Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts

Tuesday 17 January 2023

RED JIHAD PRE-LAUNCH OFFER

Avail of the Pre-Launch Offer

My book, Red Jihad: Islamic Communism in India 1920-1950 has been released on 26 January 2023. Please book the copies in advance. It can be booked on Amazon and Flipkart.


About the book :

The modern world realizes that the common factor in Islam and communism is violence and authoritarianism in the name of humanism. But there have been many attempts to merge the two in an absurdity called Islamic Socialism. The practical applications of Islamic Socialism have a history going back to Muhammad and the first few Caliphates to modern political parties founded in the 1970s. Sadly, from its very inception, the Communist Party of India embraced the tenets of Islam and the paraphernalia of crime that came along with it. As a result, the Indian communists have even justified Hindu genocides committed by Islamic fundamentalists in Malabar and Bengal, using the jargon of class war.

This book tells the story of the bonhomie of the Communist Party with Islam in the Indian context, with reference to the global humiliation the Party has faced so far.

ISBN: 978-9390981281; Pages: 350; Paperback; Indus Scrolls Press Rs 600, pre-booking price Rs 500. Amazon kindle edition Rs 400

About the Author:

Ramachandran is a reputed editor and writer based out of Kerala. He was the chief editor of Janmabhumi Daily, News Editor of The Week and Political commentator of Malayala Manorama. He is a historian and writer with a dozen books to his credit.



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Saturday 1 January 2022

COMMUNISTS EMBRACE MUSLIM LEAGUE

 Islamic Communism 16


The British police carried out raids throughout India on March 20, 1929, rounded up 33 CPI members and trade unionists on charges of conspiring to violently overthrow British rule, and brought them to court in Meerut. The Party went through a virtual eclipse during the proceedings, which lasted until 1934. But the effect remained temporal. Extensive media coverage of the trial popularised the accused. They in turn, used the trial as a stage to popularise their ideas. A new generation of communist activists—B T Ranadive, S. V. Deshpande, and R. D. Bharadwaj—appeared on the scene to fill the gap. The accused were sentenced to various terms of transportation, which were substantially reduced on appeal. Muzafar Ahmad received the highest term—three years—along with Dange and Shoukat Usmani remaining imprisoned, but all other accused were free by early 1934. (1)

Langford James, the first chief prosecutor, attacked communism for its anti-religiousness: Not only had the Bolsheviks no god; their propaganda aimed at the destruction of the belief in God, and they were calling for the murder of priests and the desecration of churches: "You are anti-country, you are anti-God, you are antifamily." (2)

For the communists, separation of state and religion and a "campaign of enlightenment" for emancipation from religious prejudices solved the religious question. The Statement of the accused even felt compelled to reemphasise that "we shall not persecute religious beliefs." (3). Out of the Statement's total of 425 pages, four-and-a-half, or slightly more than one per cent, were dedicated to it.

Although the Party could finally constitute itself properly,  replete with a general secretary, G Adhikari, replaced by P. C. Joshi in 1936, a Politburo, consisting of Joshi, Ajoy Kumar Ghosh, and R. D. Bhardwaj, a Central Committee, and with clear affiliation to the Comintern, was banned in May 1934. (4)  

Portrait of 25 Meerut prisoners

Consisting of left nationalists and worker and peasant activists dissatisfied with Gandhi's handling of civil disobedience in the early 1930s, the Congress Socialist Party (CSP) was founded at Patna in 1934. Although critical of Gandhi, it also rejected the CPI's sectarian stance. Former executive board member Madhu Limaye even argued that the CSP would probably never have come into existence had the communists "adopted a friendly attitude towards nationalism and had taken part in the struggle for independence." (5)

However, once the Comintern discarded left-wing radicalism, the CSP functioned as the umbrella under which communists worked inside the Congress. A long-time left activist, early correspondent of Roy, and a key figure in the young CSP, Dr Sampurnanand published Samajvada (Socialism) in 1936. The book sought to reconcile a Marxist analysis apparatus with the homage to the Absolute (God) and establish socialism based on the Vedas. To Sampurnanand, there was no essential difference between Marxist and Vedantic socialism, as the "practical programmes were very much the same." Sampurnanand saw "no need for Indian revolutionaries to take up cudgels against religion." (6). While the Marxian dialectics operated in the material world, the Upanishad Brahma was the ultimate reality. (7) 

Babu Sampurnanan was a teacher of Usmani. He had also been implicated in the investigations leading up to the Kanpur Conspiracy Case. Sampurnanand (1891 – 1969), born to a Kayastha family of Varanasi, later served as the second Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh from 1954 to 1960. A scholar of Sanskrit and Hindi, he succeeded Govind Ballabh Pant. He was asked to resign as Chief Minister following a political crisis in UP initiated by Kamlapati Tripathi and Chandra Bhanu Gupta.

Sampurnanand participated in the Non-cooperation Movement; edited Maryada, a Hindi monthly staffed by Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya in Banaras, contributed frequently to the National Herald and the Congress Socialist; was elected to the All-India Congress Committee in 1922, became provincial Minister for Education in UP, federal Minister from 1946 to 1951 and from 1951 to 1954, holding portfolios such as education, finance, and labour; and, became Governor of Rajasthan during 1962-1967. The appointment of Sampurnanand as governor heralded a new beginning in Indian politics when spent forces in politics were sent to hold gubernatorial positions.

Like Sampurnanand, Bhagwan Das, a theosophist and senior CSP activist, also conceptualised a  variety of spiritual socialism, "ancient scientific socialism." Manu's postulates and the ancient Hindu ideas provided the central virtues of a socialist society. As much a Hindu activist as a socialist reformer, he held that Hinduism's errors and injustices had accrued to it over time—and not been at the core of Manu's rigid and un-egalitarian laws. On the contrary, applying original Hinduism's "eternal principles" would give rise to a just society conforming to subcontinental humanity. (8)

Bhagwan Das (1869 – 1958), born in Varanasi in an Agarwal family, had served in the Central Legislative Assembly of British India. Das joined the Theosophical Society in 1894, inspired by a speech by Annie Besant. After the 1895 split, he was an opponent of Jiddu Krishnamurti. His bond with Besant led to the founding of the Central Hindu College, which became Central Hindu School. Das would later found the Kashi Vidyapeeth, a national university where he served as headmaster. A scholar of Sanskrit, Pranava-Vada of Gargyayana, compiled by him, was published in three volumes during 1910-1913 by the Theosophical Society, Adyar with notes by Besant. Das claimed that the work was a summarised translation of an otherwise unknown ancient text by a sage called Gargyayana. He also claimed that the text was dictated to him from memory by Pandit Dhanaraja Mishra, who was blind. Das was awarded the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian honour, in 1955. 

But the communists failed to imbibe the Indianness. Only when another sea-change occurred at the VII Comintern congress in 1935, the political condition for a broad-based work was created. Comintern General Secretary Georgi Dimitrov propounded "United Fronts" with a minimum program to achieve temporary goals.

Sampurnanand with Nehru

In India, where there was no threat of a fascist take-over, this meant forming broad coalitions in the struggle for independence. The pamphlet, The Anti Imperialist People's Front in India, cast the new line. It was drafted by CPGB leaders Bradley and Rajani Palme Dutt in consultation with Nehru in Europe. Both became convinced that the involvement of communists in the INC would meet with sympathy on its left wing. Therefore, they re-recognised Congress as the most crucial agency to seek national liberation. (9)

Through the CSP, the CPI began to operate under the umbrella of the INC. Its broad involvement transformed it into a serious political force, notably after its quasi-legalisation in the provinces where Congress ministries took over after the 1937 elections. In Bombay, where the local INC unit came under communist influence, all communist candidates won by large margins in the 1938 municipal elections. (10)

The disunited sections in Bengal, Madras, Bombay, and Punjab assumed a more uniform appearance, and the CPI  began to function as a proper party. Many imprisoned terrorists, notably from Bengal, had already joined the Party in the first half of the 1930s. They further spread their ideas among jailed activists of the civil disobedience movement. The Cannanore prison was a hub of exchange. (11)

The CSP contributed to the broadening of the communist base. Communist strength manifested in the election of four communists into the CSP executive in 1937, Sajjad Zaheer from UP and EMS Namboodiripad from Kerala. Two entire CSP provincial units, Andhra and Malabar, were communist, which became apparent when both broke away upon the expulsion of the communists from the CSP in 1940. 

By the end of the 1930s, communists fiercely debated the status of Muslims in the Indian polity. The 1935 Government of India Act provided an extension of the franchise and envisioned limited provincial self-government in British India. (12) The deliberations resulted in the promulgation of the Communal Award. Heeding the demands of communal representatives, its core feature consisted of introducing separate electorates for a multitude of groups and communities, among them workers, women, Europeans, Muslims, Sikhs, and many more. (13) Gandhi's desperate attempt to ward off separate representation for the "depressed classes," the untouchables through a fast to death, led to the hasty conclusion of the Poona Pact with the Depressed Classes Association under Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. It arranged for the reservation of scheduled caste seats within the Hindu contingent.

