Role of Muslims in India’s Freedom Struggle
The famous writer kushwant Singh,once write “ India freedom is written in Muslim blood ,since their participation in the freedom struggle was much more,in proportion to their small percentage of the population “The story and history of Indian's independence are written with the blood of Muslims. According to historical references 65%of those who stood , fought and sacrificed against the British for Indian's independence were Muslim freedom fighters,the hams live reported. Indian Muslims not only contributed significantly to the liberation struggle but also gave their lives in the service of the anti-colonial national battle. 61945 of the 95300 names of independence fighters mentioned on India Gate in Delhi are Muslim names, indicating that 65% of all liberation fighters were Muslims, as reported in an article in Milli Chronicle.
A large number of people from all religions and castes took part I the freedom struggle, undoubtedly. Muslim however , the struggle of many Muslim prominent personalities who also contributed to India's freedom and even sacrificed everything including their lives are little known . Muslim have been at the forefront to oppose the British and stood shoulder with people from other commitments while fighting against them. Getting freedom was not easy ,our ancestors had to go face a lot of struggle and difficulties to get us the freedom that we are enjoying now.
It is impossible to recount the names of hundreds and thousands of Indian Muslims who fought on the streets against the British empire.For all patriotic Indians, it is the worst of times, it is the age of foolishness, it is the epoch of incredulity, it is the season of darkness, it is the winter of despair, we have nothing before us, to paraphrase an epic description of the revolutionary tumult of the French Revolution, by Charles Dickens in his novel The Tale of Two Cities. However, the current situation in India is not about a revolutionary tide. The torrents that India faces today are intensely counter-revolutionary.Even a cursory glance at history would reveal that Indian Muslims not only played a stellar role in the freedom struggle but happily laid down their lives at the altar of the anti-colonial national struggle.The Great Revolt of 1857 was the mightiest joint effort of the Hindus and Muslims under the leadership of the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar to dislodge the British from India. Zafar was chosen as the leader of the Revolt by the overwhelmingly Hindu upper-caste sepoys (popularly known as poorbeahs) recruited chiefly from the Eastern regions of India. Although the Revolt failed because of myriad reasons, it was the Muslim community that was singled out by the British as the conspirators-in-chief. The tragedy that struck the Muslims of Delhi, which was the epicentre of the Revolt, was gruesome and ghastly.
All Muslims, barring a few rich households, were shunted out of the walled city and could not return to the city till November 1859. Important Muslim shrines were desecrated by the British as an insulting token of revenge. There was a talk of demolishing the Jama Masjid, the Akbarabadi Masjid was destroyed, the Fatehpuri Masjid was sold to the pro-British Lala Chunna Mal and the Zinat-ul-Masjid was used as a bakery. After the embers of the Revolt cooled, the British became aware of a conjoint effort by Hindus and Muslims motivated by a common anti-British sentiment in future. As a result, the system of mixed regiments in the British army was disbanded and replaced by the 'class company model' of mixed ethnic groups.
In the next phase of British rule, a small number of rich and educated Indians were given consultative yet impotent memberships in the Legislative Councils. The Bengal Legislative Council that came into being in 1862 had four members: Raja Partap Chand of Burdwan, Ramaprasad Roy, son of Rammohun Roy, Prasanna Coomar Tagore, cousin of Dwarkanath Tagore, and a lone Muslim member Maulvi Abdul Latif. From the very beginning, the Council fell prey to the interests of the bourgeoisie-landlord combine.
One of the first tasks that the Council set itself to was to bring about a bill that strived to amend Article X of the Tenancy Act of Bengal 1859, under which the poor Bengali tenantry and sharecroppers got some relief from exorbitant exactions by the 'permanently settled' landlords. Out of all the four Council members, it was only Maulana Abdul Latif who voted against the egregious bill and the rest sided with the British planters.Within two years of the founding of the Indian National Congress (INC) in 1885, Badruddin Tyabji of Bombay became its President. Both Badruddin and his brother Qamruddin Tyabji were deeply involved in laying the founding of the INC and were among the four Muslim delegates elected to the first Congress meeting in 1885. It is also interesting to note that Badruddin Tyabji was instrumental in passing the motion that stated that the ‘INC would never approve the discussion of a subject without the unanimity of its Hindu and Muslim delegates’.
