What were the Muslim leaders of the subcontinent thinking when they demanded a separate homeland for their people? It could have been something different from what we have been taught in school
This study has nothing to do with the hackneyed query whether or not Pakistan should have been created. It is not within our purview. What we must understand is that Pakistan is a reality within the context of the universal understanding. It neither was, nor is a dream. It was carved out of Indian soil. In the wake of its creation horrible riots broke out. Millions of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs were uprooted, devastated, and butchered. The land of enchanting beauty, fragrance, and mysticism turned into an inferno.
Are we obliged to believe that our leaders were so shortsighted that they could not apprehend the dreadful consequences of partitioning a country? Did they ever think what would happen to the Muslims who would be left behind in India after the partition of the subcontinent in the name of religion? None of our leaders was prepared to accept the responsibility for the holocaust of unparallel magnitude people had to face after the creation of Pakistan. For our leaders what happened to the humanity was a part of the game. They created Pakistan, arrived in chartered planes, and became its rulers. With them arrived the ICS, fortune hunters, and the men in khaki who were the backbone of the British during their two hundred year rule over India. They amassed fabulous evacuees’ property, acquired vast agricultural and urban land, and secured lofty jobs for their kith and kin. Then came the uprooted, devastated and the wounded in teeming millions on foot, on bullock carts, buses, trucks, and the trains. Upon witnessing their misery did our well-entrenched leaders in cosy comforts feel embarrassed? It is anybody’s guess.
Now, let us undertake an academic enquiry into the specified and unspecified causes/reasons for the creation of Pakistan.
The Two Nation Theory is a sensitive issue. I do not have the slightest intention to hurt my readers’ sentiments. I understand Hindus and Muslims are two different communities. Their places of worship are different. Their religious rituals and the festivals are different. Their food-habits are different. Similarly Christian and Muslims are also two different communities. Their places of worship, religious festivals, rituals, and cultures are different. Would Muslims refuse to live with the Christians? The Supreme Creator of all the creators has so devised that the various communities all over the world have distinctive festivals, rituals, customs, traditions, food habits, and languages. Would Muslims segregate themselves from the rest of the communities in the world to live in isolation? The Muslim history tells us that the Muslims all through the ages have lived among different communities, in different countries, along with different people who spoke different language. Thus, Hindus and Muslims being two different communities is not a convincing reason for the creation of Pakistan.
Even after surrendering power to the British, the Muslim politicians, and Ulema (Muslim scholars) held rallies, demonstrations and congregations all over India, especially during the Khilafat Movement in support of the crumbling Muslim rule in Turkey. And remember the Reshmi Roomal Tehreek and the role of Moulana Ubaidullah Sindhi? When the Ali brothers, Moulana Muhammad Ali and Shoukat Ali, were arrested in Karachi, tried at Khalik Dina Hall, and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment by the British, Moulana Abul Kalam Azad organized a massive rally the same day, 21 December, 1920 in Kolkata (then Calcutta), and followed it up with rallies in Ahmadabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Amritsar and Lahore. Such was the influence and authority of Abul Kalam Azad on the Muslims of India.
From 1905 to 1947 the Muslim League worked with the Muslims of India. Barely seven months after the start of the Second World War, on 15 August, 1939, Muslim League passed the Pakistan Resolution on 23 March 1940 in Lahore. It was the passive movement of the Muslims. None of the Muslim League leaders was arrested, or imprisoned. To say that the Muslims did not enjoy political freedom under the British is doubtful. History doesn’t support it. However, history reveals that in confronting the British, the Muslims were not as fierce and forceful as Hindus were. None of our leaders spent a day in jail for political dissent with the British, whereas, Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Abul Kalam Azad and others were imprisoned for years. It leaves us guessing.
For about six hundred years the Muslims were the rulers of India. They erected mosques, and mausoleums, observed religious festivals with utmost freedom, and amassed wealth. After the British wrested power from them the Muslims receded in depression. During their six hundred year rule the Muslims of India were never exposed to competition. With the commencement of British Raj began a period of competitive era for which the Muslims of the subcontinent were not prepared. Consequently, during the two hundred-year British rule, the Muslims of India lagged behind in education, trade, commerce, industry, civil services, arts, crafts, drama, music, choreography, scholarship, and academic and literary pursuits. However, some of them composed superb poetry. Agriculture remained mainstay for the Muslims. In such circumstances if the British had departed from India the Muslims would have been left bewildered in a highly competitive India in which only the genius, and talented Muslims would have survived, and rest of them would have been obliterated. Who knows, in order to save Muslims from cutthroat competition our leaders demanded a separate country for them to live a less demanding life! Does it sound a plausible reason for the creation of Pakistan?
