CHAPTER IV

MAULANA HASRAT MOHANI {1880-1951)

Nationalists are said to be of different types. It is common to speak of

Right and Left wing Congressmen and even radical, progressive and secular

nationalists. This means that it is accepted that nationalists can be moved by

more than one ideology. However, the possibility of more than one kind of

communalist remains relatively unexplored. Scholars argue that at the time of its

revival in 1936-7 there existed three strands in the Muslim League in United

Provinces. While the Nawab of Chhatari1 and Nawab Sir Muhammad Yusuf

represented the pro-colonial loyalists, the followers of Jinnah like Zahirul Hu.sain

Lari were the exclusivists who would have preferred to be equidistant from both

Congress and the British government. On the other hand, the anti-imperialists

were divided between pro-Congress Muslim Leaguers like Wazir Hasan,

Suleman Ansari, Ali Zaheer, KhaHquzzaman and Nawab Ismail Khan and anti­

Congress "left-wingers" like Shaukat Ali and Maulana Hasrat Mohani.3

1 Nawab Sir Mohammad Ahmed Syed Khan Chattari (1888-?) (Knighted 1933) educated at Aligarh. Member of U.P. Legislative Council, 1920-25; President of All-India Muslim Rajput Conference in 1923; First elected Chairman of District Board of Bulandshahr in 1922-3; Minister of Industries in U.P., 1923-25; Home Member of U.P., 1926-33; Acting Governor of U.P., June to August 1928 and Appointed Governor of U.P. in April1933-34; Member First and Second Round Table Conferences, 1930-31; and Chief Minister of U.P. from April 1937. See Thos. Peters (editor and compiler) Who's Who in India, Burma and Ceylon (Poona, The Sun Publishing House, 1937), ~· 148.

Nawab Sir Muhammad Yusuf (1890-?) (Knighted in 1933), son of Nawab Muhammad Abdul Majid was initially educated in Allahabad and called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1914. He was Chairman of the Zamindar's Association of Agra Province and had served as Minister of Local Self-Government in U.P. See Ibid., p. 239. 3

S.R. Mehrotra, "The Congress and the Partition of India", in C.H. Philips and M.D. Wainwright ( eds. ), The Partition of India: Policies and Perspectives, 1935-194 7 (London, George Allen and Unwin, 1970), p. 195. Elaborated by Salil Misra, A Narrative of Communal Politics Uttar Pradesh, 1937-39, (New Delhi/ Thousand Oaks/ London, Sage Publications, 2001 ), pp. 107 & 141.

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Mohani embodied in his person some of the different ideological strands of

politics in colonial India. He lived and worked in Kanpur during the period of this

study and, hence, we have tried to unravel the mystery of the changing

ideological proclivities behind this poet-cum-leader in this chapter. We shall

explore here the manner in which Hasrat Mohani tried to retain his commitment

to nationalism and socialism while being a leader of the Muslim League.

Mohani's 'Finger in Every Pie' My opinions are free and so is my spirit, It is useless to lock up the body of Hasrat.4

Hasrat Mohani wrote these lines in a poem to protest against Colonial

repression.5 Another verse by Mohani, which was an unadorned condemnation

of British rule, ran as follows:

The custom of tyranny successful, how long will it last? Love of country in a stupor, how long will it last? How long will the chains of deception hold fast? The stymied anger of people, how long will it last? What tyrannies in the name of law are passed. This veiled force, how long will it last? The riches of India in foreign hands are clasped. These numberless riches, how long will it last?6

Mohani valued freedom very highly and had to pay for striving for it in

Colonial India with imprisonment for over five years between 1908 and 1924.

This, however, earned Mohani the respect of the renowned leftist ideologue-

4 Gail Minault, The Khilafat Movement Religious Symbolism and Political Mobilization in India

~Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1982}, p. 159. The political verse of Mohani damned British rule outright and, scholars maintain that while

doing so it did not hide behind the images of flowers, nightingales and vanished caravans. This could be one of the reasons for Mohani not being included in the poets praised by K. M. Ashraf for their support to communism. Kunwar Mohammad Ashraf, An Overview of Muslim Politics in India (Translated from Urdu and edited with an introduction by Jaweed Ashraf}, (New Delhi, Manak Publications, 2001 ), p. 205. 6 Gail Minault, op. cit., p. 159.

151

turned scholar K. M. Ashraf. Ashraf called Mohani a distinguished Muslim

revolutionary and patriot, claimed that the British decided to Partition Bengal and

establish Muslim League as a counter measure to the radicalisation of masses

by leaders like Mohani and credited him with interpreting Islam as a repository of

Socialism?

Consistency was not the hallmark of Mohani's life or politics. He looked

equally committed to nationalism, communalism and even socialism. It is

primarily for this reason that Mohani sometimes appeared, to contemporaries, to

be a staunch nationalist, on other times a rabid communalist and on yet otner

times a passionate socialist.8 Pratap, the Hindi nationalist periodical starte9 by

Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi, began by adoring Mohani in 1922 for being a

"nationalist like pure and bright marble-stone" but, barely nine years later,

condemned him for being "a fanatic mullah". Mohani was arrested from Kanpur in

April 1922, i.e. four months after he tried to move the resolution for 'Complete

Independence' at All India Congress Committee's Ahemadabad session. Pratap

proudly praised him in the following words:

Brahma has not etched the line of fear on his forehead. Like the Himalaya, he is not moved by anything ... His nationalism is pure and bright like marble stone. He is among those few Muslims who consider themselves to be disciples of Tilak and are honest nationalists ... 9

7 Kunwar Mohammad Ashraf, op. cit., pp. 76-77, 146-7 & 205.

8 'He was a humbug. Full of contradictions, he said one thing at one time and another later. He

was, however, honest but that most of the leaders in his generation were.' Interview, S.P. Mehra, ex-Editor, The Citizen, Kanpur. Mehra was a contemporary of Hasrat Mohani from 1940 when he started editing his Kanpur-based English weekly from this year. 9

Pratap, 17-4-1922, p.1. (Author has translated passages of Pratap from Hindi, here and elsewhere in the text.)

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In 1927, Mohani was not spared and in fact called names when he spoke

about minority safeguards on the eve of the visit of the Statutory Commission, led

by John Simon, to review the constitutional progress in India. Vartman, a Hindi

daily from Kanpur, announced that Mohani had been elected President of District

Congress Committee.10 To this a self-proclaimed "disciple of Congress" reacted

sharply alleging that Mohani had outdone even "fanatic mullahs" with his

fanaticism and so how could people still consider him a Congressman?11

·Just four years later, in 1931, Mohani moved a resolution at the All India

Muslim Conference seeking recognition and protection of Minority rights. The

resolution also added that unless Muslim demands were met they should not go

for the Round Table Conference or agree to Dominion Status or even self-

government at the Federal level. Pratap took this as a sign of Mohani having

turned a fanatic mullah and of him having joined other Muslim leaders whom it

described as "frogs in the well, conservatjve reactionaries, visionless anti-

nationalists who were absolutely blind ... "12

While nationalists were upset when Mohani rose to defend minority rights,

the colonialists condemned him when he supported communist leaders of the

working class in the 1940s. In July 1941, Mohani was firmly in Muslim League

but he opposed the arrest of communist leaders before an audience of 2,000 at

Kanpur. This led colonial officials to call Mohani a "half cracked fanatic" but even

10 Vartman, 19-10-1927, p. 2. (Author has translated passages of Vartman from Hindi, here and elsewhere in the text.) 11 PrataR, 23-10-1927, p. 24. 12 Ibid., 12-4-1931, p.3.

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they admitted that he was a "person of some ability, well-educated and a poet."

However, they thought he wanted to have a "finger in every pie."13 By this

assessment colonial officials wanted to believe two contradictory things about

Mohani, viz. that he was both a crackpot and a wily operator at the same time.

But being both simultaneously seemed improbable. And this led to a mystique

around Hasrat Mohani's politics which even his most celebrated biographers

failed to unravel. 14

·A pre-Gandhian Nationalist Maulana Hasrat Mohan.i (born- as Sayyid Fazlul Hasan) came from a

family of petty zamindars of Mohan, a qasba in Unnao district which is located

between Lucknow and Kanpur in what was then called the United Provinces

(U.P.). His ancestors reportedly moved out from Arabia in the early years of the

thirteenth century and moved into Mohan somewhere in 1218-19, during the

reign of the King lltutmish of the Slave dynasty. Hasrat Mohani's father, Saiyad

Azhar Husain, and mother, Shahrbano Begum, had four sons and three

daughters. Hasrat was the second eldest among their sons. His father also

inherited a small zamindari (meaning revenue collection rights) of three villages

in district Fatehpur of the United Provinces and it was on the meagre income

from this zamindari that the entire family depended for its existence. 15

13 FR -18/7/ 1940, II half of July, Home Political, NAI.

14 For instance, in the chapter on "Hasrat's Poltical Life" his biographer jumps from Mohani's

presidentsip of Muslim League in 1921 on page 187 to his death in 1951on page 189. A whole 30 years of the active life of a political leader are disposed off in less than three pages by this ?~og;apher. Khaleeq Anjum Hasrat Mohani (New Delhi, Publications Division, 1998).

Ibid., pp. 1-3.

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There was nothing remarkable about Hasrat Mohani on his birth and

nothing memorable seems to have happened around that time in U.P. Hence,

neither Mohani himself nor his family knew the exact year (leave alone the date)

of his birth.16 The controversy regarding the year of Mohani's birth is fuelled by

the fact that his passport said that he was born in 1878 whereas the record in

Government High School, Fatehpur claimed that 1883 was the year of his birth. 17

Most often, an average of these is taken and his biographers consider 1880 or

18~1 to be the year of Mohani's birth.

Hasrat Mohani graduated from Mohammedan . Anglo-Oriental College,

Aligarh in 1903 and he became a member of the Congress the next year.18 From

1899 to 1920 Hasrat Mohani lived in Aligarh. He edited a journal, Urdu-a-Mualla,

from July 1903 to October 1908 and from October 1909 to June 1914. This

journal was meant to promote Urdu through the publication of articles (on

historical, educational, philosophical and moral themes), stories, poetry and

literary criticism. Urdu-a-Mualla ceased publication for a year after Hasrat Mohani

was arrested on June 23, 1908 and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment till June

19, 1909. The prison sentence was passed on Mohani because the journal

published an article entitled "English Education Policy in Egypt" by Iqbal Suhail

16 Ignorance about Mohani's birthday also reflects the casual manner in which the birth of male heirs was treated even among the so-called zamindar families, especially if the family had four of them. It was possible that Mohani's birth would have been recorded if he had been the eldest of the sons of his parents because the law of primogeniture seemed to work for deciding succession among petty zamindar families like his. 17 His daughter, Naima Begum is quoted to have said, 'He (Hasrat Mohani) did not know the date of his birth himself. Whenever my mother ever hazarded a guess in this respect, Maualana would say that you belong to the fourteenth century and I was born in the thirteenth. As far as 1 am concerned, I never told anyone as to what my date of birth was.' Khaleeq Anjum, op. cit., pp. 4-9. 18 Khalid Hasan Qadiri, Hasrat Mohani (Delhi, ldarah-i-Adabiyat-i-Delli, 1985}, p. 258.

