In modern subcontinental history, Hindu opposition to Muslim demands and interests has often proved to be a blessing in disguise. It had often caused a new awareness of their invidious situation, uniting their ranks, sharpening the Islamic sensibility of Muslim leaders and making them stand up for their rights and interests all the way. Such, in any case, was the impact of Hindu agitation against the partition of Bengal (1905). The partition legislation was enforced by Lord Curzon, the Viceroy (1899-1905), for purely administrative reasons, in October 1905.
Under the British, Bengal had become too unwieldy an administrative unit to be run efficiently. Earlier, in 1874, Assam had been separated, to lessen pressure on Calcutta, the capital. But the subsequent three decades indicated that it was still too large as a single provincial unit. Hence, the visionary Curzon decided to amalgamate the two provinces and reconstitute them into the provinces of (i) Bengal and (ii) Eastern Bengal and Assam.
The setting up of the latter province, with its capital at Dacca, sought, in the nature of things, to focus attention on the development of a long-neglected and retarded Muslim majority area. And since the Hindus had dominated the entire Bengal landscape, this obviously became a caucus celebre for the Hindus to foment agitation against the Bengal Partition.
Inexplicably, though, their mounting agitation took on an increasingly anti-Muslim tone and tenor. For one thing, the partition was presented as an insult to the Goddess Kali; for another, the anti-Muslim Bande Matram was adopted as the rallying cry. To cap it all, the anti-Muslim Hindu icon, Shivaji, was imported all the way from Maharashtra as the national hero.
Simultaneously, a campaign was unleashed against Sir Bampfylde Fuller, Lieutenant-Governor of Eastern Bengal and Assam, that ultimately led to his resignation. This sent a wave of consternation, energizing Nawab Sir Salimullah of Dacca (1884-1915) to accelerate his campaign in favour of the Bengal Partition.
Nawab Salimullah came from the family of the Nawab of Dacca that had distinguished itself for its philanthropy and solid contributions to Dacca’s civic amenities. His grandfather, Sir Abdul Ghani, had paid for the Dacca water works while his father, Sir Ahsanullah, for fitting the city streets and roads with electric lights. Succeeding his father in 1901, and titled Nawab Bahadur in 1903, Salimullah had maintained his family’s philanthropic tradition before he jumped into the political fray at age 21. In pre-partition Bengal, he had indicated his belief in Muslim identity by holding milad and na’at gatherings holding them in each mohalla of Dacca, and himself reciting na’ats at some of them.
For now, on the day the partition scheme was put into effect, he told a Munshigunj meeting that the partition had “aroused us from inaction and directed our attention to (political) activities and struggle.” Subsequently he launched upon organizing the disparate East Bengal and Assam Muslims into a compact body and set up an organization for their “consolidation and conservation — for all public purposes.”
Thus, the Mohammedan Political Union came to be founded, with Nawab Salimullah as its patron, and the various associations in the province were sought to be affiliated with it. From then on, he was actively engaged in building up Muslim opinion in favour of the Bengal Partition.
Subsequently, the Bengalee (a Congress organ) mounting vilification campaign led him to bring Muslim Bengal within the orbit of the Aligarh Movement and invite the Muslim Education Conference to Dacca in 1906, in a show of solidarity. He, along with Nawab Ali Chaudhury, also sought a mention of the “stability” of Eastern Bengal and Assam in the Simla Memorial (1906), but the participants of the September 15-16, 1906, meeting at Lucknow, led by the Punjab members, considered the issue much too controversial and contentions, and one that might raise Hindu opposition to a new pitch.
Salimullah could not join the Simla Deputation (1906) because of an eye operation, but shortly afterwards he took the first concrete step towards establishing an all-India Muslim organization — a proposal he had mooted tentatively at the Lucknow moot. Now, in order to ensure broad support for the new province, Nawab Salimullah circulated a scheme for the formation of a Moslem all-India confederacy “a Central Mohammadan Association that could bring into touch the aims and aspirations of our community throughout the country.”
He suggested that his proposal be discussed after the conclusion of the Mohammedan Educational Conference, that was scheduled to meet at Dacca, late in December 1906. Predictably, the Bengalee criticized Salimullah’s scheme in unmitigated terms, comparing it to the Maratha Confederacy and the Khalsa Confederacy, characterizing it as hopelessly “preposterous” and calculated to embitter the relations between Hindus and Muslims, while The Times of India considered it “ill-advised and indiscreet.” On December 30, the delegates to the conference adopted Nawab Salimullah’s scheme, with some modifications, and the new Muslim political organization was launched as the All-India Muslim League (AIML).
Nawab Viqarul Mulk had presided at the session and Salimullah had moved the resolution that was adopted unanimously, after some discussion.
For the next five years, Nawab Salimullah was actively involved in Muslim politics: he presided at the Muslim Educational Conference at Amritsar in 1908, and over the Muslim League session at Calcutta in March 1912, that was the last political moot he attended. The annulment of the Bengal Partition the previous December had, however, hurt him beyond repair, leading to his quittal of politics, broken-hearted, that he announced at the League session.
One immediate consequence of his deep involvement in politics was the induction of the other (Nawab of Dacca) family members into active politics, with Khwaja Nazimuddin, Khwaja Shahabuddin and Khwaja Khairuddin, his sister’s sons, following in his footsteps.
