A Pamphlet and its (Dis)contents: A Case Study of Rangila Rasul and the Controversy Surrounding it in Colonial Punjab,1923–29

Colonial Punjab in the nineteenth century was an area of diversity with three religious groups, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, where each group possessed a complete social hierarchy, ranging from outcasts to religious and aristocratic elites. Into this diverse province, the British government introduced the Christian missionaries, who brought about a new element of communal conflict and competition by threatening the fabric of Hindu social structure—the outcasts and upper caste students attending the newly established Christian schools, through conversions. ²

This new Christian threat became one of the major motivating forces for religious revivalism throughout the Punjab. The threat of proselytisation, both from Islam and Christianity, led to the establishment of a defence mechanism, the institution of shuddhi or purification, as a process of reconversion. Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of the Arya Samaj, was the first reformer in late nineteenth century to seriously turn his attention to shuddhi, where he aimed at reconverting Hindus from either Christianity or Islam. ³ This earliest form of shuddhi was broadened with due course of time to include the conversion of non-Hindus and even those whose ancestors had never been Hindus, in the early decades of the twentieth century. This in turn threatened certain sections of Muslims who began to look upon shuddhi as a threat to their community and Arya Samaj as a communal organisation.

Veena Dua has argued that the communalism of the Arya Samaj was the outcome of the forces of British imperialism. ⁴

According to her, prior to 1886, the government had followed a policy of religious impartiality in the case of appointments, and the Hindus were the major beneficiaries of it. However, in 1886, under pressure from the educated Muslims, the government decided to review its policy of employment in the public service so as to bring about a balance between the Hindus and Muslims. It was decided to bring in more Muslims into the administration as it would reduce Muslim militancy as well as help create an atmosphere in which Hindus and Muslims could be used to keep a watch over each other's actions. ⁵ Religious representation was later extended to colleges, courts and legislative bodies, where an attempt was made to increase the number of Muslims so as to bring their representation in these bodies at par with that of Hindus. The result was intense communal competition for employment as each community began to appeal to the government for protection of its legitimate rights and redressal of its grievances. While the Hindus tried to pressurise the government to end the policy of discrimination against their community and to resort to open examination for jobs, the Muslims appealed for social concessions on account of their poverty and backwardness. ⁶

Class issues further complicated the situation. The attempt to forge Hindu–Muslim unity in early 1920s through the Khilafat and Non-cooperation movements in the Punjab saw an early demise mainly because of the success of the colonial state and its collaborators in forming a loose alliance of agricultural interests, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh. The resultant Unionist Party led by an urban-based Muslim lawyer, Mian Fazl-i-Husain, dominated the provincial ministry after the first elections to the reformed councils in 1920 (the Montagu–Chelmsford reforms). It validated the faith reposed by the Raj in the landlord element, the latter being protected by the Punjab Land Alienation Act of 1900. ⁷

The network of collaboration created by the colonial state sharpened communitarian identities and a corresponding polarisation in the informal arenas. The colonial state's decision to restrict the cross-communitarian alliance to a specific class left those outside this charmed circle with no option but to try and elbow for political space by unleashing a volley of narratives based on idioms of exclusionary communitarianism. ⁸ According to Ayesha Jalal, the urban-educated Punjabis belonging to the intermediate strata, having been denied direct access to the colonial state and its channels of patronage, sought to make their presence felt by rustling up support among segments of the subordinate social classes, either through political rallies and meetings, or through stirring newspaper articles and pamphlets. The Unionists represented the main obstacle to the regeneration of nationalism in the province. When the party proposed amendment of election rules for the municipal committees, it was condemned as a transparent device to keep Congress and Khilafat workers out of the formal political system. The Arya Samajist paper Milap accused the leading Unionist minister, Fazl-i-Husain for tinkering with election rules and ensuring that ‘the best brains and servants of the Punjab… ha[d] no part in local self-government’ and only those willing to ‘act as puppets’ served on the municipal committees. ⁹

The category of religion used in colonial enumeration and the consequent quibbling over representation in electoral institutions or government service had set Punjabis at each others' throats. The formal political arenas merged into the informal social ones as marshalling popular support required mobilising political opinion with a language accessible to a largely illiterate populace. In this way the Arya Samaj's shuddhi and sangathan and the Muslim tabligh and tanzim movements tried to win the colonial numbers game. In an assessment of the Arya Samaj's purification and social uplift campaign in the Punjab a few years later, a police intelligence report found it ‘difficult to resist the conclusion that since the reforms the main object of shudhi ha[d] been to swell Hindu voting strength in anticipation of democratic Government’. ¹⁰

