Few years back when I was reading Chaudhary Mohammad Naim’s book Ambiguities of Heritage, I came across one letter to editor of the Pioneer, in 1947 by Dildar Hussain, member of the Municipal Board, Barabanki, mentioned in that book. This letter reflects the Indian Muslims desperation and attempt to display that despite subscribing to the Idea of Pakistan in pre-partition days, they belong to this New India of Post-Partition.
Dildar Hussain writes in that letter, “I now fully realize my blunder in supporting the demand for Pakistan. May God and Indian nationals forgive me. I also pledge and declare most solemnly my determination never to falter in any service to the cause of our state, the Indian Union. I also appeal to the better sense of my co- religionists and implore them to fully rally round the Congress …. I would also earnestly request my brother Musalmans not to sacrifice cows on the coming Id festival as atonement for past blunders and as a gesture of their love towards the other nationals of the Indian Union”.
While reading the above mentioned letter, I was transported 15 years back in time, when few of us friends were sitting in a Hudson Lane café, in Kingsway Camp area of New Delhi. Bhaskar, who was a very chatty element of our group pointedly asked, “Do you know why this area is named as Camp?”. History gossiper in Aditya popped out saying these were all refugee camp areas of partition in 1947 accepting streams of Hindus and Sikhs from newly created Pakistan. But he did not stop there and spoke again after taking a sip from the coffee mug, “You know, most of the Muslims of UP, CP, Bihar and other Muslim minority provinces wanted Pakistan but did not migrate to the newly created state”. Listening to this line of argument, Siddiqui could not hold any further and interjected Aditya, saying, “Those who wanted Pakistan, performed hijrat to that country, we Indian Muslims never believed in Pakistan but subscribed to India and sided with Congress. Not only this, our religious leaders, Ulemas, wholeheartedly supported Congress and India and rejected Pakistan”.
The arguments went on as Aditya hit back with a fact based analysis that elections to Central Assembly and Provincial Assembles in 1945-46 were in fact referendum on Pakistan, and 87% of Reserved Muslim seats, across India, went to Muslim League, which made Jinnah the true Spokesman of Muslim community in Indian Subcontinent and thus Pakistan was created. The moment Aditya finished, Siddiqui countered him saying, those elections were held on limited franchise, wherein only 13-18% of Muslims were eligible to vote in various provinces. So, majority of Muslims did not have any say in the outcome of those results and they subscribed to United India. That was the end of our discussion. No one penetrated this subject any further.
This same argument I have been listening to for past 15 years, whether in MSM, SM or Academia. As if, there is no merit in penetrating further to know the reality of what Siddiqui had said, as if we know for sure that Muslims who did not have right to vote in those elections were subscribing to Congress Nationalistic ideology, as if the Ulemas were a monolith and they stood behind Congress for Democracy and Secularism.
To really understand the mood of the Muslim community and their inclination towards Pakistan, one has to take a detour from the highway of Congress-Muslim League rhetoric and take village and qasba roads where Pakistan was being imagined, articulated and imbibed by wealthy, poor, destitute, Students, peasants, weavers covering all cross section of Muslim society. One has to peep through the Urdu literature and newspaper of those times to know, ‘what Muslim mind was aspiring for’. The poetry, the shayaris and the slogans and the letter to editors gives us a glimpse of the fact that Idea of Pakistan, post Lahore Resolution of 1940, captured the imagination of Muslim community.
It starts with celebration of Pakistan Day on 19 April 1940 which, as per Liaqat Ali Khan, saw around 10,000 meetings throughout the country. The Mindspace, Pakistan captured in the Muslim community can be gauged from the statement of Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madni, head of Darul Uloom Deoband, who sided with Congress against Muslim League. He says in 1941 “These days the Pakistan Movement is very popular among the masses”.
Rise in Muslim League membership substantiates this popularity. ML membership in the villages, qasbas and cities increased sharply. The campaign for Pakistan brought in much larger numbers into the party fold. In U.P. alone membership stood at 304,586 in 1944. It had sixty nine branches in the province and this number rose to 77 by the time of the elections of 1945-46.