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being the gist in Urdu of lectures delivered by Maulvi Abdul Haq and Afzal Am in

in English.19

The arrest of Mohani was probably the first arrest and conviction for

political reasons in Aligarh. Ashraf described Aligarh as 'a fantastic amalgam of

self-interest, self-deception and inflated ego of the feudallords.'20 Mohani's father

was so agonized by the shock of his imprisonment in 1908 that he expired within

a few days of Hasrat's conviction, particularly after hearing about the

maltreatment of his son in jail.21

Mohani was the first 'Muslim' journalist to be arrested, claimed his

biographer. His experience of suffering imprisonment for a total five years and

nine months in three diverse cases, on three different times between 1908 and

1924, is also considered some .kind of a record.22

The second time Hasrat Mohani was arrested was on April 13, 1916. Jhis

time he was put into prison for two years. The charge in 1916 was that he, along

with Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, was involved in the declaration of the

Independent Republic of India by Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi, Maharaja

Mahendra Pratap, Barkatullah etc. at Kabul during the First World War. He was

released from jail only on May 22, 1918. During this spell of imprisonment,

Hasrat Mohani's health was destroyed and he lost up to a quarter of his weight,

i.e. from 155 pounds the Maulana was reduced to 112 ·pounds. A fragile health

19 Khaleeq Anjum, op. cit., p. 132.

WK . 2 unwar Mohammad Ashraf, op. c1t., p. 75.

1 Khaleeq Anjum, op. cit., p. 134. 221bid., p. 112 & 130.

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was what Mohani came out with because his kidneys and digestive system were

badly damaged during this two-year long jail term.23

Urdu-a-Mualla was a good journal offering up to 48 pages of serious

reading per issue. It was popular among the intelligentsia, especially among

students at Aligarh, for espousing extreme opinions on the boycott of European

goods in the second decade of the twentieth century.24 It occasionally published

articles about worker's participation in politics when it carried, in 1912, the article

of Maulana Barkat Bhopali on the political significance of worker's strikes and

support for a political General Strike.25 But Urdu-a-Mualla was not a very

successful journal as no issue of it sold more than 500 copies. Yet, this journal

was asked to pay a fine of Rupees 3,000 or stop publication because Maulana

Hasrat Mohani had tried to expose the goings on in Mahommadan Anglo Oriental

College, Aligarh. Unable to raise this huge sum, Mohani, the poor intellectual­

editor-cum-publisher, was compelled to close Urdu-a-Mualla in June 1914.26

Unable to continue with his publication work due to the Government's

order or to join Government service due to his nationalist conscience, Mohani

was left with no option but to start a Swadeshi Store in Aligarh. Fellow

nationalists helped him in this venture and it was basically to expand this Store

that Mohani left Aligarh for Kanpur in 1920. The plan was to raise ten lakh

Rupees for the Swadeshi Store in Kanpur. Such a large sum of money never got

23 Ibid., pp. 135-154. 24 Gail Minault, QQ.cit., p. 46. 25 Kunwar Mohammad Ashraf, OQ. cit., p. 203. 26 Khaleeq Anjum, QQ.cit., p. 244.

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collected despite the best efforts of friends and well-wishers but Mohani made

Kanpur his home. The Swadeshi Store in Kanpur was plagued with losses,

pilferages and robberies instead. Hence, it had to be shut down in the end of

1924, as it was not considered viableY

In the meanwhile, at the annual sessions of the All India Congress

Committee, the Muslim League and the Khilafat Committee in December 1921 at

Ahmedabad, Hasrat Mohani allegedly gave seditious speeches and

unsuccessfully tried to move a resolution demanding 'Complete Independence'.

For this he was arrested on April 14, 1922. Sentenced to rigorous imprisonment

initially, this punishment was changed to simple imprisonment in March 1924 and

Mohani was released from Yeravada jail (Poona) on August 11, 1924.28

The anti-Gandhi Nationalist Mohani was a veteran nationalist even before Mohandas Karamchand

Gandhi (hereafter Mahatma Gandhi) arrived on the Indian scene. Mohani

distrusted Mahatma Gandhi though he was an ardent admirer of Bal Gangadhar

Tilak and Aurobindo Ghosh. Mohani's distrust of Gandhi did not arise due to the

Mahatma's liberal use of Hindu symbols and concepts. If this were so, Mohani

may not have taken kindly to Tilak's radical Hinduism or even to Aurobindo

Ghosh's preoccupation with Hindu mythology. In fact, Hasrat Mohani had great

regard for Lord Krishna, the Hindu God who was supposed to belong to the

~: Ibid., pp. 172-9. Ibid., pp. 155-169.

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neighbouring district of Mathura. He is said to have written some verses also on

Lord Krishna.29

Until the 1920s, Mohani had displayed extreme generosity of opinion even

on controversial communal issues. On Gopashthami, in 1921, addressing a

meeting in Old Kanpur, Mohani wanted Hindus to openly declare that cow

slaughter was against Hinduism and that they will oppose it by all means.30

Similarly, in 1926, on Shivratri, at a meeting in Arya Samaj Bhawan, Mohani also

spoke on the life and teachings of Swami Dayanand along with Ganesh Shankar

Vidyarthi, Pandit Balkrishan Sharma and Rai Bahadur Anand Swaroop. One

whole chapter in Dayanand's Satyarth Prakash contains anti-Islamic statements

and no Muslim, least of all a scholar well-versed in theology like Maulana Hasrat

Mohani, could have a good word for it or its author. But in his generosity Mohani

not only let this pass but ostensibly applauded Dayanand for his religious

reforms.31

All this was despite the fact that Hasrat called himself a conservative

Sunni Muslim who had become a follower of Qadiri Sufi silsila led by Maulana

Shah Abdul Wahab Sahab Firangi of Lucknow.32 Hasrat Mohani was not

communal in the 1920s and though a deeply religious man, he was a devout

believer in his own unique way. He started going for Haj (or pilgrimage to Mecca

in Saudi Arabia) rather late, i.e. around the time he was 50 in 1929. But then, in

the next 22 years, Hasrat Mohani went for this sacred pilgrimage thirteen times

29 Ibid., p. 74. 30 Pratap, 14-9-1921, p. 16. 31 Ibid., 15-2-1926, p. 19. 32 Khaleeq Anjum, QQ. cit., p. 66.

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till he died in 1951.33 The reverence for established Islamic symbols and

communal streak in Hasrat Mohani's politics went hand in hand - a fact, which

we will see at greater depth in the next section.

Mohani was opposed to Gandhi because he thought that Gandhi's

methods of non-violence and spinning the charkha were ineffective. Moreover,

Mohani was also of the view that Gandhi vacillated, wavered and compromised

with the colonial enemy.34 Some scholars maintain that Islam abhors violence

and values peace highly. Hence, one of the meanings of Islam is to establish

peace and the Arabic word for peace is supposed to be 'salam'. Secondly, these

scholars emphasize that when Muslims greet anyone they invoke peace by

saying 'salam alaykum' (or may peace be on you).35 Mohani, however, thought

otherwise and he was not the only 'Muslim' leader in Kanpur to challenge

Gandhi's cardinal principle of non-violence. Speaking on February 11, 1922, at a

meeting to condemn Gandhi's arrest and Lajpat Rai's conviction, Sardar Ali

asserted that a Muslim did not believe in non-violence because his religion taught

him to adopt violence after other means had failed.36 Maulana Azad Sobhani37

made a similar statement when the Non-cooperation movement was withdrawn

33 Ibid., p. 72. 34

Khalid Hasan Qadiri, op. cit., p. 294-5. · 35

Asghar Ali Engineer, "Islam and Non-Violence", in Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. A Centennial Tribute (New Delhi, Har-Anand Publications, 1995), p. 118. ~ PAl, 25-3-1922, pa. 355, p. 564. 37

Maulana Azad Sobhani (1873-?) belonged to Ballia (East UP). He taught at Madrassa llahiat, Kanpur and made Kanpur his home. He was one of the leaders of the Machli Bazar Mosque Firing agitation in 1913. He had strong Pan-Islamic sympathies due to which he was a member of the Anjuman-i-Khuddam-i-Kaaba and took active part in the Khilafat Movement. He presided over the Ulama session of All India Khilafat Conference in February 1920 at Bombay and over the All India Khilafat Conference in September 1920 at Calcutta. He was elected member of the Working Committee of Cental Khilafat Committee in January 1922 at Bombay. After the collapse of the Khilafat movement, Sobhani became a labour leader in Kanpur and professed communist views. He later became Vice President of UP Congress Committee. See N. K. Jain, Muslims in India 8 Biographical Dictionary Vol. I (New Delhi, Manohar, 1979), pp. 108-9.

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after violence in Chauri Chaura.38 In fact the Kanpur Khilafat Committee decided

to defy Gandhi's decision to withdraw the Non-cooperation movement at the

instigation of Mohani and Sobhani.39

Mohani did not drag religion into this controversy over the means and the

ends in the struggle for Independence. Instead, while resigning from Congress in

1925, Hasrat Mohani asked, inter alia, 'If Mahatmaji permits violence in self­

defence, why does he not do so for the protection of national honour?'40 Even

five years later, in 1930, Mohani was consistent about his disapproval of

Gandhi's non-violent Non-cooperation. At a public meeting then, in the presence

of Jawaharlal Nehru, Mohani declared that the events of 1921 proved the failure

of Gandhian non-violence and that he, therefore, looked to God to point some

other way.41

Not just non-violence, even the Gandhian passion with spinning or

wearing khaddar was not to 'Mohani's liking. This does not mean that Mohani had

no love for swadeshi goods. In fact his shop at Aligarh and in Kanpur (which was

wound up due to persistent losses in 1924) was called Swadeshi Store. Mohani

also proposed a resolution asking Muslims to use piece goods as are

manufactured in India only (meaning swadeshi goods) at the 1ih session of the

All India Muslim League in Amritsar in December 1919.42 At the next session of

the Muslim League in Nagpur, in December 1920, Mohani wanted Muslim

38 PAl, 8-4-1922, pa. 425, p. 662-3. 39 Gail Minault, op. cit., 184. 40 Pratap, 9-2-1925, p. 16. 41 PAl, 25-1-1930, pa. 44, p. 47. 42 Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada (ed.) Foundations of Pakistan All India Muslim League Documents: 1906-1947 Volume I 1906-1924 (Karachi, National Publishing House Limited, 1969), p. 538.

