The demand for Pakistan was not based on religion per se. This is a fallacy that has been propagated by supporters and critics of Pakistan alike. The demand for Pakistan was an attempt to arrive at a power sharing agreement between Muslims and Hindus, which formed the two main communities of the subcontinent.
Mr. Owei Lakemfa’s article “Tragedy of Separation: The Story of India” unfortunately contained glaring errors about the Muslim League and the demand for Pakistan.
First of all, the founder of Pakistan, Mr. Mahomed Ali Jinnah, was called the best Ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity by the Congress. He tried longer and harder to keep India united and only resorted to the demand for Pakistan after all his attempts at a united India were thwarted.
Jinnah was not a religiously inclined person but was extremely secular, both in his public and private life. His objective, once he became the League president, was to get a fair share for the Muslim minority in India. The two nation theory, as it has now become known, never said Hindus and Muslims could not live together but that they were two nations who must be treated at parity when determining the future constitution of India. The demand for Pakistan was more of a bargaining counter than anything else. Dr. Ayesha Jalal, the American historian, and H. M. Seervai, the Indian jurist, have convincingly shown through a careful sifting of facts that Jinnah was ready to accept a united India with suitable autonomy for Muslim areas in the subcontinent.
The claim that Muslims asked for Pakistan because they could not be ruled by a non-believer is an inaccurate claim. Nor did Jinnah make it a pre-condition for a United India. Jinnah accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan which proposed a three tier federation which would have kept India united. The Cabinet Mission Plan was ultimately rejected, in spirit, by the Congress which led to the partition of India.
Pakistan’s first law minister, appointed by Jinnah himself, was Mr. Jogindranath Mandal, a Hindu. Pakistan’s first national anthem was written by Jagganath Azad, another Hindu. Therefore to say that the Muslim demand was based on the idea that they could not live together with Hindus is completely inaccurate and wrong. What Muslims wanted was a sense of autonomy and sovereignty in those provinces of India that had a Muslim majority.
Jinnah was alarmed by this blatant and unrestrained use of religion by Congress’ new leader. His attempts to get Congress to reconsider Gandhi’s motions on non-cooperation and Khilafat ended in failure. He then tried to reason with Gandhi, informing him that his policy would turn Hindus against Muslims, and Muslims against other Muslims.
As for Jinnah, he joined politics in the Congress Party in 1904 as an Indian nationalist and a moderate. Congress itself was roughly divided into two camps – the moderates and extremists. The moderate camp was led by Gopal Krishan Gokhale, while the extremist camp was led by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, both of who Jinnah enjoyed excellent relations with. The former, he wanted to emulate and the latter, he represented in the famous Tilak Sedition Case where he won an acquittal for his comrade at the Bombay High Court. Within the Congress, he unflinchingly stood for the struggle for self-rule through constitutional means. In 1906 when a group of influential Muslims petitioned the Viceroy for separate electorates, Jinnah was amongst the loudest critics of the proposition. In 1910, Jinnah, as a Congressman, defeated a Muslim League candidate to become the representative of Bombay’s urban Muslim constituency. He was admitted to the Viceroy’s Council where he forwarded the cause of self-rule and greater Indianisation of the bureaucracy. Jinnah also spoke fervently in support of Gandhi’s movement in South Africa against racial injustice meted out to the Indians there.
In 1913, encouraged by his Congress colleagues, Jinnah equally joined the All India Muslim League on the condition that his work there would not hamper or in any way come before his commitment to the Indian national cause to which his life was dedicated. The idea was to bring the Muslim League closer to the point of view of the Congress on the issue of Indian self-rule, something which Jinnah delivered. Not only was the Muslim League’s aims amended to include the demand for self-rule but in 1916 the Muslim League entered into the Lucknow Pact with the Congress – a veritable charter of Hindu Muslim Unity aimed at achieving a self-governing Indian dominion. Such was his reputation and his nationalism, that he was widely hailed as the “Best Ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity” by leading Indian politicians, including Sarojini Naidu, the poetess and Congress leader. In 1918, Jinnah’s services, especially in the Town Hall agitation against Governor Willingdon, were recognised and a hall was dedicated in his name through subscription by citizens of Bombay.
