No one bat the most bigoted can disagree with those like Ardesher Cowasjee and Liaquat merchant that Quaid’s mission and vision for Pakistan had nothing to do with religion. He fought for Pakistan so that the Muslims of India could have a state of their own free from the political and economic domination of Hindus, rather than an Islamic state. It was for the very same purpose that a delegation of 35 prominent Muslims led by Aga Khan had met Lord Minto on 1 Oct1906 at Simla and demanded proportionate representation for Muslims in government jobs, appointment of Muslim judges in the high courts and Vice Roy's Council etc. This led to the formation of the All India Muslim League (AIML) on 30 Dec. 1906 in Dhaka, in a conference of Muslim leaders which included Allama Iqbal and Maulana Mohammad Ali Johar. These two events were a direct result of the British administration's accession to Hindus' demand to declare Hindi, written in Devanagri, as the official language of UP and their agitation against the partition of Bengal in 1905. The objectives behind the founding of All India Muslim League (AIML) in 1906 were inter alia to (a) foster better relations between the Muslims of India and the British, (b) protect and advance the political rights and interests of Muslims of India, and (c) prevent the rise among the Muslims of any feeling of hostility towards other communities.
The slogan "Islam in danger"' was actually raised by the communal Hindus to discredit the Muslims' demand for political and administrative rights as communal The same demand for the provision of adequate political and other rights for the Muslims of India, who constituted not just a minority but a nation, became the basis of the "Two Nation" theory. Hence the Pakistan Resolution of 23 March 1940 talks not about Islam but 1) the inadequacy of the scheme of federation embodied in the Gov. of India Act 1935 as "totally unsuited …and unacceptable to Muslim India.", 2) records that Muslim India "will not be satisfied unless the whole constitutional plan is reconsidered de novo"' 3) resolved that "no constitutional plan will be acceptable to the Muslims unless it is designed on the following basic principles viz. geographically contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be grouped to constitute independent states", 4) "specifically provides adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards in the constitution for the minorities…for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights and interests."
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed