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Newsletter for May 2012
Iqbal's
Impact
On Freedom
Movement
By M.H. Askari
CONSIDERING the short span (from about 1926 to 1938, Iqbal's
impact on the freedom struggle and on the destiny of the Muslims
of the subcontinent was profound and abiding. He had an almost
indelible influence on the shaping not only of the political
thought of his compatriots but also of their perceptions on
religion and culture.
Unlike his contemporary, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who was drawn into
the vortex of politics while still a student in England in the
closing years of the nineteenth century, Iqbal, on his return
home in 1908 after his higher studies in Cambridge and having
qualified as a barrister, had to go into the profession of
teaching (at his old alma mater, Government College) even while
beginning to practise as a lawyer).
However, this does not mean that Iqbal was not sensitive to the
cataclysmic political changes taking place around him. As a poet
and a visionary, he was deeply affected by the condition of his
people, something that inspired him not only to write some of
his immortal poetry but also to be a guide to his people in
adjusting to the changes. In order to fulfil his self-imposed
mission in life, he liberated himself from the traditional modes
of expression in poetry and later even adopted a foreign
language (Persian) as his medium of expression.
>From the outset, even while a disciple of Dagh Dehlavi, Iqbal
found the nazm form more suited to the expression of his message
to his readers. With his ever dynamic ideas and feelings the
nazm form provided him with a broader canvas for painting his
vision of life and destiny. He also immersed himself in the
movement for the social and educational uplift of his people.
All this inevitably had an impact on the style and content of
Iqbal's vocation-- poetry. His poetry of this phase in his life
was deeply patriotic. He wrote poems like Tasveer-i-Dard,
Nala-i-Yateem, Naya Shivala, Parinde ki faryad, and what proved
to be most popular of all, Tarana-i-Hindi. The tarana even in
today's India is sung with devotion and fervour matching their
own national anthem by millions of school students every
morning.
Iqbal was elected general secretary of the Kashmir Muslim
Association as he struggled to make his mark as a lawyer and
chaired the All-India Muhamadan Conference at Delhi in 1911. He
identified himself closely with the ideals of the Anjuman-i-Himayat-i-Islam,
an organization which was dedicated to the progress and
reformation of education among the Muslims.In consonance with
the sentiments of most Muslims of India, Iqbal was fully
supportive of the Turkish revolution led by Kemal Ataturk.
However, like Jinnah, he remained unmoved by the agitational
khilafat movement. When his close friend, Maulana Shaukat Ali,
wrote to him inviting him to join the movement, he wrote back
saying: "Iqbal likes a hermit's life. And in these turbulent
days, I regard my home as safe as Noah's Ark..."
Like most people around him, both Muslim and non-Muslim, Iqbal
was anguished by the massacre carried out by the British army in
the Jallianwala Bagh of Amritsar and wrote a poem to express his
feelings. He also wrote a most moving poem on the release of
Maulana Muhammad Ali after serving his term of imprisonment for
campaigning against the enlistment of Indians in the army during
the second world war.
Rajmohan Gandhi in his 'Understanding the Muslim mind' expresses
the view that Iqbal was deeply affected by Europe's "vitality".
While studying in England he would "sing of action and satirize
passivity." He wished his people "to glow with the sunbeam of
desires."
Sceptics who doubt whether or not Iqbal had a clear vision of
the separate nationhood of Muslims are obviously unaware of what
the eminent scholar S.M. Ikram has said of him. Ikram says
Iqbal, in a letter written as early as March 1909, said: "I have
myself been of the view that religious differences should
disappear from the country and even now act on this principle in
my private life. But now I think that the preservation of their
separate national entities is desirable for both Hindus and
Muslims. The vision of a common nationhood in India for India is
a beautiful ideal and has a poetic appeal... but appears
incapable of fulfilment." He also declined to associate himself
with an Amritsar-based Hindu-Muslim-Sikh body.
Indeed, there is no clear record of Iqbal identifying himself
with any political party until around 1925-26 when he worked for
the revival of the Muslim League in Punjab. The party had been
for a time eclipsed by the popular appeal of the Khilafat
committees and gone into semi-hibernation.
According to Indian scholar Dr Rafiq Zakaria, otherwise a geart
admirer of Iqbal, the poet in fact was a "reluctant politician."
