of an Islamic jihãd. It should be mentioned that leaders like Azad gave the call for jihãd against the British rather than the Hindus, but it is not known how they intended to confine the war against a single class of infidels."

"There is no doubt regarding the genesis of the rebellion in 1921. It was born out of police repression. Its chief cause was the excessive violence used by the authorities to suppress the Khilafat Movement, and not any Jenmi-Kudiyan conflict, or dispute regarding the mosque. When police atrocities became unbearable, they gave up the vow of non-violence, and decided to meet the violence (by the British police) with violence itself."

"One certain element is a desperate religious fanaticism . . . India broods the horror of the cold-blooded massacres by the Moplahs, still daily showing how Hindus fare in the hands of fanatical Mohammedans. The public, obscurely but rightly, connect the holocaust of Hindu lives and property with Khilafat preachers and realize that the rule even of the arrogant British is better than no rule."

"A statement signed by the Secretary and the Treasurer of the Kerala Provincial Congress Committee, Secretary, Calicut District Congress Committee, Secretary, Ernad Khilafat Committee, and K. V. Gopala Menon refers to the following misdeeds of the Moplahs : “Their wanton and unprovoked attack on the Hindus ; the all but wholesale looting of their houses in Ernad and parts of Valluvanad, Ponnani, and Calicut taluqs ; the forcible conversion of Hindus in a few places in the beginning of the rebellion, and the wholesale conversion of those who stuck to their homes in later stages ; the brutal murder of inoffensive Hindus, men, women, and children, in cold blood, jvithout the slightest reason except that they are affirs or belong to the same race as the policemen, who insulted their Tangals or entered their mosques ; the desecration and burning of Hindu temples ; the outrage on Hindu women and their forcible conversion and marriage by Moplahs‘The signatories add : “These and similar atrocities (were) proved beyond the shadow of a doubt by the statements recorded by us from the actual sufferers who have survived“."

"The communal Mappila outrage of 1921 in Malabar could be easily traced to the forcible mass conversion and related Islamic atrocities of Tipu Sultan during his cruel military regime from 1783 to 1792. It is doubtful whether the Hindus of Kerala had ever suffered so much devastation and atrocities since the reclamation of Kerala by the mythological Lord Parasurama in a previous Era. Many thousands of Hindus were forcibly converted into Muhammadan faith."

"For sheer brutality on woman, I do not remember anything in history to match the Malabar rebellion."

"Sankaran Nair points out that ‘in addition to those mentioned in these articles two other forms of torture were credibly reported as having been resorted to in the case of men, namely, skinning alive, and making them dig their own graves before their slaughter."

"Calicut, Sept. 7 — In my first article I dealt with the prime causes of the present outbreak, the dangerous game played by the leaders of the Khilafat and Non-Co-operation movements in Malabar which set the whole of Ernad and Walluvanad ablaze, and the extent of plunders, murders and forcible conversions committed by the Mopla rebels. In this article I intend to confine myself to the nature of the atrocities committed by them and other details. The experiences I am about to relate will satisfy every Hindu endowed with ordinary common sense that the Moplas resorted to most repugnant fanaticism, which may be ascribed to nothing but selfishness, love of money and love of power, which are the prominent features of the present outbreak. Refugees narrate that, after forcibly removing young and fair Nair and other high caste girls from their parents and husbands, the Mopla rebels stripped them of their clothing and made them march in their presence naked, and finally they committed rape upon them. In certain instances, devoid of human feelings and blinded by animal passion, the Moplas are alleged to have utilised a single woman for the gratification of the carnal pleasures of a dozen or more men. The rebels also seem to have captured beautiful Hindu women, forcibly converted them, pierced holes in their ears in the typical Mopla fashion, dressed them as Mopla women and utilised them as their temporary partners in life. Hindu women were threatened, molested and compelled to run half-naked for shelter to forests abounding in wild animals. Respectable Hindu gentlemen were forcibly converted and the circumcision ceremony performed with the help of certain Musaliars and Thangals. Hindu houses were looted and set fire to, will not all these atrocities remain as a shameful image of the Hindu Muslim ‘unity’, of which we have heard much from the Non-Co-operation Party and Khilafat-wallahs? The ghastly spectacle of a number of Hindu damsels being forced to march naked in the midst of a number of licentious Moplas cannot be forgotten by any self respecting Hindu, nor can it be erased from their minds. On the other hand, I have never heard of the modesty of a Mopla woman being outraged by a Mopla rebel. [Emphasis added]"

"Wilful murders of Hindus and arson were first begun in my own place by Chembrasseri Thangal and his Lieutenant, another Thangal. You might have read accounts written by me in the Malabar journal which was sent to you last time. This contagion began to spread like wild fire and we began to hear of murders daily. Within a fortnight cold-blooded murders of Hindus became very common. From within the borders of Calicut and Ernad taluks refugees come in large numbers with tales of murders and atrocities committed by the rebels. At Puthur Amson in Ernad only 12 miles northeast of Calicut—One day in broad daylight twenty-five persons who refused to embrace Islam were butchered and put into a well. One out of these who narrowly escaped death got out of the well when the rebels left the place and ran to Calicut for life. He is now in the hospital. So the accounts must be true as he himself was one of the victims. During the last week news of numerous murders and forcible conversions came from another quarter also, Mannur near Aniyallur and Kadalundi railway station in Ernad taluk. This place also is only 14 miles away from Calicut. Every train to Calicut was carrying with it daily hundreds of refugees during the last week. If there were ten thousand refugees fed by the Relief Committee last week, it must have fed fifteen thousand this week. According to the statements given by them there must be at least fifty murders and numerous cases of conversions and house-burning. Can you conceive of a more ghastly and inhuman crime than the murders of babies and pregnant women? Two days back I had occasion to read a report given by a refugee in Calicut. A pregnant woman carrying 7 months was cut through the abdomen by a rebel and she was seen lying dead on the way with the dead child projecting out of the womb. How horrible! Another: a baby of six months was snatched away from the breast of his own mother and cut into two pieces. How heart-rending! Are these rebels human beings or monsters? From the same quarters numerous forcible conversions are also reported. One refugee has given statement that he had seen with his own eyes that the heads of a dozen people were being shaved by the rebels and afterwards they were asked to recite some passages from the Quran. This he witnessed from a tree. I wonder what is the authority of some people who contradict the news of murders, and forcible conversions of Hindus. Let them come here and test the veracity of these statements for themselves. Yesterday another report of murders came from a place very near Kottakal. The report says that eleven Hindus (males and females), were murdered by the rebels. A fortnight ago fifteen dead bodies of Hindus were seen under culvert on the road between Perinialmanna and Melatur. Will you not be sick of these stories of murders? All these reports are, as far as possible, proved also to be correct. Words fail to express my feelings of indignation and abhorrence which I experienced when I came to know of an instance of rape, committed by the rebels under Chembrasseri Thangal. A respectable Nayar Lady at Melatur was stripped naked by the rebels in the presence of her husband and brothers, who were made to stand close by with their hands tied behind. When they shut their eyes in abhorrence they were compelled at the point of sword to open their eyes and witness the rape committed by the brute in their presence. I loathe even to write of such a mean action. I thank God that my family and relatives reached safe at Calicut without being dishonoured by these brutes, though we sustained serious loss of property and the loss of four lives (two servants and two relatives— More afterwards). This instance of rape was communicated to me by one of her brothers confidentially. There are several instances of such mean atrocities which are not revealed by people."

"Truth is infinitely of more paramount importance than Hindu–Muslim unity or Swaraj, and therefore, we tell the Maulana Sahib and his co- religionists and India’s revered leader Mahatma Gandhi—if he too is unaware of the events here—that atrocities committed by the Moplahs on the Hindus are unfortunately too true and that there is nothing in the deeds of Moplah rebels which a true non-violent non-co-operator can congratulate them for. What is it for which they deserve congratulation? Their wanton and unprovoked attack on the Hindus, the all but wholesale looting at their houses in Ernad, and parts of Valluvanad, Ponnani, and Calicut Taliques; the forcible conversion of Hindus in a few places in the beginning of the rebellion and the wholesale conversion of those who stick to their homes in its later stages, the brutal murder of inoffensive Hindus, men, women, and children in cold blood, without the slightest reason except that they are ‘Kaffirs’ or belong to the same race as the Policemen, who insulted their Tangals or entered their Mosques, the desecration and burning of Hindu Temples, the outrage on Hindu women and their forcible conversion and marriage by Moplahs; do these and similar atrocities proved beyond the shadow of a doubt by the statements recorded by us from the actual sufferers who have survived, deserve any congratulation? On the other hand should they not call forth the strongest condemnation from all right- minded men and more especially from a representative body of Mohamedans like the Khilafat Conference pledged to non-violence under all provocation? Did the Moplahs, who committed such atrocities, sacrifice their lives in the cause of their religion?"

