From United India to Pakistan Resolution
The Pakistan Resolution of 23rd March 1940 and its subsequent adoption by the Muslim League was an answer to the Congress's consistent attempts to deny the Muslim community a religio-political entity of their own. There had been a tussle for power between the Congress and League since 1937, and the crux of the issue had been whether India was a uni-cultural, bi-cultural, or multi-cultural state.
The controversy began when, on September 18, 1936, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru said: "The real contest is between two forces - the Congress which represents the will to freedom of the nation, and the British Government in India and its supporters who oppose this urge and try to suppress it. Intermediate groups, whatever virtue they may possess, fade out or line up with one of the principal forces . . . . The issue for India is that of independence. He, who is for it, must be with the Congress and if he talks in terms of communalism he is not keen on independence."
Nehru later referred to his "two-force" formula in January 10, 1937 too. This stance indicated a paradigmatic shift in the Congress's erstwhile policy. Since 1910, the Congress had always treated Jinnah as representing an influential and progressive, if not always a major, segment of Muslims. In tandem, since 1915, the Congress had always considered the Muslim League as the most authoritative Muslim body, but for over two decades now, whenever Congress negotiated the Hindu-Muslim problems, it was always with Jinnah and the Muslim League.
This unexpected change had been brought about by Nehru's desire and determination to swamp all other political parties prior to the impending provincial elections under the 1935 Act.
In a sense, Nehru's strategy did pay off immensely. The Congress scored a sweeping majority of the seats, and established its government. But Nehru's calculations went awry, and of all the Muslim seats available, the Congress won only 26. Out of these seats, 19 of them were in NWFP alone, where Abdul Ghaffar Khan had given the Congress a decisive hold.
In contrast, the League had won 112 out of 492 Muslim seats, approximately 23%, the rest going to the Unionist Party (Punjab), the Krishak Proja Party (Bengal), and some minor Muslim, regional parties. Though by no means impressive, the League's score was still the highest. More importantly, it had won seats in seven out of eleven provinces. Therefore, it alone could claim to speak on behalf of the Muslims of India.
With the Nehru Report (1928-29) and the Communal Award of 1932, attempts were made to reach some sort of understanding with regional or minor parties on a provincial basis, which met with some success. But grabbing at this chance of the provincial option's working out, the Congress started demurring at having to deal with the Muslim League and its leader, Jinnah.
Thus, Nehru's "two-force" dictum could by no means be considered a stray declaration, out of sync with mainstream Congress thinking.
Interestingly though, Jinnah's response to Nehru's onslaught was surprisingly conciliatory. Of course, he disputed the Congress's claim, in his speech at Calcutta's Mohammad Ali Park election meeting on January 4, 1937, saying: "I refuse to line up with the Congress. I refuse to accept this proposition. There is a third party in this country and that is Muslim India . . . . We are not going to be camp followers of any party."
But at the same time, he held out the olive branch, saying "We are willing as equal partners to come to a settlement with our sister communities in the interest of India." For the next six months, when the Congress, assuming power in the provinces, seriously began to implement its 'uni-national and uni-cultured India' dictum, Jinnah reaffirmed his conciliatory stance repeatedly. Thus, in his May 21, 1937, speech at Bombay he reiterated that his idea was still to "form a progressive, independent, nationalist group to work with the Congress for the good of the country", and insisted that the Muslims "are prepared to fight for the country's freedom as equals with other parties, but never as camp followers, nor shall we submit to anybody's dictation."
The deep divergence that characterised Hindus and Muslims, the Congress and the League's style of reasoning in 1937, centred round the issues of whether Indians were uni-national or bi-national, and whether or not the country was uni-cultured or bi-cultured.
In denying the intermediate groups the right to existence and in denying "all 'third parties', middle and undecided groups" any "real importance" in the historical sense, Nehru was not only denying the Muslim League the right to exist or its due importance, but he was also denying them the right to organise themselves politically on a platform of their own, other than that of the Congress, besides ignoring their identity in India's body politics as a religio-political entity.
As opposed to this idea, Jinnah felt that India was multi-national and multi-cultural country, that the Muslims had the right to maintain their separate identity since they represented the "third party" in India's body-politics, that it should refuse to be "camp followers of any party", and that, above all, Muslims should organise themselves politically, to make the third party claim a fait accompli. As a corollary to this claim, the Quaid demanded equality of status for the Muslims and he offered to coalesce with Congress in the struggle for freedom provided the Muslims were "assured of their political freedom."