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educational institutions to start 'technical' (meaning vocational) classes,

particularly in weaving and spinning, to encourage home industries.43 However,

Mohani defined swadeshi as anything produced in India, even if the item

produced was made in modern mills owned by non-lndians.44 Hence, Mohani got

upset when swadeshi and khaddar were made synonymous with the Congress

programme and nationalist objectives.

Mohani argued that if all Indians only wore khaddar, the Indian cotton

textile mills would incur huge losses and also that economically Indians would

slide down into the 101h or 11th century.45 After his release from prison in 1924,

Mohani refused to run for the President-ship of Kanpur District Congress

Committee because he claimed to have no time for spinning. Mohani even

threatened to quit Congress if the organization made spinning a compulsory

requirement for membership.46· Hence, when the All India Congress Committee,

at its Belgaum session, actually decided to make spinning compulsory for

membership, Mohani immediately resigned from the organization.47 Later, at the

Kanpur session of AICC in December 1925, when Dr. Satyapal moved a

resolution prescribing spinning among the responsibilities of Congress workers,

Mohani criticized it vehemently. Mohani agreed that khaddar should be worn but

added that to make spinning compulsory for Congress membership was nothing

short of coercion. He doubted if Congress workers always wore khaddar and

43 Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada (ed.), op. cit., p. 555.

44 Mohani published an advertisement to promote the sales of padlocks made in a factory owned

by a Briton in Urdu-a-Mu'alla, the journal he edited, and justified its publication on the ground that the factory was located in India. Khalid Hasan Qadiri, op. cit., p. 159. 45

Khaleeq Anjum, op. cit., p. 173. 46

47 PAl, 18-10-1924, pa. 330, p. 338. Pratap, 26-1-1925, p. 16.

162

maintained that most of them had just one pair of such clothes that they wore on

Congress ceremonies.48

What Mohani said here had a ring of truth in it. This can be endorsed by

the fact that as late as 1929, even students of DAV College in Kanpur decided to

wear khaddar but just once a week.49 Enthusiasm for Congress and its

programmes among common Muslims was even lesser. It was noted that a

khaddar deputation visited Kanpur in April 1925, held two meetings and sold

cloth worth Rs. 1,700 in them. But Muslims were reportedly absent from these

meetings.50 The acceptability of khaddar had to be increased among Muslims

through propaganda. In 1932-33, it was Azad Sobhani who tried to woo Momins

or Ansaris (or the Muslim weavers/ artisans) towards hand-spun cloth through his

garha (or hand-woven coarse cloth) movement. The reason advanced by

Sobhani for supporting khaddar was community-centric, not nationalistic. 51

The Early Communalist For the record, it is important to note that among all the Muslim Leaguers

in Kanpur, Mohani was the only one who opposed the resolution on separate

electorates in the 8th session of All India Muslim League at Bombay in December

46 Mohani said that Mr. Jinnah, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru and Mr. Chintamani were neither opposed to Congress nor to khaddar. But he asserted that they might not like to join Congress if sartorial conditions like wearing khaddar were made compulsory for membership of the party. Mohani wondered if the Congress would like it if a resolution said that those who are not vegetarians cannot be members of the party. N.N. Mitra, The Indian Quarterly Register (popularly known as Indian Annual Register), Volume II, July to December 1925 (Calcutta, The Annual Register Office, n.d.), p. 330. 49 Pratap, 15-9-1929, p. 31. 50 PAl, 25-4-1925, pa. 129, p. 171. 51 Vartman, 7-5-1933, p. 4. Sobhani is reported to have canvassed support for khaddar among co-religionists by arguing that the purchase of khaddar would benefit weavers directly and that two-thirds among them were Muslims. Ibid.

163

1915- January 1916.52 But after his self-professed Guru, Lokmanya B.G. Tilak,

conceded separate electorates in the Congress session of Lucknow in December

1916, Mohani stopped his opposition to separate electorates. Secondly, it should

be noted that even in the 1920s, Mohani was less prone to use such openly

community-centric arguments, as was done by his colleague Azad Sobhani to

prop the garha movement. This does not mean that Mohani did not think of

Muslims or did not work towards getting constitutional safeguards for this

religious minority. But Mohani went about this quite differently from Sobhani and

the other leaders.

In 1921, it was too early to demand a separate Muslim nation-state, but

Mohani is reported to have been the first to think of the right to self-determination

for Muslims of north-west and east 'India. Mohani did not ask for 'Muslim India

within India' as Dr. Mohammad Iqbal did in December 1930. In his Presidential

Address to the All India Muslim League in December 1921 Mohani told Muslims

that they could only live as Muslims only if they demanded the right to political

control in areas where they were in a 'political majority.'53 He, however, even

added that Muslim majority in some provinces will counter-balance Hindu

majority in others. Mohani urged his audience that the fear of Hindu domination

52 In this session Mohani opposed the resolution extending separate electorates from Imperial

and Provincial Legislatures down to Municipal Boards by arguing that 'Congress and Muslim League were discussing this issue and a resolution on the same issue by Muslim League might be stumbling block to consideration of it on a higher ground.' See Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada (ed.), ~P· cit., pp. 357-s.

Mohani's Presidential address to All India Muslim League on December 30, 1921 in Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada (ed.) Foundations of Pakistan, Vol. I, op. cit., pp. 556-63.

164

or the apprehensions that Muslims will extend cordial hospitality to Muslim

invaders from foreign countries were unfounded.54

In the 1920s, Hasrat Mohani was not known to have had much sympathy

for communal organizations. For instance, when his resolution for 'Complete

Independence' and the adoption of violent methods, if necessary, to attain it was

defeated in the Congress in 1921, he approached the Muslim League with a

similar proposal the same year in Ahemdabad. As President of the 14th Session

of All India Muslim League, Mohani wanted Swaraj to be defined as 'Complete

Independence and an Indian Republic.' Mohani criticized the League for not

taking up the cause of swaraj in right earnest and called it "nothing more than an

old calendar."55 In the Court in 1922, during his prosecution, Maulana Hasrat

Mohani said that he wanted to reform the Muslim League and hence, had got its

Constitution amended. The amendment, Mohani believed, was meant to include

violence among its methods of struggle because he wanted this Constitution to

reflect the tenets of Islam and also because he wanted to open the Muslim

League to those Muslims who did not believe in non-violence.56 The answer to

Martial law is guerilla warfare, Mohani had asserted in his Presidential Address to

the 14th session of All India Muslim League on December 30, 1921 at

Ahemadabad.57

54 Ibid., p. 559. 55 Ibid., p. 557. 56 Khaleeq Anjum, op. cit., p. 163. In the Presidential Address for which he was being prosecuted, Mohani had said that like the Congress, the Muslim League also wanted to achieve Swaraj by 'peaceful and legal means.' This, Mohani claimed, was opposed to the nature and religious aspirations of Muslims and so, he wanted to see 'peaceful and legal' replaced by 'possible and ~roper means.' Syed Shafiuddin Pirzada (ed. ), op. cit., p. 558.

7 Syed Shafiuddin Pirzada (ed.), op. cit., p. 561.

165

After the Khilafat movement petered out, its organizers went into different

directions. It is reported that while Dr. M.A. Ansari, Hakim Ajmal Khan and Dr.

Sayyid Mahmud went on to become active members of Congress, the Ali

brothers returned to the communal politics of the Muslim League and yet others

like Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew encouraged Muslim

proselytization through the Tabligh and Tanzim movements which crystallized in

mid 1920s.58 Some other scholars hold that after the failure of the Khilafat

movement, Hasrat Mohani went the Soviet way of socialism.59 Even our evidence

suggests that Mohani's passion for socialism rose in the 1920s and matured in

the 1930s along with his involvement in the struggles of Kanpur's working class.

However, there exists some evidence to infer that Mohani may have also

turned to Tanzim after the failure of the Khilafat movement in early 1920s. We

found that the digits of politics used by Mohani were Hindu and Muslim, like

many other nationalists in this period. But, Mohani also complained against

'betrayal by Hindus' in the manner of Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew, the Congress leader

from Punjab, to whom the initiative of forming Tanzims is given. It was reported

that Kitchlew attributed the galvanisation of the lifeless Hindu Congress to

Khilafat Committee but he also complained that Hindus were putting obstacles in

58 Farzana Shaikh, Community and Consensus in Islam Muslim Representation in Colonial India,

1860-1947 (Bombay, Orient Longman, 1991 ), p. 183. Shaikh includes the name of Mohani and refers to Gail Minault, The Khilafat Movement (New York, Columbia University Press, 1982) pp. 192-201 as her source for making the assertion that Mohani turned to Tanzim after the end of the Khilafat Movement. We have, however, not found the name of Mohani referred in the context of Tanzim, at any place, in the Indian edition of Minault's book which was consulted and is referred

~I'~~ ~=~~m Qureshi, Pan-Islam in British Indian Politics A Study of the Khilafat Movement (Brill, Leiden, 1999), pp. 417-8.

166

the work of Tanzim.60 Mohani also spoke in the same vein in 1922. Addressing a

meeting of the Jamiat-ui-Uiema at Ajmer on March 3, 1922, Mohani reportedly

claimed that ninety-nine percent of those who resigned from Government service

during the Non-cooperation movement were Muslims and he alleged that Hindus

had filled up their vacancies in the administration.61 By implication, to address

this alleged loss of jobs to Muslims, Mohani may have wanted to put some effort

in T anzim in the 1920s.

By 1930, however, Mohani was actually decrying Tanzim publicly from a

nationalistic vantage point. Mohani used the dais of Tanzim on Rajbi Sharif on

December 21, 1930 to inform Muslims in Kanpur:

I do not believe in the TanZim programme, because this movement has been started at the instance of the Government and some of its leading spirits are connected with the C.I.D.62

Consistency was not the hallmark of Hasrat Mohani's politics. As noted

above, in 1921, on Gopashthami, Mohani defended cows from slaughter in the

company of conservative Hindus. This was the period when Mohani (to

paraphrase his Presidential address to Muslim League in Ahemdabad in

December 1921) wanted 'Hindus and Muslims to stand by each other for the

attainment of freedom, irrespective of whether their immediate demands were

met or not.'63 But, in 1937, when Mohani was out of Congress for more than a

decade, he opposed Hafiz Ibrahim, the Muslim Leaguer who created a stir by

60 Speech at Lahore as quoted by Ram Gopal, Indian Muslims A Political History (1857-1947) ~Bombay, Asia Publishing House, 1959) (Reprint 1964 ), pp. 165-6.

1 Gail Minault, op. cit., p. 186. 62 Quoted from Sidaqat, Kanpur, 24-12-1930. The Congress Enquiry Committee on Riots in Kanpur in 1931 reproduced inN. Gerald Barrier {ed.) Roots of Communal Politics (Indian Reprint) ~Columbia, South Asia Books, n.d.), p. 252- 255.

3 Pirzada (ed.) Foundations of Pakistan, Vol. I, QQ. cit., p. 559.

167

resigning from Muslim League and seeking re-election to U.P. Legislative

Assembly from Bijnor on a Congress ticket in a by-election. The reason for

Mohani's opposition to Hafiz Ibrahim in 1937 was reported to be that the latter

was a party to the prohibition of cow slaughter.64

Mohani had agreed to have joint electorates in 1927, like Jinnah, though

on certain stiff (virtually unacceptable) conditions. At the U.P. Provincial Muslim

League meeting in Meerut he moved a resolution saying that Muslims could

surrender their right to separate electorate provided five conditions were met.

Among these he wanted Sind to be made a separate province, reforms be

extended to North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan, Muslim voters should

have a majority in proportion to their population in Punjab and Bengal, Muslim

representation in Indian legislatures should not be less than one-third and the

Government should accept that no bill or resolution would be passed in any

legislature or elected body if three-fourth members of a community objected to

it.65 This was not to happen as the resolutions of Calcutta Unity Conference failed

to be implemented.

Consequently, Mohani moved a resolution in the 19th session of All India

Muslim League (presided over by Sir Mohammad Shafi) at Lahore in December

1927 and January 1928 wherein he regretted that even the small decisions of

Calcutta Unity Conference on issues like cow slaughter and music before

mosques were rejected by Hindus as a community. He said this uncompromising

64 The Leader, 4-10-1937 as quoted in Salil Misra, A Narrative of Communal Politics Uttar

Pradesh, 1937-39 (New Delhi, Sage Publications, 2001), p. 133. 65 The Pioneer, 7-10-1927, p.6.

168

attitude was reflected first by the resolutions passed unanimously at by All-India

Hindu Mahasabha, All-India Aryan Congress and now also by Indian National

Congress at its Madras session. He added that this was unacceptable to

Muslims. 56

Nationalists decided to boycott the Simon Commission basically because

it did not have any Indian as its member. On January 26, 1928, Jawaharlal Nehru

was in Kanpur to celebrate the anniversary of Hindusthan Sewa Dal. Nehru

spoke in favour of the boycott of the Simon Commission here. Mohani was

present at this meeting and he condemned the proposed boycott as useless

while asserting that Hindu-Muslim unity should first have been achieved and the

grievances of Muslims addressed. This led to an altercation between Mohani and

Narayan Prasad Arora who was presiding over this meeting. Arora accused

Mohani of spreading dissension everywhere· and to protest against this

accusation, Mohani reportedly walked out of this meeting. 67

In the hartal (or general strike) called by Congress on February 3, 1928, to

coincide with the arrival of Simon Commission in Bombay, Mohani participated

as a strike breaker. He went to Bans Mandi and Meston Road to request Muslim

shopkeepers not to observe hartal.68 As a result of this a few shops owned by

Muslims were open whereas the whole bazaar, along with schools and Municipal

Board offices, was closed on that day in Kanpur.69

66 Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada {ed.) Foundations of Pakistan Volume II 1924-1947 (Karachi, National Publishing House Limited, 1970), p. 138. 67 PAl, 4-2-1928, pa.106, p. 49. 68 Leader, 6-2-1928 as quoted in Renuka Khosla, Urban Politics, p. 86. 69 PrataQ, 5-2-1928, p. 1.

169

During the period just prior to its Lahore session in 1929, Mohani did move

a little closer to Congress just because it was to adopt 'puma swaral as its

objective. His bonhomie with Congress was, however, short-lived and in the

1930s Mohani was back with his trenchant criticism of Congress and its alleged

insensitivity to Muslims.

In the run up to the elections, under the Government of India Act, 1935,

Muslim League was being revived but nationalist Muslims were in a quandary.

Prominent nationalist Muslims of U.P. discussed whether to join Congress or to

form a separate nationalist party at a private meeting in Allahabad in October

1936. Maulana Hasrat Mohani was present in this meeting and privy to these

discussions. It is said that while Sajjad Zaheer advocated joining Congress, his

proposal was stiffly resisted by Mohani, Ghazi Khizar Mohammad, M. Shahid and

others. 70 Earlier at Palestine Conference in Allahabad between 17th and 20th July,

1936, Congressmen {like J.B. Kriplani and Ram Manohar Lohia) and leaders of

Jamiatul-ulema-i-Hind persuaded the Palestine Committee to work closely with

Congress like the Khilafat Committee once had. This idea was resisted by

Shaukat Ali, Hasrat Mohani and others on two grounds. Firstly, they thought that

if the issue of Palestine was tied with the fight for Independence, the Palestinian

cause would be neglected in the freedom struggle which would take many years.

Secondly, they felt that the Muslims were in "high spirits" for the Palestinian

70 Salil Misra, op. cit., p. 82.

170

question and this spirit would be lost by joining Congress because a majority of

Muslims were hostile to Congress.71

After he became active in Muslim League in 1937, Mohani raised the

issue of minority interests more vociferously and became strident in his criticism

of the Congress. Yet, the tenor of his arguments and the tone of his criticism

were moderate as compared to his contemporaries. Azad Sobhani, the Maulana

who had a say in 'Muslim' politics by virtue of being in the forefront of the Machli

Bazar mosque issue of 1913, said that under Congress ministries Hindus

imagined they had obtained Hindu Raj whereas Muslims believed they were

being eternally repressed. Hence, Sobhani proposed, in a public meeting, that

Hindu India should be called Hindustan and Muslim India lslamistan (while India

as such could be referred to as Himalayastan).72 Mohani did not believe in this

kind of division. He said the Muslim League and the Congress do not differ on

Independence. But, Mohani added, whereas the League says that Independence

and the minority question are inter-linked, the Congress emphasises

Independence but seems to defer the other question indefinitely.73

In the Muslim League, Mohani thought of 'inventing' traditions and

symbols. The people he chose to be the symbols of Muslim honour and dignity

were modern, progressive and nationalistic in their own right. At the end of

December 1939, he inspired Kanpur Muslim Leaguers (like Kunwar Abdul Hamid

Khan) to write to the President(s) of the All India Muslim League and U.P. Muslim

71 Ibid., op. cit., pp. 78-9. 72 Leader, 12-4-1939, p. 14. 73 =n:1ePioneer, 30-11-1939, p. 4.

171

League to commemorate the memory of Maulana(s) Mohammad and Shaukat

Ali, Dr. Mohammad Iqbal and Mustafa. Kemal Ataturk by observing a day after

them every year. He proposed 4th January as an appropriate date for this

purpose.74 We do not know how the leaders of the Muslim League disposed off

this request.

The Radical Nationalist Those who claimed to represent community interests generally lost sight

of the national vision, especially in the 1930s when t~e overall atmosphere was

suffused with competitive communalism. Not only this, communal leaders

harboured more ill will towards nationalists than towards colonialists or

communal opponents. Mohani was different because not only did he remain

sympathetic to the nationalist cause but he also took initiatives to help it.

Complete Independence, according to Mohani, was not only the most

desirable goal but also the immediate task before the freedom movement in

India. Presiding over the Agra Provincial Congress Conference on October 22-

23, 1921, Mohani called for the declaration of Complete Independence from

British rule for the first time?5 He was the first to unsuccessfully move a

resolution for it at the Ahmedabad session of AICC in December 1921. Presiding

over the 14th session of Muslim League at Ahmedabad, around the same time,

Mohani spoke of the need for swaraj and explained it to mean Complete

Independence with a Republic to be called United States of India. He urged his

74 The Pioneer, 22-12-1939, p.5.

75 G ·1M. · a1 1nault, op. Cit., p. 172.

172

audience here to set up a parallel government and a national Parliament along

with courts, schools, industries, army, police etc. He sought to change the words

'legitimate and peaceful' means to 'possible and proper' means for achieving

swaraj because Mohani thought that the principle of non-cooperation can work

up to a limit and that guerrilla warfare was the only possible answer to martial

law. He even wanted people assembled at the Muslim League's session there to

ask Gandhi to declare Independence on January 1, 1922.76 Instead, as we know,

Gandhi withdrew the Non-Cooperation movement after the violence at Chauri

Chaura. In a poem Mohani asked:

We have risen up, swearing to win complete freedom. Why now should we incline to rest in the shadow of the British? Why should we, like Gandhi, sit spinning the wheel? like Lenin, why shouldn't we shake the world?77

When he resigned from Congress in 1925, Mohani expressed the desire

to start a new organization for complete Independence. Later Mohani had

criticized the Nehru Report, which was the Congress effort to overcome the

constitutional impasse, as being injurious to Muslims because it meant 'Hindu

domination under the protection of British bayonets.' He felt that by accepting

Dominion Status Muslims would have to live under double domination, viz. of the

Hindu majority and of British suzerainty.78 Towards the end of 1929 when it was

clear that Congress was to ask for 'puma swaraf (the Hindi equivalent of

complete Independence), Mohani moved closer to Congress. It was reported by

76 Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada (ed.) Foundations of Pakistan, Vol. I, op. cit., pp. 556-563. 77 Khalid Hasan Qadiri, op. cit., p. 274. 76 Renuka Khosla, op. cit., p. 87.

