September 1, 2002

The social analysts reputed for objectivity and impartiality have ruled out religion as the factor leading to the political divide between the Muslims and the Hindus in the Indian subcontinent. It were, they have maintained, the economic causes which led to the parting of the ways between the two communities.

The Muslims ruled over the subcontinent for about 700 years. They enjoyed economic prosperity facilitated by their unassailable ascendancy in government jobs. The advent of the British rule in India precipitated the dismantling of the edifice of Muslim supremacy. It began with the Permanent Settlement of 1793 in Bengal. Persian which remained the official language during the Muslim rule was replaced by English in 1835. The Islamic code gave way to British jurisprudence in the shape of the Indian Civil and Criminal Procedure and Penal Codes.

These changes brought ruin to the Muslims. Upto 1838, the number of Muslims in the administration was equal to the Hindus and the English put together. By 1868, however, hardly any Muslim was visible in government offices. The substitution of Persian by English caused the Muslims to abandon their studies. As a result, in 1880-81, there were only 363 Muslim students in the high schools as compared with their 36,686 Hindu classmates. In 1878, only 57 Muslims held graduate and post graduate degrees against 3155 Hindus.

The Hindus prospered; became traders, zamindars and moneylenders. They almost monopolized the jobs. The Muslims descended from a nobility and a ruling class to “hewers of wood and drawers of water”.

Against this background, Mahmud Ali has addressed himself to the issue of economic backwardness among Muslims in the subcontinent in his book Quaid-i-Azam and Muslim economic resurgence (revised edition). He refers to the pitiable plight of the Muslims in the wake of the British rule and applauds Sir Syed Ahmad Khan’s role in the Muslim reawakening. Drawing on Iqbal’s letter to Jinnah in May 1937, he highlights the problem of Muslim poverty. To Iqbal the solution lay in “the enforcement of the law of Islam and its further development in the light of modern ideas”.

The author’s central thesis is that the adoption of “Western economies and Western science and technology” at the cost of Islamic teachings and moral values has, apart from causing stagnation in the national economy, developed a culture of corruption and other social evils in the country. He denounces the foreign aid giving agencies for their negative policies which have hurt the country’s economy and burdened it with a colossal debt.

Mahmud Ali pleads for the study of the Quran and its interpretation “in the light of the times and circumstances through the principle of Ijtehad” as a panacea for the country’s social malaise. He, however, does not explain how the divergence of views over the enforcement of Islamic laws between different Muslim sects is to be resolved. Unless a consensus is achieved in this regard, an attempt at the Islamization of the economy will stir up a hornet’s nest.

The author discusses the report of the Economic Planning Committee formed by Jinnah in the All India Muslim League’s Karachi session in December 1943. The Committee was given the task of fostering “educational, economic and social planning for Pakistan”. Mahmud Ali laments the non-implementation of the recommendations made in the report which the Committee submitted in July 1945.

In fact, the Muslim League did not have a well thought out plan for the socio-economic uplift of the Muslim masses. The landed aristocracy and business magnates were the mainstay of the League and its leadership shied away from initiating any measure which could have abridged the former’s political and social clout. The Muslims’ euphoria on the eve of Independence for their economic resurgence soon turned into frustration and despair. In a little over a decade, 22 (in)famous families came to control the national economy leaving a trail of economic distortions and disparity in their wake. Poverty is now on the rise — the number of people below the poverty line is now estimated at 38 per cent of the population.

The book unfortunately lacks profundity. The author’s treatment of the subject is sketchy and some of his findings rather simplistic. His repetitious and unfocussed style bores the reader. The book is completely barren of statistical facts so vital for a research intensive and scholarly undertaking like this one. It has, thus, scant informative, much less educative, value.

Quaid-e-Azam and Muslim economic resurgence
By Mahmud Ali
The Concept Publications Trust, Islamabad
Tel: 051-2204161, 2204250
181pp. Rs200

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