The Punjabi Muslims too, on the other hand, were anxiously shoring up the claims of their numerical majority. So much so that even a committed Congressman like Saifuddin Kitchlew had felt compelled to concentrate on organising the Muslims. His organ, the Tanzim, took strong exception to an article by Lala Hardayal advising Indians to become one nation by ‘making them study Hindu history and adopt the Hindi language and the Hindu mode of living’. ¹¹ For many influential urban Hindus the experience of the Mont–Ford reforms based on the principle of separate electorates seemed like the beginning of a ‘Muslim raj’ and every step taken by Fazl-i-Husain was interpreted as tilting the balance of advantage in favour of the Muslims. For example, even though the ‘communal’ motive behind Husain's adoption of reforms in the domain of higher education and the extension of separate electorates to the municipalities and local boards remains debatable, it did pass on benefits to Muslims. ¹² What is significant is the vehemence with which many Punjabi Hindus assailed Fazl-i-Husain's brand of politics as ‘communalism’. Under separate electorates only Muslims voted for Muslims. Because of separate electorates, candidates had to appeal to the voters on the basis of religion, which naturally aggravated religious dissension and was manifested in many ways. For instance, the introduction of the Moneylenders' Registration Bill by a Muslim member of the legislative council sent the Hindu-edited press into spasms of anger in defence of the class interests of an influential segment of their co-religionists. Charges of Muslim ‘communalism’ reverberated as the Punjab Hindu Sabha allied with Hindu members of the council to attack a bill intended as a measure of relief for debt-ridden Punjabi agriculturists. The bill was attributed to Fazl-i-Husain, the evil genius whose ‘brains invent[ed] new plans to harm Hindus’. If passed, the legislation would ‘paralyse’ Hindu sahukars or creditors and dramatically shrink the amount of credit available to the zamindars. Apart from being ‘impracticable, premature and unreasonable’, the bill unfairly placed urban moneylenders in the same rack as rural creditors although the former had no direct dealings with agrarian society. ¹³ Kabuli Pathans who charged interest at the rate of 4 annas per rupee and resorted to dreadful measures to realise their due were excluded from the ambit of the legislation. The Hindu wondered whether this was because ‘the Kabuli usurers [we]re Mussalmans?’ Milap thought ‘the real object’ of the bill was to ‘destroy what little power was left to the Hindus under the Land Alienation Act’. ¹⁴ Joining the hysteria, the Sangathan noted that whenever arrangements were being made for ‘crushing Hindus, our Mussalman friends’ pleaded ‘in a transport of ecstasy’ that the issue should not be given ‘a religious colour’. ¹⁵ The Tanzim deemed the bill necessary to save agriculturists, and not just Muslims, from ruin. And the Siyasat while supporting the bill felt it did not go far enough in protecting zamindars against ‘blood-sucking moneylenders’. ¹⁶ The close interplay between formal and informal arenas of politics, as in the debate over the Moneylender's Registration Bill shows how class issues could be draped in ‘communal’ or ‘national’ hues through the powerful undercurrents of religious communitarianism displayed in the vernacular newspapers, severely undercutting the mainstream nationalist narrative.

It is in this context that polemical contestation, a phenomenon which was so much a part of social praxis of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries should be seen. Before addressing the question of participation of the Arya Samaj in the communal rhetoric of the 1920s, it is important to note that the organisation should not be looked upon as a monolithic structure as the ideology of the Samaj impacted individuals at different levels. For some, it represented the question of lifestyle: a way of reforming orthodox Hinduism. For the more zealous, the impact was manifested in productions of the local printing presses, often giving way to communal expression. This latter faction became increasingly aggressive as they participated in tract warfare attacking Prophet Mohammad or responding to offensive articles published by the Muslim communal groups.

A dominant theme of most of the pamphlets was to hold up the Prophet for ridicule and contempt of which Rangila Rasul, ¹⁷

written by Pandit Chamupati ¹⁸ and published by Mahashay Rajpal in Lahore in May 1924, is illustrative. The use of the adjective rangila, which could have a wide range of meaning from ‘jovial’ to ‘libertine’, provided the basis for a conceit set forth from the opening of the work. ¹⁹ The message conveyed through these pamphlets was that the Prophet's philosophical teachings, which form the essence of Islam, were derived from his sexual ‘experiences’. It ridiculed the Prophet for imposing purdah on his women, practicing polygamy and promoting idol worship. The Arya Samaj had taken upon itself to remove these evils from the society. To ridicule the Prophet in the form of a satire seemed a viable tool for presenting a justification for the social reforms they advocated. This zealous act of the extreme elements of the Samaj was not confined to Muslims; tract warfare of such kind was engaged in with the Sanatanis (Orthodox Hindus) and Christians as well.

By mid-1920s, apart from theological debates the Punjabi public sphere was rife with popular inflammatory material in newspapers controlled by extremist sections of both the Hindu and Muslim communities. On one hand, was a proliferation of stories of atrocities against Hindu women, ranging from allegations of rape, aggression and abduction to luring, conversion and forced marriage by Muslim males, popularising the concept of the Muslim badmash (goon). These communally-driven newspapers argued that abduction campaigns demonstrated the ‘lack of character’ of Muslim men for they showed scant respect for Hindu women. ²⁰

Referring to the disturbances in Multan in 1923, a correspondent writing to Shanti (edited by Kishan Chand Mohan, Rawalpindi) noted that the insult being offered to Hindu women was intolerable and one should retaliate for the misdeeds of the evildoers, that is, the Muslims. ²¹ The Gulzar-i-Hind (edited by Ahmed Ali Chisti, Lahore) complained that Pratap (edited by Radha Krishnan, Lahore) and Kesari invariably used the word ‘badmash’ while referring to Muslims. ²² The extreme factions among the Muslims, on the other hand, replied with equal vigour to the polemical attacks on the Prophet. They attacked Hinduism, particularly the Arya Samaj, for its concept of Niyog. ²³ The Gulzar-i-Hind noted that it were not Muslims but those who practiced Niyog were badmashes. ²⁴ While the tracts by Hindu communalists were laced with scathing criticism of the Prophet, those written by extreme sections of Muslims were replete with indignation at the lives of Hindu sages. The latter accused Krishna of stealing and adultery. Hindu Gods such as Brahma, Vishnu and Mahadev were also placed under the scanner. ²⁵

Case and Conflict

The pamphlet Rangila Rasul was published by Mahashay Rajpal who belonged to the Khatri caste, a dominant Hindu caste in Punjab, and was a member of the Arya Samaj. The pamphlet quickly sold its first edition of a thousand copies and orders had been put in for a second edition in late June when the colonial government banned it under Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code ²⁶

26

Section 153A of the IPC read, ‘Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representations, or otherwise, promotes or attempts to promote feelings of enmity or hatred between different classes of Her Majesty's subjects shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both’, File No. 132, GoI, Home (Poll.).

(IPC) after the Muslim population of Lahore raised strong objections to it as being most offensive to the religious feelings of the community. ²⁷

27

File No. 132, 1927, Government of India (GoI), Home (Poll.), 14.

A complaint was registered against Rajpal in July and proceedings commenced in October of the same year.

The accused pleaded that the allegations made in the pamphlet were based upon Islamic books and that quotations were made from the writings of European historians to support the authority of the Islamic books. He stressed that the book had been sold almost exclusively to Hindus and was published ‘in the ordinary course of business without any mala fide intention’. ²⁸

28

File No. 132 & K.W., Part 1, Home (Poll.), 1927.

Moreover, the purpose for which the pamphlet was written was the removal of such evils as polygamy, concubinage and gross disparity of age in marriage and secondly, to wean and deter people from a system of thought which sanctions those evils. Asserting that the pamphlet was a rational study of the life of the Prophet of Islam which was open for study and criticism to everybody and that in this pamphlet ‘have been pointed out from a broad humanitarian ground the virtues which stand out so prominently in the character of Muhammad and the vices and weakness from which He suffers’.

The Magistrate pronounced the judgement on 18 January 1927, wherein he accorded to Rajpal rigorous imprisonment for a period of eighteen months and a fine of Rs 1000 and remarked, for publishing the pamphlet with the ‘deliberate intention of wounding the feelings of the Muhammadans and thus to promote hatred and enmity between the Muhammadans and the community to which he himself belongs’. ²⁹

29

Magistrate H.L. Phailbus, Serial No. 3, File No. 132/27, GoI, Home (Poll.), 33–36.

When Rajpal appealed against this order in the Court of the Sessions Judge, Lahore, the latter also maintained that in view of the peculiar situation in which members of the two communities concerned have to live side by side and intermingled in this country, the act of the accused was both reprehensible and dangerous, and that it was necessary both to punish him, and to deter others from similar acts.

However, the Court of Judicature at Lahore took a different view and acquitted Rajpal on 4 May 1927. The Judge, Justice Kanwar Dalip Singh, stated that the question whether a malicious satire on the personal life of religious teacher fell within the purview of Section 153A of the IPC could not be determined by the ignorance or fanaticism of a particular community. He remarked,

‘It seems to me that that section was intended to prevent persons from making attacks on a particular community as it exists at the present time and was not meant to stop polemics against deceased religious leaders however scurrilous and in bad taste such attacks might be.’ ³⁰

30

File No. 132, Part II, GoI, Home (Poll.), 1927.

The Judge argued that if the fact that Muslims resent attacks on their Prophet was to be the measure of whether Section 153A applied or not, then a historical work in which the life of the Prophet was considered and judgement passed on his character by a serious historian might come within the definition of Section 153A. ³¹

31

Justice Dalip Singh in the judgment of the same Case No. 286 of 1927 at the Court of Judicature, Lahore, File No. 132, Part II, GoI, Home (Poll.), 1927.

The consequent acquittal of Rajpal was taken up as an insult by the Muslim Outlook (edited by Dilawar Shah Bukhari), which published a leading article on 14 June 1927, entitled ‘Resign’ attacking the integrity and impartiality of Justice Dalip Singh. The High Court in response instituted proceedings against the editor and the proprietor, Nur-ul-Haq, of the paper for contempt of court and sentenced them to six months imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1000, respectively. This aggravated Muslim resentment and the agitation was directed against the Punjab High Court demanding immediate dismissal of Dalip Singh. Speeches made in the mosques of Lahore assumed strong anti-Hindu and anti-High Court character. For example, Muhammad Amin, speaking at such a meeting organised by the Khilafat Committee in the Badshahi Mosque stated that ‘in the Punjab the Hindus were encouraged to write scurrilous pamphlets because the Chief Justice was a Hindu’. In another meeting held outside the Delhi Gate, Lahore, by the Khilafat Committee, Muhammmad Daud Ghaznavi of Amritsar stated that the honour of the Prophet was not safe in the hands of the High Court. In Gujranwala, Maulvi Ismail called it ‘the Arya High Court of Lahore’. Posters were issued by the Qadian Ahmadiyan Committe and the Punjab Khilafat Commitee exhorting Muslims to observe a ‘High Court Day’ on 22 July. The Zamindar reported a mass meeting held at Ludhiana on that day, under the president ship of Habib-ul Rahman who stated,

The High Court whose chief judge is the ex-secretary of the Hindu Sabha, whose senior puisne judge before his elevation to the Punjab High Court acted as Rajpal's defence counsel (in the Rangila Rasul case) without a fee, and whose third puisne judge has acquitted Rajpal cannot be respected. The Muslim community of the Punjab has no faith in the present High Court which is a Hindu Samajist High Court. ³²

32

Agitation in the Punjab and the North West Frontier Province in connection with the Rangila Rasul case. File No. 132/III/1927. Home (Political).