A communist pamphlet, The Joint Platform, endorsed communal compartmentalisation and demanded the application of the right to self-determination to all "national minorities." Besides calling for unspecified "abolition of all inequalities imposed by the old social-religious system," the pamphlet explicitly demanded the expropriation of, among others, "churches." (14). The Platform didn't order the confiscation of lands of temples, mosques, or any 'indigenous' religious organisation, although their holdings far exceeded those of Churches. Similarly, the pamphlet singled out Christian missionaries as personae non-gratae, condemning them as "direct agents of imperialism." (15). The less domesticated approach of the CPI's Calcutta unit, whose 1933 pamphlet The Indian Revolution and Our Task had called for the expropriation of temples and mosques as well, did not resonate in the Party's strategy. (16)

The Comintern was similarly mindful of the need to proceed cautiously in cultural matters. A K Gopalan, the moderate Kerala communist, emphasised this point:

 Just as Bharatheeyan's ashes, sandalwood-paste and chanting of the Geetha have helped the growth of the peasant movement, a comrade who argued against God's existence in the peasant committee was able to wreck the local committee [….] Especially while working among the middle classes, one had to be very careful. We had to convince our audiences that we shared the same ideals [!] and aspirations as they. (17)

In furtherance of Bolshevik tradition, Indian communist reservations against even remotely anti-imperialist and non-bourgeois assertions of Islam had ever been minor. It was international communist organs that conserved the CPI's claim to the appropriation of committedly Muslim political subjectivity when the Party itself was defunct.

Thus, extremist nationalist-turned-communist émigré Virendranath Chattopadhyaya wrote a series of reports in Inprecor on the 1930 tribal revolt in the NWFP. The NWFP was a much-neglected backwater of British India without any appreciable infrastructure or avenues for political participation. What little education work had been done had been mainly taken up by religious dignitaries of Maulana Obeidullah Sindhi, whose influence emphasised Islam's anti-British and anti-Western thrust. Accordingly, the formation of political will among the NWFP Pathans was firmly rooted in fundamentalist religious sentiments and aspirations from an early stage. (18)

The Afridi Redshirt Rebellion was a military campaign conducted by British and Indian armies against Afridi tribesmen in the North-West Frontier region of the Indian Empire, now in Pakistan, in 1930–1931. The Afridi is a Karlani Pashtun tribe who inhabit the border area of Pakistan, notably in the Spin Ghar mountain range to the west of Peshawar and the Maidan Valley in Tirah.

Bhagwan Das

The Afridis often clashed with the British and Indian Armies during India's expansion towards the Afghan border, notably during the Anglo-Afghan Wars. In 1930, a rebellion by dissident Afridi tribesmen, known as Redshirts, broke out. As this threatened the security of Peshawar, two Brigade Groups were sent to occupy the Khajuri Plain, west of Peshawar and south of the Khyber Pass. Their role was to open up the area by constructing roads and strong points. This would help prevent any future tribal infiltration towards Peshawar and be a punitive measure since the Afridis had been accustomed to pasturing their flocks on this low ground during the winter months.

On October 17, 1930, the British-led force crossed into the Tirah Valley at Bara, six miles from Peshawar, and advanced seven miles to Miri Khel. Here a fortified camp was constructed from which operations against the Afridis were conducted. On January 16, 1931, the force was withdrawn, having accomplished its objective.(19)

This happened during the first civil disobedience movement in 1930, as a wave of non-violent mass protest under the guidance of the "Frontier Gandhi," Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, in Pathan areas. (20) Members of their organisation, the "Red Shirts," called themselves "'Servants of God'. Recruits are sworn in on the Quran to follow the teachings of Islam, to live a pure and righteous life." It seemed a concrete example of an alternative to Gandhian civil disobedience more amenable to communist tastes in the Comintern's sectarian "third period." Little did it matter that the central ideological theme of the Red Shirts consisted in a "revival of the Muslim Pathan identity." (21). Decades later, EMS Namboodiripad nostalgically harked back to the virtues of "an entire people [the Pathans] rising against imperialism.". (22)

Before the rise of the Muslim League, the Ahrar movement provided the best link for rooting communist themes in the Muslim sphere. The Majlis-i-Ahrar-i-Islam (League of Freedom-Loving Muslims) had been founded on December 29,  1929, at Lahore, by Muslim nationalists from Punjab. Religious leaders from all sects, Sunni Barelvi, Deobandi, and Ahle Hadith, were the members of Majlis-e-Ahrar. Chaudhry Afzal Haq, Syed Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari, Maulana Habib-ur-Rehman Ludhianvi, Mazhar Ali Azhar, Maulana Zafar Ali Khan and Dawood Ghaznavi were the founders of the party. The Ahrar was composed of Indian Muslims disillusioned by the Khilafat Movement, which cleaved closer to the Congress Party. The Party, being a member of the All India Azad Muslim Conference, was associated with opposition to Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the establishment of an independent Pakistan. After 1947, it separated into the Majlis-E-Ahrar Islam Hind, based in Ludhiana and led by descendants of Maulana Habib-ur-Rehman Ludhianvi and the Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam, based in Lahore and led by descendants of Syed Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari.

The Ahrars' aims were to liberate India from British domination while avoiding a "Hindu raj." They envisioned an "Islamic system" for Muslims and demanded their material uplift. The Ahrar agenda also called for equal distribution of wealth, the abolition of untouchability, universal respect for religion, and freedom for practising sharia law. The Ahrar leaders "concentrated their political energies on the defence of Islam." (23)

Ajoy Ghosh

The Ahrar campaigns exhibited a clear religious list. They participated in the "Muslim Bazaar Campaign," which called for villagers to supply themselves at Muslim shops only and mobilised Muslims against the Hindu village elite. They also staged campaigns against social evils such as dowry and untouchability, both of which they associated with Hindu culture. "In their doctrinal training, the MAI [Majli-i-Ahrar-i-Islam] […] strictly followed Shariat." Their stance towards deviations from Sunni Islam was harsh: Shias, Ahmadis, and more liberal and inclusive Muslims such as Jinnah were victims of Ahrar ostracism. (24)  

However, the Ahrars had something to offer to the communists. Their flag was red with a white crescent and star upon it, similar to the CPI's own red-white hammer-and-sickle banner. Hierarchy in the MAI was strict and centralised. Another area of agreement between Ahrar Islam and communism was egalitarianism. Since many MAI leaders came from lower social strata, socialist ideas held a considerable attraction for them. According to Awan, the Ahrars even "had a vague idea of class struggle and the orthodox Marxist ideology." (25)

As the Majlis-i-Ahrar received communist blessings, it garnered communist sympathy beyond what had been allotted to Muslim organisations. In Punjab, CPI and Ahrars joined in an alliance with the INC and the CSP to contest the 1937 elections. The Ahrars' call to Muslim workers at Kanpur to support the 1937 and 1938 general strikes elevated them to communist circles. A leading Kanpur trade union activist and CPI member Maulana Yusuf commended the Ahrars as a "Left Muslim organisation" with a positive influence on the workforce. (26) National Front, the CPI's organ in the late 1930s, included them among "progressive Muslim political organisations" seeking to integrate Muslims into the national movement. After the outbreak of the war, CPI publications praised them for their anti-enlistment campaigns among Muslims. In 1937, Ahrars and communists had cooperated to the same effect in the League against Fascism and War. (27)

Thus an emerging alternative on Muslim communal assertions gradually manifested itself in communist diction. The attribute "Muslim" came to be used more frequently in a neutral sense. (28)

The communists avidly supported Congress's "Muslim Mass Contact Campaign" in 1937/38. It had been devised by Nehru and INC strategist K. M. Ashraf in the wake of the 1937 provincial elections, where the Congress had emerged victorious, winning 711 out of a total of 1585 assembly seats and an absolute majority in five provinces out of eleven. Even if the results in Muslim constituencies were meagre—it had managed to win only 26—the Muslim League had tallied only 109 of the 482 reserved for Muslims and was a far cry from being the representative of Muslim opinion it aspired to be. (29)

The INC's left-wing had been on the ascent since the mid-1930s, borne out by the left candidates Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose as INC presidents in 1936 and 1938 1939, respectively. Encouraged by the success of a leftist program in the general constituencies, many in Congress sensed the opportunity to finally rally the Muslims to the national mainstream. Accordingly, Congress refused to form coalition governments with the landlord backed ML. They initiated a broad campaign to win over Muslim peasants, workers, and petit-bourgeois, whom the League regarded as its own constituency. Sympathising with it, the CPI supported Muslim Mass Contact. Yet, it resulted in failure for two main reasons: Not only did the League respond with an assertive, identity, and populist Muslim image, but also did Congress ministries everywhere fail to deliver on the promised reforms in the agrarian and labour sectors.

Sajjad Zaheer

The CPI's identification of political 'backwardness' among Muslims had ever hinged primarily not on a lack of unity with Hindus or the mainstream national movement but on the perceived absence of a solid anti-imperialist current among the Muslim organisations. Therefore, the CPI would eventually be prepared to campaign in unilateral support of emphatically Muslim anti-imperialism.

Amid the Sino-Japanese war in 1938, CPI organ New Age published an article praising "the Chinese Muslims" as a bulwark against Japanese expansionism. It emphasised their Muslimness and raved that they had "been living a life very much unto themselves, preserving intact their customs, traditions and rituals which their ancestors brought with them from the Near East 1,300 years ago." The New Age was delirious by the fact that one of Chiang Kai-Shek's generals was a "staunch Mohammedan." (30). Of course, Kai-Shek had a Muslim General called Ma Liang who had 2000 Chinese Muslim troops. Kai-Shek offered him the post of Commander-in-chief of the 103rd Route of the Kuomintang army.

