Echoes of Partition: The Resurgence of Muslim Separatism and its Threat to National Unity

• Despite heavy security, the 2019 Shaheen Bagh protests highlighted rising separatist sentiment among some Muslims, challenging Indian sovereignty and promoting Islamic separatism.
• Developments like Halal Park in Kerala and Muslims-only property ads reflect growing Muslim separatism in India, questioning their loyalty to the Indian state.
• The call for a separate Muslim state has deep historical roots, with current unrest echoing the 1940s demand for Pakistan. Critics argue that Muslims see themselves as a “nation within a nation” in India.
• Islam’s allegiance to religious laws over national laws fosters a sense of separateness, hindering integration into a Hindu-majority India.
• The liberal ecosystem fuels Islamic separatism, empowering extremists and increasing the likelihood of calls for partition, which undermines national unity.

New Delhi is one of the most heavily protected capital cities in the world. The Indian Army’s elite 1 Corps is based less than an hour away in Mathura and consists of approximately 100,000 heavily armed troops. The celebrated and fierce Rajputana Rifles Regiment, with thousands of battle-hardened soldiers, is based in the Delhi Cantonment. The 103 Battalion of the Rapid Action Force is based in Wazirabad in north Delhi. The National Security Guard, the country’s primary counter-terrorism force, is based in Palam, minutes from the heart of the city. Plus, there’s the Delhi Police, with a sanctioned strength of 84,536 cops. Despite such overwhelming firepower available to the government in Delhi, in 2019, a ragtag bunch of Muslim anarchists protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act was allowed to camp out at Shaheen Bagh, block a key arterial road, and hold an entire city hostage for months.[1]

The protests were overtly Islamic and anti-Hindu in nature, with Muslims carrying posters saying “F*ck Hindutva” and shouting slogans like “Jinnah Wali Azadi.”[2] The reference was to Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s two-nation theory, which unequivocally declared that Muslims cannot co-exist with Hindus. As per this theory, which is still supported by hundreds of millions of Muslims in the Indian subcontinent, Muslims and Hindus are two separate nations having separate religions, customs, cuisines, and languages, and therefore, Muslims should be able to have their own separate homeland in the Muslim majority areas of India. Essentially, what the Muslims at Shaheen Bagh were saying was they wanted the freedom to break India yet again and create multiple Pakistans within India.

Growing separatism

Emboldened by their rapidly growing numbers, Muslims across India are currently on a separatist spree. A Muslims-only apartment building in Greater Noida near Delhi comes with a mosque and a madrassa.[3] In Kerala, a builder Is offering “Shariah-compliant” apartments aimed at Muslims “who also have faith in money power to make room for their religious beliefs.”[4]

India’s first Sharia-compliant township – Halal Park – is getting ready on the Kozhikode-Wayanad border in Kerala. Designed as part of the Markaz Knowledge City, the Halal Park is an initiative of the conservative Sunni Muslim group, Markazu Saquafathi Sunniyya.[5] A Halal Park is a miniature Muslim nation that allows only Muslims to live exclusively following religious beliefs and customs. In this gated community, Islamic laws and practices will be followed in colleges and apartments. Sharia-teaching colleges, Sharia-compliant apartments, hotels, and office complexes will make Halal Park an Islamic nation within India.

Meanwhile, in Mumbai and nearby areas, “Only Muslims Allowed” advertisements are popping up on property portals while selling and renting apartments.[6]

Liberal Hindu politicians are adding their two bits to enhance the sense of Muslim separatism. In 2023, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao promised to set up a special information technology park for Muslim youth in Hyderabad.[7]

Author and JNU professor Anand Ranganathan comments: “Secularism in this country has transmogrified into appeasement. This is not welfare; this is warfare.”[8]