His acceptance of the knighthood in 1922 was also not exactly
popular with the Muslim masses. Many of them thought that it
would cramp his style as a rebellious poet and thinker. However,
he assured his friend, Ghulam Bheek Nairang, in a letter: "...I
swear by God that there is no power on earth which can prevent
me from speaking out what I consider to be the truth..."
When elections to the provincial legislative assembly were held
in 1926, for the second time under the political reforms
announced in the Montague-Chelmsford Award, Iqbal was prevailed
upon to be a candidate for the Muslim League. One of the
candidates who opposed Iqbal, Mian Abdul Aziz Malwada, withdrew
his candidature. But a leading lawyer, Din Muhammad, refused.
Hence a contest became inevitable.
According to Zakaria, there were some who felt threatened by
Iqbal's growing popularity and "they were hell-bent on making
sure that Iqbal did not get elected: they resorted to the
meanest tactics..." Nonetheless, when the elections took place
on November 23-24, 1926, Iqbal won by a huge margin of votes. In
the victory celebrations that followed not only thousands of
Muslims but many Hindus and Sikhs also participated."
The elements opposing Iqbal in the elections mainly belonged to
the Unionist Party which had been set up in January 1924, with
Mian Fazl-i-Hussain as its chief motivator and moving force. As
Ashiq Hussain Batalvi has discussed at great length, in his
Iqbal kay Akhri do saal, the Unionist Party created a division
between the urban and rural population of Punjab. This in later
years was to strengthen the feudalist elements who today
exercise a strong influence in the politics not in the province
but of Pakistan .
Iqbal is said to have been extremely critical of this division
between the rural and urban Punjab and perhaps believed that
Mian Fazl-i-Husain had used the strategem to strengthen his own
constitutency. Iqbal at the same time also believed that Mian
sahib achieved the eminence in politics which he did (ending up
as a member of the Viceroy's executive council) not because he
was from a rural constituency but because the Muslims of Punjab
held him in high esteem. Incidentally, Iqbal's maiden speech in
the legislative council was focused on the problems of
education.
The Muslim League split into Jinnah League and Shafi League on
the question of boycott of the Simon Commission and Mian
Muhammad Shafi became the head of a rival League. According to
Zakaria Iqbal joined Mian Shafi.
In 1928 Iqbal delivered a series of six lectures in Madras on
the theme of 'Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam'.
S.M. Ikram maintains that Iqbal had also hoped to write a book
to be called Reconstruction of Islamic Jurisprudence, in which
he "would have dealt with items in the shariat in the altered
conditions of modern life." Unfortunately, because of his poor
health, he never got round to doing so.
However, even in his Reconstruction of Religious Thought, Iqbal
has expressed the view that the present generation of Muslims
had the "right to interpret the foundational legal principles
(of shariat) in the light of their own experience and the
altered conditions of modern life." It is also believed that in
1925 he wrote an essay on ijtihad but that was never published.
Iqbal attended the Round Table Conferences in London held by the
British government to help the Hindus and Muslims resolve their
differences over the future political form of the government in
India. The Conferences did not result in anything much useful.
The Hindu-Muslim communal question continued to dominate the
politics of the subcontinent, and the Unionists continued to be
in power in Punjab. However, 1930 was to prove a high watermark
in Iqbal's political career.
Jinnah was away in London at the time. Iqbal presided over the
annual session of the All India Muslim League which was held in
Allahabad. In his presidential address, he stressed that the
European model of democracy was not suitable for India, so long
as the fact of communal groups was not recognized. Spelling out
his own vision of the "final destiny" of the Muslims he said: "I
would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province,
Sindh and Balochistan amalgamated into a single state.
Self-government within the British empire or without the British
empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim
State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at
least of North-West India." This statement is generally seen as
spelling out the genesis of the Muslim League's demand for
Pakistan.
Prof Khalid Bin Sayeed has pointed out that Iqbal made no
reference to Bengal in his statement and that he also visualized
that in certain cases a Muslim state could adopt such "a
flexible approach as to impose no restrictions on the
realization of the interest on money loaned."
Iqbal passed away on April 21, 1938. Jinnah at mammoth public
gathering in Calcutta while paying him rich tributes referred to
him as "undoubtedly one of the greatest poets, seers and
philosophers of humanity." he said: "To me he was a personal
friend, philosopher and guide and as such the source of my
inspiration and spiritual support."
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