In the light of this decision, Pir Illahi Bux was removed from premiership. In the Assembly born out of these irregularities, Khan Bahadur Ayub Khuhro of the League had the support of 25 out of 35 members but the Party High Command, which is to say Mr. Jinnah, ordered that Sir Ghulam Hussain be retained as Prime Minister and this is how it happened. Before this, he had the support of the British Governor, Now he had the blessings of Mr., Jinnah also. The British were about to quit India but they were leaving Sir Ghulam Hussain behind as a ‘democratic legacy’. The conspiracies hatched by the British in order to keep India one included the Cabinet Mission’s three-zone plan which, as we have seen, failed. There were many reasons for this, the main among them being Assam’s refusal to join the Eastern Zone and the decision of the Congress not to go into the constituent assembly with any pre-conditions. At this, Mr. Jinnah went back on his decision to accept the Cabinet Mission Plan and started to plead for partition with renewed vigor and ordered direct action on August 16, 1946. This order was undefined and the Muslims did not know exactly what to do. As a result, Hindu-Muslim riots erupted on a large scale in Bengal, Assam and Bihar in which about 5,000 people lost their lives and more than 100,000 were rendered homeless. In view of this, the Cabinet Mission admitted that it had failed and the Viceroy, Lord Wavell, left for home at the completion of his term. Lord Mountbatten, a member of the British royal family, replaced him; He brought with him the partition plan. Although the British had accepted the partition plan, Lord Mountbatten did try to keep India united for some time at least and for this purpose, he held parleys with the Congress and the Muslim League, but by that time Mr. Jinnah had gone too far and had gained immeasurably in confidence. He told Mountbatten that evens it Pakistan was as small as a matchbox, he was determined to get it, and he must get it even if it was confined to the Thar Desert. Things having gone thus far, the British had no option but to partition India. The Congress, on the other hand, was of the view that until the communal issue was sorted out within a united India, the British must continue their efforts to keep the country one. However, the Second World War had weakened the British financially and, moreover, they were under pressure from the U.S. to free India. Another reason for their impatience in the matter was that there were signs of rebellion in the British Indian armed forces, which had manifested itself in the naval uprising and strikes in Bombay and Karachi. Fearing a bloody revolution in India, the British announced the partition formula on June 3, 1947. Its salient features were:
I. India’s division into two States.
2. The two States were to form their own constituent assemblies.
3. There would be a referendum in the NWFP to decide whether it wanted to join India or Pakistan.
4. There would be no fresh elections in the NWFP but the people of the province would be asked whether they wanted to join Pakistan or India,
5. The provinces of Bengal and the Punjab would be partitioned.
6. In Assam, the people of Sylhet would, through a referendum, be asked which country they wanted to join.
7. India would get Calcutta while Lahore would be part of Pakistan.
8.A boundary commission would be appointed to demarcate the frontiers between the two countries.
9.A commission would be appointed to divide financial and military assets between the two countries.
10.British sovereignty ending over India, the princely states would be given the right to choose which of the two countries to join.
11.The British would hand over power to the two States in August.The Congress and other nationalist parties as a solution to the communication problem accepted the partition plan but it only exacerbated it, and Hindu-Muslim riots assumed all-India dimensions during which hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives including innocent children. Countless women were raped, and property worth millions was destroyed and hundreds of thousands of people were forced to migrate from the land of their ancestors, Love was replaced by hatred and terrorism, Sindh was no exception, and the Sindhis were divided into two with around 1,300,000 people leaving their homes and hearths for India, with the rest mourning their departure along the banks of the Indus.We were helpless against this flood tide of madness. Therefore, we sat back to think what had Pakistan, for achieving which we had given the best years of our lives, in store for us. Was this the independence for which countless people across India, including the Sindhis, sacrificed their lives? The independence we had been dreaming of meant a life of beauty and happiness. What we got instead was death and hatred and murder and terrorism. How to save our simple and innocent people from all this? This was to be the core of my political struggle thence.
Here I would like to ruminate whether the demand for Pakistan was the part of an immediate but well thought-out strategy or an outcome of a series of accidents in history and a British gift for the Muslim League which it did not deserve because it did not have the ability to protect, preserve and manage it. Since the latter is the case, Pakistan has been and will continue to live from crisis to crisis. I would thus like to analyze the demand for Pakistan from three points of view historical, religious and Britain’s India policy.
Historically, no such country as Pakistan existed before August 14, 1947. Chaudhry Rehmat Ali, a Punjabi Muslim who was a student at Cambridge in 1930, and was used by him in several pamphlets, coined the word. No Hindu or Muslim politician in India had taken it seriously, so much so that Mr. Jinnah, the moving spirit behind the Pakistan Movement, had not considered the word or the demand implicit in it worthy of comment. This is proved by the fact that when the leader of the Muslim delegation to the Round Table Conference was asked what it thought of Rehmat Ali’s Pakistan scheme, he had described it as childish. Mr. Jinnah was present at the conference. A telltale documentary evidence is presented here. In the fifth preliminary meeting of the Indian Round Table Conference, Mr. Jinnah had explained the term ‘the Dominion of India’ thus:
I say the cordial principle which will guide us through the deliberations of this conference is that India wants to be mistress in her own house, and I cannot conceive of any constitution that you may frame, which will not transfer responsibilities of the Central Government to a cabinet requisible to the legislature. (Indian Round Table Conference, 12th November, 1930 _ 19th January, 1931 proceedings) Similarly, the learned author of Jinnah’s Tragedy, Kailash Chander, says-At the first round table conference, when a joint deputation of the Muslim League & Muslim Conference was giving its evidence before Indian Constitutional Reforms Committee, a member of the Committee, Sir Reginald Graddock, put a question as to "what the Muslim League and Muslim Conference thought about the Pakistan Scheme." The leader of the two deputations replied, "As far as I know it is only a students’ scheme. No responsible people have put it forward. So far as we have CONSIDERED IT, CHIMERICAL and UNPRACTICABLE. It means the federation of certain provinces,On being further pursued by Sir Reginald the deputation replied, "Perhaps it would be enough to say that no such scheme has been considered by any representative gentleman or association so far." Most of the present day supporters of the Pakistani idea had condemned it in most severe language. Mr. M.A. Jinnah was also opposed to it. At the very first speech that he delivered at the Round Table Conference, he thought of a United India.
He was thinking in terms of Dominion status for India when at the 5
th plenary meeting on 20
th November, 1930, Mr. Jinnah said, ‘the cardinal principle is that India wants to be a mistress in her own home and I cannot conceive any constitution that you may frame, which will not transfer responsibility in the central Government to a cabinet response to the legislature.
Jinnah Sahib was himself the member of a federal structure committee and did not oppose the idea of an Indian federation. The Pakistan idea would have died its natural death, but it got some sympathetic response in some notorious die- hard quarters in England, in time of the second R.T. Conference (Tragedy of Jinnah pp. 221-22)
Yet further and detailed evidence is provided by Dr. Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India, in his book, ‘India Divided in the following words:
In 1933 for the first time a Punjabi Muslim, Chaudhri Rehmat Ali (an undergraduate of Cambridge) who gave the movement a shape and a form called the Muslims, hitherto called a minority community, ‘a nation’. He propounded the idea that the Punjab, N.W.F.P (Afghan Province), Kashmir, Sindh and Baluchistan should be formed into a separate Muslim State called Pakistan. This proposal was different from that of Dr. Iqbal in that while Dr. Iqbal proposed the amalgamation of those provinces into a single state forming a unit of the All Sindh Federation, Chaudhry Rehmat Ali proposed that these provinces should have an independent federation of their own. Leaflets advocating Pakistan were distributed by Chaudhry Rehmat Ali to the nuclei of Parliament as members the Round Table Conference, no Indian, Hindu or Muslim, took interest in them. Muslim witness described the Pakistan scheme in August 1933, to the joint parliamentary select committee as follows.
" A. Yusuf Ali: As far as I know it is only a student scheme, no responsible people have put it forward.""Ch. Zafarullah Khan: So far as we have considered it, we have considered it chimerical and impracticable."
"Dr. Khalifa Shujauddin: Perhaps it will be enough to say that no such scheme has been considered by any representative gentleman or association so far."Leaving everything aside, even Dr. Iqbal, who is regarded as the author of the Pakistan idea, had no clear concept of what he meant by it. In his presidential address to the All India Muslim League in Allahabad in 1 930, he had said that the Rehmat Ali scheme would be harmful for the Hindus and Muslims of India as well as for the British themselves. Saying that Dr. Iqbal was not in favor of the Pakistan plan, Edward Thomson writes in his book, Enlist India for Freedom:
"On my vast undisciplined and starving land, Pakistan would be disastrous to the British Government, disastrous to the Hindu Community, disastrous to Muslims. But I am president of the Muslim League and therefore it is my duty to support it."Let us move from here and review the Muslim League performance. It had never seriously regarded Pakistan as the Indian Muslims’ objective but as a pressure tactic against the Congress. There was a dialogue between Mr., Jinnah who was the League President in 1939, and his colleagues Sir Zafarullah Khan, Sir Yamin and Dr. Sir Ziauddin, which has be ‘ en described lucidly by Sir Yamin in his book, Nama-I-Aamal. (P 725) The upshot, of which dialogue is that late in 1939 and early in 1940, the Quaid-e-Azam was not in favor of the partition of India. It wag’ later in reference to a document delineating a detailed Plan of division of India worked out by a Committee of which Maulana Ghulam Rasool Mehr was also a member, and yet more at the insistence of Seth Haji Abdullah Haroon that the Quaid agreed to accept the partition plan, (Khatoot, p.99, by Maulana Ghulam Rasool Mehr)In the biography of Mr. Jinnah The Leader, which was commissioned by the Government of Pakistan, Hector Bolitho quotes from M.H. Sayed’s book, Jinnah: A Political Study, to the effect that Mr. Jinnah, writing on March 9, 1940 in Time and Tide, had used the term ‘two nations’, and urged that the Constitution of India should be so drafted as to be acceptable to the ‘two nations’ living in India, their ‘common motherland’. This was the last time Mr. Jinnah used also the term ‘common motherland.’ Two weeks later, he presided over a meeting of the All India Muslim League in Lahore on March 23, 1940. The question here is: how could a man who was the President of the Muslim League and who, until March 13 and, according to Ghulam Rasool Mehr, right till the beginning of his party’s Lahore session, was opposed to the partition plan become a proponent of the division of India? Not only did he become a proponent of partition but was also convinced that the target was achievable when till not very long earlier, he had dismissed the same idea as childish. How did he bring himself round to becoming such an implacable champion of partition? History is cruel. With the passage of time it exposes hidden faces, intentions and secrets. Seemingly pious personalities then emerge as ugly tools. In all this drama, Jinnah and his followers do begin to look like British lackeys. Jinnah did become adamant in his demand for Pakistan but not for the benefit of the Muslims of India but at the behest of the British. There is enough documentary evidence to support this. Here only two examples would suffice. First, it was under the Lord Linlithgow move that Sir Zafarullah Khan prepared a draft for the partition plan. The British feared that the Muslims of India would not accept a scheme authored by a Qadiani. Therefore, a copy of the scheme was sent to Mr. Jinnah under the suggestion that it would be presented to the Muslims as part of the League manifesto. This, a bit of a feeler, was later to provide the basis for the Pakistan Resolution. For evidence, excerpts are being reproduced here from Wali Khan’s book, Facts Are Facts, to show what was the British view of the Pakistan idea:
The Viceroy of India, Lord Linlithgow, told the leaders of the Muslim League that the Government of Great Britain would not tolerate negative politics. This view was conveyed to the Muslim League Working Committee through Sir Sikander Hayat. Therefore, various sub-committees started preparing a concrete plan of action. The Viceroy wrote to the Secretary of State for India that Chaudhry KhaliQuzzaman had suggested to Lumley, the Governor of Bombay that India should be divided into three dominions. It seems that KhaliQuzzaman wanted to create one dominion each for Hindus, Muslims, and Rulers of Princely States.
The Governor of Northwest Frontier Province, Sir George Cunningham, wrote to the Viceroy that, upon his return from the Muslim League Convention, Sardar Aurangzeb reported to him:
‘The scheme, which they Muslim League were now contemplating, would involve the creation of 6 or 7 Indian dominions.... and that this novel scheme now holds the field to preference to the original Pakistan proposal.’
Lord Zetland, Secretary of State for India, had detailed discussion on the above subject with Sir Feroz Khan Noon. He suggested that the northwestern part of India should be separated from the rest of the continent, in a manner similar to Burma, and a new country, Pakistan, should be created. The Secretary said that he saw ‘almost insuperable difficulties in the way of our acceptance of such a policy’. Feroz Khan Noon’s response to this was, ‘If it was so he would not himself encourage it when he returned to India.’ [Letter dated 13 December 1938].
These were different schemes. Chaudhry Rehmat All, a student of Cambridge, had an esoteric scheme for Pakistan. Sir Muhammad Iqbal proposed yet another format. What remained to be seen was what the British had up their sleeves?
The Muslims were hatching the above schemes; the final decision rested with the British. When the British saw that their objectives could not be met by the schemes presented by Sikander Hayat Khan or the Muslim League Working Committee, they unilaterally rejected all the proposals submitted by the Muslims. Chaudhry Zafarullah, a member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, was asked to submit a map of two dominions. On that subject, on 12 March 1940, Viceroy Lord Linlithgow wrote to the Secretary of State for India:
‘Upon my instruction Zafarullah wrote a memorandum on the subject, Two Dominion States. I have already sent it for your attention. I have also asked him for further clarification, which, he says, is forthcoming. He is anxious, however, that no one should find out that he has prepared this plan. He has, however, given me the right to do with it what I like, including sending a copy to you. Copies have been passed on to Jinnah, and, I think, to Sir Akbar Hydiri. While he, Zafarullah, cannot admit its authorship, the Muslim League with a view to giving it the fullest publicity has prepared his document for adoption.’
The Viceroy explains this further. Since Zafarullah was a Qadiani he had to be cautious. The Muslims would become irritated if they found that a Qadiani prepared this scheme. The Viceroy said that Jinnah had been given a copy to make the Muslim League adopt it and publicize its contents. Sir Akbar was given a copy because he was responsible for fund-raising. The dates take on a special significance, The Viceroy’s letter to the Secretary of State was written on 12 April 1940. The Pakistan scheme had been dispatched earlier. Twelve days later the Muslim League adopted this very proposal at their Lahore Annual Meeting. It was called Pakistan Agreement,
Sir Zafarullah’s term on the Viceroy’s Executive Council was expiring in March. Due to his loyal service
, however, the term was extended. Two days after the Muslim League had adopted this proposal, on 25 March 1940, the Viceroy wrote:
‘The Congress is putting forward a preposterous claim, which they know is incapable of being accepted. He (Jinnah) will put forward just as extreme a claim, of the impracticability of realizing which he is probably just well aware; but the existence of which, will, while reaffirming the Muslim attitude of hostility to the Congress scheme, take away some, at any rate, of the damaging charges which are hitherto being leveled against them [Muslim League] that they have no constructive ideas of their own.’
When the Muslim League accepted the Viceroy’s proposal [author, Sir Zafarullah, the British were convinced of their dependability. It was natural, then, for the British to refuse to recognize the existence of any party other than the Muslim League. During those days, a large representative gathering of nationalist Muslims was held in Delhi. The Chief Minister of Sindh, Allah Bux Soomro, chaired the Assembly. The Secretary of State, Lord Zetland, asked the Viceroy to report on this gathering. On 14 May, 1 940, the Viceroy wrote:
‘I attach no particular importance to the Delhi Conference of the Muslims, which took place a few days ago. It has been well organized and the Congress press machine has written it up admirably.... We both are, of course, aware that there is a not unimportant Muslim element outside the Muslim League.... Indeed, I am sure that Jinnah remains the man to deal with on the Muslim side.’
The British deliberately ignored those Muslims, who, along with the Congress, were struggling for freedom. Their very faith was called I questionable’. More than 100 representatives, who had gathered together under the leadership of an elected Chief Minister, were totally disregarded. The Viceroy did not mince his words when he wrote to the Secretary of State that ‘Jinnah is our man and we accept him as a representative of all Muslims.’
The Khaksars were in a peculiar position. The objection to other Muslims was that they were not assisting the British but the Khaksars, who, in all humility, had offered help! On 24 May 1940, the Viceroy wrote, "Meanwhile the Khaksars have formally renewed their offer to me of 50,000 men to help in the war."
Their offer to fight for the British in the war against Germany was rejected due to Jinnah’s negative attitude. ‘Jinnah accepts no responsibility for Khaksars or their activities since they have declined his advice.’ The Viceroy adopted the following stand:
‘Considering the present attitude of the Khaksars in Punjab, it would not be advisable for me to enter into any correspondence with them or their leaders, and I propose, accordingly, to leave the telegram unanswered.’
The British were trying to make it very clear to every Indian Muslim that except Jinnah and the Muslim League, they were not ready to accept any other party. To gain British support, the Muslims were obliged to join the Muslim League. Earlier, the British had severed relations with the Congress because they were not prepared to assist them in the war against Germany. Their inconsistency becomes evident in their refusing the help of 50,000 Khaksars, while at the same time, rejecting the Congress because they did not offer 50,000 men to fight the same war’
Second, In 1941, Ayub Khuhro told me that the Punjabi President Sir Sikander Hayat was in Karachi and that I should meet him. Accordingly, I called on Sir Sikander Hayat in the company of Ayub Khuhro, Allah Bux Soomro and Sheikh Abdul Majid Sindhi at the Carlton Hotel. Among other things, the Punjab Premier told us that it would be better if an all parties government was formed in Sindh under Allah Bux Soomro’s leadership, He told me that I had done well to work for the establishment of such a government in Sindh because it would enable us to get laws protecting the rights of the people such as debt relief, the tenancy act, etc., passed by the Assembly. During the course of our discussion, Sir Sikander Hayat advised Soomro to join the Muslim League at which the latter said that he would not do so because he considered the very existence of the League detrimental to the interests of the Muslims of India, to Sindh, to the rest of the sub-continent and to Islam itself.
Sir Sikander Hayat told Soomro: ‘Look, I am in League Myself ‘Allah Bux Soomro retorted by saying that Sir Sikander Hayat had criticized the Pakistan plan in the Punjab Assembly only a few days ago. How was it possible to be in the Muslim League and be opposed to the Pakistan scheme? he asked. ‘At least my conscience does not allow me to indulge in this kind of two-timingness," he added. He also said that in his view, Pakistan would be detrimental to Muslim interests and be deadly for Sindh. At this, Sir Sikander Hayat said even the central President of the League, Mr. Jinnah, was not in favor of Pakistan and the proceedings of the Round Table Conference were proof of that. He had opposed the Pakistan idea in the light of Jinnah’s views, he added. Allah Bux Soomro said he was not capable of that kind of hypocrisy. Only Sir Sikander and Mr. Jinnah could do it. Later, Sir Sikander left for Cairo when Rommel was threatening to take over the Suez Canal for Germany. Gen. Montgomery who was lea ‘ ding Sikh and Muslim troops from the Punjab, was facing the Germans. Sir Sikander Hayat had gone to Egypt to boost the morale of the Indian troops. He performed this duty with great loyalty. Shortly afterwards, the German advance turned into retreat. At this, Winston Churchill met Sir Sikander in Cairo and personally thanked him for having helped the British in their hour of trial while the Congress had added to their problems Therefore; the Congress did not deserve British attention or friendship. He said that the British could not ‘ remain in India in the face of opposition from its 400 million people. He asked Sir Sikander Hayat to assure Mr. Jinnah that in order to teach the Congress a lesson, the British would quit the sub-continent soon after the War but only after having created a ‘Muslim India’ in India. Mr. Jinnah need not be afraid, and he could have this pledge verified by the Viceroy of India.
Sir Sikander Hayat left Cairo for Bombay where he met Mr. Jinnah and conveyed Mr. Churchill’s message to him Mr. Jinnah had the promise made by the British Prime Minister verified by the Viceroy through the Governor of Bombay. The Viceroy then summoned Mr. Jinnah to Delhi and told him that a framework for the division of India was already on the anvil and he could check on this from Sir Zafarullah Khan, on the condition that he would not enter into any settlement with the Congress. Jinnah agreed to do so and began to work against the Congress with renewed vigor. It is possible that at this may yet be regarded as not fully established. Therefore, I am citing an excerpt from Syed Nor Ahmed’s book, "Martial Law Se Martial Law Tak" in which he says that even after the passage of the Lahore Resolution, Sir Sikander Hayat was not mentally prepared to accept the Pakistan plan because he believed in provincial autonomy. However, he was in favor of partition because of autonomy for the Muslim nation, which was the basis of the Lahore Resolution. However, he wanted that the Punjab should remain united. He wanted partition to take place in such a manner that the martial races of the Punjab should be free of the influence of the pundits and Brahmins of the majority party in the center. He probably thought that the Punjabi Hindus and Sikhs would agree with his point of view. He made a strange effort towards this end over and above the heads of the League leadership. At the request ‘of the British Government, he visited the War theaters once again to buck up the Indians, which is to say, Punjabi soldiers. In the winter of 1941-42, he had the occasion to meet Churchill in Cairo. On his return home, he told some of his Cabinet colleagues, including Sir Chotu Ram and other friends that apart from other things, he had discussed India’s constitutional problem with the British Prime Minister and had tired to make two points clear to him.
- He had tried to impress upon him the fact that only the martial races of the Punjab had contributed to the British War effort with loyalty and it would be a travesty of justice if they were made subservient to the Congress and the Brahmins who would be in majority at the center in a free India.
- A loyal Punjab deserved to be the leader of a separate dominion, which should include Sindh, the NWFP and Baluchistan. This could be easily achieved provided the British statesmen were convinced of its advantages. Such a federation would be loyal to the British under all circumstances. The defense of the new dominion and the rest of India should for some time, be joined under British supervision. Later, a mutually agreed formula could be evolved for the purpose. The new dominion would be economically self-sufficient.
Is it too difficult to surmise what effect this proposal had on Churchill? Obviously, this is exactly what Churchill wanted and it is for this reason that the proposal had been made. It is interesting to note that six months after his talks with Sir Sikander Hayat, Churchill sent a member of his War Cabinet, Sir Stafford Cripps, to India with a plan for Indian independence under which any province could opt out of India if it so desired and the British Government would give it separate dominion status. If this plan was the result of Sir Sikander Hayat’s efforts, he must have been disappointed when both the Congress and the Muslim League rejected it. Nevertheless, the demand for Pakistan gained strength to the extent that the British offer had brought the concept of partition to the realm of practical politics. (Martial Law se Martial Law Tak, pp 204-5, with the author quoting Raja Ghazanfar Ali Khan who was in Lahore in 1948), This excerpt raises two points. As I have stated, the partition plan was offered by Churchill himself with the assurance that it would be implemented while the excerpt given above shows that the author of the scheme was Sir Sikander Hayat which was not only approved by Churchill but he also sent Sir Stafford Cripps to India as a practical proof of his approval.The second point is that under the Sikander Hayat Scheme, the new federation was to have been led by the Punjab because it had been loyal to the British. Isn’t the present Pakistan exactly what he had demanded? Then how does the author of the book cited above say that Sir Sikander Hayat was disappointed? We would, therefore, be right in saving that the British imperialists staged the whole drama and our politicians were mere actors in it. For as long as Mr. Churchill was Prime Minister, Mr. Jinnah played his role in the drama well but when Churchill was defeated and Attlee became the new Labor Prime Minister, Mr. Jinnah suddenly changed his stance on partition when he saw the mood of the new Government in London. He accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan which could not be put into effect because it was rejected by the Congress, forcing Jinnah to revert to his old demand because he had been assured by his friends that the British would not remain in India for long. Mr. Jinnah took this to mean that the Labor Government did not want to reverse all of Mr. Churchill’s policies and considered the partition of the sub-continent necessary to keep British influence intact in the region, Pakistan was a gift in return for the loyalty with which the Punjabis had served the British and is cause of all our problems. In this regard, I cite former Prime Minister Feroze Khan Noon’s book, "Chashm Deed" in which he says that the Punjabis had played a major role in the British victory in the First World War and were rewarded with the Government of India Act of 1935, The Punjabis fought equally bravely and loyally during the Second World War and lost the best of its youth in Africa and Europe. ‘ In gratitude for this loyalty, the British gave them Pakistan.’ It may be added here that Sir Feroze Khan Noon wrote the book cited here after he had left office. I have always believed that Pakistan was created by the British to maintain their domination by creating bases in different parts of the world. But nature wreaked a terrible vengeance on the British for their treachery against the People of India because their world domination ended after the Second World War and the bases established by them fell into the hands of American imperialism.
I am certain that just as British imperialism vas drowned in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the order established by their agents too will be swept away by the Arabian Sea. Religion was used as a weapon for the creation of Pakistan. It was said that the new country would be a sanctuary for the Islamic order. It was also said that since the Muslims were a better people among other peoples, they had the right to lead the rest of the world and this right would accrue to them through Pakistan. However this concept was based on a non-political, non-religious and inhuman fraud because the Muslims are neither the chosen people nor the best in the world nor yet has any nation come into existence on the basis of a marriage between politics and religion. Apart from the first few years of Islam, there might have been Muslim nation-States but none of them has ever been an Islamic State. They did not have popularly elected governments but were ruled by despots or were the personal fiefs of despotic kings and were based on barbaric murder and mayhem and had nothing to do with Islam. The Prophet of Islam, Mohammed (May peace be upon him) was a social and spiritual guide for mankind and not a despotic ruler who conquered territories by force. There are clear guidelines from the Holy Prophet (May peace be upon him) on stagecraft which indicate that he had nothing to do with mundaneness of State power. In this regard, I wish to recall an incident from history. In A.H. 5, a group of Muslims, led by Hazrat Jafar Tayyar, fleeing from the repression of the people of Makkah, sought refuge in Habasha. The group took a letter from the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him) in which he had asked the King of Habasha to accept Islam. The king agreed to do so. Later, the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him) allowed him to continue as king and never asked him to step down from the throne and accept him as his leader. Nor did he ask him to change his system of government. (Seeratun Nabi by Shibli Nomani, Part I)
This shows that the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him) never wanted to wrest the independence of other nations or to force them to change their system of governance. He wrote letters to several kings, asking them to embrace Islam. These letters invariably ended with the sentence: "Accept Islam and live long" (twice). Explaining this sentence, Maulana Hifzur Rehman Seharwi, the noted religious scholar and freedom-fighter, says that its repetition meant that the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him) wanted the recipient of the letter not only to retain his throne but also to prosper in the Hereafter (Albalaghul Mubeen, Darul Mussanefin, Delhi).
