Title: Islamabad's Illusions: Jinnah's Dream of Muslim Hegemony By: NARENDRA SINGH SARILA Source: http://www.timesofindia.com WHEN trying to discover the real reasons, or the core issue, behind the tension that has unfortunately plagued and continues to plague Indo-Pakistan relations, the following facts are often ignored. The fervour in the Muslim League was for the re-establishment of the pre-British Muslim political dominance in India and not for partition based on an independent Muslim state or states for India's Muslim majority areas. Partition for the Leaguers would, after all, mean a withdrawal of Muslim power to the two corners of the subcontinent, an ignominious retreat for Islam in the subcontinent, a betrayal of 800 years of conquest. The fact that Muslims were almost 40 per cent of the population of British India and the non-Muslims were divided into various faiths and castes, made the dream to re-establish a measure of Muslim hegemony in a united India, not an entirely implausible one. The schemes for Islamic resurgence that were published in the 1930s had one common feature. Despite huge chunks of territory proposed to be put under Islamic political control, this was all to be done within a united India. I refer to the schemes prepared by Dr S A Latif, the Aligarh professors, Rehmat Ali and others. Foreign Powers Therefore, when in March 1940 Jinnah raised the demand for ``Independent states for the Muslims of India'' he did not define their territories. How could he when the cry of ``Islam in danger'' was loudest in areas where the Muslims were in a minority such as in UP, but which could never be part of a Pakistan to be based on Muslim majority areas? And when in Muslim majority areas like the Punjab, the NWFP and Baluchistan, fears of Hindu domination could not be whipped up and in which governments opposed to the Muslim League, albeit Muslim-dominated, continued in power right up to independence. Jinnah, however, found a way to square the circle. The Muslim League leaders let their followers believe that the creation of a powerful independent Muslim state in the subcontinent, with it own armed forces that could seek the support of foreign powers, was an essential first step. And that the retreat of Muslim power to the two wings of the subcontinent, was merely to be a strategic one, with the avowed goal to consolidate and then `rescue' the Muslims left in `Hindustan'. The view that an independent India was unlikely to survive, however absurd it may sound to us today, was widely held at the time of India's independence. A top secret appreciation prepared in the Commonwealth Relations Office, soon after independence, now available in the India office archives of the British Library, has this to say: ``Financially, industrially and from the point of view of manpower and general material resources India was stronger than Pakistan''. But that ``India had no real background on which to build and unite a nation, there being no real affinity between its North and South, the existence of disruptive elements like the Sikhs and the likelihood of the Communists, with their own agenda, growing in numbers and influence''. On the other hand, the appreciation states, that Pakistan weak in financial and material resources -- through comfortable in food and manpower --``has a definite background. Islam, on which to build up a nation and to unite the people...and has less to fear from internal disruptive forces than the government of India, and less to fear from secessionist tendencies''. Truncated State Jinnah had given a hint of the Muslim League's hegemonistic thinking at the time it passed the ``Pakistan Resolution'' in March 1940. He had then told Lord Linlithgow, the Viceroy, that the Muslims ``would be able to safeguard, because of their military prowess, even those of their community domiciled in the Hindu area''. And Woodrow Wyatt, the Labour MP, who visited India with the Cabinet Mission in 1946, recalls Jinnah telling him that ``as the Britishers were heirs to Muslim rule in India, it should be handed back to the Muslims''. Let me add that the Muslim League's ambitions received a heavy blow when Wavell, who had all along encouraged them, recommended in February 1946, a truncated Pakistan -- excluding from it one-third of the Punjab, half of Bengal and almost the whole of Assam -- which thereafter became the blue-print for the new state. Pakistan was dealt a further blow when in July and August 1947 Lord Mountbatten persuaded nearly all the princes to accede to India. This left Pakistan very little hope of obtaining the territorial parity that the Muslim League had dreamt of. However, by 1947, the communal tension had got so whipped up and Muslim emotion so fixed on a Pakistan, that where it would lead them to was not properly considered. Pakistan's Ambition Pakistan was thus launched on an ambiguity of territory as well as of aspirations -- in other words of false hopes, which governments in Pakistan, both civil and military, have never sought to curb; in fact, quite the opposite. And the persistence of these dreams of destabilising India are the core reasons for the continuing tension between India and Pakistan. One would have thought that after Pakistan lost its eastern half in 1971, thus reducing it to one eighth the size of India, a greater sense of reality would start to prevail. But this has not yet happened to the extent necessary for a meaningful dialogue with them. The reasons for this are: (a) Pakistan's alliance with the US, the strongest power on earth; (b) China's help in providing nuclear weapon technology and missiles through North Korea which has rekindled hopes of military parity with India; (c) the rise in Islamic fundamentalism the world over that has strengthened the jehad mentality in Pakistan policy and; (d) the Pakistani rulers' belief that Indian leaders can be coerced by a show of force -- now nuclear force. Kashmir is a cause of tension, and has been a cause of wars, between India and Pakistan. But it is not the core issue behind Indo-Pak enmity. That core issue is Pakistan's continuing ambition of wrecking India, currently drawing strength from the four points mentioned above. We cannot control (a), (b) and (c); but in the interest of peace must thoroughly disabuse Pakistan of its belief in (d). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Please visit India Think Tank's Home Page at http://www.indiathinktank.net. India Think Tank's Legal Disclaimer: Please note that all messages posted on the message boards and forums of India Think Tank are subject to India Think Tank's legal disclaimer. Please visit http://www.indiathinktank.net/legal.html to read the disclaimer in detail. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ You have a voice mail message waiting for you at iHello.com: http://click.egroups.com/1/2377/7/_/3986/_/953936112/ -- Talk to your group with your own voice! -- http://www.egroups.com/VoiceChatPage?listName=ittmembers&m=1
