December 30, 2006

 There are many people in Pakistan, particularly among the Services, who tend to dismiss the contribution of the Muslim League towards the achievement of Pakistan as one of little consequences. They often quote, out of context, the statement of Jinnah that his ‘entire equipment was confined to an attaché-case, a typewriter, and a personal assistant.’ It is obvious that such glib statements lack both reflection and historical perspective.

Jinnah, with all his adroitness, needed an organization like the Muslim League to impress upon the British and the Congress that he enjoyed universal Muslim support. He also needed the Muslim League for winning elections. In fact the Muslim League bridged the gulf that yawned between the illiterate Muslim masses and the highly Westernized Muslim elite at the top.

What was the state of the Muslim League before Jinnah undertook its reorganization? In 1927, the total membership of the Muslim League was 1,330. During the years 1931-3, its annual expenditure did not exceed Rs. 3,000. In the I930 Allahabad session, when Sir Muhammad Iqbal presented his historic address demanding the establishment of a North-Western Muslim state in India, the League meeting did not even have its quorum, of 75 members. Hafiz Jalandhari was asked to read his famous poem, Shahnama-i-Islam, to keep those who were present entertained while the organizers were busy enrolling new members in the town. During this time, the annual sessions of the Muslim League were often held in private houses. The annual session of 1931, held at Delhi, was described as `a languid and attenuated House of scarcely 120 people in all. During this session the annual subscription was reduced from Rs. 6 to Re. 1 and the admission fee of Rs 5 was abolished to attract new members. The League's declining strength was also reflected in the resolution which reduced the quorum at the annual sessions from 75 to 50.

Executive Council

When Jinnah started reorganizing the Muslim League in early 1935, Sir Fazl-i-Husain had retired from the Executive Council and returned to the Punjab to resuscitate the Unionist Party. Jinnah, who had been elected President for three years, very shrewdly invited Fazl-i-Husain to preside over the annual session of the Muslim League. Fazl-i-Husain declined the request and made it clear to Jinnah that he should desist from setting up a Central Parliamentary Board of the Muslim League because Muslims in Provinces like the Punjab might like to work with non-communal organizations in which case a Central Muslim Parliamentary Board would hamper their efforts in creating communal harmony. Fazl-i-Husain, writing to Sikander Hyat, said, `I have also asked Ahmad Yar (Daultana's father) to strongly press on him (Jinnah) the advisability of keeping his finger out of the Punjab pie. Jinnah did not make any headway in the Punjab, even though he was reported to have made promises of procuring large election funds from Bombay millionaires and the Raja of Mahmoodabad. At that time the prospects of Jinnah's success were obviously so dim that even a former founder of the Muslim League like the Aga Khan lent his financial support to the Unionist Party. The weakness of the League was reflected in the elections of 1937 when it won only 4.6 per cent of the total Muslim votes.

But in April 1938, Jinnah was claiming that during the last six months the Muslim League had enrolled members by hundreds of thousands. Even though the Congress had launched its Muslim mass contact movement, by January 1 938 it could claim the support of only a hundred thousand (or 3.3 per cent) Muslims out of its 3.1 million members. Thus, the great majority of politically conscious Muslims were joining the Muslim League. In 1944, the Muslim League officially claimed a membership of some two millions. Its organization had penetrated the countryside and those Muslims who openly remained hostile to the Muslim League were not considered Muslims by their co-religionists.- By the end of 1944, the Bengal Muslim League claimed a membership of about half a million and the Sind and Punjab Leagues had 200,000 members each. But the most convincing testimony of the Muslim League's strength came from the 1945-6 election results. The Muslim League polled about 4.5 million or 75 per cent of the Muslim votes in the elections. It won 460 out of the 533 Muslim seats in the Central and Provincial elections.

Moving spirit

The question arises that if the organization and power of the Muslim League were entirely due to the drive and organizing ability of Jinnah, why was it that the Muslim League prior to the thirties, when Jinnah was one of its leading figures, was a dormant body? Jinnah had been President of the Muslim League during the years 1919-30. The Secretary of the League, lamenting Jinnah's decision to leave the country in 1931, said in his annual report: ` Mr. M. A. Jinnah had been the life and the moving spirit of the League for many years and the success of the institution during the last 9 years was due to his earnestness, devotion and statesmanship.' Did the Muslim League receive new impetus first as a result of the shortsightedness of the Congress in excluding Muslim League representatives from the Provincial Congress Cabinets in 1937, and later owing to the alleged persecutions that the Muslims suffered during the Congress regime of 1937-9? and Choudhry Khaliquzzaman seem, to think that the former was the main cause which helped the League to rally the Muslims under its banner. There is no doubt that this did help the League. But how was it that the Muslim League did not achieve its maximum strength during these years of alleged Congress persecutions? It was only after the Lahore Resolution was passed and the demand for a separate Muslim State came to the forefront that Muslims in their thousands flocked to the Muslim League. Thus, neither Jinnah's organizing ability nor the alleged Congress misrule by themselves could have transformed the League into a mighty force. The demand for Pakistan reminded Muslims of their past glory and opened before them vast and fascinating vistas of future greatness. It was this stimulant which put life and vigour into the Muslim League.

Those who think that Pakistan was entirely a product of Hindu hostility to Muslims not only exaggerate Hindu responsibility for it but also forget that Muslims were just as hostile. In addi-tion to all this, they have not appreciated the demand for Paki-stan in its historical perspective. Muslims had ruled India and they could not understand why under a democratic system they should be deprived of power and influence. Thus, it was this desire for power and unwillingness to live under those whom they had governed which largely explains the demand for Paki-stan. Jinnah was groping towards this even before the demand for Pakistan was launched.

Muslims have made it clear more than once that besides the question of religion, culture, language and personal laws, there is another question of life and death for them and that their future destiny and fate are dependent upon their securing definitely their political rights, their due share in the national life, the Government and the administration of the country.

Muslim educated classes were not so much concerned about their religious and cultural rights as they were about their share in the government of the country. The tremendous following that Jinnah had among these classes lay in the fact that he offered to them political power under a new Muslim State.

Which government claiming to be a civilized government can demolish our mosque, or which government is going to interfere with religion which is strictly a matter between God and man? The question is that Musalmans are a nation, distinct from the Hindus. It is a historical fact that the Musalmans are a separate nation and hence we must have our own States.

But a great majority of the two-arena members of the Muslim League were not Westernized educated Muslims. They were simple rural folk or the poorer sections of the urban Muslims who were told time and again by their Mullahs that power would be given to then, by God if they became good Muslims. Thus, the idea of establishing a Muslim State was not new. Less sophisticated and anti-League Muslim organizations like the Ahrar and the Khaksar had talked about it. The Ahrars put forward the idea of Hakumat-i-Ilahia (Government of God) and the Khaksars claimed that their aim was Istikhlaf fi al-Ard (Establishment of Khilafat [Islamic Government] on earth). Thus, when the League demanded Pakistan, it was responding to this inner urge for political, power among the Muslims. The Muslim League was, on one hand, satisfying a craving for power and influence free from Hindu competition among the Muslim intelligentsia and, on the other, the more vague and religious urge for power among the Muslim masses. The League, in this sense, had become a more comprehensive and representative organization than the Khilafat movement which did not attract the full support of Westernized and educated Muslims.

The Muslim League, like the Congress, was not a political party in the ordinary sense of the term. It was a national movement whose aim was the establishment of the separate, sovereign State of Pakistan. Any man who stood against the Muslim League was called a traitor or quisling by the Quaid-i-Azam. Some of the Muslim Leaguers went so far as to say that any Muslim who opposed the Muslim League had betrayed the cause of Islam itself. As long as Pakistan remained unachieved, all Muslims were supposed to subordinate their personal and ideological difference to the national goal.

We shall have time to quarrel ourselves and we shall have time when these ‘differences will have to be settled, when wrongs and injuries will have to be remedied. We shall have time for domestic programme and policies, but first get the Government. This is a nation without any territory or any government.

Thus, within the Muslim League could be found feudal landowners, industrialists, the ulema, the lower middle classes, industrial workers and peasants. In it were Socialists like Mian Iftikharuddin and extreme leftist elements like Danyal Latifi, who had joined the League after it had become clear that the goal of Pakistan was within sight. The leadership of Jinnah and the organization and discipline of the Muslim League were such that all these heterogeneous elements could be kept within the League without impairing its unity. Similarly, the passionate zeal for Pakistan was such that Bengalis and Punjabis, though conscious of their differences, were willing to work together for the common goal.

Simple Islam

Jinnah very cleverly kept himself and the League scrupulously out of all controversial issues. He himself was a Shi'ah and a Khoja by origin, but always said that he was only a Muslim and also offered his public prayers with the Sunni Muslims. The simple doctrine that he preached was that Islam transcended all petty sectarian differences. Since there was no state, no debates about what form of Islam should be established or practised could arise. And the sort of Islam that the Muslim League put forward was simple and straightforward, free of all theological and doctrinal subtleties, which the ordinary Muslim masses could understand. This intellectual naivete was such that it pervaded not only the Muslim masses but infected the leaders as well.