Muslim mindset in India

Muslim separatism is as old as the earliest Islamic invasions of India, but it was in the late 19th century that the Muslims began clamoring for a separate nation, and it was in the 1920s and 1930s that the demands for a distinct Islamic nation became strident and persistent. This was the period when Muslims resorted to religious riots against Hindus at the slightest provocation. By the 1940s, Muslims represented one-fourth of the total Indian population (94.5 million people or 24.3 percent as per the 1941 Census of India), and that is when the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent declared they would have nothing less than Pakistan.[9]

One hundred years later, the Muslim population in India is again nearing the 25 percent mark. Once again, Muslims are emboldened to attack Hindus – in Delhi, Bengaluru, and even in places like Odisha, where they are still a small minority. These riots have left deep scars on the Hindus who lost their loved ones, homes, and properties despite having the police force and administration dominated by Hindus. Ordinary people are questioning if we are headed towards further partitions.

Let’s take a deep dive into the previous century when Islamic separatism first reared its ugly head and set off the process that led to India’s dismemberment.

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, jurist, and chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee, was among the leading intellectuals of the pre-Partition era. He developed an accurate understanding of the Muslim mindset. He offers the best explanation for why a section of Indian Muslims is perpetually in civil disobedience mode: “Among the tenets, one that calls for notice is the tenet of Islam which says that in a country which is not under Muslim rule, wherever there is a conflict between Muslim law and the law of the land, the former must prevail over the latter, and a Muslim will be justified in obeying the Muslim law and defying the law of the land.”[10]

The belief that they have religious sanction to defy a non-Islamic government is the reason why Muslims burnt trains and destroyed public property as a form of protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act. This is why they resist polio vaccination. This is why Muslims chase away census officials.

Arguing for the complete exchange of populations, Ambedkar wrote: “How far will Muslims obey the authority of a government manned and controlled by the Hindus? The answer to this question does not need to call for much inquiry. To the Muslims, a Hindu is a kaffir. A kaffir is not worthy of respect. He is low-born and without status. That is why a country that is ruled by a kaffir is Dar-ul-Harb (a country that is at war with Islam) to a Musalman. Given this, no further evidence seems to be necessary to prove that the Muslims will not obey a Hindu government. The basic feelings of deference and sympathy, which predispose persons to obey government authority, do not simply exist. But if proof is wanted, there is no shortage of it. It is so abundant that the problem is what to tender and what to omit.”[11]

Another tenet that operates against nation-states such as India is that Islam does not recognize territorial affinities. Its affinities are social and religious and, therefore, extraterritorial. “This is the basis of Pan-Islamism,” writes Ambedkar. “It is this which leads every Musalman in India to say that he is a Muslim first and Indian afterward. It is this sentiment that explains why the Indian Muslim has taken so small a part in the advancement of India but has spent himself to exhaustion by taking up the cause of Muslim countries and why Muslim countries occupy the first place, and India occupies second place in his thoughts.”

Ambedkar adds that a key defect of Islam is that it is a system of social self-government and is incompatible with local self-government because the allegiance of a Muslim does not rest on his domicile in the country, which is his, but on the faith to which he belongs. “To the Muslim ubi panis ibi patria (where there is bread, there is my country) is unthinkable. Wherever there is the rule of Islam, there is his own country. In other words, Islam can never allow a true Muslim to adopt India as his motherland and regard a Hindu as his kith and kin. That is probably the reason why Maulana Mahomed Ali, a great Indian but a true Muslim, preferred to be buried in Jerusalem rather than in India.”[12]

The problem with Indian Muslims is they see themselves not as a community within the Indian nation-state but as a nation within a nation. This means Muslims are working independently of – and not in cooperation with – the other communities. Their sense of victimhood is solely because they find it unbearable to live as normal citizens in Hindu-majority India. Ambedkar explains: “A people who, notwithstanding their differences, accept a common destiny for themselves as well as for their opponents, are a community. A people who are not only different from the rest but who refuse to accept for themselves the same destiny which others do, are a nation.”[13]

It is the non-acceptance of a common destiny that alone can explain why the Muslims feel they are a nation. Or as Muslim League leader Mohammed Ali Jinnah said, Indian Muslims are “a nation within a nation.” This seems to be a phenomenon that Indian Muslims have exported to the West – where they are creating “nations within nations.”[14]

According to Ambedkar, if Muslims persist in their view of themselves as a different nation, “it cannot but have the effect of rending the State in fragments.” The Dalit politician said this in 1941, six years before India was divided.

