The ironic detail however, was that almost all Muslim groups and organizations in the Indian subcontinent that was specifically religious, was unreceptive to Jinnah and the Muslim League, and utterly opposed the Pakistan movement. Consequently, the claim that Pakistan was created to fulfil the ‘millenarian religious aspirations of Indian Muslims’ is somewhat flawed by the fact that the main bearers of the Islamic religion in India were aloof from the Pakistan movement. On the contrary, the English –educated leaders of the Pakistan movement, not least Jinnah himself, were committed to secular politics. Hamza Alavi, writing in ‘Islamic Reassertion in Pakistan’ argues that, ‘It is only in retrospect, when history is being rewritten, that Jinnah is pictured as a religious bigot. The fact remains that Islam was not at the centre of Muslim nationalism in India, but was brought into the political debate in Pakistan after the nation was created.’ (Alavi 1986)
If not a movement of Islam, a movement of what Weiss argues. He claims that is was not a ‘millenarian movement’ seeking a divinely appointed political and social system. Rather, it was a movement in which diverse Muslim ethnic groups from different regions of India, representing different social strata and interests, at the centre of whom were the emerging Muslim salariat (urban professionals), were allied in pursuit of material objectives. For almost forty years, the Muslim League failed to make much impact on the Muslim majority areas which were dominated by feudal landed magnates. The main political support of the Muslim League, Alavi argues, derived mainly from the the salariats. The alliance, such as it was, did not include all Muslims of India all the time. In his book ‘State and Ideology in the Middle East and Pakistan,’ he again endorses this notion that ‘[the] Pakistan movement was a movement of Muslims i.e. an ethnic movement, rather than a movement of 'Islam' i.e. a religious movement.’ (Alavi 1988, Weiss 1986)
In the 1920s, following the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms, Hindu and Muslim landlords was amalgamated under the ‘Agriculturist Party’. Alavi maintains that it was the emergence of the Government of India Act, 1935 that changed the political equation and with the parallel radicalisation of the Congress with its devotion to land reform; the landed entrepreneurs in the UP looked for other options. They decided to join communal organisations, the Hindu Mahasabha, or the All India Muslim Conference or the Muslim League. Behind the rivalry of the Muslim Conference and the Muslim League lay the rival aspirations of Sir Fazl-i-Hussain, who set up the Muslim Conference, to displace Mr. Jinnah as the legitimate spokesman of the Muslims of India. Though the loyalties of the landed magnates were thus much divided, the Muslim 'salariat' stood solidly with the Muslim League. (Alavi 1988)
Alavi investigates how then, did the organisation of a minority of Muslims of India all of a sudden become victorious in founding a new State. He examined the developments that took place in the later war years, the changing hopes and fears of various classes of people, not least the landed magnates, as the prospects of Independence appeared over the horizon. He argued that the year 1946 was the crucial year when the destiny of the Muslim League was finally settled. Forces based in the Muslim majority provinces that had so far conflicted with the Muslim League, unexpectedly changed their colours and turned completely round. Alavi argues that they now chose to follow Mr Jinnah and the Muslim League into Independence. The truth of the matter was the new converts, the feudal lords, did not just join the Muslim league. In reality Alavi argues, they took it over. (Alavi 1988)
According to P. Hardy the sentiment of being a distinct nation emerged among the Indian Muslims only in the 1940s, when it became clear that the British would soon leave India. Muslim professionals feared permanent Hindu command in their united India, and therefore demanded a separate state where their interests could be safeguarded.
The Muslim League in the Punjab were mostly a handful of weak and ineffective group; depite having some quite famous figures in the party. But nonetheless, these were mostly the urban professionals, and members of the ‘salariat’, the educated classes that look to access to government jobs for their upward progression. However, they were patronised by Sir Fazli Husain who at the same time detested them. That Party continued to be the unchallenged ruling Party in the Punjab until the eve of the Partition, with a only a few defections to the Muslim League; but such deficiencies increased rapidly as the prospects of Independence drew over the horizon. Most of them accepted the change of tactics to preserve the long term interests of their class by joining the Muslim League and taking over the new state of Pakistan, which was to be the guarantee of their survival as a landlord class which was threatened by the Congress commitment to land reform.
If we reflect on the fact that the main strength of the movement led by the Muslim League came not from the from the Muslim majority provinces but, instead, from the Muslim minority provinces of India, particularly the UP and Bihar, we are faced with yet another inconsistency. If we deem the Pakistan Movement as one that was aimed at creating a separate state for the Muslims of India, which could be constructed only out of the Muslim majority provinces of India; but initially at any rate, they gave little support to the movement. So, Alvi argues the view of the Pakistan movement was not stimulated by an Islamic ideology. But there are other alternative explanations, of the Pakistan.
