Fundamentalism and the Sikh Religious Tradition by T.N. Madan

that a movement of unconstitutional nature sponsored by Gandhi..... would inevitably
result in wide-spread violence.... To generate coercive power in the masses would only
provoke mass conflict between the two communities, as in fact it did. With his keen sense
of realities, Jinnah firmly set his face against any dialogue with Gandhiji on this point."
"Jinnah, however, warned Gandhiji not to encourage fanaticism of Muslim religious
leaders and their followers..... Sri Nivasa Sastri wrote to Sri P.S.S. Aiyar... 1 fear Khilafat
Movement is going to lead us into disaster." Gandhi replied, "I claim that with us both the
Khilafat is the central fact, with Maulana Mohammad All, because it is his religion, with
me because..... I ensure the safety of the cow, that is my religion, from the Musalman's
knife." Gandhi also admitted that Jinnah had told him that he (Gandhi) had ruined politics
in India by dragging up a lot of unwholesome elements in Indian life and giving them
political importance, that it was a crime to mix up politics and religion the way he had
done." In retrospect, Seervai, the most distinguished Constitutional lawyer of India,
writes, "The introduction of religion into politics to secure power over the masses in
order to arouse their political consciousness, is intelligible; but there was a price to pay,
and it was paid in full by the Partition of India."
Here a point needs clarification. Jinnah had objected to the mixing of religion
and politics the way Gandhi had done. The real fact was that Gandhi had introduced
Hindu ideas in Congress politics. He made the Hindus look back and accept the
dichotomous Hindu ideology, which in the empirical field, was quite amoral, if not
immoral; because Ram Rajya meant acceptance of the inequities of the sanctioned Caste
ideology. For, Lord Rama had removed the head of a Sudra for violating Caste rules.'"
Thus, as in the case of Mahratta Rule, this ideal involved the revival of Hinduism. And it
is this looking back only to the Hindu past and the subsequent decisions of Gandhi and
the Congress that, as we shall see, increasingly disillusioned the minorities.
Religion's chief role in life is to support and sustain a universal moral tone of
society. For Ellwood, the function of religion is "To act as an agency of social control,
that is, of the group controlling the life of the individual, or what is believed to be the
good of the larger life of the group.'" "Religion projects the essential values of human
personality and of human society into the universe as a whole." But the caste ideology
has been incapable of giving any universal or even social values. After discussing the
subject, Ambedkar asly the questions, "Does it tell the Hindus to be righteous to the
untouchables ? Does it preach to the Hindus to be just and human to them ? ... No Hindu
can dare to give an affirmative answer to any of these questions. On the contrary, the
wrongs to which the untouchables are subjected by the Hindus, or acts which arc
sanctioned by the Hindu religion, they are done in the name of Hinduism and are justified
in the name of Hinduism... How can the Hindus ask the untouchable to accept Hinduism
and stay in Hinduism ? Why should the untouchables adhere to Hinduism which is solely
responsible for their degradation ?
The new trend introduced by Mahatma Gandhi, resulted not only in a setback to
the Congress ideology, which purported to be national in its outlook, but also made the
Muslims and other minorities alienated from the Congress because of their loss of faith,
following a wide gap between its professions and its parochial decisions.
The first major disillusionment was Mahatma Gandhi's fast against His Majesty's
decision to give reservations to the Untouchables. Ambedkar has clearly stated that in