#Batla House: Excerpts from a history book of the future

Friends, I have some fantastic news. Last night, I became the first Indian and in fact, the first human to travel into the future using a time machine, thus fulfilling another of Rajiv Gandhi’s dreams. While touring the future, I was awed with the glorious India of tomorrow that I saw, an India where every single one of Rajiv Gandhi’s dreams has come true. It turns out that in the future, all school boards have been replaced by a single board called Rahul Gandhi Board of School Education (RGBSE) administered by JNU. I happened to pick up some of these history books of the future. Their covers were adorned with pictures of national heros such as Aurangazeb, Lord Macaulay, Mahmud Ghazni, Teesta Setalvad and Kanhaiya Kumar. In the future, school students under RGBSE have to take not one but two papers in Indian History, called:

Paper I: Evils of Hindu caste system

Paper II: National heros and India’s war of independence.

I was reading through the chapter on National heros when I happened to come across the chapter on Mohammad Sajid, the man who escaped minutes before the Batla House encounter and has now appeared in an ISIS video. I present to you in full this chapter, written by an eminent historian who has since received chairmanship of ICHR, a Sahitya Akademi Award, a Rajya Sabha seat and one all expenses paid trip to USA.

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India was passing through a very difficult phase in May 2016. The dictator Modi was strengthening his grip on the country, celebrating two years of grabbing power from in Delhi. His empire appeared unshakable. You could travel from Kashmir in the North to Kanyakumari in the South without passing through a single Congress ruled state. There was all around despair. 

And then, one fine morning in May 2016 came the voice of Mohammad Sajid in exile in the Islamic State. For the tortured people of India who had begun to fear that he might be dead, it was a moment of rejuvenation. It was no less of a moment of jubilation for the suffering masses than the time people had heard Subhas Chandra Bose address the people of India from Tokyo in 1943 on Azad Hind radio. 

Mohammad Sajid’s story, his dramatic escape from Batla House encounter minutes before the police got there, had already passed into folklore. For Indians, it brought back memories of Subhas Bose’s dramatic escape from house imprisonment in Calcutta. But as the years passed, people had gradually come to believe that he was dead. But when Mohammad Sajid addressed the nation from Syria, it was a moment of renewal for the idea of India.

Mohammad Sajid was born in an influential Muslim family in Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh. His father wanted him to become a lawyer, but Sajid himself had other interests. After receiving a sound education from St. Stephen’s College and JNU, Sajid joined the nationwide movement for peace. 

This was happening at a particularly crucial moment, when national peace was seriously threatened by the demolition of Babri Masjid in December, 1992. Although the top leadership of the peace movement largely favored caste riots and corruption scams as a means of dealing with the communal fascism, Mohammad Sajid favored a more confrontational approach that quickly gained currency among many of the younger cadres. 

This set Mohammad Sajid and his young supporters on an inevitable collision course with the leadership of the peace movement. Matters came to a head in May 2004, when there was a formal split between the pro-corruption and pro-militancy factions of the movement.

The most dramatic turn came in September 2008, at Batla House (now a National Museum) in Jamia Nagar neighborhood of Delhi (now renamed Atif Amin Azad Nagar), where Mohammad Sajid and some of his fellow revolutionaries found themselves surrounded by the police. Atif Amin fought bravely but was outnumbered, ultimately dying from his injuries. Mohammad Sajid managed to escape. The encounter became a rallying point for the Indian masses. Top leaders even from the pro-corruption wing of the peace movement came to pay their respects and some broke down in tears. A bronze statue now marks the spot where Atif Amin laid down his life… It was inaugurated in the year 2035 by President Romila Thapar.

Mohammad Sajid traveled much the same way Subhas Bose did, crossing the difficult terrain of Pakistan and Afghanistan, then on to Russia, from where he made his way to the Islamic State disguised as an Italian diplomat. Once in Raqqa, Mohammad Sajid obtained an audience with the Caliph Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, who promised him help in his  struggle to bring peace to India. Mohammad Sajid settled down in Raqqa, from where he began to recruit a volunteer force of liberators through the internet.

Once formed, Mohammad Sajid’s  Idea of Indian National Army (IINA) began its forward march with the slogan “Ayodhya Chalo”, resolved to fight till the last tweet and the last FB post. As he marched, foreign patrons of Indian NGOs made huge donations to him, determined to support his cause. However, his luck had turned on him and time was running out. Victorious American-Zionist forces were pouring into the Islamic State and the Caliph Abu-Bakr Al Baghdadi committed suicide in his bunker on May 5, 2017. Two days later, Mohammad Sajid was on a flight from Raqqa to Karachi with all the treasure collected from donors when it crashed. The treasure was never found.

Meanwhile, the surrendered volunteers of the IINA were taken into custody by Modi’s Army and accused of sedition. And thus began the historic IINA trial at Delhi’s Red Fort in August 2017, where leading lawyers such as Ashish Shaitan and Sant Sri Topiwal personally appeared as defense counsel. The dramatic trial  was shown live on Nehru Dynasty Television…and a nationwide clamor for their release began to reach a fever pitch. Hundreds of Sahitya Akademi Awards were returned. However, as part of non-violent resistance against the Modi government, the Sahitya Akademi Awardees did not return the prize money. Ultimately the government buckled and the IINA volunteers were given amnesty. 

Despite winning that round, the episode left the Modi government fatally weakened. Just 2 years later, in 2019, the Modi Empire officially collapsed and the dream of `Bharat mein Azaadi’ was achieved. 

In modern India, Mohammad Sajid’s statues mostly appear at roundabouts in the public square: he is shown with one little finger raised in the air and a fountain shooting out of him.”

Friends, hope you liked this excerpt from a future history book. If you did, please stay connected with this blog on the FB page:

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