Mazumdar makes it clear that a united, single voice has existed among the Muslims since the beginning of the 20^th century. The politics of appeasement by the Congress started officially in 1911. Mazumdar also demonstrates in his dealings with Muslim politics and politicians that the idea of victimhood and persecution superseded any nationalistic feelings or a desire for harmony. The separation of a ‘majority’ from the ‘minority’ was consistently clear to most Muslims.

There were indeed few Muslim supporters of the Congress, but in the majority of Muslim leaders, the idea of Muslim and Hindu identities as distinctly separate was vivid. It was only the woolly romanticism of the Hindu leaders, especially Gandhi, who could not see reality objectively. The next sections on Muslim politics are directly from Mazumdar’s books, slightly modified and edited in a few places. There are a few added background explanations for a clearer understanding.

On Hindu-Muslim Relations

Mazumdar uses the writings of Hindu leaders, Muslim leaders like Syed Ahmed, and Britishers like W. S. Blunt to give a first-hand account of the feelings of Hindus and Muslims towards each other. Only the statements of important contemporary personalities can address the passions and prejudices of those times. This was an important topic in the history of India’s struggle for freedom, but the official versions ignore it. Mazumdar says that one can rationally explain the creation of Pakistan only by carefully studying the relations between the two communities in the nineteenth century.

He writes,

“The extent of general ignorance on the subject may be gathered from the fact that today the Indians regard M. A. Jinnah as the father of the two-nation theory, oblivious of the fact that it was propounded and repeated times without number by Syed Ahmad and his followers more than half a century before… Similarly, Blunt’s diary gives an idea of the Hindu-Muslim feelings towards each other before the Aligarh Movement.”

On the revolt of 1857, Mazumdar disagrees with the official Centenary Volume of the Mutiny. He contradicts the view that it was the first national war of independence. It was neither ‘first’, nor ‘national,’ nor a ‘war of independence’. Its role was unduly exaggerated, even as the role of the Wahabi movement in the struggle for freedom was unduly minimised. (Note: Sayyid Ahmad (1786–1831) founded the Wahabi Movement, a socioreligious movement, in Rae Bareli, India, around 1820. This Sunni Islamic revivalist movement sought to preserve the spirit of Islam by shielding it from the influence of the British in Bengal and the Sikhs in Punjab. First targeting the Sikhs of Punjab, it turned on the British after the British annexed Punjab in 1849. The Wahabis had a major role to play in the 1857 revolt, but the British forces brutally crushed it.)

Mazumdar writes,

“Political exigencies gave rise to the slogan of Hindu-Muslim bhai bhai. An impression was sought to be deliberately created that the Hindus and Muslims had already shed so much of their individual characteristics, and there was such a complete transformation of both and a fusion of their cultures that there was no essential difference between the two. Though every true Indian must ever devoutly wish for such a consummation, it was, unfortunately, never a historical fact.”

Sir Syed Ahmad (1817–1898), Jinnah, and other Muslim leaders never believed in it but had more realistic views in this respect than either Gandhi or Nehru. The unity was eminently desirable but was not yet achieved. Ignoring this patent fact was a grave political blunder by the Hindu leaders with tragic consequences. They refused to recognise the fundamental differences between the Hindus and Muslims, which made them two distinct religious, social, and political units, writes Mazumdar. Hindu leaders never made a serious effort to make it possible for two such distinct units to live together as members of one state.

Mazumdar warns,

“Even today, the Indian leaders would not face the historical truth; their failure to recognize which has cost them dear. They still live in the realm of a fancied fraternity and are as sensitive to any expression that jars against the slogan of Hindu-Muslim bhai-bhai as they were at the beginning of this century.”

Out of goodwill towards both communities, Mazumdar says that the solid structure of mutual amity and understanding cannot be built on the quick sands of false history and political expediency. Real understanding can only be achieved through a frank recognition of the facts of history. Such a discussion also becomes indispensable for a rational explanation of the birth of Pakistan.

The Genesis and Evolution of All India Muslim League

After long negotiations, Muslim leaders finally established the All-India Muslim League on December 30, 1906, in Dhaka. The purpose was to provide scope for the participation of Muslim youths in politics and prevent them from joining the Indian National Congress. This would check the growth of the latter.

The aims and objects of the League were as follows:

(a) To promote, amongst the Musalmans of India, feelings of loyalty to the British Government and to remove any misconception that may arise as to the intentions of Government with regard to Indian measures.

(b) To protect and advance the political rights of the Musalmans of India and respectfully represent their needs and aspirations to the Government.

(c) To prevent the rise among the Musalmans of India of any feeling of hostility towards other communities without prejudice to the other previously mentioned objects of the League.