"Gentlemen, I have just stated it as a necessary condition of the Hindu– Muslim compromise that the third party, the English, should not be allowed to step in between us. Otherwise, all our affairs will fall into disorder. Its best example is before you in the shape of the Mopla incident. You are probably aware that Hindu India has an open and direct complaint against the Moplas, and an indirect complaint against all of us, that the Moplas are plundering and spoiling their innocent Hindu neighbours; but possibly you are not aware that the Moplas justify their action on the ground that, at such a critical juncture, when they are engaged in a war against the English, their neighbours not only do not help them or observe neutrality, but aid and assist the English in every possible way. They can, no doubt, contend that, while they are fighting a defensive war for the sake of their religion and have left their homes, property and belongings, and taken refuge in hills and jungles, it is unfair to characterize as plunder their commandeering of money, provisions and other necessaries for their troops from the English or their supporters. Both are right in their complaints; but so far as my investigation goes, the cause of this mutual recrimination can be traced to the interference of the third party. It happens thus: whenever any English detachment suddenly appears in a locality and kills or captures the Mopla inhabitants of the place, rumour somehow spreads in the neighbourhood that the Hindu inhabitants of the place had invited the English army for their protection, with the result that after the departure of the English troops, the neighbouring Moplas do not hesitate to retaliate, and consider the money and other belongings of the Hindus as lawful spoils of war taken from those who have aided and abetted the enemy. Where no such events have occurred, the Moplas and Hindus even now live peacefully side by side; Moplas do not commit any excesses against the Hindus, while the Hindus do not hesitate in helping the Moplas to the best of their ability."

"Maulana Mohani justifies the looting of Hindus by Moplahs as lawful by way of commandeering in a war between the latter and the Government or as a matter of necessity when the Moplahs were forced to live in jungles. Maulana perhaps does not know that in the majority of cases, the almost wholesale looting of Hindu houses in portions of Ernad, Valluvanad and Ponani Taluques was perpetrated on the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd of August before the military had arrived in the affected area to arrest or fight the rebels even before Martial law had been declared. The Moplahs had not betaken themselves to jungles at the time as Moulana supposes nor had the Hindus as a class done anything to them to deserve their hostility. The out-break commenced on the 20th of August, the police and the District Magistrate withdrew from Tirunangadi to Calicut on the 21st and the policemen throughout the affected area had taken to their heels. There was no adversary to the Moplahs at the time whom the Hindus could possibly have helped or invited, and the attack on them was most wanton and unprovoked."

"Condemning the denial of the atrocities committed by the Moplahs on the Hindus and Christians of Malabar, the following resolution was passed in February 1922 at a conference organised by the Zamorin of Calicut: VI. That the conference views with indignation and sorrow the attempts made in various quarters by interested parties to ignore or minimise the crimes committed by the rebels such as (a) Brutally dishonouring women; (b) Flaying people alive; (c) Wholesale slaughter of men, women and children; (d) Burning alive entire families; (e) Forcibly converting people in thousands and slaying those who refused to get converted; (f) Throwing half dead people into wells and leaving the victims for hours to struggle for escape till finally released from their sufferings by death; (g) Burning a great many and looting practically all Hindu and Christian houses in the disturbed area in which even Moplah women and children took part, and robbing women of even the garments on their bodies, in short reducing the whole non-Muslim population to abject destitution; (h) Cruelly insulting the religious sentiments of the Hindus by desecrating and destroying numerous temples in the disturbed area, killing cows within the temple precincts—putting their entrails on the holy image and hanging the skulls on the walls and roofs."

"It is impossible to believe that Gandhi and his adherents are not aware that this claim of the Mahomedans to be judged only by the law of the Koran, is a claim which is the fons et origo of all Khilafat claims of whatever kind. It is as well to be clear about this, for not only does the acceptance of the claim mean the death knell of the British Empire or Indo-British commonwealth, whatever name we may care to give to the great fraternity of nations to which we belong, but specifically as regards India it means a real denial of Swaraj. For it involves Mahomedan rule and Hindu subjection or Hindu Rule and Mahomedan subjection. Let there be no mistake about this, no camouflage. Whatever the Hindus may mean by the Hindu Muslim entente, and I believe they mean a true equality, and whatever the more enlightened Mussalmans may mean, Mohamad Ali, Shaukat Ali, and those of their persuasion, mean a Mussalman dominion pure and simple, though they are of course clever enough to keep the cat in the bag so long as the time for its emergence is yet unripe. They protest, it need hardly be said, that they are animated by no arriere pensee, no sectarian spirit, only by the most loving goodwill towards the Hindu brethren. But there are some of us who are too experienced to be caught by this mischievous and pernicious chaff and must sound the warning to those less experienced and more gullible. Considering the high character of some of the men who follow Gandhi, I can only believe that this realization came to them so late that it was difficult for them to withdraw. As pointed out in the Karachi trial, these movements at first appear innocuous, then grow dangerous."

"On the 24th April, the day before the hearing of these cases, a meeting was again called at night at which a leading Mahomedan is reported to have used the following words:— ‘They must not be afraid of Government or of the police and that the volunteers would see about the cases brought against them and may God give the volunteers strength to promote their religion.’ The next day April 25th twelve of these cases came on for hearing before Mr. Thakar the resident magistrate. They ended in the conviction of the 6 volunteers and their being fined Rs. 50 each with the alternative of 4 weeks’ simple imprisonment. The fines were not paid. On the result being known the mob that had collected gave vent to their feelings by loud cries of ‘Alla-ho-akbar,’ the war cry used by the mob throughout the riot, assaulted all the police to be found in the town of Malegoan, burned a temple, killed the sub-inspector of police, not the only one killed and threw his body into the fire and looted the houses of all who were opposed to the Khilafat movement, the owners themselves having fled in the meantime. This illustrates the ‘non-violent’ methods followed by the Khilafat committees and volunteers. I give another instance in full for illustration Barabanki (App. XI) which shows perhaps more forcibly the violent fanaticism supporting the movement. More instances can be easily given."

".. This attempt to make searches and arrests under legal warrants in due conformity with the law has been a signal for an outburst of fanaticism throughout Ernad, Walluvanad and Ponnani directed first against European Officials and Non-officials and latterly against Hindu Jenmis and others. Public Offices have been looted everywhere, Manas (Namboodri residence) and Kovilagams pillaged, Hindus murdered or forcibly converted, and the line cut to an extent, regarding which there is no information."

"The storm had burst with a vengeance. Civil administration came to a standstill: the sub-treasuries in the rebellion area were looted and lakhs of rupees carried away: public buildings and records were burnt: Munsiffs, Magistrates, and Police Officers had to seek refuge elsewhere: Police Officials were overwhelmed by rebel hordes and had to surrender their arms: Hindu Village Officials had left their villages: and, eventually, the train traffic stopped for a week between Shoranur and Calicut. Murders, dacoities, forced conversions and outrages on Hindu women became the order of the day. Hindu refugees in thousands poured into Calicut, Palghat, the Cochin State and other places wending their weary way over hills and through jungles for safety from the lust and savagery of the Moplahs."

"With the capture of Ali Musaliar on 31st August ends the first act of the drama. During these ten days, 20th to 31st, Hindu Malabar lay helpless at the feet of the Mopla rebels: it was a tale of woe to every Hindu family: it was destruction of every public building and of every temple: it was murder of Europeans, whenever possible and sufficient Government forces were not available until the 28th to cope with the situation. The one bright light was the Pookotur battle, the effect of which was the salvation of the Ernad Hindus. It had been arranged that on 26th August, Friday, after the Jama prayer, all the Hindus in Manjeri and the neighbouring villages should be brought into the Mosques and converted to the Moslem faith: caps, dresses, and jackets were all ready for distribution among the converts, but the idea of wholesale conversion had to be given up at the time, in consequence of the Pookotur Battle."

"Another Tangal who acquired notoriety was Chembrasseri Imbichi Koya Tangal. He held his court about midway between Tuvoor and Karuvarakundu on the slope of a bare hillock with about 4,000 followers from the neighbouring villages. More than 40 Hindus were taken to the Tangal with their hands tied behind their back, charged with the crime of helping the Military by supplying them with milk, tender cocoanuts etc., and 38 of these Hindus were condemned to death. He superintended the work of murder in person and seated on a rock near a well witnessed his men cutting at the neck of his victims and pushing the bodies into the well. Thirty-eight men were murdered, one of whom a pensioned Head Constable to whom he owed a grudge had his head neatly divided into two halves. The Tangal surrendered at Melattur, was tried by court martial and ordered to be shot. He was shot accordingly on 20th January 1922."