Uncompromising attitude

Far from cooperating with Hindus, the Muslims seem ready to challenge them. In 1926, there arose a controversy about who had won the third battle of Panipat, fought in 1761 between the Indians and Afghans. The Muslims contended that it was a great victory for them because the Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Abdali had 100,000 soldiers while the Marathas had 400,000 to 600,000 troops. The Hindus replied that it was a victory for them because it stemmed the tide of Muslim invasions.

The fact is the Maratha army at Panipat had between 45,000 and 60,000 fighting troops against Abdali’s 100,000 Afghans.[15] The Marathas were so sure of victory that they had allowed more than 200,000 non-combatants (women, children, and the aged) to accompany their army; these were pilgrims who had tagged along and were planning to take a dip in the Ganga river after the anticipated Maratha victory. Weighed down by this unwieldy mass of humanity, the Maratha army lost its mobility. But it is also a fact that the Marathas took down a large number of Afghan soldiers with them. This massive loss of life deterred the Afghans from ever entering India. Within a decade, the Maratha army was back in the north, retaking the lost territories and punishing those who had betrayed them at Panipat.

Anyway, wild claims are common among Muslim politicians in the Indian subcontinent. For instance, Hyderabad-based Akbaruddin Owaisi once said, “Remove the police for 15 minutes, we will finish off 100 crore (1 billion) Hindus.”[16] Similarly, the Pakistan Army has claimed on separate occasions that one Pakistani soldier is equal to 10, six, and three Indian soldiers. The ratio keeps declining in step with Pakistani defeats in wars against India.

Ambedkar writes that the Indian Muslims were not prepared to admit defeat at the hands of Hindus and claimed they would always prove superior to the Hindus. To prove the eternal superiority of Muslims over Hindus, it was proposed by one Maulana Akbar Shah Khan of Najibabad (in Uttar Pradesh), in all seriousness, that the Hindus and Muslims should fight, under test conditions, a fourth battle on the same fateful plain of Panipat.

The Maulana accordingly issued a challenge to freedom fighter Madan Mohan Malaviya in the following terms: “If you, Malaviyaji, are making efforts to falsify the result at Panipat, I shall show you an easy and excellent way (of testing it). Use your well-known influence and induce the British Government to permit the fourth battle of Panipat to be fought without hindrance from the authorities. I am ready to provide. . . .a comparative test of the valor and fighting spirit of the Hindus and the Musalmans.

“As there is seven crores (70 million) Musalmans in India, I shall arrive on a fixed date on the plain of Panipat with 700 Musalmans representing the seven crores of Muslims in India, and as there is 22 crores (220 million) Hindus, I allow you to come with 2,200 Hindus. The proper thing is not to use cannon, machine guns, or bombs; only swords and javelins, spears, bows and arrows, and daggers should be used.

“But anyway, do come as a spectator; for on seeing the result of this battle, you will have to change your views, and I hope there will be then an end of the present discord and fighting in the country. . . .In conclusion, I beg to add that among the 700 men that I shall bring, there will be no Pathans or Afghans, as you are mortally afraid of them. So I shall bring with me only Indian Musalmans of good family who are staunch adherents of Shariat.”[17]