The Secretary of the League declared:

“We are not opposed to the social unity of the Hindus and the Musalmans. But the other type of unity (political) involves the working out of common political purposes. This sort of our unity with the Congress cannot be possible because we and the Congressmen do not have common political objectives. They indulge in acts calculated to weaken the British Government. They want representative Government which means death for Musalmans. They desire competitive examinations for employment in Government services and this would mean the deprivation of Musalmans of Government jobs. Therefore, we need not go near political unity (with the Hindus). It is the aim of the League to present Muslim demands through respectful request before the Government. They should not, like Congressmen, cry for boycott, deliver exciting speeches and write impertinent articles in newspapers and hold meetings to turn public feeling and attitude against their benign Government.”

Mazumdar then quotes a Frenchman, M. Ernest Piriou, a professor at the University of Paris, to comment on this relationship between the British and the attitude of Muslims:

“Who had foreseen that Indian nationalism would give birth to a Musalman nationalism, first sulky, then hostile and aggressive? …. At any rate, the most dangerous enemies of Indian politics are the Musalmans. And they have not stopped midway, they have thrown themselves into the arms of the English so warmly opened to receive them. These irreconcilable enemies of the day before, artificers and victims of the revolution of 1857, are now the bodyguards of the Viceroy… The Musalman opposition is a marvellous resource. The English, I beg of you to believe it, know how to draw fine effects out of it. If ever this misunderstanding, so skilfully nourished, happens to clear up, the English would be the most disconsolate. For this Islamic bloc is a force, and on this bloc, this solid point, revolves Anglo-Indian policy.”

The Muslim League

The only organised political party that showed some signs of new life between 1907 and 1914 was the Muslim League. The characteristic communal spirit battled to secure political and other advantages for the Muslims at the cost of the Hindus. There was an all-important conference at Allahabad held on January 1, 1911, attended by about 60 Hindus and 40 Muslims. Mazumdar quotes Gopal Krishna Gokhale, who “asked the conference to remember that Muslim fears of being dominated by the Hindu majority should not be lightly treated.” Gandhi’s utterances were similar in nature. He said, “As a man of truth I honestly believe that Hindus should yield up to the Mahomedans what the latter desire, and that they should rejoice in so doing.”

The Conference, despite its failure, is of great historical importance. For it marks the beginning of that policy of appeasement that the Congress has henceforth adopted towards the Muslim community. However laudable its object might be, in practice, it led to two undesirable consequences. Though it did not reconcile the Muslims, it irritated the Hindus and increased the importance of the Hindu Mahasabha, a counterpart of the Muslim League. Secondly, it encouraged—almost incited—the Muslims to always pitch their demands high.

Mazumdar makes his most severe indictment when he says,

“It clearly follows from what has been said above that the political interests of the Muslim world outside India counted far more with the Indian Muslims than the political progress of India. They did not hesitate to help the British in keeping India under subjection, but turned against them and joined the Hindus merely at the apprehension of similar danger to outside Muslim States. In other words, the Muslims of India were less concerned with the British domination of India than with the British attitude towards the Muslim States outside India.”

The British Supporting the Muslims as A Counter to Hindu Nationalism

Lord Olivier, shortly after he had ceased to be the Secretary of State for India (November 1924), commented on the communal riots in India:

“But there are other causes of the increasing faction fighting. No one with close acquaintance of Indian affairs will be prepared to deny that… there is a predominant bias in British officialism in India in favour of the Muslim community, partly on the ground of closer sympathy, but more largely as a makeweight against Hindu Nationalism.”

When challenged in the House of Lords, he explained his position:

“But what I did say—and it is based upon what I have heard from a great many Englishmen who have served in India… was that there is an official bias in favour of the Mahomedan community…. When the Hindu-Muslim pact was made it was a pact which strengthened the probability of an advance towards Swaraj policy in India. A very large number of persons… regard the self-governing Swaraj policy as a movement deleterious to British interests in India, and…when the Hindu-Muslim pact broke up there was a distinct satisfaction on the part of those persons both in this country and in India, who were opposed to the Nationalist  movement, that the pact had broken up and that there should be political dissensions among those affected.”

Mazumdar says that it would be difficult to think of more damaging evidence in support of the charge that the British favoured and enjoyed the Muslims against the Hindus for their own interests. The British government denies this charge vehemently, but statements by such officials tell a different story.

Mohammed Ali

Muhammad Ali Jauhar (1878–1931) was the founding member of the All-India Muslim League, a member of the Indian National Congress, a leading figure of both the Khilafat Movement and the Aligarh Movement, and one of the founders of Jamia Millia Islamia. He became the President of the Indian National Congress Party in 1923, though it was only for a few months. He later became a strong critic of Gandhi, Nehru, and the Congress, accusing them of Hindu appeasement and isolating the Muslims. As the tenth president of the All-India Muslim League, he represented the party in the first round-table conference held in London in 1930.

