Mahomed Barakatullah

This paper differs from the others described in this chapter in that it was published by a Mohomedan for Mahomedans, while all the others are Hindu publications. It was started in Tokio, Japan, early in 1910, by Mahomed Barakatullah, to whose previous activities in New York reference is made in Chapter IX (see pages 218 and 221). Barakatullah was born about 1864, the son of Munshi Shaikh Kadratullah, a Bhopal State servant who died about 1876. Barakatullah, who was a very clever youth, left home about 1883 and was employed as a tutor in Khandwa and later in Bombay. After some years he went to England, and was in Liverpool in 1895. Here he made the acquaintance of Sirdar Nasrullah Khan of Kabul, brother of the present Amir, and he is said to have arranged to supply the Amir through him with information regarding English affairs and to have sent a weekly news-letter to the Amir's agent at Karachi from 1896 to 1898. In 1897 he was in London and attended meetings of the Muslim Patriotic League. Barakatullah went to America about 1903, and, as mentioned in the passage cited above left in February, 1909, for Japan, having been appointed Professor of Hindustani in the University of Tokio.

The tone of the Islamic Fraternity was not at first particularly objectionable though from the beginning it advocated a rather militant pan- Islamism. In June, 1911, Barakatullah left Tokio to visit Constantinople and Cairo. He arrived at Petrograd on July 5th, and the same day sent a letter to Krishnavarma in Paris requesting him to communicate with him. He returned to Tokio in October 1911, and resumed the publication of his paper. He had left it in the hands of a German named F. Schroeder and a Japanese named U. Hatano, but they failed to bring out the August number, and he started again with the issue dated September. In this number a writer calling himself "Plaindealer" refers to a great pan-Islamic Alliance that may be formed some day, including Afghanistan which he calls "the future Japan of Central Asia." All that is required is a leader, and that leader, he says, "will arise in Central Asia, probably in Afghanistan," whereupon, "the firing of an Afghan gun will give the signal for the rising of all Islam as soon as she is ready and willing to open her gates for believers to fight under the green banner of the prophet, or under her own."

Most of the December, 1911, number was devoted to a description of the formal conversation to Islam of three Japanese, U. Hatano (the young man who undertook to edit the paper in Barakatullah's absence), his wife, and her father, whose name is given as Baron Kentaro Hiki. This was described as the first conversation to Islam in Japan; the ceremony took place at Barakatullah's house and was performed by him, and he appeared to regard it as the fore-runner of a great Japanese conversation. In 1912, the editor became at once more fluent in his use of the English language and more anti-British in his tone. The March number contains an article on "The Situation in the Balkans," in the course of which the editor, after quoting a passage from the Spectator, says "A Roman poet who lived two hundred years before Christ described the Anglo-Saxons of his time as the seawolves whose home was the ocean, whose friend was the storm and who lived on the pillage of the world. Two thousand years have elapsed since, and yet the predatory instinct of the race is not softened. If anything at all has been added to it, it is the refinement of the hypocrisy which sharpens the edge of brutality."

Owing to the strong anti-British attitude adopted by Barakatullah the entry of the paper into India was prohibited under the Sea Customs Act on 6th July, 1912, and the character of the paper having been brought to the notice of the authorities it was suppressed by the Japanese Government in October, 1912.

In September, 1912, copies of a paper called El Islam began to appear in India. This paper, which was reported in the Islamic Fraternity to have been started in January, 1912, purported to be devoted to the work of the Islamic religion. The nominal editor was the Japanese convert mentioned above, who now called himself by the half Mahomedan name of Hasan U. Hatano. El Islam, however, began to appear regularly only after the suppression of the Islamic Fraternity, and it soon became apparent that Barakatullah was simply using it to continue his political propaganda. The importation of this paper into India was accordingly prohibited in the same way on 22nd March, 1913.

In June 1913 copies were received in India from the Far East of a pamphlet in Urdu entitled "The Sword is the last resort." It was lithographed, and the handwriting, like the style, closely resembled Barakatullah's. The pamphlet refers to the alleged atrocities in the Balkan war and other misfortunes of Islam. The blame for all these evils is laid on England. Mahomedans are enjoined to form secret societies and endeavour to annihilate the oppressive English who are robbing and plundering in India. They should endeavour to destroy the feeling of fear of the English which is "a spider's web woven with deceit." Those Indian spies who are faithful to the English should be picked out and killed, and the burning alive of 5,000 Muslim women should be avenged by setting fire to 50,000 English homes. The writer goes on to say that, "the English have spread the organisation of the Criminal Investigation Department far and wide. The mullahs in mosques, pujaris in temples, prostitutes, street hawkers, shop- keepers, teachers are now connected with the Criminal Investigation Department." Indians should, therefore, make the work of Criminal Investigation Department as dangerous as possible. In view of the European situation, and especially of the possibility of a war between England and Germany, Indians should make preparations now for an armed rising.

On 31st March, 1914, Barakatullah's appointment in the University of Tokio was terminated by the Japanese authorities, and this was followed by the appearance in India in May of another similar lithographed Urdu leaflet called Feringhi ka Fareb (The deceit of the English). It surpassed in violence Barakatullah's previous productions, and was modeled more on the style of the publications of the Ghadr party of San Francisco with whom Barakatullah now threw in his lot. (See page 239)