"More than 40 Hindus were taken to the Tangal with their hands tied behind their back, charged with the crime of helping the Military with supplying them milk, tender coconuts etc. and 38 of these Hindus were condemned to death. He superintended the work of murder in person and seated on a rock near a well witnessed his men cutting at the neck of his victims and pushing the bodies into the well. Thirty-eight men were murdered, one of whom a pensioned head constable to whom he owed a grudge had his head neatly divided into two halves.17"

"Of the wells and tanks filled up with the mutilated, but often half-dead bodies of our nearest and dearest ones who refused to abandon the faith of our Fathers; of pregnant women cut to pieces and left on the roadside and in the jungles, with the unborn babe protruding from the mangled corpse; of our innocent and helpless children torn from our arms, and done to death before our eyes, and of our husbands and fathers tortured, flayed and burnt alive; of our helpless sisters forcibly carried away in the midst of kith and kin and subjected to every shame and outrage which the vile and brutal imagination of these inhuman hell hounds could conceive of; of the thousands of our homesteads reduced to cinder-mounds out of sheer savagery and a wonton spirit of destruction; of our places of worship desecrated and destroyed; of the images of the deity shamefully insulted by putting the entrails of cows where flower garlands used to lie, or else smashed to pieces …18"

"Your Ladyship is doubtless aware that though our unhappy district has witnessed many Moplah outbreaks in the course of the last one hundred years, the present rebellion is unexampled in its magnitude as well as unprecedented in its ferocity. But it is possible that your Ladyship is not fully appraised of all the horrors and atrocities perpetrated by the fiendish rebels; of the many wells and tanks filled up with the mutilated, but often only half dead bodies of our nearest and dearest ones who refused to abandon the faith of our fathers; of pregnant women cut to pieces and left on the roadsides and in the jungles, with the unborn babe protruding from the mangled corpse; of our innocent and helpless children torn from our arms and done to death before our eyes and of our husbands and fathers tortured, flayed and burnt alive; of our hapless sisters forcibly carried away from the midst of kith and kin and subjected to every shame and outrage which the vile and brutal imagination of these inhuman hell-hounds could conceive of; of thousands of our homesteads reduced to cinder-mounds out of sheer savagery and a wanton spirit of destruction; of our places of worship desecrated and destroyed and of the images of the deity shamefully insulted by putting the entrails of slaughtered cows where flower garlands used to lie, or else smashed to pieces; of the wholesale looting of hard earned wealth of generations reducing many who were formerly rich and prosperous to publicly beg for a piece or two in the streets of Calicut, to buy salt or chilly or betel-leaf—rice being mercifully provided by the various relief agencies. These are not fables."

"The wells full of rotting skeletons, the ruins which once were our dear homes, the heaps of stones which once were our places of worship—these are still here to attest to the truth. The cries of our murdered children in their death agonies are still ringing in our ears and will continue to haunt our memory till death brings us peace. We remember how driven out of our native hamlets we wandered starving and naked in the jungles and forests; we remember how we choked and stifled our babies' cries lest the sound should betray our hiding places to our relentless pursuers. We still vividly realise the moral and spiritual agony that thousand of us passed through when we were forcibly converted into the faith professed by these blood thirsty miscreants; we still have before us the sight of the unendurable and life long misery of those—fortunately few—of our most unhappy sisters who born and brought up in respectable families have been forcibly converted and then married to convict coolies. For five long months not a day has passed without its dread tale of horror to unfold. We have briefly referred without going into their harrowing details to our heartrending tale of dishonour, outrage, rapine, and desolation. But if the past has been one of pain and anguish, the future is full of dread and gloom. We have to return to a ruined and desolated land. Our houses have been burnt or destroyed; may of our breadwinners killed; all our property looted; our cattle slaughtered.... We are now asked to settle down as paupers in the midst of the execrable fiends who robbed, insulted and murdered our loved ones—veritable demons such as hell itself could not let loose. Many of us shrink from the idea of going back to what there is left of our homes; for though the armed bands and rebels have been dispersed the rebellion cannot be said to be entirely quelled. It is like a venomous serpent whose spine has been partly broken, but whose poison fangs are still intact and whose striking power, if diminished, has not been destroyed... Many refugees who went back have paid for their temerity with their lives. We, Your Ladyship's humble and sorrow-stricken memorialists do not seek vengeance..."

"Muslims first settled on India’s southwestern shore a century or so after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. For nearly eight hundred years they traded peacefully. Then, in 1498, the Portuguese arrived, and these Muslims, Mappilas as they were known, became the first to experience what all South Asian Muslims were eventually to suffer: the fate of being caught between the hammer of European pressure and the anvil of Hindu society. The Mappilas responded by developing a tradition of holy war and martyrdom. The tradition is enshrined in an epic work, the Gift to the Holy Warriors in Respect to Some Deeds of the Portuguese; it is celebrated in the body of Mappila literature, nine-tenths of which is devoted to martial songs; it has been manifest in outbreaks of religious violence—there were thirty-two, for instance, between 1836 and 1919, in which 319 Mappilas were killed, and the process reached its climax in the rebellion of 1921-22, in which, according to the Mappilas, up to 10,000 lives were lost."

"I have given the subject every attention and am convinced that though the instances (of Mappila outrages) may and do arise out of individual hardships to tenants (Mappila and Hindu), the general character of the dealings of Hindu landlords towards their tenants whether Mappila or Hindu, is mild, equitable and forebearing' ... "it is no sin, but a merit to kill a Hindu Janmi who evicts" ... "Since land is with the Hindus and the money with the Mappilas, to get the land, the Mappilas encouraged (or resorted to) fanaticism" ... "And finally the result was that there was steady movement whereby in all Mappila tracts, the land was passing slowly but surely to the possession of the Mappilas""

"Sankaran Nair points out to several other tortures like skinning Hindus alive and making them dig their own graves before their slaughter. The Congress leaders disbelieved the stories from Malabar initially and Gandhi himself spoke of the ‘brave God-fearing Moplahs’ whom he described as patriots who were ‘fighting for what they consider as religion, and in a manner which they consider as religious’. He went on to add: ‘Hindus must find the causes of Moplah fanaticism. They will find that they are not without blame. They have hitherto not cared for the Moplah. It is no use now becoming angry with the Moplahs or Mussalmans in general.’ Ironically, his allies, the Khilafatists, passed resolutions congratulating the Moplahs for their heroism."

"The first warning was sounded when the question of condemning the Moplas for their atrocities on Hindus came up in the Subjects Committee. The original resolution condemned the Moplas wholesale for the killing of Hindus and burning of Hindu homes and the forcible conversion to Islam. The Hindu members themselves proposed amendments till it was reduced to condemning only certain individuals who had been guilty of the above crimes. But some of the Moslem leaders could not bear this even. Maulana Fakir and other Maulanas, of course, opposed the resolution and there was no wonder. But I was surprised, an out-and-out Nationalist like Maulana Hasrat Mohani opposed the resolution on the ground that the Mopla country no longer remained Dar-ul-Aman but became Dar-ul-Harab and they suspected the Hindus of collusion with the British enemies of the Moplas. Therefore, the Moplas were right in presenting the Quran or sword to the Hindus. And if the Hindus became Mussalmans to save themselves from death, it was a voluntary change of faith and not forcible conversion—Well, even the harmless resolution condemning some of the Moplas was not unanimously passed but had to be accepted by a majority of votes only. There were other indications also, showing that the Mussalmans considered the Congress to be existing on their sufferance and if there was the least attempt to ignore their idiosyncracies the superficial unity would be scrapped asunder."

"Dr. Munje said in another part of his report that, eight hundred years ago, the Hindu king of Malabar (now Kerala) on the advice of his Brahmin ministers, made big favor to the Arab Muslim to settle in his kingdom. Even he appeased the Arab Muslims by converting the Hindus to Islam to an extent to making law for compulsory conversion of a member of each Hindu fisherman family in to Islam. Those, whose nature is to practice idiocy rather than common sense, never can enjoy freedom even if they are in the throne. They turn the hour of action in to a night of merriment. That’s why they are always struck by the ghost at the middle of the day.”.... “The king of Malabar once gave away his throne to idiocy. That idiocy is still ruling Malabar from a Hindu throne. That’s why the Hindus are still being beaten and saying that God is there, turning the faces towards the sky. Throughout India we allowed idiocy to rule and surrender ourselves to it. That kingdom of idiocy – the fatal lack of commonsense – was continuously invaded by the Pathans, sometimes by the Mughols and sometimes by the British. From outside we can only see the torture done by them, but they are only the tools of torture, not really the cause. The real reason of the torture is our lack of common sense and our idiocy, which is responsible for our sufferings. So we have to fight this idiocy that divided the Hindus and imposed slavery on us……..If we only think about the torture we will not find any solution. But if we can get rid of our idiocy, the tyrants will surrender to us.”"

"“I had gone to Malabar immediately after the Malabar Moplah rebellion ended. I saw with my own eyes, 40 lakh Hindus living in abject fear of 10 lakh Muslims."

"In August 1921, exactly a year after the start of Non-Cooperation, time for which Gandhi had promised results, the Moplah Muslim community of Kerala installed its own version of home-rule, viz. Khilafat rule. A Khilafat kingdom was declared under one Ali Musaliar. It took the British several months to suppress this rebellion, and meanwhile pogroms were conducted against the local Hindus, involving murder, rape and forcible conversion to Islam... We may add, at this point, a more recent comment (1993) on the Moplah Rebellion and its political digestion by Gandhi’s Congress, by a Hindu historian. In his book Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism, Shrikant G. Talageri insists that ‘Halfway through, the Khilafat agitation was converted into a jihad against Hindus. (…) If the Khilafat agitation was ghastly and horrifying, the secularist response to it was a hundred times more ghastly and horrifying. (…) The Congress suppressed all reports about the atrocities perpetrated by the Moplahs against the Hindus, and Congress leaders condemned the British authorities for taking measures to quell the rioters.’ Further, he insists that ‘the Mahatma went out of his way to refer to the Moplah murderers as “my brave Moplahs”, and expressed admiration for their religious fervour. After 1947, Moplah rioters were classified as freedom fighters and made eligible for pensions paid by the Government of Independent India. And every year, to this very day, the Khilafat Movement is commemorated by a massive procession in Bombay, in which many Leftists and secularists participate along with Muslims.’"