He and his brother, Shaukat Ali, together called the Ali brothers, became leaders of the Khilafat Movement. In 1919, the Muslim League attempted to convince the British government to influence Turkish nationalist Mustafa Kemal not to depose the Sultan of Turkey (also known as the Caliph or leader of the Islamic world). The British rejected the demand. The Muslims formed the Khilafat committee, which directed Muslims all over India to protest and boycott the British government.

The Congress, on the insistence of Gandhi, gave support to this agitation. This support for a pan-Islamist cause was one of the greatest criticisms of Gandhi. However, there were widespread agitations in the country thanks to Gandhi’s call. However, this Civil Disobedience Movement against the British ended abruptly following the Chauri Chaura incident in 1922. Agitators burned a police station on provocation, which killed 22 police personnel. Gandhi and the Indian National Congress called off the movement. The Ali brothers and the Muslim League fumed at this move.

Mazumdar writes in the book that Muhammad Ali, who was the principal lieutenant of Gandhi in his first Satyagraha campaign in 1920, refused to join him in the second campaign in 1930. At a meeting of the All-India Muslim Conference at Bombay held in April 1930, attended by over 20,000 Muslims, he bluntly stated:

“We refuse to join Mr. (no longer Mahatma) Gandhi, because his movement is not a movement for the complete independence of India but for making the seventy millions of Indian Musalmans dependents of the Hindu Mahasabha.”

He made no secret of the fact that pan-Islamism guided the Muslims. In his address as Congress President in 1923, he reminded the audience that “extra-territorial sympathies are part of the quintessence of Islam.” Mazumdar writes that the ‘unkindest cut of all’ came when he declared at the Round Table Conference in 1930, “Make no mistake about the quarrels between Hindu and Mussalman; they are founded only on the fear of domination.” And he reminded the conference that Islam did not confine itself to India. “I belong to two circles of equal size but which are not concentric. One is India and the other is the Muslim world. We are not nationalists but supernationalists.”

Mohammed Iqbal

Mohammed Iqbal was a scholar, politician, and poet whose ‘Saare Jahaan Se Achcha Hindustan Hamaara’ we sing with patriotic fervour. Mazumdar, however, says that Iqbal leaves us in no doubt about his ideal. Iqbal says,

“I confess to be a Pan-Islamist. The mission for which Islam came into this world will ultimately be fulfilled, the world will be purged of infidelity and the worship of false gods, and the true soul of Islam will be triumphant… This is the kind of Pan-Islamism which I preach…Islam as a religion has no country.”

About the current Indian politics, Iqbal expressed his view as follows:

“The present struggle in India is sometimes described as India’s revolt against the West. I do not think it is a revolt against the West; for the people of India are demanding the very institutions which the West stands for…Educated urban India demands democracy. The minorities, feeling themselves as distinct cultural units and fearing that their very existence is at stake, demand safeguards, which the majority community, for obvious reasons, refuses to concede. The majority community pretends to believe in a nationalism…Thus, the real parties to the present struggle in India are not England and India, but the majority community and the minorities of India which can ill afford to accept the principle of Western democracy until it is properly modified to suit the actual conditions of life in India.”

Iqbal’s Presidential Address in the Allahabad session of the Muslim League (December 1930) deserves more than a passing notice, says Mazumdar, as it laid the foundation of Pakistan. Iqbal says,

“India is a continent of human groups belonging to different races, speaking different languages, and professing different religions… Personally, I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sindh and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India.”

Rahmat Ali (1897-1951)

Choudhry Rahmat Ali (1897–1951), a lawyer educated in Cambridge, was one of the strongest proponents of Pakistan as a separate nation. As a law student at the University of Cambridge, he was one of the key signatories to a pamphlet known later as the “Pakistan Declaration.” Addressed to the British and Indian delegates at the Third Round Table Conference in London (1932), they did not gain traction with anyone terming them as ‘students’ ideas.’ However, by 1940, the Muslim League had accepted this proposal wholeheartedly.

Rahmat Ali conceived of a Muslim country consisting of Punjab, N.W.F.P. (also called Afghan Province), Kashmir, Sindh, and Baluchistan called “Pakistan.” The initials of the first four (P, A, Ki, and S) and the last part of the fifth (Tan) formed the word. Rahmat Ali’s basic theory, according to Mazumdar, was that the Hindus and Muslims were fundamentally distinct nations. To Rahmat Ali, the Hindu-Muslim clash was not due to religious or economic grounds. It was an international conflict between two national ambitions: Muslim for survival and Hindu for supremacy.

This is amply evident in the following statement of Rahmat Ali, says Mazumdar:

“Our religion, culture, history, tradition, literature, economic system, laws of inheritance, succession and marriage are fundamentally different from those of the Hindus. These differences are not confined to the broad basic principles. They extend to the minute details of our lives. We, Muslims, and Hindus, do not interdine; we do not intermarry. Our national customs and calendars, even our diet and dress are different.”