The students and teachers/workers of Aligarh university became ardent voice for Pakistan. Four Hundred student from Aligarh worked for Liaquat in his Meerut constituency. Such was the enthusiasm with which the Aligarh students were welcomed in Meerut that at various places local Pesh Imams insisted on Aligarh boys leading the prayers at the mosques declaring that they were the real leaders of the Millat and hence deserved to lead the prayers as well.
These students had spread out to all the remote villages of various districts, on an average covering 30 miles every day. One may say that how this validates that Pakistan idea was subscribed by all Muslims. For that one has to read the reminiscence about the role played by Aligarh students in rallying support for the ML and Pakistan, written by Kalim Siddiqui, Conflict, Crisis and War in Pakistan, quoted in Mushirul Hasan, ‘Local Roots of the Pakistan Movement’. In his book he writes, “arriving in our ancestral village in northern India, three young men carrying the Muslim League flag – the Islamic crescent and star on a deep green background. They were students from Aligarh University. They planted the flag in the village square and a crowd of little boys gathered around them... Within an hour our quiet village had been turned into Pakistan village.... Every piece of green material our mother could find was made into Muslim League flags...”
These students and others, like Khilafat movement of 1920, communicated with rural masses in the language of Poetry, shayaris and slogans. People of humble origin from Bombay, Allahabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad writing such poems and shayaris. One such writer is Ramzi Illahabadi who wrote a 96 page volume called “National Guard ke Tarane” (National Guard was a para-military wing of Muslim League). One such poem by Ramzi will give you the sentimental attachment of common people with Pakistan.
Parcham ooncha rahe hamara,
Hara hara yeh pyaara pyaara
Isko nabi ji ne hai sanvaara,
Parcham ooncha rahe hamaara
Not only this, but you can also gauge, how these slogans and poems coming from common people became a war cry for Pakistan. Written by a member of the U.P. Muslim Students Federation, Saiyyid Yavar Husain, calling himself Kaif Banarsi, in 1944, titled “Hans ke Liya hai Pakistan, Lad ke Lenge Hindustan”
Chashm-i-Raushan Pakistan,
Dil ki Dhadkan Pakistan
Leke rahenge Pakistan,
Bat ke rahega Hindustan
Hans ke Liya hai Pakistan, Lad ke Lenge Hindustan
Apart from the ordinary people, even so called progressive Urdu poets such as Majrooh Sultanpuri and Asrarul Haq Majaz composed Poetry eulogizing Pakistan. Majaz’s passionate “Pakistan ka Milli Taraana” reads,
Azaadi ki dhun mein kis ne,
hamein aaj lalkara
Khyber ke gardoon par chamka,
ek hilal ek taara ,
Pakistan hamara Pakistan hamara!!
The common Muslim’s aspiration for Pakistan can be better understood from the contemporary account of P. W. Radice, a serving ICS officer. While visiting Muslim weavers in Fyzabad dist of UP, Radice asked them as to what they hoped to gain from Pakistan, as Fyzabad will not be part of it. Their blunt reply was that “if the Hindus annoyed them, their brethren in Pakistan would be able to take their revenge on the Hindus there”.
In addition to all this, the Urdu press was littered with different conception of Pakistan and many letters written by common Muslims, subscribing to the Idea of Pakistan, filled its pages, which is very well described by Venkat Dhulipala in his seminal work “Creating a New Medina”.
Navigating to these writings and the qasba chatter encapsulated in many books and urdu newspapers of those times, along with the fact that Muslim League swept the Provincial election of 1946, suggest that majority of Muslims, including those who stayed back in India, subscribed to the Idea of Pakistan.
It is a misnomer that Muslim League was supported by muslim landowners, Jagirdars and Taluqdars only. While going through the Jinnah Papers, spread over several volumes, one comes across contribution of meagre amounts by students, weavers, small traders, and other poor labourers from across the country, which suggest how deep the Pakistan scheme has permeated in Muslim society.
One may wonder that how in a very short period of time i.e. from 1940 to 1946, an Idea of a separate Nation can grip an entire community. To understand and contextualize it, one must understand the political-theological discourse of Muslim community of those times. As Oskar Verkaaik (quoted by Farzana Sheikh in her book “Making Sense of Pakistan”) argues that mohajir driven idea of Pakistan as a Homeland was influenced by Indo-Muslim debates in the late 19th century, which emphasized Islam as foreign to India. These debates reinforced the assumption that Muslims were a “Diasporic Nation” (like Jews), a nation without Homeland.