Even during the Swadeshi period, Muslim swadeshi leaders were as patriotic as their Hindu brethren. If we set aside the dubious role of prominent landed elements such as Nawab Salimullah of Dacca, we will find immense participation of ordinary and plebian Muslims. The Muslim peasantry of Pabna and Khulna displayed heart-warming scenes of fraternisation during a rally in July 1905. In the same year, on September 23, Hindu-Muslim students of Calcutta marched in unison and organised a ten thousand-strong rally where the Muslim swadeshi Abdur Rasul declared, ‘‘We both Hindus and Mohammadans here belong to the same mother country—Bengal.’’
In Hooghly, the calls of Bande Mataram and Allah-ho-Akbar mingled. Muslim Swadeshi enterprises such as Ghaznavi’sUnited Bengal Company, the Bengal hosiery, and the Bengal Steam Navigation Company played a vital role during the movement. Abul Hussain and Liakat Ali were extremely prominent agitators during the great East India Railway strike of 1906. During the strike, the Muslim locomotive drivers took pledges on the Koran and walked out in their turn in December 1907. The strike went on till the middle of February and was only broken with the help of European drivers loaned from the army.
After the First World War, when the era of mass politics was inaugurated in India, Muslims were not at all lacking in participation. The resolution for complete independence (Poorna Swaraj) was first moved at the 1921 Ahmedabad session of the Indian National Congress by Maulana Hasrat Mohanialong with Swami Kumarananda of the Communist Party of India. B.T. Ranadive records in his article India’s Freedom Struggle published in the journal Social Scientist that ‘‘it was Gandhi who led the opposition to it’’. Similarly, in June 1922, a joint session ofthe Khilafat Committee and Jamiat-ul-Ulema held at Lucknow passed a radical resolution that stated, “The best interests of India and the Muslims demand that in the Congress creed the term 'Swaraj' be substituted by the term 'Complete Independence’’. It should be remembered that the Indian National Congress adopted the complete independence resolution only in December 1929.
The nucleus of the Communist Party of India formed in Tashkent in 1920 consisted mainly of Muslim hijratis who left the fold of the foundering Ottoman Caliphate and made socio-economic emancipation of the Indian masses their goal. Therefore, some of the early Muslim communists went against the euphoria of the age and posed difficult and far-sighted questions to the leadership of Congress. Muzaffar Ahmad, fondly known as Kakababu, was one of the most dedicated members of the Communist Party of India, questioned the concept of Hindu-Muslim unity on the grounds that the leaders who forged this alliance erroneously assumed that the interest of the ordinary people could only be expressed in the idiom of religion.
He implicated the leaders of such movements of dividing the people into communal lines and creating a mentality of communal separation (sampradayik bhedbuddhi), despite the call for communal unity, precisely because of the singular premium put on religious identities and leaving other considerations such as their class and relation to the means of production, out of the question. Kakababu also grasped the class question behind the communalisation of politics.
He argued that communalism from above was a double-edged strategy of the ruling and possessing classes aimed at maximising the internal bargaining position of various upper-class factions while weakening the collective bargaining power of the poor, as the latter responded to communal politics only because they faced dispossession and deprivation in the then existing situation.
This latter point makes Kakababu’swarning extremely relevant for today’s India.