The judicial exoneration of Rajpal caused great resentment amongst sections of Muslims, as demonstrated in the public gathering at the Jama Masjid in July 1927, from where Maulana Mohamed Ali, the ‘ambassador of Hindu–Muslim’ unity from the days of the Non-Cooperation days thundered a warning, ‘all worldly relations between Muslims on the one hand and Khilafat Committee, Mahatma Gandhi, and even the government on the other hand (shall stand) terminated when the life and soul of Islam is reviled’. ³³

33

Indian Quarterly Register 2, no. 1 (January–June 1927): 19, National Archives of India, Delhi.

Further, the incited gathering presided over by the Maulana passed a resolution:

The vast gathering of Muslim declares to the government with one voice that it should immediately shut the door now open for the destruction of law and order, ‘by having the judgement immediately revised’. Any further delay in the matter will be an indicator that government wants to compel the Musalmans to take the law in their hands and such matters like this will precipitate a catastrophe which no forces on earth will be able to check. ³⁴

34

Hindustan Times, 2 July 1927.

This statement was antithetical to the idea of nationalism defined by the Indian National Congress as inclusionary, accommodative, consensual and popular anti-colonial struggle. Maulana Mohamed Ali's letter to the Viceroy (dated 5 July 1927) pleading with him to put a stop to the deliberate vilifications of prophets and saints ³⁵

35

Hindustan Times, 1 September 1927.

reflected exclusionary communitarian developments in Punjabi politics. The pamphlet also alarmed Mahatma Gandhi as he complained in a long article on Hindu–Muslim unity in Young India: ‘A friend has sent me a pamphlet called Rangila Rasul, written in Urdu…. I have asked myself what the motive possibly could be in writing or printing such a book except to inflame passions…. The harm it can do is obvious.’ ³⁶

36

Mahatma Gandhi, ‘Hindu-Muslim Unity’, Young India, 19 June 1924.

The resentment of sections of Muslims against the judgment, was further intensified with the publication of another offensive article entitled ‘Sair-i-Dozakh’ or ‘A Trip to Hell’ in the May issue of the Risala Vartman magazine of Amritsar in 1927. The publication of this article, wherein the Prophet was depicted as being in hell suffering extreme torture along with his, ³⁷

37

Letter to His Majesty's Under Secretary of State for India from A.B. Broadway, Judge of the Vartman case, No. 114/27, 11 August 1927, Serial No. 16, File No. 132/27, GoI, Home (Poll.), 1927.

greatly incensed Muslim indignation already inflamed by the acquittal of Rajpal in the Rangila Rasul case. A Qadiani poster at Amritsar signed by the head of the Ahmadiyas drew attention to certain portions of this article which further excited the Muslims. ³⁸

38

Indian Daily Mail, Bombay, 10 August 1927, File No. 10/72/1927, GoI, Home (Poll.), 1927.

The article was brought to the notice of the Deputy Commissioner who, after telephonic conversations with the Punjab government, took steps to proscribe the journal and issue a search warrant leading to the arrest of Gian Chand Pathak, the printer and publisher of the journal, and Devi Sharan Sharma, the author of the article.

In a telegram to the Viceroy, the Anjuman Ahl-i-Hadis, Punjab, claimed that the Muslims of Lahore, were ‘extremely alarmed and upset to learn that the sanctity of their religion was not safe in India’. ³⁹

39

Telegram from Secretary, Anjuman Ahl-i-Hadis, Punjab, to The Viceroy and Governor General of India, Simla and the Governor of the Punjab, Simla, dated, the 27 May 1927, Lahore, File No.132/27, Serial Nos 1–39, Home (Poll.), 1927.

It expressed the dire necessity of a suitable and immediate legislation which would prohibit the compilation and publication of such libellous and satirical writings. The governor of Punjab in his appraisal of the situation to the Viceroy explained that the view taken by Justice Dalip Singh of the scope of Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code was not wrong in law but it would greatly increase the difficulties of government in dealing with the existing grave tension if scurrilous libels could be freely disseminated against the founders of religion or important religious personages. ⁴⁰

40

Letter from the Government of Punjab to the Viceroy and Governor General of India, No.3358-P.B., dated Simla the 9 June 1927, Serial No. 3, File No.132/27, Home (Poll.), 1927.

The British government, therefore, had two alternatives before them, in such a situation. The first was to take the earliest opportunity of bringing before the High Court, a similar attack on the founder of a religion; and the second was to amend the law so as to make it clear that scandalous attack of this nature constituted a criminal offence. ⁴¹

41

Ibid.

