Alternative to Partition: Muslim Politics between the Wars

Author(s): Ayesha Jalal and Anil Seal

Source: Modern Asian Studies , 1981, Vol. 15, No. 3, Power, Profit and Politics: Essays on
Imperialism, Nationalism and Change in Twentieth-Century India (1981), pp. 415-454
Published by: Cambridge University Press

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/312289

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Modern Asian Studies, 15, 3 (I98I) pp. 415-454. Printed in Great Britain.

Alternative to Partition:
Muslim Politics Between the Wars

AYESHA JALAL and ANIL SEAL

University of Cambridge

WHEN the British came to power in India, it was certainly not in the face
of the organized resistance of Islam. Yet the British Raj came to its end
among political and social convulsions in which Hindus and Muslims
cut each other's throats and large populations were shunted across the
new frontiers of a sub-continent, now divided into two nations on the
basis of religion. Events of such magnitude have encouraged historians
to seek explanations of matching significance which may account for the
growth of Muslim separatism. This article is concerned with the period
of the nineteen-twenties and -thirties, before the onset of the end game
when the communal quarrel burst out in deadly earnest. Explicit rival-
ries between the communities tended to exist at two main levels, the level
of organized politics at the top where Hindu and Muslim elites were
rivals for influence with government and eventually for the control of
government itself, and the level of mob violence in the streets. This
article is concerned with organized politics at the top, although it does
not deny the existence and importance of tensions at the base. Its main
emphasis will be upon the provincial stage, in particular the Muslim
majority province of the Punjab. In the period before 1919 the develop-
ment of Muslim politics suggested that a specifically Muslim separatism
orchestrated by the United Provinces had emerged upon the all-India
stage. But the coming of the reforms reversed the situation of the
preceding decades, and there was less incentive for Muslim politicians in
the United Provinces to claim to be the spokesmen of Muslims in the
nation. The article will seek to demonstrate the rise of an alternative
strategy for Muslim politics which developed in the Punjab, a strategy
which qualifies any notion that the rivalries of Muslims and Hindus can

The authors wish to acknowledge their debt to John Gallagher, whose unpublished
paper 'From Civil Disobedience to Communalism' was the first to stress the importance
of the Punjab alternative; and to David Page, whose research he supervised. Page's
doctoral dissertation, 'Prelude to Partition: All India Moslem Politics, 1920-I932',
1974, is due to be published in the Oxford University South Asian Studies Series.

0026-749X/8I /04o6-09o4$02.oo ? I98I Cambridge University Press.

415

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416 AYESHA JALAL AND ANIL SEAL

be simply explained as the clash between separate but homogeneo

political communities.
Inevitably, the argument will be grounded upon a number of assum
tions about the nature of the Muslim community and its politics. The
premise that Indian society as a whole was cast into two distinc
communities, let alone two nations, will not be taken for granted; no
will it assume that communalism was a fundamental organizing pr
ciple of Indian political society, and that Indian Muslims have alw
seen themselves as a clearly identifiable and separate community, wit
distinct set of political interests of their own. Since time immemorial,
great deal of Indian political life was organized in ways which cut acr
community, so that political choices, particularly in the localities, we
determined by solidarities and interests other than those of a specifica
religious sort.1 No doubt the role the British played in the process w
important but the main purpose of this article is not to investigate t
inwardness of British policy. By coming to recognize community as t
organizing principle of the greatest importance, the British themselv
contributed to the distortion of social fact. Whatever may have b
their experience in Europe, or in the colonies of white settlement, or
Islam in other parts of the world, there was no obvious reason why th
experiences were relevant to India, where the religious affiliations of t
people tended to be bounded by innumerable small localities and t
scramble for resources within them. The communities which the British

were supposed to have divided and ruled were at least in part the
invention of the rulers.

Surveying Muslim politics in the nineteen-twenties, Choudhry Khali-

quzzaman commented:

The history ... of Muslim India is a mass of confusion and a chapter of political
benightedness.... To try to find any consistency, sound reasoning or logical
method in Muslim politics during that period, would be utterly futile.2

1 This is not to deny that the hold of traditional Islam was powerful, particularly at
the level of popular religion. But Hindus and Muslims had frequently to co-operate with
each other in the affairs of local society, and networks of patron and client, and their
factions often cut across the apparent solidarities of religious affiliation. However much
of it may have been susceptible at the base to the cruder appeals of religion, Indian Islam
had made its accommodations with the local environment.
2 Choudhry Khaliquzzaman, Pathway to Pakistan (Lahore, I96I), p. 74.

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 MUSLIM POLITICS BETWEEN THE WARS 417

Here was a striking contrast to the record of the

which organized Muslim opinion seemed to have
gains. In 1 906 Minto accepted the claim of the organ
League to speak for the community as a whole, and
reforms had taken the momentous step of giving se
to Muslims in the provincial legislative councils, no
ance with their numbers but also in line with th
ance'. In I916 these advantages were hammered h
pact between the Muslim League and the Indian Nat
terms of which were to have a large impact on the M
reforms. Since 1919 the Khilafat movement had sw
the Muslim League. Religion had overwhelme
alliance of priest and politician had smashed the m
League and had given Gandhi support which was
ibly crucial, in his bid for leadership over the Cong
September 1920. During the non-cooperation, the K
on by the ulema, were in the van and until 1923
tinued to grow.3 But once Gandhi called off non
Treaty of Lausanne in July 1923 settled the fate of
Khilafatists lost the main justification for their
movement inside which to place it. Everyone was n
ulema down to size, and by the end of I923 not o
movement begun to collapse, but also the alliance
politician which had given the Muslims in Congr
leverage. With the Khilafatists now rebels withou
Muslims in disarray, and the Muslim League moribu
Muslim confusion during the nineteen-twenties i
all-India organizations, but in the manoeuvrings of
in the provinces.
The Montagu-Chelmsford reforms swung the
back into the provincial arena, just as their aut
Government of India Act of 9 I 9 had given the pro
measure of autonomy, legislative, administrativ
divided the business of government in the province
jects, which continued to be controlled by the Gove
executives, and transferred subjects which were now
responsible to elected majorities in the Legislative C
famous principle of dyarchy, the brainchild of the

3 See F. C. R. Robinson, Separatism among Indian Muslims: T

Provinces, i86o-i923 (Cambridge, I974), chs 8 and 9.

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418 AYESHA JALAL AND ANIL SEAL

of the Round Table, elaborated by Lionel Curtis, adopted by Montag

and eventually incorporated into the Government of India Act. So it is
in the provinces that the key to the apparent disintegration of an overa
Muslim strategy can be discovered. The reforms had given politicia
some power in the provinces; it gave them nothing at the centre. S
all-India organizations, critically important when the new constitution
was being negotiated with the Raj, were less relevant once it was
question of working the concessions. Not surprisingly, in the nineteen
twenties there were few issues of any sort to breathe life into suc
organizations. The debacle of non-cooperation had persuaded man
Indian politicians, Muslim as well as Hindu, that Gandhi and h
Muslim allies had been using the wrong instrument for the wrong
programme. Instead of tightly controlled all-India parties, with agita-
tional programmes, they would substitute looser groups which wou
allow the provinces to go their own way, extracting what they cou
from the concessions that had already been won. So not onlyJinnah an
his handful of Independents but also Motilal Nehru were unable t
make a unified movement against the resistance of the political bosses i
the provinces. For most of the nineteen-twenties, the British saw littl
reason to take either the Indian National Congress, and mush less th
Muslim League, seriously. They had succeeded in locking politics out of
the centre; and in their new constitutional arrangements, by ensuring
wherever possible that no community had an unquestioned majority in
the provincial councils, they took some of the sting out of communalism
in organized politics at the top. To achieve ministries with workin
majorities, politicians in the reformed councils had to rediscover th
traditional arts of wheeling and dealing, of making alliances which cut
across community and learning to work with government in a mor
formal manner. Rooted in actual local conditions, the issues which now
dominated provincial politics did not pour easily into a communa
mould. Moreover, these trends altered the balance inside the embryoni
Muslim community. Since the later nineteenth century Muslim politic
had been dominated by men from the United Provinces. But after the
1919 reforms they had less incentive to pursue a separatist line, and the
lost the solid base upon which to place it.
Since the time of the Muslim invasions, the centre of Muslim power
and opulence had been in Hindustan, the great tract of territory i
North India from the eastern bounds of the Punjab to the western
borders of Bihar, the provinces of Agra and Oudh which came to b
known as the United Provinces. Here the Muslim population was
small minority, but in some districts, the home counties of the ol

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 MUSLIM POLITICS BETWEEN THE WARS 4'9

Mughal empire, they were more than a third of

many Muslims lived in towns; and the higher or
much larger proportion of the Muslim populatio
India. In upper India, much of the old order h
tudes of British rule, and not only did Muslims
share of government posts but many of the big l
were Muslims.5 Despite their successful propag
Muslims enjoyed a solid educational base both in
the new secular instruction. But these notables o
to an elite which by tradition was not exclus
heartland of the Muslim dynasties, the Faithf
unbelievers, who were not to be converted by
sword. Accordingly, their systems of rule had to
necessities of peoples beyond the range of Muslim
the summit of society or at its base. The ruling g
of northern India embraced a striking medley of
as Hindu, for the most part more committed to t
to the integrity of their creeds. Muslim rule
critically upon the collaboration of Hindu service
for any government. From these accommodati
Urdu-speaking elite with its famous syncretic cu
Muslim nor Hindu, but a creative combination of
confined to the happy few, recruited from severa
upon society like an oilslick upon the water, but d
modern times by the waves of populism from
nineteenth century, it was still the case that the
in upper India were not those which flowed alon
but those which cut across them, the unity of me
persuasion who saw themselves as the leade
guardians of its traditions.
Yet once the British had elevated the category o
which was bound to influence the distribution
favour, it was natural enough that those member
elite, who happened to be Muslims, could see a
forward as representatives of the communal inte
4 Ibid., pp. II-I5; in I921 there were 6,48I,032 Muslim
population of more than 45 millions, or I4.28 per cent,
(Calcutta, I923), pp. 40-3.
5 See Robinson, Separatism among Indian Muslims, pp. 15-2
6 This is not to deny that the hold of traditional Islam was
level of popular religion, among men of a lesser sort, the
northern India.

