From concept to creation: The birth of Pakistan

During the British rule for the first time, India was united. Hindus and Muslims remained together for about ninety years under British rule. But the major communities i.e. Hindu and Muslim remained indifferent due to many factors, pertaining to history, religion, culture and language.

The Muslims were weary and critical of the British system of government in India right from the start. Their disintegration started with the Indian National Congress’s claim for self-government. The Muslims feared that with the introduction of representative institutions on population basis they would remain a permanent minority.

In the Nehru Report as well as at the Round Table Conference, the Indian National Congress pleaded a unitary form of government with maximum powers vested in the centre. The British Government also preferred a unitary form of government. From the onset, the British government was unsympathic towards the Muslims. On the contrary the Muslims were not prepared to live under a central government with the Hindu majority domination. The Muslims realised that under the existing democratic form of government they would remain a “permanent minority” and would be treated as Shudars (untouchables) in the Hindu Raj.

The Congress just after forming Ministries in 7 out of 11 provinces launched anti-Muslim campaigns throughout the country. The Congress Ministries remained in power from July 1937 to November 1939. The Congress refused to form collation ministry with the Muslim League in each province and did not agree to admit anyone into the ministry who did not subscribe to its creed.

The Jinnah became an unquestioned leader of the Muslim community and was elected each year as the President of the League which soon rallied round it the bulk of Muslims all over India.

The idea of Indian partition was not new. Over 140 schemes for the partition of India were suggested from 1856 to 1940. However, the concrete scheme for the establishment of a Muslim state came for the first time from Ch. Rehmat Ali, a student at Cambridge University, who coined the word ‘Pakistan,’ meaning ‘land of the pure.’ It gave concise and comprehensive expression to Iqbal’s idea, contained in his Presidential address at All India Muslim League Session of Allahabad in 1930, and was both a symbol and slogan.

In 1934, Lala Lajpat Rai, one of the founders of Mahasabha, had suggested the partition of India between Hindu and Muslims.

The All India Muslim League set up a Committee to examine the partition proposals and submit a detailed report highlighting the possibilities of a separate homeland of the Muslims of India. Meanwhile Sindh Provincial Muslim League Conference was held under the Chairmanship of Quaid-i-Azam on October 7-9, 1938, where it was demanded that India may be divided into two federations viz. the Federation of Muslim States and the Federation of non-Muslim states.

The Provincial Muslim League of UP also passed a resolution demanding separate homeland for the Muslims of India. All the resolutions were dispatched to the Central offices of the AIML, which set out to put forward the demand for a separate homeland for the Muslims of the sub-continent in its next annual session at Lahore in 1940.

By 1939, the majority of Muslims sought to escape perceived Hindu imperialism, with only a minority maintaining trust in Hindus. Jinnah, recognising Muslim sentiments, strategically navigated their aspirations. The proposal for Indian partition gained momentum when the Punjab Muslim Students Federation advocated for a homeland encompassing Sindh, Baluchistan, NWFP, Kashmir, Punjab, and parts of UP, CP, and Behar. Since March 1939, under M.A. Jinnah’s chairmanship, the sub-committee of the Working Committee of the All India Muslim League convened meetings to explore various schemes for India’s political future. Accordingly, its Working Committee met at Castle Mustafa, Meerut, on March 26, 1939 and passed the following resolution:

“Whereas the All India Muslim League is opposed to the Scheme of Federation embodied in the Government of India Act, and whereas the working of the Provincial part of the Constitution has created grave apprehensions among Muslims and other minorities regarding their future, because the Provincial scheme has utterly failed to safeguard even the elementary rights of the Muslim minorities in various Provinces, and whereas by a resolution passed at the Patna Session in December 1938, the President of the All India Muslim League was authorised to adopt such course as may be necessary with a view to explore the possibility of a suitable alternative which would safeguard the interests of the Musalmans and other minorities, the President, with the concurrence of the Working Committee, hereby appoints a Committee of the following gentlemen to examine various schemes already propounded by those who are fully versed in the constitutional developments of India and other countries and those that may be submitted hereafter to the President, and report to the Working Committee their conclusions at any early date.

Subsequently, the Quaid-i-Azam, addressing a meeting of the League Council held at Delhi on April 8, 1939 said that there were several schemes in the field, including that of dividing the country into Muslim and Hindu India. These schemes were before the Committee, which had been set up by the Working Committee of the Muslim League. He assured the meeting that the Committee was not pledged to any scheme. It would examine the whole question and produce a scheme which, according to the Committee, would be in the best interest of the Muslims of India.

On January 1, 1940, Quaid-i-Azam, in his reply to Gandhi’s letter defined the basis of nationalism: Let me say again that India is not a nation, nor a country. It is a sub-continent composed of nationalities, Hindus and Muslims being the two major nations. Today you deny that religion can be a main factor in determining a nation, but you yourself, when asked what your motif in life was, the thing that leads us to do what we do, whether it was religious, or social or political, said: ‘Purely religious’”.

On March 23, 1940, the famous Pakistan Resolution was unanimously passed. It was presented by Bengal Chief Minister Maulvi Fazal-ul-Haq, known as ‘Sher-e-Bengal’, and seconded by Chaudhri Khaliq-uz-Zaman and others. The resolution outlined key principles, emphasising the formation of independent states for Muslims in regions where they were in a majority, with autonomous and sovereign constituent units, and providing mandatory safeguards for minorities’ rights. Later on the word “States” was amended at the All India Muslim League Legislator’s Convention held at Delhi in April 1946. This resolution, demanding the establishment of a sovereign independent state of Pakistan, paved the way for the creation of Pakistan on August 14, 1947, ultimately becoming the world’s largest Muslim country.