The governor proposed to try the first alternative before moving the government of India to amend the law. Hence, when the attention of the authorities concerned was drawn to the above-mentioned article in the Amritsar magazine, the Punjab government immediately sanctioned the prosecution of the editor, publisher and printer of the magazine, and the author of the article, consequently sentencing the author to one year imprisonment and Rs 500 fine and the editor to six months imprisonment and Rs 250 fine. ⁴²

42

Indian Daily Mail, Bombay, 10 August 1927. File No. 10/72/1927, GoI, Home (Poll.), 1927.

The government hoped that these proceedings would in due course afford an opportunity for the High Court to review Justice Dalip Singh's judgment in the Rangila Rasul case as its fears were renewed when a telegram was sent from the Dar-ul-ulum, Deoband, to the viceroy at Simla, which read:

At a Moslem Mass Meeting at Idgah, Deoband under Presidentship Molvi Aziz ur rahman Mufti Darululum Resolved Decision Punjab High Court in Rangila Rasul case shattering Muslim hearts and wounding their religious sentiments will encourage wanton Samajists in their course of unwarranted vilification and vituperation which cannot but widen most dreadful gulf of hatred already separating various communities professing different faiths … Allahabad High Court recently sentenced author of Wachatra Jiwan under very Section 153. May we hope in view of tremendously increasing volume of resentment and discontentment in the minds of millions Muslims Your Excellency's Government would interpret Section 153 to Punjab High Court in same sense as done by Allahabad High Court. ⁴³

43

Enclosure No. 8, Telegraph from Secretary to the Viceroy, Simla, received on 14 June 1927, File No. 132/III/1927, GoI, Home (Poll.), 1927.

Communal ill feeling flared up again when a Muslim fanatic of Lahore, Ilam Din, murdered Mahashay Rajpal on 6 April 1929 by Ilam Din, a fanatic. Consequent tension prevailed as the relatives and friends of Rajpal negotiated with the government over the funeral procession and the route taken for it. The government feared that ‘to allow this to be taken through the walled city would entail grave risk of a breach of the peace’. ⁴⁴

44

Confidential letter from J.G. Beazley, Officiating Chief Secretary to Government, Punjab to The Secretary to the Government of India, Home Department, dated 20 April 1929, File No. 167, Home (Poll.), 1929.

According to government estimates the actual procession when taken three days later through a negotiable route, numbered about four to five thousand people.

The murderer was sentenced and hanged in October 1929 and buried in the jail graveyard. ⁴⁵

45

Muslim Outlook, File No. 167, Home (Poll.), 31 October 1929, NAI, Delhi.

A Muslim mass meeting of more or less 25,000 people was held on 1 November wherein various speakers insisted that the sacred remains of the late Mian Ilam Din—one of Islam's great shahids (martyr)—be allowed to be disinterred from the Mianwali Jail compound, and allowed to be buried, according to the shahid's will in Lahore. ⁴⁶

46

Muslim Outlook, File No.167, Home (Poll.), 1 November 1929, NAI, Delhi.

The governor received a deputation of leading Muslims of Lahore, led by Muhammad Shafi and included Muhammad Iqbal, the Muslim members of the Lahore municipal committee, the representatives of the Provincial Muslim League, and the office holders of the local Anjumans, ⁴⁷

47

Communiqué, File No. 167, Home (Poll.), 1929.

to press their case about the burial of Ilam Din. The Punjab government agreed to deliver the body of Ilam Din on the condition that the body would be taken by the route prescribed by it. That the murder of Mahashay Rajpal was a culmination of the increasingly excitable Muslim campaign against the pamphlet and the disgust the campaign spewed over the perceived partial act of the judiciary is evident from the way Ilam Din was eulogised by considerable sections of Muslims. After his conviction and hanging, Ilam Din acquired the esteemed title of ghazi, or holy warrior, a title which was respectfully affixed by the Muslim extremists to the name of any Muslim, who murdered a Hindu or a Sikh in defence of Islam.

The Leadership

The leadership in the agitation expressing Muslim opinion, in this case, came from two different sources: the Khilafatists and the Qadiani Ahmadis. With the decline of the Khilafat Movement and the withdrawal of the Non-cooperation Movement, the reactionary ideologies had come to the forefront. Since pan-Islamic questions were now only of peripheral appeal to the masses, communal antagonism began to occupy the ranks of the Khilafat. Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew, as the head of the Amristar Khilafat party, began to advocate Muslim economic independence even though he still remained a member of the Congress. By February 1925, he began a tanzim tour of northern Punjab and was reported to be ‘on the point of breaking with the Congress and joining the ordinary Muslim progressive party in the Punjab’. ⁴⁸

48

David Page, Prelude to Partition: The Indian Muslims and the Imperial System of Control, 1920–1932 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982), 95–106.

The Khilafat leaders had already encouraged the habit of looking at political questions from the religious point of view. ⁴⁹

49

Bipan Chandra, Mridula Mukherjee, Aditya Mukherjee, Sucheta Mahajan and K.N. Panikkar, India's Struggle for Independence (Delhi: Penguin, 1989), 421.