Within the Congress, there was no dearth of tall, and in the case of the great Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, literally ‘tall’ Muslim leaders. In September 1926, Khan established the Khudai Khitmatgars, an overwhelmingly Pashtun corps whose membership was open to Hindus, Christians, and Sikhs. The members were also called Red Shirts, but unlike the fascist Black Shirts and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh White Shirts of today, they did not carry a weapon, not even a lathi. They only spread the message of peace, unity, and non-violence.
It was during the salt march that Khan became most proactive. His subsequent arrest led to the killing of two to three hundred Khudai Khitmatgars. The violence led him to adopt the creed of non-violence in toto. On Gandhi’s call, he went to Bardoli, where he linked non-violence to Islam. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad remained one of the chief Muslim leaders of the anti-colonial nationalist movement whilst working within the Congress. At 35, he served as the youngest President of the Indian National Congress in 1923. Along with this, he was made to suffer multiple incarceration terms by the colonial state.Even the revolutionary movement of India is adorned by the figure of Shaheed Ashfaqullah Khan, who gave up his life whilst being a member of the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) for the cause of India’s freedom.
To conclude, it is impossible to recount the names of hundreds and thousands of Indian Muslims who fought on the streets against the British empire. The patriotic slogan of Jai Hind was popularised by Zain-ul-Abideenalias Abid Hasanwho was a close associate of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and an officer of the Indian National Army (INA).
While some of the ideas that follow may seem a bit trendy, it’s never hurts to model ways to interact with all this new media as a covert way of teaching digital literacy and citizenship. The great news is, you don’t need every student to have a device to make these happen. Heck, in most cases all you would need is a single smart phone. All you need is an open mind and some student-led creative thinking.
And so, I present the 21 things every 21st century teacher should try in their classroom this year:
1. Post a question of the week on your class blog
One of the best ways to engage student (and family) interaction with your classroom is to have a class blog. While these are becoming more common, I like the trend of having a weekly student “guest author” write up the ideas and learning objectives discussed in class. This is also a good place to discuss appropriate commenting behavior on blogs and websites.
2. Have a class twitter account to post a tweet about the day’s learning
Just like a blog only smaller. Nominate a “guest tweeter” and have them summarize the day’s learning in 140 characters or less. Then ask parents to follow the account so they can also get a little insight into the happenings of the school day.
3. Make a parody of a hit song
The ultimate form of flattery is imitation. The ultimate form of stardom is when Weird Al makes a parody of your song. Why not take that to an creative level and have students re-write lyrics to their favorite hit or a popular tune? Sure, this might take more time than it’s worth academically, but the collaborative sharing and engaging aspect of producing such a thing can be a positive. Who knows, maybe someone in history class will remake “Chaka Khan” into “Genghis Khan” or something like this classic:
4. Create an infographic as a review
Those clever little graphics are appearing everywhere from popular mechanics to Cosmopolitan. Why not make one as a way to help visual learners review and remember information?
5. Go paperless for a week
Depending on your grade level, this might be harder than you think. Even in a 1:1 district we still print or have need to print things from time to time. The idea behind this challenge is see if you can figure out ways to make things more digital. Maybe instead of a newsletter you print and send home, you write a blog or send a MailChimp? Or instead of asking kids to write and peer-edit each other’s papers, you ask them to share a Google doc? If your students don’t have devices, then challenge yourself to try this personally for a month.
6. Have a “No Tech Day” just for nostalgia’s sake
And then have your students blog about the experience.
7. Create your own class hashtag
Tell your students and their parents about the hashtag and have them post ideas, photos, and questions to it. It’s a great way to get people from not only in your class but also around the world to contribute to your class conversation. You can also use this with your blog posts (#1) or classroom tweets (#2). Bonus points if you use something like visible tweets to display your posts in your class.
8. Create a List.ly list to encourage democracy in your class.
It could be as simple as a list of choices for a project or something as grand as what is one thing you want to learn about this year? Whatever the choice, use List.ly to create a crowd-sourced voting list and let your students have some say in their learning!
