Lahore Resolution & the Partition of Subcontinent

23 March, 1940 is a milestone in the political history of the Subcontinent as on this very day, the Lahore Resolution, which served as an impetus to the creation of Pakistan, was passed.
This resolution gained a wide currency and importance when the Hindu press disdainfully declared it “Pakistan Resolution.” The motive behind this act of Hindu-dominated press was to make this resolution controversial.

Introduction
Hindus became hostile to the Lahore Resolution despite the fact that the very word 'Pakistan' was not even mentioned anywhere in the Lahore Resolution. The 'Daily Tribune' called the Pakistan scheme unacceptable and horrible. 'Hindustan Times' and 'Modern Review' termed it as the ingenuity of the most ingenious constitution-mongers that will be unable to divide India.

Never in the history of the world had a resolution consisting mere 40 words changed the destiny of a nation, but Lahore Resolution did this miracle. The newspaper 'Statesman’ wrote:

“It is a revolutionary proposal but those who are willing to oppose it, must study it before criticizing it. They must understand that the League has seriously presented it; therefore, it cannot be ignored as a mere fanciful dream.”

The Lahore Resolution was passed on the 27th annual session of All India Muslim League. It seems that the passing of the Resolution was a response to Congress atrocities against the Muslims. This was the time when Muslims were firmly convinced that in order to survive, they must have a separate state of their own. This stance was further strengthened by communal antagonism and harsh treatment meted by the Congress Ministries. Though the solution of Hindu-Muslim conflict had been being proposed since the 19th century, these proposals received huge impetus in 1930s and 1940s and attracted popular response as well. An illustrious historian I.H. Qureshi describes it in these words:

“The concentration of Muslim majorities in the north-west and north-east of the Subcontinent could not remain unnoticed by the political thinkers.”

British Proposals
Since the arrival of the British in the Subcontinent, many administrators and analysts had been closely observing the prevailing situation. They made a number of efforts to settle the issues between Hindus and Muslims once forever. In this regard, the first proposal came from a British parliamentarian Mr John Bright who, in 1858, proposed that various Presidencies and States would be existed instead of forming one compact state. He said:

“…and if at any future period the sovereignty of England should be withdrawn, we should leave so many Presidencies built up and firmly compacted together, each able to support its own independence and its own Government; and we should be able to say we had not left the country a prey to that anarchy and discord which I believe to be inevitable if we insist on holding those vast territories with the idea of building them up into one great empire.”

W.S. Blunt also did not see any prospect for a united India; he saw the main line of division running between the Hindus and the Muslims and pointed out, in 1881-82, the hidden strength of the Indian Muslims.

In 1932, Sir Reginald Craddock, a Governor of Burma and chairman of the Indian Constitutional Reforms Committee during British Raj, observed:

“If Norway and Sweden could not get to be united, how it can be expected that the infinitely greater diversities and divergent racial elements in India, could be welded into one self-governing and democratic whole.”

In 1932, John Coatman, in his book “The Road to Self-Government” wrote:

“It may be that the die is already cast and that no united India as we understand today will ever emerge. It may be that Moslem India in the North-West is destined to become a separate Muslim state or part of a Muslim Empire.”

Theodore Beck and Sir Theodore Morison also confirmed the 'Two Nation Theory' and rejected the principle of majority rule in Hind (the Hindu Raj). Morison suggested the concentration of the entire Muslim population of India in the area extending from Agra to Peshawar.

Hindu Proposals
Similarly many Hindu politicians and political thinkers had realized the fact that the Muslims and Hindus could never be prosperous and live together in future. Therefore, a Hindu nationalist, Bhai Parmanand, who remained an ardent supporter of Arya Samaj, suggested:

“The only satisfactory avenue to unity is to effect complete severance between the two peoples; India could be partitioned in such a manner as to secure the supremacy of Islam in one zone and that of Hinduism in the other. Under this plan, some exchange of population would be inevitable. People with strong religious feelings who found themselves in the wrong region would have to migrate to the other.”

Meanwhile a veteran Hindu leader, Lala Lajpat Rai proposed in 1924 the formation of Muslim states in the provinces of Punjab, N.W.F.P., Sind and Bengal.

Muslim Proposals
Jamal-ud-din Afghani dreamt of the formation of a Muslim Confederation consisting of the northwestern Muslim majority provinces of India, Central Asian Republics and Afghanistan. With the break-out of Urdu-Hindi controversy at Banaras in 1867, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, previously a staunch supporter of Indian nationalism, was compelled to use the word Qaum (nation) particularly for the Muslims of the Subcontinent.

Maulvi Muharram Ali Chishti (owner and editor of the Rafique-i-Hind, a weekly journal from Lahore) strongly opined that the Muslims were a nation and they should establish a political party; he also remained in touch with Syed Ameer Ali on this point. Under such circumstances, a separate Muslim organization known as “Muhammadan National Conference” was founded at Calcutta in 1889, so that the interests and claims of the Muslims for their national status could be protected.

