In the previous article “AIMIM: Past and Present”, we briefly saw the history of AIMIM from 1927 to 1946. In this article, we shall further list out the salient points in the 1946-48 period to see where the AIMIM derives its ethos and the Islamist Supremacist mind-set. In 1946, Kasim Rizvi, a small time lawyer from Latur who used to bail out Ittehad goondas was appointed as the head of MIM.

Kasim Rizvi a product of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and his Ittehad members were, simply put, Islamic Supremacist bigots. Here are some gems from Kasim Rizvi and its today’s relevance:

  • He insisted on the right of Muslims to enslave Hindus. He famously said: “Enslave the Kafir who drinks cow urine and worships stones & monkeys”. The “Gau mutra jibe” sounds all too familiar to this day too. This bigotry has found its main-stream today not only on social media, but also in the speeches of Akbaruddin and also recently in the anti-CAA (anti-Hindu) protests.
  • Rizvi said, if the Indian Union ventures to enter Hyderabad, the invaders will see the burning bodies of 1.65 Cr. Hindus. The 15 min warning from Mr. Akbaruddin Owaisi or Mr. Waris Pathan’s warning to Hindus shows the continuing mind-set.
  • He further said: “We are the grandsons of Mahmud Ghaznavi and sons of Babur, we will again show the Kafirs (Hindus) what we can do”. These heroes of MIM (Ghaznavi and Babur) still continue to be AIMIM’s heroes, in fact a few more more have been added to this list like Aurangazeb is our wali or Tipu Sultan is a freedom fighter.
  • Kasim Rizvi further goes on to say: “Hindu people, the Muslims have ruled over you for 900 yrs, therefore, I have sympathy with you. If I had wished, I could have exterminated you.” This supremacist mind-set (even though a blatant lie) continues to this day with a slight change in the number of years, from 900 to 1000 years.
  • Popular Razakar slogans: “Nizam ke kadmon pe Nehru ko jhuka denge; Patel aur Munshi ko kabron mein gad denge”. Sounds familiar? During the mindless anti-CAA protest, the so-called students of AMU and Jamia raised similar ‘gad denge’ slogans for our PM/HM in particular and Hinduon ki khabar khudegi in general.
Kasim Rizvi
Kasim Rizvi

Kasim Rizvi with the blessings of Nizam formed a private militia, Razakars, to violently oppose the accession to the Union of India and to silence the Hindus of Hyderabad. Razakar foot soldiers took a pledge to death. Here is the pledge’s translation without comments: “I do hereby promise to fight to the last to maintain the Supremacy of Muslim Power in Deccan”. The Nizam government took the following actions:

Men & Weaponry:

  • The Nizam govt disarmed the Hindus in village after village so it becomes difficult for common man to fight back.
  • The weapons thus collected from Hindus were given to Muslims and Razakars.
  • Sydney Cotton, an Australian gun-runner moved weapons for the Nizam and Razakars
  • 52 Command and Control centers were formed and through this Razakars were recruited and trained.
  • The training to Razakars was provided by both serving and retired army personnel of the Nizam.
  • The Razakars would frequently do drills on the streets to terrorize the Hindus.
  • State was converting some industries into manufacturing weapons and trucks.
  • El-Edroos, the Commander-In-Chief of Hyderabad Army, went to Europe to purchase arms from Czech and France.
  • Hyderabad Army itself was about 25,000 strong and eventually, the Razakars totalled between 1,50,000 – 2,00,000.
Razakar drills

Propaganda:

  • Ittehad had 7 urdu daily newspapers and 6 weekly papers. All this pretty much spewed venom against the Indian Union and on anything that came in the way of Islamic Republic of Hyderabad, showed the right status of a Kafir and exalted the Muslim Supremacist bigotry.
  • Nizam’s radio, Radio Hyderabad and Radio Aurangabad was at Ittehad’s service. From morning 7am to midnight propaganda speeches and poems were broadcast.

