Pakistan Movement
The Pakistan Movement or Tehrik-e-Pakistan (Urdu: تحریک پاکستان) has its origins in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh (present day Uttar Pradesh). Muslims there were a minority, yet their elite had a disproportionate amount of representation in the civil service and overall influence. The idea of Pakistan began from this part of Northern India, from the elite of this region to popular following and then onwards to the rest of India.[1] The movement was led by lawyer Muhammad Ali Jinnah and such leaders as Allama Iqbal, Liaqat Ali Khan, Fatima Jinnah, Bahadur Yar Jung, Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, A.K. Fazlul Huq, and Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar, Sir Ziauddin Ahmed.
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History of the movement
Minority Muslims
Muhammad Ali Jinnah desired to build a state on a principle, composed of three parts, "one nation, one culture, one language". Pakistan was to be the homeland of Muslims belonging to British India. Jinnah represented the Muslims of the British Raj, who belonged to the provinces where Muslims were a minority, i.e., present-day Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat and Maharashtra. Muslims who migrated to Pakistan after the partition are known as Muhajirs in Pakistan today.
The replacement of Persian, in 1837, with English and the local languages, of the various provinces of British-ruled India, as official and court languages, resulted in Hindi being given the same status as Urdu as an official language of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. This made the Muslim elite wary. Furthermore, the democratization process by the British in the late 1800s, made these Muslims feel that they would lose all of their privileged influence.
In 1909, the British allowed their subjects elect part of their Legislative Councils. This move added further to the fears of marginalization among Muslims as they made up only 20% of the population of British India and, to make matters worse, only a small number of them (20%) even bothered to vote (1881 census). The provinces where the Muslims were a minority were the most alarmed, particularly those belonging to the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh as the Muslim elite there had the most to lose. In the United Provinces, Muslims made up only 13.4% of the population but held 45% of the civil service jobs.
In the late 1800s, the Muslims from the United Provinces assembled under Syed Ahmed Khan. First of all, he wanted to improve education within his community. Toward this goal he founded the Muhammedan Anglo-Oriental College (MAO College) in Aligarh in 1869 which later developed into the Aligarh Muslim University by 1911. MAO College produced the first opponents of the Indian National Congress. Congress claimed to represent all Indians, but Muslims made up only 6.6% of the delegates between 1892 and 1909.
The 1882 local self-government act had already troubled Syed Ahmed Khan. When, in 1906, the British announced their intention to establish Legislative Councils, Muhsin al-Mulk, the secretary of MAO College, hoping to win a separate Legislative Council for Muslims, led a delegation to meet with Viceroy Lord Minto, a deal to which Minto agreed because it followed the British divide and rule strategy. The UP Muslims were over-represented in the delegation, which included only seven Punjabis and one Bengali, totally out of proportion to their numbers.
The role of the graduates from Aligarh in creating the Muslim League and then taking part in the Khilafat movement shows the significance of UP Muslims in the origin of Muslim separatist ideas in India. These Muslims actually had a sense of Muslim identity. Separatist feelings among Muslims developed due to not discrimination but social and economic factors. The Muslim elite of UP saw their influence being challenged by the Hindu elite who benefited from their much more speedy integration into the English medium education system.
Though Muslim separatism was diluted as a result of the irregularity of social dissatisfaction felt by the community, people from present-day Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat (Jinnah's native state) and Maharashtra were anxious to distance themselves from the growing Hindu influence. However, the Muslims in majority from Greater Punjab, Greater Bengal, Sindh, and North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) did not share the same sentiment, as they ruled their own regions: Punjab and Bengal. Jinnah's task was to convince these Muslims into backing the two-nation theory.
For Jinnah, Islam laid a cultural base for an ideology of ethnic nationalism whose objective was to gather the Muslim community in order to defend the Muslim minorities. Jinnah's representation of minority Muslims was quite apparent in 1928, when in the All-Party Muslim Conference, he was ready to swap the advantages of separate electorates for a quota of 33% of seats at the Centre. He maintained his views at the Round Table Conferences, while the Muslims of Punjab and Bengal were vying for a much more decentralized political setup. Many of their requests were met in the 1935 Government of India Act. Jinnah and the Muslim League played a peripheral role at the time and in 1937 could manage to gather only 5% of the Muslim vote. Jinnah refused to back down and went ahead with his separatist plan. He presented the two-nation theory in the now famous Lahore Resolution in March 1940, seeking a separate Muslim state,[2]
The idea of a separate state had first been introduced by Allama Iqbal in his speech in December 1930 as the President of the Muslim League.[3]. The state that he visualized included only Punjab, Sindh, North West Frontier Province (NWFP), and Balochistan. Three years later, the name Pakistan was proposed in a declaration in 1933 by Choudhary Rahmat Ali, a University of Cambridge graduate. Again, Bengal was left out of the proposal.[4]. In the Lahore Resolution of March 1940, the proposed state's name remained unrecognized and its borders so undetermined that it was not clear whether there would be one Muslim state or two. It stated "that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority, as in the north-western and eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute independent states in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign."
