Mandal was a Dalit leader who joined the Muslim League earning the ire of caste Hindus. He stood side by side with Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah along with a constellation of Ahmadis, Punjabi Christians and other minorities, when the hardline conservative Muslim groups including the Majlis Ahrar would pejoratively label Pakistan as “na-Pakistan” and the Quaid e Azam as the “Kafir e Azam”. This is why it is so disconcerting to read his letter of resignation to Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, as it shows how Pakistan failed its minorities after the death of Jinnah.
In the 27-page letter, Mandal poignantly states that he joined forces with Muslims, as “the Scheduled Castes and the Muslims were both educationally backward” and even though his “life was in peril” and he received “threatening letters almost every day”. He writes that “32 crores of Hindus of this Indo-Pakistan Sub-continent turned their back against me and dubbed me as the enemy of Hindus and Hinduism, but I remained undaunted and unmoved in my loyalty to Pakistan.”
Mandal opines that he “honestly felt that in the context of India as a whole Muslims had legitimate cause for grievance against upper class Hindu chauvinism.” Although, he qualifies that he “always considered the demand of Pakistan by the Muslim League as a bargaining counter” for “the creation of Pakistan would never solve the communal problem”.
This supports Ayesha Jalal’s thesis that Pakistan was a maximum demand from the Muslim League where all the Muslims wanted was a federation and stronger legal safeguards that were rejected by the Congress. In this regard, Yasser Latif Hamdani’s books Jinnah: Myth and Reality and Jinnah: A Life, are worth reading, as they offer a Pakistani narrative that projects Pakistan as a bastion of minorities of the Indian subcontinent.
Indeed, Mandal writes that his faith was “fortified [by] Qaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah” when he gave “solemn assurance of equal treatment for Hindus & Muslims alike and calling upon them to remember that they were all Pakistanis”. He adds that “there was then no question of dividing the people on the basis of religion into full-fledged Muslim citizens and zimmies”. However, he laments that such “pledges [were] being flagrantly violated … in complete disregard of the Qaid-e-Azam’s wishes and sentiments and to the detriment and humiliation of the minorities”.
Mandal states that “after partition, particularly after the death of Qaid-e-Azam, the Scheduled Castes have not received a fair deal in any matter”. He goes on to depict the carnage that befell the Hindu minorities, who were killed or “forcibly converted to Islam”. He laments that for Hindus the “future is darkened by the ominous shadow of conversion or liquidation”. Indeed, he lists event after event on the persecution of Hindu minorities of Pakistan.
Mandal was a Dalit leader who joined the Muslim League earning the ire of caste Hindus. He stood side by side with Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah along with a constellation of Ahmadis, Punjabi Christians and other minorities, when the hardline conservative Muslim groups including the Majlis Ahrar would pejoratively label Pakistan as “na-Pakistan” and the Quaid e Azam as the “Kafir e Azam”.
He adds that “house-hold deities were broken and places of worship desecrated and destroyed.” He mentions that “Hindu women were raped and abducted” and that “the merciless beating of a pregnant women resulted in abortion on the spot”. Additionally, “the military … also forced Hindus to send their womenfolk at night to the camp to satisfy the carnal desires”.
Mandal mentions that “violent speeches against the Hindus were delivered by several speakers, including officials” and that “jewellery shops belonging to the Hindus were looted in the presence of police officers”. He adds that while he pushed for an inquiry into such matters, the “Muslim League members and officials wanted to divert the attention of the Muslim masses from the impending economic breakdown by some sort of Jihad against Hindus”.
He opines that “Pakistan has not given the Hindus … a full sense of security” and that they “want to get rid of the Hindu intelligentsia so that the political, economic and social life of Pakistan may not in any way be influenced by them”. He mentions the “compulsory participation of teachers and students of all communities in recitation from the Holy Koran” and adds that “some of the temples have been converted into cobbler’s shops, slaughter houses and hotels”.
Mandal expresses that “Islam is being offered as the sovereign remedy for all earthly evils … [where] the Shariat Muslims alone are rulers while Hindus and other minorities are zimmies”. He adds that “East Bengal has been transformed into a colony of the western belt of Pakistan” and that “East Bengal Muslims in their enthusiasm wanted bread and they have by the mysterious working of the Islamic State and the Shariat got stone instead”.
It is not clear if this is Mandal’s original letter or if it has been tampered with. Either way, the fact that a founding father of Pakistan left the country is a source of shame and concern. Given how poorly Pakistan has treated its Christian, Hindu and Ahmadi minorities, how violent speeches have been given against Ahmadis, how they are denied freedom of religious expression, how Aasia Bibi was tormented for years, and how Hindu girls have been abducted and converted in recent times, Mandal’s letter is not surprising.
Overall, Pakistan needs to do better. What we see happening to the Khans in India is nothing for their reservoirs of wealth can shield them from the wrath of bigoted Hindus. It is the poor Muslims in India who face the brunt of Hindu chauvinism just as it is the poor Hindus, Christians, and Ahmadis of Pakistan that face the brunt of Islamic chauvinism.
I hope this August, Pakistanis look within. They should leave Indian affairs to thoughtful Indians and instead do their part on making Pakistan great. This happens by speaking truth to power by standing up for the Christian, Hindu, and Ahmadi citizens of Pakistan. Additionally, an apology to Bangladesh is long overdue on any part Pakistan has had in human rights violations of their Bengali brethren. It is only this way they can reclaim and honour the legacy of founding father – Jogendra Nath Mandal – who stood up for minorities despite facing push back from Muslims and caste Hindus alike.