BABU RAO PATEL Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Babu Rao Patel, Editor and Publisher of a monthly magazine known as "Mother India," in his issue for April, 1968, issued an article under the caption "Lingering Disgrace of History". The article opens with a dialogue between a visiting American and an Indian. The visiting American expressed his surprise that in Delhi about a dozen roads had been named after Mughal emperors namely, Akbar, Humayun, Tughlak, Aurangzeb and Shahjehan who had slaughtered Hindu men and raped their women. The editor has in the article stated that right from the time of Mohammed Ion Qasim to Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Hindus had given millions of men, women and children as hostages to Islam to buy some peace and preserve their own religion and they were still doing so and that God alone knows how long this process of paying and appeasing Muslims will go on but it cannot go on for long if the family planning designs of the present secular government succeed. Because then pretty soon there would be no Hindus left to pay. The editor further predicted a blak future of the ancient Hindu race in Pakistan. According to the editor, in Pakistan a subtle and systematic genocide of the 10- million Hindus living there had been undertaken at State level by enforcing vasectomy operations on Hindu males and tubectomies on Hindu females, and by raping women and converting young children to Islam. The editor has further described the various atrocities that had been committed by Babar, Aurangzeb and other Mughal emperors and expressed his dissatisfaction over the naming of important roads in New Delhi after their names. The editor further described the atrocities committed by Aurangzeb on the two sons of Guru Gobind Singh who had refused to embrace Islam, and observcd : "To have a street named after this Mughal bastard in New Delhi, the capital of India, is not only a disgrace to the Hindus but a crying insult to the brave community of Sikhs. Had the Muslims been insulted thus, they would not only have burnt every house on the road named after the tyrant but also set fire to the whole damn city. The Muslims know how to guard their traditions." The editor further goes on to write that in Pakistan old cities are being named anew with Muslim names, whereas in India important cities are still named after the Muslim emperors.

(2.) The editor further, while comparing the British rule of 200 years to that of the Muslim rule of a thousand years, wrote that the British had never raped Indian women, kidnapped Indian children, burnt Indian homes or slaughtered the Indian people. But still the statues of their kings, governors and viceroys, some of which were imposing works of sculpture worth maintaining for their natural beauty as works of art, had been mudiated and destroyed.

(3.) The editor further wrote : "What a great contrast between the British builders of the nation and the brutal Mughal ravishers: The bleeding wounds inflicted over a thousand years by barbarian Mughals were gently healed by the British rulers in 200 years and the country once ravaged by the raids and loot of Mughal fanatics was once again made to look green and smiling by the blessings of the British. This is historical truth-not political fiction."