Personally I was in a state of hiatus with him. My attitude has been to understand the causes behind the present state of Muslims in India while he was a man of action who was fast running out of time.
I used to sit in the party office for long hours and there used to be a series of visitors with a broad band of age spectrum. Young university boys saw a mentor in him while senior people saw in him an old comrade of those glorious gone by years when they were out there to change the history or recreate it.
To remain close to the unpleasant reality let us record that the youth was not crowding around him and the old company even in its prime did not perform mind bending fete. Saleem Pirzada will go into the footnote of history unsung for destiny decided that he will be the brick that disappears into the foundation of an edifice that gathers only lack of acknowledgement and no share in the grandeur. He is like the supplication that is so delicate that the angels hide it most carefully in their wings so as to protect it from all worldly fame, fortune and glory.
Indeed he would not get credit even to the level that came to the stalwarts of Babri Masjid protection movement - another lost cause from recent Muslim history in India. When I was exploring the life and events of Dr Zakir Hussain a senior friend remarked that it was not substantial. There lies the tragedy of significant Muslim figures of independent India. Saleem Pirzada is destined to get less share in achievements.
This brings us to the question then - what makes some of us so sentimental and emotional about him. He was not a family man - marriage he sacrificed for the sake of his mission. He certainly was a man of friends but this aspect never overwhelmed his vision or made any significant encroachment on his ideals. Mentor he was but only to those who came along and the fact remains that very few did so. Busy he kept himself throughout his life but every single possible outcome that could go into making a glorious bio-data went into the black hole called Muslim Politics of Independent India.
He was a Pathan of Khanqah, Muslim Monastery, lineage but the family has not visible inclination to that angle. Having lost his father at the tender age of six he was brought up by his mother and strangely had a father figure attitude towards so many of his juniors. He was very proud of several martyrs for freedom from his locality.
Arriving in Aligarh he soon got the hand of students politics that is what became the high point of his life and career. The story picks up in late sixties and through seventies of twentieth century. This was global high of students movements in the world. Even in the US they have not understood the phenomenon till today. Main cause might be the Marxist influence and global ideological awakening but ideologically he was placed against it - his ideology was Sir Syed, from beginning till end.
Just like their socialist, communist, Marxist counter parts Lovey and company too honed their political analysis on the road side tea stalls around the AMU campus. In independent India the academic political discourse has been usurped by the leftist intelligentsia rather completely but looking at the documentary evidence in terms of books and recorded speeches and published articles one comes to unmistakable conclusion that these people not only had a Muslim narrative but their oratorical prowess was even better and far superior to that of the left and indeed the demagoguery of AB Vajpayee. Javed Habib, Lovey Pirzada, Ali Amir, Ariful Islam and many more could be counted in this genre.
As mentioned above this spark of intellectual revival of Islam or political underpinnings of Muslims has not reached yet its maturity. The main subterfuge happened due to partition. Sir Syed and his close friends were worried about the fate of Muslims in independent India. The question that exercised the minds of these old men was whether Muslims will end up being like second class citizen and subjugated minority. They worked to obviate such an eventuality.
Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru were of the opinion that the majority community in her magnanimity would take good care of the interests of all the minorities including the Muslims.
Muslim leaders like Maulana Azad and the Muslims belonging to Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind (Muslim Religious Scholars Assembly) bought this theory and assurance. This view came to be known as the one nation theory.
The other point of view was the so called two nation theory and it was pursued by the Muslim League in pre-independence India. They pursued the course where they wanted constitutional guarantee that minorities, Muslims in particular, will not end up in a position of subjugation. Just before independence such a mechanism was indeed worked out by the British - the people who were still in charge of the situation.
This cabinet Mission Plan was the one that was inexplicably torpedoed by Pandit Nehru. The immediate consequence was that the leader of Muslim league MA Jinnah flew off the handle and abandoned the path of reconciliation with Congress. They also abandoned Dr Muhammed Iqbal's idea of autonomous administration of Muslim majority areas in North-East part of India. In the 1940 Lahore session of Muslim League a one paragraph proposal for Pakistan was moved in and passed. Seven years later India was partitioned and the bill of partition came to the Muslims of India.
British in their hurry to leave India failed in a department that was supposed to be their strongest forte - administration. Lord Mountbatten, the then Viceroy, forgot to post even a policeman on the now India-Pakistan border during the population transfer. Muslim-Sikh riots ensued and countless innocent lives perished.
The League was a very strong force amongst Muslims but by no means the only voice. People like Maulana Azad and Hussain Ahmed Madani and a long list of many others were very much pro-India and against the partition but even in secular sections shadow of partition has clouded the sky for Muslims. Organizations like RSS always held the view that once Pakistan came into existence what are Muslims doing in India but today the circle of people possessing such views has become much wider.
This is the legacy with which people like Lovey Pirzada had to operate. Democracy has this inherent instability that it might turn into majoritarianism and that is what has happened in India today. Saleem Pirzada was amongst those brave souls who who chose to work in opposition to this tide knowing fully well that this was an uphill task to say the least. Even naive political opinion holders consider it silly to take the stand that Lovey took.
He took the side of truth and justice in a situation where it was not only politically unwise but plain dangerous as the events of last three years have made amply clear. On December 10, 2017 he posted a status on Facebook where it starkly says that the count of Muslim skilled in last three and half years has been already 39 and be prepared to keep counting. This was perhaps minutes before his massive cardiac attack and hours before his demise.
