It was in this context that Karan Thapar, a journalist and an anchor, authored an article saying that Manekshaw would make a far more deserving recipient of the honour than Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the first education minister of independent India, among other past awardees.
Azad gained prominence in the Indian Muslim community after he started articulating about the need to actively resist the British Raj by founding the weekly Al-Hilal in 1912 and the weekly Al-Balagh in 1915. Deeply impressed by Gandhi’s commitment to the politics of non-violence, Azad associated himself with the Indian National Congress and rose to become the youngest president of the organisation at the tender age of 35. His unshakable belief in these ideas was derived from his reading and understanding of the history of Islam in the plural milieu of the subcontinent. A staunch adversary of communal politics and the Two-Nation Theory, Azad nevertheless strived to resolve the differences between the Congress and the Muslim League.
A distinguished member of a school of thought that prized national interests over parochial ones, Azad was never able to reconcile himself with the communal agenda of the League and explicated his aversion for it lucidly. He sagaciously concluded that the onus of the partition of India would stigmatise the remaining Indian Muslim community and accurately prophesied the myriad of problems that Pakistan would have to grapple with.
In the religiously charged aftermath of the partition of India, it was Azad who primarily ensured that the voice of a crestfallen community reached the highest echelons of the Indian government in his capacity as the first education minister of the country.
However, Azad’s chief contribution to India revolves around understanding the heterogeneous nature of India’s Muslims and striving to bring them back into the fold of the national mainstream. It is a befitting tribute to Azad’s enduring legacy that Indian Muslims have enjoyed a near continuous democratic experience since independence, a luxury that has evaded the majority of their coreligionists across the world. It is in no small way, due to the combined legacies of stalwarts such as Azad, Gandhi and Nehru that Muslims across India today can preach, propagate and practise their religion as they deem fit irrespective of sectarian differences. Fifty-six years after his demise, the man once sardonically dismissed as a Congress ‘show boy’ by Jinnah has his vision, political choices and acumen vindicated when an Indian Muslim ascends to the post of the President of India, when the father of the Indian nuclear weapons programme happens to be Muslim, when Qurratullain Hyder is regarded as the undisputed master of Urdu prose, when Kaifi Azmi, Jan Nisar Akhtar and Ali Sardar Jafri are remembered as giants of Urdu poetry and when the two richest Muslims of the sub-continent, Azim Premji and Yusuf Hamied, happen to be Indians.
Therefore, Thapar ought to be admonished for belittling the enduring legacy of a great man.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 8th, 2014.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
COMMENTS (16)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
1719315628-0/BeFunky-collage-(8)1719315628-0-405x300.webp "article")
1731329418-0/BeFunky-collage-(39)1731329418-0-165x106.webp "article")
This is an excellently articulated article and very well balanced. The author seems to be very level headed. I find myself in complete agreement and impressed with this article.
@Feroz: Though what you said sounds great . But I have a problem with your last statement though it has a good message. Should a man's religious identity be linked with non-religious achievements of people? The christian or European society gave world majority of modern science etc?? Certainly not christian but European. what do non-European christians have to do with that achievement. Was Ramanujan a Hindu mathematician or Dr. APJ Abul Kalam a Muslim scientist? No. They are Indians of Tamil origin ,which reflects the pro-science movements carved by South Indian rationalists since early 1900s.
Religion seeks to influence more than just spirituality but ultimatel it is the complete society that one lives that shapes the person.For eg. Similar fanatical tendencies amongst feudal Hindus ,feudal Sikhs & feudal Muslims of North India or presence of pro-Leftism amongst Bengali Hindus that gets reflected even amongst Bengali Muslims across the border.Pro-business nature of Gujaratis whether Jains , Hindus ,Muslims & Parsis .
@Prashant: Uh-hh... dear sir, don't you mean "banished" (to wherever!) ... not just "admonished"..?
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad becoming a President of the Worlds largest Political party the Indian National Congress at the age of 35, is a feat unparalleled. The role of Education Minister in a newly formed country is a very vital one and by placing faith in Azad, Indian Democracy ensured it started its innings on the right note.
