Then I picked up my pen. I wrote this appeal to the lovely people of Bombay. This resulted in our honourable Muslims coming to sort me out. How I escaped a thrashing at their hands, now that’s another story.)
In the end, what was feared, happened. The gathering at the sabha mandap produced vitriol and the air over Bombay soured.
And then our eyes were forced to see such horrific, in fact demonic visions…
Knives were thrust, stones flung, masculine skill with rods displayed. Homes and neighbourhoods were raided. Soon the streets and corners of my Bombay were spattered with blood.
India was taken, when it was at the point of Independence, and dragged into this dark and enormous pit.
Those who value freedom and are aware of the happenings and the history of this age know that this fighting over religion is destructive as few things can be. Their depression at this cusp of freedom is understandable.
No man wishes to see blood and other men slaughtered, save those who deliberately nurture the most base and terrifyingly cruel sentiment.
Which man delights in seeing red streams flow out of the neck of his brother, across which he has just drawn a blade? Who could possibly wish to dance on the mounds of the dead?
Then why is it that the skies over Bombay witnessed this continued massacre? We must force ourselves to examine the events if we are to resolve the question: who was responsible for these killings?
The world is filled with good people. But it also contains some whose time is spent in sharpening their swords and daggers. They await the opportunities to distribute these blades so that from the carnage thus spread, they might profit.
These are people who want to take India to a state of barbarism. They want to spread insecurity through fear and carnage, so that their interests remain secure. They are happy to see in markets the sale of human flesh as meat.
They don’t want India to be independent. They are traitors, and their time is spent in betraying not just their nation, but humanity. They aspirate the fires of hell from their very breath.
They are our leaders. Our representatives.
They are like a cat’s claws. Soft and furry if seen from the top. Sharp and vicious if seen from below. If you heard them speak, it would sound like they feel the world’s pain in their breast. But this pretense is not hidden for long.
Their compassion, their religiosity, their humanity is all a sham. It is frightening to consider that we share this planet with such wickedness.
The violence in Bombay could have been prevented. Over the bitterness, the sourness that Hindus and Muslims feel for one another, the balm of words could have been applied. A little patience and restraint should have been preached.
Had they not succumbed to the mob’s passion and applied cold reason to problems, peace would not have been difficult to find.
A few men did make such attempts, but unfortunately the hissing of some snakes — I am referring to Hafiz Ali Bahadur Khan — ruined what could have been an end to this needless violence.
Those leaders who used religion to rouse hatred, and whom I hold responsible, should know that there are many in India who understand what they are doing. They should know that they are viewed with disgust and contempt.
The palace of independent India cannot be built by those who play mischief with religious propaganda. They are not only enemies of our independence but of the human race.
They must be named and shamed.
Else their every action will continue for long to throttle the neck of this nation’s youth, soon to be independent.
— (Originally published as Ek Ashk Aalood Appeal)
* Hafiz Ali Bahadur Khan was a leader of the Ahrar movement and a member of the Municipal Corporation, Bombay
Bombay in the Riots
Manto was probably the best observer of communal violence in Bombay. It is remarkable that his writing of this period has not been translated till now, seventy years after it was written. In this piece, he writes of the mayhem that visited the city during the Quit India movement. The thing about Manto is, as we shall see in this essay, that he is essentially detached from his material. Not in the sense that he doesn’t care about what’s going on — in fact he’s terrified, confused, angered and appalled by it. But in the sense that he doesn’t bring his religious identity, in so far as he has one, to his writing. That makes him unusual and interesting.
I returned to Bombay hoping to spend some time with friends and give my battered mind some rest.
Instead, on reaching here, I was so jolted that far from rest and recreation, I even lost what little sleep I had.
Now, I’ve never had any interest in politics. I put politicians in the same bracket as I do soothsayers. I’m exactly as much interested in politics, as Gandhiji is
in cinema.
Gandhiji doesn’t watch movies, and I don’t read newspapers. Both of us are wrong in doing so. Gandhiji would do well to be acquainted with our movies, and I should certainly be reading the papers.
Anyway, I reached Bombay. The same streets whose cobbled stones I had worn down with my walking for five years. The same Bombay where I’d seen two riots unfold. It was the same beautiful city in which I had seen the blood of not a few innocent Muslims and Hindus spattered.
The very place where Congress had now passed a law on prohibition, banning all alcohol. In doing this, they had removed from employment thousands who tapped toddy and brewed liquor.
It was the same Bombay whose dhobis I had seen standing twelve hours in water, toiling away, and were now drinking a vile and poisonous spirit to relieve their pain.
The city where in the canyons between magnificent skyscrapers, thousands slept on the footpath.
I’ve seen, as I said, two riots in this city. The reasons were the same — mandir and masjid, cow and pig.
Mandir and masjid — to me only stone.
Cow and pig — to me only flesh.
This time, in Bombay, I saw new things. Not the usual riot between Hindus and Muslims, not a fight over temple and mosque, not fury over cow and pig.
An entirely new sort of chaos and a new storm raging through this new Bombay.
One day I got a phone call informing me that the entire Congress leadership had been jailed, including Gandhiji who wasn’t even in the Congress.
I said: ‘That’s fine, these people keep getting into and out of jail all the time.’ The news didn’t surprise me. But then immediately after, another friend phoned me to say that Bombay was incensed by the news. The police had lathi-charged the mobs, even fired at them. The army had been called in and apparently there were even tanks on the streets.
I couldn’t leave home for three days. And so I began reading the newspapers and heard terrifying stories from people.
The Muslim League is a mosque. The Congress is a temple. This is what I gathered from the papers. The Congress seeks Independence and so does the Muslim League, but their paths aren’t the same. For some reason, they can’t work together. Perhaps this is because a mosque and a temple cannot be in the same place.
I thought that the Hindus and Muslims would busy themselves in this war and their blood, which did not mix in mosque and temple, would finally mingle in Bombay’s drains and gutters. I was surprised to learn that even this thought was totally wrong. The city was divided.
There’s a long road that leads to Mahim. At the end of the road is a famous Muslim shrine. When the rioting began and reached this part of the city, the youngsters uprooted trees from the road and carried them into the bazaar as barricades.
Then something interesting happened. Some Hindu boys were dragging a big piece of metal on the road towards the shrine. A few Muslims walked towards them. One said politely to the Hindus: ‘Dekho, bhai (look, brother), this is where Pakistan begins.’ A line was drawn on the road.