Part of Jinnah's strategy to entice the leaders of those provinces who continued to oppose the idea of Pakistan was to present all the provinces as loose groupings of the state. The 1937 election resulted in a major shift in Indian politics; the Congress won in seven provinces and lost in four. The Congress success worried the Muslims. Jinnah grasped this moment and suggested that Muslims would be left to contend with a Hindu government after the withdrawal of the British. He stated that "Hindu Congress" was "putting Islam in danger."
Punjab
This was an effective move by Jinnah, especially in Punjab, where the Muslim League had to fend off not just the Congress, whose support base was Hindus living in the cities, but also the Unionist Party, founded in 1922, by peasant leaders Fazl-e-Hussain (a Muslim) and Chhotu Ram (a Hindu). This party won all the elections between 1923 and 1937. However, Fazl-e-Hussain died in 1936 and in September 1937, the new party leader, Sikandar Hayat Khan (Punjabi politician) agreed to sign a pact with Jinnah. Sikandar Hayat Khan's motives remain unclear, but it is suspected that he hoped to become the leader of Muslim League in his own province, if not its ultimate leader. Whatever be the reason, this helped the Muslim League to carve out a niche in Punjab. In the 1946 election campaign, the Muslim League was able to publicize its views widely. It claimed that Islam was threatened by Congress. "Pirs" and "Sajjada Nashin" helped the Muslim League to attract Muslim voters. It won 75 seats to Union Party's 10.
Sindh
In Sindh, the Muslim League remained at the margins till the mid-1940s. Just as in Punjab, it faced two parties, Congress and the Sindh United Party, which had been founded in 1936 when the Sindh Province came into being. Its inspiration was the Punjab Unionist Party. The Muslim League first gained a foothold in Sindh in the 1930s over the Manzilgarh issue, named after a very controversial site that the Muslim League wanted to officially declare as a mosque.
The Muslim League in Sindh was more interested in defending Sindhi culture than in creating an Islamic state for British Raj Muslims. This was obvious from the behaviour of its leader in the 1940s, G. M. Syed, who left Congress in 1938 to become the leader of the Muslim League in Sindh. He championed the cause of regional self-determination in 1946 at the Cabinet Mission. He had been dismissed from the Muslim League, but the Muslim League in Sindh continued to remain steeped in Sindhi nationalism. Many Sindhis regarded the formation of Pakistan as a way of freeing their region from British rule.
Bengal
In Bengal, the Muslim League enjoyed more support than in the other majoritarian provinces. But even here, it gained strength later on. Its popularity was based on its ability to create separatist feelings in East Bengal where the Muslims were mostly concentrated. Here again, the Muslim League had to face off two parties in the 1930s: the Congress and the Krishak Proja Party, a peasant party, founded in 1936 by A.K. Fazlul Haq. This party narrowly ousted the Muslim League by winning 31% of the votes, compared to Muslim League's 27% in the 1937 elections. However, by 1946, the League had won 104 of the 111 seats, by again branding the Congress as "Hindu" and calling it a "threat to Islam". However, the success of the two-nation theory depended on the strong regional feelings with the President of the Bengal Muslim League, declaring in 1944, that religion transcends geographical boundaries, but culture does not and so Bengalis are different from people of other provinces of India and the "religious brothers" of Pakistan.