The growth of the Muslim League was also helped considerably by the total absence of any competition from other political parties, particularly after 1942 when the Congress leaders were in jail. Jinnah himself frankly admitted that he shuddered when he considered what was going to happen in 1939. `There was going to be a deal between Mr. Gandhi and Lord Linlithgow. Providence helped us. The war which nobody welcomes proved to be a blessing in disguise.' On the other hand, it could also be argued, that the Congress Muslim mass contact movement had not proved successful earlier and was not likely to produce any different results if tried later. Moreover, if the Congress had remained in power, there might have arisen differences between the Congress High Command and the Provincial Ministries or between leaders in the High Command itself like Nehru and Patel, Congressmen, by going to jail and taking a stand against the British Government, created for themselves such support and sympathy that even the Communists, who tried to infiltrate into every segment of Indian political life, could not make much headway.

The Congress Party has been criticized for its unitarian structure and the way it nullified Provincial autonomy by controlling the Provincial Governments. Sometimes Gandhi's interference in Congress affairs and his comparisons of the Congress structure with that of an army also created the impression that the Congress was imitating Fascist methods. Jinnah was also quick to detect such Fascist features in the Congress organization. But he has also been subjected to the same sort of criticism in the sense that when the League organization became powerful, he saw to it that the Muslim League Provincial Parliamentary Parties and Governments carried out the instructions issued to them from the Centre. He was also sometimes fond of comparing the Muslim League with an army with himself as the general. Thus, he talked of giving marching orders when the Muslims were disciplined and ready. When his mission of achieving Pakistan was accomplished in June 1947, he was reported to have said:

'I have done my job. When the Field Marshal leads his army into victory, it is for the civil authority to take over.

When Jinnah started reorganizing the Muslim League during; 1935-7, he proceeded very cautiously and wanted to enlist as much support as possible of the influential Muslim leaders. Thus, as noted earlier, he invited Sir Fazl-i-Husain to preside over the annual session of the Muslim League in 1935. In the Lucknow session in 1937, the Muslim League acquired tremendous strength when Fazl-ul-Huq, the Premier of Bengal, and Sir Sikander Hyat Khan, the Premier of Punjab, declared their support for the Muslim League and brought over their parties to the Muslim League ranks. At that time, Jinnah's main concern was to build the Muslim League as a powerful and well-organized party and the power he enjoyed depended very much upon the support that he obtained from powerful Muslim groups in the various Provinces.

Personal character

It was in 1941 that one got the impression for the first time that the power of the President was not only dependent upon the League as a party but had also acquired a personal character. The Quaid-i-Azam had emerged. One cannot help admiring the strategy that Jinnah followed in building up his power and prestige as the League President. In July 1941, the Viceroy an-nounced that the Premiers of the Punjab, Bengal, Assam and Sind had been invited to join the National Defence Council. The Muslim League had been following a very shrewd and cautious policy whereby it neither co-operated whole-heartedly with the British war effort nor did it take any steps to obstruct it. But it certainly did not want to create the impression that, unlike the Congress, it lacked national fervour for the freedom of the country. When the invitations to the Provincial Premiers to join the National Defence Council were issued, Jinnah knew that the Viceroy had made a tactical mistake by inviting them as repre-sentatives of the Muslim community. The Premiers of the Punjab, Bengal and Assam were under the impression that they had been invited to represent their Provinces and indicated their willingness to join the National Defence Council. (At that time Sind did not have a Muslim League Ministry.) When Jinnah issued peremptory orders to them to resign from the National Defence Council, they were resentful. But when he confronted Sir Sikander Hyat, the Premier of Punjab, with the text of the message that the Viceroy ''had sent to him through the Governor of Bombay, Sir Sikander Hyat had no choice except to tender his resignation from the National Defence Council because the message indicated that he had been invited as a representative of the Muslim community. This was followed by the resignation of Sir Saadullah, the Premier of Assam. Fazl-ul-Huq at first was extremely resentful and reluctant, but later he had to resign as well. He complained that Jinnah had known of their selection at least a day before the names were published but did not care to indicate his disapproval immediately. `He kept waiting and watching till our names were published and then he came out with his thunder that he had decided to take disciplinary action against us.' He `took us unawares as if he was anxious to make a public exhibition of his authority. ' Similarly, Begum Shah Nawaz, who had joined the National Defence Council, was called upon to resign but when she refused, she was expelled from the Muslim League for five years. This was followed by the expulsion of Sir Sultan Ahmad for having joined the Viceroy's Executive Council contrary to the decision of the Muslim League and its general policy. This `exhibition of authority' made the Muslims realize how powerful their Quaid-i-Azam was in the sense that powerful Muslim leaders could not easily flout his instructions without incurring the wrath of Muslim public opinion.

Organs of Muslim League powers and functions: President, Working Committee and Council: The Muslim League was not the only party in the subcontinent which developed the cult of leadership. As has been suggested earlier, the Congress had also built up the charismatic authority of Gandhi. But there was a difference between the two concepts of leadership. Gandhi was the Mahatma, who was associated in the Hindu mind with a sort of semi-divine authority.

Jinnah was only the Quaid-i-Azam and particularly because of his Western habits and temperament, could never claim to be a religious leader or a holy man. In Muslim history, particularly in political matters, Muslims had been, content to follow leaders who were not very religious but politically or militarily capable or successful. Thus, Jinnah was presented as a man of great wisdom, courage and such shrewdness that Hindus were afraid of him. The common belief was that his predecessors, like Maulana Muhammad Ali, had not been very shrewd and had often been out-witted by Hindu leaders. For the intelligentsia, Jinnah had certain outstanding qualities. He was a brilliant and a wealthy lawyer and a constitutionalist who could lecture to them perhaps better than anyone else on the art of parliamentary government. For those who were wealthy like the Memon, the Khoja and the Bohri merchants, he was not only a man of unimpeachable integrity but being a Gujarati, was one of them. But Jinnah was not content to derive his authority merely from popular acclaim. His mind worked along constitutional channels. For him, the basic source of his authority was the Constitution of the All--India Muslim League.

As one reads through the Constitutions of 1940, 1941, 1942 and 1944, one notices a steady centralization of power in the hands of the President and his Working Committee. Article 33 of the 1944 Constitution stated: `The President shall be the princi-pal head of the whole organization, shall exercise all the powers inherent in his office and be responsible to see that all the authorities work in consonance with the Constitution and Rules of the All India. Muslim League.'

What were the instruments available to the President to see that all the organs of the League worked in accordance with the Constitution and the Rules? The process of amassing power in the hands of the President and the Working Committee had started in 1940. According to the Con-stitution, the President was to be elected every year by the Council from amongst those who had been nominated by differ-ent Muslim Leagues. Could it be said that the Provincial Mus-lim Leagues could determine the choice of the President in the sense that they nominated the various candidates? The power of the Provincial League vis-a-vis the Centre was only nominal be-cause in the annual session in 1940 the Constitution of the League was amended and the Working Committee was empowered `to control, direct and regulate all the activities of the various Pro-vincial Leagues.' Similarly, the Working Committee could suspend, dissolve or disaffiliate any Provincial League which failed in its duties or acted contrary to the decisions or directions of the Working Committee or the Council of the All-India Muslim League. Thus, it was the Working Committee which exercised ultimate and effective power over the Provincial Leagues.

The Working Committee was a creation of the President in the sense that its members were nominated by the President each year at the time of the annual session from amongst the members of the Council. It could be said that the Working Committee was responsible to the Council of the All-India Muslim League in which were represented the various Provinces. Article 24 of the 1942 Constitution said that all resolutions, passed by the Working Committee would be subject to the approval of the Council of the League. But the process of concentration of power had altered this balance because Article 23 of the 1944 Constitution clearly laid down that: `All resolutions passed by the Working Committee will be placed before the Council of the League for its information.'

Method discussed

There is no clear and authentic account of the way decisions were arrived at in the Working Committee. R. G. Casey, Governor of Bengal, 1944-6, probably drew his information from Khwaja Nazimuddin, for some time his Chief Minister, when he wrote:

Mr. Jinnah is credited with ruling the working committee of the Muslim League with a rod of iron. He is said to tell them what's what, and that they invariably fall into line. At any signs of intransigence on what he considers a major point he is said to threaten resignation, after which the argument ceases . . . .

Most of the members of the then Working Committee that the author interviewed strongly denied the `rod of iron' theory. But when they tried to explain to the author that the Quaid-i-Azam allowed free and full discussion in the Working Committee and that he always respected those who held their beliefs honestly and sincerely, they more or less always came back to the view that the power, experience and personality of the Quaid-i-Azam were such that invariably his decision was accepted. It was reported that the Quaid seldom spoke first. He often encouraged the members of the Working Committee to put forward their views clearly and completely. He often used to say, `Why don't you argue?' I may be wrong.' But, after the discussion was over, he would indicate how the Working Committee should deal with the particular matter on hand.

There were certain members like the Secretary, Liaquat Ali, Khan, and I.I. Chundrigar (from Bombay) whom Jinnah called to his residence to discuss certain matters on the agenda before the Working Committee meeting. His method was to discuss every problem threadbare before a decision was reached. He would often tell Chundrigar, `You take the British or Congress point of view and argue with me.' Jinnah often treated Nawab Ismail, Khan with respect. He was the only member of the Working Committee who was addressed with his honorific 'Nawab' while others were addressed by their first names.

There was a group in the Working Committee which strongly believed in, coming to terms with the Congress. This group consisted of Choudhry Khaliquzzaman, Ismail Khan, Husain Imam, and for some time, G. M. Sayed (from Sind). Jinnah's point of view was that since ultimate power was held by the British and it was they who could confer or transfer power, why should he go out of the way to come to terms with the Congress? Both the Congress and the League were engaged in extracting maximum power from the British. The best course that was open to the League was to consolidate its own position and deal with the Congress and the British from a position of strength.

