Kasim Razvi

Kasim Razvi (also Qasim Razvi; 17 July 1902 – 15 January 1970) was a politician in the princely state of Hyderabad. He was the president of the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen party from December 1946 until the state's accession to India in 1948. He was also the founder of the Razakar militia in the state. He held the levers of power with the Nizam of Hyderabad, blocking the possibilities of his accommodation with the Dominion of India.

Quotes

• Hyderabad is an Islamic State. The Indian Union is trying to wipe out this Muslim rule from the Deccan. Remember that there are four-and-a-half crores of Muslims in the Dominion, looking to us to raise the banner of this Islamic State.
  "Ittehad expects every Muslim to do his duty. I am glad that Muslim women are also coming forward to help the Razakars, 1 appeal to my Muslim sisters to support whole-heartedly this movement, and, if possible to train themselves in the art of self-defence. The time is not far off when we have to throw our entire weight to maintain the integrity of this Islamic State.
  "We have been ruling the Deccan for the last 800 years and we shall rule it whether the Indian Union likes it or not.
  "Power has come to the hands of the Indian Union after one thousand years. They are not capable of ruling. That is the reason why they lost it to the Muslims. Now, when that power has come to them, they think they can browbeat us and terrorise us by bullying and blustering…
  "When … the Indian Union makes any aggression on us, remember the 4 1/2 crores of Muslims will raise the banner of revolt. We will give back in the same coin and speak to them in the same language that they will understand…
  "I know every one of you is imbued with the spirit of Jehad. Remember Karbala. A Muslim is a warrior. He is a first-class fighting man. Indeed, Indian History is full of glorious epi­sodes of the heroism of the Muslims. If India is free to-day, remember, it was due to the sword and arms of the Muslims. A Muslim is a born fighter and a protector of the weak.His one central ambition is to fight for a right and just cause. He will be guided by the great tenets of Quran.
  "Now, my Muslim bro­thers, march onward! Never put back your sword into the sheath till your object is achieved. Stop not till you reach your goal [this was greeted by boisterous shouts of “Delhi Chalo!”]. Hound out the enemy. Do not spare him. Mind not your troubles. We believe in Allah. We have no other friends except Allah, who has created this Islamic State and who shall never let us down. Quran is in one hand and the sword is in the other, let us march forward; cut our enemies to pieces; establish our Islamic supremacy!
  "I know the helplessness of our Muslim brothers in the Indian Union. Let us by our example of unsurpassed heroism, courage and vision, extend the much-needed succour to them.
  "They will be our ‘Fifth Columnists’ in the Union. Now the Union is thinking of a ‘Fifth Column’ among us. We shall turn the tables and they will understand the character of the Mussulman. A Hindu who is a Kafir, a worshipper of stone and monkey [crowd laughs uproariously], who drinks cow’s urine and eats cow dung in the name of religion [renewed laughter], and who is a barbarian, in every sense of the word, wants to rule us! What an ambition and what a day-dream!
  "My heart is bleeding. The Hindus want to repeat the same holocaust that they had staged at Delhi. Their methods of coer­cing Hyderabad to be a mere vassal is the typical example of the ‘Bania’ rule. The only answer to them is the naked sword.
  "I may he here to-day, and perhaps not tomorrow. But I can assure you, my brethren, if you want to see Kasim Razvi in the midst of our life and death struggle, look for him not in the palatial buildings of Banjara, or in pleasant tea parties, but in the midst of the battle-fields [loud cries of ”Allah Ho Akbar!” and “Siddique-Deecan Zindabad!” erupt in the crowd]. You will see me slaying or being slain with sword in my hand and the Quran in my body.
  "I repeat to you the couplet of our immortal poet Allama Iqbal: ‘What’s it in life, life is only the means to the end, the eternal end; to lay it down in the cause of Islam.’ Now I bid you god­ speed; protect your Islamic State; protect your blood brothers in the Indian Union and your Islamic rule."
  Seven decades later, variants of Kasim Razvi’s speech would echo in the same city — it would be delivered by his ideological inheritor, Akbaruddin Owaisi, who infamously thundered that “25 crore Muslims would easily take on 100 crore Hindus if police are removed for 15 minutes.”
  • Kasim Razvi’s speech, on March 31, 1948,the climax of a public programme titled The Hyderabad Weapons Week, which was celebrated at Dar-us-Salam, the official headquarters of the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), the forerunner of Asauddin Owaisi’s AIMIM. full text of Razvi’s speech was published verbatim in the Hindustan Times dated April 7, 1948. also at [1]

About

• Razvi, of the fiery eyes and passionate oratory, was a fanatic with a single-track mind. He believed himself to be a heaven-appointed leader whose mission it was to liberate the Muslims of the Deccan from the Indian Union. But this was only the first step. The next was to be the annexation of the Cirears, the east coast districts of the Province of Madras, to Hyderabad. His Muslim crusaders were then to march to Delhi to replant the Asafia flag on the Red Port of the Moghuls, and never were they to rest till 'the waves of the Bay of Bengal washed the feet of our sovereign’. He insisted on the right of the Muslims to enslave the Hindu, who was none but a ‘kafir’ and ‘a worshipper of stone and monkey’; ‘who drinks cows’ urine and eats cow-dung in the name of religion’; who is ‘a barbarian in every sense of the word’, On the other hand, to be a Muslim was to invite danger; ‘a Muslim is one who would set at naught all the earthly pow¬ ers and make the whole world his enemy’.
  • The End Of An Era (1957)