173

the colonial intelligence that he accepted President-ship of the Congress

Committee, probably for rural areas of Kanpur.79

At the onset of the Civil Disobedience movement, when it was clear that

all nationalists would boycott colonial institutions, Mohani saw an opportunity for

national unity. At the meeting of U.P. Trade Union Conference over which

Jawaharlal Nehru was presiding, Mohani declared that all differences between

nationalists would disappear on December 31, 1929. He claimed that all

differences had arisen because Congress leaders had been Members of the

Assembly till that time. Probably to please his working class audience Mohani

declared that even leaders would become labourers from December 31, 1929.80

Congress reverberated in the name of the party Mohani tried to form in

1935. Called the Congress Azad Dal, this party consisted of important local

revolutionaries and 'extremists' .81 Details about the programme and activities of

this short-lived party are not easily available in the sources used for this study.

Mohani continued to participate in public meetings organized by

nationalists more frequently before joining the Muslim League but he continued

to occasionally appear on nationalist platforms after joining the League also.

After the communal riots of 1931, which divided political loyalties along sharp

communal lines, Mohani turned up at meetings organized to build a memorial for

Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi. In 1933, a meeting for this purpose was presided

79

80 PAl, 19-10-1929, pa. 635, p. 555. Ibid., 21-9-1929, pa. 578, p. 491.

81 Ibid., 16-11-1935, pa. 532, p. 563.

174

over by Hafiz Mohammad Siddiqui at the Arya Samaj Hall and Mohani was

present in it.82 Two years later, at a Vidyarthi Memorial meeting attended by Seth

Jamnalal Bajaj and Purushottam Das Tandon, Mohani recalled the heroic role of

Vidyarthi in the communal riots of 1931.83

Mohani gave vent to his nationalism by publicly siding with the Khudai

Khidmatgars and opposing all acts of colonial repression against them. In 1932,

in a meeting after Friday prayers at Jama Masjid, two resolutions were passed.

The first resolution demanded that oppressive Ordinances proclaimed against

Khudai Khidmatgars by the Government of North West Frontier· Provinces

(NWFP) be withdrawn. Ironically, Mohani, who opposed Gandhian non-violence,

presided over this meeting which demanded the release of all non-violent

prisoners. The second resolution passed here criticized all Muslim members of

the Imperial Council who opposed Sir Hari Singh Gaur's motion seeking a

withdrawal of the oppressive Ordinances in NWFP.84 The second resolution here

proved that this meeting was not just a 'Muslim' convention despite being held in

a mosque and despite being about Khudai Khidmatgars most of whom happened

to be Muslims. Mohani's involvement with this cause did not end with just this

one meeting. Around three years later, when Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the

leader of Khudai Khidmatgars was visiting Kanpur Mohani presided over one of

the Khan's several public meetings.85 Here Ghaffar Khan explained how Khudai

82 Ibid., 5-8-1933, pa. 518, p. 391. This meeting was denounced in a handbill by some Congress leaders likeN. P. Arora, Piarelal Aggarwal and Dr. Jawaharlal Rohtagi. 83 Ibid., 14-9-1935, pa. 413, p. 456. 84 Pratap, 14-2-1932, p. 27. 85 PAl, 8-12-1935, pa. 465, p. 650.

175

Khidmatgars were suppressed even when. they were just ·carrying out social

reforms among Pathans. He claimed to have approached all political parties for

help after he was imprisoned and sent to Punjab. But, the Khan said, only the

Congress came forward to help and hence, Khudai Khidmatgars joined the

Congress.86

The Maverick Muslim Leaguer In the hope of impending constitutional changes a Nationalist Muslim

Party was formed in July 1929 and it organized branches in 13 districts but

Kanpur was not among the lucky ones.87 In August 1931, Kanpur got a branch

this party and only 25 persons attended its meeting to protest the non-

representation of nationalist Muslims in the delegation sent by the Government

for the Round Table Conference.88 Along these non-sectarian lines, in August

1932, Hasrat Mohani and Maulana Azad Sobhani also formed Independent

Muslim Party.89 Even Deonarian Pandey, an important leader of Mazdur Sabha

and member of Congress, joined this party which was to have its headquarters in

Kanpur.90 The Azad Conference organized by this party provides an inkling of the

kind of mobilization it undertook during the period of its brief existence. Sir Abdur

Rahim91 presided ov~_!:__!~L$/Conference and its venue, ironically, was the Sanatan

86 Vartman, 30-11-1935,p. 5. 87 Mushirul Hasan, "'Congress Muslims' and Indian Nationalism, Dilemma and Decline, 1928-1934", Jim Masselos (ed.), Struggling and Ruling: The Indian National Congress, 1885-1985 ~ew Delhi, Sterling publishers, 1987), p. 108.

89 P~l. 15-8-1931, pa. 536, p. 706.

90 lb~d., 13-8-1932, pa. 548, p. 486. Ibid., 3-9-1932, pa. 605, p. 531.

91 Sir Abdur Rahim was a Bengal-based lawyer politician. After being Knighted in 1924, he was a

MLC/ Minister in Bengal ( 1925-29) and from 1931 he had been leading Independent Party in Legislative Assembly. See Thos. Peters (ed.), Who's Who in India (Poona, The Sun Publishing House, n.d.), p. 191.

176

Dharam Hall in Kanpur. Resolutions passed at this Conference expressed

sympathy with the communist convicts of the Meerut Conspiracy case,

demanded the release of political prisoners of the Civil Disobedience movement

to discuss new constitutional measures and also demanded total provincial

autonomy if federalism was to be granted.92

Nationalist Muslim Party or Independent Muslim Party did not have a flying

start, yet they aroused a considerable comment (both positive and critical) in the

press. Himmat, a nqtionalist newspaper, welcomed their existence and hoped

· that they would save Muslims from political depravity into which flatterers of the

Government were forcing them by opposing Hindus and propping up the colonial

bureaucracy.93 But Hamdam, a Lucknow-based pro-Muslim League newspaper,

was not happy that the aims of Independent Muslim Party resembled those of the

Congress. This newspaper felt that a Congress-like party would have been

welcome if Muslims were also as 'awakened' as Hindus. Hence, Hamdam

advised Mohani to first organize Muslims and then remove communal

differences.94

In 1937, Mohani became an active leader of All India Muslim League.95 He

even issued appeals to Muslims to join the League if they wanted to preserve

92 Vartaman, 7-5-1933, p. 4. 93 Report on Native Papers (RNP), No. 35, 28-9-1931. 94 Ibid., No. 31,6-8-1932. 95 Nishatunnisa Begum, the firebrand wife of Mohani, died on April 18, 1937 most probably due to Tuberculosis after a prolonged illness. It should be explored if this personal loss may also have spurred Mohani to take a permanent communal turn in his political life. Khaleeq Anjum, op. cit., pp.117-8.

177

their existence.96 Khaliquzzaman recorded the procedure of the change in the

creed of All India Muslim League after the quibbling over words "complete" and

"full" independence between him and Jinnah in the closed door preparatory

meetings at Lucknow in October 1937. He also mentioned that Mohani was

asked to move a resolution for "full Independence" at the Lucknow session of All

India Muslim League on October 18, 1937.97 This resolution criticised the

Congress resolution of 1929 of "complete Independence" for 'reducing the

meaning of freedom to nothing.' Yet, ironically, to accommodate moderates in the

Muslim League Mohani's resolution sought both British protection and "full

lndependence."98

Under the inspiration of Mohani and some other local radical Leaguers

(like Dr. Abid Farah and M. Muzaffar) the City Muslim League in Kanpur dutifully

celebrated "Independence Day". In 1938, City Muslim League celebrated the

Independence Day with a procession and public meeting at Mohammad Ali Park.

Mohani presided over this meeting.99 In 1939, the scale of these celebrations

was smaller and Independence Day was observed only by a meeting in the

Muslim League office. 100 In 1940, after the Muslim League embraced the slogan

of Pakistan, the celebration of Independence Day was probably discontinued, as

our sources do not mention any procession or meeting in this connection at

Kanpur.

96 Ibid., No. 34, 28-8-1937.

97 Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman, Pathway to Pakistan (Lahore, Longmans, 1961 ), pp. 172-3.

98 Salil Misra, op. cit., pp. 141-2.

99 The Pioneer, 23-12-1938, p. 5.

100 Ibid., 21-10-1939, p.4.

178

Even after becoming an office-bearer in the Muslim League, Mohani

reminded his party that protecting minority interests (from the Government and

the majority community) was its second, not first, objective. Elaborating this view

in a conference of the District Muslim League, in 1938, Mohani asserted that the

first objective of the Muslim League was to attain full independence. He warned

that if the Muslim League gave up its first ideal it would loose a great deal of its

newly found following. 101

Army Recruitment Bill was passed in the Central Legislature in 1938 with

the help of the Muslim League. 102 Some commentators praised the Muslim

League for supporting this legislat~ion but also reminded Muslims that in case the

League had not supported this Bill the Moonjes and Savarkars would have

Hinduised the army.103 But Mohani criticized Jinnah and the Muslim League for

supporting the Army Recruitment Bill as it breached the sanctity of an earlier

resolution passed by All India Muslim League on Palestine which put a ban on

participation in an imperialist war and on recruitment to the British Army. This

criticism was made by Mohani in a public meeting convened to celebrate

101 Ibid., 15-6-1938, p. 5. 102 With war clouds hanging over Europe since mid-1930s, involvement of Indians to fight on behalf of Britain was considered inevitable. Anti-recruitment propaganda had begun with Congress socialists taking the lead in this matter. Punjab was the biggest recruiting ground for the colonial army; hence, a League against Fascism and War was formed at Lahore in November 1937 which the Ahrars joined promptly. The Director of Intelligence Bureau noted that the anti­war propaganda was not a result of pacifism but of anti-imperialism. He said that under the existing laws 'oral dissuasion from recruitment to army' was not punishable. So, as a measure to counter anti-recruitment propaganda, the colonial Government got a Bill passed in the Central Legislative Assembly on August 24, 1938 with the help of the Muslim League. This bill was passed in the Central Legislative Council on September 15 and received the Viceroy's approval on September 24, 1938, By this measure, 'making willful dissuasion from enlistment was made an offence.' See Basudev Chatterji, Towards Freedom Documents on the Movement for Independence in India 1938 Part I (New Delhi, ICHR- Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 326-354, especially Document no. 11. 103 Editorial in The Pioneer, 30-8-1938, p. 8.

179

Palestine Day in Kanpur. With Mohani's criticism this meeting turned stormy as

two former Presidents of City Muslim League, viz. Dr. Abdus Samad and Syed

Mohammad Jame, objected to a public discussion on a resolution criticizing

Jinnah. However, supporters of Mohani, viz. Muslim Leaguers and intellectuals

like M. Muzaffar, editor of Nationalist India, defended him by arguing that as

there was no room for human worship in Islam, Mohani was justified in criticizing

Jinnah.104

Following the resignation of Congress-led provincial Governments, Jinnah

advised Muslims to observe December 22, 1939 as the "Day of Deliverance".

