by C. M. NAIM
Hasrat Mohani with B.R. Ambedkar at Sardar Patel’s reception in 1949
Hasrat Mohani was not just a maverick when it came to publicly championing the radical thinking of Tilak. He also wrote verses expressing deep love for Krishna, and often went to Mathura to celebrate Janmashtami.
He was a true maverick. In 1908 he published an anonymous article in his modest Urdu journal, Urd?-e-Mu’all? (circulation 500), which severely criticized the British colonial policy in Egypt concerning education. The authorities in India promptly charged him with “sedition.” Refusing to disclose the name of the author, he took sole responsibility for the article; consequently, he had to spend over 12 months in “Rigorous Imprisonment”—i.e. hand-grinding with another “C” class prisoner one maund (37.3 kgs) of grain every day.
In 1921 three major political parties held their annual meetings in the same week at Ahmedabad. At the All India Khilafat Conference, he succeeded in getting a resolution passed that called for India’s total freedom from the colonial rule, but the next day, not surprisingly, the delegates quickly repudiated themselves. He then tried his luck in the Subjects Committee of the Indian National Congress, but the Mahatma, rushing back from another meeting, made sure the resolution was firmly defeated. Finally, at the meeting of the All India Muslim League, he forcefully expressed his call in his presidential address, but wisely abstained from asking for a vote.
He was perhaps the only prominent Muslim of his generation to publicly champion the radical thinking of Tilak, writing glowingly about him in his journal. He also wrote many verses praising him, including the following at his demise:
jab tak wo rahe duny? meN rah? ham sab ke diloN par zor unk?
ab rah ke bahisht meN nizd-i-khud? h?roN pe kareNge r?j Tilak
So long as he lived he ruled our hearts, and now in Paradise,
Nearer to God, Tilak shall rule over the Houris.
And when the first Indian Communist Conference was held at Kanpur in 1920, he was one of its organizers as well as the President of the Reception Committee. Some think that on that occasion he also coined the slogan, Inqil?b Zindab?d, as a translation of the English, “Long Live the Revolution.” Later in a verse he described himself as a “Sufi Believer” (s?f? momin) and a “Communist Muslim” (ishtir?k? muslim), whose chosen path was Revolution (inqil?b) and Unworldliness (darwesh?).
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Hasrat’s Kulliy?t (“collected works”) contains a small set of Krishna-bhakti poems. A few are in standard Urdu; the rest are in a language that he sometimes called Bhasha and other times Hindi, though written in the Urdu script. It is a kind of simplified Awadhi that was quite prevalent even in the Forties among the Muslim gentry of the qasbahs of Awadh—particularly among their ladies—who often called it kacc? bol?.
Hasrat’s radical speeches at the above-mentioned Ahmedabad conferences had brought him trouble. He was arrested early in 1922, and tried in Ahmedabad, and after conviction remained shut up in the Yeravada Central Jail, Pune, until March 1924. The Mahatma was also being held there, though in more luxurious quarters than Hasrat’s “C” Class cell. This time, however, Hasrat refused to perform hard labor, and consequently suffered other punishments.
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