Hamid Dalwai

Hamid Umar Dalwai (20 September 1932 – 3 May 1977) was a Muslim social reformer, thinker, activist and Marathi language writer in Maharashtra, India.

Quotes

• It is a misfortune of the Muslim society that a Muslim Gandhi who would insist on Muslims cultivating love of justice is yet to be born in it... I said some time ago that a Muslim Gandhi is yet to be born. It might perhaps be helpful if I explain this remark. Gandhi was not a historical accident. He represented the high watermark of the Hindu renaissance and embodied in his life and work some of its highest impulses and achievements. He symbolized the universalistic humanist outlook towards which this renaissance was steadily working.
  • Hamid Dalwai's "Muslim Politics in Secular India

• It seems to me that in spite of his close contact with Gandhi, Badshah Khan failed to understand the wisdom of his great leader. When Gandhi thought of the problems of the Hindus he could not do so without also thinking of the interests of the Muslims; when he thought of the problems of India, he could not forget those of the world. With Badshah Khan it is the other way round. When he thinks of the Hindus, he cannot forget that he is a Muslim - a Khudai Khidmatgar, no doubt, but a Muslim nonetheless; when he thinks of the Muslims, he cannot forget that he is a Pathan.
  • Hamid Dalwai's "Muslim Politics in Secular India

• Unfortunately, Muslim society in India has not yet produced its own Gandhi. Indeed, it will not be able to do so till the ground is prepared by a generation of men who subject the religion and culture of the Muslims to ruthless scrutiny in the light of modern values. Badshah Khan is a great and good Muslim, and also a follower of Gandhi. But he is no Gandhi himself. Therein lies the cause of his failure.
  • Hamid Dalwai's "Muslim Politics in Secular India

• The Muslim Majilis Mushawarat, which is the united front of Muslim organizations in India, includes... educated Muslims... and orthodox Muslims... The election manifesto of the Mushawarat ... contained a 9-point charter of demands which can only be interpreted as asserting that Muslim Indians constituted a 'sovereign' society.
  • Muslim politics, p.80, quoted from Elst, Koenraad (2014). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p. 364-6

• The creation of Pakistan is not the end of this problem. H.S. Suhrawardy said in 1946 that Pakistan was 'not the last but only the latest demand' of Indian Muslims.... He recommended the creation of a number of 'Muslim-majority pockets' in India. The birth of the Mallapuram district is therefore only a sign of further demands to come. .... The relaxation, on the eve of a mid-term poll, of the service rules enjoining monogamy on Central Government servants whose religion permitted polygamy was effected by the Government of India under the pressure of these organizations.
  • Quoted in B. Madhok: Indianisation, and quoted from Elst, Koenraad (2014). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa.p. 364-6

• Leaders of secular parties... have so far made no serious effort to understand the true nature of Muslim politics in India.
  • Quoted in B. Madhok: Indianisation, and quoted from Elst, Koenraad (2014). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa.p. 364-6

• It is quite true that partition far from proving to be a solution to the Muslim problem has only aggravated it. But it is simply not true that there was a happy solution waiting round the corner only if partition had been avoided. For the Muslims demanded parity as the price for remaining in a politically united India and surely this was an impossible demand.
  • Muslim politics, p.113, quoted from Elst, Koenraad (2014). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p. 368

• We have to insist on a common personal law for all citizens of India.
  • Hamid Dalwai, Muslim politics, p.106-8, quoted from Elst, Koenraad (2014). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p. 364-6

• “Hindu society has produced many communalists. Admitted. But it has also produced men like Mahatma Gandhi who went on a fast unto death to save the Muslims of Bihar from large-scale butchery. It has produced men like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru who had the Bihari Hindus bombed from the air when they did not respond to the Mahatma’s call. These have not been isolated men in Hindu society, as Rafi Ahmad Kidwai and M.C. Chagla have been in Muslim society. The Mahatma was a leader whom the whole Hindu society honoured. Pandit Nehru has been kept as Prime Minister over all these years by a majority vote of the same Hindu society. “Now let me give you a sample of the leadership which Muslim society has produced so far, and in an ample measure. The foremost that comes to my mind is Liaqat Ali Khan, the first Prime Minister of Pakistan. Immediately after partition, there was a shooting in Sheikhupura in which many Hindus who were waiting for repatriation in a camp, were shot down. There was a great commotion in India, and Pandit Nehru had to take up the matter in his next weekly meeting with Liaqat Ali in Lahore. The Prime Minister of Pakistan had brought the Deputy Commissioner of Sheikhupura with him. The officer explained that the Hindus had broken out of the camp at night in the midst of a curfew, and the police had to open fire. Pandit Nehru asked as to why the Hindus had broken out of the camp. The officer told him that some miscreants had set the camp on fire. Pandit Nehru protested to Liaqat Ali that this was an amazing explanation. Liaqat Ali replied without batting an eye that they had to maintain law and order. This exemplifies the quality of leadership which Muslim society has produced so far. This…”
  • From a speech by Hamid Dalwai. Quoted from Goel, S. R. (1994). Defence of Hindu society.

• Hamid Dalwai, one rare liberal Indian Muslim who ironically had more followers among Hindus than his own co-religionists, was even more scathing in Muslim Politics in Secular India: “Indian Muslims are, as a rule, liberal only when liberal Hindus blame communalist Hindus.”
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About

• Twenty years ago I had been invited to a seminar on Hurdles To Secularism... There were four or five Muslim participants present in that seminar.... They were invited to speak next. But they all smiled and said that they had nothing to add to what their ‘Hindu brethren’ had already said so ‘loudly and so lucidly’. And then all of a sudden I saw some fireworks from the same silent and satisfied Islamic fraternity. They had all stood up, shaking with uncontrollable rage, and were shouting at the same time, “He is lying!” They were pointing their fingers at the gentleman who had been invited to speak by the president, and who had said only a few sentences. ... This was the late Hamid Dalwai. I had heard of him. But this was the first time I saw him. He was a tall man with a slight stoop, a smiling face, and a rather relaxed self-possession. He was saying, “All that has been said about Hindu communalism today is nothing new. We have heard it for the nth time. The intention of the working paper of this seminar, however, was to highlight for the first time what has so far been ignored by all progressive people who swear by secularism. What I want to expose today is Muslim communalism which has already divided the motherland, and which is still strong enough to poison our body-politic…”
  It was at this point that the Muslim gentlemen had stood up and started shouting... All hell now broke loose as the Islamic fraternity stood up again, and started shouting that they had not come to the seminar to be insulted by “a hired hoodlum of the RSS fascists”. JP could restrain them no more, and declared the proceedings closed with a note of anguish in his voice.
  • About Hamid Dalwai at a seminar. Goel, S. R. (1994). Defence of Hindu society.