I understand but IMO, this decision goes against Indias secularism because it puts some people in religion vs society sort of situation. True secularism IMO would mean total religious freedom and separate from state. In a religiously diverse society like India, to achieve true secularism, banning any religious thing whether essential or not should be banned because what one considers non essential to a religion might be essential to others and in a very religiously diverse society, things get messy real quick when state starts deciding what’s essential part of a religion or not even if it’s to protect that.
Their reasoning for such was because creating Pakistan would mean giving up all of India at that time for country the size of Pakistan. Before British came, india was ruled by many Muslim empires. In a way (this view is the view of some ppl opposed to Pakistan) it could be said that all of Hind (india) is Muslim lands because it was under many Muslim empires mostly before British came and occupied it. Creating Pakistan, a Muslim country in the land that is all suppose to be Muslim, means your reversing the gains of those many Muslim empires who conquered the subcontinent. It’s means your giving away a bulk of Hind to non Muslims who you conquered it from and settling for something little like Pakistan.
We have to remember that Muslims of Hind after Ottomans lost WW1 started the Khilafat Movement in support to create a Khilafat. A Khilafat would mean all of Hind (India) including Pakistan and Bangladesh would be part of it. Khilafat Movement had support of all schools of fiqh and united every Muslim in Hind and, majority if not all Muslims supported it. However Jinnah and Muslim league pushed for Pakistan which was a small chunk of Hind (Hind suppose to be all Muslim land) so giving up on the vision for a Khilafat and giving up all the land that had once been conquered by Muslim empires. Many because of this reason thought of Jinnah to be a British agent because he would settle for Pakistan and not all of India. Congress played it smart too by allying with Khilafat Movement which both opposed partition for their own opposing reasons. One wanted shariah and a Caliphate the other wanted a secular republic.
But since Khilafat Movement started dying down because of world events and the idea of Pakistan getting more popular, many started supporting Jinnah and Muslim league for their idea of Pakistan.
Ulema of Deoband and who like deobandi movement in general especially are staunch supporters of a caliphate and made up a good portion of Khilafat Movement. Because the leading scholars of Deobandi movement remained believers in a caliphate till the end they opposed partition. However, many deobandi scholars and deobandis supported Pakistan. It was divided too but majority of their leadership was anti partition and pro shariah in all of India.
Also Muslim league had many Ismailis, Shias and Qadiyani supporters as well. Ulema of Deobandi don’t see them as Muslim even. Muslim league also was made up of many barelvis with barelvi leadership supporting Pakistan. Deobandis see barelvis as innovators who aren’t following ‘true’ Islam. Deobandi in many ways is similar to salafis. For these reasons as well, deobandis hated Muslim league because it didn’t even see a lot of them as Muslims.
I agree there is. It’s because there’s many ‘Mullahs’ nowadays who use Islam for their personal gains. We have a very big mullah in Pakistan who uses Islam for his personal gains. People call him Mullah Diesel even our pm calls him that
.
However, the best gift you can give these ignorant Mullahs (ignorant cuz they go against Islamic principles for their personal gains) is if you alienate Muslims more in society. Muslims who face hate and discrimination are more likely to be exploited by Mullahs.
ISIS or Al Qaeda got so powerful because they used desperate Muslims or Muslims facing discrimination and/or oppression and exploited this to make them do what they believe is “jihad”. This could very well happen in india too if communal violence gets out of hand and Muslim vs rss situation get worse.
