FOR long, the Pakistan Movement has been put down, chiefly, as the handiwork of feudals and landlords, claiming that it was ingeniously engineered and primarily led by them, to make themselves secure in the new state claimed for Muslims.
Because the Muslim case has invariably gone by sheer default the Congress publicists had a field day: they could conveniently ignore the mass character of the Pakistan Movement on the one hand, and the bourgeoisie streak that it had come to acquire by the mid-1940s on the other. And all this without raising an eyebrow for almost five decades.
This bourgeoisie streak was provided by the Adamjees, the Dawoods, the Habibs, the Ispahanis and a few other Muslim tycoons, who actively collaborated with Jinnah in setting up a chain of Muslim financial and industrial institutions and commercial enterprises — institutions and enterprises such as the All-India Federation of the Muslim Chambers of Commerce and Industry (1943), Muslim Commercial Bank (1947), Muhammadi Steamship Company (mid-1940s), Orient Airways (1946), besides newspapers and small industries. Besides causing economic upliftment of Muslims in immediate terms, these ventures, which, in a sense, proclaimed the crystallization of a burgeoning Muslim economic nationalism, were meant to enable Pakistan to offer economic opportunities to Muslims when it came into being.
Perhaps nothing dramatized the bourgeoisie clout the Pakistan movement had acquired as the quantum of liberal contributions made by Muslim industrialists, entrepreneurs and businessmen in the wake of Jinnah’s appeal for funds, to fight the (1945-46) general elections, which, of course, was a matter of life and death for Muslims as a nation.
With Birlas and Dalmias to draw upon, as Sardar Vallabhai Patel’s correspondence indicates, the Congress had no problem. R.K. Nehru, one of the secretaries to government, asked Begum Shahnawaz on October 14, 1945, “what chance could the poor Muslim League possibly have of defeating” the Unionists in the Punjab, since it “had collected forty lakhs of rupees.” Wavell noted that the League was poor in finance; so did Governor Cunningham in respect of NWFP. Since, in any case, “elections cannot be fought without money”, the first thing Jinnah did after the failure of the (first) Simla Conference (July 1945) was to appeal for funds. Soon after, on August 6, he inaugurated the League’s election campaign at Bombay where he was presented with a sum of Rs100,000 by the Muslim Timber Merchants’ Association. Six days later, at another meeting, at Bombay where he received a sum of Rs311,000, he assured a la Churchill, “Give me the silver bullets and the League will finish the job.”
Almost unexpected was the response to his appeal. He received a cheque for Rs200,000 from Ahmedabad Muslims on October 27, a sum of Rs200,000 from Majlis Ihehadul Muslimeen (Hyderabad Deccan) in November, of Rs147,000 from the Memon Chamber of Commerce, Bombay on December 21, of Rs100,000 from Calcutta Muslim Chamber of Commerce in January 1946, and sizable donations from Muslim businessmen and merchants in various provinces.
Kadayanullar (Madras) and Rajahmundary (Madras) presented him eighty and seventy silver bullets respectively; Ceylon Muslims 70 gems in February 1946, and the Transvaal Muslim League donated 500,000 pounds sterling in January 1946.
Of the enthusiastic response from far and near Jinnah was highly appreciative, specially because, as he told the Ahmedabad Muslims, “this amount (of Rs200,000) is not given by Birlas and Dalmias, Kasturbhais and Ambalals, but by the poor Muslims, which enhanced the value of the contribution to one crore.” (To get a rough idea of these contributions at current prices, they must be multiplied by 100. The US dollar was about Rs3 and the pound sterling about Rs10 or less in the mid-1940s).
Despite these large contributions, the League’s finances were no match for the Congress’ and the Unionist’s overflowing election coffers. One would only have to refer to Sardar Patel’s correspondence during October 1945-February 1946 to have an idea about the largess so readily distributed, to gear up and mobilize potential rival candidates, and to R.K. Nehru’s remark about the Unionists’ financial clout. No wonder, Jinnah had a hard time meeting the demands of the provincial Leagues, specially from the majority provinces.
Punjab had reportedly collected Rs800,000 by early December, but was still short of funds to the tune of Rs300,000, prompting Jinnah to appeal to Punjab Muslims to emulate their brethren in Bombay and South Africa, and contribute liberally. Realizing, however, the odds against which the Punjab League was fighting, he agreed to loan out a sum of Rs300,000 on certain conditions.
Sindh’s condition was all the more critical. Consequent upon his revolt, in late December, G.M. Sayed, the provincial president, had not only decamped with the League’s funds which were in his sole custody, but had as well misappropriated almost everything, from office to furniture and equipment to stationary. Thus, Mohammad Ayub Khuhro was obliged to appeal frantically for a donation of Rs100,000 from the central fund.
Bengal was also short of funds, and Suhrawardy appealed to Jinnah for help. Jinnah, on his part, generally asked each province to raise “its own fund for fighting the...elections,” besides contributing to the central fund. “Don’t you think that Bengal, headed by Ispahani, should handsomely help the provincial and central Muslim League funds?” Jinnah reminded his confidante in Bengal, adding, “You must have been following how magnificently Bombay has acted...Bengal”, he urged, “should not lag behind.”
If anything, these financial troubles indicate that although the Muslim League and the Pakistan movement had acquired a bourgeoisie dimension, the quantum of Muslim bourgeoisie was still meagre, due in part to the Hindu hegemony, next only to the British, over the Indian economic, financial and industrial landscape.
FOR long, the Pakistan Movement has been put down, chiefly, as the handiwork of feudals and landlords, claiming that it was ingeniously engineered and primarily led by them, to make themselves secure in the new state claimed for Muslims.