Two speeches in particular, besides the January 4, Calcutta address, indicate the trend of Jinnah's thinking. Addressing the AIML Council six weeks earlier, he had explained that it was impossible for the Muslims to merge with the Hindus because "their language, culture and civilisation are quite different". National self-government, he said, was his creed; but Muslims "must unite as a nation and then live or die as a nation".
In attempting to explain the increasing alienation of Muslims from the Congress since its ascension to power in the Hindu majority provinces in 1937, historians have generally dilated upon, and attributed it to, various Congress policies, and listed various items in its programme which forced the Muslims up the wall - and along the path of confrontation. For, these policies and programmes assumed their real significance only in the "uni-national and uni-cultured India" framework and it was only in the context of this framework that the Congress policies and the various items in its programme could fall into place.
This framework alone explains why the Congress opted for unitarianism as opposed to a Muslim federalism in the formation of ministries, why it offered "absorption" instead of "partnership" to the Muslim League, why it called for the disbandment of Muslim League parties in the legislatures, and why it insisted upon Muslim members of the legislatures, signing the Congress pledge before being sworn in as ministers. This framework also explains why the Congress sought to impose the tri-colour flag, the Bande Mataram, Hindi and the Wardha Scheme educational system as items of national importance. This act also shed light on why the Congress tried to isolate the third major political party in India, the Muslim League, and Jinnah, its leader, by sucking in minor, but influential, parties such as the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i-Hind, the Ahrars and the Khudai Khidmatgars into its fold and mounted a mass contact campaign amongst the Muslims in collaboration with its "client" parties.
Once the Congress President denied the existence of a Hindu-Muslim problem, and the need for safeguards for Muslim religion, culture and language, the Congress was bound to initiate and implement policies and programmes that were suicidal to the concept of Muslims being a separate political entity.
Some participants in the UP ministry formation talks, such as Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (1889-1958) and Chaudhry Khaliq-uz-zaman, attribute the beginning of the Congress-League confrontation in 1937 to the breakdown of their negotiations at Lucknow. Azad also attributed the breakdown on the number of places to be given to the League nominees. In actual fact, however, the talks broke down not on the number of League nominees to be accommodated in the ministry but on Azad's refusal to include a clause in the agreement that "communal matters such as questions relating to the Communal Award, language, culture, religious observances, etc. will be outside the scope of the agreement".
Till 1937, the Muslims believed in a composite Indian nationhood and a composite nationalism, which would allow them to retain their identity. It was their cardinal belief in a Muslim identity that had led them to insist upon federalism and autonomy of the provinces in the Delhi Muslim Proposals (1927), the All Parties Muslim Conference Resolution of January 1, 1929, the Fourteen Points (1929), and in the demands put forth at the Round Table Conferences (1930-32).
The abandonment of the separate electorates' principle in Delhi Muslim Proposals caused a split in the League, and the Muslim consensus on its retention in Jinnah's Fourteen Points underscored their deep and sincere concern of keeping their political entity intact. For the first time in 1937, they realised, as a result of their bitter experiences under the Congress Raj, that even a composite nationhood in the Congress dictionary meant, very simply, majority rule.
History is a witness that majorities are apt to oppress minorities under them. Yet, even worse, in India majority meant Hindu rule, and the Hindu record of tolerance of other religious groups was not very optimistic either.
It is true that the Muslims of the Congress provinces, especially the UP Muslims, were the first to apprehend "the dangers of Hindu ascendancy under a Congress Raj" and react. But the "absorption" edict, which had serious implications on an all-India level and on a long-term basis, alarmed the Muslims living in majority provinces. For, "if the UP sample was to be the pattern of Congress's political conduct, what would be the position of Muslims when a federal government for all India was formed? There would be no room on the throne of India save for Congress' stooges", remarked Penderal Moon.
An echo of what Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (1817-98) had predicted some fifty years earlier when he had posed the critical query: "Is it possible that under the circumstances two nations, the Mohammedans and the Hindus, could sit on the same throne and remain in equal power was again felt across India." It was obvious to all that one would conquer the other and thrust it down. To hope that both could remain equal was to desire the impossible, and the inconceivable."
To Muslims, then, the Congress rule in the provinces, during 1937-39 portended precisely the sort of dispensation they had been trying to save themselves against since Syed Ahmed Khan's days. This eventually led to the adoption of the Pakistan Resolution which formally and unreservedly declared India as bi-national and bi-cultured.
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