Muslim League

All India Muslim League
Leader Nawab Viqar-ul-Mulk (first Honorary President)
Founded 30 December 1906, Dhaka
Headquarters Lucknow (first headquarters)
Ideology Political rights for Muslims

The Muslim League (Urdu: آل انڈیا مسلم لیگ, Bengali:?????? ???) founded at Dhaka in 1906, was a political party in British India that developed into the driving force behind the creation of Pakistan as a Muslim state on the Indian subcontinent.[1] After the independence of India and Pakistan, the League continued as a minor party in India, especially in Kerala, where it is often in government within a coalition with others. In Pakistan, the League formed the country's first government, but disintegrated during the 1950s following an army coup. One or more factions of the Muslim League have been in power in most of the civilian governments of Pakistan since 1947. In Bangladesh, the party was revived in 1976 and won 14 seats in 1979 parliamentary election. Since then it eventually became a party of insignificant importance.

Contents

Background

Islamic rule was established across northern India between the 8th and the 14th centuries. The Muslim Mughal Empire ruled most of India from Delhi from the early 16th century, but after a major decline, its last power base in northern India was broken by the British in the 19th century. This left a dis-empowered and discontented Muslim minority. Muslims represented about 40% of the population of British India, and constituted the majority of the population in Baluchistan, East Bengal, Kashmir valley, North-West Frontier Province, Punjab region and the Sindh region of the Bombay Presidency.

In the late 19th century an Indian nationalist movement developed with the Indian National Congress being founded in 1885 as a forum, that became a political party subsequently. The Congress made no conscious efforts to enlist the Muslim community in its struggle for Indian independence. Although some Muslims were active in the Congress, majority of Muslim leaders did not trust the Hindu predominance and most of the Muslims remained reluctant to join the Congress Party.

A turning point came in 1900 when the British administration in the largest Indian state, the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh), acceded to Hindu demands and made Hindi, written in the Devanagari script, the official language. This seemed to aggravate Muslim fears that the Hindu majority would seek to suppress Muslim culture and religion in an independent India. A British official, Sir Percival Griffiths, wrote of these perceptions: "the Muslim belief that their interest must be regarded as completely separate from those of the Hindus, and that no fusion of the two communities was possible."

Foundation

The founding meeting of the League was held on 30 December 1906 at the occasion of the annual All India Muhammadan Educational Conference in Shahbagh, Dhaka that was hosted by Nawab Sir Khwaja Salimullah. The meeting was attended by three thousand delegates and presided over by Nawab Viqar-ul-Mulk. The resolution was moved by Nawab Salimullah which was seconded by Hakim Ajmal Khan. Nawab Viqar-ul-Mulk declared:[2]

The Musalmans (Muslims) are only a fifth in number as compared with the total population of the country, and it is manifest that if at any remote period the British government ceases to exist in India, then the rule of India would pass into the hands of that community which is nearly four times as large as ourselves... our life, our property, our honour, and our faith will all be in great danger, when even now that a powerful British administration is protecting its subjects, we the Musalmans have to face most serious difficulties in safe-guarding our interests from the grasping hands of our neighbors.

Early years

Sir Agha Khan was appointed the first Honorary President of the Muslim League. The headquarters were established at Lucknow. There were also six vice-presidents, a secretary and two joint secretaries initially appointed for a three-years term, proportionately from different provinces.[3] The principles of the League were espoused in the "Green Book," which included the organisation's constitution, written by Maulana Mohammad Ali. Its goals at this stage did not include establishing an independent Muslim state, but rather concentrated on protecting Muslim liberties and rights, promoting understanding between the Muslim community and other Indians, educating the Muslim and Indian community at large on the actions of the government, and discouraging violence.