"The rebels . . . captured beautiful Hindu women, forcibly converted them, pierced holes in their ears in the typical Mopla fashion, dressed them as Mopla women and utilized them as their temporary partners of life. Hindu women were threatened, molested and compelled to run half-naked for shelter to forests abounding in wild animals. Respectable Hindu gentlemen were forcibly converted and the circumcision ceremony performed with the help of certain Musliars and Thangals."

"It would perhaps interest Honourable Members if I were to preface my remarks with a brief reference as to the origin and cause of this rising in Malabar. The fact is that these Moplahs are an ignorant people, many of them poor and nearly all of them fanatical and entirely under the influence—as I learn from the information before me—of a bigoted priesthood. As I think all Honourable Members know they are descendants of Arab traders and soldiers who first came to the Malabar coast some time, I think, about 800 AD, and we are told that they later established themselves by intermarriage and conversion, or perversion, whichever term appeals to different Honourable Members of this Council, of the local residents to Muhammadanism. There have been many outbreaks of these people who now number about a million in the past, indeed during a period of about 20 years—between 1836 and 1853, there were 22 outbreaks, but the biggest one about which I have any information occurred in 1885 after which 20,000 arms including 9,000 guns were collected from the insurgents."

"Stanley Wolpert describes these riots briefly in his book A New History of India, “In Malabar, Muslim Moplahs declared a jihad (holy war) in August 1921, ostensibly in order to establish a new khilafat of their own, killing Europeans and wealthy Hindus wherever they found them and forcibly converting Hindu peasants and laborers to Islam”"

"Congress is known for stifling democracy. It did so in 1975 while imposing an Emergency on the country. And you may have witnessed today, for its own agenda, Congress has arrested one of the biggest journalists of India and assaulted the fourth pillar of democracy."

"This is precisely what happened in India, in June 1975, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi brought democracy under an eclipse by bringing India under Emergency Rule. Nineteen months later, the eclipse disappeared as the result of a glorious struggle launched by the people of India against the Congress party’s authoritarianism. If the Emergency was the darkest period in India’s post-Independence history, the righteous struggle for the restoration of democracy was undoubtedly the brightest. It so happened that I, along with tens of thousands of my countrymen, was both a victim of Emergency and a soldier in the Army of Democracy that won the battle against it."

"You were merely asked to bend, but you chose to crawl."

"Emergency was declared. Sanjay Gandhi took over. He created an army of morally corrupt, foreign-educated intellectuals with no track record. Their biggest strength was their unconditional loyalty to the Gandhi family. This tradition has continued. Loyalty over merit. Scheming over competence. Loot over contribution. Corruption grew. Guilt grew. Fear grew. With every scam, the family started making the intellectual wall bigger and bigger. Today this wall is full of scammers, crooks, agents, brokers, pimps, lobbyists, character assassins, land sharks etc. disguised as lawyers, journalists, NGOs, feminists, advisors, professors, socialists etc. Simply put, beneficiaries of Congress’s largesse."

"The Indian and Western elite did not regard any of Nehru’s successors as ‘thinking’ leaders. Indira Gandhi tried hard to win over India’s intellectual elite, but the Emergency broke a nascent link. When men like P.N. Haksar and P.N. Dhar were hounded out of her inner circle, India’s intellectuals deserted her. Rajiv Gandhi was never taken seriously by this elite. Narasimha Rao may have been a scholar in his own right, but he was an ‘outsider’ to India’s metropolitan elite. In Andhra Pradesh, among the Telugu-speaking elite he was known as an ashtavadhani, a literary master. But Delhi’s elite tended to conflate his intellectual achievements with the fact that he was fluent in many languages. Vajpayee too was a highly regarded poet. Indeed, Rao and Vajpayee enjoyed the company of intellectuals and could count many professors among their friends. But in the snobbish world of the metropolitan elite, an Oxbridge type like Dr Singh was regarded as a class apart from these home-grown politician-intellectuals."

"Freedom became one of the beacon lights of my life and it has remained so ever since. Freedom with the passing of years transcended the mere freedom of my country and embraced freedom of man everywhere and from every sort of trammel—above all, it meant freedom of the human personality, freedom of the mind, freedom of the spirit. This freedom has become the passion of my life and I shall not see it compromised for bread, for security, for prosperity, for the glory of the state or for anything else."

"The question before us is not whether Indira Gandhi should continue to be prime minister or not. The point is whether democracy in this country is to survive or not. The democratic structure stands on three pillars, namely a strong opposition, independent judiciary and free press. Emergency has destroyed all these essentials."

"The Emergency that followed in June 1975 was by no means an ad hoc idea accepted for meeting an abrupt situation. The idea of imposing an authoritarian regime on the country had been maturing for a long time in the minds of the communist mafia that Pandit Nehru had promoted. The situation, too, was being shaped in the same direction by the self-righteousness and consequent high-handedness which accompanied the idea. The seeds sown by Pandit Nehru were bearing fruits. All those who stood up against Mrs. Indira Gandhi's guiles and greed were denounced as agents of the CIA. The "progressive" flock was one again in the forefront of the "fight against forces of fascism". And by the time Mrs. Indira Gandhi realized what was happening, much mischief had been done."

"In his book My Eleven Years with Fakhruddin Ahmad, Mr. Fazle Ahmed Rehmany quotes an incident which throws interesting light on the psychology of secularism and its need to keep Muslims in isolation and in a sort of protective custody. During the Emergency period some followers of the Jamaat-e-Islami found themselves in the same jail as the members of the RSS; here they began to discover that the latter were no monsters as described by the 'nationalist' and secularist propaganda. Therefore they began to think better of the Hindus. This alarmed the secularists and the interested Maulvis. Some Maulvis belonging to the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i-Hind met President.. Fakhruddin Ahmad, and reported to him about the growing rapport between the members of the two communities. This 'stunned' the President and he said that this boded an 'ominous' future for Congress Muslim leaders and he promised that he would speak to Indiraji about this dangerous development and ensure that Muslims remain Muslims."

"During the Emergency, many socialists were left untouched by Indira, while the RSS was made to bear the brunt of the repression. But when the Janata government was formed, the same socialists, who had come to power on the blood and sweat of the RSS workers, demanded that the RSS members of the government choose between their seat and their RSS membership. There was no come out in their defense, no front or committee of intellectuals of expose the utter dishonesty and absurdity of the whole dual membership issue. Everybody thinking was moulded by the Left, and had no affinity or sympathy with RSS thought. Everybody felt some allegiance to socialism and would not go against a socialist demand. And in shame the RSS people were sent into the wilderness."

"“… I came under obvious suspicion within days of my arrival in the country (India)… After arranging meetings by telephone, odd characters would turn up to observe who I was seeing each morning, others would be waiting in red settees in the entrance of the Delphi Hotel. People I spoke to openly would be later stopped and questioned. At least twice my hotel room was broken into and searched…” Sweeney further recounted: “When I complained of the continued harassment by Government agents and asked Mr Haksar (A N D Hakasar was the chief government spokesperson) to explain why it had been necessary to organise breakings to my hotel rooms, he replied that unless I left the country, as soon as possible, there would be a ‘further prospect of physical inconvenience’.”"

"“The shock troops of the movement [against the Emergency] largely come from Jana Sangh and its ideological affiliate, the RSS, which claim a combined membership of 10 million (of whom 80,000, including 6000 full-time party workers, are in prison).”"

"“…Pro-CPI (Communist Party of India) journals in India are being given some latitude by the censors because the party is in favour of even stronger measures to suppress the non-communist opposition.”"

"“The underground campaign against Mrs Gandhi claims to be the only non-left wing revolutionary force in the world, disavowing both bloodshed and class struggle. Indeed, it might even be called right wing since it is dominated by the Hindu communalist party, Jan Sangh and its ‘cultural’ (some say paramilitary) affiliate the RSS. But its platform at the moment has only one non-ideological plank; to bring democracy back to India. The ground troops of this operation (the underground movement), consist of tens of thousands of cadres who are organized to the village level into four men cells. Most of them are RSS regulars, though more and more new young recruits are coming in. The other underground parties which started out as partners in the underground have effectively abandoned the field to Jan Sangh and RSS.”"

"“We were not able to capture even 10 per cent of the RSS workers. They all have gone underground and the RSS did not disperse even after the ban, on the contrary it was striking roots in new areas like Kerala”."

