A Vision of United India

Chapter 7

The return of Jinnah to Indian politics

A very important event that took place in 1928 was the return of Jinnah from England. When he rejoined Indian politics he was a totally different man and this time he pursued a radically new policy with regard to the Muslims of India. It was at that time that the Indian leaders decided to formulate an Indian Constitution acceptable to all political parties. This idea was taken up at the Congress session of 1927 in Madras. As a result, a committee headed by Pundit Motilal Nehru was set up. An All Parties Conference met at Lucknow in August 1928 where a constitution was framed and was accepted by the Congress party. However, when the All Parties Convention met later in December, it was not accepted by the Muslim League, which was headed by Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Jinnah made new demands and put them forward in the form of amendments, which were not passed. Jinnah then left the convention in protest and joined the Muslim leaders who did not see eye-to-eye with the Congress. On Jan 1, 1929, an All India Muslim Conference was held where he issued a manifesto of Muslim claims. This formed the basis of his fourteen demands later.

Jinnah began his political career in the school of Gokhale and was an adherent of the Congress till 1920-21. He was an able debater and a top rank political leader. However, the mysticism of Gandhi was a mystery to him; at the same time, he was opposed to the reactionary Muslim parties. Not finding himself comfortable with Indian politics, he left for England to settle in that country. Jinnah returned to Indian politics in 1928, a completely changed man and gave a completely new turn to Indian politics. What made him return and the causes of the change in him are not clear. It is suggested in some quarters that he was piqued by the Congress attitude towards him. His abilities as a parliamentarian and organiser soon brought him to the forefront and he became the leader of the Muslim League.

From this time onwards, Jinnah was an ardent champion of the Muslim cause. He started a movement claiming that the Muslims constituted a separate nation from the Hindus and he pursued it vigorously. In the meanwhile, the British government announced the Communal Award. There was a lot of discussion in the Congress party regarding the Communal Award and there were sharp differences within the party. In this Award, the seats allotted to the communities other than the Hindus were far in excess of their numerical strength. For instance, the position of Hindus in Bengal was especially deplorable. Out of the 250 seats in the legislature, only 80 seats were allotted to the Hindus while the Muslims were given 119. Quite naturally, the Muslims members of the Congress favoured the award.

But the Hindu members, led by Gandhi, in order to placate the Muslims, refrained from definitely condemning it. It is necessary to point out that the greatest disservice done by Gandhi to the cause of Indian nationalism was his frank admission, in season and out of season, that no solution to the communal problem would be acceptable to him that was not supported by the Muslims. This placed in the hands of the Muslim reactionaries the power to put a veto on all constitutional progress in India and this power was used to the hilt by the Muslims both at the Round Table Conference and later by Jinnah. From this time onwards, Jinnah relentlessly pursued his one-point programme of creating a separate homeland for the Muslims of India.

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We have already seen how the Hindu-Muslim fraternity artificially created by Gandhi during the Khilafat agitation had collapsed and was followed by bitter feuds leading to communal riots. Mohammed Ali who was the principal lieutenant of Gandhi in the Khilafat agitation had, by 1930, turned against Gandhi. He refused to work with Gandhi and made no secret of his Pan-Islamism. He said: "I belong to two circles of equal size but which are not concentric. One is India and the other is the Muslim world. We are not Nationalists but Supernationalists." However the influence of the Ali brothers was on the wane and it was Mohammed Ali Jinnah who took the lead of the Muslim community. By 1928, his whole concentration was on the improvement of the political status of the Muslims in India. In this he was aided by two factors:

1. The clever move by the British who declared that no political concession would be given to the Indian people unless there was a fair measure of agreement between the Hindus and the Muslims..

2. Secondly, the repeated declaration of Gandhi and the Congress party that there could be no solution to the constitutional problem in India unless there was complete agreement between the two communities.

Jinnah exploited this situation in a masterly manner. In 1929, as the leader of the Muslim League, he repudiated the Nehru Constitution and proposed his fourteen points. It is true that the All Parties Convention did not accept Jinnah's amendments but he gained on two fronts; firstly, the Nehru report lapsed and secondly, he killed the Nationalist Muslim Party formed by Ansari. Ansari had all along been claiming that his party truly represented the Muslims. Jinnah and Ansari soon drifted apart and within a short time, the Muslim League became the sole representative of the Muslims. The Congress claim that it represented the whole nation, including the Muslims, suffered a serious setback. From this time onwards, Jinnah stressed the need of maintaining the unity and solidarity of the Muslims as a separate social and political unity. Jinnah warned the Congress not to interfere in Muslim affairs, thus implying that no Muslim who was not a member of the Muslim League should be regarded as a true representative of the Muslims. He looked upon the Muslim community as a distinct and separate community. This feeling was further increased by the proposal made by Mohammed Iqbal. In the Allahabad Congress of 1930, he said: "I would like to see the Punjab, North West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India." This idea was taken up by a young man educated in Cambridge, Rahmat Ali. His conception was that since 712 AD, the four States mentioned above were the natural home of the Muslims since they were in a majority in those areas. To him the Hindu-Muslim conflict was not a clash of religions or economic factors. It was an international conflict between two national entities. He said: "Our religion, culture, history, tradition, literature, economic system, laws of inheritance, succession and marriage are fundamentally different from those of the Hindus. These differences are not confined to broad basic principles; they extend to the minutest details of our lives. Therefore for us to seal our national doom in the interest of one Indian nationhood would be a treachery against our posterity, a betrayal of our history and a crime against humanity for which there would be no salvation." However, in the thirties, the scheme proposed by Rahmat

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Ali was considered a student's impractical scheme. But Jinnah was determined to see that this idea would be made a practical proposition.