In 1937, M. N. Roy published The Historical Role of Islam. The treatise considered Muslims an integral part of the "Indian nation" and Islam itself of "immense revolutionary significance" with "great cultural consequences." His attacks on "disgusting" Hinduism coupled with praise of Islam's tolerance and Muslims' noble demeanour in conquest went down well with Muslim intellectuals about to politically assert their religious identity. (31) Following the treatise and his break with the INC in 1939, Roy's prestige among Muslim intellectuals grew. This materialised in regular invitations to lecture at conferences of Muslim organisations to "inspire the Muslims […] with your inspiring ideas, ideas and personality […] in the interest of and [sic!] Islam." (32). He compensated by terming the League "not a communal but a genuine anti-imperialist organisation." (33). To the contemporary communist press, Roy's appraisals were a testimony to his ongoing betrayal of the revolution. (34)

The rise of the Muslim League, the related shift in the communist perception of communalism, the ML's adaptation of a nationalist agenda, and the sea-change in the CPI's stance towards the war after Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941 would converge in the 'nationality period' of the 1940s.

Ghaffar Khan with Gandhi

The 1938 Patna session of ML committed it to independence. It introduced a new pitch of far-reaching communal demands coupled with scathing attacks on the Congress, culminating in the call of "Islam in danger." Soon, Jinnah's public appearances drew more people than even the khilafat campaign at its height, with a procession of four kilometres greeting his arrival at the 1938 ML regional session in Sindh. (35)

This development attracted the communists' keen interest because of the new dimension of the mass politicisation of Muslims. The increasing support of the "downtrodden masses" signified that the ML's agenda met their needs. Now the INC was criticised for not doing enough to remove Muslim anxieties. Just one week later, after the breakdown of INC-ML talks, Ajoy Ghosh, who had become a PB member in 1936, and now editing the Party's mouthpiece, National Front, pushed the evaluative change further by demanding "a bold declaration by the Congress […] to concede to the Muslims their communal demands." A united front with the League could be a "weapon for checking communal disorders and for immediately drawing even those Muslim masses which were still under the communal influence into active political struggle." (36)

Ghosh had swallowed his earlier anti-League tirades. In September 1938, he had problematised the ML's "reactionary" character as an ally of imperialism. Ghosh considered not the INC's subservience to capitalist interests, but its "communal outlook" the chief obstacle to a rapprochement with Muslims. This outlook manifested in ostensibly degrading practices such as the address "Shri" for Muslims. He called for "purging the Congress completely of Hindu atmosphere" and "going more than halfway to meet the communal demands of the Muslims." (37)

Thus the League lost their pariah status in communist circles. Hasrat Mohani, expelled from the CPI in 1927 because of his ML membership, was elected to the Kanpur Mazdoor Sabha's general council on a communist ticket in 1938—while heading of the local League. In the same year, the CPI  endorsed Mohani's candidature for the Congress Working Committee and refuted the CSP's allegations of a "communist-communalist alliance".(38)

The National Front went ahead with a caricature showing British imperialism setting its Muslim League dog on the Congress cat. A few issues later, the paper apologised for having hurt Muslim religious sentiments by casting "their" political organisation into an avatar considered unclean in Islam: "We sincerely regret the pain we may have caused to some of our readers through our ignorance." (39)

In his 1939 pamphlet Communal Unity, Ghosh averred the need for an extensive catering to what he viewed as Muslim interests:

It must never be forgotten that Congress has to go out of its way to win the confidence of Muslims. Special efforts must be made to enable the Muslims to grow [!] their cultural and general backwardness. Muslim grievances regarding cow slaughter, music before mosques, etc., wherever they exist should be immediately remedied. (40)

The sustained discovery of Muslim politics also eroded the classical dichotomy between the League leadership and the Muslim masses. Even while the former was under the sway of groups, "afraid of democracy, afraid of mass organisation, afraid of mass struggle," guest contributor S. Mahmudazaffar urged in National Front that it was high time the communists took the League seriously:

As a matter of fact, it is patently wrong to characterise the League today as a reactionary organisation. And the more we do so, the more we shall drive the Muslim masses away from the anti-imperialist struggle. The Muslim League is today a genuine mass organisation. The Muslim groups believe that they have to win their independence from British Imperialism and Hindu capitalism. Our job is to draw them into our struggle and clarify their political formulation. This cannot be done if we continue to insult the Muslim masses by calling them reactionaries, […] if we continue to deny them the right to organise if we continue to neglect their livelihood, languages, education, and culture. (41)

Mahmudazaffar had been a founding member of the Progressive Writers' Association (PWA), set up in 1936 as a literary organisation of writers and poets with socialist and communist leanings. Many of its members were sympathetic towards or active in the CPI, most prominently Sajjad Zaheer (1905–1973), who rose to prominent positions in both bodies. Like Zaheer, Mahmudazzafar hailed from the upper strata of Lucknow's respectable ashraf community. (42)

Syed Sajjad Zaheer was the fourth son of Syed Wazir Hasan, a judge at the AllahabadHigh Court of Judicature at Allahabad. In his final year at Oxford, he contracted tuberculosis and was sent to a sanatorium in Switzerland. On returning to England, he was influenced by the communist leader Shapurji Saklatvala and joined the Oxford Majlis. He attended the Second Congress of the League against Imperialism held in Frankfurt, where he met influential leaders like Viren Chattopadhyay, Saumyendranath Tagore, N. M. Jaisoorya and Mahendra Pratap.

In December 1932, Zaheer and a group of friends published his first book Angarey, which was banned by the government. Following the uproar, he was sent to London by his father in March 1933 to study law at Lincoln's Inn. He became Uttar Pradesh state secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and a member of the working committee of the Congress in 1936. He was nominated in charge of the Delhi branch of the CPI in 1939.

After partition, Sajjad Zaheer, along with Sibte Hasan and Mian Iftekhar-ud-Din, started the Communist Party of Pakistan and was appointed Secretary-General of the Party there.

The poet Mohammed Iqbal, as president of the ML's 1930 session first articulated the idea that the "life of Islam as a cultural force […] largely depends on its centralisation in a specified territory." (43); however, it was only in the wake of the 1937 provincial elections that Muslim separatism would assume a concrete political shape.

_________________________________


1. Ranadive, "The Role Played by Communists," 52–3; Namboodiripad, A History of Indian, 301– 2.  
2. Mitra, Indian Annual Register, vol. 11/1, 1929
3. "General Statement, 494.
4. Mukhopadhyaya, Secret British Documents, 170–1.
5. Madhu Limaye, Evolution of Socialist Policy (Hyderabad: Chetana Prakashan 1952), 2
6. Sampurnanand, Reflections (London: Asia Publishing House 1962), 41, 85
7. Sinha, The Left-Wing, 360-70
8. ibid., 365–7
9. Ben Bradley and Rajani Palme Dutt, "The Anti-Imperialist People's Front in India," Labour Monthly 18/March (1936).
10. Conrad Wood, "The Communist Party of India: From Leftism to United Front," in Britain, Fascism and the Popular Front, ed. Jim Fyrth (London: Lawrence and Wishart 1985), 198
11. Marcus Franda, "Radical Policies in West Bengal," in Radical Policies in South Asia, eds. Paul Brass and Marcus Franda (Cambridge [MA]: MIT Press 1973), 190–1
12. Sarkar, Modern India, 308–9, 319–20.
13. Chatterji, Bengal Divided, 18–21
14. Joint Platform of Action," in Documents 3, 78-82
15. Joint Platform of Action," 82
16. "The Indian Revolution and Our Task," in Documents 3:111
17. Gopalan, In the Cause, 65–6, 78-9
18. Reetz, "Community Concepts and Community-Building," 128–9
19. Sym, John. Seaforth Highlanders. p. 229. Gale & Polden. 1962.
20. Reetz, "Religion and Group Identity," 80–1.
21. Reetz, "Community Concepts and Community-Building," 129
22. EMS, A History of Indian, 244.
23. Gilmartin, Empire and Islam, 104–5
24. Awan, Political Islam in Colonial, 74
25. Ibid., 73,152.
26.  Yusuf, “Cawnpore General Strike. A Landmark," New Age, Supplement December 1937
27. "Current Notes," National Front, 10 July 1938
28. T Oommen, State and Society in India. Studies in Nation-Building (Delhi: Sage Publ. 1990), 105
29. Sarkar, Modern India, 345, 349.
30. "Islam Fights For China. Sons Of The Khan," New Age, May 1938
31. John Haithcox, Communism and Nationalism in India: M. N. Roy and Comintern Policy 1920–1939 (Bombay: Oxford University Press 1971), 255
32. Letter from the Sylhet District Moslem Students' Federation, 24 November 1940, NMML, M. N. Roy Papers, First Installment, Subject Files, no. 15
33. "Current Notes," National Front, 27 March 1938.
34. Ibid
35. Ian Talbot, Freedom's Cry. The Popular Dimension in the Pakistan Movement and Partition Experience in North-West India (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1996), 8–11, 23–31
36. A. K. Ghosh, "Negotiations Versus Direct Approach," National Front, June 19, 1938
37. A. K. Ghosh, "Congress and the Muslims," National Front, September 18, 1938.
38. P. C. Joshi, "Cawnpore Picks Its Pilots," National Front, September 4, 1938.
39. National Front, October 9, 1938.
40. A. K. Ghosh, Marxism and Indian Reality. Selected Speeches and Writings (Delhi: Patriot Publishers 1989), 362.
41.  S. Mahmudazaffar, “The Communal Boulder,” New Age VI/1, June 1939
42. Priyamvada Gopal, "Literary Radicalism in India: The Meanings of Decolonisation" (Occasional paper 2, Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge, 2003), 3–7
43. Jalal, The Sole Spokesman, 12



© Ramachandran




  

Saturday 19 September 2020

THE CHRONICLES OF CHAOS

Foreword

The Chronicles of Chaos

Ramachandran

Islam ,meaning "submission [to God]", is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the monotheistic teachings of Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, and Muhammad  fundamentally teaching that there is only one God (Allah) and that Muhammad is the last and final messenger of God.It is the world's second-largest religion with over 1.8 billion followers or 24.1% of the world's population, known as Muslims.They make up a majority of the population in 49 countries. Islam teaches that God has guided mankind through prophets, revealed scriptures, and natural signs.The primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, believed to be the verbatim word of God, as well as the teachings and normative examples,called the sunnah, composed of accounts called hadith of Muhammad (c. 570 – 632 AD ).