In the Rangila Rasul agitation, the Khilafat party was interested in keeping the agitation alive even when it was steadily losing support during the last days of August 1927 owing to the introduction of a Bill in the Legislative Assembly ⁵⁰

50

In another case regarding agitation over a pamphlet entitled, Risala Vartman.

to penalise insults to religion, which had greatly satisfied Muslim moderate opinion. Meetings were held in Lahore and other centres demanding release of prisoners arrested during the agitation and stressing on the economic boycott of Hindus. In Lahore and Batala, there was considerable propaganda among Hindus and Muslims to carry knives and lathis, few even being armed with lathis at the meetings. ⁵¹

51

Fortnightly report for the week ending 31 August 1927, F. No. 32/27, Home (Poll.), August 1927.

The economic boycott of the Hindus was especially spreading in Lahore, Lyallpur and northern districts of Punjab. In fact, communal feeling in Lahore had hardened as a result of the economic boycott enacted by the extremist Muslims. A systematic and well-organised campaign wherein Muslim shopkeepers restricted their clientele to Muslims and vice versa resulted in the opening of over sixty new Muslim shops and had hit the small Hindu shopkeeper hard. ⁵²

52

Fortnightly report for the fortnight ending 15 September 1927, F. No. 32/27, Home (Poll.), September 1927.

Counter activity on the part of the Hindus had resulted in the opening of some 20 new Hindu shops dealing in goods previously sold only by Muslims. The Qadiani Ahmadis too played a significant though tangential role in creating a hostile environment culminating in 1927 Lahore. ⁵³

53

See Spencer Lavan, The Ahmadiya Movement: A History and Perspective (Delhi: Manohar Book Service, 1974).

A Qadiani poster in Urdu entitled ‘Will those professors of the Prophet's love not wake up even now’, signed by Mirza Mahmud Ahmad, was placarded in Peshawar on behalf of the local Anjuman-i-Ahmadia on the 4 June 1927. ⁵⁴

54

Fortnightly report on the internal situation in the NWFP for the first half of June 1927, No. 32, Home (Poll.), June 1927.

It referred to the recent attack made on the Prophet of Islam in the Risala Vartman, Amritsar and cited lengthy extracts from it. Similar posters were also seen in Kohat and steps were taken by the government to proscribe the poster, which was obviously intended to inflame communal feeling. The Qadianis appeared to be anxious to get the government to stop any further publications such as the Rangila Rasul. In a letter dated 27 August 1927, written by M. Mahmud Sadiq, foreign secretary to His Holiness the Khalifatul Mesiah, and addressed to Edward Fredrick Lindley Wood (Lord Irwin), viceroy and governor-general of India, the Ahmadiya community officially sent a draft copy of a proposed memorial ‘about amendment in the law to safeguard the honour of prophets, avatars and founders of all religions’. ⁵⁵

55

Lavan, The Ahmadiyah Movement, 136.

Further correspondence sent directly from Mirza Bashir-ud-din Mahmud Ahmad, the then spiritual head (Khalifatul Masih II) of the Ahmadiya community, on 31 August 1927 was emphatic that the words ‘prophet’, ‘avatar’, ‘founder of religion’ should be clearly mentioned in the proposed section that there may remain no loophole for misinterpretation. ⁵⁶

56

Ibid., 137.

It is worth recalling that the Ahmadiya movement was a religious reform movement within Islam founded in 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908) in Qadian, Punjab. Mirza, claiming to have received visions and messages from God, refuted the doctrines of other religious leaders both within and outside Islam. His public claim to be the Promised Messiah and suggestion that contemporary Islam was an amalgamation of various interpolations and deviations from the real teachings of Prophet Muhammad, had subjected him to debates with the ulama, including Nazir Husain the distinguished leader of the Ahl-i-Hadith movement. ⁵⁷

57

See Kenneth W. Jones, Socio-religious Reform Movements in British India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 116–17.

By the end of the nineteenth century, Ghulam Ahmad had developed a theological doctrine in direct contradiction to many current theological positions of the ulama of the time. His claim to messiah status, his interpretations of the word jihad, ⁵⁸

58

For Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's interpretation of ‘jihad’, see ‘Ahmadiyya Movement’, read by Mirza Bashir-ud-din Mahmood Ahmad on 23 September 1924 at the convention of Living Religions of the Empire, London. It was later published by Nazarat Nashro Ishaat, Qadian, in 1967.

and numerous other theological issues had accorded him a position anomalous to a majority of the Muslim community.

Yet, in Rangila Rasul agitation as well as that against the Sair-i-Dozakh pamphlet, the Qadiani Ahmadis emerged as the champions of Islam. The reason could be traced back to its claim for representing ‘true Islam’ vis-à-vis prevalent theological norms and, therefore, aggressive defence of it. The element of ‘self-defence’ is enshrined in Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's exposition on the meaning of ‘jihad’: ‘Do not be misled by the notion that in the beginning the Muslims were commanded to take up the sword. That sword was not taken up for the spread of the faith, but in self-defence against the enemies of Islam and for the purpose of establishing peace and security.’ ⁵⁹

59

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, ‘Sitarah Qaisariyyah’, Ruhani Khaza’in 15, (1899): 120–21.

