history of pk

8/8/2019 History of PK

1/12

Page | 1

HISTORY OF PAKISTAN

BRITISH RULE:

The British ruled the Indian subcontinent for nearly 200 years-from 1756 to 1947. After the

Indian Mutiny of 1857, the British government abolished the powers of the British East IndiaCompany, which had ruled the sub-continent on behalf of the British Crown, and took on direct

powers of governance. Political reforms were initiated, allowing the formation of politicalparties. The Indian National Congress, representing the overwhelming majority of Hindus, was

created in 1885. The Muslim League was formed in 1906 to represent and protect the position ofthe Muslim minority. When the British introduced constitutional reforms in 1909, the Muslims

demanded and acquired separate electoral rolls. This guaranteed Muslims representation in theprovincial as well as national parliaments. The idea of a separate Muslim state in south Asia was

raised in 1930 by the poet and philosopher Sir Muhammad Allama Iqbal.

He suggested that the north-western provinces of British India and the native state of Jammu and

Kashmir should be joined into a state. The name "Pakistan", which came to be used to describethis grouping was made up of letters of the names of the provinces involved, as follows: Punjab,

North West Frontier Province, Kashmir, Sindh, and Baluchistan. An alternative explanation saysthe name means "Land of the Pure". By the end of the 1930s, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, leader of

the Muslim League and considered the founding father of Pakistan, had also decided that theonly way to preserve Indian Muslims from Hindu domination was to establish a separate Muslim

state.

Freedom Movement of Pakistan

Pakistan Movement orTehrik-e-Pakistan has its origins in the United Provinces of Agra and

Oudh (present day Uttar Pradesh).Muslims there were a minority. The idea of Pakistan beganfrom this part of Northern India. The movement was led by a lawyer named Muhammad Ali

Jinnah, along with such leaders as Allama Iqbal, Liaqat Ali Khan, Fatima Jinnah, HuseynShaheed Suhrawardy, A.K. Fazlul Huq, and Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar among the many others.


2/12

Page | 2

MINORITY MUSLIMS:

Muhammad Ali Jinnah desired to build a state on a principle, composed of three parts, "onenation, one culture and one language". Pakistan was to be the homeland of Muslims belonging to

British India. Jinnah represented the Muslims of the British Raj, who belonged to the provinceswhere Muslims were a minority. Muslims who migrated to Pakistan after the partition are knownas Muhajirs in Pakistan today. The replacement of Persian, in 1837, with English and the local

languages, resulted in Hindi being given the same status as Urdu as an official language of theUnited Provinces of Agra and Oudh. Furthermore, the democratization process by the British in

the late 1800s, made the Muslims feel that they would lose all of their privileged influence.

In 1909, the British allowed their subjects elect part of their Legislative Councils. This moveadded further to the fears of marginalization among Muslims as they made up only 20% of the

population of British India and, to make matters worse, only a small number of them (20%) evenbothered to vote (1881 census). The provinces where the Muslims were a minority were the most

alarmed, particularly those belonging to the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh as the Muslimelite they had the most to lose. In the United Provinces, Muslims made up only 13.4% of the

population but held 45% of the civil service jobs. An example of the privilege they still enjoyed.

In the late 1800s, the Muslims from the United Provinces got together under Syed Ahmed Khan.First of all, he wanted to improve education within his community. Toward this goal he foundedthe Muhammedan Anglo-Oriental College (MAO College) in Aligarh in 1869 which later

developed into the Aligarh Muslim University by 1911. MAO College produced the firstopponents of the Indian National Congress. Congress claimed to represent all Indians, but

Muslims made up only 6.6% of the delegates between 1892 and 1909.

The 1882 local self-government act had already troubled Syed Ahmed Khan. When, in 1906, theBritish announced their intention to establish Legislative Councils, Muhsin al-Mulk, the

secretary of MAO College, hoping to win a separate Legislative Council for Muslims, led adelegation to meet with Viceroy Lord Minto, a deal to which Minto agreed because it followed

the British divide and rule strategy. The UP Muslims were over-represented in the delegation,which included seven Punjabis and one Bengali..

The role of the graduates from Aligarh in creating the Muslim League and then taking part in the

Khilafat movement shows the significance of UP Muslims in the origin of Muslim separatistideas in India. These Muslims actually had a sense of Muslim identity. Separatist feelings among

Muslims developed due to not discrimination but social and economic factors. The Muslim eliteof UP saw their influence being challenged by the Hindu elite.

Though Muslim separatism was diluted as a result of the irregularity of social dissatisfaction feltby the community, people from present-day Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat and Maharashtra were

ready to distance themselves from the growing Hindu influence. However, the Muslims inmajority from Greater Punjab, Greater Bengal, Sindh, and NWFP did not share the same

sentiment, as they ruled their own regions. Jinnah's task was to convince these Muslims to jointwo-nation theory.