Muslims consider the Quran in Arabic to be the unaltered and final revelation of God.Like other Abrahamic religions, Islam also teaches a final judgment with the righteous rewarded in paradise and the unrighteous punished in hell.Religious concepts and practices include the Five Pillars of Islam, which are obligatory acts of worship, as well as following Islamic law (sharia), which touches on virtually every aspect of life and society, from banking and welfare to women and the environment.The cities of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem are the three holiest sites in Islam.

Islam originated in the early 7th century  Arabian Peninsula, in Mecca, and by the 8th century, the Umayyad Caliphate extended from Iberia in the west to the Indus River in the east. The Islamic Golden Age refers to the period traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 13th century, during the Abbasid Caliphate, when much of the historically Muslim world was expamding.The expansion involved various caliphates and states such as the Ottoman Empire, trade, and conversion to Islam by missionary activities (dawah).

Most Muslims are of one of two denominations: Sunni (75–90%) or Shia (10–20%). Sunni and Shia differences arose from a disagreement over the succession to Muhammad and acquired broader political significance, as well as theological and juridical dimensions.About 13% of Muslims live in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim-majority country; 31% live in South Asia,the largest population of Muslims in the world; 20% in the Middle East–North Africa, where it is the dominant religion; and 15% in sub-Saharan Africa.Sizable Muslim communities can also be found in the Americas, China, Europe, and North Asia. 

Since it is a monotheistic religion,it has created only dictators from its very inception.Several characteristics of miltancy in the world,kidnapping,taking hostges,asking for ransom and jihad,were contributed by Islam.Out of the four Caliphs after Muhammad,three were murdered,proving it is not a peace loving religion.The founder himself ruled by subjugating the masses with terror and religion;adherence to the faith was mandatory.Death or Islam was the slogan.Iconoclasm,established in the final battle for Mecca was followed the world over,and was witnessed by Malabar in 1921,by islamists breaking the idols in temples,garlanding the idols with the entrails of cattle and even destroying the temples.Malabar had witnessed it much before,during the conquests of Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan.The Zamorin had to commit self immolation,setting fire to his palace.

India had witnessed it during the Islamic conquest of the Sindh in the 8th century,attacks of Muhammad Ghori,Mahmudd Ghazni and finally during the Mughal empire.Bakhtiyar Khalji destroyed the Nalanda University;Qutb Din Aibak constructed the vicory pillar of Qutb Minar,destroying 27 temples.Raja Dahir,Jayapala,the Hindu Karkota empire of Laltaditya,Suhaldev and Prithviraj resisted the Islamic conquest.

For Islam,conquest of India and Hindus was,jihad.

Jihad means 'to strive or struggle [in the way of God]'. In its broadest sense, it is "exerting one's utmost power, efforts, endeavors, or ability in contending with an object of disapprobation." Depending on the object being a visible enemy, the Devil, and aspects of one's own self ,such as sinful desires, different categories of jihad are defined. Jihad also refers to one's striving to attain religious and moral perfection.When used without any qualifier, jihad is understood in its military form. Some Muslim authorities, especially among the Shi'a and Sufis, distinguish between the "greater jihad," which pertains to spiritual self-perfection, and the "lesser jihad", defined as warfare.

Within Islamic jurisprudence, jihad is usually taken to mean military exertion against non-Muslim combatants. Jihad is the only form of warfare permissible in Islamic law and may be declared against illegal works, terrorists, criminal groups, rebels, apostates, and leaders or states who oppress Muslims. Jihad only becomes an individual duty for those vested with authority. 

Criticism of Islam has existed since Islam's formative stages. Early criticism came from Jewish and Christian authors, many of whom viewed Islam as a Christian heresy or a form of idolatry, often explaining it in apocalyptic terms.Later, there appeared criticism from the Muslim world itself, as well as from Jewish writers and from ecclesiastical Christians.Issues relating to the authenticity and morality of the Quran, the Islamic holy book, are also discussed by critics.
World Muslim Population

Islamic salvation optimism and its carnality were criticized by Christian writers. Islam's sensual descriptions of paradise led many Christians to conclude that Islam was not a spiritual religion. Although sensual pleasure was also present in early Christianity, as seen in the writings of Irenaeus, the doctrines of the former Manichaean Augustine of Hippo led to the broad repudiation of bodily pleasure in both life and the afterlife. Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari defended the Quranic description of paradise by asserting that the Bible also implies such ideas, such as drinking wine in Gospel of Matthew.

Defamatory images of Muhammad, derived from early 7th century depictions of Byzantine Church,appear in the 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. Here, Muhammad appears in the eighth circle of hell, along with Ali. Dante does not blame Islam as a whole but accuses Muhammad of schism, by establishing another religion after Christianity.

Since the events of 11 September 2001, Islam has faced criticism over its scriptures and teachings being claimed to be a significant source of terrorism and terrorist ideology.India had known it for several centuries,as a politico-religious phenomenon,rooted in militancy.

Other criticisms focus on the question of human rights in modern Muslim-majority countries, and the treatment of women in Islamic law and practice.In the wake of the recent multiculturalism trend, Islam's influence on the ability of Muslim immigrants in the West to assimilate has been criticized. Both in his public and personal life, others objected the morality of Muhammad, therefore also the sunnah as a role model.

Muhammad being the last prophet,leaves little room for updation in the religion he has found.Its priest hood interprets the Quranic verses according to their whims and fancies,most of the time,in an archaic manner.The resultant reality is often chaos and anarchy.It is a religion marred by homicides and fratricides.This book chronicles the militancy Islam has given birth to and groomed over centuries of strife and conquests.

© Ramachandran 

Sunday 2 August 2020

THE KILLING OF RAMA SIMHAN BY MUSLIMS

The Congress Helped to Destroy the Case

While Kerala is discussing Variyamkunnath Kunjahammad Haji and the Hindu genocide of 1921 on the eve of the centenary of the Mappila Rebellion, the story of the conversion of Unneen Sahib to Hinduism has to be remembered. As a result, the fanatic Muslims killed him and his family. It is known as the Ramasimhan episode since Uneen Sahib became known as Ramasimhan after his conversion.

I had read the name of Ramasimhan in the book, Khilafath Smaranakal by Mozhikunnath Brahmadathan Nambudiripad and had searched for the details in the library of the newspaper where I had worked. Unfortunately, the daily, established in 1888, had been banned for nine years from 1938 and thus had not reported the incident.

The conversion

In the book, Brahmadathan speaks negatively of Cherumukk Kunjan Othikkan who converted Kilimannil Unnian from Islam to Hinduism and made him Ramasimhan Nambudiri. Brahmadathan had been declared an outcast by his own Nambudiri community, after the Maappila revolt of 1921. Brahmadathan, Congress President of Cherpulassery in Palakkad was arrested by the police in a case in September 1921. He was given a life sentence and was imprisoned at the Bellary jail. He was declared an outcast for eating along with people belonging to other castes. He had gone to the high priest Cherumukk Somayajippad then seeking pardon. His entreaties were rejected then. After his death, his brother Kunjan Othikkan inherited the position of the high priest-he had been running a bank and had no knowledge of the rituals. But, according to Brahmadathan, he made his position an office of profit.

Kiliyamannil Thekke Palliyayali Moidu of Chemmankadavu village in Malappuram district of Kerala, had two sons namd Unneen and Alippu.Moidu or Kiliyamannil Moideen, hailing from Chemmankadav near Kodur in Malappuram, had made some money, managing the British rubber estate at Palipilly near Thrissur. He acquired land and a rubber estate himself, which were inherited by his son, Uneen or Unniyan.

Unneen was a rubber estate owner near Malaramba, Angadippuram, Perinthalmanna. The British government conferred the title of ‘Khan Sahib’ on Unneen as he was a landlord loyal to them. Unneen married the daughter of a prominent timber merchant Khan Bahadur Kalladi Unni Kammu of Mannarkadu in Palakkad district. Unneen had an Ettukettu bungalow at Angadippuram called the Malaramba bungalow and had leased for 90 years the 600-acre Malaramba estate from Kundrakal Nair, and had named it KM Moidu Rubber Estate. He drove an American Ford car. He had two brothers, Ali Bapu and Kunjahammed.