There was some suspicion in the Working Committee that several important matters discussed in the Committee sometimes, leaked out to the opponents of the League. Thus, when the Working Committee was in session during the Simla Conference in 1945 and when the Cabinet Mission was holding discussions with the Indian parties in 1946, the Working Committee would sometimes keep its position fairly flexible so that there might be enough room to manoeuvre from one position to another. It was suspected that the League's opponents had come to know of these decisions. This must have hampered free discussion and it was likely that at certain moments Jinnah did not feel safe to take the whole Working Committee into his confidence and probably consulted only some of his close and trusted lieutenants.

Liaquat Ali Khan, as Secreatary of the Muslim League, built up his position slowly and steadily. He was a prosperous land owner whose family was originally from the Karnal District of East Punjab, but who had moved over to the United Province. He was affable by nature and seldom antagonized any body. He carefully kept himself aloof from all intrigues and soon outpaced Choudhry Khaliquzzaman, his most formidable rival, and also Nawab Ismail Khan; Chairman of the Committee of Action, in rising to a position next to Jinnah. Jinnah himself had described him as his `right hand'. After getting elected to the Central Legislative Assembly he moved to New Delhi where the All India Muslim League had its Central Office. He also became the Deputy Leader of the Muslim League Party in the Central Legislative Assembly. When Dawn, the Muslim League newspaper, started in 1942, he was appointed its Director. Dawn gave him considerable publicity as an active and efficient Secretary of the All-India Muslim League. As Chairman of the Central Parliamentary Board, he occupied another influential position. But his main source of strength was the trust that his leader placed in him. Had it not been for this fact, the clever Khaliquzzaman or the dynamic Suhrawardy might have supplanted him.

The members of the Working Committee during 1945-7 were:

NWFP

1. Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar.

2. Sardar Aurangzeb Khan.

Baluchistan 3. Qazi Muhammad Isa.

Punjab

4. Mian Bashir Ahmad.

5. Nawab Iftikhar Husain Khan of Mamdot.

6. Malik Barkat Ali (died in 1946).

Sind

7. Muhammad Ayub Khuhro.

Bombay

8. I.I. Chundrigar.

Madras

9. Abdul Sattar Sait.

Central Provinces

10. Syed Abdur Rauf Shah.

United Provinces

11. Nawab Muhammad Ismail Khan.

12. Choudhry Khaliquzzaman.

13. Raja Muhammad Amir Ahmed

Khan of Mahmoodabad. 14. Begum Muhammad Ali (died in 1946).

Bihar

15. Husain Imam.

16. Latifur Rahman.

Bengal

17. Maulana Akram Khan

18. Khwaja Nazimuddin.

19 M. A. H. Ispahani

Assam

20. Sir Muhammad Saadullah.

2 1. Abdul Matin Choudhri.

G. M. Sayed was removed from the Working Committee after his expulsion from the Muslim League towards the end of 1945. There were two office bearers who were ex-officio members, M. A. Jinnah, President, and Liaquat Ali Khan, Secretary. From the Constitution itself it was obvious that the Council was neither an active nor an effective body. First of all, it hard 475 representative's from various Provinces and if the ex-officio Members of the Indian Legislative Assembly, the Council, of State, the President and Secretaries of the various the President's 20 nominees were to be taken into account, it would be a much larger body. In the official list of the members of the League Council of 1941, there were as many as 513 members. The quorum in the Council meetings was 50, but usually as many as 200 members were present. Jinnah's admirers have assured the author that the Quaid-i-Azam accorded the fullest latitude to the Councillors for expressing their opinions. But they added that the personality of their leader was so towering and awe-inspiring that nobody could sway the opinion of the Council once it was clear what the Quaid desired. There were, of course, members like Z. H. Lari and Syed M. Rizwanullah, both from the U.P., who were daring enough to speak their minds. There was also Hasrat Mohani, often provocative and fearless. Barkat Ali from Punjab was perhaps the most logical and convincing speaker. But there were other veterans who vied with one another in agreeing with the Quaid-i-Azam. The Council was empowered to disaffiliate Provincial Leagues if they acted in contravention of the League policy and programme and also to take disciplinary action against any members of the League who violated its decisions. These powers were also invested in the Working Committee and normally that was the body which took the initiative in these matters and the Council was expected to ratify its decisions.

Committee of Action

The Committee of Action was set up for the first time during the annual session of the Muslim League in Karachi in December, 1943. Jinnah, addressing the session, said that the organization of the Muslim League had grown so unwieldy that it was not possible for any one man to attend to its multifarious activities.

If you were to know what I have to attend to all alone, you will be astonished. All over India, today this thing happening in Patna; tomorrow that thing happening in Bengal; the day after tomorrow this thing happening in N-W.F.P the day after that this thing happening in Madras . . . Now it is not possible for one single man to do justice to all this.

This revealed that decision-making on a number of small as well as complex matters was concentrated in the hands of the President. Secondly, he could not assemble his Working Committee off and on at different places to resolve problems as they arose from place to place. Another matter which must have taxed Jinnah's mind was the future constitutional problem of India. He probably expected that the war would soon be over or even before that the British might make some major policy decisions as regards the constitutional problem in India. This was indicated by the resolution that was passed regarding the appointment of a Committee of Action by the President of not less than five and not more than seven members. The aim was `to prepare and organize the Muslims all over India to meet all contingencies resist the imposition of an All-India Federation or any other constitution for the United India, and prepare them for struggle for the achievement of Pakistan.' All this was to be done by tightening the organization of the Muslim League Formerly, the Working Committee was in exclusive charge of controlling and directing the various Provincial Muslim League or taking disciplinary action against such members and Provincial Leagues who acted against the directives of the Central organization. All these functions were delegated to the new Committee of Action.

The Committee of Action was another instrument devised by the Central Muslim League to tighten its control over the Provincial Muslim Leagues with a view to setting up a well-disciplined and, monolithic organization. Thus, if and when the League were faced with a particular situation, all that the President had to do was to give his orders and they would be duly carried out by every Provincial Muslim League.

The Committee of Action, therefore, suggested a model constitution for all Provincial Muslim Leagues. According to this constitution, the Presidents of the various Provincial Muslim Leagues would nominate members of their Working Committees from amongst the members of the Council of that Provincial Muslim League. Thus it was suggested that each Provincial Muslim League should be modelled on the pattern of the Central Muslim League. In Bombay, for example, according to the Constitution of the Provincial Muslim League, the office bearers and the members of the Working Committee of the Provincial Muslim League were to be elected at the annual general meeting from among the members of the Provincial Muslim League. This meant that it was possible that many members of the elected Provincial Working Committee might not see eye to eye on a number of problems with the President. This often led to friction and presumably the Committee of Action had been called upon from time to time to resolve disputes arising from such a situation. As a result of the suggested change, it was hoped that if the Provincial Working Committees were made creatures of their President, the latter would be in a position to have the orders of the Central League efficiently and promptly carried out.

In the same manner the Committee of Action recommended to the Working Committee that all the Muslim Members of the Legislative Assembly and Council of a Province as well as all Muslim Members of the Central Legislative Assembly and Council of State elected from that Province should be ex-officio members of the Council of that Provincial Muslim League. The former provision was probably designed to ensure good relationships between the Parliamentary Party and the Provincial Muslim League, and the latter with a view to making the Provincial Council amenable to Central influence. By suggesting such a model constitution, it was also intended that each Provincial Muslim League would be organized on roughly the same lines instead of the different Provincial, Muslim Leagues following a host of different constitutions of their own. The Working Committee accepted these suggestions and passed a resolution to this effect in May 1946. The Committee of Action was also entrusted, after the `Direct Action' Resolution had been passed in July 1946, with drawing up a programme of `Direct Action'. Probably nothing much came out of this because of the Working Committee's decision to enter the Interim Government in October 1946.

Usually, the various Committees of the Muslim League were dominated by Muslim Leaguers either from the minority Provinces or sometimes from those of the United Provinces alone. In the Committee of Action, however, one could see that there were three members out of six from the North-Western Muslim Provinces. They were: G. M. Sayed from Sind, Iftikhar Husain Khan of Mamdot from the Punjab, and Qazi Muhammad Isa from Baluchistan. The other three were from Muslim minority Provinces - Ismail Khan, (Chairman) and Liaquat Ali Khan from the United Provinces, and Abdul Sattar Sait from Madras.

Parliamentary Board

The Central Parliamentary Board, according to the Constitution, was to be set up by the Working Committee. It was not clear from the resolutions of 1945 whether the President was given the power to appoint all the members of the Central Parliamentary Board for the elections of 1945-6. But the earlier Parliamentary Boards had been set up by the President who by a resolution of the Working Committee passed on 12 April 1941 was empowered to name the personnel of the Parliamentary Committee (the name given to the Central Parliamentary Board at that time). In July 1945, the rules and regulations of the Central Parliamentary Board were framed by the Working Committee. The Central Parliamentary Board was given a very wide range of powers which reduced the status of the Provincial Parliamentary Boards to that of subservient and subordinate bodies. It was the Central, Parliamentary Board which was given the power to supervise and control the various Muslim League Provincial Parliamentary Parties. It was the tribunal which decided all disputes arising between a Provincial Parliamentary Board and a Provincial Muslim League or a Muslim League Parliamentary Party. Similarly, it was laid down that the Provincial Parliamentary Board would be under the general supervision, control and direction of the Central Parliamentary Board. A candidate could appeal against the decision of the Provincial Parliamentary Board to the Central Parliamentary Board whose decision was final and binding on the Provincial Parliamentary Board.

