The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c12.s7.3

c12.s7.3

On 30 December, 1949, addressing a meeting under the auspices of the Secular Democratic Front at Farrukhabad, Pandit Nehru said that the talk of Hindu culture would injure Indias interests and would mean the acceptance of the two-nation theory which the Congress had opposed tooth and nail. Again, addressing the students at Lucknow University on 16 September, 1951, he said that the ideology of Hindu Dharma was completely out of tune with the present times, and if it took root in India, it would smash the country to pieces. Nehrus pro-western, pro-Muslim leanings were very well-known. Hindus did not protest because they loved and respected Nehru. They had full faith in him. Hindus did not even care because they thought they were in such vast majority. Hindus did not make a noise because in the flush of freedom they remained, as usual, casual and indifferent to any future Muslim plans. But every society wants some security, some piece of land as its homeland under the sun. This law of human existence is supereme. Every country worth the name has some core element or force in it called the nation, which is its backbone and the source of all strength in it. Such a force in India is the Hindu force. This force has always been active in the day-to-day life of this nation, but has shown itself more markedly and spectacularly and has sprung into action with redoubled energy during the last few years. Rigmarole of language apart, India is a Hindu nation. As Dr. Copal Krishna observes, It seems to me that for a student of history and a man of long political experience, Nehru's understanding of ethnic / religious plurality (of India) and its political pressures was amazingly shallow. His outraged reaction to displays of communal antagonism was aesthetic rather than thoughtful. To describe persistent mass group behaviour as barbaric did not suggest any understanding of the behaviour itself.⁸⁴