PLEASE refer to Muhammad K. Sufi’s letter on Iqbal Day (Nov20) wherein he cites the Allahabad 1930 address, and his letter dated March 4, 1934, to Edward Thomas.

It is not correct to confine Allama Iqbal’s contribution to the Pakistan Movement solely to his 1930 Allahabad address. Both Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Allama Iqbal had initially rejected the ‘Cambridge Scheme’ of Chaudhury Rahmat Ali. Does that mean they were not the founders of Pakistan?

Mr Sufi says that in Allahabad Allama Iqbal had not mentioned Bengal; this is correct.

However, Mr Sufi is wrong when he writes that Iqbal “is silent about the division of Punjab on a religious basis.” Even in 1930, Allama Iqbal stated: “The exclusion of Ambala and, perhaps, some districts where non-Muslims predominate will make it less extensive and more Muslim in population.”

As for Bengal even the Quaid-i-Azam had agreed that it could be united and independent of both India and Pakistan. One has to see Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s The Unfinished Memoirs, Karachi, Oxford University Press, 2012, Pp 77-78 for documentation. It was Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru who had opposed the scheme by telling Sir Eric Mieville: “There was no chance of Hindus there agreeing to put themselves under permanent Muslim domination.” ( Burke & Quraishi, The British Raj in India, Karachi, Oxford University Press, 1995, p513).

The Lahore Resolution did not have the name Pakistan but later the Muslim League accepted the name. For Iqbal’s final formulation, one has to see his letter to Jinnah dated June 21, 1937: “A separate federation of Muslim provinces reformed on the lines I have suggested above is the only course by which we can secure a peaceful India and save Muslims from the domination of non-Muslims. Why shouldn’t the Muslims of North-West and Bengal be considered nations entitled to self-determination just as other nations in India and outside India are?”

Dr Muhammad Reza Kazimi
Karachi

Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2015