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government and was scared of the parties working at the national level. The
Government of India Act 1935 made first general elections possible in the Punjab in
1936-37 with a comparatively reasonable size of the voting right which shook the writ
of the Unionists because the AIML decided to plunge into the regional politics for the
first time since its inception in 1906. Though the League got no success in the
elections as expected but soon it started denting the status of the regional parties.
Sunder Singh Majithia (the Khalsa National Party) and few Hindu members were with
the Muslim Unionists but after the Gurdwara Reform Movement, the Shiromani Akali
Dal occupied whole of the Sikh politics. Although the Sikhs had always been critical
to the Muslim ministers throughout the life of the Punjab Legislative Council but the
Akali fanaticism paved the way to the anti-Muslim politics in the region through
violent strategy. 88 Their main target was the League which was the sole advocate of
the rights of the Indian Muslims.
The Sikhs mostly sided with the Hindus due to the similarity in their religions
and the past anti-Muslim passions of animosity. Their customs and traditions were the
same.
Basically the Gurus’ teachings were Vedantic. Therefore there was not the same
kind of breach from Hinduism, as in the cases of Jainism or Buddhism. Sikhism
accepted the Hindu code of conduct, its theory of the origin of the world, the
purpose of life, the purpose of religion, samsara the theory of birth, death and
rebirth were taken in entirety from Hinduism. Consequently, the problem of
separate identity for the Sikhs was more complicated that with the other two breakaway
groups. 89
The partition scheme of the Muslims and the furious Sikh reaction worsened the
nature of the Muslim-Sikh relations in the Punjab.
On 23 March 1940, the AIML passed the Lahore Resolution with the demand
of separate Muslim states comprising of north-western and eastern Muslim majority
areas as the best solution of the on-going constitutional and communal problem in
23