Things began to change with the advent of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi on the Indian scene. Upon his return from South Africa, Gandhi initially scorned the efforts of the Congress and Indian Nationalists, arguing for unconditional loyalty to the crown. By 1919 however, Gandhi came to dominate the Congress and the Home Rule League, after having been nominated as president of the latter by none other than Jinnah. Gandhi felt that the masses could only be mobilised through an appeal to religion, both for Hindus and Muslims. He gave the call for non-cooperation and began using the Hindi vernacular and religious idiom for the Hindus. As for Muslims, he began championing the cause of Khilafat, which he said was the only way to save the cow from the Muslim knife. Gandhi said cow protection was the central plank of Hindu faith and that by championing the Muslim cause, he aimed to convince them to give up the slaughter of cows. Gandhi also urged the Anglicised elites, lawyers and professionals in the Congress to give up western clothing and instead use home spun Khadi.
Though one claims to be an Islamic Republic and the other a secular one, both countries have an atrocious record in the treatment of minorities. Both are majoritarian states, which marginalise minority groups from effective governance, as well as a share in the economic pie.
Jinnah was alarmed by this blatant and unrestrained use of religion by Congress’ new leader. His attempts to get Congress to reconsider Gandhi’s motions on non-cooperation and Khilafat ended in failure. He then tried to reason with Gandhi, informing him that his policy would turn Hindus against Muslims, and Muslims against other Muslims. Gandhi however was convinced that his way was the right way, and with the help of his new found supporters who now swelled the ranks of Congress, many of them pious Muslims, Gandhi maneuvered Jinnah’s exit from the party. This was the beginning of the long road that ended with the partition of the country. There were many stops on the way. In response to the Nehru Report, which was denounced by the then Muslim leadership, Jinnah, playing the role of the bridge builder, attempted once again to bring Congress and the League together on one platform with his Delhi proposals, which would have conceded joint electorates and resolved the Hindu Muslim question. However his proposals were summarily dismissed by the Congress, which questioned his representative credentials. It was then that Jinnah was firmly forced into the Muslim camp led by Aga Khan and his colleagues.
With his faith in Hindu Muslim Unity bright as ever, Jinnah began to work to prove his representative status. In 1936, as the president of the Muslim League, he made radical changes to the party, re-organising it along modern lines and giving it a manifesto that was very close in spirit to that of the Congress. In 1937 after the elections, Jinnah attempted once more to get Congress to agree to coalition ministries in UP and Bombay, but he was spurned yet again. Now he began to cobble together coalitions in the Muslim majority provinces where the League had done badly. By 1940, when the Lahore Resolution was passed, Jinnah had managed to bring the powerful premiers of Punjab and Bengal under the League umbrella. He could now effectively claim to speak for Muslims of India at the centre.
The demand for Pakistan was not based on religion per se. This is a fallacy that has been propagated by supporters and critics of Pakistan alike. The demand for Pakistan was an attempt to arrive at a power sharing agreement between Muslims and Hindus, which formed the two main communities of the subcontinent. It was also a rebellion against any constitutional formula that would perpetuate caste Hindu rule in the country, a common grievance of not only Muslims but also lower caste Hindus and the scheduled castes. This is why Muslim League was supported at key junctures by Dalit leadership, Christians and even some Hindus. The idea was not to have two separate majoritarian states born out of a bloody partition but to re-constitute India along a Hindustan and a Pakistan line, which would then come together in a federation of India. This is why Jinnah, the ardent partitionist of our imagining, jumped at the idea of the Cabinet Mission Plan.
The Cabinet Mission Plan was a consociationalist solution that would have – if allowed to run – in due course laid the foundation of a truly secular society in the subcontinent, where the overarching ambitions of Hindu and Muslim elites could be checked by effective safeguards. Unfortunately the proposal was shelved owing to the centralising priorities of the then Congress leadership, which denounced the plan as worse than partition. In 1947, Pakistan and India were born as two separate dominions. Though one claims to be an Islamic Republic and the other a secular one, both countries have an atrocious record in the treatment of minorities. Both are majoritarian states, which marginalise minority groups from effective governance, as well as a share in the economic pie.
Yasser Latif Hamdani, a visiting fellow at Harvard Law School and human rights lawyer, is based in Pakistan. He is also the author of the book Jinnah Myth and Reality.