While Ghulam Ahmad's theological stance purported a non-militant form of Islam through a denunciation of the ‘use of the sword’ for the spread of Islam, it did allow for an aggressive form of self-defence in the face of an onslaught. In a zealous reformist–revivalist environ with new modes of communication, particularly the printing press, having been established in British India in the nineteenth century, this onslaught came in the form of polemical tracts targeted at one's religion. Religious reformists from three dominant religions in colonial Punjab, the Hindus, Muslims and the Sikhs, along with the Christian missionaries created a discursive space in which the superior claims of each religion were contested. This included the dramatic polemical debates between Ghulam Ahmad and the founder of the Arya Samaj, Dayanand Saraswati, who had devoted an entire chapter in criticism of Islam in his Satyarth Prakash (Light of Truth) apart from critical essays on Christianity, Sikhism and Sanatan Dharma.

In 1892, when Lekh Ram, prominent member of the Arya Samaj condemned Islam in his treatise on jihad, Ahmad responded with numerous attacks against different elements of the Arya Samaj ideology. His legacy of defending Islam against spurious insults continued after his death in 1908 and was particularly seen in the poster campaign organised by the Qadiani Ahmadiyas in Lahore and Amritsar after the acquittal of Mahashay Rajpal. Also, even after two decades from the death of the founder of the Ahmadiya community, the latter had still not been able to find a nestling ground among the Muslims in British India. The desire to be acknowledged as the ‘true’ champions of Islam led the Ahmadis to acquire an aggressive, militant stance not only in terms of its polemical debates with the ulama, Hindu revivalists and Christian missionaries, but also in adopting conversion and proselytism as their main goals through which they were successfully able to win converts from outside of the subcontinent. The agitation against Rangila Rasul led by them along with the Khiafatists in Lahore, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Gujranwala and Peshawar, through propaganda in mosques, public speeches and newspapers, such as the Muslim Opinion, seemed to blur the distinctions between them as they were temporarily seen as upholding the cause of Islam.

Even though theological unity had always eluded Muslims, an attack on the Prophet had brought them on a common platform. While Muhammad Iqbal, the poet and philosopher who had won a seat to the provincial legislative council from Lahore in 1926 in a second round of elections to the reformed councils, may have personally disagreed with the methods of Ataullah Shah Bukhari and Khwajah Abdur Rahman Ghazi who had been arrested for mobilising opinion against Rajpal, he told a congregation at the Badshahi mosque that Muslims had to seal their internal divisions to stop other communities from maligning the Holy Prophet. ⁶⁰

60

Inqilab, 13 July 1927, cited in Muhammad Rafiq Afzal (comp.), Guftar-i-Iqbal (Lahore: Research Society of Pakistan, 1969), 41–46.

Observing that the vilification of the Prophet by non-Muslims guaranteed Muslim solidarity, he joined the Muslim delegation which met the Punjab governor to demand a judicial review or, failing that, an amendment in the law declaring it illegal to publish anything which hurt religious sensibilities.

Retrospectively

Vague policies of the colonial government regarding prevention of communal writings and ambiguity on the interpretation of Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code had led to the promotion of the use of historical narratives as a means of injuring religious opponents and to a further confusion in the judgement of cases connected to this. While Rajpal was acquitted by Justice Dalip Singh with the explanation that Rangila Rasul would not ‘necessarily promote feelings of enmity and hatred between different classes of His Majesty's subjects’ ⁶¹

61

Justice Dalip Singh, Case No. 286 of 1927, 4 May 1927, File No. 132, Home (Poll.), GoI.

as laid down in the section, the editor of Vartman and the author of its controversial article, were convicted on the grounds that ‘the writing of a scurrilous and foul attack on such a religious leader would prima facie fall under the said section’. ⁶²

62

Letter to His Majesty's Under Secretary of State for India from A.B. Broadway, Judge of the Vartman case No. 114/27, 11 August 1927, Serial No. 16, File No. 132/27, Home (Poll.), GoI.

Further, it was only after the controversy generated by Rangila Rasul and Risala Vartman, and the immense discontent felt among sections of Muslims, that the government decided to amend the law Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code. A new bill was, thus, drafted retrospectively which made it an offence ‘intentionally to insult or attempt to insult the religion, or outrage or attempt to outrage the religious feelings of any class’. ⁶³

63

Bill and discussion in File no. 132, GoI, Home (Poll.), 1927.

A select committee was made to examine all aspects of the measure and suggest modifications both in wording and procedure. The committee preceded ‘intention’ with ‘deliberate and malicious’, changed ‘religious feelings’ to ‘religious beliefs’, and limited the offence to verbal and written attacks ‘by visible representations’ instead of the earlier vague clause, by ‘signs’. Further, the Indian government had to sanction prosecutions, and offenses would be tried at the Sessions or at the Presidency Magistrates level. ⁶⁴

64

Ibid.

Introduction of a case at a relatively high level of the judiciary was considered necessary so that prolonged appeals such as had occurred earlier could be prevented.

The bill was given a relatively easy passage as some stalwarts like Lala Lajpat Rai, supported the bill on the grounds that communal writings had gotten entirely out of hand. ⁶⁵

65

Legislative Assembly Debate, vol. 4, no. 56, File no. 132/27, GoI, Home (Poll.).