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420 AYESHA JALAL AND ANIL SEAL

believed to exist.7 But there were also tactical advantages for the Raj t
be derived from this development. By the later nineteenth centur
when the most vocal critics of the Raj were literate Hindus from t
maritime Presidencies, the Guardians found it convenient to count
their claims by pointing to the loyal Muslims of northern India and t
well-advertised decision ofSyed Ahmed Khan and his Aligarh coterie to
break away from the Indian National Congress. In I906 when Mint
listened to the Muslim delegation, he was in fact accepting the dubiou
claims of a small group of Muslim notables, mainly from the Unit
Provinces, to speak for the community throughout India. It was these
Muslim leaders who gained most from separate representation an
weightage in the provincial councils which the Morley-Minto reforms
gave them. They consolidated these advantages in their localities b
negotiating favourable terms in the U.P. Municipal Act; and the Luck-
now Pact, concluded in 1916 between the Muslim League and t
Congress, was unashamedly pitched in the interest of U.P. Muslims.8 I
all these measures, the men purporting to speak for Muslims throughou
India, including the large communities in Bengal and the Punjab,
designed their programme specifically to the advantage of the Muslim
members of the Urdu-speaking elite of north India.
Yet even in the United Provinces themselves, which dominated Mus-
lim affairs until the nineteen-twenties, there was no recognizably separ
ate, and certainly no solid, political community of Muslims. Paradoxi-
cally, the genuine communal awareness which existed in the less rarified
levels of ward and mohalla, was not faithfully reflected at the top
Quarrels over the killing of cows and music before the mosque, battles
for the control of lesser neighbourhoods and resistance to militant Hind
revivalism, all suggest the importance of religious issues at these lowe
levels. As the Cawnpore mosque incident and the Khilafat agitatio
showed, a formidable religious frenzy could be unleashed, whether
protest against the demolition of a lavatory attached to a mosque or to
rise in defence of the Holy Places of Islam. But inevitably, communalism
at the base tended to throw effective control of the neighbourhood in
7 Treating religious communities as separate political interests followed naturally
from the British view of the Indian past. When the passion for social enumeration w
exported to India, the censuses came to lump together, into artifically broad categories,
people who often had next to nothing in common. But once the category of being
Muslim (or indeed any other category such as a landlord) had been raised to importan
in the distribution of government favour and patronage, it was natural enough for me
to step forward to claim to represent the interests the British believed to exist.
8 See F. C. R. Robinson, 'Municipal Government and Muslim Separatism in the
United Provinces 1883 to I9I6', in John Gallagher, Gordon Johnson and Anil Se
(eds), Locality, Province and Nation (Cambridge, I973), pp. 69--I2 I.

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 MUSLIM POLITICS BETWEEN THE WARS 42 I

the hands of rather more uncompromising men of r

tunist political allies and footloose agitators. So f
these intrusions of populist religion into politics, mo
just as many of their Hindu counterparts, activ
because these strident communal passions undermin
over their rank and file, as well as endangered t
understandings in day-to-day matters which were th
ment to their separatist and mendicant stance to
However much the U.P. Muslim leadership may have
be heart-broken about the fate of the Khalifa, this
agitation led by alims and freebooting opportunists
expedient separatism and, by one of those quirks of
put the Mahatma into the saddle of the Indian N
the circumstances of the United Provinces, comm
card in the safe game the Muslim members of the el
rulers in government house and council chamber, b
when placed on the mat in the dangerous realities o
After the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms had come
Muslim politicians had reason to alter their tactics w
apparently separatist line. In the United Provinc
given the vote to a broad range of substantial rur
tilted the political balance back towards the coun
politician received much less than he had asked f
constitution, twenty-five out of twenty-nine Mu
returned by rural electorates, and, much as had
voters tended to choose the big landowners, the z
dars who had been wooed by British policy ever sin
In the United Provinces, land tended to be held by
Oudh the great barons, with their huge incomes a
tenantry, were both Hindu and Muslim, and their c
across communal divisions.11 So Muslim landlords n

9 Muslim landlords, men such as KunwarJamshed Ali Khan

pat, and of Chhatari, Khan Bahadur Kunwar Inayat Ali Kha
and from the Eastern Divisions and Oudh, Talukdars, such as
and the Rajas of Salempur and Pirpur and Jehangirabad were
twenties and early thirties. See Page, 'Prelude to Partition', un
dissertation, 1974, pp. 8-Io.
10 In Oudh, for example, there were only about 268 Taluk
covered two-thirds of the area of Oudh, and paid about one-sixt
the United Provinces, i.e., more than a crore or ten million ru
11 See Report of the Indian Statutory Commission, Vol. i, Survey
Zamindars of Agra were less well organized, and there were few
ranks, but they too began to organize, specifically as landlords

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422 AYESHA JALAL AND ANIL SEAL

to stress their landlord interests and to underplay their specifica

Muslim status in the council and in their dealings with the Governmen
Their Agriculturist Party, which was in a majority, formed the mini
tries. But the Government, troubled by the agrarian disturbances
these provinces through the nineteen-twenties decided to try to
something for the protected tenantry, particularly in Oudh.12 T
result was the Oudh Rent Bill, the Agra Tenancy Bill and the Distr
Boards Bill, all of which threatened landlord interests. Hindu and
Muslim landlords alike were anxious to join together to protect th
privileges. Consequently, many who had been specifically Muslim poli
ticians during the first two decades of the century became landlo
politicians in the third, sometimes with remarkable consequences
Indeed, there was only one occasion when Muslim landlords voted as a
communal bloc in the early nineteen-twenties. Since their community
was a minority in the United Provinces, Muslim landlords had lit
hope of achieving power in the reformed council as leaders of a speci
cally communal party. To gain office, as they successfully did in t
period, they had to ally with Hindu landed interests and this me
playing down their communal affiliations. This they successfull
managed to do throughout the period.14 But the conditions for doing
well in the province disqualified the Muslim politician from the U
from claiming, as in the past he had sometimes done, the leadership o
Muslims in India as a whole. The coming of the reforms in the ninetee
twenties had reversed the situation of the preceding decade.15 In
changed circumstances of the nineteen-twenties, such spokesmen
an Agra Zamindars' Association, with headquarters in Allahabad. But Peter M
grave's work suggests that historians need to be as critically alert about the categor
'landlords' in discussing U.P. politics as they are beginning to be about the category
Muslims.
12 See G. Pandey, The Ascendancy of the Congress in the Uttar Pradesh, I926-34 (Delhi,
1978) ch. 2, for a general survey of conditions in the U.P.
13 During non-cooperation, the Raja of Mahmudabad as Home Member had the job
ofjailing many of his former Young Party associates. Jehangirabad helped Government
to rally opposition to Abdul Bari, his wife's spiritual leader or pir. Many Muslim
magnates in the U.P. threw their weight behind the Aman Sabhas or security leagues to
combat non-cooperation; and many of the big landlords devoted themselves to organiz-
ing a landlord's lobby.
14 So Chhatari became a minister from 1923; was Home Member in 1926 and in fact
acted as Governor of the Province in 1928. Another leading Muslim landlord, Nawab
Yusuf was a minister without a break from I926 until the election of I937. See Page,
'Prelude to Partition', p. 12, fn. i.
15 In the latter nineteen-thirtiesJinnah and the Muslim League attempted, by other
means, to return to the position that had existed before the reforms of 1919, when U.P.
Muslims had successfully pretended to speak for Muslims in India as a whole. Jinnah's
strategy between 1939 and 1947 will be studied in AyeshaJalal's forthcoming work.

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 MUSLIM POLITICS BETWEEN THE WARS 423

there were for Muslim interests had to come f

politicians did not need to play down their comm
extent. Naturally this swung the emphasis aw
Provinces to the Muslim majority provinces, part
The Punjab, the other great base of Muslim pop
never been a centre of Muslim imperial rule or c
way as the Muslim heartlands of upper India. I
Lahore where the Muslims were more than three
lation, the pattern was quite different from t
imperial power. Since the time of the Ghaznavids
the west had come from migration of Muslim
whether Turkish Afghans, Iranians, Arab fugitiv
or the Afghans themselves who entered this f
chequered past. These patterns of settlement and
contrast to the central and eastern districts of t
been tenuously held as outposts of the Delh
strongly controlled in Akbar and Jahangir's t
closely resembled the western districts of the Un
there were more Muslims in the towns and th
presence in the rural localities than in the wester
In the fluid conditions of this marcher regio
whether Islam, Hinduism or the militant syncret
had been able to impress its unchallenged stamp.
whole the position of the Muslim notables had st
pressures not only of the kingdom of Ranjit Singh
annexation. Its rural notables, especially power
tricts, had prospered from the British connectio
did Muslims of the lower sort, whether by farmi
Indian Army with the same enthusiasm as they
call to arms from Ranjit Singh, that Sikh leader
For the most part Punjab Muslims were not
province as a whole was not noted for its lette
under the influence of western education, and acc
tradition of the Punjab School of Administration
tion, was required of its notables, as was appr
Ranjit Singh who ruled it without knowing h
Anxious to keep this province as a powerful buffe
the north-west, British policy sought to insulate t

16 Under these Mughal emperors, Lahore for a time was th

the base from which the Mughal armies looked towards cen
Muslims of British India (Cambridge, I972), p. 4.

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424 AYESHA JALAL AND ANIL SEAL

the centralizing and unifying trends of Victorian India. After its annex
tion, not only did the Punjab escape many of the uniformities of the
Regulation Provinces, it also benefited from the self-denying ordinance,
by which the British kept the pitch of the taxation low in a province, t
begin with a poor cousin but later the beneficiary of a growing marke
for its agricultural produce.
There were three main communities in the Punjab,17 but they ha
little tradition of internal unity, even in relation to their rivals. Rather
the Punjab had for long been marked by a powerful tradition of local
particularism which inevitably cut across the grain of communal soli-
darity. Even in the supposed Sikh nation, devoted to Guru Nanak an
the Khalsa, Ranjit Singh had smacked down rival Sikh chieftains,
disciplined the Akalis and come to terms with some Muslims as well as
Hindus, who not only helped him rule his kingdom, but also afforded th
Sikh contingents in the army which was the foundation of his power.
Just as there was no Sikh nation, so also it would be anachronistic
suppose that before the British annexation the Punjab had developed a
nationalism based upon a territorial principle. In fact, Ranjit Singh
kingdom was built around the army, and the army was built aroun
small platoons, or deras, recruited from separate villages and led by loca
bosses or deradars.18 None of this suggests that the factions at the apex
Punjab society, or the British after them, had to face in the Punjab a
polity characterized either by the principle of territorial nationalit
which cut across its three communities, or, conversely, by the rivalries
these embattled communities whose differences they sought to exploit t
their own advantage. What distinguished the Punjab was the atomized
and localized nature of its political concerns, a tradition insulated in th
nineteenth century from the interventions of Calcutta, and one which i
great measure survived and prospered into the twentieth century. Not
surprisingly, the debates about Indian Muslims and the right political
strategy for them in the later nineteenth century and the early twentiet
century, took hardly any account of the province which was to assert
itself between the two world wars, and was to be the main victim of th
partition of India.
In the Punjab, the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms of I9I9 had bee
17 In 192I, Punjab's 20.6 million people were divided into I I.4 million Muslims, 6.5
million Hindus, 2.3 million Sikhs, Census of India, i92i, Pt I, Vol. II, pp. 40-3.
18 Indeed it was the failure of Ranjit Singh's successors in the Lahore Durbar to kee
control over an army, popularly recruited, democratically run, and powerfully rooted i
the rural localities, which was the main reason why the British reluctantly were forced
fight and beat this army and to annex the Punjab-at least in part at the invitation of it
notables.

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 MUSLIM POLITICS BETWEEN THE WARS 425

consciously used by the Government to call in the o

the balance of the new, to shift the political centre o
the towns back to the rural areas, especially to th
western Punjab where Muslims happened to be in a
where Muslims owned many of the larger estate
from Lahore, Jullundur and Ambala, who had beg
the side of an administration which, in the Punjab t
rural simplicity, were given only four seats on the
Twenty-nine seats went to the rural areas and of thes
in the Muslim-majority districts, west of Lahore. T
had been to rely upon the landed interest; the Briti
many of its troops, whether Punjab-Muslims, Jats o
countryside. So the 919 reforms were unashamedly
urban politician and in favour of the rural vote.1
urban qualifications were pitched high and men fro
prove a residence of four years in a rural constit
admitted to stand for election there. Those who did well out of the
reforms were landlords and the agriculturalists; and this meant the
dominance of the Rawalpindi-Multan tracts, where Muslims were most
powerful. The result was that politics in the reformed councils of the
Punjab tended now to divide along the lines of interest, not simply those
of community. Urban interests, whether Muslim or Hindu were left in
the cold, and the Sikh and Hindu Jat landed interests, represented by
the Punjab Zamindar Central Association, found common ground with
the big landed interests represented by the Punjab Muslim Association.
so Hindu Jats from the Ambala Division20 co-operated closely with
Muslim zamindars.21
The architect and leader of this agriculturalist interest, which came to
be known as the Punjab National Unionist Party, was a Muslim politi-
cian, Fazl-i-Husain, whose urban and rather humble origins and record

19 Those who paid Rs 25 or more land revenue had been enfranchised and so also
were the officially appointed Lambardars which added some 58,000 to the Punjab rural
vote; the veteran sepoy, that most loyal of collaborators, was also given the vote and this
added another i6o,ooo to the electorate.
20 Men such as Chaudhuri Lal Chand who was Minister of Agriculture in 1924, and
Chaudhuri Chothu Ram who replaced him in the post.
21 Men such as Umar Hayat Khan Tiwana whose son was to become prime minister
of the Punjab in 1942; Feroz Khan Noon, who was educated at Wadham, later married
a young Australian, and was successively minister for local self-government in 1927, for
education in 193 I, Indian high commissioner in London in 1936, and chief minister for
the Punjab after Partition in 1953, and Sikander Hayat Khan, revenue member in 1929,
acting governor in 932 and the first premier of a self-governing Punjab in 1937. This
survey of Punjab after the I919 Act is based on Page, 'Prelude to Partition', ch. I.

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426 AYESHA JALAL AND ANIL SEAL

of sympathy with the Congress made him an unlikely person for this
role. Yet urban Muslim politicians, whether they belonged to Husain's
breakaway Muslim League or to Mahomed Shafi's branch, had no
political future in the Punjab after the reforms, except as spokesmen for
the dominant agriculturalist interest. Fazl-i-Husain seized on the
chance of becoming a minister in 192I to consolidate his personal
position. He became the leader of the Muslim bloc and managed to
get himself re-appointed as minister for education and local self-
government in 1924. The legislation he introduced, which cut down the
official control of district and municipal boards, was in line with what
theJat Zamindar Association had demanded. When he told the Punjab
council in March I923 that he stood for 'the principle of helping the
backward community, irrespective of their religion, be they Muslim,
Hindu or Sikh,22 he may have exaggerated the backwardness of the
community he was supporting but it was not mere propaganda. Fazl-i-
Husain was able to point to the introduction of compulsory primary
education and the building of schools and dispensaries in rural areas as
evidence of his supra-communal record. But since the Muslims were the
majority in the Punjab, and had most of the votes, it made good political
sense for the Unionists to find ways of consolidating their support. This
they did by giving them a protected quota in the educational and
medical services, where they had few jobs, but by leaving alone the
police where they already had most of the places. Also the terms of the
Municipal Amendment Act of 1923 were tilted to Muslim advantage.23
In the last resort there was merit in the Statutory commission's argu-
ment that 'The most striking feature of the [Punjab] Council remains...
its deep communal cleavages'.24 In the nineteen-twenties, the Unionist
Party must be seen not merely as a successful party of agriculturalists in
the Punjab, but also as the single most powerful Muslim constitutional
party in British India.
In Bengal, the other main Muslim-majority province, the situation
was in stark contrast to that of the Punjab. In some ways, it was a mirror
of the United Provinces, with the Hindus of Bengal in the dominant
position of the Muslims in northern India. Here, most of the Muslims
were poor peasants; nearly all of them were descended from converts,
22 Punjab Legislative Council Debates, IV, 15 March 1923, p. 1318, quoted in Page,
'Prelude to Partition', p. 43.
23 When Fazl-i-Husain's policies were censured in council in I923 the vote split,
uncharacteristically, on communal lines, with Muslims and officials supporting Fazl-i-
Husain, and the Hindu Jats who usually worked with him joining the Hindu and Sikh
members in voting against him. see Page, 'Prelude to Partition', pp. 46-7.
24 Statutory Commission, Vol. I, Survey, p. 208.

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 MUSLIM POLITICS BETWEEN THE WARS 427

contemptuously dismissed as 'little better than

circumcised low-caste Hindus'. The educated Muslim
elite, had always been a mere handful in Bengal, wh
and jobs in government or the professions were incr
Hindu bhadralok. In Bengal, as in no other part of
asserted that the Muslims as a whole were a backwa
they had always been so.25
In 191 I, the reversal of the 1905 partition of Beng
in one province regions and peoples whose inte
reconcile. In the east, Muslims were a majority;
Overall the Muslims had a bare but clear pre
numbers, but in both east and west the socially dom
But of course the Muslims of Bengal were in no
community; the interests of a handful of influenti
in the east were diametrically opposed to those
Muslim tenantry; and the interests of the small
educated in Calcutta were not the same as those of
Bengal, the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms were less
for the dominant than an invitation to the aggriev
dominance. Before I919, there had been only five
twenty-eight elected members of the Legislative C
mere 6,346 voters. After 1919 Muslims had thirty-ni
territorial constituencies. Thirty-three of these seats
mainly in the eastern districts of Bengal. Of the m
new voters in the provinces, more than four hund
the Muslim rural constituencies. Having forty-f
territorial constituencies, the Muslims of Bengal no
they were minded to deploy them, to promote t
districts.26 But the Muslim members of the counci
historian as clumsy, naive and self-seeking'27 and
admitted, torn by 'personal jealousies and rivalries
in Bengal Moslem Society',28 were easily split by
Bengal Congress.
Yet Chittaranjan Das, 'the most brilliant oppo
25 It was an error for W. W. Hunter to argue in his account of
187I that Muslim backwardness was a consequence of Bri
condition of the Bengali Muslims applied equally to Muslims i
26 John Gallagher, 'Congress in Decline', Locality, Province an
27 Ibid.
28 Central National Mahommedan Association, Octennial Report, I9I7-I924, p. 6 , quoted in
J. H. Broomfield, Elite Conflict in a Plural Society: Twentieth-century Bengal (Berkeley and
Los Angeles, I968), p. 255.

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428 AYESHA JALAL AND ANIL SEAL

politics, virtuoso of agitation, broker between irreconcilables, gambler

for glittering stakes',29 saw that the future of the Bengal Congress, of t
Bengal Hindu bhadralok and indeed of Bengal itself, depended critically
on the success with which the divisions among the Muslims of Bengal
could be exploited and on the support that could be won from some of
them. So Das offered them a deal, and showed that he was ready to pay
high price to get it.30 Here was a breathtakingly audacious piece o
opportunism. It was not the last chance of the old system but pro
rather that the days of the old system were numbered. Das' alliance wit
the Muslims, with its high promise of arresting the decline of Congress
Bengal, and preventing the growth of communal politics, which in th
end was bound to break the pre-eminence of the Bengali Hindus in the
undivided province, was inherently unstable. Many of his Hindu su
porters short-sightedly felt that Das had paid too high a price for thi
vital Muslim alliance. To attract Muslim support, he was giving aw
jobs which his Hindu constituents presently occupied, and to keep that
support he would have had to make concessions to pressures for tenan
legislation which would have been regarded by his Hindu supporters in
the east Bengal districts as anathema. There were problems also o
reconciling the interests of the Swarajya Party as a legislative group wi
its interests as spokesmen for the districts, or the interest of Hindus in
eastern Bengal who did not relish the prospect of becoming a permanen
minority with the interests of Muslims, not to mention the problem
reconciling the interests of Bengal with those of all-India. Congressme
in other provinces were not prepared to give all-India's blessing to
Pact which made sense for the Bengal Hindus, but little sense for those
Hindu majority provinces.
So it is not surprising that this effort at a communal accord which
seemed to have revived an alliance between the communities, did n
long survive C. R. Das' death. In a combined operation, Governmen
and a number of wily Muslim politicians, notably Sir Abdur Rahim
29 Gallagher, 'Congress in Decline', Locality, Province and Nation, p. 275.
30 According to the agreement, known as the Bengal Pact, Muslims would b
represented in the legislative council; they would keep their separate electorates and ge
representation in line with their population, which was more than the Lucknow Pa
had given them. Muslims had less than a third of the appointments in the public servic
So Das promised them that when Congress ruled Bengal they would get more th
half-fifty-five per cent-of the jobs and up to eighty per cent until they had reache
that level. In local bodies, Muslims would get sixty per cent of the seats, they would
allowed to kill cows, and they would not have to put up with Hindus playing mu
outside their mosques. The Bengal Pact of 1923 won Das and his Swarajists twenty-on
Muslim seats when they entered the second council, enough reinforcements to mak
dyarchy unworkable.

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 MUSLIM POLITICS BETWEEN THE WARS 429

began to build up a communal Muslim party

elections. Relations between Hindus and Muslims
with the impetus coming from politicians at the t
fury from below. In any event the result was the
between Muslim factions and the Swarajists, who
put up Muslim candidates in the 1926 election
Muslims except one were returned on communal
work in the communal interest. From Januar
1936 there were six ministries in Bengal, all le
dependent on the Muslim vote, supported b
nominated official members. Politicians in Ben
office and holding it by a double policy of st
affiliations and at the same time of setting up as t
rights, both Muslim and lower-caste Hindu, ag
lines of communal division in Bengal were no
divisions by class. In the U.P. and in the Punjab t
been bolstered by the Muslims who took charge;
challenged and changed. This was one factor whic
alliance between the politicians of Bengal and the
U.P. and the Punjab, whether at this time or
Muslim strategy became more urgent.
So in the nineteen-twenties there was no longer
whose leaders could define Muslim demands at a national level. Under
Gandhi's prompting, the Congress clung to the view that it was a party
of the Hindus and Muslims alike and it exaggerated both the greatness
and the goodness of the few surviving Muslims in the Congress ranks
although by this time, after the failure of non-cooperation and the
collapse of the Khilafat, they represented no Muslims but themselves. As
for the Muslim League, it seemed now at death's door. Jinnah, that
ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity, that nationalist anxious to win a
say at the centre by constitutional means, tried to resuscitate the League
in I923 when Nehru and Das plumped for council entry, but his
non-cooperating enemies blocked his efforts. Jinnah's only base was now
in the central legislative council, as the leader of a small body of
Independents who, after I923, held the balance between the Govern-
31 In its turn the Swarajist Party in Bengal not only took on a more Hindu but also a
more aristocratic, high caste, zamindari colouring: big zamindars now rallied in force to
the Congress to meet the threat of an amendment of the Bengal Tenancy Act which
would have given occupancy rights to their tenants. In contrast the Muslim ministries
forced through a Rural Primary Education Bill in 1930; they brought in communal
reservation of seats on local bodies and introduced legislation to relieve peasant
indebtedness.

