Muslim League in India’s Modern History

1.       Factors leading to formation of the Muslim League

•  Demography and Census: First census conducted in 1872 also collected data community wise. It was revealed that Muslims represented majority in many of the provinces like Punjab and Sindh and close to half way mark in provinces like Bengal. This gave Muslims a sense of numerical strength.
• Social Indicators from Census: The breakup of literacy and occupational statistics let to quantification of backwardness, eg. Only 5.9% of government officials in Bengal were Muslims.
• Urdu-Hindi Controversy: With rising demands of replacing Urdu with Hindi as official language, especially in UP, and Congress siding with Hindi, led to feeling that there was no party supporting cause of Urdu
• Indifferent Attitude of Congress towards Muslims
• Falling supremacy of Muslims in Government jobs
• Islamic Reform Movements: gave the lower orders a sense of social mobility and they could feel a sense of identity with upper class Muslims
• Evolution of Minto-Morley Reforms: The announcement of constitutional reforms in 1906, Muslims felt that they had no platform to demand their share
• Success of Simla Deputation: A delegation of Muslim leaders demanded minority rights and proportional representation in elections and public employment
• Multiple Hindu Muslim Riots
• Swadeshi Movement: projected to majority of Muslims that Hindus were against the delegation of powers to Muslims

2.       Predecessor Organisations

• 1863: Mohammedan Literary Society
•  1877: Central National Mohammedan Association
  • Demanded special favor and not just fair justice
• Mohammedan Educational Conferences
  • Organised every year from 1886
  • At the annual meet of 1906, at Decca, All India Muslim League was born
  • Resolution passed by Nawab Salimullah Khan
  • Seconded by Hakim Ajmal Khan, Maulana Muhammed Ali and Maulana Zafar Ali

3.       Organisational Setup at Start

• Founding President: Sir Aga Khan
• Founding Secretary: Syed Hassan Balgrami
• A central committee of 40 members was also constituted
• There was a liberty to form constitution at provincial level

4.       Early Years

• Between 1907 and 1909 provincial Muslims Leagues were formed
• 1908: London branch inaugurated under Syed Amir Ali. It played significant role in shaping Minto-Morley Reforms and getting separate electorate
• 1916: Lucknow Pact between Indian National Congress (INC) and Muslim League (ML)
  • Principle of separate electorate was accepted
  • Demands for a representative government and Dominion status for India
• 1920 – 1924
  • ML and INC worked together for Khilafat Movement. The movement fizzled due to abolition of Caliphate under Kamal Pasha

5.       Middle Years and Muslim Alienation

• Though Gandhiji saw Khilafat as an opportunity to showcase Hindu Muslim Unity, it produced contrary results on ground:
  • Overzealous Ulamas used religious symbols
  • Generated a sense of inferiority among the Hindus, who now started counter mobilization: RSS was born in 1924
• Congress secularist view didn’t help either. It eliminated the likelihood of accommodating the community identities within a composite nation hood
• Congress often gave way to Hindu Nationalist party demands
• Mohammed Ali Jinnah, elected by Bombay Muslims, emerged as a new face of Muslims. He preferred constitutional methods and hated agitational politics
• Jinnah focused on revival of ML and decided to work for new constitutional arrangement for India and wanted to renegotiate Lucknow Pact. Although Swarijists were willing they succumbed under pressure of Mahasabhites
• Still ML continued to be a debating forum for few Muslims from minority provinces and less impact on majority provinces
• Delhi Proposals: in 1927, Delhi Session of ML, four demands were issued to be incorporated in draft constitution prepared by Motilal Nehru
  • Joint Electorate with reserved seats
  • 1/3rd representation to Muslims in Central Legislative Assembly
  • Representation to Muslims in Punjab and Bengal in proportion to population
  • Formation of 3 new Muslim Majority provinces
• Nehru Concessions
  • Joint electorate but reservation to Muslims only where in minority
  • Sindh to be detached from Bombay only after dominion status was granted and subject to weightage of Hindu minority in Sindh
  • Political structure proposed was broadly unitary, as residual power rested with centre
• Jinnah Amendments
  • 1/3rd representation to Muslims in Central Legislature
  • Reservation to Muslims in Bengal and Punjab legislature, till adult suffrage was established
  • Residual powers to Provinces
• Jinnah Fourteen Demands: When Jinnah demands were not incorporated in Nehru Report Jinnah presented his 14 demands

6.       Later Years to Partition

• Congress had resounding victory in 1937 elections, and the following arrogance, gradually brought all divergent Muslim groups under the banner of revitalised ML under leadership of Jinnah
• Passage of Shariat Application Act, 1937, provided symbolic ideological basis for Muslim solidarity on national scale
• After Britain entry into World War-1, Congress ministries resigned
• Dec 22, 1939: The ML observes resignation of the Congress ministries as Deliverance Day
• March, 1940: Lahore Session of ML passes Pakistan Resolution
• August Offer, 1940
  • Provided that no future constitution will be adopted without the consent of minorities
  • Congress rejected it because it only agreed to old demand of dominion status
  • ML welcomed the veto given to League
•  Cripps Mission, 1942
  • The ML ciriticised the idea of single Indian Union
  • Thought that the proposals denied to the Muslims the right to self determination and creation of Pakistan
  • Didn’t like the machinery of creation of Constituent Assembly
• March 23, 1943: Pakistan Day observed
• Rajagopalachari Formula
  • After the end of the war, the entire population of Muslim majority areas in the North West and North East India to decide by plebiscite, whether not to form a separate sovereign state
  • In case of acceptance of partition, agreement to be made jointly for safeguarding defence, commerce, communications etc.
  •  Jinnah Objections
    • Wanted only Muslims of the NW and NE India to vote in plebiscite and not the entire population
    • Opposed the idea of common centre
• Desi Liaqat Pact
  • An equal number of persons nominated by Congress and league in the central legislature
  • 20% of seat for minorities
  • The parity between INC and ML had far reaching consequences
• Wavell Plan
  • Proposed that the executive members of Governor general’s executive council
  • Caste Hindus and Muslims were to have equal representation
  • ML wanted that all Muslims members be nominated by the League
  • Congress opposed the stamp of purely Hindu party
• 1946 Elections
  • ML performed really well
  • In provincial elections, it got a majority in Bengal and Sindh
  • Unlike 1937, league clearly established itself as a dominant party among Muslims
• Cabinet Mission
  • ML accepted the cabinet mission plan and the plan was also accepted by Congress
• Nehru’s Speech
• Nehru statement, “ We are not bound by a single thing except that we have decided to go into the Constituent Assembly. The big probability is that there would be no NWFP and Assam”
  • League withdrew its offer to long term plan and gave a call for “direct action” from August 16 to achieve Pakistan
• No participation in Constituent Assembly Meetings
  • The league didn’t attend the first meeting on Dec 9, 1946
  • Refused to attend cabinet meetings
  • Liaqat Ali Khan obstructed in functioning of other ministries
• April 1947: Congress President Kriplani communicated to viceroy that they would want Bengal and Punjab to be partitioned rather than a battle
• Mountbatten Plan, June, 1947 leads to partition

Thus we see that emergence of ML in start of twentieth century slowly amalgamated Muslims and it was catalyzed by rise of Hindu Nationalism in India. They were recongnised as major interlocutor in all plans of British government, and finally they were able to get India partitioned. Though ML didn’t continue to be the main party in Pakistan for long, as INC still does in India.

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