PAKISTAN RESOLUTION IN HISTORIC PERSPECTIVE

Borneo Bulletin, 23 March 1995

           While the first Muslim contacts with the Indian sub-continent through the Arab sailors and merchants started earlier, the first Muslim invasion of the sub-continent took place in 712 under the leadership of Mohammad bin Qasim. This invasion resulted in the conquest of Sind.

The first invasion was followed by invasions from the North by Sultan Mahmood of Ghazni between 999 and 1025. Mahmood succeeded in annexing the Punjab. In the course of time, the house of Ghazni was supplanted by the dynasty of Ghor. Thus in 1192 was won the first great victory by Shahabuddin Ghori, which resulted in the establishment of Muslim rule in India. From 1192 to 1526 five Turkish or Afghan dynasties ruled at Delhi. After the decay of Turkish power under the Tughlaqs, the representative Muslim dynasties in the sub-continent were no longer in Delhi, but were represented by small Sultanates.

The Muhgals succeeded the Turco-Afghans in 1526, and their rule lasted until 1707 with a short break. Akbar, the third Mughal emperor, subdued the greater part of the sub-continent and ruled over Afghanistan also. Aurangzeb was the last of the great Mughals. He spent much of his life fighting for the expansion of the empire and in trying to restore the pristine purity of the Islamic way of life.

The death of Aurangzeb was followed by the disintegration of the Mughal Empire. The Marathas appeared in Central and Western India. Delhi was sacked by Nadir Shah, and the strength of the British, French and Dutch settlements developed. A number of Muslim successor states also grew about this time. But as soon as the British East India Company had disposed of its European rivals it inexorably absorbed both Hindu and Muslim states, so much so that after the Revolt of 1857 Hyderabad was the only big Muslim State in existence. The political and economic downfall of the Muslims that started soon after Aurangzeb's death reached its culmination in the 19th century. The Muslims now found themselves deprived of all power and authority in the country.

For the Muslim community of undivided India, this was a period of acute mental confusion and emotional distress. The down fall of the Muslim Mughal empire, the bloody reprisals that followed the uprisings against British authority in 1857, the extinction of the privileges, values and usages of the old order, replacement of Persian by English as the official language, the ascendancy of their non-Muslim compatriots to most available positions of power and wealth sorely lacerated the collective mind. Adversity had also made them kin to other Muslim peoples beyond their borders who were similarly afflicted. Muslims had been greatly shaken up by the war against Turkey and the expectation that the British government would take possession of the jazirat-ul-Arab, the holy cities of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem.

Islam, after six hundred years of power, found itself reduced to a position which was altogether intolerable. Syed Ahmad Shaheed and Ismail Shaheed organized groups of gallant fighters against the Sikhs and the British. Even the uprising for independence in 1857 was a last desperate bid to throw off the British yoke. To make matters worse, till 1864 the attitude of looking upon the Muslims as opposed to British authority was accepted as the true basis of British policy in the sub-continent. For the Muslims the situation was truly desperate and Islam had now to find a new policy or die. The man who saw this most clearly was Syed Ahmad the founder of the Aligarh Movement which became instrumental in creating Islamic renaissance in the sub-continent.

At that time when Indian expectations of political reforms were already on the decline, the Rowlatt Bills, or Black Bills, came out. Instead of more freedom, there was to be more repression. There was an immediate and overwhelming denouncement of these by the masses. A famous description in Urdu of these bills at the time was: na vakil, na appeal, na dalil.

The political environment in India was ready to be led by leaders like Gandhi. He organized, Satyagraha, the first all-India demonstration of the kind in which all kinds of people and communities joined. Consequently, events marched rapidly from bad to worse. Soon after, the Indian National Congress (founded in 1885) took the plunge, and adopted Gandhi's programme of non-co-operation. The Congress also changed its constitution and became a body capable of action.

Gandhi's socio-political thoughts and actions which had roots in Hindu philosophy created new dimensions of the concept of nationalism in India and were perceived differently by different factions. The Hindu idea of nationalism, as Nehru pointed out, "was definitely one of Hindu nationalism. It was not easy in this case to distinguish between this Hindu nationalism and true nationalism. The two overlapped, as India is the only home of the Hindus and they form a majority there". On the other extreme, Muslims had their own version of nationalism. The nationalism connected with Muslim entity got impetus also because of the attitude of the staunch Hindu leaders who were close comrades of Gandhi.

In 1907 when the question of political reforms became urgent and the Minto-Morley scheme was on the anvil, the British government decided to introduce separate electorates for the Muslims. This secured for the Muslims a certain amount of protection. The Morley-Minto reforms were followed by the Motagu-Chelmsford Reforms in 1917. The treatment accorded to the Muslims by the Ministries under the diarchy in most of the provinces was neither fair nor equitable. This left them baffled and frustrated.

In the wake of political coercion, economic boycott and other disabilities, there followed communal riots. As the Simon Commission noted, these riots were "a manifestation of the anxieties and ambitions aroused in both the communities by the prospect of India's political future. The coming of the Reforms and the anticipation of what may follow have given new point to Hindu-Muslim competition".

In a series of All Parties Conferences and unity Conferences attempts were made to draft an agreed Constitution for the sub-continent, but without success. It was in this atmosphere that Allama Muhammad Iqbal was called upon to preside at the annual session of the All India Muslim League (founded in 1906) held in Allahabad in 1930. Not only Iqbal saw in Pakistan the only solution of the political, social and economic ills of the Muslims living in the sub-continent, he also chose he man who alone could achieve it and furthermore he persuaded Muhammad Ali Jinnah to work for it.

Later years saw more consolidated and direction oriented efforts of the League for "divide and quit" and of the Congress for "quit". At last on 23rd March 1940, at a park in Lahore, the Pakistan resolution: that regions where there is a Muslim majority will form a separate state, was formally adopted. Consequently, seven years later, the dream of the majority of Muslims in India became a reality, and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan came into being as an independent state.