Even before these rules were framed, the Council of the Sind Provincial League, in its meeting of 3-4 June 1945, protested against `the convention established by the All-India League, which aims at divesting the Provincial Leagues of all their inherent powers of control and supervision over Provincial Assembly Parties and Ministries.' The resolution took a stand against such excessive centralization which `definitely militates against the principle of provincial sovereignty.' Sind had always been a hot-bed of intrigue and instability. The Central Muslim League was of the view that the Muslim League Members in the Provincial Legislature often crossed the floor for purely selfish considerations and there was no discipline in the party. The Central Parliamentary Board was anxious that there should be a fully-fledged Muslim League Ministry in a Muslim majority Province like Sind. In March 1945, the Central Parliamentary Board sent detailed instructions to Sir Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah as to how he should constitute his Ministry. Moula Bukhsh, one of the Ministers, had refused to join the League. Sir Ghulam Hussain was called upon by the Central Parliamentary Board to submit the resignation of his Ministry to the Governor and reconstitute it when invited to form a Ministry by the Governor in such a way that no Muslim was taken in unless he were a Muslim Leaguer.

Over and above all these organs like the Working Committee, the Committee of Action, and the Central Parliamentary Board stood the personal power of the Quaid-i-Azam as President of the Muslim League. Thus, according to a resolution of the Working Committee passed on 22 October 1939, the President was empowered `to advise, guide and issue instructions to Muslim League Parties in the various Provincial Legislatures in the event of some sudden emergency arising.' In October 1942, the Sind Muslim League Parliamentary Party had negotiated an agreement with Sir Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah, who had been commissioned by the Governor to form a Ministry, that the party would support the Ministry if the latter would work under the supervision and control of the League Assembly Party and the Provincial Working Committee. According to the terms of the agreement, it was also agreed that the Ministry would sponsor the passage of Bills like the Tenancy Bill, the Moneylenders Bill and the Land Alienation Bill in the Assembly. When Jinnah was informed of these developments, he was doubtful whether such an arrangement would work and was also angry that he had not been consulted. The text of his telegram dated 19 October 1942 and addressed to the Provincial League read:

Muslim League Party Provincial League its executive no power take decision without my approval see resolution number two twenty-second October 1989 it is binding on you Party bound carry out give effect my instructions come Delhi yourself immediately before accepting office joining Ministry cant follow nor understand terms from your telegram vague surprised you say my telephone not working am receiving calls perfect orders.

In the meantime, matters had gone so far that certain Muslim League members had already been sworn in as Ministers in the new Cabinet. Sind Muslim League leaders like G. M. Sayed, Khuhro and M. H. Gazder were summoned to Delhi to present their case before the Working Committee which met on 8 November 1942. The Muslim League Working Committee had to accept the fait accompli and its resolution only regretted that the Executive of the Sind Provincial Muslim League had failed to carry out the instructions of the President regarding the formation of a Ministry. The Sub-Committee that was appointed by the Working Committee to look into the matter visited the Province in December and they also felt that the arrangement arrived at between Sir Ghulam Hussain and the Provincial League could continue undisturbed. This showed that in spite of the enormous powers and prestige that the President enjoyed, he could not dictate the course of events in the face of certain realities and a determined opposition from the Provincial League.

In the Madras session of 1941 the President was `authorized till the next Annual Sessions to take every necessary action or steps in furtherance of and relating to the objects of the Muslim League, as he may deem proper, provided that they are consistent with the goal and policy of the League or any resolution expressly passed by the sessions of the All-India Muslim League.' This practice was continued in subsequent years.

In the Allahabad session of April 1942, Maulana Hasrat Mohani protested that Jinnah should not be invested with such dictatorial powers because there was a possibility that he might take a wrong decision, accept the Cripps proposals, and thus act contrary to the established creed of the Muslim League, namely, the establishment of independent zonal States. But the resolution arming Jinnah with all the powers was passed with the single dissenting vote of Hasrat Mohani.

One could see that Hasrat Mohani's fears were not purely imaginary. In June 1947, when the Congress had approved Mountbatten's plan of Partition, Jinnah was pressed by the Viceroy to give a categorical undertaking that the League would accept the plan. Jinnah made it clear that he could give no such undertaking without obtaining the approval of the Council. Mountbatten did not succeed in getting a clear undertaking from Jinnah even when he threatened that he might lose his Pakistan. The Viceroy wanted such an assurance from the League leader because of the Congress suspicion that Jinnah might use such delaying tactics to extract further concessions. Jinnah would not budge and said, `What must be, must be.' However, he agreed later that he would try his best to persuade the Muslim League Council to accept the plan. This meant that if the League Council had decided to reject the plan, it would have placed the Muslim League leader in an extremely embarrassing position in the sense that they would have let him down after he had indicated to the Viceroy that in all probability he would be able to persuade the Council. Thus, it could be said that the Muslim League Constitution conferred enormous powers on the Central organs to supervise, control and regulate the Provincial Muslim Leagues. But over and above the Central organs stood the august and awe-inspiring personality of the Great Leader, who controlled the Central organs. The Working Committee was his creature. He more or less nominated the Central Parliamentary Board. The Committee of Action carried out his wishes and the Council, with some minor protests here and there, put a stamp of its formal approval on his behests. The great mystery was not that he had so much power but that he had not been corrupted by such excessive power.

Method and machinery of propaganda: It has been shown already how the All-India Muslim League built up an elaborate mechanism to control the activities of the various Provincial Leagues. It has also been seen how the various Provincial Leagues were asked to model themselves on the pattern of the Central organization. This meant that there was a chain of command extending right from the President and his Working Committee or the Committee of Action to a Primary League in a Province. How this system operated at the Provincial level may be illustrated from a constitution like that of the Bombay Provincial Muslim League. It was stated that one of the main duties of the Provincial Muslim League was to `supervise and control the work of the District and Primary Muslim Leagues and ensure that the instructions, policy and programme of the All-India Muslim League are carried out.' Similarly, a District Muslim League had to carry out the instructions received from time to time from the Provincial Muslim League and supervise and control the work of the Primary Muslim Leagues within its District. Finally, this was rounded off by the provision that a Primary Muslim League should carry out the instructions issue by the District Muslim League and was subject to its general supervision and control.

It was obvious that the Muslim League had been doing considerable propaganda work to expand its membership and increase its popularity. But before 1940, its programme could have been presented only in negative terms, the main plank in the programme being an outright denunciation of alleged persecutions of Muslims under the Provincial Congress Governments. After the Lahore Resolution of March 1940, it was imperative that the Muslim League should try to rally support for the idea of Pakistan by explaining what benefits would accrue to Muslims if it were achieved. But there was no clear indication, at least through the official resolutions passed during 1940-2, whether the League was strenuously engaged in popularizing the idea of Pakistan. It was during March-April 1943, that one saw for the first time that the League was thinking of embarking on an organized mass campaign through methods like sending out missions of speakers and propagandists and producing literature for the propagation of its objectives. However, according to the official records, the resolution embodying these proposals was referred to the Subjects Committee of the thirtieth annual session of the League held at Delhi in April 1943. But it was never put forward and passed in the annual sessions. Therefore, one has to rely on the sort of propaganda that emerged in the form of speeches made by League leaders as well as the campaigns conducted by students and the ulema and also on the publicity of the League programme through the pro-League newspapers and the official literature.

What exactly was the problem involved in carrying out the League propaganda to popularize the idea of Pakistan? The League's propaganda had to be organized on two fronts. Muslims in Hindu majority Provinces had to be reassured that Pakistan would not necessarily result in their isolation and helplessness under Hindu domination. The League did not want a cleavage between the Muslims in Hindu majority Provinces and the Muslims of Pakistan Provinces, for the Quaid-i-Azam needed all his `hundred million Musalmans' to fight against both the Congress and the British. But the sort of response that the Muslim League had achieved in the Muslim majority Provinces, particularly in the Punjab and the Frontier, was not very reassuring. The Muslim League did not obtain a majority in the Frontier even during the 1945 elections. It was after a good deal of hard work and perseverance that public opinion turned in the League's favour in the Frontier. Similarly, the Punjab, which was described by Jinnah as the `corner-stone of Pakistan', was by no means a solid Muslim League stronghold. In the Delhi session, addressing the Punjab delegates, Jinnah appealed,

`. . . Please substitute love for Islam and your nation, in place of sectional interests; jealousy, tribal notions and selfishness.'

It was no doubt true that the Quaid-i-Azam was an indispen-sable asset of the League. He had unmistakably become, as his admirers said, a symbol of Muslim regeneration. He often appeared in public meetings in his sherwani, and, if the legends that have grown around him are to be believed, the Quaid-i-Azam frowned on any Muslim Leaguer attending the Council or public meetings in Western clothes. He was remote and aloof and often gave the impression of being arrogant and autocratic, but it seemed that with all his Western training and tempera-ment, he understood his people extremely well. He knew that the ultimate focus of loyalty of an overwhelming majority of Muslims was Islam. Many of the Muslim League lawyers and land- owners were by no means devout Muslims. Similarly, a great majority of the rural masses did not practice the tenets of Islam strictly. They had been influenced by their Hindu environment with its customs and traditions. Nevertheless, all these classes had in their minds a vague feeling that they would all become better Muslims once a Muslim State was established. The Quaid-i-Azam also knew that Pakistan could not be achieved unless his followers, particularly in the countryside, were assured that an Islamic form of government based on the laws of the Qur'an and the Shariat would be established in Pakistan. Without the help and intervention of the Pir of Manki Sharif, the Muslim League could not have built up its position in the Frontier and ulti-mately won the referendum in that Province. It seemed that the Pir Sahib demanded an assurance from Jinnah before he would offer his co-operation. In a letter to the Pir of Manki Sharif, the League leader clearly stated in November 1945:

`It is needless to emphasize that the Constituent Assembly which would be predom-inantly Muslim in its composition would be able to enact laws for Muslims, not inconsistent with the Shariat laws and the Muslim will no longer be obliged to abide by the Un-Islamic laws.

