Presenting the Past Anxious History and Ancient Future in Hindutva India

Rambhakts: Defining "Us" and Depicting "Our Story" 27

Congress and advised Muslims to keep aloof from it.^38 Likewise, Jinnah,

who used to appeal for Hindu-Muslim amity and worked vigorously for

the Congress even after joining the All India Muslim League (started in

1906), changed his stand after the Nagpur Congress in 1920. Opposing

the Gandhian noncooperation movement, he went on to demand a 50-

50 share of political power between "Moslem India" and "Non-Moslem

India," characterized the Congress as a Hindu organization, expressed

fears about "Congress tyranny" and "Hindu domination," and eventually

formulated his "two nations" theory. In his letter of September 15,1944, to

Mahatma Gandhi, Jinnah argued,

We maintain that Muslims and Hindus are two major nations by any definition or

test as a nation. We are a nation of a hundred million, and what is more, we are a

nation with our own distinctive culture and civilization, language and literature,

art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of values and proportion,

legal laws and moral codes, customs and calendar, history and tradition, aptitudes

and ambitions: in short, we have our own distinctive outlook on life and of life. By

all the canons of International Law, we are a nation.^39

In a similar fashion, Ali also sought to bring the Hindus and Muslims
together during the early years of his public life, joined both the League
and the Congress, led the Khilaf at movement along with his brother Shau-
kat Ali (1873-1938) with the support of Mahatma Gandhi, and steered
away from the Congress nationalism since the Coconada Congress of 1923.
Attending the First Round Table Conference in 1930 against the decision
of the Congress, he spoke that he belonged to two nonconcentric circles of
equal size, namely India and the Muslim world. He argued further, "We
[Indian Muslims] belong to these two circles, each of more than 300 mil-
lions, and we can leave neither. We are not nationalists but supernational-
ists, and I as a Muslim say that 'God made man and the Devil made the
nation.' Nationalism divides; our religion binds."^40
Besides these major streams of Indian nationalism, there have been
a multitude of smaller and local ones. The Communist Party of India's
(founded in 1925) combining nationalism with class dynamics; provincial
nationalisms such as Bengal nationalism, Punjab nationalism, and so forth;
various peasant uprisings; and movements such as the Satya Shodhak
Samaj of Jatirao Phule, the untouchables movement of Babasaheb Ambed-
kar, and various others played up the multifarious contingent identities
despite the mainstream's unproblematic portrayal of a unitary India.
Thus, India has been variously reconstructed by myriad groups and
individuals depending upon their views of "Indianness." However, as
Bhikhu Parekh contends, three broad categories could be delineated in
early twentieth century with regards to the Indian statehood and national
identity. Some leaders argued that India should become a Hindu state in a
cultural-civilizational sense rather than a religious sense. Others felt India