While it is important to note the role played by Gandhi and Jinnah in furthering the cause of the Muslims, it is absolutely necessary to understand the psychological and ideological roots of the Islamic movement in India. For without this strong ideological basis, it would have been almost impossible to convert this into a mass movement. This was the task that Jinnah took upon himself in the next few years.

Pakistan's Islamic Foundations

We shall quote here from an article of Rajiv Malhotra on the Islamic foundations of the movement.

"The three important social demands that dominate the Islamic orthodoxy as adopted by Pakistan's government and many other Islamic States (as opposed to alternative liberal interpretations that are subverted) are: (1) the 2-nation theory, (2) global loyalty to Islam superceding sovereignty of man-made countries, and (3) Islamic triumphalism. These are summarized below:

1. The 2-nation theory: Pakistan was carved out of India based on the theory that Muslims require their own separate nation in order to live in compliance with Islamic Law. This theory is equivalent to: (a) segregation (neo-apartheid) by demanding a separation of socio-political jurisdiction for Muslims; and (b) Islamic exclusiveness and imposition of Islamic "Law" upon the public sphere. This is the exact opposite of both pluralism and secularism. The traumatic event that resulted from this, in India, is commonly called "The Partition." Once the population of Muslims in a given region crosses a threshold in numbers and/or assertiveness, such demands begin. Once this ball is set in motion, the euphoria builds up into a frenzy, and galvanizes the Pan-Islamic "global loyalty" discussed in #2 below. The temperature is made to boil until Muslims worldwide see the expansion of their territory as God's work. The US will have this experience at some point during the next few decades.

2. Pan-Islamic loyalty superceding local sovereignty: Islamic doctrine divides humanity into two nations that transcend all boundaries of man-made countries: All Muslims in the world are deemed to be part of one single nation called dar-ul-islam (Nation-of-Islam). All non-Muslims are deemed to belong to dar-ul-harb (the enemy, or Nation-of-War). This bi-polar definition cuts across all sovereignty, because sovereignty is man-made and hence inferior and subservient to God's political and social bifurcation. Islamic doctrine demands loyalty only to Islamic Law and not to the man-made laws of nations and states, such as USA, India, etc. Among the consequences of this doctrine is that a Muslim is required to fight on the side of a Muslim brother against any non-Muslim. This has often been invoked by Muslims to supercede the merits of a given dispute at hand. Orthodox Islam calls for a worldwide "network" of economic, political, social, and other alliances amongst the 1.2 billion Muslims of the world. Pakistan invokes this doctrine to claim Indian Muslims as part of dar-ul-islam, with Pakistan designated as caretaker of their interests. The Al Qaeda global network of terror is simply the extreme case of such a "network" mentality turning violent against the dar-ul-harb.

3. Islamic Triumphalism: A central tenet of Islam is that God's "nation" -- i.e. the dar-ul-islam -- must sooner or later take over the world. Others, especially those who are in the crosshairs, as prey at a given moment, see this as religious imperialism. Pakistan's official account of history honors Aurungzeb because he plundered and oppressed the infidels,

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i.e. Hindus and Buddhists. Likewise, many other conquerors, such as Mohammed of Ghazni, are portrayed as great heroes of Islamic triumphalism. (Even Pakistan's missile is named after an Islamic conqueror of India in the Medieval Period.) Given this divine mandate, the ethos of aggressiveness and predatory behavior is promoted and celebrated in social life, which non-Muslims see as Islamic chauvinism. September 11 was a misjudgment of timing and dar-ul-islam's ability to take over. But any orthodox Mullah or Imam would confirm God's edict that eventually Islam absolutely must take over the world."

Here is another statement of Jinnah that argued in favour of a separate state of Pakistan: "You must remember that Islam is not merely a religious doctrine but a realistic and practical code of conduct. I am thinking in terms of life, of everything important in life. I am thinking in terms of our history, our heroes, our art, our architecture, our music, our laws, and our jurisprudence. In all things our outlook is not only fundamentally different but also often radically antagonistic to the Hindus. We are different beings. There is nothing in life, which links us together. Our names, our clothes, our foods they are all different; our economic life, our educational ideas, our treatment of women, our attitude to animals. We challenge each other at every point of the compass." He went on to say: "To yoke together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as majority, must lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the government of such a state."

It is evident that with this kind of mentality, it would neither be difficult nor take too long for Jinnah to convert the majority of Muslims to his viewpoint. In the following years, his whole plan of political action was to utilize every forum and occasion for the fulfilment of this goal. It must be pointed out that Jinnah's concept of two nationalities is false and was invented by him to further his own interests. In the words of Sri Aurobindo:

"The idea of two nationalities in India is only a newly-fangled notion invented by Jinnah for his purposes and contrary to the facts. More than 90% of the Indian Mussalmans are descendants of converted Hindus and belong as much to the Indian nation as the Hindus themselves. This process of conversion has continued all along; Jinnah is himself a descendant of a Hindu, converted in fairly recent times, named Jinahbhai and many of the most famous Mohammedan leaders have a similar origin. "15

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