The famous novelist and journalist Abdul Haleem Sharar (1860-1926) was the first notable and prominent Muslim intellectual who made a proposal in his weekly journal “Muhazzab” for “a kind of territorial rearrangement and exchange of population; that the Hindus and Muslims should distribute the districts between themselves.”

In 1905, a well-known poet, Akbar Allahabadi proposed:

“The North of Jumna River should be given to the Muslims so that the two nations should be able to live in peace.”

He declared Hindus and Muslims two different nations in the Subcontinent. Wilait Ali Bambooque wrote in “Gupshup” about a separate country for Muslims in Northern India. The Kheri Brothers (Abdul Jabbar and Abdul Sattar) also proposed the partition of India. Attending the Stockholm Conference of Socialist International in 1917, they submitted a report in which they urged the partition of India into Muslim India and Hindu India.

In 1920, Abdul Qadir Bilgrami wrote a letter to Gandhi in which he gave an idea for the partition of India between the Muslims and the Hindus. He also provided a list of districts, which would be a part of future separate Muslim state and surprisingly this list of districts was not so much different from the state of Pakistan made after 1947. He is also considered the first person who gave the idea for the partition of Punjab and Bengal provinces into Muslim and Non-Muslim zones.

Similarly in 1920, a great poet and revolutionary figure, Moulana Hasrat Mohani was the first one who gave a resolution for independence of India from the platform of Congress. He proposed an Indian Federal Republican State based on the model of United States of America; a state in which the Muslim states would be combined within the Hindu states (provinces).

Chaudhary Wahab-ud-din Kamboh of Amritsar presented his “Nuristan Scheme” (Nuristan means a land of light) in 1923. According to this scheme, the Muslim provinces in the northwest region of the Indian Subcontinent would be separated from other parts of India for the establishment of a Muslim state.

In 1924, Moulana Obaid Ullah Sindhi also suggested a federation where religion and state would be separated; each region would be known as “Swarajiva Republic” and would be a free member of the Federation. Delhi would be cosmopolitan city and other centres of the Federal government would be established in Agra and Lahore.

In 1925, Moulana Mohammad Ali suggested separation and the right to self-determination for the people of North India for economic, strategic, religious and cultural reasons. In the same year, some teachers and students of the Aligarh Muslim University suggested a scheme of partition of India and the creation of a Muslim state.

In 1928, Moulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi also proposed the formation of a Muslim state in the Indian Subcontinent. Meanwhile, Sir Agha Khan also articulated his ideas for the formation of a large South Asian Federation, following the pre-1914 Bavaria model. According to this model, each Indian province (state) would have complete freedom. Every free-state would be based on religion, nationality, race, language and history.

In 1930, Allama Iqbal gave his own scheme of formation of a separate Muslim homeland, delivering his famous presidential address at Allahabad session of All India Muslim League. He said,

“I am fully convinced that the Muslims of India will ultimately have to establish a separate homeland as they cannot live with Hindus in the United India……I would like to see Punjab, N.W.F.P. Sindh and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state.”

In 1933, Chaudhry Rehmat Ali coined the term 'Pakistan' in a pamphlet 'Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever?' in which he demanded a separate Muslim state. It was the first appearance of the magic word “Pakistan”, which later became the top word for naming the future Muslim state in the Indian Subcontinent.

Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan, Chief Minister of Punjab Province, published his scheme known as “Outlines of a Scheme of Indian Federation.” This scheme proposed for the loosest of federations, with regional or zonal legislatures dealing with common interests. He suggested enormous powers for the provinces and minimum to the central government. His scheme recommended for demarcation of Indian Subcontinent into seven zones, having loose federating units.

In 1939, Dr Zafar ul Hasan and Dr Afzal Hussain Qadri wrote 'The Problems of Indian Muslims and their Solution'. This scheme, also popularly known as 'Aligarh Scheme', proposed the partition of country into three completely independent and autonomous states.

Conclusion
By the beginning of the 1940, Muslim politics entered into a new but significant phase. Now the Muslim League took a departure from pre-1937 policy. The Lahore Resolution delineates the aspirations of the Muslims that they did not want a united Indian federation rather they were to have a state of their own. There came about 170 proposals and suggestions before the Lahore Resolution i.e. from 1858 to 1940, to divide the Indian Subcontinent. Although the Hindu Press declared it a 'controversial resolution' aimed at the formation of a separate state, yet proposals regarding the division of the subcontinent had been coming from all quarters. The Lahore Resolution saw a major turn in the politics of the Subcontinent as the Muslims' struggle for a separate homeland was reinvigorated through it.

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