The idea of a Muslim political party was not new, but Sir Syed Ahmed Khan's advice to stand aloof from separatist ideas had previously persuaded Indian Muslims to avoid political mobilisation. Among those Muslims in the Congress who did not initially join the AIML was Muhammed Ali Jinnah, a prominent Bombay lawyer and statesman. This was because the first article of the League's platform was "To promote among the Mussalmans [Muslims] of India, feelings of loyalty to the British Government." Jinnah did not join the League until 1913, when it changed its platform to one of Indian independence as a reaction against the British decision to reverse the 1905 Partition of Bengal, which the League regarded as a betrayal of the Bengali Muslims. At this stage Jinnah believed in Muslim-Hindu co-operation to achieve an independent, united India, although he argued that Muslims should be guaranteed one-third of the seats in any Indian Parliament.

Jinnah became the Muslim League's president in 1916, and negotiated the Lucknow Pact with the Congress, in which Congress conceded the principle of separate electorates and weighted representation for the Muslim community. But Jinnah broke with the Congress in 1920 when the Congress leader, Mohandas Gandhi, launched a law violating Non-Cooperation Movement against the British, which Jinnah disapproved of. Jinnah also became convinced that the Congress would renounce its support for separate electorates for Muslims, which indeed it did in 1928. Jinnah -temperamentally rational, aristocratic and law abiding - had little liking for either the Hindu asceticism of Gandhi or the secular socialism of the other major Congress leader, Jawaharlal Nehru.

The search for a solution

Jinnah became disillusioned with politics after the failure of his attempt to form a Hindu-Muslim alliance, and he spent most of the 1920s in Britain. The leadership of the League was taken over by Sir Muhammad Iqbal, who in 1930 first put forward the demand for a separate Muslim state in India. The "Two-Nation Theory," the belief that Hindus and Muslims were two different nations who could not live in one country, gained popularity among Muslims. The two-state solution was rejected by the Congress leaders, who favoured a united India based on composite national identity. Iqbal's policy of uniting the North-West Frontier Province, Baluchistan, Punjab, and Sindh into a new Muslim majority state united the many factions of the League.

In 1927 the British proposed a constitution for India as recommended by the Simon Commission, but they failed to reconcile all parties. The British then turned the matter over to the League and the Congress, and in 1928 an All-Parties Congress was convened in Delhi. The attempt failed, but two more conferences were held. At the Bombay conference in May, it was agreed that a small committee should work on the constitution. The prominent Congress leader Motilal Nehru (father of Jawaharlal) headed the committee, which included two Muslims, Syed Ali Imam and Shoaib Quereshi.

The League, however, rejected the proposal that the committee returned (called the Nehru Report), arguing that it gave too little representation (one quarter) to Muslims – the League had demanded at least one-third representation in the legislature. Jinnah reported a "parting of the ways" after reading the report, and relations between the Congress and the League began to sour.

The election in Britain of Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government in 1929 fuelled new hopes for progress towards self-government in India. Gandhi traveled to London, claiming to represent all Indians and criticising the League as sectarian and divisive. Round-table talks were held, but these achieved little, since Gandhi and the League were unable reach a compromise. The fall of the Labour government in 1931 ended this period of optimism.

Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan presided at the Delhi Meeting of the All India Muslim League in 1931 and advocated the cause of the Indian Muslims through his presidential address.

In the 1935 Government of India Act, the British for the first time proposed to hand over substantial power to elected Indian provincial legislatures, with elections to be held in 1937. Jinnah returned to India and resumed leadership of the League, which now perceived the Hindu majority as a threat. After the elections the League took office in Bengal and Punjab, but the Congress won office in most of the other Indian states, and refused to share power with the League in states with large Muslim minorities.

Campaign for Pakistan

Muslim League Working Committee at the Lahore session

At a League conference in Lahore in 1940, Jinnah said: "Hindus and the Muslims belong to two different religions, philosophies, social customs and literature... It is quite clear that Hindus and Muslims derive their inspiration from different sources of history. They have different epics, different heroes and different episodes... 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 up for the government of such a state."

At Lahore the League formally recommitted itself to creating an independent Muslim state called Pakistan, including Sindh, Punjab, the North West Frontier Province and Bengal, that would be "wholly autonomous and sovereign." The resolution guaranteed protection for non-Muslim religions. The Lahore Resolution was adopted on March 23 1940, and its principles formed the foundation for Pakistan's first constitution. Talks between Jinnah and Gandhi in 1944 in Bombay failed to achieve agreement. This was the last attempt to reach a single-state solution.

Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman seconding the Resolution with Jinnah presiding the session

In the 1940s, Jinnah emerged as the recognised leader of the Indian Muslims and was popularly known as Quaid-e-Azam (Great Leader). In the Constituent Assembly elections of 1946, the League won 425 out of 496 seats reserved for Muslims (and about 89.2% of Muslim votes) on a policy of creating an independent state of Pakistan, and with an implied threat of secession if this was not granted. Gandhi and Nehru, who with the election of another Labour government in Britain in 1945 saw independence within reach, were adamantly opposed to dividing India. They knew that the Hindus, who saw India as one indivisible entity, could never agree to such a thing.

By 1946 the British had neither the will, nor the financial or military power, to hold India any longer, and Jinnah knew that independence was imminent. Political deadlock ensued in the Constituent Assembly, and Britain's Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, sent a special mission to India to mediate the situation. When the talks broke down, Attlee sent Earl Mountbatten, India's last Viceroy, to negotiate the partition of India and immediate British withdrawal. Mountbatten told Gandhi and Nehru that if they did not accept partition there would be civil war. However, triggered mainly by events related to controversial partition of British India's Punjab and Bengal provinces (between India and Pakistan), a 'civil war' did in fact break out in these provinces and spread to other areas of mixed population, with an unprecedent loss of life and property on both sides.

After the formation of Pakistan, the Muslim League survived as a minor party in India, but later splintered into several groups, the most important of which is the Indian Union Muslim League.

The League in Pakistan

In Pakistan, Jinnah became Governor-General, and another League leader, Liaquat Ali Khan became Prime Minister. All India Muslim League was disbanded in December 1947 and succeeded by two organisations, the Pakistan Muslim League and the Indian Union Muslim League. Jinnah resigned as the president of the Muslim League on 17 December and the two Muslim Leagues respectively elected Ch. Khaliquzzaman as President for Pakistan Muslim League and Nawab Muhammad Ismail as the president for Indian Union Muslim League.

Jinnah died in September 1948 and Liaquat was assassinated in October 1951. Robbed of its two senior leaders, the League began to disintegrate. By 1953, dissensions within the League had led to the formation of several different political parties. Liaquat was succeeded by Khawaja Nazimuddin, a Bengali, who was forced out of office in April 1953. Pakistan was racked by riots and famine, and at the first national elections in May 1955 (held by a system of indirect voting) the League was heavily defeated.

In October 1958 the Army seized power and the martial law regime of Muhammad Ayub Khan banned all political parties. This was the end of the old Muslim League. The name still held great prestige, however, and Ayub Khan later formed a new party, the Convention Muslim League. The opposition faction became known as the Council Muslim League. This latter group joined a united front with other political parties in 1967 in opposition to the regime. But when the military regime of Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan fell in December 1971, and Pakistan's first genuine free elections were held; both factions of the League were swept out of power: in West Pakistan by the Pakistan Peoples Party of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and in East Pakistan by the Awami League of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

In 1988, after the death of Pakistan's military ruler and later civilian President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, a new Muslim League was formed under the leadership of Nawaz Sharif, but it had no connection with the original Muslim League. Sharif was Prime Minister from 1990 to 1993 and again from 1997 to 1999, when he was ousted in Pakistan's third military coup. At the controversial elections held by the military regime of Pervez Musharraf in October, five different parties using the name Muslim League contested seats. The largest of these, the Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam), won 69 seats out of 272, and the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), loyal to Nawaz Sharif, won 19 seats. After the last elections held in 2008, Nawaz Sharif's Muslim League is in the ruling coalition and the Quaid-e-Azam league is in opposition.

Current factions

References

  1. ↑ Jalal, Ayesha (1994) The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521458504
  2. ↑ The Statesman: The All India Muslim League, Government of Pakistan website. Retrieved on 11 May 2007
  3. ↑ Establishment of All India Muslim League, Story of Pakistan website. Retrieved on 11 May, 2007

See also

External links