14-AUGUST INDEPENDENCE DAY OF PAKISTAN PART 1

mehar-badshah · Subject: 14-AUGUST INDEPENDENCE DAY OF PAKISTAN PART 1 Wed Aug 06, 2008 12:05 am

Who Created Pakistan?
By Prof Sharif al Mujahid

Indeed, a host of factors has gone into the making of Pakistan. Of prime significance among them

were: a fortuitous configuration of forces and events (both natinal and international), the myopic policies of the Indian National Congress, the adroit leadership of Quaid-i-Azam Jinnah, and the massive response his appeal for Pakistan elicited from the Muslim masses across the length and breadth of Indian subcontinent.

However, as I have argued in Quaid-i-Azam Jinnah (1981), by far the most critical variable was Jinnah himself. Of course, the "response" factor was also crucial for the simple reason that without that measure of response, there would have been no Pakistan; but, then, the response itself was the handiwork of Jinnah, since he alone, and no one else, could have elicited that response.
And that response did not come easily, much less simultaneously or uniform from various regions in the subcontinent. Moreover, Jinnah had to labour long and hard; he had to build up unity in Muslims' disparate ranks, step by step; he had to work assiduously for nine long years before he could prepare Muslim India politically, psychologically, and otherwise to a point that it returned an overwhelming verdict in favour of Pakistan during the general elections of 1945-46.
The present article concerns the respective roles of the Muslim majority and minority provinces in building up the final response, the differential in their respective responses at various stages, and their criticality in the final denouement.

The instrument through which the Muslim response to Pakistan was articulated and built up was the All India Muslim League (AIML). The AIML, founded in 1906, gathered strength and momentum within a decade, went into eclipse during the tumultuous, emotion-laden Khalifat movement (1920-23), was revived by Jinnah with the assistance of Fazl-i-Hussain in 1924, became divided into Jinnah and Shafi Leagues over the Muslim response to Simon Commission in 1927, and later into Aziz and Hedayat factions (1933), and was finally re-united under Jinnah's leadership in 1934. The united Muslim League held its first session in Bombay in April 1936, where it formulated its programme and decided for the first time in its annals to contest (provincial) elections, scheduled for early 1937. Despite the lack of an organizational network, of finances, and of an organ to back up its cause and candidates, the Muslim League yet secured 112 (about 23 percent) out of 491 Muslim seats. Its performance was comparatively better in the Muslim minority provinces, but poor in the Muslim majority ones, except in Bengal where it emerged as the single largest party. However, having won the largest number of Muslim seats on an all-India basis, it emerged as the only Muslim party on an all-India plane. Moreover, it could lay claim to the pan-Indian Muslim constituency.

Although three more years were to elapse before the Pakistan platform was adopted at Lahore, the struggle for Pakistan had, in a sense, begun in 1937. these three crucial years represented the predatory stage for launching the Pakistan demand, and had Jinnah not taken the steps transforming it into the authoritative spokesman of the pan-Indian Muslim community, the Pakistan platform could never have been adopted, and if perchance it had, the movement would have failed to take-off. Hence, in the final analysis, the fortunes of the Muslim League at various stags and in various regions provided, as it were, an index to the nature, quantum and strength of Muslim response to the Pakistan demand, whether actual or potential, at various junctures and in various regions.

One reliable index of the strength of the AIML in the Muslim majority and minority regions is provided by the number of League sessions held in the two regions. Till 1937 when the Muslim League was reorganized, 19 sessions (or part sessions) were held in the Muslim minority areas, and 11 in the majority ones, four of them in Calcutta, and the inaugural session in Dacca (1960); (for our purposes, the whole of Bengal and Punjab are considered Muslim majority areas, and not the post 1947 bifurcated provinces). This measure of AIML's strength in the minority areas was also reflected in its showing at the hustings in early 1937.

As Anil Seal has shown, political consciousness had first come to the coastal presidencies of Bengal, Bombay and Madras, and much later and much too slowly to the land-locked provinces of Upper India. This was also the case with Muslims, except for United Provinces which had been the focal point of Muslim politics since the days of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. For long, Bengali Muslims had, for various reasons, been denied an equitable share in the portals of power, and felt oppressed; that, in part, explains why the Muslim League, often considered the party of the underdog in power terms on an all-India plane, had always shown strength in Bengal much the same way as it did in Muslim minority areas, and as against the predominantly Muslim north-west India.

A strategist that Jinnah was, he was keen to consolidate his gains in the minority provinces and in Bengal before launching the Muslim League further afield. The developing policy of the Congress in these provinces and its posture in Bengal gave him the chance of a life-time which he seized adroitly. The Muslim League entered into a coalition in Bengal with Fazlul Haq's KPP, and in the Hindu provinces, into a headlong confrontation with the Congress. The Muslim north-west (Punjab, Sind and the Frontier), then dominated by provincial notables and parties, could well wait till he had consolidated the Muslim League and made it a comprehensive all India Muslim party vis-a-vis the Congress.

As attested to by both Professors Coupland and Robinson, the U.P. was the "key" province of Indian politics; it was also the province which had provided Muslim leadership on an all-India plane. U.P. also became the test case for the Congress' attitude on the Muslim issue. It was therefore, to be won over for the Muslim League at all costs. This explains why Jinnah for Lucknow as the venue for the 1937 session instead of Lahore where the reception to the League was unpredictable in view of the Unionist ministry under Sir Sikander Hayat Khan.

In the post-1936 period as well, the pattern of League sessions, in terms of their venues, was the same as in the pre-1936 period: five in Muslim minority provinces as against two (Lahore and Karachi) in the majority provinces; (no sessions were held during 1944-47). However, the most important of them were Lucknow (1937) and Lahore (1940). "We are here not to follow history but to create history", declared the Raja of Mahmudabad, Chairman, Reception Committee, at Lucknow. Jinnah himself considered the Lucknow session as "the most critical" in the League's entire history (as of that date), involving "the fate and future of the Musalmans of India, and the country at large". It would however, be superseded by Lahore which Jinnah termed as "a landmark in the history of India". Even so, but for Lucknow, there would have been no Lahore.

In perspective, Lucknow represented more than a turning point in modern Muslim India's history. Here the AIML transformed itself into a democratic organization, declared its entry into mass politics, and added to itself external appurtenances (such as a party flag, an anthem, and a Volunteer corps) which symbolize and entrench the party in the popular mind.

Lucknow also witnessed the adherence of three important regional notables to the Muslim Leageu's ranks. Sir Sikander Hayat Khan, Fazlul Haq and Sir Muhammad Sadullah, the prime Ministers of the Punjab, Bengal and Assam respectively, joined the AIML along with their followers in the provincial legislatures. Their adherence ensured for the AIML a dominant position in the Muslim majority provinces as well, repaired a flaw in its representative status, and transformed it into a pan-Indian party in the real sense of the term.