JULY - AUG 2020

TRADE CHRONICLE
The making of Pakistan: goals and strategies
The establishment of Pakistan as an
independent and sovereign state
represented the march of a community to
nationhood. It also demonstrated the
determination of the predominant majority
of Muslims of British India to establish
their homeland with the objective of
preserving and promoting their
civilizational identity, rights as a distinct
socio-cultural identity and interests in a
society that was dominated by an
unsympathetic majority. They wanted to
set up their preferred politico-economic
and social institutions and processes in
a well-defined territory to ensure a
secure future for them.
Three major factors shaped their
political identity and the struggle to
protect and promote it. These were the
civilizational and cultural heritage and
identity as a Muslim community in
British India; the political experience of
the Muslim elite in British India and their
articulation of the demands of the
Muslim community; and the shared
aspiration which they developed for the
future in the process of formulating and
asserting their distinct socio-cultural
and political identity.
Socio-Cultural Identity: The civilizational
and cultural identity of the Muslim of British
India could be traced back, on the one
hand, to the teachings and principles of
Islam that provided them a theoretical and
intellectual foundation. On the other hand,
the arrival of Muslims to the Indian subcontinent
from Arabia, ie, Arab traders, as
well as from what is today's Central Asia,
Iran and Turkey brought cultural traditions,
life style and food habits that were shaped
by the teachings of Islam and the local
customs of each territory. Most of these
Muslims from "outside" became an
integral part of the society in India,
blending the customs and cultural norms
they brought with them and local
traditions. This process was helped by the
conversions to Islam by local people
belonging mainly to Hinduism and intermarriages
with or without conversions.
The Muslim rule in India created a sense of
nostalgia among the Muslims of this Subcontinent
who projected them as a sociocultural
identity different from local
followers of other religions and the people
of the Arab world, Central Asia, Iran and
By: Dr. Hasan Askari Rizvi
Turkey. They were described as "Indian
Muslims," referring to the Muslim
population of India that shared the
teachings and principles of Islam with the
Muslims living elsewhere and imbibed
some local customs and traditions.
Despite this sharing, the Indian Muslims
m a i n t a i n e d t h e i r s o c i o - c u l t u r a l
distinctiveness which distinguished them
in many respects from the local population
and the Muslims living in the neighbouring
states.
Political Relevance: The distinct Muslim
identity began to gain political relevance
after the British government directly
assumed the responsibilities of governing
India in the post-1857 period. It began to
create a modern state system in India on
the pattern of the British political
experience with an emphasis on
autonomous state institutions and
processes within a framework of a codified
legal and constitutional system. The
gradual induction of open and competitive
induction into civil services and the limited
electoral system created a competition
between the two major communities, the
Muslims and the Hindus. The fact that the
Muslim began to opt for modern education
rather slowly and late in post-1857 period,
mainly on the initiative of what is described
as the Aligarh Movement, they found them
at a disadvantage in this open competition.
Two other factors made the religio-cultural
identity relevant. First, in 1867, the
B e n a r a s b a s e d m o v e m e n t f o r
replacement of Urdu language with Hindi
written in Devanagari script in government
offices alienated the Muslims who
established Urdu Defence Societies in
several cities. Second, in the last
decade of the 19th century, several
Hindu revivalist movements gained
momentum which essentially targeted
the Muslim culture and heritage for
exclusion and emphasized the need of
establishing a puritanical Hindu Cultural
Order.
The growing cultural divergence
between the Muslims and the Hindu
majority population, mainly in North
India, began to manifest more
frequently in the 20th Century. The
partition of Bengal, dividing Bengal into
two provinces in 1905 by the British,
produced two opposite reactions from
the Muslim and Hindu/Congress elite.
T h e M u s l i m s w e l c o m e d t h e
establishment of eastern Bengal as a
separate province because it had a
Muslim majority. The Hindu elite,
including the Congress Party, viewed
the partition of Bengal as a negative
development that divided the "natural
unity of Bengal". Their protest led the
British government to reunite two
Bengals into a single Bengal province in
1911. This decision was criticised
vehemently by Muslim leadership.
These developments led the Muslim elite
to evolve a political strategy to protect and
advance their political rights and interests.
They began to organize them by
demanding separate electorate for
electing Muslim representatives to the
central and provincial legislatures in
October 1906, and two months later, in the
last week of December 1906, All India
Muslim League was established in Dhaka,
to project Muslim perspective on the
political affairs of British India and suggest
measures to protect the rights and
interests of the Muslims.
By the end of the first decade of the 20th
Century, the religio-cultural identities of the
two communities had become relevant to
the politics of British India. The Muslim elite
had come to the conclusions that the
Muslim youth should get modern western
education to compete effectively for the
new governmental and non-governmental
TRADE CHRONICLE - July .~ Aug. 2020 - Page # 10