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430 AYESHA JALAL AND ANIL SEAL

ment and the Swarajists. But the Independents were in no sen

Muslim party, since only three of its members happened to be Mu
In I924Jinnah again attempted to revive the League but the resolut
passed at the 1924 session show where Muslim leadership had now c
to lie. Under the overweening influence of the Punjabi Muslims
League resolved that India's future lay with a federal form of gove
ment, in which the centre's function would be restricted 'to such ma
as are of general or common concern'; it also resolved to protec
Muslim majorities in the Punjab, in Bengal and in the Frontier
ince, demanding that neither territorial adjustment nor representa
for minorities in these provinces should be allowed to affect them
was the Punjabi view of Muslim interests with a vengeance. Wit
all-India Muslim party to act as a counter, the politicians of the Mu
majority-provinces could now step forward. Since the Muslim mass
Bengal were no more organized than they were advanced, and t
politicians no more irreplaceable than they were incorruptible, in p
tice the leadership fell to the Muslims of the Punjab who inspi
ministry which ruled continuously and successfully at Lahore thro
out the nineteen-twenties in contrast to most of the gimcrack exp
ments in dyarchy which were going on in British India throughou
decade.

II

In November I927, the Simon commission was appointed to look int

the workings of the reforms. The prospect of further reforms swung th
pendulum of Muslim politics away from the provinces, where they had
been firmly placed during the nineteen-twenties, and back to the centre
By the later nineteen-twenties it was clear that whatever Lord Birken-
head and the Old India Hands might proclaim, constitutional chang
was on its way. By announcing that the constitution would be reviewed
at a stroke Birkenhead had jerked up the carpet under which the
all-India questions had so conveniently been swept since dyarchy ha
begun. Intended by the Conservatives as a pre-emptive strike again
more radical reform by its Labour successors, the Statutory Commission
inevitably raised the very aspirations and fears which it had hoped to
damp down, by bringing the prospect of full provincial self-governmen
closer. When it reported in 1930, the Simon Commission spoke of
the anxieties and ambitions aroused in both communities by the prospect of
India's political future. So long as authority was firmly established in British

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 MUSLIM POLITICS BETWEEN THE WARS 43I

hands, and self-government was not thought of, H

confined within a narrower field.... But the coming o
anticipation of what may follow them have given new
competition.32

London was ready to give more responsible gove

inces, while hanging on to the vital attributes
centre. But the biggest stumbling block to co
whether in the provinces or the centre, seeme
problem. So it became urgent again for politician
and Muslim alike, to think of coming to terms at
fate ofJinnah's efforts to unite Muslims behin
negotiate with the Congress, as well as the fa
Conference and of the Nehru Report, show how
nal problem had become in all-India terms.33 In p
how the interests of the Muslim majority provinc
particular, worked against Muslims coming to ter
at an all-India level.

As soon as the Simon Commission had been set up,Jinnah set to wor
to produce a united national front. Earlier in March 1927 his proposals
had shown the lines of his strategy. In return for the creation of
separate Muslim province of Sind, raising the status of the North Wes
Frontier Province and Baluchistan and winning representation on th
basis of population for Bengal and the Punjab, as well as a guarante
one-third of the seats in the central legislature for Muslims, Jinnah wa
ready to give up separate electorates, for so long the ark of the Muslim
convenant. But this was clearly a strategy which appealed mainly
Muslims who had little chance of winning power in their own provinces
But Muslims with a stronger position in their own provinces soon vetoe
these all-India initiatives by Jinnah. Certainly the lukewarm response
from the Congress was not enough to keep his proposals alive. Once th
Commission had been announced,Jinnah was given another chance but
it was clear that the Punjab leaders were wholly opposed to his plan
AlthoughJinnah managed to secure that the League's session in 1927 be
held in Calcutta (where the climate was mildly more favourable to his
point of view than in Lahore) it was an unreal victory, since the Punja
Muslims held a rival League meeting of their own in December und
Muhammed Shafi's presidentship, and attracted to it some of the
important Muslims from the United Provinces, foreshadowing th
32 Report of the Indian Statutory Commission, Vol. I, Survey, p. 29.
33 See Mushirul Hasan, Nationalism and Communal Politics in India, i916-i928 (New
Delhi, I979), ch. 8.

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432 AYESHA JALAL AND ANIL SEAL

powerful alliance which was to emerge as the All-India Muslim Confer-

ence.

This initiative by Muslims of the Punjab show

already beginning to hammer out a distinctive strat
the coming reforms. As Sir Malcolm Hailey, who k
wrote in December I927, the Punjab Muslims
see that they can never quite the same interest as the Mo
with large Hindu majorities and they seriously think of b
All India Moslem League and starting a Federation of the
to embrace the Punjab, part of the U.P., the North West
and Sind,...34

Interestingly enough, Hailey added that the Pu

from the Muslims of the other main majority prov
... the dream of the future to which I had alluded does n
the moment, the North India Moslem has given up his c
as hopeless and seems to expect no assistance from
Islam.35

But all this was for the future; here and now the P
that his best course was to stand pat on what he ha
with the government, much as the Old Punjab Hand
Irwin and Birkenhead that he would.
For another year, Jinnah tried to patch together a working Hindu-
Muslim alliance on the all-India stage. But by May 1928 Jinnah had
failed to persuade anyone, whether the viceroy, the Congress or Muslims
who mattered, to move in his direction. With his influence rapidly and
visibly collapsing, Jinnah pulled the League out of the All-Parties
Conference in Delhi and retreated to London. In the end, it was the
Congress which attempted to sketch out a solution. The Nehru Report
of 1928 dealt with the thorny communal problem by driving a coach
and horses through the difficulties, but it paid scant regard to Muslim
opinion, even the opinion of the hand-picked Muslim members who
joined with Nehru in producing this Report. The Report advocated a
unitary government at the centre, and called for all the departments of
the central Government, including defence, finance and relations with
the Indian States, to be made responsible to Indian legislatures.
Separate electorates, weightages for minorities, the Muslim demand for
a protected status for minorities, and for a guaranteed one-third share of
power at the centre were all to go. However, Sind was to be made into a
34 Sir Malcolm Hailey to Sir Arthur Hirtzel, 15 December 1927, Hailey Papers, I I8
quoted in Page, 'Prelude to Partition', p. 148.
35 Ibid.

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 MUSLIM POLITICS BETWEEN THE WARS 433

separate province, and the North West Frontier

provincial status. This was clearly unacceptable to M
colours. Even that old Khilafat stalwart, Shaukat A
attacked those Congress Muslims who supported
stooges. But since the Report was ratified by a c
Parties Conference, and since the Congress now nai
Report, an accord between the Congress and Mus
able. Once Muslim politicians in the provinces and C
centre had reached this parting of the ways, the en
pressing for Nationalist advance at the centre, back
Muslim opinion whose interests had been duly sa
SinceJinnah possessed no solid political base of his o
depended upon his ability to act as a broker betwee
in the provinces and the rival Congress politicia
Jinnah now was banished into a political wildern
nineteen-twenties shows that at every step he had
his policies, and alter his objectives, to try to suit
cial Muslim demand; but that his efforts, even at th
backwards, had failed to succeed.
The dominant Muslim provincial demand found it
Jinnah, nor in the League, but in Fazl-i-Husa
Muslim Conference which he organized. By the e
twenties Fazl-i-Husain was no longer merely a prov
had become a leader with an Indian standing. In 192
Muslim Conference; in 1930 he was appointed a mem
executive council and he used this position to b
strategist and director of Muslim policy during th
reappraisals of these years. While Congress launche
boycotted the councils and kept away from the
Conference, Fazl-i-Husain called upon his follow
pushed forward the Muslim Conference to represen
est, and worked effectively from behind the sce
council for a policy which was clearly stamped w
lims' construct of their particular interest.
The Nehru Report had tried to win the support of
a unitary central government by offering them a se
basis ofjoint electorates and an adult suffrage. But
tions of this bait for some of the Punjab's urban-b
Husain wrote:

The Nehru Report is nothing else but a make-belief and flashes the Indian
autonomy before the applauding Swarajists, while it takes no account of the

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434 AYESHA JALAL AND ANIL SEAL

real India which lives in the provinces and has its hopes, aspirations, difficultie
and troubles. What does the Imperialist in charge of the Indian Empire ca
how the constituent provinces with their parochial interests get on. He is aft
the big game. The mere trifles of duck shooting or fishing have no attraction f
him.36

So he encouraged the Muslim Council members in the Punjab to

formulate their own proposals for the next stage of political advance.
The proposals built upon what the Punjab Muslims had already
achieved. The distinction between urban and rural constituencies
would have to remain; and so would separate electorates for Musl
There were, no doubt, some attractions in an adult franchise fo
majority community, but here and now the Muslim members w
content for the franchise merely to be extended. As for joint elector
these were dismissed for the time being as impracticable. Provi
autonomy was what they wanted; they were ready to think of resp
bility at the centre only after the provinces had been given a
autonomy, and then they preferred responsibility at the centre in
form of a weak federation of autonomous provinces rather than a str
unitary centre.37
At each stage of the constitutional negotiations as the reforms we
slowly hammered out, British proposals bore the stamp of this Punj
construct of Muslim interests. In the Simon Commission's Rep
published in May 1930, the provinces were to have full respon
government. But they were not as yet to be brought under a respons
(and so probably a Congress-dominated) centre. An all-India fe
ation of British India and the native States put the prospect of chang
the centre into the indefinite future. Fazl-i-Husain liked some of the
Statutory Commission's recommendations. Provicial autonomy was
good for the Muslims in the Punjab, provided there was no question of
the provinces being subjected to a non-British centre, and the Commis-
sion was obviously minded to uphold British control in Delhi. The
Report had doubts about setting up Sind as a separate province, and
giving the somewhat unreconstructed region of the North West Frontier
Province the benefit of the reforms. But most serious of all, from Fazl-i-
Husain's point of view, were the Simon Commission's doubts about
retaining separate representation, particularly in the Muslim majority
provinces. What the Report offered Muslims was the choice between

36 Fazl-i-Husain to Sir Malcolm Hailey, 22 September 1928, Hailey Collection, MSS.

EUR. E220/23, I.O.L., and quoted in Waheed Ahmad (ed.), Letters of Mian Fazl-i-
Husain (Lahore, 1976), p. 57 (henceforth: Letters).
37 Ibid., pp. 56-9.

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 MUSLIM POLITICS BETWEEN THE WARS 435

separate electorates everywhere on a population b

ates in the Punjab and in Bengal, with separate el
age in the minority provinces.
This was less than the Punjab Muslims wante
took a hand; his intervention was decisive. In t
Muslims had reason to be satisfied with the elect
stood. The Simon Commission's proposals woul
once the officials lost their votes, Muslims would
preponderance in their majority provinces. So Fa
was to advise Muslims to hold firmly on to t
reservations in the majority provinces of Pu
bluntly stated in August I930, Indian Muslim
position and no political advance to the political a
Simon Report'.38 He told the viceroy that the Br
Muslim co-operation in the constitutional negotia
that Muslims were given secure majorities in t
Sind was separated from the Bombay Presidenc
Frontier Province was elevated to the status of a
From behind the scenes, Fazl-i-Husain in Delh
delegates at the First Round Table Conference to h
existing constitutional safeguards. As one comme
real control rests with the younger section' who
in close touch with the Muslim Member of th
The Conference was a strange affair; it was rath
the Prince-indeed it was Hamlet not only with
without the ghost of Hamlet's father. There wer
men at the Conference and the officials were told

38 Note by Fazl-i-Husain, enclosed in Irwin to Wedgwo

Halifax Papers 6, quoted in Page, 'Prelude to Partition', p.
39 Fazl-i-Husain's influence over Irwin is shown by the t
India's Reform Despatch of September I930. It conceded
demand than Simon had. It proposed to retain separate ele
Muslims in the Hindu majority-provinces, but also to g
Muslims the majorities to which their population entitled t
outright statutory majorities, but favoured a scheme by whi
predominance in line with their numbers, if not an actual m
should be encouraged to secure their majorities by winnin
allotted to such interests as labour, the universities and the l
attempt to rescue some of the benefits of a supra-communal
well in the Punjab and elsewhere during the nineteen-twen
40 Note by Gilbert Laithwaite, 6 November I93i, Temp
EUR. E240/65., I.O.L. Among these 'younger section
Mohammed Shafi, Shafaat Ahmad Khan, and the Aga Kh
All-India Moslem Conference.

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436 AYESHA JALAL AND ANIL SEAL

to sit as 'judges', to find the facts rather than enunciate policy. This w
just as well because London at this time had no clear policy at all. In t
circumstances, it is not wholly surprising that this Conference came ou
with a curious brainchild of its own. This was the notion that there
should be a federal solution to the Indian problem. The princes have
been credited with the notion-it bears all the marks of their powerful
constitutional intelligence. But the idea of a federation did have som
attractions from the British point of view. It gave them the chance of
creating the semblance of a 'safer' form of central government which
would mollify opposition in Parliament and in India. Moreover, the
complications of Dominion Status could conveniently be forgotten with
this new alternative before them. It also had some attractions for the
Muslims. But the warmest support for the federal idea came from that
group, beloved of constitutional historians and of the policy-makers, the
Indian Liberals led by Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, who saw in the federal
idea a possible way of patching together an alliance with the Muslims
and the princes.41 But the Indian Liberals suffered from the minor
inconvenience of representing no-one but themselves. Impressed by
their sincerity (and their elegant constitutional patter) some of the
Muslim delegates, the Aga Khan,Jinnah and Muhammed Shafi among
them, agreed in November 1930 at least to consider the federal idea and
leave the question of safeguards for their community until later. Here
were shades of the standard nationalist line which was 'First settle
swaraj, then settle the communal issue'. But for the communities, the
Indian minorities, and the Muslims in particular, the correct strategy
was quite different. If they were to become citizens of self-governing
provinces, then it was obviously prudent to get guarantees of fair
treatment from the majority before the constitutional bargain was
signed, sealed and delivered. Therefore, according to the Muslim Con
ference, the priorities have to be the other way round: 'First settle the
communal issue, then settle swaraj'. So Fazl-i-Husain brought his dog
to heel, back to the narrow path of the Conference's established policy.
He directed the Muslim delegates at the Round Table Conference to
hold firm:

Now what is it the Labour people [sc. the Second MacDonald Government]
offer? 'We give you responsibility at the Centre if you settle your communal

41 The Hindu Mahasabha and the 'tyrannical method' of the Congress during the
civil disobedience movement had led Sapru to doubt whether there was any 'true
Nationalism in India', and whether India was ready yet 'for the rule of numbers'. Sapru
to Iswar Saran, 12 November 1930, Sapru Collection, I, S. i8, quoted in R. J. Moore,
The Crisis of Indian Unity 1917-I940 (Oxford, I974), p. I46.

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 MUSLIM POLITICS BETWEEN THE WARS 437

disputes'. Now who will benefit more by responsibilit

Centre at this stage? Undoubtedly the Hindus. Th
anxious to settle communal differences in order to se
Naturally the Hindus. Then why should Muslims, w
tionally and economically weaker in the country, pre
British power from India and by introducing responsib
much that, for it, they are prepared to sacrifice comm

The message from their leader was clear. The del

the communal safeguards and to leave the init
others. After all, the Simon Commission, the gov
ment of India had all agreed on separate electorat
as the amount of Muslim representation both in
and in six provinces other than Punjab and Benga
needed only on the critical question of Muslim
Punjab and Bengal and even here promising sig
Government of India's despatch of September 19
favour of giving the Muslims in both the Punjab
representation of not less than 51 per cent.43 Wh
Fazl-i-Husain's largely successful efforts inside t
improve the Muslim position, mainly by securin
Muslim majority provinces, first by pressing
autonomy as was compatible with retaining firm
secondly for a central government with as little p
as possible. Significantly, the only real bone of c
rulers of India and the Punjab Muslims was t
between centre and provinces.
Indeed, by the end of the First Round Tabl
Husain had reason to be satisfied with the results. His views had
prevailed. The Muslim delegates had decided not to co-operate with
any move towards responsibility at the centre until their safeguards had
been assured. Indeed, the Round Table Conference itself had begun to
move away from the traditional commitment to a strong unitary centre
for British India, the big prize for which the Congress was playing.
Instead there was talk of a federation, with two chambers, in which
provinces and princes would have a say. This was much closer to what
the Muslim majority provinces wanted; their aim in the long term was to
get away from a strong unitary centre. Their strategy was to consolidate
their position in the majority provinces and then, perhaps voluntarily,
42 Fazl-i-Husain to Shafaat Ahmad Khan, 22 December I930, Fazl-i-Husain Papers
(Shafaat File). The authors wish to acknowledge the courtesy of Mr Azim Husain who
gave access to these papers. Also quoted in Letters, p. I I6.
43 See note 39.

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438 AYESHA JALAL AND ANIL SEAL

enter into a more equal partnership with the Hindu majority province
in a loose federation. In preparation for the next round of negotiation
the All-India Muslim Conference which met in April I931 worked o
its strategy along these lines: it decided to press for the fullest autonom
of the constituent units of the federation. The provinces were to be giv
all the residuary powers, and they were to be on an equal footing with
other units in the federation, the Indian States. No subject should
given to the federal centre without the prior consent of all the federati
units. And as a further safeguard, the provinces would have the right o
secession at all times. Not only would they be able to play states right
against the centre, like the once solid South in the United States o
America, but they would have the right to secede without suffering t
inconvenience of a civil war. This was the provincial thesis with
vengeance, and it meant putting back the historical clock to pre-Britis
times.

Now of course such a plan cut across the grain of British imperi
interests. By devolving power to the provinces, the Montagu
Chelmsford reforms had successfully postponed for the time being th
nationalist challenge at the centre. But if the provinces were to be give
autonomy, and little change was made at the centre, as both the Simo
Commission's Report and the Government of India's Despatch seem
to propose, then the danger was that Delhi's powers would have to fall
increasingly to the provinces. As the Reforms Commissioner could see
what was at stake was not simply the question of who should control th
central government in the future, but whether there should be a stron
central government at all. An irresponsible centre, with no concession
made to the nationalist demand, would find it increasingly more diffi
cult to control provinces that had been granted full responsibility, an
who could claim to have a mandate from their electors. If Muslim fears
were appeased by accepting their extreme demands, this inevitably
would lead either to an impossibly weak federal centre, presiding over
almost wholly autonomous provinces, or to a strong centre still under
British control which might find it difficult to rule provinces which were
dominated by politicians not as committed as the Muslim majority
provinces to the British cause. This is why the British in India could not
go all the way with their Muslim collaborators in backing the Punjab
strategy of'standing fast at the Centre'. This policy, later to be described
by the Aga Khan, as making India 'what she really is, i.e. a United
States of Southern Asia', was one where the Muslims would work the
state rights of their majority provinces for all they were worth against an
emasculated federal centre. This is why the British could not simply

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 MUSLIM POLITICS BETWEEN THE WARS 439

leave the communal question in the state of satisfactory

duced by the First Round Table Conference, satisfactory
the Punjab Muslim point of view. This is why Lond
Delhi to come to terms with Gandhi. This is why a
between Irwin and Gandhi in 193 I, which offered the c
Round Table Conference, this time with the Congress
was this which enabled the Second Round Table Conference to come
seriously to grips with the issue of communalism.
Fazl-i-Husain and the All-India Muslim Conference may have been
the dominant Muslim voice in India at this time, but they were not the
only one. In readiness for the next, and possibly the decisive, stage in the
negotiations, all manner of strategies were being put forward in Muslim
circles. The only thing these schemes, some more colourful than others,
had in common was that they were all trying to counter the potential
threat of a permanent Hindu majority at the centre, whether unitary or
federal. Best known was the strategy of Sir Muhammed Iqbal, Fazl-i-
Husain's most vocal opponent in the Punjab.44 Time and again in
Indian politics, men defeated on their local or provincial arenas, sought
to hoist their efforts upon a larger stage. In much the same way, the
non-Unionist Muslims in the Punjab, making no headway against the
stranglehold of the Unionists, now attacked them for their parochialism
and 'narrow-visioned sacrifice of Islamic solidarity in the interest of
what may be called "Punjab Ruralism" resulting in a proposal which
vitually reduced the Punjab Muslims to a position of minority'.45
In his efforts to rally Muslims from other parts of India, Iqbal called,
in his I930 presidential address to the All-India Muslim League, for
nothing less than the creation of a Muslim India, a state in the north-
west which would consist of the Muslim majority regions of the Punjab,
Sind, the North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan. This was not
the first statement of the demand for Pakistan, or for the division of India
since the proposal was firmly placed within the context of an all-India

44 Sir Muhammed Iqbal, the famous poet-philosopher turned politician, spoke for
the urban Punjabi Muslims who had been given short shrift under the regime of the
agricultural oligarchs of the Unionist persuasion. The All-India Muslim League, of
which he was the president, was as yet not in a position to press its own independent line.
To maintain the semblance of Muslim unity, throughout the late nineteen-twenties and
the early nineteen-thirties, the League's sole contribution to Muslim politics appears to
have been its reluctant endorsement of resolutions passed by the Muslim Conference.
However, it was already becoming the organ of those discontented with the Muslim
conference, a trend which Iqbal hoped to encourage.
45 See Sir Muhammed Iqbal's speech at the Twenty-first Session of the All-India
Muslim League, 29 December I930 inJamil-ud-Din Ahmad (ed.), Historic Documents of
the Muslim Freedom Movement (Lahore, I970), p. 132.