Call to Pathans

In the League meetings that the Quaid-i-Azam addressed, particularly in the Muslim majority areas, Islam with its symbols and slogans figured very prominently in all his speeches. Addressing the Pathans, he said:

Do you want Pakistan or not? (shouts of Allah-o-Akbar) (God is great). Well, if you want Pakistan, vote for the League candidates. If we fail to realize our duty today you will be reduced to the status of Sudras (low castes) and Islam will be vanquished from India. I shall never allow Muslims to be slaves of Hindus. (Allah-o-Akbar.)

With all his surging popularity, there were several limitations that the Quaid-i-Azam suffered from. He did not have a strong constitution and could not stand the dust and din of Muslim League campaigns in the countryside. The League also did not want to tax his energy too much because he was irreplaceable at the summit in the League's negotiations with the Congress and the British. He did not speak Urdu fluently and as a result of increasing mass participation in League meetings, particularly in the annual sessions, his speeches had to be translated, often by that gifted orator, Nawab Bahadur Yar Jung from Hyderabad (Deccan), President of the All-India States Muslim League. Further, the opponents of the League were also busy accusing the League leaders and particularly the Quaid-i-Azam of hypocrisy in their professions of loyalty to Islam and the Shariat. Thus, even, the Jama'at-i-Islami leader, Maulana Maudoodi, who could not be accused of pro-Congress sympathies, wrote: "From the League's Quaid-i-Azam down to the humblest leader, there was no one who could be credited with an Islamic outlook and who looked at the various problems from an Islamic point of view.'' In subsequent years, the denunciations became even more bitter. Thus, Maulana Husain Ahmad, President of the Jamiyat al Ulama-i-Hind, gave a f fatwa in October 1945, forbidding Muslims from joining the Muslim League on the grounds that such an action was contrary to the dictates of Islam. He also labelled the Quaid-i-Azam as 'Kafir-i-Azam' (the great heathen)."

The Muslim League relied quite heavily in its campaign among the masses both in the rural and urban areas upon the voluntary efforts of students, particularly from the Aligarh Muslim University. These students would often go to the remotest villages armed with the League's dialectics to do propaganda work. Later, the All-India Muslim Students Federation was formed which was very active in the Punjab. Particularly during the summer vacations; the Muslim students carried on extensive rural propaganda in the Punjab and were successful in enlisting support for the Muslim League. In 1942, they campaigned against some of the prominent Unionist Party members for having co-operated with the British war effort by joining the National Defence Council in defiance of the League policy. Their contributions to the general elections in 1945-6 were even more valuable. According to one source, over a thousand young Muslim students from Aligarh were sent particularly to Provinces like the Punjab and Sind, after having been trained at a centre for electioneering work. Jinnah was in touch with the leaders of these students and they constantly kept him informed of the developments in the election campaign.

The Muslim League also relied very heavily on the services of its highly gifted orators like Nawab Bahadur Yar Jung and Maulana Zafar Ali Khan. Particularly Bahadur Yar Jung during the years 1940-4 rendered yeoman services in carrying the League message to the remotest corners of the Punjab and the Frontier. It is said that he learned Pushtu so well that he could speak it fluently. He was responsible for making the first dent in the Frontier which was considered 'as a Congress strong-amended radically the Shariat Bill brought before the Legislative Assembly. Maulana Sayyid Husain Ahmad Madani, Khutba-i-Sadarat Fourteen, Annual Session of the Jamiyat al Ulama-i-Hind, Delhi, 1945, p. 46-47.

It may be pointed out that the charge that Jinnah took a stand against the Shariat Bill or altered its spirit by his amendment was not true. Jinnah pointed out that the Bill could not abolish the existing law and therefore should be designed specifically to remove those usages and customs which were being enforced by the courts. Even though it might seem that his amendment restricted the scope of the Bill, yet it covered a wide field. The Legislative Assembly Debates, Vol. V, 1937, Delhi, pp. 1831-3 and 1842. hold because of Abdul Ghaffar. Khan's influence. But his chief forte was his oratorical power in Urdu which could hold even the most critical audiences in Lucknow and Delhi spell-bound. It is difficult to recapture in translation the magnificent orations of this truly remarkable man.

In addition to all this, the Muslim, League had built up a very strong press, particularly in Urdu. Delhi had Anjam, Jung, and Manshoor in Urdu and Dawn in English. Lahore produced Inqilab, Nawa-i-Waqt, Paisa Akhbar and Zamindar in Urdu. Lucknow had its Hamdam. Calcutta produced Asre-Jadid in Urdu, Azad in Bengali, and Star of India in English. There were many others besides these prominent newspapers. There were also Gujarati pro-Muslim League newspapers. There were Nationalist or pro-Congress newspapers like the Al-Jamiat from Delhi and Madina from Bijnor. But in most of the Provinces, particularly during the later years, Muslim League newspapers far exceeded those that were pro-Congress and also had a much greater circulation.

The author has been unsparing in showing how Hindu newspapers, novels, and other publications heralded Hindu revivalism and fanned the flames of Hindu-Muslim conflict towards the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Now the Muslims were in an aggressively bitter mood.

Pirpur Report

The Pirpur Report, which catalogued the alleged Congress injustices and persecutions towards Muslims. The story that the Pirpur Report had begun was carried forward and presented with even more lurid and gruesome details of Congress oppression. Thirty-two articles were published in Dawn and Manshoor under the series entitled It Shall Never Happen Again. They described how Muslims were forbidden to eat beef, their prayer meetings and mosques disturbed and sometimes attacked and desecrated, and how Muslims suffered a much heavier toll of life and property in the riots that took place during the two and a half years of Congress administration.

Was if strange, then, that tragedy followed, tragedy and blood flowed instead of the milk of human kindness? Was it strange that terror stalked the countryside and rendered the helpless outnumbered few, despairing and desperate? Here and there the worm did turn and not all the conflicts were one-sided. But so indeed could the German historian accuse the Poles for turning upon the aggressive and death-dealing Nazi hordes! This could perhaps be characterized as an exaggerated sense of outrage at some of the wrongs that Muslims had suffered. In Muslim majority Provinces like Bengal there was a note of aggressive confidence in the attitude of Muslims. A poem recited at a Muslim League Conference in the district of Mymensingh in March 1941, and published later in the Bengali daily, Azad, indicated this attitude.

The oppressed remain silent by seeing the hypocrisy of the idolatrous Hindus-oh death-like eddy! O victorious soldiers; march forward on our Religious pilgrimage to the Kaaba under the banner of The League…

We want Pakistan, a proper division If it cannot be achieved by words, Muslims Are not afraid to use swords and spears. Where are the Muslim youths? We shall attain The desire of their hearts by tying down the wild tiger. Come quickly-break down Somnath. . . . .

Role of Pirs and Ulema

Sir Malcolm Darling, who had spent nearly all his working life in intimate contact with the peasants of the Punjab, once wrote: The peasantry, almost to a man, confess themselves the servants of the one true God and of Muhammad his Prophet, but in actual fact they are the servants of landlord, money-lender, and pir. All the way down the Indus from far Hazara in the north to Sind in the south these three dominate men's fortunes; and though they are found in greater or less degree all over the province, nowhere are they so powerful.

The Muslim League could justifiably say that since they were engaged in the struggle for the establishment of Pakistan, they were entitled to enlist all important and useful support they could muster for the achievement of their goal. Thus, in 1946, a Masha'ikh Committee, consisting of eminent pirs and masha'ikh was appointed. It included religious leaders like Pir Sahib of Manki Sharif, Pir Jama't Ali Shah, Khwaja Nazimuddin of Taunsa Sharif, Makhdum Raza Shah of Multan, etc. But included in this Committee were political leaders with dubious pretentions to piety. '. . . Khan Iftikhar Husain Khan of Mamdot was described as Pir Mamdot Sharif, Sirdar Shaukat Hayat Khan as Sajjada Nashin of Wah Sharif, Malik Feroz Khan Noon of Darbar Sargodha. Sharif and Nawab Muhammad Hayat Qureshi as Saj jada Nashin of Sargodha Sharif . . . . Some of the League leaders, when interviewed by the author, denied completely the above allegation that political leaders like Mamdot, Noon and Shaukat Hayat were presented as pirs before the masses to win their votes during the elections. However, the League in defence could argue that the stakes were high and the campaign of abuse and slander that its opponents had resorted to justified such methods.

How hard-pressed the League was to obtain all available support during the elections was indicated by the fact that several prominent ulama had been persuaded to campaign on behalf of the League. A highly respected leader like Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Osmani lent his whole-hearted support to the Muslim League election campaign. He defended the Quaid i-Azam against the attacks of other ulama and religious leaders and pointed out that whatever might be alleged about the landlords, the Nawabs and other titled gentry in the League, there was not a shadow of doubt that Jinnah's integrity was irreproachable. He exhorted the Muslims to vote for the Muslim League because it was fighting for the establishment of a Muslim State in which there would be a possibility of establishing a government based on Islamic law and traditions.