Muslim Ummah:

  • Hyderabad under Nizam was already trying hard to alter the demographics of the Hyderabad city by populating more Muslims from Arab, Ethiopia & also from other parts of India. Places in Hyderabad, like Barkas was settled with Muslims from Yemen and rest of Arab and Habshiguda (Habshi – Ethiopian descent) was settled with Muslims from Ethiopia. You can draw parallels to today’s settling of Rohingyas and Bangladeshi Muslims in Hyderabad again to alter the demography.
  • Rizvi and Razakars promised themselves that the flag of Nizam (Asafia flag) would fly on Delhi’s Redfort.
  • 20 Cr. loan to Pakistan : being true to Muslim Ummah.
  • There was a grand hope among Hyderabad Ashraf leadership that Muslims from the rest of India will form the fifth column and join in, if Indian Union would venture into Hyderabad.

The atrocities committed by MIM’s Razakars during the 1946-48 period itself will need more articles, so we will stay away from that for now.

Ali Yavar Jung, in his book “Hyderabad in Retrospect”,  mentions that Kasim Rizvi saw himself as the Jinnah of Deccan and hoped that doing a “Direct Action in Deccan” will give him the Islamic State of Hyderabad. But alas, he was dealing with Independent India and Sardar Patel, not some British colonisers.

Cut to the present day: Is Mr. Asaduddin Owaisi hoping to see himself as the present day Jinnah? In the days of his late father Mr. Salahuddin Owaisi, the AIMIM had firmly entrenched themselves as the voice of Hyderabadi Muslims. The magnitude of the victories in the seats contested will give you an idea of how popular the AIMIM has been. The Muslim vote went to the party that AIMIM supremo decided to side with and this in turn ensured that the AIMIM had their demands well met. This policy works well for AIMIM to this day. But the ambitious son Mr. Asaduddin has extended AIMIM’s reach to Muslim concentrated areas of Maharashtra and Bihar so far. Bihar election results show that AIMIM managed huge number of Muslim votes (similar to their victories in Hyderabad). Buoyed by this success, he would be looking to make in-roads in a similar Muslim demography in West Bengal, Assam and Tamil Nadu too. It would be indeed interesting to see how far this dream-run of AIMIM, a Hyderabad-based communal party, would continue. 

The two-faced extremities of Mr. Owaisi is for all to see, one face is on TV, where he is all dignified and argumentative (being an ex-lawyer helps) and tries to resonate as a secular, India loving politician. The other face comes out in the election campaign, the speech becomes crass, vulgar and often laced with Islamic Supremacist ideas. One would never see him condemn any hate speech by his brother or his party people. Instead he would say as a man of law, he would not like to comment as “the matter is sub-judice”. This so-called man of law, on hearing the judgement of Ayodhya by Hon. Supreme Court had a melt-down and started even questioning the court. Prior to this judgement, in his interviews and debates, he had mentioned that whatever be the verdict, he and the Muslims as citizens of this country would abide by it. There are too many such instances of the two-facedness of Owaisi and AIMIM.

In a sense, when Mr. Asaduddin famously says we the Muslims of Hindustan, love this country, he surely does love the land of Hindustan, but not the Hindus ruling it. The unfinished business of MIM and Razakars to plant the flag of Asafia in Delhi is a work in progress and the current AIMIM/Owaisi’s are dutifully executing on it and finding some success too. Rest assured that the straight-faced lying about the secular credentials of AIMIM or its leaders will continue unabashedly unless people see through it and form the necessary Hindu counters in narrative, strategy and through collective electoral victories.

References:

  1. End Of An Era – Hyderabad Memoirs by KM Munshi
  2. Hyderabad in Retrospect by Ali Yavar Jung
  3. The story of the integration of Indian States by VP Menon
  4. Images of Razakar drills and Kasim Rizvi taken from Internet
  5. The cover image of Owaisis from Patrika(dot)com

DISCLAIMER: The author is solely responsible for the views expressed in this article. The author carries the responsibility for citing and/or licensing of images utilized within the text.