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440 AYESHA JALAL AND ANIL SEAL

federation. Indeed, Iqbal sought to reassure not only the British but a
the Hindus that the 'life of Islam as a cultural force in this country ve
largely depends on its centralisation in a specified territory'. He went
to argue that by bringing together into one political unit the 'liv
portion of the Muslims of India whose military and political service h
notwithstanding unfair treatment from the British, made the British r
possible in this country', would 'eventually solve the problem of Indi
well as of Asia'. Moreover, only by recognizing the requirements
communal solidarity, would a true patriotism emerge in India.46 Once
Muslims had been given the opportunity to develop 'within the body-
politic of India, the North-West Indian Muslims will prove the be
defenders [of] India against a foreign invasion, be that invasion one o
ideas or of bayonets'.47 So there was something in this for the Hindu
But what about the Muslims in the minority provinces? Here Iq
maintained that Muslims in the Hindu majority provinces would
assured of fair treatment because there would be Hindu and Sikh
'hostages' in plenty in the Muslim areas, a thesis which was to ha
lively future for the next seventeen years until partition exploded i
credibility.48
Fazl-i-Husain was not impressed by this 'epidemic of confusion
which everyone seemed to be interested in finding difficulties to ev
solution. By difficulties, Fazl-i-Husain of course meant challenges to
own particular strategy. Hindu and Muslim differences, he argued, h
never been worse, and Gandhi was mainly to blame.49 Yet the proble
was simple enough; reiterating his particular thesis, Fazl-i-Husa
maintained that the real crux of the problem was the amount of rep

46 Ibid, p. 127. Iqbal maintained that only by conceding the importance of c

munalism could Muslims get a proper sense of responsibility, and this would
'deepen the patriotic feeling'.
47 Ibid.
48 Iqbal's speech tended to be ignored by the Muslim politicians, but it did inspire a
student at Cambridge to coin the word 'Pakistan'. The student, Chaudhri Rahmat Ali,
yet another Punjabi Muslim, sketched out a scheme for an independent Muslim State in
north-western India to the Muslim delegates at the Round Table Conference. Capital
'P' for the Punjab: 'A' for Afghanistan or for those whose interest in Afghan was under-
standably weak, 'A' stood for the Indian Afghans, in other words the North Western
Frontier Province; 'K' for Kashmir. Others thought of it as a land of the pure or the holy.
The University of Cambridge in its time has produced many peculiar theoretical
concepts, ranging from Cranmer's Theology of the English Reformation to the Jesus
style of rowing; among its concepts is the idea of Pakistan. But not surprisingly Chaudhri
Rahmat Ali, who is buried in an unmarked grave on the Newmarket Road, was brushed
aside and his scheme dismissed as a 'student's scheme' which was 'chimerical' and
'impractical'.
49 Fazl-i-Husain to Irwin, 6July 1931, Letters, p. 159.

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 MUSLIM POLITICS BETWEEN THE WARS 441

sentation for Muslims to the provincial and cent

six minority provinces, Muslims already had an a
but since the officials were to be deprived of t
position was going to be weakened. As for Ben
little time for the problems of his co-religionist on
In Bengal, European interests were so large tha
must, Fazl-i-Husain conceded, remain in their hand
Bengali Muslims might be to have an overall majo
made to reconcile themselves to the inevitable' pro
the lesser advantage of a majority over the at
representatives in the legislature. But in the Punja
home, Fazl-i-Husain wanted Muslim representatio
population, even if Muslims were not actually giv
By getting some of the seats in the special con
electorates, the Punjab Muslims were bound t
tion.50 But time was of the essence; delay would
So he urged government to shoot from the hip, a
own terms. 'Personally I see no difficulty why G
decide straight away'.51 A government award wa
Punjabi Muslims than a settlement negotiat
munities. And this is the way it was to be. Despi
Muslims to negotiate a settlement in 193
apparent willingness to go to some lengths to gai
Second Round Table Conference made no headw
question.
Before the Communal Award of 1932, a number of interesting pro-
posals were made to settle the question. From the Sikhs came the idea of
dividing the Punjab. This Fazl-i-Husain immediately repudiated as
'monstrous' an ironic comment in the light of what was to happen in
I947. Another idea was to bundle the Punjab into a union with some
districts of the North West Frontier Province. But since the British would
never have agreed to put the clock back to the situation before I9oI
when the troublesome border had been the Punjab's responsibility,
Fazl-i-Husain did not have to chase this hare. A more ominous sugges-
tion was to add Sind to the Punjab, while taking away the Ambala
Division where Hindus and Sikhs were more numerous than Muslims.
50 Even though this did not meet the full Punjab Muslim claim, and although it was
likely to be condemned by other interests, this, after all, Fazl-i-Husain philosophically
commented, was the 'fate of all efforts at a fair settlement'. Fazl-i-Husain to Irwin, 24
August 1931, ibid., p. 185.
51 Fazl-i-Husain to Nawab Sir Muhammed Ahmad Said Khan of Chhatari, 2
November 193 , ibid., p. 199.

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442 AYESHA JALAL AND ANIL SEAL

This suggestion, Fazl-i-Husain reluctantly conceded, had some mer

but no Punjab Muslim, whatever his colour, would be prepared t
accept it. Indeed, Punjab Muslims were 'satisfied with the Punjab as
is'. If Ambala was to be taken away and Sind was to be given to th
Punjab in its stead, Punjab Muslims might reluctantly put up with it,
'but they have not asked, and will not ask, for it'.52
But the idea of amalgamating the Punjab with Sind had several
attractions. It would be, Lord Lothian, the Liberal delegate at th
Round Table Conference, argued, a 'permanent solution' to the diff
culty in the Punjab of keeping the Hindus and Sikhs happy at the sam
time as giving Punjabi Muslims a decisive majority in their provin
What was more, the two provinces together made up a natural unit sinc
their populations had much in common, their territories were travers
by the waters of the Indus, and were welded together by rail and can
But Lothian, who was learning something about India, and about i
Muslims, recognized that the 'Sindhis are jealous and afraid of th
Punjabis and are attracted by the "izzat" of being an independen
Province.' More importantly, Sind was bestially poor; its finances wer
always in deficit; the Punjab on the other hand was comparatively rich
and it did not want to take on the liability of its poor cousins to t
west.53 Fazl-i-Husain rejected this solution since he denied that th
union with Sind would resolve the communal problem in the Punjab, a
least not to the advantage of his constituents. It was more likely to mak
the problem worse since 'in these days of economic depression an
financial bankruptcy, one cannot afford to be generous even to
starving relation or friend'. Moreover the Sindhis were 'very touchy'
this point and would see 'some Machiavellian device on my part to mak
the Punjab extremely strong'; and would suspect that this was a piece
Punjab imperialism, an effort to create a new 'Muslim Empire' of t
Punjab all the way from the borders of Russia to Karachi and on
Lahore.54 As usual, Fazl-i-Husain had a cannier view of the realities of
Muslim politics; the Muslims of western India, the nucleus of modern
Pakistan, were hardly a nest of singing birds, or a band of brother
wanting to live in an ecstacy of Islamic solidarity and egalitarianism.
Brushing aside these alternatives, Fazl-i-Husain returned to the
scarcely veiled threat that if the British did not give their friends an
allies, the Punjab Muslims, the majority they demanded 'they may res

52 Fazl-i-Husain to Dr Alma Latifi, 14 October 1931, ibid., p. I94.

53 Lothian to Fazl-i-Husain, 27 May 1932, ibid., pp. 222-4.
54 Fazl-i-Husain to Lord Lothian, 6June 1932, ibid., p. 226.

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 MUSLIM POLITICS BETWEEN THE WARS 443

assured that in the political struggle that was to fo

support will not be forthcoming'.55 By sticking to the
Second Round Table Conference, the Muslim deleg
secure a complete deadlock. Afraid of losing the suppor
allies, and mindful that the Hindu moderates were
credibility, London decided to make its communal aw
The 1932 Communal Award, delivered by MacDon
much Fazl-i-Husain's creation. It left the Muslims o
Bengal in a strong position.56 Not only did they receiv
their provincial council than any other community, bu
separate electorates as well. In the Punjab, the Muslims
per cent of the reserved seats; in Bengal, forty-ei
Husain's strategy to secure the dominance of the Pu
been outstandingly successful; and he had achieved thi
ing with the Congress but by making the British pay
support. Even the Sikhs, so important an element in th
Army, and thirteen per cent of the population of the P
only I8.3 per cent of the seats, although they had d
twenty-four and thirty per cent. The Secretary of Stat
to give the Sikhs more, but it is easy to see why he co
Muslims wanted an absolute majority; they had been g
short of this and would hardly have accepted any furth
Hindus of the Punjab with their thirty per cent would
Therefore there was no room to give extra to the Sikhs
seats in a house of 175, and with the expectation of win
seats reserved for the landholders and one labour
Muslims had got their majority. With the Communal A
way, the reforms which were finally to emerge as the
India Act I935 promised self-government to the pro
prospect for the Muslims in provinces where they had
ties, in the Punjab, in Bengal, in Sind and the Nort
Province.

This seemed the triumphant conclusion of the Punjab strategy. In

55 Fazl-i-Husain to Shafaat Ahmad Khan, 2 November 1931, ibid., pp. 202-3.

56 See Communal Decision I931-2 (Cmnd 4147 of 1931-2), p. 7, reproduced in B. R.
Tomlinson, The Indian National Congress and the Raj, i929-1942, The Penultimate Phase
(London, 1976), p. I9.
57 London had wanted to give the Bengali Muslims less than the Award actually gave
them, and the Governor of Bengal had agreed. But the Viceroy had told the Secretary of
State that all-India interests demanded that the majority-province Muslims, even those
of Bengal, be appeased. If they were not satisfied, he feared the spectre of non-
cooperation by Muslims would be added to the threat of civil disobedience by Congress.

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444 AYESHA JALAL AND ANIL SEAL

part it had been achieved by the convenient symbiosis of interes

between the British on the one hand and the Punjab leadership on the
other. But of course what was a pleasing prospect for Muslims in
provinces where they had hopeful majorities was a gloomier prospect fo
Muslims in provinces where they had hopeless minorities. So there we
dangers of dissension in the Muslim ranks here. At best, Muslim politic
unity at an all-India level was a new and fragile development, painfully
brought about by the constitutional discussions since I929. Now th
these were giving more to those provinces which had much, and less t
those which had little, how was this unity to be preserved? The Ag
Khan, chief Muslim spokesman in London, and architect of this unity,
was haunted by the fear that the grievances of the Muslim minori
provinces against the Award might now wreck the whole Bill and t
shaky unity of Indian Islam.
The most striking proof that Fazl-i-Husain's real interests were not
these uncertain unities among Indian Muslims, or indeed the future of
the Government of India Bill, but in strengthening the position of th
Unionists in their own back yard, can be seen by his manoeuvrings afte
the Award had been made. London had stated that it would not itself
make any changes or variations in the Award; nor would it take part in
any negotiations to change it; but it would accept changes in the Award
agreed to by the various Indian communities themselves. Fazl-i-Husain
wanted icing on his cake. Stripped of its threadbare all-India weeds, the
Muslim conference revealed the nakedness of its Punjab provincialism.
For the time had come, Fazl-i-Husain decided, to reassure the Hindus
and Sikhs in the Punjab that the door was not closed to cross-communal
agreements which had served the Unionist Party so well. If the Award
was to work satisfactorily in the Punjab, without being wrecked by the
opposition, not only of Fazl-i-Husain's own dissidents but, more im
portantly, of his traditional allies among Hindus and Sikhs, an accom-
modation with them had to be reached. Hindus and Sikhs were natur-
ally incensed by the provisions of the Award. So when in I933 some
leaders of the Hindu and Sikh communities made tentative moves to
come to terms with the Muslims on joint electorates, the Unionists were
ready to meet them half way, and they did so with Fazl-i-Husain's
blessing. Writing to Jogendra Singh the Sikh leader, Fazl-i-Husain
hinted that, despite Muslim prejudice against joint electorates, he was
willing to consider the notion if the Punjab Hindus and Sikhs gave it
their support. In an elegant variation of a tactic that had worked so well
with the British, he now told the simple Sikh, 'The Punjab Muslims are
quite satisfied with the existing position and, therefore, proposals for

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 MUSLIM POLITICS BETWEEN THE WARS
445

change must emanate from Hindus and Sikhs ... 5

efforts in 1933 to make a pact between the co
reversal in the Muslim Conference's policy, but c
interest, came to nothing. It broke on the opposi
and the Hindus and Sikhs.

