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186 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
her ornaments. After some time, she came to her senses and ran towards her home. Her assailants again pursued her. She succeeded in reaching her home and locking herself in. Her Muslim assailants broke open the door, caught hold of her and again carried her away on the road. It was suggested by her assailants that she should be again raped on the street. But with the help of another woman by name Rajani, Kusum escaped and took shelter in the house of Rajani. While she was in the house of Rajani the Musalmans of Govindpur paraded her husband Radha Vallabh in the streets in complete disgrace. Next day the Musalmans kept watch on the roads to and from Govindpur to the Police Station to prevent Radha Vallabh and Kusum from giving information of the outrage to the Police.”
These acts of barbarism against women, committed without remorse, without shame and without condemnation by their fellow brethren show the depth of the antagonism which divided the two communities. The tempers on each side were the tempers of two warring nations. There was carnage, pillage, sacrilege and outrage of every species, perpetrated by Hindus against Musalmans and by Musalmans against Hindus—more perhaps by Musalmans against Hindus than by Hindus against Musalmans. Cases of arson have occurred in which Musalmans have set fire to the houses of Hindus, in which whole families of Hindus, men, women and children were roasted alive and consumed in the fire, to the great satisfaction of the Muslim spectators. What is astonishing is that these cold and deliberate acts of rank, cruelty were not regarded as atrocities to be condemned but were treated as legitimate acts of warfare for which no apology was necessary. Enraged by these hostilities, the editor of the Hindustan —a Congress paper—writing in 1926 used the following language to express the painful truth of the utter failure of Mr. Gandhi’s efforts to bring about Hindu-Muslim unity. In words of utter despair the editor said* :
“There is an immense distance between the India of today and India a nation, between an uncouth reality which expresses itself in murder and arson and that fond fiction which is in the imagination of patriotic if self-deceiving men. To talk about Hindu-Muslim unity from a thousand platforms or to give it blazoning headlines is to perpetrate an illusion whose cloudly structure dissolves itself at the exchange of brick-bats and the desecration of tombs and temples. To sing a few pious hymns of peace and goodwill a la Naidu…… will not benefit the country. The President of the Congress has been improvising on the theme of Hindu
- Quoted in “Through Indian Eyes” columns of the Times of India, dated 16-8-26.