It is in this background that prominent Deobandi Ulema, Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani, on whom Pakistan later bestowed the title of Sheikh ul Islam, theorised the new state of Pakistan in 1941-42, when he called Pakistan as New Medina. He used the Islamic imagery and historical events and used Pakistan and Medina interchangeably. According to him, just as Prophet had to move out from Mecca (hijrat) to establish a Riyasat-i-Medina, similarly Pakistan is being created as New medina. He exhorted the Muslims of UP, Bihar, CP and other parts of India to do the Hijrat to Medina where Ansars (Punjabi/Sindhi Musalmans) are waiting to receive them, with a resolve that after establishing Riyasat-i-Medina, we will win back the Mecca (Rest of India), as Prophet did.
Understandably, these powerful imageries of Islamic past must have goaded each and every individual of Muslim community to make Pakistan a reality, which will rekindle the lost glory of Islam in Indian subcontinent. These sentimentalities were so powerful that it cut across the sectarian, regional, linguistic and racial divide within Muslim community to collectively clamour for New Medina. The utopia which Riyasat-i-Medina created can be visualized by reading the mind of “Bano” in the Pakistani serial “Dastaan”, in which she imagines Pakistan as the most pious land where every one will be treated equally and everyone will live in comfort of millat. No wonder, the whole community was enthralled with the Idea of Pakistan, as heaven is being built in North-west of India.
Coming to our second contention that not all religious leaders (Ulemas) rejected Pakistan and adopted India. I request you to look at this question from two perspectives. One, who were these ulemas that sided with Congress? Second, those siding with Congress, did they imbibe the ideas of Democracy & Secularism which congress professed?
For past 75 years a lie has been repeated million times that Muslim ulemas supported United India and rejected Pakistan. This has been regurgitated innumerable times making it a reality. However, to begin with one must know that the Barelvis, who are in Majority in Indian subcontinent, were completely behind Jinnah, his Muslim League and the Idea of Pakistan. For Deobandis, who boast of rejecting Pakistan, one should be aware that a large and powerful faction of Deobandi Maulanas sided with Jinnah and Pakistan. One of the most stalwart Deobandi ulema, Asharaf Ali Thanvi, in fact sided with Jinnah in All India Muslim League, Patna Conference 1938. His disciple, Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani, along with 24 Deonabdi ulemas supported Pakistan Movement and theorised its future constitution.
When Pakistan Resolution was introduced by League in 1940 and gained support from majority of 5000 ulemas in a conference, the other faction of Deobandis headed by Maulana Madni, head of JUH (Jamatul Ulema-i-Hind), along with Maulvi Kifayatullah formed Azad Muslim Conference to inform the Muslim masses that Idea of Pakistan was bad for Muslim community.
The JUH and Azad Muslim conference organized a series of local conferences in UP in this regard. At the Jaunpur meet, attended by Husain Ahmad Madani himself, launched a frontal attack on the Pakistan scheme calling it ‘utterly impracticable’.
The conference, however, failed to rouse popular enthusiasm and proved to be a non-starter indicated by thin attendance at its meetings. It was reported that on the last day of the conference most of the audience began to leave even before the meeting ended. You can gauge from this, how Muslim masses received most prominent Deobandi Ulema, Madni’s rejection of Pakistan scheme.
In fact, the JUH aligning with Congress got split in 1945 when many of the Deobandi Ulemas headed by Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani formed Jamatul Ulema-i-Islam (JUI). The crouwd which JUI pulled was far superior to the one attended by JUH.
But more important than the question “how many maulanas sided with congress or League”, is that what was the Idea of India these Congress supporting Deobandi Maulanas were professing. And on this very question, one can see through the charade of the narrative “Indian Muslims believed in India”.
To understand this, one has to go through the critical essay written by one prominent Deobandi ulema from Bihar, Maulana Syed Muhammad Sajjad. His Muslim India Aur Hindu India Par Ek Aham Tabsira (A Critical Essay on Hindu India and Muslim India) written within weeks of Lahore Resolution of 1940, gives us the glimpse of what Ulemas meant by United India.