There were some nationalist organizations like Jamiat-i-ulama-i-Hind which

disapproved of Jinnah's Deliverance call.105 Jinnah, however, himself did not

want to appear too jubilant on the resignation of Congress Ministries as the

following appeal issued by him for that occasion would show. Jinnah cautioned

... I trust that all public meetings will be conducted in an orderly manner, with due sense of humility and nothing should be done which will cause offence to any

·community ... . . . Let there be no hartals, processions or such demonstrations, but let a spirit of humility and mood of reflection prevail. There is relief and gratitude in our hearts: not joy or triumph. 106

. ·

In Kanpur, the City Muslim League should have observed this Deliverance

Day to commemorate its 'sense of relief and gratitude' but it could not decide this

matter so definitely. The older section of the League (led by Hasan Ahmad Shah,

104 lb'd _1_., 28-8-1938, p. 5. 105

The Pioneer, 20-12-1939, p. 4. 106

K.K. Aziz (ed.), Muslims Under Congress Rule 1937-1939 A Documentary Record Vol. I (1978) (Reprint) (Delhi, Renaissance Publishing House, 1986), p. 299.

180

Secretary and Syed Mohammad Jame, Convenor of the Control Board of

Municipal Board members) wanted to observe the "Day of Deliverance" and they

asked Muslims to "light every house and mosque" on December 22, 1939. They

went to the extent of resigning their positions to build pressure on the City Muslim

League to toe the Jinnah line.107 There were, however, some elements like

Mohani and Shariuddin, Vice-President (who also had the support of M.A. Lari,

Acting President of City Muslim League) who thought the observance of the "Day

of Deliverance" would hurt the national cause .. They agreed with Jinnah's "Muslim

version of Congress atrocities and exploitation" (to quote Mohani); they alleged

that the Congress came in the way of the two communities reaching an

honourable settlement (as M. Muzaffar said); and also that Congress had to

prove that it wanted to win the goodwill of the Muslim masses (as Shariuddin

demanded). Hence, they said that the "Day of Deliverance" was not against

Hindus but the Congress (as M. Muzaffar pointed out). But these people also

wanted that Jinnah should not ask Muslims to have confidence in the colonial

bureaucracy (or the "civilian regime" as they called it); that Muslim League should

condemn the colonial rulers; and that in any future struggle, Muslims should stay

neutral if they could not support the Congress. 108

Scholars have recorded that the Deliverance Day got a mixed response in

UP as a whole. 109 The effect of the dissension within Kanpur's leadership of

107 The Pioneer, 14-12-1939, p. 4 and 21-12-1939, p.4. 106 Ibid., 13-12-1939, p. 5 109 The pattern of the celebration, however, was the same, viz. meetings were held in mosques, League's official resolution was passed and speeches expressing faith in Jinnah's leadership were made. Salil Misra, op. cit., p. 206.

181

Muslim League on the observance of "Deliverance Day" was two fold. Firstly,

.instead of the call of local Muslim League stalwarts to "light every house and

mosque" on December 22, 1939, only some mosques and houses were

illuminated on the "Day of Deliverance" in Kanpur. Secondly, twenty public

meetings were held throughout Kanpur district. Mohani was missing from all of

these meetings despite being the President of the City Muslim League then.

However, not the absence of Mohani but criticism of the Congress, praise of

Jinnah's leadership and participation of some Depressed Class leaders became

the highlights of the meetings in Kanpur on "Deliverance Day" .110

In the main meeting organized that evening at the Parade grounds by the

City Muslim League speakers emphasized that the country would be free the

moment Congress leaders descended from their pedestal of pride. In this

meeting a resolution was moved by Syed Mohammad Jame (and seconded by

Hafiz Mohammad Siddiqui) which expressed full confidence in the leadership of

Jinnah. In the meetings addressed by M.H. Naiyar, Sufi Mansoor Ali Hasrati etc.

tales of alleged tyranny oppression and persecution of Muslims were narrated

and Congress was blamed for the present stalemate. In the meeting at Parade

grounds in Kanpur city speakers (like Nawab Anwar Husain who presided over

the meeting and Hasan Ahmad Shah, Secretary, City Muslim League) asserted

that Muslim political consciousness had developed and warned the Congress

against playing with it. A notable feature of the observance of the "Day of

110 There were other leaders in Muslim League who were upset, like Mohani, at the call to

celebrate Deliverance Day. In December 1939 lspahani wrote to Jinnah that that 'your Deliverance firman was a rude shock as it was bereft of your fighting spirit and that it upset many a mental equilibrium.' Quoted by Salil Misra, op. cit., p. 206 and fn.

182

Deliverance" in Kanpur was that Depressed Classes participated . in the

illuminations and some of their representatives spoke at the meeting organized

by the City Muslim League in the Parade ground.111 But, as stated above,

Mohani and a section of the Muslim League with nationalist sympathies were

absent from these functions.

After the Pakistan resolution was passed by the Muslim League at its

Lahore Session in March 1940, it had to be propagated and endorsed through

public meetings. One such meeting took place at the main Parade grounds in

Kanpur and it was addressed, among others, by Khaliquzzaman. It was reported

that Mohani and nis group were present at the venue of the meeting but as they

did not approve of Partition, they did not participate in the deliberations.112

Interestingly, as a member of the Constituent Assembly also Mohani did not sign

the Constitution in 1949 because it accepted Partition.113

Mohani did not turn his back on the nationalists or on Congress in the

1940s. This required some courage of conviction particularly because Congress

was anathema to Muslim Leaguers, especially since 1930s. Kanpur city Muslim

League had a 72 member General Council for whose elections 300 candidates

applied in October 1938. One of them was Manzoor Ali and objections were

raised to his candidature by old Leaguers because he had been organizing

receptions for Congress Ministers while being a member of that party. Manzoor

111 The Pioneer, 23-12-1939, p. 5. 112 lbid., 21-4-1940, p. 5. 113 N. K. Jain, Muslims in India A Biographical Dictionary Vol. 1 (New Delhi, Manohar, 1979), p. 197. Mohani did not sign the Constitution also because he was not reconciled to India's membership of the Commonwealth.

183

Ali could silence his opponents only after assuring them that he would now abide

by the mandate of Muslim League as he had 'joined it now for good.'114 Hence,

association with Congress and attending functions organized by it was

unthinkable for Muslim Leaguers, especially since 1937.

Yet, even after the League accepted the Pakistan resolution and despite

being the President of this party's Kanpur unit at this time, Mohani attended the

Tilak Day functions on August 1, 1940. Here Mohani cryptically commented that

both Congress and Muslim League were opposed to the II World War. This

annoyed colonial officials tremendously and they declared him· "an unbalanced

fanatic."115 In August 1941, around Tilak's death anniversary, Mohani again paid

homage to this pre-Gandhian Congress leader who coined the slogan "Swaraj is

my birthright" by addressing children in Children's Hall.116 Mohani also addressed

the condolence meeting on Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore's death at Tilak Hall,

the Congress's Kanpur headquarters. He called Gurudev a precious jewel, true

son of the soil, philosopher, poet and great nationalist poet. 117 In 1944, Mohani

endorsed the nationalist meeting on the 13th death anniversary of Ganesh

Shankar Vidyarthi, the 'symbol of Hindu-Muslim unity,' to be held in the evening

on March 25 at Arya Samaj Hall in Kanpur. 118 A day before, i.e. on March 24,

1944, the Hindu Navyuvak Party organised a meeting in the memory of Vidyarthi.

114 The Pioneer, 27-10-1938, p. 5.

115 FR- 18-7-1940, II half of July, 1940, Home Political, NAI.

116 The Pioneer, 5-8-1941, p. 4.

1171bid., 9-8-1941, p. 4.

118 Vartman, 25-3-1944, p. 1. The other Muslim leader who endorsed the meeting and requested

people to come for it was Abdus Salam. Ibid.

184

Mohani presided over this meeting where speeches were made praising the

martyrdom of Vidyarthi. 119

Paying respects to his self-proclaimed political guide, viz. Tilak, was one

thing but Mohani, despite being the City Muslim League's President also came

out to protest the arrest of his one-time nationalist colleagues who were on

individual satyagraha then. Just three weeks after Tilak's twentieth Death

Anniversary in 1940, Mohani along with N.P. Arora spoke, for the release of the ..

prominent Congress leader, Pandit Balkrishan Sharma.120

On the question of Jinnah's leadership, Mohani was the sole dissenting

voice at the 291h session of All India Muslim League at Allahabad in April 1942. A

resolution moved at that session by M.A.H. lsphani sought to give Jinnah all

powers to negotiate on behalf the League with the Government on the Cripps

proposals. Mohani alone opposed this resolution in the Subjects Committee for

he believed it would make Jinnah a 'dictator.' But he failed. Nevertheless, when

the same resolution was moved in the Open Session Mohani rose to oppose it.

He was heckled and opposed by the audience with continuous and instant cries

of 'sit down' and 'we don't want to listen to you.' Mohani could speak only after

Jinnah interceded and said that everyone had the freedom of speech. Mohani

argued that though he accepted the leadership of Jinnah, he believed that Jinnah

could take a wrong decision and accept the Government's proposals.121

119 This meeting was held at at Bhartiya Vidyalaya, Nayaganj. Ibid., 26-3-1944, p. 4. 120 Meeting addressed on 23-8-1940. List of events in 1940. Other Papers No. 2A, N. P. Arora ~~pers, NMML.

Syed ShanfuddJn P1rzada (ed.}, Vol. No. II, op. cit., pp. 390-1.

185

Mohani did not approve the Pakistan scheme and hence, as we have

seen, Mohani as City Muslim League's President stood aloof while the other

office bearers of Muslim League were busy propagating the Partition of India.

Yet, in May 1940, Mohani was elected to the new Working Committee of U.P.