After the ‘Islamic Ideology’ theory, a second argument, that we may consider is one that has been much preferred by Indian Nationalist historians is that the Pakistan movement was a movement of Muslim ‘feudal’ landlords who were hand in glove with the British colonial rulers. They suggest that the Movement was instigated and fostered by the British who hoped thereby to divide the Indian nationalist movement - Divide and Rule. (Alavi 1988)
Alavi suggests as a third explanation of the Pakistan movement. It was taken on by the Communist Party in 1942 (when it decided to support the Pakistan movement and tried to push for 'Congress-League Unity' via 'Gandhi-Jinnah talks'). This position lasted until Independence when its position was again reversed. This view that the Pakistan movement was a movement of the (weak) Muslim national bourgeoisie and therefore a legitimate anti-imperialist movement, deserving of communist support, in line with the stand taken by Lenin at the Second Congress of the Communist International in 1921.2 This view was repeated by Soviet scholars, notably in the widely available work of Yuri Gankovsky and Gordon-Polonskaya on the History of Pakistan.3 They produced names of a few prominent Gujarati Muslims from a business community background who were associated with peripherally the early Muslim League, to support their argument. That view is also mistaken. The predominantly Gujarati Muslim trading communities of India, barring one or two individuals, took little part in the Muslim movement, which was dominated, above all by Muslim professionals and the salariat (see below) of northern India, especially of the UP and Punjab. The Gujaratis were isolated from them linguistically and culturally as well as politically and had no objective class interests of their own that the Muslim movement could then serve. There were a few individuals, especially professionals, drawn from Gujarati business communities, notably Mr. Jinnah himself, a rich and successful lawyer son of a not too successful trader, who did play a part in the Muslim movement. But from this we cannot infer class involvement.
Essentially, the principle argument in this essay is, that the Pakistan movement was a movement of Muslims rather than of Islam; a movement in which several Muslim ethnic groups from various regions, representing different social strata and interests, were allied in pursuit of quite material objectives. (Weiss 1986) At the centre of that movement was a coalition of the emerging Muslim salariats of different regions of India. That coalition was to break down as soon as Pakistan was created and the Muslim movement had outlived its purpose. Moreover, that temporary and precarious alliance did not include all Muslims of India all the time, for Muslim nationalism was at its weakest in the Muslim majority provinces, having little appeal to the rural classes. Even for those who were drawn into the movement, there was no automatic nor permanent translation of the attribute of Muslim by faith or Muslim by descent, into an enduring conception of an undifferentiated Muslim nation. On the contrary, the central axis of Pakistan's political history has revolved around strident affirmations of regional and linguistic ethnic identities that have refused to be set aside, de-legitimised and dissolved by slogans of Islamic ideology or claims of 'Muslim' nationhood raised on behalf of the dominant ethnic groups. (Alavi 1988)
Comprised of diverse groups, both regionally and socially, the unity of the movement that ultimately resulted in the creation of Pakistan was a perilous one. Jinnah's political genius lay precisely in his ability to orchestrate a loose, volatile and fickle coalition of forces. He is generally pictured as a man with a firm and total grip over the groups that he was leading. But that is a myth, made plausible by his powerful and commanding personality. In reality his hold over the various groups was quite tenuous and he had to take them on their own terms. He merely stood at the centre of a political process around which diverse regional groups revolved, over whom he had little control. (Weiss 1986, Alavi 1988)
By the late 1940s, as Independence, very likely to be inherited by the Indian National Congress, was clearly on the horizon, Jinnah and the All India Muslim League provided the predominantly rural magnates of the Muslim majority provinces (notwithstanding the fact that hitherto they had been united with Hindu and Sikh landlords and organised in right-wing 'secular parties, such as the Unionist Party of the Punjab) a convenient voice and hopefully influential voice at the centre of Indian politics, in the dialogue with colonial masters about the fate of independent India, as well as the Indian National Congress their main rival contender. The landed magnates were quite cynically prepared to make use of Jinnah and the All India Muslim League for that purpose. That supported the illusion of a unified Muslim nation in India. But it was a marriage of convenience, for the provincial magnates on whom Jinnah depended for support and his own legitimacy, were not prepared to surrender their local power and autonomy. It was they, rather than the central leadership of the Muslim League, who dictated the terms of their mutual alliance. Nevertheless the idea of a Muslim nation gained temporary currency and Jinnah became the quintessence of that concept. The Pakistan movement, in that sense and to that extent, became a national movement, on the basis of the 'Two Nation Theory' that Jinnah propounded, affirming that Muslims of India were a separate nation from Hindus. Insofar as their politics entailed the establishment of their own state, their objective was the creation of a 'Muslim state', as a nation state; they did not seek an 'Islamic state', as a theocratic conception. (Alavi 1988)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Abbott, Freeland. Islam and Pakistan. Cornwell University Press. New York. 1968
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Ahmed, Ishtiaq. The Concept of an Islamic State. Frances Pinter. London. 1987
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Ahmed, Akbar. Religion and Politics in Muslim Society. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. 1983
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Weiess, Anita M. Islamic Reassertion in Pakistan. Syracuse University Press. New York. 1986
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Smith, David. States and sovereignty in the global economy. London. Routledge. 1999
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Alavi, Hamza. State and Ideology in the Middle East and Pakistan. London & New York. 1988