Unneen reached Angadippuram around 1905, to plant rubber following the British methods. He leased the 600 acres at Pariyapuram, and the land had a dilapidated Narasimha temple.

Unneen was very much attached to Western culture and was following their lifestyle. Being a rich landlord, he maintained local mosques, a madrasa and used to insult Hindus and their places of worship. He used the ruins of a nearby temple for building a latrine in his house. But all of a sudden he became sick and affected severe stomach disease. No treatment found to cure his illness. On seeing his pathetic condition some elders of nearby locality advised him to consult an astrologer and some Hindu Sannyasins for his recovery as they feared that it was a curse of God. They advised him to refrain from insulting Hindu deities and the Vedic literature. 

Ramasimhan

During the campaign of Tipu Sultan in the Malabar region of Kerala, hundreds of temples were destroyed and plundered by the Muslims. Prominent among them were Tali Shiva Temple at Kozhikode and Shri Narasimha Moorthi Temple at Malaparamba.

The Narasimha temple came into existence nearly 350 years ago. But it had lost its prominence due to neglect by the family who owned it. Afterwards, one Kundrakkal Nair took up the reconstruction work. With Tipu Sultan’s entry into the Malabar region in 1779, this temple was also got destroyed along with others. Then, Unneen Sahib's family got a lease of 100 acres of land around this temple for a rubber plantation.

A dream

One night in 1944, Uneen had a dream of a fierce face shouting and screaming at him. He got very much afraid. The dream continued for several nights. His Hindu friends advised him to consult an astrologer. One of his friends was the lawyer Manjeri Rama Iyer, who was Dewan of the Nilambur Raja. Rama Iyer had converted himself to Buddhism. He was supportive of the Uneen family in 1921 and was critical of the trials of the Mappilas then. Iyer's family had disowned him.

The astrologer found out that it was Lord Narasimha who had appeared before Uneen in his sleep. He was demanding Unneen resettle Him in his old temple. The astrologers told Uneen to do it. He agreed to the proposal to reconstruct the temple in all its glory. His nightmare got over. He began to visit the temple site. He saw a number of Namboodiri pujaris, granite stone cutters, and the Narasimha idol being brought by the architects. It became a very busy pilgrimage centre for people from different professions. The mantras being recited influenced him very much.

He realised his mistakes and became repentant about his past actions. His painful stomach disease was also got relieved shortly. He changed his living style and eating habits. He took a special interest in Yoga, meditation and charitable works for the well-being of the Hindus. But the sudden change in Unneen Sahib infuriated the orthodox Muslims. The Muslim clergy tried their level best to change the mind of Uneen but were unsuccessful. He became more attached to Hindu religious texts and beliefs. He went to the Arya Samaj at Calicut along with his brother, sons and many other family members and got re-converted into Hinduism the shuddhi ritual conducted by Arya Missionary Buddha Singh in 1946. Unneen held Dayanand Saraswati's 'Satyarthprakash' in his hand. The incident was splashed in dailies and published in Fort St George Gazette.

On becoming a follower of the Vedic religion, Uneen got the name, Ramasimhan. One of his brothers, Ali Bapu, became Dayasimhan. Dayasimhan later became Narasimhan on his conversion into a Namboothiri Brahmin. Ramasimhan’s two sons changed their names to Fateh Singh and Jorwar Singh, the names of Guru Gobind Singh’s two valiant sons who were murdered on the orders of Aurangzeb during Mughal Rule for refusing to accept Islam. Former RSS Malabar pracharak Shankar Shastri had made all the necessary arrangements for the conversion of Unneen and his family.

Ramasimhan's two children renamed Udaya Simhan and Satya Simhan were sent to Delhi Arya Samaj school for education and joined the Birla College.

Accepting the request of Ramasimhan, the learned Namboodiri Brahmins agreed to convert Dayasimhan, brother of Rama Simhan into a Namboodiri Brahmin and his name was changed to Narasimhan Namboodiri. They even arranged the marriage of him with a Namboodiri girl named Kamala, daughter of Puzhakkattiri Kottuvadi Mangalathu Manaykal Narayanan Nambudiri.

Muslim protest and murder

When a Maulavi criticised the re-conversion as a great mistake on the part of Ramasimhan, he retorted: "I have not committed any mistake. It was my grandmother who, on being captured by Muslims, committed the fault of converting to Islam. I am re-converting to Hinduism to rectify the fault and atone for the sin of my grandmother."

But the reconversion of the wealthy and prominent Muslim family of Uneen caused a tremor in the Muslim-dominated Malabar region. They feared that it may create an exodus from Islam to the Vedic religion. On coming back to Hinduism, Ramasimhan became a peace-loving person. He returned his guns and licensed revolvers to the government which he was using earlier for hunting. He told the government that he no more need guns since now he believed in non-violence. He became a vegetarian and brought a cook, Raju/Ramu Iyer from Thrissur. The Muslim clergy spread the rumour that Uneen has become mad. His father-in-law Unnikkammu took away his daughter.

Dressed up as a Brahmin, Unneen converted the mosque in front of his home, into his visitor's room, for Hindu saints and priests, who frequently visited his home and performed pujas. He stopped gifts to mosques and began contributing to temples.

Things took a new turn when Kunjahammed, Uneen's younger brother decided to reconvert into Islam, in 1946. He held a meeting of prominent Muslims and clerics, to persuade Uneen to revert back. About 30 attended. Ramasimhan, who had thoroughly studied Hinduism by then, debated successfully with the Muslim clerics. The clerics announced that Ramasimhan was possessed by a Kafir Jin and he need to consume 14 oranges, which were ritually blessed. Ramasimhan refused. This act of Ramasimhan was counterproductive and encouraged the Islamic fundamentalists to brutally assassinate him and his family. Things became worse when Dayasimhan decided to marry a 15-year-old Nambudiri girl, Kamala, daughter of Mangalath Manaykal Narayanan Nambudiri, after his sacred thread ceremony, or upanayana. After the wedding, Narasimhan became a priest at the Narasimha temple.

The Muslim clerics held a secret meeting, declared Ramasimhan an apostate and decided to inflict the death sentence on him, according to the Sharia. The then IS, Izzatul Islam, which was formed to help the new converts, was assigned the killing job. Seven people from Pookottur, formed the death squad-Paramban Mammad, Kunyatkalathil Moideen Kutty, Puliyan Muhammad, Muttayilkaran Aymutty, Nanath Kunjalavi, Kalathinkal Kunhamu and Illikkappadi Ayamu. They met at the estate of Abubakar Haji, prayed and began their journey with a gun and 20 bullets.

The Muslim fundamentalists attacked the house of Ramasimhan at 2 am on 3 August 1947 armed with deadly weapons and slaughtered the sleeping Ramasimhan, his brother Narasimhan Namboothiri, his wife Kamala Antarjanam and their cook Raju Iyer, in cold blood. A large force of Muslims had come in two trucks with all types of arms, and they demolished the house of Rama Simhan. They desecrated the nearby temple, killed the holy cows and threw the meat and entrails there. Kamala's mother and her other children, who were in the bungalow, escaped.

The assailants destroyed the Narasimha temple; looted the bungalow. The idol was thrown into the pond. They filled the temple well, with the debris of the compound wall.

The Hindus of the whole locality got afraid and hid in their houses. Nobody was there to claim the dead bodies of Rama Simhan and his family. RSS was not a mature organisation then. The bodies were unceremoniously buried by the police on the hillock. Only one Hindu, the RSS pracharak from Nagpur, Sankara Shastri, was present.

The whole incident didn't get the attention it deserved, since the country had plunged into the independence celebrations.

The police arrested the assailants of Ramasimhan and his family. Ramasimhan's younger brother Kunjahammed, father-in-law Unnikammu and an accomplice Haneefa were arrested on the seventh day. Perinthalmanna SI Kesava Menon led the police team.

The weapons used for the murder were retrieved from the Kulathur Muthalakkot pond in which they were dumped. Four of the murderers were sentenced to death by the District and Sessions Court at Palghat.

Acquittal

The Muslim fundamentalists rallied behind the marauders and raised a huge sum of money for their legal assistance on appeal in the High Court of Madras. It was ironic that the Justice Lionel  Clifford Horwill ( ICS) of the Madras High Court, in a judgement on January 19, 1949, acquitted all the accused of want of credible evidence. He also observed  that “it is unfortunate that such a grave crime organised by the Moplah Muslims against the Hindus of the area has not been detected; if the police were unable to obtain more evidence it was because the Moplah community largely succeeded in maintaining secrecy.”

The pseudo-secular politicians of the then Madras Government were bribed by influential Muslim businessmen for supporting the convicts in fighting the case in the Madras High Court. In the PS Kumaraswami Raja cabinet of 1949, Kozhippurath Madhava Menon was the minister from Malabar, with a Courts and Prisons portfolio, apart from Education. The evidence was destroyed and prosecution witnesses were threatened and coerced into silence. As a result of such actions, the case was dismissed on the grounds of lack of evidence. Thus the murderers of this heinous crime were set scot-free. Many confidants of Rama Simhan like his Manager were bribed and were compelled to hand over the guardianship of his sons to his father-in-law Unni Kammu who forcibly reconverted them to Islam later. Even though the rule of the land could not punish the assailants and their supporters, many of them had a tragic life in their later part of life. Few of them became insane and destitute.

Madhava Menon

As a result of the Congress's support for the Mappila rebellion as well as the Ramasimhan murder 25 years later, the Hindus welcomed Communism to Malabar. The RSS had no foothold then. The RSS never forgot the incident in Malaparamba and their own helplessness at that time. They prepared themselves to redeem what they could not do in 1947. With great difficulty, the Mattummal Narasimha Moorthi Temple Trust went to the court to get an order for handing over the temple lands to the remaining dependents of Rama Simhan. His two children who were in Delhi were brought back and brought up as Muslims again. The Court allowed the Trust to reconstruct the temple. The members of the Trust began the reconstruction with very strong black granite stones. It took five years for the temple work to be finished. After elaborate religious Vedic rites, the temple complex, consisting of the main Lord Narasimha Moorthy, Lord Ganesha, Devi Durga, Lord Ayyappa and Lord Subramania, was been opened to the devotees again. After 60 years, the self-respect of the Hindus could be redeemed.

Today, the MES Medical College stands at the place where Ramasimhan's bungalow stood.MES claims that the estate was transferred to them by his descendants of him, after his murder. But the claim is said to be baseless since it was leased out by the Kundarakal Nair family to Unneen for 90 years. The lease agreement got expired in 1995; hence, the estate should be transferred back to the family or should be attached by the government. Even if the descendants had transferred the lease rights, it was illegal. The temple and the 60 cents around it have been handed over to the Hindus, after a prolonged legal battle.

The Verdict in the Appeal:

Madras High Court

Paramban Mammadu And Ors. vs The King on 19 January 1949
Equivalent citations: (1949) 2 MLJ 544
Author: Horwill

JUDGMENT Horwill, J.

1. The four appellants and three others who were acquitted by the lower Court were charged by the Sessions Judge of South Malabar under Section 120-B read with Section 302, Indian Penal Code, of conspiring with P.W. 10 to commit the murder of one Ramasimhan. There was also a charge under section 148 of being armed with dangerous weapons and rioting. They were further charged under four separate counts for the murder of the said Ramasimhan, his brother Narasimhan, the wife of Narasimhan, and one Raju Iyer, a Brahmin cook of Ramasimhan. These four persons will be referred to during the course of the judgment as deceased Nos. 1 to 4 respectively. The learned Judge found the first accused only guilty of conspiracy and the four appellants guilty under Sections 147 and 34, read with Section 302, Indian Penal Code, on all the four counts. He sentenced the four appellants to death and, as already stated, acquitted the other three.

2. The motive for the offence is said to have been the enmity borne by the Moplah community in general and the seven accused and P.W. 10 in particular against Ramasimlhan and his brother, the second deceased because they had renounced Islam and allowed themselves to be converted to Hinduism. Narasimhan had subsequently been elevated to Nambudiri rank and had been accepted by the Nambudiri community as one of their numbers; and to him in marriage was given the daughter of P.W. 26, a girl of 15 years of age, who was with her husband at the time of the murder and shared his fate. After the first deceased had been converted from Islam to Hinduism, he diverted the large sums of money that he was accustomed to contributing to Muslim charities and spent them on Hindu charities. In particular, he renovated a Hindu temple in the vicinity and was responsible for restoring regular worship there. He began a diligent study of the Hindu scriptures and was studying the Bhagavad Gita, and had perpetually with him P.W. 25, a Nambudiri, to teach mantrams to the second deceased. He had moreover sent his two sons to Delhi to be instructed and brought up in the Hindu religion. All this, the prosecution says, gave rise to a great deal of enmity against him among Muslims; and specific instances have been spoken to in the evidence in which Muslims were heard denouncing very severely the first deceased and even threatening his life.

3. Exhibit P-60 gives an accurate idea of the bungalow of Ramasimhan, by the name " Malaramba Bungalow ". The main entrance to the bungalow was on the eastern side. To enter the house one has to pass through a door situated on the eastern side of a porch, which is the entrance to the bungalow. Just inside that door were lying the first deceased and P.W. 24, a boy kept by the first deceased to massage him. This witness was lying on a mat (M.O. 17), which assumes some importance because on it was found a footprint, and P.W. 25 lay on another mat (M.O. 18), which is important for the same reason. From the verandah, one can enter the room marked " B " on the plan and from that central room, one can pass to rooms north and south. Immediately to the north of that central room was a room in which was lying a child of P.W. 26, the mother of the third deceased. Still north of that room again on a cot were lying the second and third deceased. To the south of the central room were lying P.W. 26 and two of her children. To the west of this series of rooms which run north to south is a verandah, from which is a passageway to the west leading into the dining hall and the kitchen. The western verandah of the main building was separated from this passageway by a door which was said to have been fastened on the night of the offence, as was the main entrance at the east. If those doors were secured, then, apparently, the house could only be entered by breaking open those doors. If one passed through the door separating the western verandah from the passageway, one passed first into the dining hall, where were sleeping the fourth deceased and his assistant, P.W. 22. To the west of the main hall was a kitchen in which P.W. 22 subsequently took refuge.

4. According to the story of the persons who were in that bungalow on the night of the offence and who survived the murderous assault, the first inkling that any strangers were trying to enter came from a banging on the front door. P.W. 24, deposed that the door had not been securely fastened. Although there were three bolts, only the bolt on the top had been secured; and so when the door was knocked that bolt fell and the door opened. P.W. 24 does not give evidence of any great value; for as soon as he saw a person enter, he ran through into the middle room and there joined P.W. 26 and her children. P.W. 25, on hearing cries, hid behind an almirah situated close to where he was lying. From there he was able to see something of what was taking place. He deposed that a little after midnight (2 a.m. was that time generally agreed upon), he heard a sound of a battering of the front door. Before he hid behind the almirah, the first deceased came saying " Who is it, Eda " and then crying out " Boy, I am cheated ", referring to the second deceased. He saw somebody cutting the first deceased with a weapon about a cubit long. He was able to see what was happening, not only by the moonlight shining through the door but by the light of a torch that was being shown by the assailant. The second deceased then came running and flashed a torch to see what was happening. He ran back when she saw the assailant. The witness saw a person chasing the second deceased but is unable to say whether or not that person was the same man who had attacked the first deceased. A little later, when things had become a little quieter, he made his escape. When the fourth deceased and P.W. 22 heard the door separating the verandah of the main building from the passage being broken open, P.W. 22 ran into the kitchen before anyone entered there; but he saw a person attacking the fourth deceased. Subsequently, somebody flashed a torch into the kitchen; but as he was hiding behind the door, he was not seen. The fourth deceased, though severely injured, was able to escape and give two statements, Exhibits P-24 and P-7, before he died. Exhibit P-24 is a statement recorded by a Head Constable. Later on, he was taken to the hospital, where the Sub-Magistrate (P.W. 6) recorded the other statement, Exhibit P-7. The earlier statement was a simple one in which he said that at about 2-30 a.m., he saw somebody flashing a torch and heard him kicking at the door of the bungalow. The man kicked open the door, flashed the torch in his face, and immediately began to attack him. It would seem from this statement that only one person came into the dining room where he was sleeping, but he saw a number of persons running away after attacking the second deceased. Then somebody fired at him with a gun and wounded him in the hip. Exhibit P-7 is to the same effect and is clear that he saw only one person, and that that man incited another to shoot him. It is of importance that in Exhibit P-7 he stated that the man whom he saw was a Moplah. P.W. 18 was sleeping in a Ford Car in a shed that had been erected against the southern wall of the bungalow, and when some persons ran there and set fire to the car, he escaped without identifying anybody. He said that he was able to make out from the accent of the assailants that they were Moplahs. There is other evidence that the persons who were attacking there were Moplahs; and we find no reason for thinking that the persons who made these statements were unable to say to what community the attackers belonged; for the dress and speech of the Moplahs are distinctive.

5. The offence was committed on the 3rd August 1947, and for a long time, no clues were obtained. A person by the name of Haneefa was later arrested and identified by P.W. 25 as one of the assailants. On the day of his arrest (14th October 1947) was arrested also Kunhammad, a brother of the first and second deceased, who had been converted upon the persuasion of his brothers, but later, reverted to Islam. Another person arrested at the same time was Kutti AH, the father-in-law of Kunhammad. In the meanwhile, the police had been examining the bungalow very closely and a number of blood-stained foot-marks were found in the bungalow on the mats M. Os. 17 and 18 and in the portico. One of these impressions was thought at one time by the Footprint Expert (P.W. 33) to be that of the right foot of Haneefa. Soon after these persons were arrested and one of the footprints identified to be that of Haneefa, a charge sheet was filed against these four persons. 6 or 7 weeks later, on 2nd December 1947, another charge sheet was filed, this time against 13 persons, including the four who had been charge-sheeted earlier, but not including any of the present accused of P.W. 10, the approver.