The opponents of the League were enemies of Islam and the true interests of Muslims. '. . . Any man who gives his vote to the opponents of the Muslim League, must think of the ultimate consequences of his action in terms of the interests of his nation and the answers that he would be called upon to produce on the Day of Judgement.'

As regards the charges that the Muslim League leaders, not being devout Muslims, were not likely to work for the establishment of an Islamic Government in Pakistan, Maulana Osmani said that if these charges were true, it was all the more important that all sincere and God-fearing Muslims should join the League in order to transform its character. Not being a politician, he did not realize that the powerful Westernized groups inside the League would not allow the ulama or other religious groups to change its ideology, for such a change would result in their group losing power in the League. Maulana Osmani's technique was to compare present Muslim politics with the political conditions of Muslims during the Prophet's time. This was a usual method with the ulama.

Dealing with the argument that after the formation of Pakistan, Muslims in India would live under the domination of a hostile Hindu Government, he pointed out that the Prophet had migrated from Mecca to establish an Islamic State in Medina and had left behind infirm and old Muslims in Mecca. In the same manner, he pleaded that the thirty million Indian Muslims should not stand in the way of the welfare and happiness of seventy million Muslims in Pakistan. If Pakistan were not established, the result would be that all the hundred million Muslims would have to live under a Hindu Government. Liaquat himself in a letter addressed to Maulana Zafar Ahmad Osmani acknowledged the great contribution that the ulama had made in the Central Legislative Assembly elections and particularly for their support to him in his constituency."

Similarly, the ulama rendered great services to the League in the Provincial elections of Sind, the Punjab and the Frontiers' Again, how heavily was the League drawing on their support was indicated by their participation in the Sylhet referendum as well as that of the Frontier during June-July 1947. According to Maulana Zafar Ahmad Osmani, it was Jinnah himself who requested the ulama to help the League in these campaigns. Maulana Zafar Ahmad Osmani went to Sylhet and Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Osmani was assigned the Frontier referendum. Both in Sylhet and in the Frontier religion played the most important role. Muslim voters in Sylhet were told that anyone who voted for Sylhet to stay in Assam was an `unbeliever'. As regards the Frontier, as pointed out earlier, the Muslim League could not have won the referendum without the intervention of the Pir of Manki Sharif and the help accorded to it by the ulama like Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Osmani and Maulana Abdul Sattar Khan Niazi. The sort of logic that these leaders used was best summarized in one of the speeches of Maulana Abdul Sattar Khan Niazi.

We have got two alternatives before us, whether to join or rather accept the slavery of Bania Brahman Raj in Hindustan or join the Muslim fraternity, the federation of Muslim provinces. Every Pathan takes it as an insult for him to prostrate before Hindu Raj and will gladly sit with his brethren in Islam in Pakistan Constituent Assembly. A Pathan is a Muslim first and a Muslim last.

Had the Muslim League undergone a metamorphosis as compared to the period when Jinnah presented his Fourteen Points as amendments to the Nehru Report in December 1928? During those days he used to argue in terms of percentages of Muslim seats in the Legislatures, cultural and religious safeguards for the minorities and the retention of separate electorates if Sind and the Frontier were not constituted as separate Provinces. Even as late as 1938, he was taking credit for having `removed the unwholesome influence and fear of a certain section who used to pass off as Maulanas and Moulavis.' But the realities of Muslim politics during the years 1945-7 were such that the assistance of Maulanas had been deliberately sought. In this way it could be said that the Muslim League had become much more representative of the Muslim people than it had been during the previous decades. But the price it paid for this metamorphosis was that it had become much more of a heterogeneous organization.

As long as the crusading spirit was there and the objective still unattained, the landlord and the peasant or the pir and the professor or the landlord and the lawyer were willing to work together. The bond of Islam had united them against the fears of Hindu domination. But even during the thick of the battle some people had started asking the fundamental question: What role would Islam play in purifying Muslim society of corruption, social inequality, superstition and ignorance? Islam had been used to fight against the Hindus. Would it be used to fight against the landlords, the pirs, and the mullahs? Those who asked such questions were either told that the time was not appropriate or that they had raised them to pursue partisan interests.

Groups and factions

It has already been suggested that the Muslim League had become a heterogeneous organization drawing its support from different classes and groups but united under one leader with Pakistan as its goal. The sense of unity arising largely from the goal it pursued and the leadership it had was strong enough to keep together classes and groups whose interests in normal circumstances would have been opposed to one another. First of all, particularly after the Muslim League pledged itself to the goal of Pakistan, there was a feeling of uneasiness, sometimes bordering on resentment, among the leaders of the Muslim majority Provinces that the Muslim League was dominated by leaders from the Muslim minority Provinces. In the Council of the All-India Muslim League for the year I942, out of a total membership of 503, there were 245 members from the Muslim minority Provinces. Even though Muslims in the Muslim majority Provinces outnumbered those in the Muslim minority Provinces, there were only 258 members from the Muslim majority Provinces in the Council. The balance was even more tilted in favour of the minority Provinces in the far more powerful organ of the League, the Working Committee. During I945-7 there were only 10 members from the Muslim majority Provinces in a Working Committee of 23 members (including the President and the Secretary).

It has often been remarked that the Muslim League was dominated by landowners and the titled gentry. Congress leaders like Nehru often labelled the League as a reactionary organization; largely under the influence of Nawabs and Nawabzadas from the Punjab and the United Provinces. The Secretary of the Muslim League was Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan, a big landowner from the United Provinces. Nawab Ismail Khan, another big landowner from the United Provinces, was President of the U.P. Provincial Muslim League and also Chairman of the Committee of Action of the All-India Muslim League. Nawab of Mamdot was President of the Punjab Provincial Muslim League. There was also a thin sprinkling of knights in the Muslim League. Sir Muhammad Saadullah was President of the Assam Provincial Muslim League and had also been Premier of Assam several times. Similarly, Sir Abdoola Haroon had been President of the Sind Provincial Muslim League until his death in 1943. In addition, there were several knights who were Muslim League members in the Central Legislative Assembly.

Landlords represented the largest single group in the Muslim League Council. Out of a total membership of 503 members, there were as many as 163 landlords. Punjab contributed the largest share of 51, followed by the United Provinces and Bengal. Proportionately, Sind's share was the highest in the sense that out of 25 members in the Council, 15 were landlords. Bengal did not have many big landlords like Tiwana, Daultana, Mamdot and Leghari from Punjab or like the Talpurs from Sind.

The next largest group in the Council was that of lawyers who were about 145 in number. Commercial classes like merchants, bankers and industrialists were increasing, but they were far from influential in terms of numbers in the Council. The Provinces of Bombay and Bengal, because of the two commercial centres, Bombay and Calcutta, contributed a substantial share. But a good number of army and government contractors and general merchants were to be found in the Punjab, Delhi and the U.P. groups. It may be pointed out that Jinnah, besides being a Gujarati by origin, had a reputation for complete honesty and was therefore trusted by the prosperous trading Gujarati and Bombay communities like the Memons, the Khojas, and the Bohras. He often addressed meetings of Memon merchants and Chambers of Commerce and they were his principal supporters. A large number of Memon merchants were retailers and they often requested the Muslim League leaders not to publicize their contributions because they were afraid that the Hindu wholesalers would penalize them for their support to the League. The financial contributions of Muslim majority Provinces were not substantial. Even during the elections of 1945-6 substantial sums of money were contributed by the merchants and industrialists of Bombay and Calcutta to the League election campaign in the Muslim majority Provinces.

As the Muslim League leaders, particularly the young intelligentsia, came increasingly in contact with the masses, they were shocked by the poverty and social inequalities that stared them in the face wherever they went in the countryside. They had also been influenced in their universities by socialistic ideas. Out of all this was born that impatient idealism which one noticed in the annual sessions of the Muslim League in some of the manifestos that were published during the Provincial elections of 1945-6 , and also in the conflicts between progressives and conservatives that smouldered in Provinces like Sind, the Punjab and Bengal. Nawab Bahadur Yar Jung, speaking at the Karachi session in December 1943, declared that he was a Communist:

‘If Communism means to efface poverty and class distinctions and to provide bread and clothing to the poor.'

He qualified this remark by saying that he did not draw his inspiration from Karl Marx, who denied the existence of God. He hoped that the Muslim League Planning Committee would produce an economic plan based on Qur'anic justice. Addressing the Quaid-i-Azam, he said:

‘We have understood Pakistan in this light. If your Pakistan is not such we do not want it.’

