Saturday, December 7, 2013

Did Aryasamaj cause Hindu Muslim tension in the pre-partition era?



 

 A person who is a renowned writer has expressed his views that the Hindu-Muslim relations in the pre-partition era became tense due to Provocative Literature published by Aryasamaj. I want to inform the writer to not to read the one sided story regularly repeated by a selected class but also learn who were the real culprits behind the tension prevailed between Hindus and Muslims in pre-partition days.
Almost for half a decade after its establishment in 1875 Aryasamaj faced maximum challenges and even recorded unpredictable growth. The social and religious conditions in those days, the Hindu Muslim relations and the role of Britishers were not in favor of Hindus. Since Britishers gained rule over India in 1857 they planned the measures to prevent the unity among Hindus and Muslims. They predicted that if both of them will unite they will drain out the Britishers out of this country. So, they started the new policy of Muslim appeasement with Sir Sayyed Ahmed Khan as the moderate face of their policy. Muslims were promoted by Britishers in different fields like education, government jobs, court decisions and laws, cow sacrifice on Eid (which was even banned during shahjahan short regime), conversion of Hindus to Islam (also Christianity) etc. Hindus were a helpless class felling like an easy prey to them due to its inert spiritual, social and political weakness.
Swami Dayanand analyzed these dreaded conditions and found the root cause of these prevailing problems. He established that the main cause of Hindu constant defeat was Lack of Vedic knowledge, untouchability, inferior status of women, child marriage, lack of widow remarriage, No way for bringing back the lost brothers, Lack of defence against predator sects, multiple sects dividing the resistance power of protective forces, Lack of education, poverty and social unity, Lack of Brahmacharya practice, polygamy, superstitions, cumbersome money wasting ceremonies on name of Dharma etc.
Swami Ji gifted defensive sword in the hands of helpless Hindus. Even the Christian missionaries have admitted that more than 90% of their arguments which were used by them to convert Hindus, which showed the poor Hindu man downwards when he was criticized of his faith, which made common Hindu man a toothless creature were complete failure in front of the Logical and analytical thought process of Swami Dayanand.
Swami Ji converted the poor Hindu sheep mentality into lion roar by teaching them the loopholes of others and superiority of ours. Biggest agony was that the Hindus were not even aware of their own texts, knowledge of others texts was something like dreams of wonderland.
For almost half a century followers of Swami Dayanand defended continuous attacks on Hinduism (and are still defending latest is internet crusade by Agniveer.com). They were opposed not even by Muslims and Christians as they were losing their fertile grounds for conversion but also by so called Sanatni Hindus who was being misguided by the ignorant class of Brahmins as they were losing their livelihood based on superstitions.
Thousands of books were written to explain the true meanings of the Vedas, to remove the dirt of superstitions and ignorant practices in the society and in answering mud slugging by non Hindu sects. Dozen’s of prominent persons like Swami Sharddhananda, Pandit Lekhram, Bhagat Phul Singh and others sacrificed their life in the Shuddhi campaign to bring the lost brothers.
The famous sacrifice of Mahashya Rajpal, whom you are referring, was provoked by Mahatma Gandhi to appease Hindus lead to riots in the Lahore and other country parts. It even left more than hundreds injured including Bhai Parmanand the famous freedom fighter. Government had to place curfew in different cities of North India. Dalip Singh a converted Christian judge in this case was placed under full security as he received death threats; Hindus in the NWFP were driven out of homes by Afridi Muslim tribes. A large scale rally in Delhi by Muslim leaders challenged government that if Britishers were not able to justify Muslims than Muslims have know how to take revenge even if it lead to riots. It was an open threat to British Government.
Only after the situation went out of control government enacted the law of control of press on in 1929.
To sum up
Step 1 British government patronized Muslims to attack Hindus by various methods like inflammatory literature, speech etc.
Step 2 Hindu like a butcher’s goat just blinked helplessly.
Step 3 Advent of Swami Dayanand at the national scenario.
Step 4 Impact of his teachings led to revolution in Hindu consciousness, its upliftment and its transformation into intellectual defending force.
Step 5 Muslims brainwashed by radical mindset started physical attacks on the Aryasamaj leaders especially in the post khilafat era.
Step 6 In spite of all threats Aryasamaj did a commendable job in different riots in Northern India and even did a remarkable job in Moplah riots of Malabar in 1921.
Step 7 Britishers banned the publication of any provocative literature as they felt that the seeds sown by them have given bad fruits.
The main culprits were Britishers who exploited Muslim mentality against Hindus and Arya samaj played its role as defender and Hindu saviour.

Dr Vivek Arya

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