6. On the 14th October 1947, a special investigating officer (P.W. 45) had been sent to investigate, and he had come to the conclusion that the murder had been committed out of religious fanaticism; and since he had found some hair adhering to a door frame with broken glass in the room in which P.W. 26 was sleeping with two of her children, he sent out constables to make a diligent search in all the neighbourhood for persons who had been injured. The first man with scars to be found was apparently the seventh accused, who was arrested on 14th December 1947. His arrest was followed on 17th December 1947, by the arrest of the sixth accused. The fifth accused was found with scars and arrested on 26th December 1947. On 28th December 1947, the second and fourth accused were arrested, the latter having scars. P.W. 10 had been arrested on 24th December 1947 and gave a statement implicating himself and others on 30th December 1947, whereupon the first and third accused were arrested almost immediately on 1st January 1948. Footprints of the arrested men were taken and examined and provisional charge sheets filed; but it was not until 22nd March 1948, that the final charge sheet was filed against these seven accused, and these accused alone.

7. No special reason has been given by the prosecution why these seven accused and the approver P.W. 10. should have participated in this murder. It has not been shown that these eight persons bore any greater enmity towards the first deceased than any other member of their community, except possibly the fourth accused, who is the President of the Izzathai Islam Sangham, the principal objects of which are said to be to relieve needy Mussalmans and to send converted men to Ponnani for training. He is a leather merchant; but all the other accused seem to be men of humble status, though of independent means, with the exception of the seventh accused, a coolie. Accused 1 to 3 are ryots. The fifth accused is a cart driver and the sixth accused a tea shop-keeper. With the exception of the fourth accused, these men do not occupy any position either in society or in the religious life of the community that would make it likely that they would plot a murder of this kind.

8. The principal evidence against the accused is that of the approver., P.W. 10. One generally expects the evidence of an approver to be rich in detail and colour, consistent within itself and not having any important contradictions when compared with other statements made by him earlier. Such evidence carries conviction to the mind; so that a court feels that very little other evidence is necessary to satisfy it beyond all reasonable doubt that the approver's story is true. The evidence of the approver, in this case, is not however of that kind. It is thin and bare and does not carry with it an air of conviction. After stating that he and other numbers of the Moplah community felt hatred towards the first deceased, he described very briefly the conspiracy, which he said took place on a Saturday about the 14th or 15th of the month of Ramzan, about a week or so before the plot was executed. The plot was hatched quite by chance. At Konapparamukku, a place where people gather together in their leisure time to have a chat, the witness chanced to meet accused 4 and 5, and later accused 6, and discussed with them the enormity of the first deceased's lapse into heresy. At the actual conspiracy were also present accused 1 and 2. Then, after giving a very short account of the conspiracy, he went on to describe the events of the day of the murder and said that at about 4 p.m. on that day (Saturday) he went to Kavattuparamba and there met the sixth accused. They were joined sometime later by accused 2 to 5 and 7. From there, with the exception of himself, these persons left in ones and twos, apparently, agreeing to meet at Abu Baker Haji's rubber estate at 10 p.m. or so. The witness waited behind until 7-30 p.m. for the first accused, who had been observing the Ramzan fast and intended to set out only after he broke it. They then went to the place of assignation and assembled there at 10 p.m. They had with them some unlicensed guns and, as agreed amongst themselves each one of them had a knife. They then proceeded to the Malaparamba bungalow of the first deceased and while the witness kept: watch, the others went inside the compound over the southern wall. He then heard the sound of striking the door and human cries. About ten minutes later, all the seven accused returned. He fired a shot at somebody who was running away, presumably the fourth deceased. They then went on towards a tank about four miles away and there washed off the blood on their persons and either there or in the neighbouring jungle threw away their weapons and bloodstained clothes.

9. One thing that strikes one about this story apart from its bareness, in the open, is the manner in which the accused and P.W. 10 met together on the day of offence prior to its commission. One would have expected that they would have adhered to their original plan of proceeding secretly to the place of assignation in Abu Bucker Haji's rubber estate and not being seen together before that. We find, however, according to the story of this witness, that they met together as early as 4 p.m. and' openly waited for one another until all but the first accused had come. When one compares the evidence of P.W. 10 in the Sessions Court, with his confessional. the statement, one finds material discrepancies relating to the circumstances under which the murder was planned. Exhibit D-7 series are extracted from his statement made to the police. There he stated that they first planned the murder on a Monday about 2-1/2 weeks or so before the murder was committed. Then they, i.e. P.W. 10, and accused 2, 3, 5 and 6 decided to murder the first deceased on the following Sunday. On that Sunday they received information that the first deceased was not in his bungalow; and so it was postponed to the following Friday. They then arranged that himself and accused 1 to 3 and 6 should meet at 10 p.m. that night and that accused 4 and 5 should join them after they had left the tope on their way to Malappuram. They however found that it was again impossible to execute their plan that night; and so the murder was postponed until the following day, with the slightly different arrangement that they should meet together at the Kottapadi maidan at 5 p.m. This seems to us a very different story from, what was given by P.W. 10 in his evidence. One cannot say upon reading through the evidence of P.W. 10 that it is necessarily false; but failing as it does to carry conviction, we feel that very substantial corroboration of his story would be necessary before it would be possible to bring home the guilt of this offence to the appellants beyond all reasonable doubt.

10. The learned Sessions Judge relied principally on the corroboration of P.W. io's evidence on the evidence of P.W. 33, the footprint expert. In paragraph 38 of his judgment, the learned Judge stated:

So far as accused I, 3 and 5 are concerned, their complicity is established because their footprints were found at the scene. As regards the 4th accused, P.W. 16 proves that the 4th accused was on his way to the scene along with P.W. 10 and the 5th accused. This is sufficient corroboration for P.W. 13's evidence, as it is manifest that the 4th accused could not have had a destination different from his companions.

That is to say, assuming the guilt of accused 1, 3 and 5 because their footprints were found in the bungalow, the fourth accused must have been guilty, too, because he was associated with men whose footprints had been proved to be that of the murderers.

11. The opinion of a footprint expert is not admissible as evidence. If the court is to make any use of all of the footprint impressions, it must be satisfied from a comparison of the various footprints that they are those of the persons whom the expert says they are. The value of evidence with regard to footprints is obviously very much less trustworthy than evidence with regard to fingerprints. In a fairly good impression of a finger or even in an impression where only a portion of the finger is shown, there is a wealth of detail available to the expert and to the Court for comparison. One sees in a fingerprint a large number of ridges and sweat pores situated along with them.

In examining a fingerprint, therefore, one not merely compares the general configuration of the finger and all the lines on it, but one is able to study such minute details as the bifurcations and junctions of the ridges and the relative positions on those ridges of the sweat pores.

With regard to footprints, on the other hand, it would seem from the evidence and from what we have been able to read from Dr Hans Gross's book on Criminal I Investigation that one can only compare the general shape of footprints found ' with the shape of impressions taken from the feet of the. person suspected. Even in this limited comparison, one has not the same certainty as one would have in. comparing fingerprints; because foot impressions vary considerably according to the circumstances under which they are made. Footprints made when a person is walking slowly or fast, or running slowly or fast or jumping, all create differences that are material. Moreover, a footprint taken after a person has walked a considerable distance, as was the case here when the murder was committed., is larger than a footprint taken when a person has been at rest, as was the case when footprints were taken from the various persons in the Sub-Jail, including some of the accused and P.W. 10. On page 497 of John Adam's translation of the above book, the learned author says:

One may then say with Massen, and rightly, that the details of all the impressions of a barefoot are in each particular case so distinctive and so characteristic that it is always possible to differentiate them, one from another, and recognise again the same impression. This is wholly true only when the impressions in question have been produced under identical conditions...

If then the last and the first impression thus produced be compared, one will see how difficult it is to find this famous ' characteristic resemblance.

He then goes on to say that the difficulty increases if the foot is turned or moved. On page 499 he points out the necessity for making a number of trials in order to ascertain the circumstances under which an impression was made. He says that it is, therefore, necessary to find each time (when conducting the expert meat of taking a number of impressions without adding any fresh colouring matter) a footprint resembling the original in the quantity of colouring substance, when, alone impressions from the same foot might be expected to be similar. On page 510,. the learned author says:

Another result flowing from these conclusions is that the deductions made are only relative;. they can never be expressed by pre-cited data and have only comparative value. It is impossible to give measurements or fixed sizes; for the numerous factors-the size, the weight, and the other corporeal singularities of the individual walking, his burden, his gait, and the variable nature of the oil differ in every case, and maybe combined in so many diverse ways that it is absolutely impossible to give precise indications on this matter.

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After discussing the matter further the author says:

If one has but one indistinct footprint and no clue therefrom, another must be searched: for.

The only other passage that needs to be set out is found on page 532:

Much prudence must here be exercised (in taking measurements) and nothing was undertaken which shows no chance of success. On the one hand, the foot itself varies considerably, e.g., it is much smaller in cold weather or after a long rest than during hot weather or after a long march; on the other hand, it is difficult to measure, inasmuch as it is not a regular body and must be measured differently according to the parts dealt with.

If we bear all these facts in mind, then we are far from satisfied that the prosecution has proved that the foot impressions seen by the police on M.Os. 17 and 18 and on the portico are the foot impressions of accused 1, 3 and 5. The process adopted by the expert for comparison was, first of all, to lift the impression by placing over it a glass plate. Through that glass plate, he would see the impression and make its outline on the glass with dots. He would then place the plate so marked over a plain sheet of paper arid mark the dots on the paper. Finally, he compared that with an impression made directly from the foot of the person suspected.