"“Among the groups which carried on this work with heroic persistence the RSS group stands out for its special mention. In organizing satyagraha, in maintaining the all-India communication network, in quietly collecting money to finance the movement, in arranging distribution of literature without any bottleneck and in offering help to fellow prisoners even of other parties and other faiths, they proved that they constitute the nearest answer to Swami Vivekananda’s call for an army of sanyasins to take up social and political work in this country. They are a constructive force who has won the admiration of fellow political workers and respect of even their erstwhile opponents.” (Ibid)"

"“When elections were announced the one anxiety that filled my mind was , who are the persons who will carry the message of freedom to the people and make them aware of the things at stake? The workers of RSS came forward in thousands and my anciety was set at rest. Even prior to elections the main burden of the struggle was borne by them. It is they who had kept up people’s morale. More than 80 per cent of the fighting cadres had been drawn from the RSS. I have personally seen thousands of their youngmen solely inspired by a spirit of idealism, without any desire or expectation in return, plunging into the struggle. Often they had nothing to eat, no place to rest, but their zeal remained unabated.”"

"A large part of the rationale for the Emergency, it must be remembered, stemmed from the Congress claim that it was protecting the nation from the fascism embodied by the RSS and its allied forces."

"Forced sterilisation was by far the most calamitous exercise undertaken during the Emergency. The IMF and World Bank had periodically shared their fears with New Delhi about the uncontrolled rise in population levels. India’s democracy was a hurdle: no government could possibly enact laws limiting the number of children a couple could have without incurring punishment at the ballot box. But with democracy suspended, the IMF and World Bank encouraged Indira to pursue the programme with renewed vigour."

"The movement was started by the Mahomedans. It was taken up by Mr. Gandhi with a tenacity and faith which must have surprised many Mahomedans themselves. There were many people who doubted the ethical basis of the Khilafat movement and tried to dissuade Mr. Gandhi from taking any part in a movement the ethical basis of which was so questionable. But Mr. Gandhi had so completely persuaded himself of the justice of the Khilafat agitation that he refused to yield to their advice. Time and again he argued that the cause was just and it was his duty to join it."

"the non-cooperation had its origin in the Khilafat agitation and not in the Congress movement for Swaraj: that it was started by the Khilafatists to help Turkey and adopted by the Congress only to help the Khilafatists: that Swaraj (Self-Rule) was not its primary object, but its primary object was Khilafat and that Swaraj was added as a secondary object to induce the Hindus to join it’."

"Critics of Congress’s alliance with the Khilafat movement felt that Gandhi went a step too far in trying to accommodate the Muslim community. Historian R.C. Majumdar concluded that ‘there seems to be no doubt whatsoever that when he launched the Non-Cooperation movement on 1 August 1920, the Khilafat wrongs were the single issue which determined his action; the Punjab atrocities and the winning of swaraj were subordinate issues which were gradually tacked on to the main issue of Khilafat, at a later date and as an after-thought’. Unfortunately for Gandhi, his gesture was never fully reciprocated by the Khilafat leadership. The Ali brothers saw the understanding with Gandhi as purely tactical — even on the question of the Mahatma’s pet theme of non-violence — and they were unconcerned with the idea of a common nationalism. In a speech in Broach, Gujarat, the Khilafat leader Mohammed Ali said that while at present they would keep the sword in its sheath, ‘we must reserve the right to take up arms against the enemies of Islam’. On another occasion, he made the astonishing assertion that if the Emir of Afghanistan chose to invade India, it was the duty of Indian Muslims to support him. In 1925, much after the Congress–Khilafat alliance broke down and Hindu–Muslim relations nosedived, Ali couldn’t conceal his distaste for Hindus. ‘However pure Gandhi’s character may be,’ he said, ‘he must appear to me from the point of view of religion inferior to any Mussalman, even though he be without character.’ He repeated this assertion of Muslim superiority later by saying that ‘according to my religion and creed, I hold an adulterous and a fallen Mussalman to be better than Mr Gandhi’. The Non-Cooperation–Khilafat movement was the last time that a serious attempt was made to overcome sectarian divisions and forge a common nationality on the unity-in-action principle. As communal relations between Hindus and Muslims deteriorated and rioting became a recurrent feature of public life in many parts of India, the space for Hindu nationalism reopened."

"I could find no explanation worthy of the Mahatma for his decision to accept leadership of the khilafat movement. The decision, it seemed to me, revealed the great man's proverbial Achilles' heel."

"Annie Besant characterized Gandhi’s 1920 mass agitation (Non-Cooperation, co-opted into the Khilafat Movement) as ‘a channel of hatred’."

"It has been one of the many injuries inflicted on India by the encouragement of the Khilafat crusade, that the inner Muslim feeling of hatred against “unbelievers” has sprung up, naked and unashamed (…) We have seen revived, as guide in practical politics, the old Muslim religion of the sword (…) In thinking of an independent India, the menace of Mohammedan rule has to be considered."

"The Khilafat Movement was a tragicomical mistake, aiming at the restoration of the Ottoman Caliphate against which the Arabs had risen in revolt and which the Turks were dissolving, a process completed with the final abolition of the institution of the Caliphate in 1924. It was a purely retrograde and reactionary movement, and more importantly for Indian nationalism, it was an intrinsically anti-nationalist movement pitting, specifically, Islamic interests against secular and non-Muslim interests. Gandhi made the mistake of hubris by thinking he could reconcile Khilafatism and Indian nationalism, and he also offended his Muslim allies (who didn’t share his commitment to non-violence) by calling off the agitation when it turned violent. The result was even more violence, with massive Hindu-Muslim riots replacing the limited instances of anti-British attacks, just as many level-headed freedom fighters had predicted. Gandhiji failed to take the Khilafat Movement seriously whether at the level of principle or of practical politics, and substituted his own imagined and idealized reading of the Khilafat doctrine for reality."

"The Khilafat question will not recur for another hundred years. If the Hindus wish to cultivate eternal friendship with the Mussalmans, they must perish with them in the attempt to vindicate the honour of Islam."

"Early in 1920 the Indian Muslims started a vigorous agitation to bring pressure upon Britain to change her policy towards Turkey. The success of this movement, known as Khilafat movement, was assured by the large measure of sympathy and support which the Muslims received from Gandhi."

"Gandhi felt that the Muslim demand about the Khilafat was just and he was bound to render all possible help to secure the due fulfilment of the pledge that the British Prime Minister had given to the Indian Muslims during the War. In the letter which Gandhi wrote to the Viceroy immediately after the War Conference at Delhi, he particularly stressed the Khilafat question. Henceforth Gandhi missed no opportunity of pressing upon the Government of India the need of a just settlement of the Khilafat question... He even went to the length of placing the Khilafat problem on the same level of political importance as the Home Rule for India."

"In any case, Gandhi must bear the chief share of the blame for the Hindu support to the Khilafat movement, for it was he who led the way and it was his magnetic influence which drew other Hindu leaders towards it. Howsoever Gandhi might justify himself there can be no question that the Pan-Islamic movement, based on the extra- territorial allegiance of the Indian Muslims, cut at the very root of the nascent Indian nationalism."

"To Gandhi, not only was independence of India a minor issue as compared with the principle of non-violence, but it is painful...to relate, he was even prepared to postpone Swaraj activity if thereby he could advance the interest of the Khilafat..."

"As to regarding the Khilafat as a matter of life and death to the Muslims, events were soon to prove that it was a rhetoric or hyperbole and can hardly be regarded as a serious fact; for in less than five years the Muslims of Turkey usurped the rights of the Caliph to a far greater degree than the British ever did, and not a leaf stirred in the whole Muslim world outside India. Unless, therefore, we are prepared to believe that the Muslims of India were the only true followers of the Prophet or the most genuine champions of the cause of Islam, it is difficult to understand or explain the weight they attached to the Khilafat question, save on the theory that it was a phase of that Pan-Islamic movement to which the Indian Muslims looked forward as the only guarantee against the influence of a Hindu majority with whom faith had linked them in India. ... ‘by his own admission that the Khilafat question was a vital one for Indian Muslims, Gandhi himself admitted in a way that they formed a separate nation; they were in India, but not of India’."

"Freedom fighter and eminent journalist cum advocate Sri. C. Narayana Pillai in one of his texts wrote like this in 1973. “The dismal failure of all attempts made by Mahatma Gandhi for the freedom and unity of the nation with Hindu Muslim amity was caused by the Moplah rebellion of Malabar in addition to paving the way for division of the nation. Discarding all advices and protesting voices from his coworkers and other highly placed political luminaries, Gandhiji included Khilafat in the action program of Congress with a mistaken notion that it will eventually lead to long lasting Hindu Muslim friendship. Inclusion of a sectionalist agenda like Khilafat in the Congress action plan was a grave blunder, which has since been acknowledged generally by all serious thinkers on the subject.”"

"There was another prominent fact to which I drew the attention of Mahatma Gandhi. Both of us went together one night to the Khilafat Conference at Nagpur. The Ayats (verses) of the Quran recited by the Maulanas on that occasion, contained frequent references to Jihad and killing of the Kaffirs.But when I drew his attention to this phase of the Khilafat movement, Mahatmaji smiled and said, ' They are alluding to the British Bureaucracy '. In reply I said that it was all subversive of the idea of non-violence and when the reversion of feeling came the Mahomedan Maulanas would not refrain from using these verses against the Hindus."