He had written in The People of Lahore, 29 May 1927, on the acquittal of Rajpal:

Technically, the decision of the learned judge is correct. The judgment is a triumph for freedom of religious propaganda. But I have no doubt in my mind that morally the publication was a mistake… But general moralizing apart, this is pre-eminently a time when the followers of different religions in India should avoid all provocative propaganda. Of all religious propaganda, disrespectful criticism of the founders of religious systems is the most offensive and objectionable. ⁶⁶

66

Produced in the Legislative Assembly Debate 4, no. 56, File no. 132/27, GoI, Home (Poll.).

The notion of the partiality of the British government towards the Muslims had already seeped into certain sections of the Hindu community. For instance, the defence lawyer in the Vartman case urged that as the Muslims had not been proceeded against by the government, the accused drew two conclusions. Firstly, that scurrilous writings of this nature were not regarded as offences; secondly, that the penal provisions regarding such writings were meant for Hindus alone, and therefore, as private persons could not take action under Section 153A, they were driven, in desperation to resort in this manner. ⁶⁷

67

Letter to His Majesty's Under Secretary of State for India from A.B. Broadway, Judge of the Vartmancase, No. 114/27, 11 August 1927, Serial No. 16, File No. 132/27, GoI, Home (Poll.).

In the Legislative Assembly held in Simla on 5 September 1927, the bill remained a subject of intense discussion. While certain Hindu members termed the bill an undue concession to Muslims, certain Muslim members feared that it did not go far enough to stop attacks against the Prophet and saw the shuddhi movement as responsible for the rise in extreme forms of conflict.

Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava, MLA of the Ambala division, attributed the dissension between sections of Hindus and Muslims to the attitude of the government in dealing with the trouble. Questions had already been raised on the conduct of the government in respect of publications such as the Uniswin Saddi ka Maharishi ⁶⁸

68

Published in Punjab by a member of the Qadian community and offering insult to Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of the Arya Samaj.

and Sair Din Va Duniya, ⁶⁹

69

A Delhi publication with scurrilous content same as above.

pamphlets offensive to the Hindu sentiment, in the Punjab Council by various members to which the government had responded that since the agitation in respect of those publications was not such as justified them in launching prosecutions against the authors of those books, those books were neither proscribed nor their authors punished. In this context, he asserted that the present situation would not have arisen if the government had stiffened its attitude from the start towards the authors of those books, ‘I maintain, Sir, that Rangila Rasul, which has been written as a reply to the book Uniswin Saddi ka Maharishi, would never have appeared in print if the Government had taken care to see the first book of which it was the result, was proscribed and the author punished.’ ⁷⁰

70

Legislative Assembly Debate 4, no. 56, File No. 132/27, Home (Poll.), GoI.

Accurately assessing the situation, he remarked that the real reason for the publication of such controversial writings was not because the Hindus and the Muslims had suddenly become ultra-religious but because of the introduction of separate electorates in the reforms. That the Hindus and the Muslims had not got enough political rights to enable them to think of anything else, ‘In fact, Sir, if the government really wanted to tackle the question and to settle the Hindu–Muslim dispute, I for one believe that it would not be difficult for Government so as to arrange matters as to bring about a condition of amity and goodwill between the Hindus and Muslims.’ ⁷¹

71

Ibid.

Discussion of religious insults reopened the omnipresent issue of press controls. Although the Punjab government supported the suggested addition to the Code, it questioned whether prosecution and slightly amended laws would check communal attacks. ⁷²

72

N.G. Barrier, Banned: Controversial Literature and Political Control in British India, 1907–1947 (Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1976), 102.

Only a tightening of registration procedures and a return to security demands would force the publicists to quit their attacks or to moderate the tone of their journalism. ⁷³

73

Punjab Government to Government of India, 6 August 1927, GIPOL 1928, 74. Cf. Barrier, Banned, 102.

However, as Barrier notes, the debate ended shortly thereafter without action; not because communal tension had lessened but because the Indian government's focus was diverted from the danger of Hindu–Muslim violence to that of the challenge posed by the Congress and the revolutionists. ⁷⁴

74

Barrier, Banned, 103.

The shift of priorities and the reason behind the shift was plain. The Moral and Material Progress Report for 1927–28 noted, until 8 November 1927, the ‘main interest of the public and of politicians centered on the Hindu–Muhammadan trouble’. ⁷⁵

75

India in 1927–8, p. 55. Cf. Ibid, p. 103.

On that day, Viceroy Lord Irwin announced the formation and composition of the Indian Statutory Commission. The government would rather divert its attention to confronting the nationalists and secure its imperial domain than formulate policies to stamp out communalism. It could instead use communalism to counter and weaken the growing national movement and the welding of the Indian people into a nation. ⁷⁶

76

Chandra et al., India's Struggle for Independence, 408.

The publication of Rangila Rasul and other inflammatory literature in the 1920s sharpened communal tensions as the role of print in defining a world of newly re-imagined communitarian consciousness became significant. It undermined an inclusive and accommodative mainstream nationalist narrative and further polarised extreme public opinions. In the context of representational politics played out by the colonial state, through separate electorates, this added fuel to fire. The vague rather ‘retrospect’ policies of the colonial government betrayed its conciliatory nature in that the government often acted only when a complaint was lodged and interpreted Section 193A of the IPC related to communal ill will according to expediency. This made the establishment of harmony among the various religious communities in a heated political environment a far-fetched idea.