The early history of Islam shows the battles fought by the Arabs after the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him) were motivated by expansionism and a lust for territory and not for establishing the Islamic order in conquered countries. It is another matter that the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him) had gained control over the Arabian Peninsula during his lifetime and he persuaded people to accept the Islamic way of life voluntarily. That is why I think that to choose a piece of land and call it Pakistan in the name of Islam is against the teachings of the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him). The Arabian Peninsula has acquired a certain amount of sanctity because it is the birthplace of the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him) and because the Holy Qura'an was revealed to him there but in spite of it, he did not rename it ‘Pak Astaan’. As Maulana Abul Kalam Azad writes in his book, India Wins Freedom:
I must confess that the very term Pakistani goes against my grain. It suggests that some portions of the world are pure while others are impure. , Such a division of territories into pure and impure is un-Islamic and a repudiation of the very spirit of Islam. Islam recognizes no such division and the Prophet says: ‘God has made the whole world a mosque for me.’ (p. 142)‘It is one of the greatest frauds on the people to suggest that religious affinity can unite areas which are geographically, economically, linguistically and culturally different. It is true that Islam sought to establish a society, which transcends racial, linguistic, economic and political frontiers. History has however proved that after the first few decades, or at most after the first century, Islam was not able to unite all the Muslim Countries into one state on the basis of Islam alone.’ (p. 227)Pakistan came into being on the basis of the two-nation theory but, history has proved that those who used the Muslim nation and Islamic order slogans, had deceived the Muslim masses in order to protect their own class interests, The concept of Muslim nationhood is wrong and Pakistan’s solidarity and stability on its basis is impossible. An Islamic, which is to say, a religious order is a huge fraud. . This is not my view alone. Noted religious scholars and intellectuals are of the same opinion. Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi is a respected, Popular and political name in Sindh and the subcontinent. He left India shortly before World War I and lived for 27 years in Afghanistan, Turkistan, Russia, Turkey and the Hejaz, On his return to Sindh, he used to say that the Indian Muslims had a dreamy notion about their identity, which had no basis in practical life. They had been thinking in terms of a party and a nation about which they had no clear-cut idea in their minds. They had confined themselves to a dream world and had isolated themselves from the struggles for independence in other Muslim countries. Also, they did not have any agreed concept of a practical ideology or way of life in the modern world (Malfuzat-i-Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi).The conclusions arrived at by Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi can be summarized as under:
1. Muslims all over the world have no clear concept of a true Islamic society and no Muslim government is being run on the basis of such a concept.2. Because of the current international situation and the backwardness of the Muslim countries, no pan-Islamic movement is possible. Therefore, Muslim countries will run themselves on the basis of modern nationalism.
3. The peoples living in the sub-continent are different nations on the basis of their ancient geographic boundaries, language, culture and politico-economic interests.In this regard, the noted scholar of Sindh and my spiritual mentor, Allama 1. I Qazi was against the creation of Pakistan on the basis of religious hatred. One of his statements was published by me Sindhi paper, Qurbani, on January 22, 1939, parts of which are being excerpted here:"We have been brought to the Muslim League platform. We had hoped that we would be able to work shoulder to shoulder with each other for doing good work. Sadly, it does not look as if this hope would be realized. The Organization is like the man who gathers all people together and throws bombs on them to kill everyone at one go. Bringing the Muslims of India on one platform is a matter of some concern but more tragic is the fact that not only are the Muslims of India being destroyed but the standards and objectives of the Holy Qura'an are also being obliterated. This will be a loss not only for the Muslims but also for all humankind. It is being said that efforts will be made to save the Islamic order through Pakistan. But what has the Holy Qura'an to say on Pakistan and our concept of it? Consider the following injunctions:
1. Spread in all corners of the world.2. Step out and see the world around,
3. The world is a wide-open place. Go everywhere to serve the people.
4. (The Muslims) will set examples for all of humankind.
5. You (the Muslims) are the righteous Ummah for and among all humanity.According to these injunctions, the Muslims were to be an example for the rest of the world to follow. They bad to spread to the four corners of the world and give the lead to other peoples everywhere, Until the fifteenth century A.D., the Muslims did exactly that and spread to the four corners of the world. They were above personal considerations, and food, I housing, comfort and security aside, they were not afraid even of death. It his to be kept in mind above everything else that in doing their duty, they did not look at things from majority-minority considerations and were never afraid of the superior strength of their foes. The ‘Pakistani’ isolationists should pause and ponder over the fact how far removed they are from the Quranic objectives. Pakistan is being created so that Muslims from here there and everywhere should take refuge in it and save themselves from death and other losses. But to leave a place only for fear of death and other losses is nowhere near the Islamic concept of life. Had Alberuni and Ibn Batuta been alive today, what would have they thought of this tendency to run away from fear)? The entire policy of the Muslim League has been based on the fear of the Hindus. A Muslim today trembles at the very mention of a Hindu. Since the day we went over to the Muslim League, we have been shouting that we are afraid of the Hindus and that they would do us in, any moment. Are these the Muslims who used to claim that they were not afraid of death? The principle used to be if you are true, challenge death. Will the present leader of the Muslims, Mr. Jinnah, tell us whether he is of the opinion that the Muslims today have nothing to do with the spirit of Islam and that they are no longer capable of spreading to the four corners of the world and that their security lies in bringing them to a protective home or orphanage? Does he think that the Muslims are so sick and poor that if they are not brought together at one place, their spirit will die, and since they are sick, they need constant nursing? Does he think that they are mentally retarded and physically ill, and that they have lost wisdom and courage and have become weak and lazy, and that they are constantly awaiting death? If such indeed is the state of the Muslims, then even the fortress of Pakistan cannot save them. For instance, let us look at the Sindhi part of Pakistan. Is this an example of the protective house called Pakistan? The situation that has been created here is amazing. Instead of becoming a protective home or Pakistan, Sindh has been turned into a graveyard in which every Quranic precept is being trampled underfoot. It appears as if the colorful and attractive name of Pakistan is being used only to hide the real facts. It is like calling a sickhouse a hospital or naming a sweeper the Mehtar (the Chief). If by Pakistan we mean what has been created in Sindh, then there will be no chance for inmates of this sickhouse even in the new country. And they (the Sindhis) will perhaps be obliterated. To make the demand for Pakistan for fear of the Hindus is against all tenets of the Holy Qura'an. (Pakistan, Mazi, Haal Ain Mustaqbil, p. p 22-27The wise and far-sighted persons quoted above are known not only in the sub-continent but also in the entire Muslim world. There can be no two opinions about their sagacity, capabilities and the sacrifices they have made. They are recognized by friends and foes alike. They have never served as agents of any foreign power or otherwise been on its payroll. On the other hand, those who have appointed themselves as custodians of Islam and the Muslims have been ruthlessly exposed by history. On top of the list are Allama Iqbal and Mr. Jinnah. Let us first have a look at Allama Iqbal. His morals were not in any way worthy of emulation by the Muslim masses. He was well-versed in western philosophy and an excellent poet but he was to the end of his days a recipient of largesse from Bhopal, a small Muslim princely state in the sub-continent whose Nawab Habibullah Khan was his patron. One need not go into the moral aspects of his life at length. Only three examples will suffice here.