Sure, Azad was a great Islamic scholar with a wider world view, but he was a humanist who never pandered to the base instincts of human beings, nor did he promise any kind of utopia. His job was to lay an enabling framework in a new born country with probably the lowest literacy rates, knowing a countries assets were its people. His contribution then is becoming visible today as India becomes a power house contributing talent that keeps the wheels of the global economy moving.
Yusuf Hamied is a role model like no other. His pharmaceutical company CIPLA focused on making medicines cheap through reverse engineering skills and process innovations. His cocktail of Aids drugs were priced less than 10% of what global MNC's charged and he supplied to the governments of third world countries mostly in poor Africa, helping them to save millions of lives. Global pharma MNC's have been doing everything in their power to put him out of business, but so far failed. A beacon of hope for the poorest of poor, his goal of making medicines available at a fraction of current prices, so no one dies due to lack of access to quality medicine. The Islamic world has many role models worthy of emulation but sadly the rabblerousers and violent misogynists are the ones building a following, not those who are working hard to make the planet a better place for all humans.
Azad has already been awarded the bhart ratna. so what is this all about?
Azad was awarded Bharat Ratna posthumously in the year 1992. No one gets the award twice. This article seems to have no basis.
@janab: Partition happened because of secularism and democracy. India is still not a secular country. Non-muslims lost the most due to partition.
@logical hardliner: It was not paid for Kashmir war in 1947-48. Pakistan also didn't get as predicted that 86.6% of Indian Muslims will move to Pakistan. Pakistan was not given its share of debt. Still you can always file a case in ICJ.
@logical hardliner
If facts are not in place, logic can fail you. Gandhiji went on fast to force the then Government of INdia to share finance with Pakistani government. He got killed because of that. Can't blame you, all because of 'pakistani studies'.
Yes, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad is certainly deserving of India's highest honour, the Bharat Ratna. Indians felt it too and that is why he was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1992.
Even though Independence day has come and gone, Modi has not announced any recipient for the Bharat Ratna yet. Anyway who is Karan Thapar and how many watch him in India? The man has zero credibility and has been bouncing from one news channel to another.
As an Indian I can say Maulana Abul Kalam Azad truly deserves the Bharat Ratna ( A gem of India ). However such leaders among Indian muslims have been rare and most of the other ones have been of the communal kind.
People like Karan Thapar have very low credibility in India. Now doubt, Manekshaw was a 4 great indian, however, nowhere near Azad. Azad was an intellectual of highest order and understood the India much better than any other Muslim of the time. Muslim countries need leaders like Azad and not Jinnah who divide the society. Sorry to say, leaders like Azad have no place among societies like Pakistan.
I was told many times by Pakistani friends that Indian Muslims are under developed minority community and there counterpart in Pakistan are much ahead in terms of freedom of religion and prosperity, Now I can send them this link,' look one level headed Pakistani can write truth sometime,' appreciate your article greatly.' Thanks for appreciating true Indian democracy, I wish same for Pakistani ,someday one of Indian writer will write same kind a article about Hindu Pakistani, I am sure ,it will happen in my life time.
APJ Abdul Kalam (President and "Missile Man"), Quereshi (Chief Election Comm), Ansari (V.President), Akbaruddin (Foreign Office), Premji, Hamied (Cipla, AIIDS vaccine), Asif Ibrahim (Head of Intelligence Bureau, India). These (and many others) are all patriotic Indians First and Last.
And yes, by the way, if you happened to ask what they to follow as a religion, they'll quietly - say "Islam".
"Therefore, Thapar ought to be admonished for belittling the enduring legacy of a great man."
Careful man, You might be admonished for writing what you have in your country where Maulana Azad is still a show boy irrespective of your beliefs. You talk of Abdul Kalam, Azim Premji and so on, your countrymen would say they are show boys too just like Maulana Azad. No amount of reasoning can change the opinion of those who are brainwashed.
The author is right. However if the reason for this column was what Karan Thapar said, that's really unfortunate. Karan Thapar does not merit a reaction,ever.