"Gandhi .... even advocated that he ‘would gladly ask for postponement of Swaraj activity if thereby we could advance the interest of the Khilafat’."

"Bipin Chandra Pal opined that this emergent pan-Islamism that was catching up in India too was ‘the common enemy of Indian nationalism in its truest and broadest sense’."

"I have no intention of offending anybody’s susceptibilities, but if the existing conditions are properly analyzed, it will be seen that sectarianism and narrow-minded bigotry have been very much strengthened within the last three years. The Khilafat movement has particularly strengthened it among the Mohammedans, and it has not been without its influence and reaction on the Hindus and Sikhs . . . it was unfortunate that the Khilafat movement in India should have taken its stand on a religious, rather than political basis . . . it was still more unfortunate that Mahatma Gandhi and leaders of the Khilafat movement should have brought religion into such a prominence in connection with a movement which was really, and fundamentally, more political than religious. .... ‘Indian Muslims are more pan-Islamic and exclusive than the Muslims of any other country of the globe, and that fact alone makes the creation of a united India more difficult than would otherwise be.’"

"Others who opposed the Khilafat movement argued that the mobilized Muslims might invite the Afghans to invade India, in which case the country might be subjugated to Muslim Raj from British Raj. Chittaranjan Das wrote to Lala Lajpat Rai that he did not fear the seven crore Muslims of India, but ‘the seven crores of Hindustan, plus the armed hordes of Afghanistan, Central Asia, Arabia, Mesopotamia, and Turkey will be irresistible’ and posed a grave national threat to India."

"An unusual feature of the current clashes was the heavy toll inflicted on the majority community, forcing many of them to flee their hearth and homes south of the Musi, which were immediately occupied by members of the minority community... House-to-house searches in the [predominantly Muslim] old city yielded a rich haul of weapons, imported from the north."

"Police were finding it difficult to enforce curfew in the lanes and by-lanes of the [predominantly Muslim] Old City. People on the roof- tops were pelting stones on the police. On Friday morning, about 200 people gathered... at around 11a.m. and began pelting stones at the houses of members belonging to one [i.e.Hindu] community, besides indulging in stabbing, looting and torching houses and shop. to quell this mob, police opened fire...resulting in the death of one person and injuries to three others. In view of the seriousness of the situation, police clamped curfew at around 12.30 p.m... By this time, nearly 15 persons had been stabbed."

"The violence was, according to press reports, started by revenge action of Muslims against the police, for killing an influential Muslim goonda, Mohammed Sardar. This man was a convicted murderer, and while free on parole, he had killed a policeman, and gone underground. When the police caught up with him, he was killed in an exchange of firing. This encounter triggered a wave of stabbing by people belonging to the same community as this Mohammed. ... In the Hyderabad riots, Muslims attacked a Harijan quarter, primarily because they expected these Harijans to be unorganized and weak."

"BJP leader V.K. Malhotra has aptly ridiculed this facile allegation in a speech in the Lok Sabha: "The country has witnessed 2500 riots between 1950 and 1990. Godhra city had communal riots in 1947, 52, 59, 61, 65, 67, 72, 74, 80, 83, 89 and 90. Were all of these caused by the Rathyatra ?" He pointed out that those who were painting a grim picture of the minorities being massacred, were doing a great disservice to the country and giving it a bad name. The fact was that 90% of the people killed in Hyderabad were Hindus. (...)"

"To what length this concern for the conservation of their forces can lead the Hindus and the Musalmans cannot be better illustrated than by the debates on the Dissolution of Muslim Marriage Act VIII of 1939 in the Central Assembly. Before 1939, the law was that apostasy of a male or a female married under the Muslim law ipso facto dissolved the marriage, with the result that if a married Muslim woman changed her religion, she was free to marry a person professing her new religion. This was the rule of law enforced by the courts, throughout India at any rate, for the last 60 years."

"Be that as it may, the legal arguments had nothing to do with the real motive underlying the change. The real motive was to put a stop to the illicit conversion of women to alien faiths, followed by immediate and hurried marriages with someone professing the faith she happened to have joined, with a view to locking her in the new community and preventing her from going back to the community to which she originally belonged. The conversion of Muslim woman to Hinduism and of Hindu woman to Islam, looked at from a social and political point of view, cannot but be fraught with tremendous consequences. It means a disturbance in the numerical balance between the two communities. As the disturbance was being brought about by the abduction of women, it could not be overlooked. For woman is at once the seed-bed of, and the hothouse for, nationalism in a degree that man can never be./12/ These conversions of women and their subsequent marriages were there-fore regarded, and rightly, as a series of depredations practised by Hindus against Muslims and by Muslims against Hindus, with a view to bringing about a change in their relative numerical strength. This abominable practice of woman-lifting had become as common as cattle-lifting, and with its obvious danger to communal balance, efforts had to be made to stop it. ... Thus what underlies the change in law is the desire to keep the numerical balance and it is for this purpose that the rights of women were sacrificed."

""Apostasy was considered by Islam, as by any other religion, as a great crime, almost amounting to a crime against the State. It is not novel for the religion of Islam to have that provision. If we look up the older Acts of any nation, we will find that similar provision also exists in other Codes as well. For the male a severer punishment was awarded, that of death, and for females, only the punishment of imprisonment was awarded. This main provision was that because it was a sin, it was a crime, it was to be punished, and the woman was to be deprived of her status as wife. It was not only this status that she lost, but she lost all her status in society; she was deprived of her properly and civil rights as well. But we find that as early as 1850 an Act was passed here, called the Caste Disabilities Removal Act of 1850, Act XXI of 1850. . . ."

"For a very long lime the courts in British India have held without reservation and qualification that under all circumstances apostasy automatically and immediately puts an end to the married slate without any judicial proceedings, any decree of court, or any other ceremony. That has been the position which was taken up by the Courts. Now, there are three distinct views of Hanafi jurists on the point. One view which is attributed to the Bokhara jurists... The Bokhara jurists say that marriage is dissolved by apostasy. In fact, I should be more accurate in saying—I have got authority for that—that it is, according to the Bokhara view, not dissolved but suspended. The marriage is suspended but the wife is then kept in custody or confinement till she repents and embraces Islam again, and then she is induced to marry the husband, whose marriage was only suspended and not put an end to or cancelled. The second view is that on apostasy a married Muslim woman ceases to be the wife of her husband but becomes his bond-woman. One view, which is a sort of corollary to this view, is that she is not necessarily the bond-woman of her ex-husband but she becomes the bond-woman of the entire Muslim community and anybody can employ her as a bond-woman. The third view, that of the Ulema of Samarkand and Balkh, is that the marriage lie is not affected by such apostasy and that the woman still continues to be the wife of the husband. These are the three views."

"The scale, intensity, and extent of Muslim mob violence in Kohat was so unprecedented and incomparable to anything that had happened in the past that it shook even the Imperial British Government. The Kohat Deputy Commissioner and Brigade Commander almost gave up citing helplessness against this level of determined mob barbarism."

"The Kohat matter also took an ugly turn. Muslims were the overwhelming proportion of the population. Hindus and Sikhs had been set upon and driven out. They had been thrashed, killed, forced to undergo conversions. But to the astonishment of all, in December 1924 at the session in Bombay of the Muslim League (of all things), the till-recently president of the Congress, Maulana Mohammed Ali, moved an embellishment to what, even to begin with, was a partisan resolution. The resolution maintained that ‘the sufferings of the Hindus of Kohat are not unprovoked, but that, on the contrary, the facts brought to light make it clear that gross provocation was offered to the religious sentiments of the Mussalmans, and the Hindus were the first to resort to violence; and further that, though their sufferings were very great, and they are deserving of the sympathy of all Mussalmans, it was not they alone that suffered...’"

"The relations between the two communities were strained throughout 1923-24. But in no locality did this tension produce such tragic consequences as in the city of Kohat. The immediate cause of the trouble was the publication and circulation of a pamphlet containing a virulently anti-Islamic poem. Terrible riots broke out on the 9th and 10th of September 1924, the total casualties being about 155 killed and wounded... As a result of this reign of terror the whole Hindu population evacuated the city of Kohat..."

"Left Delhi on the 3rd morning. Kohat was the only subject discussed at Hakimji’s residence right up to 10.30 p.m. on the preceding night. Dr Ansari and Hakimji (Ajmal Khan) held the view that the separate inquiry reports were best left unpublished. But Motilalji Nehru strongly opposed. ‘That’s impossible. The public was certain to expect the publication of the Inquiry Committee’s findings and it is incumbent upon us to satisfy it.’ It was at last decided to publish the reports, but with some changes. Shaukat Ali accompanied us in the train up to Sawai Madhopur on the 3rd morning to make them. Bapu first revised Shaukat Ali’s report. He kept his every view intact, but cancelled only unnecessary repetitions. Shaukat Ali accepted the deletions. His last paragraph was a little clumsy and Bapu rewrote it for him. Bapu then began to amend his own report. Shaukat Ali vehemently insisted that Bapu must drop the comparison with (Gen.) Dyer, the paragraph showing Bapu’s reasons for his blaming Muslims and the sentence that it was, by and large, not the Muslim community that had suffered but the Hindus. Bapu slashed all that. I protested, though not strongly, against all those incisions and said that that mind itself was vitiated which could not bear the statement of even bare facts. ‘But what else can be done?,’ Bapu rejoined, ‘that is the only way to change his attitude. Moreover, he too has conceded much.’"