Muslim League.122

Not just his criticism of Muslim League's policies and lack of enthusiasm

for schemes like Pakistan but his visible indifference even to Jinnah, cost Mohani

his leadership in the Muslim League for some time. Jinnah visited Kanpur

between 29th and 31st March, 1941. On his arrival by what was called "Pakistan

Mail", 50,000 persons at Kanpur Central railway station received him. He stayed

at Dr. Abdus Samad's house and Punjabi Club hosted a dinner for him on the

day of his arrival. On other days he addressed meetings (among others of

Kanpur's public and Muslim Student's Federation), received welcome addresses

(among others from Bisatkhana Merchants' Association, Eastern Indian Railway

Muslim Employees' Association and District Board) and attended parties

(including the one at Queen's Park organised by Muslim citizens). Despite being

the President of City Muslim League then, Maulana Hasrat Mohani was, if not

absent, at least not markedly happy and conspicuously visible at any of these

. functions to honour Jinnah. 123 And Mohani had to pay for this lack of zeal on

Jinnah's visit. In the elections of District Muslim League, held within three days of

Jinnah's departure from Kanpur, Mohani was not even elected as representative

122 The Pioneer, 17-5-1940, p. 3.

123 Observation based on newspaper reports, especially The Pioneer from 30th March to 151 April,

1941.

186

to Provincial Muslim League or as member of Working Committee.124 In 1941,

Mohani was replaced as City Muslim League's president. Seth Khwaja

Mohammad Siddiq, a trader, was made the President of City Muslim League ..

Mohani was not even accommodated in the Working Committee.125 In 1942, the

same trader was made City Muslim League's President and M.H. Naiyar became

President of the District unit of this party.126 Mohani was sidelined once again.

Socialist sympathies Interestingly, due to his socialist orientation, Hasrat Mohani did not

embrace all Muslims equally but he was specifically sympathetic towards the

poorer sections among them. His biographer quoting the following verse says

that Mohani did not distinguish between Islam and socialism:

Darveshi o-inquilab maslaq hai mera Sufi Momin hoon ishtraqi Muslim Ja-a-ru ki ba nehaj bet Islam Fit jumla hai Ain-1-Soviet kayam. 127

(My creed is darveshi and revolution. I am a momin sufi and a communist Muslim. In view of the Islamic Bait-u/-Ma/, 128 in fact, The Soviet system is in existence.)

Mohani maintained that Zakat (or alms/ alms tax) was stressed after

Namaz among Muslims. He said that Zakat was a tax levied on capital and not

on income or profits. It had to be 1 I 401h part of the entire capital. 'This made the

124 The Pioneer, 4-4-194'1, p. 4. 125 1bid., 17-6-1941, p. 4. 126 Ibid., 1-4-1942, p. 4. 127 Khaleeq Anjum, op. cit., pp. 74-5. 128 Bait-ul-mal means public treasury/ exchequer.

187

injunctions of Islam against capitalism more stringent than those of communist

theory'; Mohani was reported to have claimed. 129

Mohani was associated with communists like Satya Bhakta and Saktavala.

He was the Chairman of the Reception Committee of the first Communist

Conference at Kanpur in 1925.130 It was a period when ignorance/

misunderstanding about communism was more rampant than information about

it. Hence, to allay fears that Communists would even nationalize personal

belongings, Mohani had to reiterate the basic tenets of Communism and

disseminate them widely. In his address to the First All-India Communist

Conference, Mohani distinguished between zati (or personal) property and

shakshi (or private) property. While he ·included house, bedding, clothes, watch

umbrella, watch, Iota (or jug with a kettle-like snout) etc. in zati (or personal)

property, he said that agricultural land, factory etc. were shakshi (or private)

property. Mohani assured his audience that Communist principles applied only to

private, and not to personal, property.131

An inkling of where Mohani's political aspirations lay was provided by his

speech at the ·Jubilee Celebrations of the Congress. In 1935, addressing a

meeting on this occasion, Mohani claimed that India will not only be free but will

also have a Soviet Socialist government.132 In July 1941, Mohani was firmly in

the Muslim League but he opposed the arrest of communist leaders before an

129 Khalid Hasan Qadiri, op. cit., pp. 251-2. 130

Sumit Sarkar, Modern India (New Delhi, Macmillan, 1984 Reprint), p. 249. 131

This Address of Mohani was published by him in the April, May and June issues of Urdu-i­Mualla in 1926. See Khalid Hasan Qadiri, op. cit., pp. 250-1. ~ PAl, 11-1-1936, pa. 2, p. 4-5.

188

audience of 2,000 at Kanpur. This, as mentioned above, led colonial officials to

call Mohani a "half cracked fanatic" but one who wanted to have a "finger in every

pie."133 By this assessment colonial officials wanted to believe two contradictory

things about Mohani, viz. that he was both a fanatical crackpot and a wily

operator at the same time.

A sensitive poet, Mohani was moved equally by political and social

concerns. A scholar maintained that Mohani 'gave to politics what was meant for

literature.' 134 Hence, sometim~s he rose to secure Complete Independence for

India, on other times to defend the rights of Muslims and on still other occasions,

he passionately worked for the welfare oflabourers. But his lifelong enemy was

capitalism. In March 1941, on precisely the day Jinnah reached Kanpur for his

three day visit, Mohani as President of City Muslim League along with Congress

leaders (like N.P. Arora and Dr. Murari Lal) was busy with the cause of Kanpur's

workers. In a statement issued that day these leaders echoed the demand of

workers for a forty percent increase in wages and they urged workers not to be

misled by rumours and to continue supporting the Mazdoor Sabha, the joint

union of Muslim and Hindu workers.135

It was probably not possible for Mohani to take to Legislative politics but

for the peace which Communist Party of India made with the Muslim League.

After a series of discussions in 1941-2, communists said the problem of

communalism was a problem of "growing nationalities" whose right to self-

133 FR- 18/ 7/ 1940, II half of July, Home Political. NAI. 134 Amar Nath Jha, Urdu Poets and Poetry (1956) as quoted in N.K. Jain, op. cit., p. 197. 135 The Pioneer, 30-3-1941, p. 5.

189

determination up to the point of political secession was valid. Hence, from that

point, for the communists, in the womb of the Indian national movement, were

throbbing 'not one but many baby nations.'136 The upshot of this was that

according to CPI, the League's demand for Pakistan was an exercise of the right

to self-determination on the part of the Muslim nationality.

After CPI approved the demand for Pakistan, Mohani had the ideological

justification to pursue his politics in the Muslim League more forcefully.

Consequently, his rise in the Muslim League was certainly visible after 1945. He

was one of the nine members of the U.P. Parliamentary Board in 1945 and they

selected 65 candidates to contest the seats reserved for Muslims in the U.P.

Legislative Assembly. 137 By virtue of his seniority and services, Mohani had the

right to be one of them and hence, he was duly nominated by Muslim League

from Kanpur City.138 Mohani won this seat with a handsome margin and he was

elected as one of the ten members from U.P. to the Subjects Committee of All

India Muslim League at the Legislator's Convention in Delhi on April 7-9, 1946.139

Twenty-eight Muslim Leaguers were elected to the Constituent Assembly from

India as a whole 140 and Hasrat Mohani was one among them. But his love for

communists and socialists continued.

136 Shashi Joshi and Bhagwan Josh, Struggle for Hegemony in India, 1920-47: Culture,

Community and Power Volume Ill: 1941-47, (New Delhi, Sage, 1994)pp. 332-4. 137

Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman, op.cit., p. 336. 138

The Pioneer, 11-1-1946, p. 12. 139

Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada (ed.), Vol. II, op. cit., p. 511. 140

The report in Dawn said 'twenty six out of the 28 League members attended the Hind Assembly session.' Dawn, 15-7-194 7, p. 1.

190

Mohani had feared for a long time that a Federation could result in Hindu

domination or what he contemptuously called 'Ram Rajya.' He blamed the British

for having accepted majority rule but this majority was decided on the basis of . .

religion and not on that of alterable political preference/ parties, the Maulana

regretted. Mohani advocated the formation of three parties in India, viz. the

Maa/daar (or capital-owners) party, the Naamdaar (or recognition seeking middle

classes) party and the Kaamdaar (or peasants and workers) party. 141 Mohani, of

course, favoured Kaamdaar parties.

In 1946, Hasrat Mohani used his position as Member of the Legislative

Assembly to secure the release of ten communist leaders arrested under

Defence of India Rules in Kanpur. He also got cancelled the arrest warrants of

others who were underground.142 Not only this, in his narve enthusiasm for far-

reaching legislative change, Mohani moved a motion in the U.P. Legislative

Assembly for the dissolution of capitalism. 143 Speaking on a similar resolution

moved by Babu Sampurnanad, Finance Minister of UP, Mohani said that every

Muslim was a born socialist and prophesied that Muslim India would become red

in the near future. 144

Addressing the nationalists and nationalist-socialists in the Constituent

Assembly, Mohani claimed that he was the oldest revolutionary in this House. He

informed the other members that he was very pleased with "Objectives

141 Khaleeq Anjum, op. cit., pp. 29-31. 142 Dawn, 1-10-1946, p. 6. 143 UP Legislative Asembly Debates, XXV, 1946, pp. 284-6. 144 Dawn, 16-8-1946, p. 8.

191

Resolution" but pleaded for the consideration of the Constitution for the Union

before. that for the ·Provinces.145 Jawaharlal Nehru explained that the Provinces

Committee report had been prepared earlier than that of the Union and hence

was presented before in the Constituent Assembly. He told Mohani that there

was no design behind the sequence of this presentation and assured him that all

the Committees were working under the framework provided by the "Objectives

Resolution". Sardar Patel spiked Mohani in his explanation as to why the

Constitution of the Provinces had been taken up before that of the Union. Patel

said, 'We prefer to stand on our legs and start with the Provinces and go up.

Some others try acrobatic feats and stand on their heads. It was up to them to do

so.' On his part, Mohani said that he wanted the constitution of the Provinces to

be considered after that of the Union not due to some communal considerations.

Mohani said that his concern was that the Constitution Committee had given

Provincial Autonomy to Provinces but had cleverly deprived them of becoming

Socialist Republics.146

Conclusion A journalist by profession, Hasrat Mohani began his political career as a

follower of Balgangadhar Tilak in 1904 and then, he went on to become a

nationalist determined to get 'complete Independence' in 1921. Mohani went

close simultaneously to the Communalists and the Leftists after the mid-1920s.

To him and Azad Sobhani goes the credit for making the Muslim League popular

1451bid., 16-7-1947, p. 8.

146 Bombay Chronicle, 16-7-1947 as quoted in P. N. Chopra (ed.), The Collected Works of Sardar

Vallabhbhai Patel Vol. XII (1 January 1947 to 31 December, 1947) (New Delhi, Konark Publishing House, 1998), pp. 134-5. 146 Khalid Hasan Qadiri, op. cit., p. 287.