Intolerable hatred

In a manifesto on Hindu-Muslim relations issued in 1928, Khwaja Hasan Nizami, an Indian Sufi ‘saint’ of the Chishti Islamic order, declared: “Musalmans are separate from Hindus; they cannot unite with the Hindus. After bloody wars, the Musalmans conquered India, and the English took India from them. The Musalmans are one united nation, and they alone will be masters of India. They will never give up their individuality. They have ruled India for hundreds of years and have a prescriptive right over the country. The Hindus are a minor community in the world. They are never free from internecine quarrels; they believe in Gandhi and worship the cow; they are polluted by taking other people’s water. The Hindus do not care for self-government; they have no time to spare for it; let them go on with their internal squabbles. What capacity have they for ruling over men? The Musalmans did rule, and the Musalmans will rule.”[18]

Then there was Maulana Azad Sobhani, a pan-Islamist cleric from Kanpur and a member of the All India Khilafat Conference, who, in his 1939 speech at Sylhet, revealed the mindset of the Indian Muslim cleric: “If there is any eminent leader in India who is in favor of driving out the English from this country, then I am that leader. In spite of this, I want that there should be no fight with the English on behalf of the Muslim League. Our big fight is with the 22 crore (220 million) of our Hindu enemies, who constitute the majority. Only 4.5 crores (45 million) Englishmen have practically swallowed the whole world by becoming powerful. And if these 22 crore Hindus, who are equally advanced in learning, intelligence, and wealth as in numbers, if they become powerful, then these Hindus will swallow Muslim India and gradually even Egypt, Turkey, Kabul, Mecca, Medina, and other Muslim principalities….”[19]

Sobhani’s biggest fear was that Hindus would one day dominate the world: “The English are gradually becoming weak. . . .they will go away from India in the near future. So if we do not fight the greatest enemies of Islam, the Hindus, from now on and make them weak, then they will not only establish Ramrajya in India but also gradually spread all over the world. It depends on the 9 crore (90 million) Indian Muslims either to strengthen or to weaken them (the Hindus). So it is the essential duty of every devout Muslim to fight on by joining the Muslim League so that the Hindus may not be established here and a Muslim rule may be established in India as soon as the English depart.”

He concluded by saying that “the Muslim world is never safe in the hands of 22 crore Hindu enemies.”

Again, in 1946, when the Pakistan Movement was in its most virulent phase, Muslim leaders organized huge rallies calling for a separate Muslim homeland. They threatened to revive the days of “Changez Khan” (Genghis Khan) and “Halaku Khan” (Hulagu Khan).[20]

Cheered by tens of thousands of Muslims and motivated by demagogues such as Maulana Maududi of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the Muslim League would threaten Hindus with a fate similar to what they had met at the hands of the Mongols. Their hatred was matched only by their ignorance. The truth is the Mongols never harmed Hindus but were instead the scourge of Muslims, becoming Islam’s greatest enemy. Wave upon wave of Mongol attacks flattened many Islamic strongholds across Central Asia, Persia, and Arabia, killing millions of Muslims. Genghis Khan was a Shamanistic sky worshiper who wanted to conquer Islamic lands and wipe out all traces of Islam from the world. The number of Muslims he killed is estimated at six million.

Conclusion

As the Muslim population gallops towards the 25 percent mark, where it was in the 1940s when the demands for Pakistan became loudest, there are renewed calls for a second Partition. And just like the 1940s, the liberals are prepared to surrender once again to the Jehadi ogre. “India has 20-25 crore Muslims…I dare the Indian government to show guts and give a separate country, like Pakistan, to Indian Muslims,” said a liberal Hindu politician.[21] Calls for a second partition will only get shriller and more common as Muslims, Christians, leftists, and liberals find common ground against Hindus.

The liberals are afraid to take on the Jehadi bully; instead, their plan is to appease him. The policy of concession is counterproductive as Muslims interpret concessions as a sign of defeatism on the part of the Hindus.

The soft Indian state has repeatedly failed its law-abiding citizens. The Islamists of the 1940s were mostly poor and illiterate; today’s ones are educated, wealthy, and have the entire mass of the world’s leftists, liberals, and powerful anarchists like George Soros behind them. The Islamists do not shy from weakening and destroying the nation-state from within so that their ultimate wet dream of the Islamic reconquest of India can happen.

