A Time to recall the legacies of Maulana Azad and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/a-time-to-recall-the-stalwarts/article5318102.ece?homepage=true

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai — along with Zakir Hussain — were the last of a formidable generation of truly nationalistic Muslim leaders. Unlike Nehru, their belief in pluralism and tolerance did not derive from exposure to the western values of Enlightenment but from their own experience of Hindu-Muslim cultural fusion — the so-called Ganga-Jamunitehzeeb.

Given the nature of India’s current Muslim leadership, characterised mostly by intolerance and a narrow self-serving view of Muslim interests, it is hardly surprising that it does not want to be reminded of those who had a very different vision for their community, and who did not see politics as a zero-sum game between majority and minority groups.

The result is that at least three generations of Indians have grown up with no knowledge of Muslim contribution to nation-building. This has been exploited by the Hindu Right to portray Muslims as being outside the “national mainstream”; and as scroungers living off the labour of Hindu nation-builders.

Setting up the IITs

Few know that it was Azad — the bearded, topi-wearing namazi — who laid the foundations of world-class technological education in India by setting up the Indian Institutes of Technology, whose graduates are making waves around the world.

As independent India’s first education minister, he was also the architect of many of the modern higher education institutions, such as the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) of which the country is justly proud. He introduced the system of universal free national education, making it possible for millions of poor young Indians to go to university.

A unifier

Kidwai, or “Rafi sahib” as he was popularly known, was independent India’s first communications minister. Nehru had such confidence in him that later he entrusted him with the food and agriculture portfolio when the country faced a serious food crisis. He proved so successful that the Indian Council of Agricultural Research instituted an award in his memory to honour scientists for outstanding contributions to research in agriculture.

Dubbed an “Islamic socialist” for his broadly leftist views, he played a big role in mobilising Muslims of eastern and central Uttar Pradesh around the idea of a united and inclusive India when the State’s Muslim elite was drifting towards the Muslim League’s campaign for a separate Muslim homeland. Thanks to his popularity and influence in what was then the United Provinces, his followers came to be known as “Raffians.”

Although he barely stepped out of India, in many ways Kidwai was a more modern man — and understood universal values of tolerance and inclusion better — than many of the globe-trotting present crop of Muslim leaders.

Delhi’s Rafi Marg is named after him, but how many people know who that Rafi was? A random poll many years ago revealed that many thought it referred to the singer Mohammed Rafi.


http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/a-time-to-recall-the-stalwarts/article5318102.ece?homepage=true