Two-Nation Theory
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The Two-Nation Theory was the basis for the Partition of India in 1947. It stated that Muslims and Hindus were two separate nations by every definition, and therefore Muslims should have an autonomous homeland in the Muslim majority areas of British India for the safeguard of their political, cultural, and social rights, within or without a United India.
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[edit] History
The ideology of Pakistan took shape through an evolutionary process, based on historical experience. Muslim Modernist and reformer Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-1898) began the period of South Asian Muslim self-awakening and identity; Poet Philosopher Allama Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938), (the poet of East), provided the philosophical explanation; and Barrister Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948) translated it into the political reality of a nation state. The All-India Muslim League, in attempting to represent Indian Muslims, felt that the Muslims of the subcontinent were a distinct and separate nation from the Hindus. At first they demanded separate electorates, but when they came to the conclusion that Muslims would not be safe in a Hindu-dominated India, they began to demand a separate state. The League demanded self-determination for Muslim-majority areas in the form of a sovereign state promising minorities equal rights and safeguards in these Muslim majority areas.
The evidence cited for the differences dates to the beginning of the eleventh century, when the scholar Al-Biruni (973-1048) observed that Hindus and Muslims differed in all matters and habits. Allama Iqbal's presidential address to the Muslim League on 29 December 1930 is seen as the first introduction of the two-nation theory in support of what would ultimately become Pakistan. Ten years later, Jinnah made a speech in Lahore on 22 March 1940 which was very similar to Al-Biruni's thesis in theme and tone. Jinnah stated that Hindus and Muslims belonged to two different religious philosophies, with different social customs and literature, with no intermarriage and based on conflicting ideas and concepts. Their outlook on life and of life was different and despite 1,000 years of history, the relations between the Hindus and Muslims could not attain the level of cordiality. The only difference between the writing of Al-Biruni and the speech of Jinnah was that Al-Biruni made calculated predictions, while Jinnah had history behind him to support his argument.
[edit] Support
Some right wing Hindu leaders such as Vinayak Damodar Savarkar endorsed the Two-Nation Theory. However, Savarkar, the leader of the Hindu Mahasabha, believed that the new nation state of Pakistan should be formed somewhere in the Middle East as opposed to being in the lands in which the Vedic religion was founded and in which Hinduism thrived until the Islamic invasion.
In an Op-Ed piece in the Pakistan Times, Samina Mallah asserts that the Two-Nation Theory is relevant to this day [1], citing factors such as lower literacy and education levels amongst Indian Muslims as compared to Indian Hindus, long-standing cultural differences, and outbreaks of religious violence such as those occurring during the 2002 Gujarat Riots in India; as well as the two nation-states of Bangladesh and Pakistan as the reality of the Two Nation Theory, although no longer part of each other yet separate from Hindu Republic of India.
[edit] Criticism
Some historians have claimed that the theory was a creation of a few Muslim intellectuals.[2]
[edit] Partition
Critics of the theory point to the fact that after partition, a significant minority, almost a third of the Muslims, remained in the Hindu-majority India, whilst almost all the Hindus and Sikhs chose to leave the Muslim-majority Pakistan and migrate to India during the violence that accompanied partition, [3] leaving Pakistan (after the separation of Bangladesh) today with a Hindu population of 1.5%.[4]
[edit] Creation of Bangladesh
Critics, some in Pakistan, also point to the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, as an example that a homogeneous Muslim majority may not always guarantee unity or security and that this concept was buried in the secession of East Pakistan now Bangladesh.[5] Irfan Husain, in his editorial in the Dawn observes that it has now become an "impossible and exceedingly boring task of defending a defunct theory."[6] However some Pakistanis including Shaukat Qadir, a retired Pakistani Brigadier believe that the theory could only be disproved with the reunification of independent East Bengal, and Republic of India.[7]
[edit] Statements and sayings
In Muhammad Ali Jinnah All India Muslim League Presidential Address delivered at Lahore, on March 22-23, 1940, he explained:
| “ | It is extremely difficult to appreciate why our Hindu friends fail to understand the real nature of Islam and Hinduism. They are not religions in the strict sense of the word, but are, in fact, different and distinct social orders, and it is a dream that the Hindus and Muslims can ever evolve a common nationality, and this misconception of one Indian nation has troubles and will lead India to destruction if we fail to revise our notions in time. The Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs, litterateurs. They neither intermarry nor interdine together and, indeed, they belong to two different civilizations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their aspect on life and of life are different. It is quite clear that Hindus and Mussalmans derive their inspiration from different sources of history. They have different epics, different heroes, and different episodes. Very often the hero of one is a foe of the other and, likewise, their victories and defeats overlap. To yoke together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority, must lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built for the government of such a state. | ” |
Allama Iqbal's statement explaining the attitude of Muslim delegates to the Round-Table Conference issued in December, 1933 was a rejoinder to Jawahar Lal Nehru's statement. Nehru had said that the attitude of the Muslim delegation was based on "reactionarism." Iqbal concluded his rejoinder with:
| “ | In conclusion I must put a straight question to pundit Jawahar Lal, how is India's problem to be solved if the majority community will neither concede the minimum safeguards necessary for the protection of a minority of 80 million people, nor accept the award of a third party; but continue to talk of a kind of nationalism which works out only to its own benefit? This position can admit of only two alternatives. Either the Indian majority community will have to accept for itself the permanent position of an agent of British imperialism in the East, or the country will have to be redistributed on a basis of religious, historical and cultural affinities so as to do away with the question of electorates and the communal problem in its present form. | ” |
[edit] References
- ^ Two-Nation Theory Exists. Pakistan Times.
- ^ India and Pakistan in the Shadow of Afghanistan, Amaury de Riencourt, Foreign Affairs, Winter 1982/83
- ^ Sixty bitter years after Partition - BBC News
- ^ , The Largest Hindu Communities
- ^ Two Nation Theory
- ^ A discourse of the deaf By Irfan Husain 4 November 2000 Dawn
- ^ India and Partition. Daily Times.
- ^ Official website, Nazaria-e-Pakistan Foundation. "Excerpt from the Presidential Address delivered by the Quaid-i-Azam Lahore on March 22-23, 1940". Retrieved on 2006-04-22.
- ^ Official website, Iqbal Academy, Lahore. "Iqbal and the Pakistan Movement". Retrieved on 2006-04-22.
[edit] External links
- Story of Pakistan website, Jin Technologies (Pvt) Limited. "The Ideology of Pakistan: Two-Nation Theory". Retrieved on 2006-04-22.
- Official website, Nazaria-e-Pakistan Foundation. "The Two-Nation Theory". Retrieved on 2006-04-22.
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