"Never do anything in a hurry. The resolution of Zafarali Khan is really better than yours. You have meant well but you have done badly. Your resolution reads as if Hindus richly deserved what they got. You state as facts that provocation was from Hindus, that violence too was commenced by them. You state that the Hindu suffering was great, (but) the Hindus were not the only ones to suffer, meaning thereby that both suffered almost equally or if not equally, certainly not so much as to call for any special mention. The resolution, after recording its emphatic findings on the main facts, asks the public to suspend its judgment on the details of the allegations of the Government. Does it not follow that the Government version being true on the main facts, their finding on the details is likely to be true? If all parties are agreed on the main facts, is it worthwhile asking for a Commission on details? You make the League ask the Mussalmans to invite the Hindus to go to Kohat and to settle their differences with the Mussalmans honourably and amicably. This means that the Hindus are the offenders in the main. But if such is your opinion, then again why a Commission? You then proceed to invite the Hindus not to provoke and ask the Mussalmans not to resort to violence. This means that there was extraordinary provocation by the Hindus. The fact is that the kind of language used in the vile verses has become the normal condition of the Punjab. You might have said that such language was unpardonable for Kohat. Your condemnation of the Government coming at the end and in the language it is couched has no force whatsoever and you have made no case for condemnation either. Zafarali Khan’s resolution is in every way much superior to yours, and far less offensive. You have erred grievously in that you have made no mention of the destruction of temples. How I wish you had remained silent: I have read the resolution again and again and the more I read it the more I dislike it. Yet you must hold on to it, if you don’t feel that it is wrong. What I want to do is to act on your heart and thereon (on) your head. I am not going to desert you whilst I have faith in you. The resolution is a revelation of the working of your mind. However crude the language, it shows your belief. I must, therefore, put forth greater effort still and see if I cannot bring you to a correcter perspective. You should not be ignorant of Hindu opinion on these matters. You must not say that Hindus even denied provocation and initial violence. They may be wrong in so believing, but seeing that they believe so, you should not have stated what you have. If you could not have the resolution like the Congress one, you might have protested and voted against it without dividing the League."

"The most serious outbreak occurred at Kohat in N. W. P. P., a predominantly Muslim area. On the morning of 9 September, 1924. the Muslims looted and burnt all the shops of the Hindus. On the night of 10 September the Muslims made a number of breaches in the mud walls of the city, and committed wholesale plunder and incendiarism, the alleged provocation being firing from some Hindu houses in self-defence. Before noon there were wide- spread fires in Hindu quarters. The Deputy Commissioner and Brigade Commander were unable to prevent the raid, and apprehending that theie was a grave danger of who- lesale slaughter of the Hindus, removed them to the Cantonment. Later on the Hindus removed to Rawalpindi. Gandhi, who made a joint inquiry into the incident with Shaukat Ali, observed : On 10 September, "the Muslim fury knew no bounds. Destruction of life and property, in which the Constabulary freely partook, which was witnessed by the officials and which they could have prevented, was general. Had not the Hindus been with- drawn from their places and taken to the Cantonment, not many would have lived Even some Khilafat volunteers, whose duty it was to protect the Hindus, and regard them as their own kith and kin, neglected their duty, and not only joined in the loot but also took part in the previous incitement.""

"The Kohat tragedy formed a subject of discussion in the Indian National Congress, the Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha. The manner in which it was treated by these three bodies throws interesting light on the way in which the communal question was looked at by different sections of Indians. Motilal Nehru, who moved the resolution on the subject in the Congress, began by saying that “in Kohat a tragedy has taken place the like of which has not been known in India for many years’', but scrupulously avoided casting any blame on any party, merely observing that "this is not the time for us to apportion the blame upon the parties concerned", though more than three months had passed since the incident. The Congress resolution deplored the incident, urged the Musalmans of Kohat to assure their Hindu brethren of full protection of their lives and property and invite them to return, advised the refugees not to return except upon any such invitation, and asked everybody to suspend judgement till a proper inquiry was made."

"The Kohat riots from 9th September 1924 onwards deserve special mention, for they sent waves of shudder throughout the country. Pattabhi Sitaramayya wrote: ‘“‘The Kohat riots really broke the backbone of India.’’ Hindus were just five per cent of the population of Kohat, a small town in N.W.F.P. As many as 150 Hindus were murdered. The entire Hindu population had to seek shelter in Rawalpindi-320 km away. The terrible death dance of murder, rape, loot, abduction, etc., let loose on the Hindus there made Gandhiji, accompanied by Shaukat Ali, visit Rawalpindi."

"The Kohat tragedy formed a subject of discussion in the Indian National Congress, the Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha. The manner in which it was treated by these three bodies throws interesting light on the way in which the communal question was looked at by different sections of Indians. Motilal Nehru, who moved the resolution on the subject in the Congress, began by saying that “in Kohat a tragedy has taken place the like of which has not been known in India for many years’*, but scrupulously avoided casting any blame on any party, merely observing that “this is not the time for us to apportion the blame upon the parties concerned**, though more than three months had passed since the incident. The Congress resolution deplored the incident, urged the Musalmans of Kohat to assure their Hindu brethren of full protection of their lives and property and invite them to return, advised the refugees not to return except upon any such invitation, and asked everybody to suspend judgement till a proper inquiry was made. The Muslim League repeated all these but added the following : “The All-India Muslim League feels to be its duty to place on record that the sufferings of Kohat Hindus are not unprovoked, but that on the contrary the facts brought to light make it clear that grosss provocation was offered to the religious sentiments of the Mussulmans and the Hindus were the first to resort to violence. The Hindu Mahasabha “expressed grief at the loss sustained by Hindus and Muslims in life and property, the burning of about 473 houses and shops, the desecration or destruction of many temples or Gurudwaras which compelled the entire Hindu and Sikh population to leave Kohat and to seek shelter in Rawalpindi and other places in the Punjab.’’ Lala Lajpat Rai, speaking on the motion, asked “whether, even admitting that the Hindus were at faulr, their fault was such that it deserved the punishment inflicted on them.” All the three resolutions blamed the Government for the tragedy and urged the necessity of an independent public inquiry. A joint inquiry was made by Gandhi and Shaukat Ali, and as they differed on essential points, both issued individual statements. There was not much difference about the atrocities committed by the Muslims. Shaukat Ali exonerated them on the ground that the burning and firing on the 9th were quite accidental and the Hindus gave the first provocation on the 10th. Gandhi did not endorse this view and observed : “During these days temples including a Gurudwara were damaged and idols broken. There were numerous forced conversions, or conversions so-called, i.e. conversions pretended for safety. Two Hindus at least were brutally murdered because they ( the one certainly and the other inferentially ) would not accept Islam. The so-called conversions are thus described by a Musalman witness. ‘The Hindus came and asked to have their Sikhas cut and sacred threads destroyed, or the Musalmans whom they approached for protection said they could be protected only by declaring themselves Musalmans and removing the signs of Hinduism’. I fear the truth is bitterer than is put here if I am to credit the Hindu version”. Shaukat Ali admitted the murder of two Hindus for refusing to embrace Islam and the pretended conversions which, he added, were really no conversion at all. But he was not satisfied that there were any forced conversions to Islam."

"The kidnapping of young women and the treatment to which they were subjected constitute a sordid chapter in the history of human relations. Poor innocent girls, young married women, sometimes with infants in their arms, were forcibly taken away to distant places. They were molested and raped, passed on from man to man. bartered and sold like cheap chattel. Some- times it was impossible to trace their whereabouts. When representatives of the Indian Dominion went to recover them they were concealed and denied access to their relations. Large numbers of them, when recovered, were brought to a refugee camp at Kunjah. Conditions in this camp beggar description. A young woman of 21, describing her experiences, said: “I stayed in the camp for two months. Camp life was very miserable. We were given chappatis full of lime and were constantly molested by the soldiers, Maulvis used to come and preach to us against the Indian Dominion...They told us that we would go to heaven sf we lived with them They said that it was foolish on our part to go to India... A party of young women who were brought to the camp said “We reached the camp on the fifteenth day It was nothing less than hell The flour was mixed with lime and drinking water smelt so foul that it made us ill to drink it... Sick children were given wrong medicines and some of them became blind and died as the result of the poisons given to them. The military guards brought their friends at night and molested the young girls in the camp. They pinched our breasts and made indecent jokes , those who were pregnant were shot down... A young girl of 14 or 15 sleeping by my side was dragged away and raped. When she resisted they kicked her Her face in the morning looked as if it had been scratched by a knife”"

"Usually, rape and sexual assault were invariably followed by abduction of the victimised women. These abducted women typically became domestic servants and sex slaves. Many abducted women were sold into prostitution and some, in very rare instances, were married to their abductors and later claimed to be leading happy and respectable lives."