1. Abdul Majid Salik says in his book, Zikr-i-Iqbal: "Before his second marriage, family elders were trying that the Allama should settle things with his first spouse. However, Iqbal was under great mental strain, which is proved by the letter he wrote to Atiya Begum in which he said that he did not want to do any work. All he desired was to leave India as soon as he could. These were the feelings of a person who had written: Sarey jahan se accha Hindustan hamara. Only one thing, he wrote, had prevented him from running away from India. He was, he said, under such a debt of gratitude to his brother that he could not leave the country. His life had become hell for him because his relatives wanted to impose his wife On him. He told Atiya Begum that he had written to his father telling him that he had no right to marry him, especially when he had refused to accept the girl he had chosen for him. He was willing to pay living expenses to her but was not ready to torture himself by living with her. As a human being, he had every right to happiness and if society or destiny denied him this right, he would rebel against both. He had only two options: either to leave the ill-starred country for good or to seek solace in alcohol which made it easy to commit suicide.Look at the man of letters and philosophy, and his views on books: "The dead and desolate pages of books can give me no happiness," he says. ‘My soul has gone so far ahead that I want to burn all these books together with society and its traditions. - April 9, 1909," Zikr-i-Iqbal, Abdul Majid Salik p.p. 73-74).
This shows of what disposition was the man who is called the creator of the Pakistan idea. Abdul Majid Salik writes at another place that final Iqbal decided to marry again. But he did not bring his second wife home because he had received letters alleging that she was a woman of easy virtue who had had relations with several people. The Allama had his own doubts and he had decided to divorce her. ‘But in case he had to marry the same girl again, what would he do?’ This was the question worrying him! And for this purpose, he sent Mirza Jalaluddin to Hakim Nur Din in Qadian, (Nur Din was Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s first ‘caliph’) to find out the religious implications of the matter. The Maulvi advised that mere intention to divorce did not constitute divorce. However, if he had any doubts, he should go in for another ‘nikah’ (marriage license). At this, the Allama called a maulvi, had another nikah performed and took the girl to Sialkot. He came back after eight days and told Mirza Jalaluddin that he was feeling so good that he felt he was in heaven.
Abdul Majid Salik concludes this account saying that Iqbal was no different from the other young men of his time. He always lived as a fly lived for sugar but never as a bee for honey. Many of his old friends must still be around whom must be cherishing the memory of those colorful days and nights. Iqbal himself has admitted that he was for a long time a devotee of Eros and the requirements that went with it but it was his wish to die in Madina!
[I spent a long time clinging to the breasts of beautiful damsels and their curly locks. I drank both with the moon and silver andput out the light of my redemption]. (Zikr-i-Iqbal, p. 7 1 - 7 2).2. Allama Iqbal’s father had married him when he was 19 to Karim Bibi who was a homely type. But he began ignoring her and started to think in terms of a second marriage. However, he did not divorce her first wife nor did he pay her household expenses. He had two children from her, son Aftab and daughter Metal Bibi who were not mentioned in his will, Iqbal’s brother asked them to institute a case for the restitution of their rights after the Allama’s death. The two children and their mother lived in poverty all their lives and no one knows them in relation to Iqbal today. One of Iqbal’s admirers, Syed Hamid Raze Jalali writes in his book, "Allama Iqbal our Unki Pehli Bivi", that he (Allama) wrote a letter to his father, saying that he was not satisfied with his (first) wife and by marrying her to him he had done grave injustice to him. Iqbal wrote this letter to his father in 1909 while he had been married in 1893. After 16 years of marriage, which could not have taken place without his consent, and after having had two children whom he had named himself, the Allama, poisoned by the evil European influences, deserted him. One may say nothing out of respect to the Allama but if his first wife had any failings, he should have revealed them. However, if being, older to Iqbal was her only crime, the Allama himself was 40, when he was complaining about her to Atiya Begum. It was reprehensible on his part to abandon his wife and children and look for young girls at that age. His conduct was unbecoming of a man of letters. It Vas neither just nor gentlemanly nor wise. Islam permits four marriages, no doubt, but there are restraints for that and when a man divorces his wife, he must pay her alimony and give her other rights. If he does not do so, he has no moral right to marry again, at least not a man like the Allama. If it was under European influence that he did what he did, then European education must be condemned a thousand times. One can understand that the colorful life he had led in Europe had created in Iqbal a certain type of way wardens which made him sick not only of his wife but also of his country which he wanted to leave soon after his return home. ‘Iqbal Ki Pehli Bevi’ Syed Hamid Raze Jalali, President, Majlis-i-Mohibban-i-Iqbal, Pakistan, June 1967, Anjuman Press, Karachi. Some Persian lines from the poet of the East and Hakimul Ummat are being presented here:(Pani Manjh Pasaah, Sher Mohammed Khuda Bux Baloch, retired Secretary, Irrigation, Governments of Sindh and West Pakistan, p. 70) Iqbal does not meet even the minimum standards so far as love and concern for the Muslims are concerned. This is so because when the imperialists were trampling the Muslim world underfoot in 1914, the Caliphate was being looted away and holy places of Islam were being attacked, lovers of Islam and freedom fighters like Maulana Shaukat Ali, Maulana Mohammed Ali, Abul Kalam Azad, Sheikhul Hind Maulana Mahmud Hassan, Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi and others were either in jail or in exile, Allama Iqbal was celebrating British victory in the company of Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Khan at a meeting of the War Council summoned by the Viceroy in Delhi and singing the following hymn in praise of the British:(Weekly Vakil Amritsar, Sitara-i-Subh, May 8, 1918. It has also been referred to by Abdul Majid Salik in his book, Zikr-i-Iqbal, P. 87).