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among the industrial workers of Kanpur. It must also be said to Mohani's credit

that he made the landlord-dominated leadership of Muslim League to show a

little concern about workers during the strike of textile workers of Kanpur in

1938.147 This involvement with industrial workers distinguished Mohani from

some other nationalist-turned-communalist leaders like Shaukat Ali. And the

abundant support of Mohani to Muslim League distinguished him from other

leftistist leaders like Sajjad Zaheer and K.M. Ashraf whose association with

communal organisations was strategically plotted by themselves or by the

Communist parties.

Hasrat Mohani changed his .ideological preferences and political loyalties

but not once did he do this for private good or personal fame. A graduate from

Aligarh in 1903, he could have lived comfortably by joining any Government

service but his nationalist conscience prevented him from doing this. Instead of

seeking comfort, as already mentioned, Mohani preferred the arduous mission of

editing Urdu-i-Mualla at Rupees Eight a month and suffering his first

imprisonment for a year for publishing an article critical of the British education

policy in Egypt!

147 On its part, at the end of 1938, Pirpur Committee's report not only endorsed the Kanpur Muslim League's involvement in the labour strike but also applauded its non-sectarian role in distributing succour to striking workers. Report of the Enquiry Committee appointed by the Council of All India Muslim League to enquire into Muslim grievances in Congress Provinces, (Publisher Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan, 1938), p. 315. In 1939, more to score a point over Congress, presiding over Kanpur District Muslim League's Conference, Nawab Mohammad Ismail Khan, President UP Muslim League, stated that his party had sympathy for labour and he condemned the Congress Government of UP for not putting the Cawnpore Labour Enquiry Report before the Legislature. See The Pioneer, 5-5-1939, p. 5.

193

The bitter controversies of the 1920s turned Mohani, a pre-Gandhian

nationalist into a Muslim communalist. In July 1926, a Muslim Press Association

was formed at Karipur and Mohani was elected its President. This Association

was 'to work for peace and to protect Muslim rights' .148 'Rangila Rasul' was a

communal tract which called Prophet Mohammad a 'Rangila' or debauch. A

judge in Lahore, one Dalip Singh by name, acquitted the author of 'Rangila

Rasul'. Muslim Leaguers opposed the judicial verdict everywhere and at Kanpur,

they even condemned Hindu lea_ders for not doing anything against its author.149

Mohani called the author of 'Rangila Rasul' a criminal and he also opposed the

judicial acquittal of such an author.150 During Moharram, after the riots of 1931,

there was a signboard of the library of Gandhi Sewa Samiti in Generalganj which

came in the way of Alams but which its owners refused to move for the passage

of Alams.151 A Committee of Muslims decided not to take their Alams from under

the obstruction-causing signboard.152 After this stalemate lasted for almost six

weeks, Shias in Kanpur actually took their Tazias from another route and buried

them under police protection.153 Sunni volunteers opposed the burial of the

Tazias of Shias but they were arrested by the police. Hasrat Mohani presided

over a meeting in Muslim Yatimkhana where the Sunni volunteers were

148 Editor of Sadai-Muslim was to be the secretary of this Association_ Pratap, 11-7-1926, p. 19. 149 This meeting was attended by 5,000 at Muslim Yatimkhana and was presided over by Hafiz Hidyat Husain_ Vartman, 23-7-1927, p. 1. 150 Speaking at a public meeting on Machi Darwaza in Lahore, Mohani is reported to have said that 'though it is a crime to comment on any judicial verdict, even then I think the Muslims are deeply hurt by the comments on Prophet Mohammad in 'Rangila Rasul'. I think the author who wrote nasty things on our Prophet was a criminal.' Vartman, 7-7-1927, p. 1. 151 Vartman, 30-5-1931, p. 1. 152 1bid., 31-5-1931, p. 1. 153 lbid., 9-7-1931, p. 1.

194

congratulated for opposing the burial of Shia Tazias and a decision to welcome

them on release from jail was also taken.154

Mohani was one of the few Muslim Leaguers who, despite his deep

involvement in contentious communal issues, retained a lifelong fondness for Left

radicalism also. After having presided over All India Muslim League as early as

1921, Mohani could have risen very high in the leadership there but his love for

the masses made him suspect in the eyes of the elite leaders of the League. His

political work made Mohani undertake rail travel frequently. To ridicule him, one

Nawab asked Mohani, "Maulana, why do you travel Third class?" "Because there

is no Fourth class", Mohani retorted.155 As a member of the Constituent

Assembly Mohani came to Delhi for meetings but considered this a part of his

public responsibility. Hence, he reportedly did not acquire any Government

accommodation in Delhi or claim any allowances as a matter of principle.156

After Partition, some U.P. Muslim League leaders of Mohani's stature, like

Chaudhary Khaliquzzaman left for Pakistan and acquired high positions there.

Mohani did not because he was neither happy with a truncated Pakistan nor was

he comfortable living in India ruled by Governor General Mountbatten, 'the King

Emperor's cousin.' As already mentioned, Mohani did not sign the Constitution

because he disapproved of India's continued participation in Common Wealth

and also because the Constitution accepted the Partition of India. Mohani did not

154 1bid., 11-7-1931, p. 1. 155 Khaleeq Anjum, op. cit., pp. 55-6. 156 Ibid., pp. 64-5.

195

go to Pakistan but he made sure not to utter a word against it lest it be called a

'cheap ploy to curry favours with Hindus.'157

The Partition had resulted in a new situation for Indian Muslims. Among

those Muslim leaders that were left in India, a process of churning had begun.

Speaking to a delegation of Muslims from Coorg on July 25, 1947, Jinnah said he

wanted those Muslims who stayed back in India to be loyal to India Oust as he

wanted Pakistani Hindus to be loyal to Pakistan), to be 'educationally forward

and economically sound' and to avoid confrontationist politics. H.S. Suhrawardy,

ex-Premier of Bengal wrote (in a letter to Khaliquzzaman in September 194 7)

that if Muslims held on to the two-nation theory it might be ruinous and it would

be below their dignity to be completely subservient to Hindus like some in Bihar

had become. Suhrawardy said that he preferred Muslims to truly share the

common citizenship of the Indian Union, provided Hindus allowed this. A meeting

at Karachi on December 15; 194 7 decided to revive Muslim League both in India

and Pakistan. Gandhi heard about this talk of the revival of the Muslim League

with dismay. He advised Indian Muslims (in his post-prayer meeting on

December 22, 1947) to support the Congress but not rush to join it; he wanted

them to be, like him, for Congress without being a four-anna member in it. He

said Congress had no religion except humanity and hence, he hoped it would

'welcome Muslims with open arms and on terms of absolute equality.'158

157 Khalid Hasan Qadiri, op. cit., p. 287. 158

A.G. Noorani (ed.), The Muslims of India A Documentary Record (New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 36-40, 40-43 & 61-62.

196

On his part, Mohani did not shy away from advocating extreme measures

for self-defence to Muslims. For instance, when communal riots were raging all

around after Partition and common Muslims were very vulnerable to mob

violence, a despairing group of them invited Mohani at Bans Mandi in Kanpur on

September 16, 1947. Mohani heard about their anxieties and insecurities in life.

Instead of asking them to leave India or resort to constitutional methods of

grievance redressal, Mohani asked his frightened Muslim audience to remain

undeterred and 'adopt guerrilla warfare, if necessary' .159 This extremism or

militancy in Mohani was noticed earlier also and, as already stated, he had

justified 'guerrilla warfare to oppose Martial Law' during his Presidential Address

to the 141h session of All India Muslim League on December 30, 1921 at

Ahemadabad .160

Some Muslim leaders decided to wUhdraw from politics and devote

themselves to the cultural, .educational and social uplift of their community.

Mohani thought that Abul Kalam Azad was doing this as Education Minister but

believed this was as big a mistake as that of Saiyad Ahmad Khan. Mohani

believed that after the Revolt of 1857, Saiyad Ahamd Khan wrongly started

working on the cultural affairs of Muslims instead of their political development. In

fact, when Mohani met Azad in December 1947, along with some leaders of UP

Muslim League, Azad reportedly asked Islamic organisations to pledge political

loyalty to the Congress. Mohani was upset at this suggestion and he advised

159 Khalid Hasan Qadiri, op. cit., p. 287. 160 Syed Shafiuddin Pirzada (ed.}, op. cit., p. 561.

197

Azad against repeating the mistake of Saiyad Ahmad Khan by leaving the politics

of Muslims to the mercy of others.161

Mohani steadfastly advocated the rights of Minorities as a member of the

Constituent Assembly and outside this Assembly. When the Muslim League was

revived in Madras on March 10, 1948 only 30 delegates turned up for the

League's Council meeting. No one represented Bengal, Orissa, Bihar and Delhi

in this meeting. Only one delegate came from U.P. and he was none other than

Hasrat Mohani. Ironically, however, it was decided even at this meeting to

continue the League but to put more emphasis on non-political activities.162

Hence, the Indian Union Muslim League fought its first election after

Independence not in 1951 but in 1957.

Mohani was too live wire to allow this advice to guide his politics. If he was

not encouraged to do politics on behalf of Muslim League, Mohani gave

abundant expression to his love for socialism and his antipathy for Congress

inside the Constituent Assembly. While the Socialist Party was protesting against

black-marketing, corruption and bribery in Independent India in 1949, its Jama

Masjid unit in Delhi was refused permission to use loud speakers. This upset

Mohani and he asked Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Home Minister of India, in the

Constituent Assembly as to why was this permission not granted. The Minister

replied that this was the general policy. 'But why are Congress Committees given

permission to use loud speakers?' Mohani asked. Sardar Patel evaded

161 Ibid., pp. 286-9.

162 A.G. Noorani, op. cit., p. 6.

198

answering this by saying that as no instances of violation of the policy were

mentioned by Mohani, no reply was possible.163

Maulana Hasrat Mohani died on May 13, 1951 at Firangi Mahal, the abode

of his spiritual guide, in Lucknow. He donated a part of his ancestral wealth to the

Urs of murshid Abdul Wahab Firangi Mahal. He willed some of it explicitly to his

daughter, Naima Begum. A part of Hasrat Mohani's wealth was invested in

trading companies and this also was passed over to his successors.164

163 Hindustan Times, 23-12-1949 as quoted in P. N. Chopra (ed.), The Collected Works of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Vol. XIV (1 January 1949 to 31 December, 1949), (1999}, op. cit., p. 266. 164 Khaleeq Anjum, QQ. cit., pp. 191-2.