But the most telling commentary on Fazl-i-Husain's provincial tactic

came from the Aga Khan, who had been struggling to create a common
Muslim policy to press the reforms forward. A deal in the Punjab with
the Hindus and Sikhs would be flagrant departure from the 'Principles
we have been fighting for in the last four years'; Muslims in the minorit
provinces, already aggrieved by the terms of the settlement, might now
withdraw their support from the Muslim Conference which would
... break up the solidarity of Muslims in India. It is only after a great deal of
work that we have been able to build up a united program for Muslims which i
supported by every Province throughout India. Our community will then be
disorganised and split into innumerable fragments.... It will be difficult
prevent every part of the Communal Award being topsy turvy [sic], and
Muslims in minority provinces will be dragged into discussions of percentage
to which they would be entitled as a result of this Pact .... The Punjab questio
does not and cannot stand alone, it is a part of the all-India question an
however strongly and persistently we may try to localise this issue it will be
found that the whole question of communal proportion throughout India will
be re-opened for discussion.59

Fazl-i-Husain's reactions to these criticisms from his old friend and

supporter merely underly the fact that the Aga Khan had uncovered the
inwardness of his tactics. The flurry of excuses that Fazl-i-Husain now
put forward,60 were all part of the smoke-screen that he laid around his
real purpose. That came out clearly enough when he wrote to Shafat
Ahmad Khan, that he could not see 'how Punjab Muslims can be
deprived of the chance of improving their position by accepting this
proposal.' In Punjab terms, it would clearly be a 'great mistake' for the
Muslims there to 'miss the chance of establishing their position, for such
a chance is not likely to recur'.61
And of course Fazl-i-Husain knew his Punjab. As far as the Punjab
Muslims were concerned, the majority community could only secure its
future by maintaining some semblance of co-operation with Hindus and

58 Fazl-i-Husain tojogendra Singh, 8 May 1933, Letters, p. 284.

59 The Aga Khan to Fazl-i-Husain, Io May 1933, ibid., pp. 285-6.
60 In fact he was trying to safeguard the Communal Award by allowing negotiations
with the Hindus and Sikhs to go forward, much as the Award had hoped; he thought a
communal agreement in the Punjab was in line with Muslim Conference policy.
61 Fazl-i-Husain to Shafaat Ahmad Khan, 19 June 1933, ibid., p. 305.

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446 AYESHA JALAL AND ANIL SEAL

Sikhs. Fazl-i-Husain argued that the all-India Muslim Conference had

left the majority provinces entirely free to improve their position; he
restated the Punjab thesis:

The Punjab has stood by the minority provinces.... It will be a very poor
return indeed of Punjab's courageous stand by the minority provinces, for you
people now in your own interest to stand in the way of Punjab improving its
position. If the All-India Muslim Conference takes up that attitude, then it will
be doing what the Congress was not able to do-effecting disruption of united
Muslim India.62

Fazl-i-Husain was now ready to discipline his own creature, the Muslim
Conference, in the interests of a powerful Punjabi particularism.63
Musing in the privacy of his Diary, Fazl-i-Husain could see the advan-
tages of the abortive pact:

Indian Nationalism or Punjab Nationalism? For the present Punjab National-

ism, Hindu and Sikh threat regarding Reforms and communal Award. If
Punjab Hindus and Sikhs persist in not playing the game-Punjab Muslims
should not insist, but let the Reforms be the establishment of autocracy and
make sure that this happens all over India-Long-live John Bull!64

In other words if his arrangements were put at risk by a failure to keep

the Punjab communities in working harmony, Fazl-i-Husain would
have preferred to ditch the reforms and to invite the British to continue
to rule in India, because in this way his party would remain the real
governors of a united Punjab. His entire strategy was based on the view
that the Punjab Muslims' position was 'sound' and 'safe if not impreg-
nable', ingenious devices by 'keen witted politicians' such as Iqbal were
liable to bamboozle the unsuspecting Punjabi.65 The Aga Khan learnt
to his cost that the Punjab Unionists were simply interested in getting

62 Fazl-i-Husain to Shafaat Ahmad Khan, 28June 1933, ibid., 312.

63 Treated in a favoured and distinct way by the British, the Punjab had maintained a
strong sense of identity throughout the century of British rule. This emerged clearly in
the policy of the Unionist Party, in Fazl-i-Husain's attitude in the critical constitutional
negotiations of the nineteen-thirties; it was to appear again in the attitude of the Punjab
political leaders towards Jinnah and the League; and it is clear that this distinctive and
strongly particularist attitude had dominated the politics of Pakistan since its creation.
64 Fazl-i-Husain, 30 August 1935, in Waheed Ahmed (ed.), Diary and Notes of Mian
Fazl-i-Husain (Lahore, I976), pp. 168-9.
65 Fazl-i-Husain to Aga Khan, I6 December 1933, Letters, pp. 331-2. Nor was
Fazl-i-Husain impressed by the Aga Khan's warning that the Conservatives in Britain,
particularly the Diehards such as Churchill and Salisbury, would welcome signs of
Muslim discontent with the Award and that Samuel Hoare 'would be disgusted at us for
letting him down by our incompetence and inability to leave well alone'. Aga Khan to
Fazl-i-Husain, 2I January 1934, ibid., p. 342.

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 MUSLIM POLITICS BETWEEN THE WARS 447

power in their own province, and then going thei

ist way.
But the Punjab strategy had inherent flaws which its architect and his
British allies had failed to realize. They underestimated the strength of
the opposition from the Muslims in the minority provinces, especially
those of the United Provinces who had carried the baton of Muslim
leadership before Fazl-i-Husain had snatched it away and locked it up in
the Punjab. Moreover, the strategy which had been safe in the nineteen-
twenties was unlikely to be safe in the later thirties once power at the
centre was seriously at risk. The Punjab wanted nothing to happen a
the centre, and to let sleeping safeguards lie in British hands. But o
course the Punjab was not alone in India; and the Congress, admittedly
negligible in the Punjab and absent from the critical negotiations in
London, had seemed to be a less formidable factor in Indian politics at
this time than they soon were to prove to be. But this was evidence of th
provincial myopia which may have been Fazl-i-Husain's great strength
inside his own region, but which the British could not afford to share in
the broader perspectives of all-India.
During the long negotiations in London, the Muslim Conference
improvised by Fazl-i-Husain in I929, had proved an excellent instru
ment for his stone-walling tactics which proved so effective against th
Congress and the British alike. But the Punjab provincialism of Fazl-i-
Husain and his All-India Muslim Conference had serious weaknesses.
The Conference itself was an oligarchical body, bristling with knights
and nawabs. Its take-over bid for the Muslim League had failed, and th
very unevenness of the Muslim gains under the Award and the ne
reforms left plenty of scope for provincial grievances to be exploited.
What would happen to the Muslims in the minority provinces? Again,
the Government of India Bill intended to federate India. What would
happen to the Muslims even in the majority provinces, on the day when
the larger Hindu community captured the centre? And how appropriate
an organization was the Muslim Conference to steer the community
through the elections under the new Act and to orchestrate its policies
thereafter?

The year I935 saw the Act on the statute book at last. But all these
other questions still needed urgent attention from Fazl-i-Husain and the
Aga Khan, the leaders of the Muslim Conference. It was plain to the
Aga Khan at least that Indian Muslim politics would need to be
reshaped to suit the new electorate of thirty millions, and that merely
clinging to the letter of the 1935 Act would not suffice. Its constitutional
safeguards were: '. . .all too unnatural and artificial; besides they

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448 AYESHA JALAL AND ANIL SEAL

weaken our natural strength in the North and in Bengal while they give
us no advantage where we are in a minority.' The Aga Khan could see
that 'the kind of politics that we have been thinking of in the past will not
need the circumstances of the future'. This raised the question of'what
should be the future policy of the Moslems of India?'.66 Shafaat Ahmad
Khan, the Muslim Conference leader from the western United Prov-
inces, had immediately realized the dangers of'isolation and provincial-
ism', he feared that the Muslim majority provinces beguiled by the
provincial autonomy they had gained, would forget about the feelings of
all-India solidarity and unity which had 'inspired all of us for four long
years'.67 The Conference now needed a general policy and a common
ideal, at once 'practicable and inspirational', to prevent Muslims get-
ting lost in the 'internecine struggle for power, ministerships, jobs and
leadership'. But while Shafaat Ahmad Khan could see the need for such
a policy and ideal, he admitted that he had been like 'a blind man
groping in the dark' in his search during the past two years for such a
programme. He called upon Fazl-i-Husain to 'serve as a beacon of light
to all of us'.68 But Fazl-i-Husain felt that he had done what he could for
the Muslims, losing in the process 'what little was left to me of health'.
'Neither Islam nor my principles approve of suicide', he bluntly told
Abdullah Khan. Taking on the mantle of leadership of Indian Muslims
throughout the sub-continent was 'tantamount to committing suicide'.
He encouraged the United Provinces, 'rich in leaders' to find its own
helmsmen.69 The appeal to Fazl-i-Husain to work out a new all-India
programme to keep the Muslims from being 'smothered up by provin-
cialism' fell upon deaf ears.70 By now Fazl-i-Husain had served his
province's interests well at Delhi and felt he could return to the Punjab,
where he continued to manage the Unionist affairs until his death in
I936.
From his London home at the Ritz, the Aga Khan thought he could
see a way forward. The Muslim strategy should now be to take advan-
tage of their 'impregnable position' in the north-western tracts and in
Bengal; at the centre, the Muslims should be 'out and out Federalists'.71

66 Aga Khan to Fazl-i-Husain, 13 August I935, Fazl-i-Husain Papers (Aga Khan

File); also quoted in Letters, pp. 429-30.
67 Shafaat Ahmad Khan to Fazl-i-Husain, 7 November 1935, Letters, p. 470.
68 Ibid.
69 Fazl-i-Husain to Abdullah Khan, 23 September 1935, ibid., p. 467.
70 Shafaat Ahmad Khan to Fazl-i-Husain, 30 November I935, ibid., p. 474.
71This meant demanding a status for the Muslim majority provinces at least as
autonomous as the Indian States would have under a federation; and the Indian Army
should be changed from an all-Indian to a territorial force.

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 MUSLIM POLITICS BETWEEN THE WARS 449

But there remained the problem of hitting upon

vastly increased Muslim electorate. The Aga Kh

In self-interest ... our attitude should be hardest poss

lines of moderate State Socialism, a policy that will g
many depressed and poor Hindus.... Our members
especially in Bengal) should always be on the side of p
burdens as possible on the upper and middle classes
they can indirect taxes, which fall generally on the p
tion of our policy in Pakistan and Bengal we could do a
a few years, and we would be in a strong position bec
only have to whistle and rule, and in Bengal (if this p
adult or manhood suffrage and moderate State soc
meaning the provincial resources to be used for the be
public)-with such a policy even Bengal would beco

At first sight, this seems to point to 1947 and pa

the connotation of'Pakistan' in the nineteen-thir
and Fazl-i-Husain the plan involved not separat
rather to 'make India what she is, i.e. a United St
where the Muslims would work for all they wer
provinces against the new federal centre. But 'ou
course, should never leave any doubt and our Hin
realise that the welfare of India as a whole ... is as
them... 73
It was all very well for the Aga Khan to doodle at these federal
blueprints and to advocate state socialism at the expense of the well-
to-do in Bengal. Applying these ideas to the harsh complexities of India
was a different matter. That Muslim pirs and zamindars, nawabs and
talukdas would rush cheerfully into a future glowering with supertax
and socialism, was not especially plausible; and in any case the Muslim
Conference with its provincial counterparts, whether in Bengal or the
U.P., was too stiff, too oligarchical, too reliant on influence and defer-
ence for the mass electoral campaigning, called for by the wider fran-
chise. Under the old state of things, the Unionist Party of the Punjab had
been a sort of Oriental Whiggery:

People who had to make up their minds to support one or other of the
candidates were influenced by personnel or tribal considerations, and were not
at all swayed by the consideration to which Party the candidate belonged. To
what extent these conditions will continue to operate under the new Constitu-

72 Aga Khan to Fazl-i-Husain, 13 August 1935, Fazl-i-Husain Papers (Aga Khan

File), and Letters, pp. 431-5.
73 Ibid.