The manifesto of the Punjab Provincial Muslim League declared that there should be nationalization of key industries and banks beginning with immediate nationalization of all public utility services, public control of private industry, a ceiling placed on land holdings, and an equalization of the burden of taxation involving the imposition of additional taxes on large landowners. The manifesto was adopted unanimously by the Working Committee of the Provincial Muslim League and published by an extreme left-wing leader, Danyal Latifi." Similarly, it was reported that Abul Hashim, the young socialist General Secretary of the Bengal Provincial Muslim League, was waging a battle royal inside the Bengal Provincial League against the group led by the Nawab of Dacca and Khwaja Nazimuddin and probably supported by Muslim merchants and industrialists. G. M. Sayed, President of the Sind Provincial Muslim League during 1943-5, was also indignant that the Muslim League High Command constantly supported those whom he considered reactionaries like Sir Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah. He had also seen and been moved by the destitution and squalor in which the haris of Sind lived, and his bitter outburst was:

Do not forget that Islamic society actually in existence is that in which religious head is an ignorant Mulla, spiritual leader an immoral Pir, political guide a power intoxicated feudal lord and whose helpless members are subjected to all the wordly [sic] forces of money and influence. If the really important question about the abolition of Jagirdari and Zamindari system crops up or the prohibition of intoxicants becomes the issue of the day, what would not a rich Jagirdar or an aristocratic member of a sophisticated club do to use his influence, as also that of the Mulla and the Pir, to resist this threat to what is essentially an immoral and un-Islamic cause?

Jinnah himself had thundered against the exploitation of the common people by landlords and capitalists:

‘There are millions and millions of our people who hardly get one meal a day. Is this civilization? Is this the aim of Pakistan?. . . If that is the idea of Pakistan I would not have it."'

He had encouraged men like Abul Hashim and G. M. Sayed to use their crusading spirit for organizing the Muslim masses under the League flag. He had counselled them to be patient and fight their battles inside the League with a view to transforming it. But the realities of Muslim politics forced even a domineering personality like Jinnah to work with the. existing powerful social forces like the landowners and the new industrial magnates. Jinnah knew that the Muslim masses were too ignorant to be fully aware of their interests and too content to follow their pirs and landlords. The simmering of ideas that the activities and speeches of the fiery young idealists had produced was a phenomenon confined only to the top. It never went below the Provincial Working Committee or the Provincial Council. Thus Jinnah could not afford to antagonize the influential groups only to satisfy the wishes of the angry young men of the League. Referring to the charge that the League was against the zamindars, he said in Punjab, 'The League is not against any interests among the Muslims'.

The Muslim League was sometimes faced with Provincial conflicts. Jinnah's technique was to avoid all controversial issues which might divide Muslims into conflicting Provincial groups. Thus in the Lucknow session of the Muslim League in 1937 a resolution was brought forward recommending that Urdu should be made the lingua franca of Muslim India. In addition to that, the resolution called upon the All-India Muslim League to make Urdu its official language. Bengali delegates were vehemently opposed to the idea of the Muslim League adopting Urdu as its official language. They pointed out that Muslims of Bengal constituted more than a third of the total Muslim population of India and if Urdu were adopted as an official language, it would hamper the propaganda work of the Muslim League among Bengali Muslims. Jinnah, with characteristic political correctness, suggested that he was not in favour of the resolution in its present form.

The resolution as adopted read that the annual session only recommended to the All-India Muslim League to make all efforts possible' to make Urdu the lingua franca of the Muslim League." There were other signs which suggested that their might be a likelihood in the future of the Bengali Muslims not getting along with the Urdu-speaking Muslims of other areas. It has already been seen how the phrase 'Independent States' of the Lahore Resolution created confusion and encouraged some of the Bengali Muslim leaders to demand a separate and independent Muslim State of Bengal. There were other examples which indicated that this conflict was smouldering. Speaking on the Calcutta Municipal (Amendment) Bill, 1939, which sought to introduce separate electorates in the Calcutta municipal elections, Abu Husain Sarkar, a Congressman at that time and who later became Chief Minister of East Pakistan during 1955-6, expressed his bitterness as follows:

Under the false cry of representing Muslim interest in the Calcutta Corporation, the non-Bengali elements are trying to perpetuate their hold in Calcutta, and that is also in the premier self-governing institution in Bengal. Unfortunately, Sir, the Urdu-speaking non Bengalis, the Iranis, the Suhrawardys, the Siddiquis, the Adamjis and the Currimbhoys - are in majority in Muslim Calcutta. Most of them are wholesale agents for selling cheap German, Japanese and Italian goods.

However, all this went unnoticed. The League leaders knew that these differences and debates touched only the upper fringe of the Muslim community. The masses in their devotion to Islam were content to follow the call of the Quaid-i-Azam. As for the Quaid, the need of the hour was unity. He warned that the enemy was at the gate and Muslims should not dissipate their energies in doctrinal differences or Provincial wranglings.

Parliamentary govt

The Muslim League campaign before 1940 was that Islam was in danger and therefore all Muslims should join the Muslim League which was fighting for the preservation of Muslim religion and culture. After 1940, its campaign was that in Pakistan lay the future glory of Islam and therefore all Muslims should support the demand for Pakistan. In either case, opposition was ruled out as anti-national. Any Muslim who opposed the Muslim League was an enemy of Islam. Thus, the Muslim League Party was not a party in the normal sense of the term. It was a movement which represented the whole nation. And its leader himself declared many times that anyone who acted against the interests of the Muslim League was a quisling or a traitor.

When Jinnah reorganized the Muslim League during 1935-7, he knew that in the struggle for power that was taking place in India, Muslims would not amount to anything unless they organized themselves through a powerful political organization. 'If Wardha makes any decision and issues orders tomorrow, millions of Hindus will follow and obey. I ask you, suppose the Muslim League were to issue any order, what will happen to it?' Thus, Jinnah's conception of a political organization was that it was like an army in which once orders were given by the High Command, they should be carried out.

For the Muslim League, parliamentary democracy was not an ideal but only an instrument through which it was trying to achieve its major objective. The Muslim League had come into being prior to most of the Legislatures and therefore the primary focus of loyalty was not to the Parliament or a parliamentary form of government but to the Muslim League. No matter who stood on the ticket of the Muslim League, 'we should support League candidate even though he may be lamp-post'.

During the years the League was busy enlisting mass support, it did not have much of a programme but relied heavily on simple slogans. These slogans served their purpose in attracting thousands of Muslims to the League fold. But this intellectual vacuity, combined with the cult of leadership, infected the leaders at the top as well. The result was that particularly whenever they were called upon to assume office, not being united by any concrete programme or ideology, the League leaders soon fell a prey to squabbling and petty intrigues. In addition to this, the majority that the Muslims had in the Provincial Assemblies of Bengal and the Punjab was very slender. In Bengal, even though Muslims were 54.6 per cent of the Provincial population, they had only 47.6 per cent of the total seats in the Legislative Assembly. In the Punjab, their population was slightly over 55 per cent but they had only 49 per cent of the seats in the Legislative Assembly. The result was that the Muslim League by itself could not possibly produce a majority in either of the Assemblies. It had to co-operate with the other parties. Since the Muslim League was committed to pursuing primarily Muslim interests, non Muslim parties or representatives were reluctant to cooperate with it. This explains why the Unionist Party in the Punjab was not willing to merge itself completely in the Muslim League organization. In Bengal, the Muslim League managed to form Governments largely because of the support it received from the Europeans.

In Bengal, though Muslims were in a slight majority, they were extremely backward as compared with the Hindus. In Government offices, professions and trade, they were outnumbered by Hindus. East Bengal, where they were in a considerable majority, was the backward hinterland of Calcutta where the Muslim peasants lived under the domination of Hindu landlords, lawyers and merchants. In many cities of East Bengal, Hindus were in the majority. This was the state of affairs when Fazl-ul-Huq assumed office as Premier in 1937, and the conditions had not altered very much when Partition came in 1947.

After the Provincial elections of 1937, Fazl-ul-Huq, the leader of the Proja Party (Peasants), formed a coalition Ministry with the support of the Muslim League, the Scheduled Caste Party, and a small group of Independent or non-Congress Caste Hindus. He also received support from the European group. In the Lucknow session of the Muslim League in 1937, he announced, along with the Premiers of the Punjab and Assam, that he would advise all the Muslim members in his coalition Party to join the Muslim League. He asserted that his Ministry was determined to support the Muslim cause and that he and his Government would not remain silent spectators if Muslims in Hindu majority Provinces were persecuted. It may also be recalled that it was Fazl-ul-Huq who moved the Lahore Resolution in March 1940, in the League session at Lahore. In 1941, he had differences with Jinnah and the League Working Committee over the issue of his joining the National Defence Council. He agreed to resign from the National Defence Council but protested against Muslim League interference in Bengal politics. This brought about differences between himself and his Muslim League colleagues and demonstrations against him in Calcutta. Later, towards the end of 1941, Fazl-ul Huq joined a new 'Progressive Coalition Party' and refused to join the Muslim League Party in the Legislative Assembly. He was expelled from the Muslim League, but he retaliated by forming a new Ministry with the support of Hindu groups in the Assembly. The Premier, who not too long ago was a champion of Muslim separatism, had now agreed to work with Dr. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, a Hindu Mahasabha leader of Bengal. This was a great political mistake that Fazl-ul-Huq had made. Even though he was a fiery Bengali orator and an extremely popular figure among the Muslim masses in Bengal, Jinnah turned the full force of Muslim public opinion against him for having co-operated with the Hindus. The Muslim League won all the seven by-elections that were held after 1938. By 1942, it was clear that Fazl-ul-Huq could not work with his Hindu colleagues and particularly Dr. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, who was determined to follow a very pro-Hindu course in politics. Fazl-ul-Huq's Ministry continued until the end of March 1943 In April 1943, Khwaja Nazimuddin, leader of the Muslim League Parliamentary Party in the Bengal Legislative Assembly, was invited by the Governor to form a Ministry.