"Armed Pathans, operating in bands, were perhaps the worst offenders in West Punjab, especially in the districts of the Rawalpindi division (where they were concentrated), for it was they who systematically preyed upon the refugee trains and convoys, carrying off women to be sold for as little as Rs10 or 20 to Muslim men. Non-Muslim women from Kashmir also were offered for sale in West Punjab, ending up as 'slave girls' in factories. A report from Sargodha district claimed,The Pathans brought a very large number of abducted women and children from the Kashmir front and they had been selling these like cattle and chattel. There were cases in which a woman had been sold thrice or four times. The Pathans had made this a regular trade."

"They shot everyone who couldn't recite the kalima - the Arabic-language Muslim declaration of faith. Many non-Muslim women were enslaved, while many others jumped in the river to escape capture."..."They had returned with war booty," he says. "Some had brought cattle, some horses. Most of them had brought arms, and many brought women. One Afridi tribesman walked back with two women in tow. They wept incessantly and just wouldn't stop.""

"The Punjabi Sikh and Hindu girls and Kashmiri women are proverbially beautiful, so they were in great demand in the Muslim countries of Africa and the Middle East. They were sold there by the barbarian Muslim kidnappers for very high prices. These ill fated women were confined in their purchasers' harems and bound to accept concubinage"

"In this nefarious design, the Pakistan Government made an internal secret agreement called “Zen and Zar “with the Pathan mercenaries according to which if Mirpur city was captured, the captured women would be taken by the Pathans and the immovable property would be the share of Pakistan Government."

"No one could predict how long this sold-off woman would remain there. These poor women were housed by the government in the Kunja camp as there was fighting going on in Kashmir. The army handed them over to us when they were useless...All 600 had been used by the Pakistani army...Pakistan's attitude was that it should be thankful that it had managed to recover so many women. Naturally, they would not admit that they had any hand in the situation the women found themselves in."

"One Muslim member of the Legislative Assembly was said to have five hundred girls in his possession in West Punjab, while an abducted Muslim girl from a well-known family was reported to be with the Maharaja of Patiala. In West Punjab police officials, members of the Muslim League and landed magnates were involved."

"The following strategy, the Report continues, was used wherever the mobs attacked: First of all minorities were disarmed with the help of local police and by giving assurances by oaths on holy Quran of peaceful intentions. After this had been done, the helpless and unarmed minorities were attacked. On their resistance having collapsed, lock breakers and looters came into action with their transport corps of mules, donkeys and camels. Then came the ‘Mujahadins’ with tins of petrol and kerosene oil and set fire to the looted shops and houses. Then there were maulvies with barbers to convert people who somehow or other escaped slaughter and rape. The barbers shaved the hair and beards and circumcised the victims. Maulvis recited kalamas and performed forcible marriage ceremonies. After this came the looters, including women and children."

"The trouble for the non-Muslims in general, and for the women in particular, started in March, 1947. Whatever may be the causes of the Rawalpindi and Multan riots, it is admitted that these were of terrific nature Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, aftcr visiting district Rawalpindi reported to the British Government in England, "The whole of the Hindu-Sikh part is an absolute wreck, as though it has been subjected to an air raid."2 Several Hindu and Sikh villages were wiped out. Justice Teja Singh, a member of the Punjab Boundary Commission, stated before the Commission that during the Rawalpindi riots, "A large number of people were forcibly converted, children were kidnapped, and young women abducted and openly raped."3 Though a separate number of female casualities is not available, the official figure of deaths in the district of Rawalpindi was 2,263 which was considered far below the actual numbcr.4 Thc womcn were subjected to maximum humiliation and torture. Their agony can be judged by the fact that a number of women jumped into wells to save their honour. It is as unbelievable today as it was at that time. But fortunately Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru visited the village on 14th March, 1947, and he was told about thc incidents of ladies jumping into wells. His staff photographer took photographs of the bottom of the well with the help of a flashlight. These photographs showed the decomposed limbs of the bodies. One copy of a photograph was given to me by late Sant Gulab Singh in whose land the well existed. He told me that his wife was the first to jump into the well. The photograph has been published in my book Shahidian."

"The assailants did not spare even little children. It was naked beastliness performing a devil’s dance. Children would be snatched from the hands of their parents, tossed on spears and swords, and sometimes thrown alive into the fire. Other cruelties equally horrible were perpetrated. Women’s breasts, noses and arms would he lopped off. Sticks and pieces of iron would be thrust into their private parts. Sometimes the bellies of pregnant women were ripped open and the unformed life in the womb thrown out. In some places processions of naked Hindu and Sikh women are also reported to have been taken out by the Muslims mobs. (81)... At Nara, in the tehsil of Kahuta, Sikh women and children were burnt alive, and the women were tortured in ways most devilishly ingenious and sadistic, which it is not possible for any decent human being to describe.... All this was done in village after village after the Muslims had given assurances of safety on the Koran to Hindus. Hindu women were molested and abducted. Altogether 50 villages in this tehsil were looted with arson, murder and abduction of women. Ears, noses and breasts of women were cut off, and they were raped in the presence of their husbands, brothers, fathers and sons."

"There is a marked difference in the behaviour of Muslims and Sikhs towards women and children captured during this fight. While Muslims everywhere dishonoured, abducted or murdered Hindu and Sikh women and children, Sikhs never resorted to anything of which they might have reason to be ashamed. On the first day of attack, several Muslims got killed by an infuriated Sikh crowd in a locality which was at the junction of a Muslim and non-Muslim zone, not very far from the centre of the Sikh influence. More than one hundred Muslim women and children, whose menfolk had either been killed or had run away for safety, fell into the hands of the Sikhs. Sikhs kept them safe and fed them for the two or three days that the fighting lasted and all communications in the town were cut off, and later sent them under escort to the City Police Station, These women acknowledged the chivalry and courtesy of the treatment of the Sikhs towards them. (156)"

"When everybody had got into the train and as the engine was whistling to indicate that the train was going to start, a huge crowd of Muslims came from the side of the Mandi and factories. They were armed with rifles, chhuras, axes, barchas and other lethal weapons... The women-folk were not butchered, but taken out and sorted. The elderly women were later butchered while the younger ones were distributed... The children were also similarly murdered. All the valuables on the persons of the women were removed and taken away by the mob... During these visits I also saw a large number of Hindu women in the houses of the Muslim inhabitants of Kamoke. All of them complained that they were being very badly used by their abductors."

"“On 4-10-47, a small caravan of about fifteen non-Muslims tried to cross the bridge Ravi from Pakistan to this side. They were entrapped by the Muslim Military picket on the other side of the bridge. That caravan included four women. The male members of the caravan were murdered during the night. Our Military picket on this side of the bridge heard shrieks and cries of the victims. The Gurkha Jamadar in charge of the picket saw the women with Military (Muslim). They kept those women in their tents during the night and the military picket on our side heard their shrieks too during the night as if they were being raped. Later on those women never crossed the bridge on this side."

"“Girls abducted from Mirpur side are sold in Jhelum city at Rs. 10 or 20 each. The local police refuses to interfere on the ground that the girls were not removed from the Punjab and also they express their helplessness because of the attitude of the armed Pathans possessing these girls. I am bringing this to the notice of the West Punjab Government but I am afraid nothing would come out of it and in our helplessness all these girls shall have to stand hardships for all their lives and suffer misery.” According to the information received most of the girls abducted from Jammu and Kashmir States and some of the girls abducted from Gujranwala, Jhelum, Mianwali, Jhang and Dera Ghazi Khan districts are taken to the North-west Frontier Province and from there to the tribal territory. At Mansera and some other places (North-West Frontier) there are regular camps where Hindu girls are being sold."

"A British Officer of the M. E. O. of West Punjab reported (September, 1947) that at a place near Sheikhupura he was called to rescue a Hindu girl, who had been carried away by Muslim National Guards. He found the girl in a hut with 4 of her captors, who had raped and cut off her breasts and were now frying them. He shot the lot."

"During the proceedings of the Second Round Table Conference in the year 1931, Gandhi circulated a memorandum, in the second session of the Conference, which demanded that the new Constitution should include a guarantee to the communities concerned, of protection of their culture, language, script, education, profession, and practice of religion and religious endowments, personal law, political, and other rights of minority communities. His views found their place in the rights relating to religion and in the cultural and educational Rights in the Constitution of Independent India."

"The Nehru-Liaqat Pact of 1950, concluded with Pak Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan amid mass killing of Hindus in East Bengal, prevents the Government o fIndia from any form of interference when Hindus are maltreated in Pakistan and its partial successor state Bangladesh."

"[Nehru] himself (and the entire secularist establishment till today) reneged on his duty to defend the non-Muslims surviving in the Islamic state which he had helped to create. In the Nehru-Liaqat Pact of 1950, he had given up every right to interfere on behalf of the minorities in Pakistan. By effectively condoning the persecution of non-Muslims in Pakistan, he must accept a share in the responsibility for the retaliatory tribal violence which killed Rasschaert."