The destiny of Indian Muslims is intertwined with India’s fortunes. They should forget about being a separate nation and stop being the special community with “the first claim on resources.“[22] As Sardar Patel, India’s first Deputy Prime Minister, commented at the time of Partition: Rather than tyrannize the minorities, the fact was that in most places, the minorities tyrannized the majority. The Muslims have almost everywhere enjoyed privileges far in excess of what may be called just or fair.”[23]

Because when you burn trains, destroy public property, and spit on doctors with the intention to infect them with a deadly virus, you are nothing but anarchists. This will backfire because, frankly, Hindus are running out of patience.

Citations

[1] Here are four incidents at Shaheen Bagh that show the true Jihadi nature of anti-caa protests, if riots weren’t proof enough; /https://www.opindia.com/2020/01/four-shaheen-bagh-incidents-show-the-true-jihadi-nature-of-anti-caa-protests/

[2] SHOCKING: Rhythmic ‘Jinnah Wali Azadi’ Demands Raised At Shaheen Bagh Anti-CAA Protest; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRw3JqvbGPo

[3] Muslim-only apartments coming  up in Greater NOIDA; https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/noida/muslims-only-apartments-coming-up-in-greater-noida/articleshow/41896330.cms

[4] In a first, Sharia-compliant apartments to come up in Kerala; https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kochi/shariah-model-flats-facing-mecca-clocks-in-sync-with-azan/articleshow/64151619.cms

[5] Massive Sharia-complaint township exclusively for Muslims, coming up in Kerala; https://vskbharat.com/massive-sharia-compliant-township-exclusively-for-muslims-coming-up-in-kerala/?lang=en

[6] Only Muslims allowed in these properties; /https://squarefeatindia.com/only-muslims-allowed-in-these-properties/

[7] KCR promises special IT park for Muslims; https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/kcr-promises-special-it-park-for-muslims/articleshow/105483337.cms

[8] Twitter: Only Muslims allowed in these properties; /https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/1729402018845106656

[9] Hindu-Muslim communal riots in India (1947-86); https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/hindu-muslim-communal-riots-india-i-1947-1986.html

[10] Ambedkar, Pakistan or The Partition of India, Chapter XII, Part III

[11] ibid

[12] Ambedkar, Pakistan or The Partition of India, Chapter XII, Part V

[13] ibid

[14] Muslims Are Creating ‘Nations Within Nations’ Says Former Head of U.K. Equalities Commission; https://www.newsweek.com/muslims-are-creating-nations-within-nations-says-former-head-uk-equalities-446163

[15] Third Battle of Panipat (1761); https://panipat.gov.in/third-battle/

[16] Akbaruddin Owaisi booked for hate speech for repeating ’15 minute’ threat during polls; https://www.republicworld.com/india-news/politics/akbaruddin-owaisi-booked-for-hate-speech-during-poll-campaign.html

[17] Ambedkar, Pakistan or The Partition of India, Chapter XII, Part III

[18] https://baws.in/books/baws/EN/Volume_08/pdf/328

[19] Ambedkar, Pakistan or The Partition of India, Chapter XII, Part I; original published in Bengali in Anandabazar Patrika

[20] Amiya Chatterji and Amiya Cattopadhyay, “Constitutional Development of India” (page 141)

[21] ‘Make another Pakistan for 25 crore Muslim population in the country’: Congress leader Ajay Verma calls for partition of India; https://www.opindia.com/2020/01/congress-leader-ajay-verma-separate-country-muslims-pakistan-bangladesh-partition/

[22] Muslims must have first claim on resources: PM; https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Muslims-must-have-first-claim-on-resources-PM/articleshow/754937.cms

[23] Constitution Assembly Debates; https://eparlib.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/762983/2/cad_27-08-1947_edited_version_English.pdf