PK
In NWFP, the Muslim League faced its hardest challenge yet. It had intense competition from Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan dubbed as the "Frontier Gandhi" due to his efforts in following in the footsteps of Gandhi. The popularity of the Congress, along with the strong Paktoon identity created by Ghaffar Khan in the cultural and the political arenas made life hard for the Muslim League. With the support of Ghaffar Khan, the Congress was able to contain the Muslim League to the non-Pakhtoon areas, particularly, the Hazara region. The Muslim League could only manage to win 17 seats, against the 30 won by Congress, in the 1946 elections.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Muslim separatism has its origin in the provinces where the minoritarian Muslims resided as they faced social and political marginalization. In 1946, the Muslim majorities agreed to the idea of Pakistan, as a response to Congress, portrayed as the "Hindu" party by Jinnah, winning in seven of the 11 provinces. This was a small moment of political unity as the Muslim League had not completely established itself in the provinces where the Muslims were in a majority. The principal role of the Muslims of UP was clearly visible from their over-representation in the governing body of the Muslim League. Prior to 1938, Bengal with 33 million Muslims had only ten representatives, less than the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, which were home to only seven million Muslims. The desire of the Muslim minorities to dominate a nation that was still to be created, or whose creation had to be sustained, became obvious soon after Partition in 1947, when a clause in the Lahore Resolution which stated that "constituent units [of the states to come] shall be autonomous and sovereign" was not respected. This clause was used only to bring on board Muslim majorities. Once Pakistan was born, there was no longer any need to woo Muslims who were in majority in any region.[5][6]
Timeline
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Statements and sayings
| “ | I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India.[9] | ” |
- Choudhary Rahmat Ali
| “ | At this solemn hour in the history of India, when British and Indian statesmen are laying the foundations of a Federal Constitution for that land, we address this appeal to you, in the name of our common heritage, on behalf of our thirty million Muslim brethren who live in Pakistan - by which we mean the five Northern units of India, Viz: Punjab, North-West Frontier Province (Afghan Province), Kashmir, Sind and Baluchistan - for your sympathy and support in our grim and fateful struggle against political crucifixion and complete annihilation.[4] | ” |
| “ | It is extremely difficult to appreciate why our Hindu friends fail to understand the real nature of Islam and Hinduism. They are not religious 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, literatures. 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.”[10] | ” |
References
- ↑ http://books.google.com/books?id=dbUuX0mnvQMC&pg=PA1028&lpg=PA1028&dq=pakistan+united+provinces&source=bl&ots=K6A5hGd_mM&sig=-9lnwMarp7cPge6v8ERSn-Xdvak&hl=en&ei=Ee6jSv7UHsSfjAeV44iJCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9#v=onepage&q=&f=false
- ↑ http://books.google.com/books?id=I2avL3aZzSEC&pg=PP1&dq=Pakistan:+Nationalism+without+a+Nation%3F
- ↑ Shafique Ali Khan (1987), Iqbal's Concept of Separate North-west Muslim State: A Critique of His Allahabad Address of 1930, Markaz-e-Shaoor-o-Adab, Karachi, OCLC 18970794
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Choudhary Rahmat Ali, (1933), Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever?, pamphlet, published 28 January
- ↑ http://books.google.com/books?id=I2avL3aZzSEC&pg=PP1&dq=Pakistan:+Nationalism+without+a+Nation%3F
- ↑ http://books.google.com/books?id=Q9sI_Y2CKAcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=A+History+of+Pakistan+and+Its+Origins
- ↑ Allama Mashraqi
- ↑ http://www.allamamashraqi.com/images/The_Khaksar_Martyrs_of_March_19,_1940_by_Nasim_Yousaf.pdf
- ↑ Sir Muhammad Iqbal’s 1930 Presidential Address, from Columbia University site
- ↑ Excerpt from the Presidential Address delivered by Quaid-e-Azam at Lahore, March 22-23, 1940, Nazariapak.info
Other leaders
- Muhammad Ali Jinnah
- Allama Muhammad Iqbal
- Ghulam Bhik Nairang
- Allama Mashriqi
- Nawab Viqar-ul-Mulk
- Chaudhry Naseer Ahmad Malhi
- Maulana Zafar Ali Khan*
See also
- A Short History of Pakistan an edited book by I H Qureshi
- History of Pakistan
- Pakistan Resolution
- National Monument, Islamabad
External links
- "Pakistan Movement Workers Trust -(Tehrik-i-Pakistan) تحریک پاکستان". Pakistan Movement Workers Trust's official website. http://www.pakistanmovement.org.
- "Important Events at a Glance (1857 to 1947)". Nazariapak.info. http://nazariapak.info/pak-history.
- "Pakistan Movement". Pioneers of Freedom. http://www.cybercity-online.net/pof/pakistan_movement.html.
- "The Pakistan Movement". Story of Pakistan website. http://www.storyofpakistan.com/timeline06.htm.
- "History of Pakistan Movement (Tehrik-i-Pakistan) تحریک پاکستان". Ideology of Pakistan website. http://nazariapak.info/pak-history/.
- "Iqbal and the Pakistan Movement". Iqbal Academy Pakistan. http://www.allamaiqbal.com/person/movement/move_main.htm.
- "History of Pakistan Movement". pakistanmovement.org. http://pakistanmovement.org/PakMovement.html.
- "The Pakistan Movement (Picture Gallery)". Pakistan.gov. http://www.pakistan.gov.pk/Quaid/movement_pic.htm.
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