9. Integrate Selfies into your curriculum
This one might take some outside the box thinking, but I’m guessing that there are students in your class that could come up with a creative way to do this. Maybe take a selfie next to a science experiment? Or a selfie with an A+ paper? #SuperStudent
10. Curate a class Pinterest account
Pinterest is a great visible way to curate resources but why not create a class account that has a different board based on projects throughout the year. Add students as collaborators and let them post their projects to the board. You could also have a board on gathering resources and information for a topic which would be a good time to mention what is and what isn’t a valid resource?
11. AppSmash Something
Besides just fun to say, you should definitely take multiple apps on whatever device you use and smash them together into a project.
12. Participate in a Twitter Chat
Twitter can be like drinking information from a fire house at times, but finding a good twitter chat on a topic and participating can be a great way to learn and grow as a teacher.
13. Make part of your classroom “Augmented”
Why not make take an app like Aurasma and hide some easter eggs around your room? You could make them about a project or just secret nuggets about you. It’ll keep kids (and parents during back to school night) engaged and turn dead space in your classroom into an interactive learning opportunity. Need some ideas?
14. Create a recipe on IFTTT.com to make your life easier
With all of these tools and social media platforms, it might be a good idea to create some ways to automate tasks in your classroom. IFTTT.com has some great pre-made “recipes” to combine some of your accounts into simple workflow solutions.
15. Create a Class Instagram Account
Have a daily student photographer who’s job is to post an example of something your class/students did that day. If you don’t want to mess with “do not publish” lists, you could ask that it be of an object or artifact, not a person. This would also be a good time to talk about when and how to ask permission to take someone’s photo. Mix in your class hashtag(#7), throw in an IFTTT (#14)recipe, and all the sudden you can also auto-post selfies (#9) to your class Pinterest board (#10)
16. Perform in a LipDub Video
This can be either a solo project or for even greater effect, tie in your parody song (#3) and have your students act out their learning throughout the video. Don’t forget to hashtag it. Bonus points if said video goes viral like this one:
17. Make a class book
The ease with which you can publish books now is amazing. Using a tool like Book Creator or iBooks Author, you can publish to the iBooks store or Amazon.
18. Participate in a Mystery Hangout
This sounds a lot scarier than it is but essentially think of playing the game 20 questions with another classroom somewhere in the world. It’s a great way to increase cultural and global awareness and you could event invite the other class to add to your Pinterest board (#10), vote on your List.ly (#8), comment on your blog (#1) or maybe co-collaborate on an eBook (#17).
19. Produce a class Audio podcast
Have students create a podcast highlighting classroom activities, projects or students. That way mom and dad can listen to the weekly recap while going on their evening walk or driving to work.
20. GHO on Air with an expert
With so many resources and experts available, it only makes sense to bring in someone from “the real world”. This not only creates interest in the topic, it adds an air of authenticity. Using Google Hangouts On Air means you can record this session on the fly and post it to your class site or embed it on your blog to generate discussion at home.
21. Become an activist for a worthy cause.
If the AI can teach us anything, it’s that sometimes a little creativity is all you need to awareness to a cause. Whether it’s helping a country in need or finding a cure for a disease, our new connected society can be a powerful thing when galvanized for good. Participating in a global project gives students perspective on their own lives while helping others with their own life challenges.
BONUS – Let your students drive the learning
While you could do all of these challenges by yourself, the real power comes in letting students own a piece of it. They have the curiosity and the digital acumen, it’s the teacher’s job to give them instructional focus and empowerment. We live in wonderfully connected times. Despite all of technology’s perceived misgivings and the fears that we are losing ourselves as a society, why not use some of this power for good?
Just know that as a teacher in the 21st century you ultimately hold the key to unleash this creative beast. So try something on the list this year that may force you a bit out of your comfort zone because there is no better way to learn than trying.
Just be sure you blog about it when you are finished as learning in isolation helps no one.
Oh….and be sure to hashtag it.