Khwaja Nazimuddin was an extremely affable man and completely loyal to the Quaid-i-Azam. It was well known that he was weak, indecisive and depended entirely on the counsels of his shrewd brother, Khwaja Shahabuddin. In 1943 his Ministry was faced with the disastrous Bengal famine. Distribution of food was a trade which was entirely in the hands of Hindus. When war and famine conditions of 1943 disrupted the normal channels of trade, the Provincial Government intervened to control the distribution of food through Government-appointed agents. The Muslim League Ministry thought that this was a great opportunity to establish their supporters and other Muslim traders in the lucrative business of distributing food involving a capital of millions of rupees. The Government not only supplied the capital but also met the losses incurred by the traders in the initial stages. Hindu Members in the Assembly accused H. S. Suhrawardy, the Minister for Civil Supplies, of corruption and favouritism towards members of his community. The Ministry was also charged for having extended its patronage to the Ispahani Company. Suhrawardy's defence was that he was perfectly justified in redressing the balance in distributive trade in favour of the Muslim community because even though Muslims were in a majority in the Province, Muslim traders had been completely kept out of the distributive trade. The Woodhead Commission, however, pointed out that in an emergency like the Bengal famine, ` administrative action should not be delayed by attempts to observe rules fixing communal ratios'." However, the result was that the Hindu traders and professional classes in Bengal had become bitterly opposed to the Nazimuddin Ministry.

In March 1945, there suddenly occurred an acute cloth shortage in the city. As the prices rose, cloth began to disappear from the shops to reappear again at phenomenal prices from under the counter. The Ministry got alarmed because of the processions and demonstrations organized by the Communist Party in Calcutta. They clamped severe controls on the cloth trade and the result was that the powerful cloth merchants of Calcutta turned against the Ministry. Members started changing sides. At that time the Budget Demands were being considered by the Assembly. On 29 March, Demand for Agriculture was rejected by the House by 106 votes to 97. On the day this happened, there was a considerable uproar and disorder in the House. When the Speaker put the Demand under Agriculture to vote, Suhrawardy and other Government supporters rushed to the Speaker's table and snatching the Speaker's microphone, tried to address the House.

This was followed by the Opposition Members rushing to the Speaker's table to grab the microphone from the hands of the Government Party Members to place it before the Speaker's seat." It may be pointed out that such scenes were re-enacted in the East Pakistan Assembly in September 1958 with more disastrous results. However, it was clear that it was difficult for the Muslim League Party to keep its majority intact. First of all, the Muslims had only 119 seats in a House of 250. Secondly, Hindus were much better organized and also wealthier than the Muslims. R.G. Casey, who was Governor of Bengal at that time, recording his impressions on the day the Ministry was defeated, wrote 'The result was that there was an uproar in the Assembly; members again started changing sides; those who took a poor view of human nature said that a good deal of money changed hands in the process, and one day in March 1945 the Ministry was defeated, and I found myself without a Ministry and with no prospect of getting another.

Section 93 continued in Bengal until 1946 when Suhrawardy formed a Muslim League Ministry after the elections. The Muslim League Ministry could hardly do any constructive work. Communal riots broke out in August 1946, in Calcutta, followed later by riots in Noakhali. In such an atmosphere, the traditions and conventions of parliamentary government could hardly thrive. The Muslim League was engaged in a desperate struggle and it had to cling to power. The Congress and other Hindu groups could hardly think of functioning as normal opposition in a climate of communal frenzy.

It has been said that the British had climbed to power on the backs of Hindu Bengalis, but had pressed it by organizing the Punjabis to defend the North-West frontiers of India." No book gives a better insight into the workings of politics in the Punjab during pre-Partition times and West Pakistan after Partition than Lepel H. Griffin's The Panjab Chiefs. There one can see how the ancestors of the Nawab of Mamdot, Khizr Hyat Khan Tiwana, and Nawab Muzaffar Ali Khan Qizilbash (Minister in Punjab, 1943-7) had all served the British during the Mutiny of 1857 and other wars." The policy of benevolence initiated by Sir Henry Lawrence in the Punjab before the Mutiny and that of firmness initiated by General Nicholson, who died during the Mutiny, paid handsome dividends. Muslim and Sikh landlords and peasantry became solid bulwarks of British power in India. Defence strategy demanded that the Punjab and the Frontier should be insulated from the tides of political agitation. The policy worked admirably in the Punjab, but with only partial success in the Frontier.

How rural was the composition of Muslim membership in the Punjab Legislative Assembly could be seen from the fact that out of 86 Muslim seats, 77 were rural and 9 urban." The Unionist Party was built up entirely as a result of the rural support it acquired, predominantly from Muslims and Sikhs. It has been seen that Sir Fazl-i-Husain succeeded in insulating Punjab politics from the external, communal influence of the Muslim League on the plea that Muslims could never muster a clear majority in the Provincial assembly without seeking the support of non-Muslim groups. Sir Sikander Hyat tried to follow this policy, but the gusts of communal politics from outside had become so strong that he could not isolate Punjab and keep the Unionist Party free from communal tension. Thus, even during his Ministry (1937-1942), legislation like the three Acts amending the Punjab Alienation of Land Act, 1900, the Registration of Money-Lenders Act and the Relief of Indebtedne Act created the impression that the Ministry was penalizing Hindu money-lenders. Other legislative measures like a tax on urban immovable property, restriction of urban rents and a general sales tax were also interpreted by the Congress and other Hindu groups as having been specifically designed to hurt Hindu urban interests. After Sir Sikander Hyat's death in December 1942, Khizr Hyat became the Chief Minister. In 1944, Jinnah demanded from Khizr Hyat Khan that the Muslim League members of the Unionist Party should owe allegiance to the Muslim League and to no other party. Jinnah also wanted that the name of the Unionist Party should be changed to the Muslim League Coalition Party. Khizr Hyat refused to accept these proposals and reminded Jinnah of the Jinnah-Sikander Pact, according to which the Muslim League was not to interfere in the internal politics of the Punjab on the understanding that Sikander Hyat and his Muslim Ministers would follow the policy of the Muslim League in all-India matters. Jinnah denied the existence of such a Pact. It was obvious that the Muslim League was trying to mobilize Muslim support in the Punjab because they knew that without such support the demand for Pakistan would have no firm basis. There was a final breakdown in Jinnah-Khizr negotiations in April 1944. In the Provincial elections of 1945-6, the Muslim League captured 79 out of 86 Muslim seats. The Unionist Party had lost the confidence of an overwhelming majority of Muslims. Even though the Muslim League was the largest party in the Assembly, it could not form a Ministry because Sikhs and Hindus would not co-operate with it. Khizr Hyat formed a Ministry with the co-operation of the Congress and the Sikhs. In March 1947, he had to resign because of the Muslim League civil disobedience campaign against his Ministry which had paralysed the administration. The Muslim League campaign was organized primarily to show that no Ministry could function in the Punjab without their co-operation. The Muslim League would rather have Section 93 in the Province than to accept Khizr Hyat as the Chief Minister.

Thus, when Pakistan came into being in August 1947, there was only one Minister in the newly constituted West Punjab Ministry who could claim to have had some experience in Provincial administration. This was Shaukat Hyat Khan who had been a Minister under Khizr Hyat but who had been dismissed in 1945 on charges of corruption and mal-administration The Chief Minister, Iftikhar Husain Khan of Mamdot, had been President of the Punjab Provincial Muslim League but had had no administrative experience. Even in matters like the organization of the Party, his experience was extremely limited. As President of the Punjab Provincial Muslim League, he had organized the campaign against Khizr Hyat's Ministry, but he could not draw on this sort of experience to tackle matters of administration and parliamentary government. Later, it was disclosed that he and other members of the Working Committee of the Punjab Provincial Muslim League had been busy in October 1946, in purchasing and collecting arms and ammunition for the forthcoming communal riots. It was true that this had happened on both sides. But the fact remained that traditions and conventions of parliamentary government could not be reared on these foundations.

Sind provided the spectacle of a steady see-saw for political power between the big landlords of Sind. Between 1937 and 1942, there were as many as five Ministerial changes. It was like a game of musical chairs in which some landlords won and some lost. There were no differences between the contestants. Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah, a wealthy lawyer and a landowner, was in practically every Ministry until October 1942, after which date he was the Chief Minister of Sind until Partition. Allah Bukhsh and Bandeh Ali Khan Talpur, who were the other two contestants, were both large landowners. Only in 1946 could the League claim that it had secured a firm stronghold in Sind. But the subsequent story of intrigues and instability, accompanied by mounting corruption, was a repetition of what had happened before.

In the North-West Frontier, the Muslim League had never been able to form a stable Ministry. A Congress Ministry under Khan Sahib was in power even when Pakistan came into being. For the first time a League Ministry was formed by Sardar Aurangzeb Khan in May 1943. This was entirely because a number of Congress members were in jail. In 1945, when they were released, Khan Sahib was back in power. During the elections of 1945-6, the Muslim League again failed to produce a majority in the Legislative Assembly. It was only from 1946 that the tide of public opinion turned in favour of the League.

Speaking in the Karachi session of the Muslim League in December 1943, when the Muslim League could claim to be in power in the North-West Frontier Province, in Sind, in the Punjab and in Bengal, Jinnah said: `This is only a part, which will make a contribution to the whole of our organisational field . . . . Well, we are trying the experiment. Let us see what emerges from this laboratory. It was clear that not very sound political or administrative material had emerged from this laboratory. Pakistan started in August 1947, with great hopes but with very poor raw material in terms of political leaders and administrators.

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