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450 AYESHA JALAL AND ANIL SEAL

tion and under a better-defined party system, it is not possible to determine a

this stage.74

Some of the urban discontents among the Muslims had urged Fazl-i-
Husain to call in the real Muslim talent of the province, who were
'engaged in gathering wool' and who were 'passing their time in the
wilderness'. Malik Barkat Ali wanted Fazl-i-Husain to ditch his oli-
garchs and to call in the young and the able who were pining 'at t
meagreness of the opportunity to serve and advance [their] provi
under the awful conditions that your leadership have brought about'.
But Fazl-i-Husain, the 'prop and mainstay' of the rural notables, 't
favourites of the bureaucracy' was unwilling to drop them through t
trap-door of history.76
And yet the question of how the old politics of deference would fa
under the new electoral conditions, had to be determined. If the lead
of the old oligarchical system were unsure of their way, there wa
newcomer who was not. In I930 Mohamed Ali Jinnah had left Ind
supposedly forever. But four years later he was induced to come back, f
the purpose of resurrecting the Muslim League to face the new electo
system and the new structure of politics. To the old guard of Muslim
leaders, these innovations came as threats, but toJinnah who had fail
badly in the old-style politics, they came as opportunities. In 1936
organized a parliamentary board designed for the central control
Muslim candidates throughout India, instead of leaving their selection
to the whims of provincial bodies; and to emphasize this control
decided that these candidates should run on entirely communal ticket
thus cutting themselves adrift from the old parties of Muslim landown
such as the Punjab Unionists and the Agriculturists of the Unit
Provinces, which had always found it tactically expedient to incl
Hindu members. Such a programme was anathema to the Muslim
provincial oligarchs and they set to work to fend off the intrud
Significantly, they achieved this both in Bengal and in the Punjab, an
the latter case illustrates how they did it.
Fazl-i-Husain was determined to keep his province as a priv
empire, insulated from central control. With funds provided by the A
Khan77 he wished to dislodgeJinnah, who then came to Lahore, sayin

74 Sir Zafrullah Khan to Fazl-i-Husain, 15 April 1936, Fazl-i-Husain Papers (Zafru

lah File).
75 Malik Barkat Ali to Fazl-i-Husain, 4 April 1936, Letters, pp. 509-10.
76 Ibid.
77 'Your know perfectly well that the Punjab is the key of the Indian Muslim politics',
Fazl-i-Husain told the Aga Khan; '[h]ence the importance of strengthening the Punjab

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 MUSLIM POLITICS BETWEEN THE WARS 45I

he was going to smash Fazl-i-Husain. But he foun

tion too strong for him, and while he sat in Lahore w
one of consequence dared to call. Sikander Hayat
'keeping his finger out of the Punjab pie'; 'we
"provincial autonomy" to be tampered with i
anybody be he a nominee of the powers wh
autonomy or a President of the Muslim League'78
the Punjab again' Jinnah said as he was leaving
hopeless place'.79
Jinnah was to do better in the United Province
in the national movement, these provinces had m
dominate it. The size of the provinces, the pol
peasant unrest, the strong Congress mach
Benares, the central position of the U.P. in the H
of the country: all these factors had led to the U
dominance, and this meant that Congress, the M
alike all strove hard to control their politics.
Chelmsford constitution had been worked by coa
organized into the Agriculturist Party by a su
Harcourt, Butler, Muddiaman, and Malcolm Ha
of a new constitution and a wider franchise, the
everything to gain by keeping this group togethe
tive, it would not exploit provincial autonomy. S
notables, it could control the new electorate-or s
was inter-communal, it might steer clear of reli
obstruction of the Bill in London worked agai
Government House in Lucknow. Already in 1933,
was to follow:

At one time I hoped that the early institution of provincial autonomy would
monopolise public attention. But if we are not to have the Report of the Select
Committee till February or March, it is not likely that we may see a Bill passed
during 1935, and there will be a period of stagnation during which all sorts of

with a view to give a lead to Muslim India'; to break Jinnah's parliamentary board,
Fazl-i-Husain needed election funds; and the Aga Khan, who had recently had some
winnings at Ascot, immediately sent money to his old Unionist ally. See Fazl-i-Husain to
the Aga Khan, 22 June 1936, Letters, pp. 596-7.
78 Sikander Hayat Khan to Fazl-i-Husain, I May 1936, Letters, p. 528. Although
Fazl-i-Husain feared thatJinnah had 'blundered into the [Punjab] arena very much to
our prejudice' in fact, Jinnah failed to get any support from any section of the Unionists
and even the discontents in the Ittihad-I-Millat, refused to co-operate with him and in
fact withdrew from the League's parliamentary board.
79 Quoted in Azim Husain, Mian Fazl-i-Husain: A Political Biography, 1966, p. 3 I1.

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452 AYESHA JALAL AND ANIL SEAL

issues may be taken up, and during which efforts made to consolidate a stab
party will lose interest.80

In fact the time was lost, and the 'stable party' turned out to be a wasti
asset. This harmed the British and the old leadership, and since the on
beneficiaries turned out to be the new Muslim leadership ofJinnah, in
time it was to harm the Congress, as well. Since the Agriculturist Par
was so loosely organized and since it had marked time in the ear
nineteen-thirties, Jinnah's foray into the U.P. found all manner o
dissident landowners waiting to be comforted and ex-Congress Muslim
to be recruited.81 More important than that, the United Province
contained the ablest, the best educated, the most ambitious Muslims in
India, socially superior to those in Bengal, educationally superior t
those in the Punjab. But only one Indian in seven in the Unit
Provinces was a Muslim, and so they had little to gain and much to fe
from the coming of provincial self-government with a wider franchi
There was nothing for them in the Punjab programme of Fazl-i-Husai
Such people were ready to give sympathy to a party promising them
full-blooded communal programme and which could offer the
national, and not merely provincial support. So it was in the Unit
Provinces that the new type of mass politics, based on bitter excoriatio
of the Hindus, began to emerge. The contempt of the old Muslim
politicians for this new movement and its new leader was pungent
expressed by Sir Shafaat Ahmad Khan, the Conference's man in th
United Provinces: He described Jinnah's parliamentary board as 'fa
tastic'; here wasJinnah's first attempt to organize Muslims outside the
legislature and it would be his last. His tactics were characterized by 'a
crudity which would do credit to the President of [a] school debati
society';
... Jinnah has never done a solid day's political work in his life and 'organisa-
tion' is foreign to him.... This is an example of his pyrotechnics and inordinate
desire for stunts. Hollywood atmosphere and methods, graceful poses and
elaborate gestures are all right for boys of i8, but Jinnah's sole contribution to
the present controversy, is an attack on 'reactionaries'.82

80 Hailey toJagdish Prasad, I2 September 1933,Jagdish Prasad Papers, New Delhi,

quoted in Gallagher, 'From Civil Disobedience to Communism'.
81 As one influential U.P. Muslim had written to Fazl-i-Husain in 1931, the impact of
the civil disobedience movement and the increasing politicization of the U.P. peasantry,
had shown that the old policy of relying upon Government to protect Muslim property
was no longer enough, 'so even those Muslims who have so far been with the Govern-
ment will go against it or lose all influence with the public.' (Mushir Husain Kidwai to
Fazl-i-Husain, 3 April 93 I, Letters, p. 129.)
82 Shafaat Ahmad Khan, Fazl-i-Husain, I5June I936, Fazl-i-Husain Papers (Sha-
faat File); also in Letters, pp. 586-7.

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 MUSLIM POLITICS BETWEEN THE WARS 453

Somehow or the other the Agriculturist Party wou

up to crush the League, but Shafaat himself went o
turist Party, it must be confessed, cannot command
Muslim electorate'.83 Even though the Aga Khan con
he had never 'looked upon Aligarh or U.P. as the
the United Provinces, standing as they did between
Bengal made it vital that the Congress (and equally
not capture our "Centre" '.84
And there was the rub. When the last the election
Muslim majority provinces stayed loyal to thei
Husain had died the previous year, but his succ
Hayat Khan, brought the Unionists to power in the
chief minister. Out of eighty-four seats, the League
Punjab. In Bengal, Fazl-ul-Huq formed a coalition m
and in the North West Frontier Province, the oth
provinces, the League won no seats at all. But in the
the Agriculturists did badly and the League d
noticeable that in other Muslim minority provinces
too.85 This was to become the pattern. The Le
outwards from the United Provinces where most of
was bunched; and one by one the Muslim partie
provinces were to fall under Jinnah's control. But h
leadership of Bengal Muslims until I943 and of
until 1946.86 The last two provinces to fall to the M
the two where Muslims were most powerful. The
which were partitioned.
By now Jinnah's strategy was becoming a littl
augur well for the provincialism of the Punjab.
Conferences, Jinnah had been impressed by how po
had been able to deploy its claim to speak with one
He also had seen how effectively the Congress High
its choices and its disciplines over the heterogene
fought the 1937 elections under its flag. The contem
Congress dealt with the Muslim League's hopes of a s
Hindu majority provinces where the League had
toral successes rammed home these lessons. Congres
83 Ibid.
84 Aga Khan to Fazl-i-Husain, 14January 1936, Letters, p. 481.
85 In the U.P. the League won twenty-seven seats; in Bombay it won twenty and in
Madras, ten.
86 Even then, Jinnah had far less control over these provinces than is usually
assumed-a theme to be developed in AyeshaJalal's forthcoming work.

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454 AYESHA JALAL AND ANIL SEAL

success at the polls, decided to launch a bold attack upon the Musli
problem and encouraged the League to disband and be absorbed in i
ranks. By its programme of mass contacts and policy of agrarian an
social reform, the Congress hoped to bring the Muslim villager into it
fold. SoJinnah had now to rally support for the League and, under his
unquestioned leadership, make it the only voice of Muslim India, an
get the British to accept his claim; he had to counter the Congress ma
contact campaign in the rural areas and he had to find a programme b
which he could try to bring to heel the leaders of the Muslim provincia
parties.
In 1936, Fazl-i-Husain had sent one of his followers to warnJinnah to
keep out of the Punjab. The messenger reported the failure to keep his
mission and he added, 'my prayer is that those who have made efforts to
raise Mr. Jinnah in the Punjab's estimation may not be placed in a
position where they may have to repent'.87 Perhaps there were some
repentances in the summer of I947, when nearly 200,000 Hindus and
Muslims were slaughtered and nine million refugees stumbled fearfully
across the burning plains of the Punjab.
87 Ahmad Yar Khan Daultana to Fazl-i-Husain, 13 April 1936, Fazl-i-Husain Papers
(Daultana File).

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