Maulana Sajjad believed in Amir-i-Hind concept of Maulana Azad (from Khilafat days). The scheme envisaged ulama in each province electing an Amir who, assisted by a council of the ulama, would set up shariat courts and educational institutions in every district besides appointing district Amirs. All these Amirs were to finally elect the Amir-i-Hind. The overall idea was that in a free India, Muslims would exist as an autonomous, self-regulating, separate community ‘maintaining a relationship with the country’s government through a collective agreement’ but simultaneously owing ultimate allegiance to the universal Khilafat of Islam.
Another Deobandi Maulana, Hifzur Rahman Seoharvi, apart from the above concept, did not subscribe to Pakistan scheme on account of a very different reason. According to him, Pakistan would be detrimental to Muslim interests from the viewpoint of tabligh (proselytization). He warned that if Pakistan came into existence, Hindu India would pass laws prohibiting conversion to Islam or ban organizations engaged in proselytization. This would certainly lead to Malkana Rajputs and other such illiterate Muslim communities reverting to Hinduism causing a grave setback to the spread of Islam in India. due to the ML’s two-nation theory, an invitation to a Hindu or a Sikh to accept Islam would be akin to asking him to join the nation whose centre was Pakistan.
Both Seoharvi and Madni argued that muslim’s best bet lay in a united India as envisioned in the resolutions passed by the JUH at its 1942 Lahore session. This resolution envisions India as a loose federation with weakest centre, where in the name of religious freedom, proselytization and Sharia will run supreme. The Saharanpur amendment of JUH resolution 1945 makes it more clear that in United India non-Muslim majority would not crush the Muslims’ political, religious and cultural rights. Therefore, Muslims would have parity at the centre. In other words, existence of two separate Nation in a loose federation. What Jinnah wanted but with Partition, Deobandi Ulemas wanted without partition.
This is sufficient to convince the readers that Idea of Pakistan was not only subscribed by majority of the Muslim community, but also those who distanced from the Pakistan scheme never subscribed to the higher ideals of Democracy, Secularism, Equality of Indian Freedom movement epitomised in the constitution of Indian Republic.
In 1947, Pakistan became a reality, but with that a new reality was to hit the Muslim community. Though they have romanced about Pakistan, though they have voted for its creation, though some of them will become Mohajirs, but a sizable number of them in UP, CP, Bihar and other parts of India will not be able to leave their Home, hearth and land and migrate to an unknown future. They will stay here in India and profess loyalty to Indian Union, the way Dildar Hussain does in his letter to the editor of pioneer (mentioned in the begining of this article).
But even after that, the community urge to merge with Pakistan or carve out a separate existence in India is visible in the writings of Qamaruddin Khan, lecturer in Aligarh University. Writing in Dawn just after the acceptance of 3rd June Plan and Partition, Khan says, “it was nakedly clear that the 3 Crore Muslims who have been forced to remain in Hindu India will have to fight another battle for freedom. But when this second battle is staged, anyone can easily guess that the geographical and strategic situation of Pakistan on the eastern and western frontiers of Hindustan will be of immense advantage to us”.
Khan advised Muslims to congregate in concentrated pockets in Hindustan. He specifically encouraged the U.P. Muslims to congregate in western U.P. as it would enable them to secede from Hindustan, while counseling Muslims of North Bihar to congregate in Purnea district to enable their amalgamation into East Pakistan. Khan concluded his essay by exhorting Muslims to not be overcome with despair but to work towards an even greater destiny than what they had achieved so far.
The prevailing psyche of the Muslim community and confused messaging during 1947 and after further validates our contention in this article. Some of the learned voices like Muhammad Habib, Professor of History at the Muslim University stated that the U.P. Muslims were thoroughly repentant of the League vote of 1945 and stand aghast at its consequences.
While other voices in the community counselled a withdrawal from politics, a return to Islamic learning and self-improvement. That is what Muslims, it was claimed, had done following the Treaty of Hudaibiya, the destruction of Mughal Empire and defeat at Balakot in 1857.
From these details one may deduce that the narrative of “We Indian Muslims believed in ethos of India and rejected Pakistan” is a false consciousness deliberately propagated to shield a community from the embarrassment of the original sin and at the same time instil a sense of guilt in the Majority community for unravelling such truths.