Now, let us take a look at the character ‘of the second important personality of the Pakistan Movement, Mr. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who regarded himself as the sole leader of the Muslims and who was always working to exhort the latter to work for the establishment of the Islamic order. There are many anecdotes about his personal devotion to Islam but let it suffice here to quote from books written by his British patrons:
"
He loves oysters and caviar, champagne, brandy and good claret." Freedom at Midnight, P. 101)
"He drank, ate pork, religiously shaved his beard each morning and just as religiously avoided the mosque each Friday. God and Koran had no place in Jinnah’s vision of the world His Political foe, Gandhi, know more verses of the Muslim Holy Book than he did." - (Freedom at Midnight, P. 1 02).
It is clear that he was not a traditional Muslim, nor was his language, his bearing, his character or morals Islamic. He knew nothing of the Holy Qura'an or Hadith, He was ignorant of the spirit of Islam. He know no Eastern language except Gujarati. It is said that one day he offered his prayers in order to hoodwink the Muslims but he really had no idea of the manner and method of offering prayers. He was fond of the Western way of life. I myself had the opportunity to work with him over a long period, but here the two quotations from Larry Collins and Dominique la Pierre’s book, Freedom at Midnight cited above are sufficient. They show what respect the Quaid-e-Azam of the Muslims of India had for the Shariat. His own physician confirmed his addiction to alcohol when he said that for three years, Jinnah ‘lived on whisky, will power and cigarettes."
He took lightly even the common human virtues. He was power hungry and in love with himself. Here I am citing two instances which will show to what extent this lust for power undermined his own objectives and how even his British friends were disillusioned in him,
1. Sir Zafarullah Khan, the first Foreign Minister of Pakistan, wrote that when the British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, presented the Indian independence scheme to Parliament, he was present in the visitors’ gallery. The speech was quite clear but he was surprised, Zafarullah said, when Attlee announced that Lord Mountbatten would be governor-general of both the dominions after independence, but unfortunately, Mr. Jinnah did not agree with the proposal. Zafarullah did not like this expression of regret on Attlee’s part because it was not needed. He could have just said that the proposal fell through. By naming the Quaid, Attlee made it appear as though he had a personal grudge against him. Subsequent events confirmed this, (based on Tehdis-i-Nemat, by Zafarullah Khan, p. 499).The same author says that Mountbatten also wanted that the Congress and the Muslim League should accept him as the joint governor-general. The Congress did agree to his appointment as free India’s first governor-general but the Quaid refused to do so.
Mountbatten was certain that the Quaid would have no objection to his appointment, much to the former’s embarrassment. He came down to threatening the Quaid. At a meeting held between the two on July 2, 1947, he warned Mr. Jinnah that his refusal would cost him dear. The latter said he knew that Pakistan probably have to lose millions of rupees out of its share of the assets of undivided India. Not millions, Mountbatten told him harshly, but all assets and Pakistan would lose its future, and left in anger. (Mountbatten’s Report No. 11, Tehdis-i-Nemat, Zafarullah Khan, pp. 511-17).
Jinnah’s refusal led to district Gurdaspur being given to India through the Radcliffe Award and the Indian Government refused to hand over Pakistan’s part of the assets. These assets were later given to Pakistan only after Gandhi went on a fast unto death over the issue, All this happened because Mr. Jinnah wanted to become governor-general at all cost. His sister, Fatima Jinnah, went a step further. At the function held to celebrate independence, she could not bear to see Lady Mountbatten on the stage (c.f. Freedom at Midnight). This was against all social norms and against all rules of protocol.- The Muslim League, the Muslim masses and their struggle for independence had no value in Mr. Jinnah’s eyes. He regarded the creation of Pakistan as the proof of his own personal ability and acumen. After the creation of Pakistan, the Raja Sahib of Mahmoodabad requested Mr. Jinnah that something should be done to reorganize the Muslim league, and the Muslim Leaguers should be properly recognized and looked after This annoyed Mr., Jinnah and he said angrily: "Which Muslim League? Pakistan has been created by me and this typewriter of mine.’ (Raja Sahib Mahmoodabad as quoted by Qudratullah Shahab in his book, Shahabnama). I have already spoken at length about his dictatorial ways and his contempt for discussion and dialogue. A major Punjabi historian, Ghulam Rasool Mehr, who said that Iqbal’s poetry, has corroborated my views and Mr. Jinnah’s politics did greater damage to the Muslims than Changez Khan and Hulaku Khan.