3/12

Page | 3

For Jinnah, Islam laid a cultural base for an ideology of ethnic nationalism whose objective wasto gather the Muslim community in order to defend the Muslim minorities. Jinnah's

representation of minoritarian Muslims was quite apparent in 1928, when in the All-PartyMuslim Conference, he was ready to swap the advantages of separate electorates for a quota of

33% of seats at the Centre. He maintained his views at the Round Table Conferences, while the

Muslims of Punjab and Bengal were vying for a much more decentralized political setup. Manyof their requests were met in the 1935 Government of India Act. Jinnah and Muslim Leagueplayed a peripheral role at the time and in 1937 could manage to gather only 5% of the Muslim

vote. Jinnah refused to back down and went ahead with his separatist plan. He presented the two-nation theory in March 1940, now famous as Lahore Resolution.

The idea of a separate state had first been introduced by Allama Iqbal in his speech in December

1930 as the President of the Muslim League. The state that he visualized included only Punjab,Sindh, North West Frontier Province (NWFP), and Balochistan. Three years later, the name

Pakistan was proposed in a declaration in 1933 by Choudhary Rahmat Ali, a University ofCambridge graduate. Again, Bengal was left out of the proposal.

In the Lahore Resolution of

March 1940, the proposed state's name remained unrecognized and its borders so undeterminedthat it was not clear whether there would be one Muslim state or two. It stated "that the areas in

which the Muslims are numerically in a majority, as in the north-western and eastern zones ofIndia should be grouped to constitute independent states."

Part of Jinnah's strategy to entice the leaders of those provinces who continued to oppose the

idea of Pakistan was to present all the provinces as loose groupings of the state. The 1937election resulted in a major shift in Indian politics; the Congress won in seven provinces and lost

in four. The Congress success worried the Muslims. Jinnah grasped this moment and suggestedthat Muslims would be left to contend with a Hindu government after the withdrawal of the

British. He stated that "Hindu Congress" was "putting Islam in danger."

WHY MUSLIMS DEMANDED PAKISTAN?

The purpose of achieving Pakistan is to make sure that Muslims can live their lives according to

the teachings of Islam without any restrictions. The great leader QUAID_E_AZAM said that:

We are a nation with our own distinctive culture and civilization, language and literature, art

and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of values and proportion, legal laws and moralcode, customs and calendar, history and tradition, aptitudes and ambitions; in short, we have our

own distinctive outlook on life and of life. By all canons of international law, we are a nation".

Some incidents after which the Muslims realized that they deffinetly need a saperate country:


4/12

Page | 4

MORLEY-MINTO REFORMS (1909):

Morley-Minto Reforms were intrduced by John Morley, the Liberal Secretary of State for India,and the Conservative Governor-General of India.

The Act of 1909 was important for the following reasons:

1) It effectively allowed the election of Indians to the various legislative councils in India for thefirst time.

2) The introduction of the electoral principle laid the groundwork for a parliamentary systemeven though this was contrary to the intent of Morley.

Muslims expressed serious concern about these reforms because this British type of electoral

system would leave them permanently subject to Hindu majority rule. The Muslim Leaders did

not accepted these reforms.

LUCKNOW PACT:

Lucknow Pact refers to an agreement between Indian National Congress and Muslim League. In1916, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a member of the Muslim League negotiated with the Indian

National Congress to reach an agreement to pressure the British Government to have a moreliberal approach to India and give Indians more authority to run their country.

Main clauses of the Lucknow Pact:

The main clauses of the Lucknow Pact were as follows:

1. There shall be self-government in India.

2. Muslims should be given one-third representation in the central government.

3. There should be separate electorates for all the communities until a community demanded for

joint electorates.

4. System of weightage should be adopted.

5. The number of the members of Central Legislative Council should be increased to 150.

6. At the provincial level, four-fifth of the members of the Legislative Councils should be electedand one-fifth should be nominated.


5/12

Page | 5

7. The strength of Provincial legislative should not be less than 125 in the major provinces andfrom 50 to 75 in the minor provinces.

8. All members, except those nominated, were to be elected directly on the basis of adult

franchise.

9. No bill concerning a community should be passed if the bill is opposed by three-fourth of themembers of that community in the Legislative Council.

10. Term of the Legislative Council should be five years.

11. Members of Legislative Council should themselves elect their president.

12. Half of the members of Imperial Legislative Council should be Indians.

13. Indian Council must be abolished.

14. The salaries of the Secretary of State for Indian Affairs should be paid by the British

Government and not from Indian funds.

15. Out of two Under Secretaries, one should be Indian.

16. The Executive should be separated from the Judiciary.

This Hindu Muslim Unity was not able to live for more than eight years, and collaped after the

development of differences between the two communities after the Khilafat Movement.

INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS (1885):

The Indian National Congress WAS Founded in 1885 by Allan Octavian Hume, DadabhaiNaoroji, Dinshaw Wacha, Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee, Surendranath Banerjee, Monomohun

Ghose, Mahadev Govind Ranade and William Wedderburn. Muslims thought that IndianNational Congress will represent all the people living in the Sub-continent but they were proved

when Congress started to avoid muslims views. The Congress wanted that the government ofSub-continent should be given only to Hindus. At that time Muslims felt that their sould be a

political party that will represent only the Muslims of Sub-continent.


6/12

Page | 6

NEHRU REPORT (1928):

The "Nehru Report" (1928) was a memorandum outlining a proposed new Dominionconstitution for India. It was prepared by a committee of the All Parties Conference chaired by

Motilal Nehru with his son Jawaharlal acting as secretary. There were nine other members in thiscommittee including two Muslims.

Muslim League's Reaction to the Nehru Report:With few exceptions League leaders rejected the Nehru proposals. In reaction Mohammad AliJinnah drafted his Fourteen Points in 1929 which became the core demands the Muslimcommunity put forward as the price of their participating in an independent united India. Their

main objections were:

y Separate Electorates and Weightage - the 1916 Congress-Muslim League agreement TheLucknow Pact provided these to the Muslim community whereas they were rejected bythe Nehru Report;

y Residuary Powers the Muslims realized that while they would be a majority in theprovinces of the North-East and North-West of India, and hence would control theirprovincial legislatures, they would always be a minority at the Centre. Thus they

demanded, contra the Nehru Report, that residuary powers go to the provinces.

The inability of Congress to concede these points must be considered a major factor in theeventual partition of India. This was the major historical significance of the Nehru Report.

Other Important Incidents:

y 1857 War of Independencey 1901 Partition of Punjaby 1905 Partition of Bengaly 1906 Simla Deputationy 1930 Simon Commission Reporty 1931 Kashmir Resistance movementy 1942 Cripps' mission


7/12

Page | 7

HOW MUSLIMS ACHIEVED THEIR GOAL:

ESTABLISHMENT MUSLIM LEAGUE:

The Muslim League was established in 1906. The Muslim League was not well-established. Itdid not had any primary branches and even its provincial organizations for the most parts were

ineffective. The central body didnt had any clear policy of its own till the Bombay session(1936), which was organized by Muhammad Ali Jinnah.In the Punjab, Bengal, Sindh and the

North West Frontier various Muslim leaders had set up their own provincial parties to serve theirpersonal ends. The situation was extremely frustrating, the only consultation Muhammad Ali

Jinnah had at that time was with Allama Iqbal (1877-1938), the great poet and philosopher, whostood with him and helped to change the structure of Indian politics from behind the scene.

PUNJAB:

In Punjab, the Muslim League had to defeat not just the Congress, whose support base was

Hindus living in the cities, but also the Unionist Party, founded in 1922, by peasant leaders Fazl-e-Hussain (a Muslim) and Chhotu Ram (a Hindu). This party won all the elections between 1923

and 1937. However, Fazl-e-Hussain died in 1936 and in September 1937, the new party leader,Sikandar Hayat Khan (Punjabi politician) agreed to sign a pact with Jinnah. This helped the

Muslim League to win election in Punjab. In the 1946 election campaign, the Muslim Leaguewas able to publicize its views widely. It claimed that Islam was threatened by Congress. "Pirs"

and "Sajjada Nashin" helped the Muslim League to attract Muslim voters. It won 75 seats to

Union Party's 10.

SINDH:

In Sindh, the Muslim League remained at the margins till the mid-1940s. Just as in Punjab, it

faced two parties, Congress and the Sindh United Party, which had been founded in 1936 whenthe Sindh Province came into existance. Its inspiration was the Punjab Unionist Party. The

Muslim League first gained a foothold in Sindh in the 1930s over the Manzilgarh issue, namedafter a very controversial site that the Muslim League wanted to officially declare as a mosque.

The Muslim League in Sindh was more interested in defending Sindhi culture than in creating an

Islamic state for British Raj Muslims. This was obvious from the behaviour of its leader in the1940s. Many Sindhis supported the formation of Pakistan as a way of freeing their region from

British rule.


8/12

Page | 8

BENGAL:

In Bengal, the Muslim League enjoyed more support than in the other majoritarian Provinces.But even here, it gained strength later on. Its popularity was based on its ability to create

separatist feelings in East Bengal where the Muslims were mostly concentrated. Here again, the

Muslim League had to face off two parties in the 1930s the Congress and the Krishak ProjaParty, a peasant party, founded in 1936 by A.K.Fazlul Haq. This party narrowly ousted theMuslim League by winning 31% of the votes, compared to Muslim League's 27% in the 1937

Elections. However, the success of the two-nation theory depended on the strong regionalfeelings with the President of the Bengal Muslim League, declaring in 1944, that religion

transcends geographical boundaries, but culture does not and so Bengalis are different frompeople of other provinces of India and the "religious brothers" of Pakistan.

NWFP:

In NWFP, the Muslim League faced its hardest challenge yet. It had intense competition fromKhan Abdul Ghaffar Khan dubbed as the "Frontier Gandhi" due to his efforts in following in thefootsteps of Gandhi. The popularity of the Congress, along with the strong Paktoon identity

created by Ghaffar Khan in the cultural and the political arenas made life hard for the MuslimLeague. With the support of Ghaffar Khan, the Congress was able to contain the Muslim League

to the non-Pakhtoon areas, particularly, the Hazara region. The Muslim League could onlymanage to win 17 seats, against the 30 won by Congress, in the 1946 elections.

FOURTEEN POINTS OF JINNAH (1929):The Fourteen Points ofJinnah were proposed by Muhammad Ali Jinnah as a constitutionalreform plan to safeguard the political rights of Muslims in a self-governing India. The report was

given in a meeting of the council of the All India Muslim League on March 28, 1929.

THE FOURTEEN POINTS:

1. The form of the future constitution should be federal with the residuary powersvested in the provinces.

2.

A uniform measure of autonomy shall be granted to all provinces.3. All legislatures in the country and other elected bodies shall be constituted on thedefinite principle of adequate and effective representation of minorities in every

province without reducing the majority in any province to a minority or even

equality.

4. In the Central Legislature, Muslim representation shall not be less than one third.


9/12


10/12

Page | 10

In India, although mainly a Muslim religious movement, the movement became a part of thewider Indian independence movement. The movement was a topic in Conference of London

(February 1920).

ESTABLISHMENT OF PAKISTAN:

After a long struggle and thousand of sacrifices Pakistan was established on 14 August 1947 (27Ramadan 1366 in the Islamic Calendar), consisting on the two Muslim-majority areas in the

eastern and northwestern regions of British India and comprising the provinces of Balochistan,East Bengal, the North-West Frontier Province, West Punjab and Sindh. The controversial, and

ill-timed, division of the provinces of Punjab and Bengal caused communal riots across India andPakistan millions of Muslims moved to Pakistan and millions of Hindus and Sikhs moved to

India. Disputes arose over several states including Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir, whoseHindu ruler had acceded to India following an invasion by Pashtun tribal militias, leading to the

First Kashmir War in 1948.

MIGRATION:

Data from the 1951 census suggests that migrants constituted 7 million people in Pakistan with6.3 million in West Pakistan and 700,000 in East Pakistan, the majority being Punjabis who

crossed from East Punjab to West Punjab and hence settled in the same cultural environment.However, there were 100,000 people who went from Bihar to East Bengal and a million from the

United Provinces, Bombay Presidency and Hyderabad who migrated to West Pakistan. Thesegroups later on came to be known as Muhajirs in Pakistan. At the time of partition, migrants

from the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh made up only 2% of the migrants and 3% ofPakistan's total Population.


11/12

Page | 11

STATEMENTSANDSAYINGSOFGREAT

LEADERS:

Allama Iqbal:

I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistanamalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire, or without

the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim Stateappears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India.

Choudhary Rahmat Ali:

At this solemn hour in the history of India, when British and Indian statesmen are layingthe foundations of a Federal Constitution for that land, we address this appeal to you, inthe name of our common heritage, on behalf of our thirty million Muslim brethren who

live in Pakistan - by which we mean the five Northern units of India, Viz: Punjab, North-West Frontier Province (Afghan Province), Kashmir, Sind and Baluchistan - for your

sympathy and support in our grim and fateful struggle against political crucifixion andcomplete annihilation.


12/12

Page | 12

Quaid-e-

Az

am :

It is extremely difficult to appreciate why our Hindu friends fail to understand the realnature of Islam and Hinduism. They are not religious in the strict sense of the word, but

are, in fact, different and distinct social orders, and it is a dream that the Hindus andMuslims can ever evolve a common nationality, and this misconception of one Indian

nation has troubles and will lead India to destruction if we fail to revise our notions intime. The Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social

customs, literatures. They neither intermarry nor interdine together and, indeed, theybelong to two different civilizations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and

conceptions. Their aspect on life and of life are different. It is quite clear that Hindus andMussalmans derive their inspiration from different sources of history. They have different

epics, different heroes, and different episodes. Very often the hero of one is a foe of theother and, likewise, their victories and defeats overlap. To yoke together two such nations

under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority, must lead togrowing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built for the

government of such a state.

history of pk

Documents