When you work against such monumental odds the the fair deal would be that your small achievements should be counted as big. What were these achievements? Let us get to these in the next part.
I used to sit in the party office for long hours and there used to be a series of visitors with a broad band of age spectrum. Young university boys saw a mentor in him while senior people saw in him an old comrade of those glorious gone by years when they were out there to change the history or recreate it.
To remain close to the unpleasant reality let us record that the youth was not crowding around him and the old company even in its prime did not perform mind bending fete. Saleem Pirzada will go into the footnote of history unsung for destiny decided that he will be the brick that disappears into the foundation of an edifice that gathers only lack of acknowledgement and no share in the grandeur. He is like the supplication that is so delicate that the angels hide it most carefully in their wings so as to protect it from all worldly fame, fortune and glory.
Indeed he would not get credit even to the level that came to the stalwarts of Babri Masjid protection movement - another lost cause from recent Muslim history in India. When I was exploring the life and events of Dr Zakir Hussain a senior friend remarked that it was not substantial. There lies the tragedy of significant Muslim figures of independent India. Saleem Pirzada is destined to get less share in achievements.
This brings us to the question then - what makes some of us so sentimental and emotional about him. He was not a family man - marriage he sacrificed for the sake of his mission. He certainly was a man of friends but this aspect never overwhelmed his vision or made any significant encroachment on his ideals. Mentor he was but only to those who came along and the fact remains that very few did so. Busy he kept himself throughout his life but every single possible outcome that could go into making a glorious bio-data went into the black hole called Muslim Politics of Independent India.
He was a Pathan of Khanqah, Muslim Monastery, lineage but the family has not visible inclination to that angle. Having lost his father at the tender age of six he was brought up by his mother and strangely had a father figure attitude towards so many of his juniors. He was very proud of several martyrs for freedom from his locality.
Arriving in Aligarh he soon got the hand of students politics that is what became the high point of his life and career. The story picks up in late sixties and through seventies of twentieth century. This was global high of students movements in the world. Even in the US they have not understood the phenomenon till today. Main cause might be the Marxist influence and global ideological awakening but ideologically he was placed against it - his ideology was Sir Syed, from beginning till end.
Just like their socialist, communist, Marxist counter parts Lovey and company too honed their political analysis on the road side tea stalls around the AMU campus. In independent India the academic political discourse has been usurped by the leftist intelligentsia rather completely but looking at the documentary evidence in terms of books and recorded speeches and published articles one comes to unmistakable conclusion that these people not only had a Muslim narrative but their oratorical prowess was even better and far superior to that of the left and indeed the demagoguery of AB Vajpayee. Javed Habib, Lovey Pirzada, Ali Amir, Ariful Islam and many more could be counted in this genre.
As mentioned above this spark of intellectual revival of Islam or political underpinnings of Muslims has not reached yet its maturity. The main subterfuge happened due to partition. Sir Syed and his close friends were worried about the fate of Muslims in independent India. The question that exercised the minds of these old men was whether Muslims will end up being like second class citizen and subjugated minority. They worked to obviate such an eventuality.
Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru were of the opinion that the majority community in her magnanimity would take good care of the interests of all the minorities including the Muslims.
Muslim leaders like Maulana Azad and the Muslims belonging to Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind (Muslim Religious Scholars Assembly) bought this theory and assurance. This view came to be known as the one nation theory.
The other point of view was the so called two nation theory and it was pursued by the Muslim League in pre-independence India. They pursued the course where they wanted constitutional guarantee that minorities, Muslims in particular, will not end up in a position of subjugation. Just before independence such a mechanism was indeed worked out by the British - the people who were still in charge of the situation.
This cabinet Mission Plan was the one that was inexplicably torpedoed by Pandit Nehru. The immediate consequence was that the leader of Muslim league MA Jinnah flew off the handle and abandoned the path of reconciliation with Congress. They also abandoned Dr Muhammed Iqbal's idea of autonomous administration of Muslim majority areas in North-East part of India. In the 1940 Lahore session of Muslim League a one paragraph proposal for Pakistan was moved in and passed. Seven years later India was partitioned and the bill of partition came to the Muslims of India.
British in their hurry to leave India failed in a department that was supposed to be their strongest forte - administration. Lord Mountbatten, the then Viceroy, forgot to post even a policeman on the now India-Pakistan border during the population transfer. Muslim-Sikh riots ensued and countless innocent lives perished.
The League was a very strong force amongst Muslims but by no means the only voice. People like Maulana Azad and Hussain Ahmed Madani and a long list of many others were very much pro-India and against the partition but even in secular sections shadow of partition has clouded the sky for Muslims. Organizations like RSS always held the view that once Pakistan came into existence what are Muslims doing in India but today the circle of people possessing such views has become much wider.
This is the legacy with which people like Lovey Pirzada had to operate. Democracy has this inherent instability that it might turn into majoritarianism and that is what has happened in India today. Saleem Pirzada was amongst those brave souls who who chose to work in opposition to this tide knowing fully well that this was an uphill task to say the least. Even naive political opinion holders consider it silly to take the stand that Lovey took.
He took the side of truth and justice in a situation where it was not only politically unwise but plain dangerous as the events of last three years have made amply clear. On December 10, 2017 he posted a status on Facebook where it starkly says that the count of Muslim skilled in last three and half years has been already 39 and be prepared to keep counting. This was perhaps minutes before his massive cardiac attack and hours before his demise.
When you work against such monumental odds the the fair deal would be that your small achievements should be counted as big. What were these achievements? Let us get to these in the next part.