12. Ex. P-4I is said to have been taken from M.O. 17, which is not a very good impression; and we do not think that the dots showing the outline of the toes follow very closely the outline on the mat. Then again we find in examining the angles of the toes on the tracing taken from the impression on the mat and comparing it with the impression taken directly from the feet of the fifth accused that the angles at which the toes meet the ball of the foot are different in the two cases. In discussing these impressions the footprint expert stated that in general the size and contour of the pad were the same, as were the relative positions of the toes and the contour of the heel. That is true, but we cannot attach any importance to the; an inward curve in the lower portion of the pad, which is given as a special characteristic. That inward curve, however, was not very well emphasised in the print taken directly from the foot of the accused; and the inward curve might well be due to the fact that blood did not cover that particular portion of the pad.

13. The impression on M. O. 18 is also not very clear. The lifted impression in Ex. P-42, the expert stated, is in general of the same length as the impression in Ex. P-55, i.e., the impression of the foot of the third accused; the outer line of the pad is similar; and the relative positions of the big toe, second toe, and third toe are similar, as is the size of the big toe and of the heel. When we examined these, we found that the relative positions of the big toe, second toe, and third toe are anything but similar. In fact, they are so dissimilar as to lead us to conclude, not merely that the resemblance between the impression of the third accused's feet was not the same as the impression on the mat, but that the impressions must have been by different persons. We also did not find that the outlines and sizes of the heel and big toe and the length were very nearly the same in the two impressions compared.

14. With regard to the impression, Ex. P-54, of the first accused, the expert gave six general characteristics and two special characteristics which he found common to Ex. P-54 and the impression, Ex. P-35 lifted from the footprint in the portico. The second special characteristic is that there is a depression on the pad between the first and second toes. This, as we have stated with regard to other peculiarities in the outline, may have been due to the fact that that portion of the feet was not sufficiently covered with blood to leave an impression, especially as the corresponding depression is not seen to anything like the same extent on the impression taken directly from the first accused's foot. In trying to ascertain whether the footprint in the portico was that of the first accused, we are handicapped by not having been able to compare the outline marked on the glass with the outline on the portico itself; and we feel that it will not be safe for us to come to any conclusion against this accused in the absence of the original impression.

15. The learned Sessions Judge, for demonstration purposes, had several impressions taken of the feet of two peons in the Court. These we compared with those taken from the mats and the portico, and we found a reasonably close agreement between Ex. G-4 and Ex. G-5, taken from a foot of one of the peons, and Ex. P-35, which was attributed by the expert to the first accused. This is perhaps some indication that one must be careful not to draw too hasty a conclusion from such similarities as were pointed out by the expert. Incidentally, it may be mentioned that Mr Jayarama Aiyar has emphasised the evidence that only one assailant was present in the portico; and so even if we assume that one of these three accused was present in the bungalow that night, the other two footprints could not have been those of the other two, and might have been the impressions of the first and second deceased, whose footprints could not be taken. We do not want to over-stress this point; because the observation of P.W. 25 might have been faulty, and he ran away before the assailants left the bungalow.

16. The learned Public Prosecutor, finding that the evidence with regard to the footprints is far from conclusive, has relied on the fact that accused 4, 5 and 7 were found, when examined by various doctors, to have had scars on their persons which could have been the result of injuries sustained on the night of the offence. If there is evidence that an assailant has received any injury on some particular part of his person and a corresponding injury is found on the body of the suspected person shortly after the offence is committed, and there is medical evidence that that injury was probably caused at or about the time when the offence was committed, the evidence of the injury would be strong corroborative evidence against that person. But such evidence becomes increasingly weak as the time between the examination of the injuries or the scars and the date of offence increases. These accused were examined five or six months or more after the offence was committed; and so it was impossible for the doctors who gave evidence to say precisely that these injuries were caused on the day when the murder was committed or even within a short period before or after. They could not even be sure to within a month or so of the offence when the injuries were caused. Further, there is no evidence that any of the assailants met with injuries at the time when the murder was committed, except that when the police officers were examining the bungalow they found some hair adhering to some broken glass. That would indicate that on the person of one of the assailants on a part of his body normally covered with hair, one could expect to find an injury. The learned Public Prosecutor has stated that since there was a lot of broken glass strewn about, some of the assailants might have cut their feet walking over it. That may be true; but it is a curious circumstance that while many scars were found on the bodies of these accused persons, none was found on the feet of any of the accused. The seventh accused had no less than nine scars on his person, the fifth accused had three scars and the fourth accused had one scar and a number of scratches. The learned Public Prosecutor has been unable to suggest how so many injuries could have been caused to these three persons on the night of the offence. We are therefore unable to attach any value to this evidence.

17. P.W. 41, a tailor, deposed that he made a shirt for the fifth accused about eight months before the offence. When the tank spoken to by P.W. 10 was searched, a number of pieces of cloth were found there; and P.W. 41 claimed to be able to identify a piece of cloth about 15 inches long as a portion of a shirt that he had made for the fifth accused. We have examined that fragment, and we can scarcely believe it possible that P.W. 41 could identify it as a part of the shirt he had made so long before for the fifth accused.

18. P.W. 13, a keeper of tea shops at Kodoor and Chattuparamba, deposed that at about 8-30 p.m. on the night of offence he met a man whom he thought to be P.W. 10 and another. If it really was P.W. 10 that he saw, it would be in accord with the evidence of the approver; for he and the first accused might well have been where P.W. 13 said he saw them at about that hour. But P.W. 13 is unable to say with any certainty that it was P.W. 10, and so his evidence is of no value and the learned Sessions Judge very rightly did not place any reliance on it.

19. P.W. 12 deposed that he saw P.W. 10, whom he had known for a very long time, and the first accused, who was then a stranger, but whom he afterwards identified as the first accused, together in Malappuram at 4-30 p.m. on the evening preceding the offence and again at 7 p.m. in a tea shop. This evidence is inconsistent with the evidence of P.W. 10, who deposed that the first accused did not arrive there until 7-30 p.m. and that it was for him that he had remained behind after the other accused had left for Abu Bucker Haji's tope. Moreover, if P.W. 12 had seen P.W. 10 at 4-30 p.m. one would have expected if P.W. 10's evidence is true, that he would have seen the other accused who were with P.W. 10 at that time.

20. The only other witness whose evidence needs discussion as P.W. 16. In the absence of any definite conclusion to be drawn from the footprints, the learned Public Prosecutor relies very strongly on the evidence of this witness. He deposed that on the evening preceding the offence he was taking tea in a shop at Paha.-paramba and left it at about 8-30 p.m. He had not gone very far when he saw P.W. 10 coming along. Behind him in a group were five other persons whom he did not identify. Behind them again, at a distance of 12 yards, were the fourth and fifth accused, whom he had known from boyhood. The place at which he saw these persons was only about a quarter of a furlong from Abu Bucker Haji's plantation, which was the place of assignation. This evidence does not accord very well with the evidence of P.W. 12 who saw P.W. 10 and the first accused together on the other side of the plantation at the same time; and it conflicts still more definitely with the evidence of the approver, who stated that at 4-30 p.m. all the accused, with the exception of the first accused, left singly or in pairs, agreeing to meet in Abu Bucker Haji's plantation at 10 p.m. As he left with the first accused three hours later, he was unlikely to have been with these persons at 8-30 p.m. P.W. 16's evidence, if true, shows that they were leaving the plantation, presumably on their way to commit the murder. These differences in time between the evidence of P.W. 10 and the evidence of P.W. 16 can hardly be due to a mere misjudging of the time. The object of the conspirators was to proceed to the place of assignation singly or in pairs and not to be seen together, and so it is not likely that P.W. 10 would have been mistaken into thinking that he left the plantation at 10 p.m. if, in fact, he left it at 8-30 p.m. Moreover, their attempt at secrecy would have been frustrating if they had left the plantation as early as 8-30 p.m. when they would have expected to meet people on the road, who would see them all together. Nor could P.W. 10 very well have been mistaken as to the time; for he had just finished taking a cup of tea in the neighbouring tea shop and would have had a very good idea of the time in relation to his mealtime; and it is not likely that he would have thought that it was 8-30 p.m. if in fact, it was 10 p.m. The learned Public Prosecutor has asked us to accept the evidence of P.W. 16 on this point in preference to that of P.W. 10, and he has argued that we should not reject the evidence of P.W. 16 merely because we think it unlikely that the accused would have been in the open at about that time. If however, we accept the evidence of P.W. 16 as true, then it is most unlikely that at the time they were on their way to the scene of the offence, which was only eight miles away, and which they did not reach until 2 a.m., the next morning. If he did see them, it would seem more probable they were bound on some peaceful errand or were going for shikar, as the fourth accused is reported to have stated to this witness.

21. It is seen from the above discussion that the evidence of the approver receives no corroboration of any importance from the evidence of any of the other witnesses and has, therefore, to be rejected, as not being sufficient to bring home the offences to the appellants.

22.It is unfortunate that such a grave crime has not been detected; but the failure of the prosecution to prove the offence against the appellants was not due to any defect in the investigation, which seems to have been most carefully-and certainly very honestly conducted. No attempt was made to make evidence, where none was naturally forthcoming; and if the police were unable to obtain more evidence it was because the Moplah community largely succeeded in maintaining secrecy. It was almost impossible without their cooperation for the police to obtain any more evidence relating to the crime.

23. The appeals are allowed and the convictions and sentences passed on the appellants are set aside. They are ordered to be set at liberty.


© Ramachandran 

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