The point Mazumdar repeatedly makes in his book is that the Muslim leaders were extremely clear on what they wanted. The Hindu leaders remained clouded and romantic, dreaming of a unity not simply existing in the minds and hearts of their Islamic counterparts.

The Genesis of Pakistan

The cry for a homeland for Muslims first found a definite and forceful expression in the Presidential speech of Sir Muhammad Iqbal in the Allahabad session of the Muslim League in 1930. A group of young men led by Rahmat Ali propagated the idea ever since, because of which the Pakistan National Movement began in 1933. A four-page leaflet (Now or Never), privately circulated from Cambridge in January 1933, bore the signatures of Rahmat Ali and three others.

They protested the federal constitution favoured by the Round Table Conference and rejected the claim of the Indian Muslim Delegation to speak for their community. The pamphlet proclaimed, “There can be no peace and tranquillity in this land if we, the Muslims, are duped into a Hindu-dominated Federation where we cannot be the masters of our own destiny and captains of our own souls.” The Cambridge pamphlet attracted little serious notice at the time, for the scheme for Pakistan was not a practical proposal.

The delegates of the All-India Moslem Conference and the Muslim League appeared before the Joint Select Committee in August 1933. The Committee asked whether there was a proposal for a federation of Provinces under the name of Pakistan. The reply was that it was only a student’s scheme, and another member said that it was a ‘chimerical and impracticable’ proposition.

Rahmat Ali, claiming to be the ‘founder and President of the Pakistan National Movement’, circulated another four-page leaflet in July 1935. A statement published in England in 1940 summed it all up. There was repetition of the old arguments, but an added demand was that Bengal and Hyderabad should also separate from India and form two additional independent ‘nations’, forming a triple alliance with Pakistan. But though the project of one or more independent Muslim states, separated from India, did not yet make any appeal to any section of Muslims, the idea was gaining ground that the Muslims constituted a separate nation, and therefore the unitary federal form of government as contemplated by the Congress would not meet the requirements of the Muslims.

The central idea of all the other proposed alternatives was that the treatment of Muslims should not be as a minority community in Hindu India but as a separate nation with a distinct culture. The general tone of discussions also made it quite clear that the Muslims would resist by force any settlement of the political issue imposed upon them against their will, either by the Congress, by the British Government, or even jointly by both. It was inevitable that the growth of such a feeling would promote the unity of Muslims all over India and make the Muslim League their central organisation.

The Prime Ministers of Punjab, Bengal, and Assam, and the leaders of the Muslim minorities in the Congress Provinces, now rallied around the League and its permanent leader, Jinnah. There was hardly any doubt that Jinnah had become the most popular and powerful leader of the Muslims, who alone could speak with authority in the name of the Indian Muslims. The Muslim League finally chose the most extreme proposal, namely, a separate State for the Muslims.

The rapid growth of this idea was the most remarkable thing in contemporary Muslim politics, reiterates Mazumdar. In September 1939, the Working Committee of the League declared that Muslim India was “irrevocably opposed to any ‘federal objective’ which must necessarily result in a majority-community rule under the guise of democracy and a parliamentary system of government.” In February 1940, Mr. Jinnah declared that the constitutional settlement must be based on the understanding that India was not one nation but two and that the Muslims of India would not accept the arbitrament of any body, Indian or British, but would determine their destiny themselves.

The climax was in the session of the Muslim League held in Lahore in March 1940, attended by an estimated 100,000 members. It passed the resolution that no constitutional plan would be acceptable to the Moslems unless there is demarcation of geographically continuous units as ‘independent states’ where Moslems are in a majority. The demand was for autonomous and sovereign zones in the north-western and eastern zones of India.

Mazumdar writes that this was a definite demand for the partition of India on a communal basis. During this great metamorphosis of Muslim politics in India, neither the Congress nor the Hindu public men gave it the serious attention it deserved. They angrily opposed the idea of vivisection of India in any form and took their stand on the twin ideas of Indian nationality and Indian unity—the ideas that the Muslims rejected in almost one voice. The Congress consistently, without coming down from the high pedestal, adhered to the idea of a ‘Constituent Assembly’ as the only remedy for all political discord and discontent. Gandhi condemned the Lahore resolution in a long article in the Harijan, and the Hindu press attacked it with varying degrees of bitterness. But there was no constructive suggestion or attempt of a compromise, conciliation, or even mutual understanding until it was too late.

The previous parts of the series can be found at the following links:

History Of Freedom Movement: The View Of R.C. Mazumdar – Part 1

Excerpts From History Of The Freedom Movement in India By R.C. Mazumdar – The Politics Of The Book – Part 2