The Pakistan Movement in the Early 20th Century

The Pakistan Movement in the early 20th century

Timeline

The Partition of Bengal, 1905–11

• In 1905 the Viceroy, Lord Curzon, divided Bengal (a huge province, with about 78 million people) into two: East Bengal and Assam (capital Dhaka, with a Muslim majority) and West Bengal (with Bihar and Orissa, a Hindu majority).
• The official reason was administrative efficiency. Muslims welcomed the new province, which gave them opportunities in education, jobs and trade.
• Hindus strongly opposed it, saying that it was "divide and rule". They organised protests, a boycott of British goods (swadeshi), and some used violence.
• In 1911 King George V, at the Delhi Durbar (12 December), annulled the partition, and moved the capital from Calcutta to Delhi. Muslims were bitterly disappointed: the British had given way to Hindu pressure. They realised that they needed their own political organisation to protect their interests.

Why Bengal was partitioned (1905)

Muslim response: they welcomed it: a Muslim-majority province with its capital at Dhaka offered schools, jobs and freedom from Hindu landlords and moneylenders (East Bengal and Assam had about 18 million Muslims and 12 million Hindus).

How the Hindus opposed it

• Hindu landlords, lawyers, journalists and traders feared losing their influence; Congress backed the protest.
• 16 October 1905 (the day it began) was observed as a day of mourning; the song Bande Mataram became the protest anthem.
• The Swadeshi movement (boycott of British goods and promotion of Indian-made goods) hit British trade, and there were violent attacks on British officials.
• The British replied with press and meeting restrictions, and arrests (Tilak was jailed for six years in 1908).

Why it was reversed (1911)

• Constant Hindu pressure, the boycott, and terrorism made the British fear for law and order.
• The Viceroy Lord Hardinge and the government wished to win back Hindu support; the planned move of the capital to Delhi at the same time was a way of making the change look like a reform.
• The Muslim League was still new and weak, and its loyalty was taken for granted.
• Result: Bengal was reunited under a Governor, Bihar and Orissa became a separate province and Assam a Chief Commissioner's province.

The Simla Deputation (1906) and the Muslim League

• In October 1906 a delegation of 35 Muslim leaders, led by Sir Aga Khan III, met the Viceroy Lord Minto at Simla.
• They asked that: Muslims should have separate electorates (voting for Muslim candidates only) and weightage (more seats than their population share, because of their political importance and their service to the Empire) in any new reforms, and fair representation in government jobs.
• Their other demands: a share for Muslims on municipal and district boards and university senates, Muslim representation on the Viceroy's Executive Council, and a Muslim university (Aligarh).
• Minto agreed, which showed the British would listen.

Why the Muslim League was formed

• Congress was mainly Hindu and did not defend Muslim interests (for example in the Hindi–Urdu controversy).
• Muslims were backward in education and jobs and needed a body to speak for them.
• The Simla Deputation's success showed that a Muslim organisation could win concessions.
• The Partition of Bengal protests showed that Hindus could influence the British, and that Muslims needed their own voice.
• Sir Syed's idea that Muslims were a separate community with separate interests.

The League's founding resolution was proposed by Nawab Salimullah and supported by leaders such as Hakim Ajmal Khan, Maulana Muhammad Ali and Zafar Ali Khan.

The Indian National Congress

The Indian National Congress had been founded in 1885 by A.O. Hume, a retired British official, with the approval of the Viceroy. Its first session was in Bombay (28–31 December 1885), with 72 delegates and W.C. Bonnerjee as president. At first it sought a bigger share for educated Indians in government and was not opposed to British rule.

The Muslim League. On 30 December 1906, at Dhaka, at the All-India Muhammadan Educational Conference, Nawab Salimullah Khan proposed the formation of the All-India Muslim League. Nawab Viqar-ul-Mulk presided. Its aims were:

• to promote loyalty to the British Government;
• to protect the political rights and interests of the Muslims and put their needs before the Government;
• to prevent hostility towards other communities.

The first president was Sir Aga Khan. Over time its aims changed: in 1913 it accepted self-government for India as an aim, and in 1940 it demanded a separate state.

The Morley–Minto Reforms, 1909

The Indian Councils Act 1909 (named after Lord Morley, the Secretary of State, and Lord Minto, the Viceroy) provided for:

• enlarged central and provincial legislative councils, with Indian members elected for the first time and more powers to discuss the budget;
• separate electorates for Muslims: Muslims voted for Muslim candidates in special constituencies, and received weightage;
• one Indian on the Viceroy's Executive Council (S.P. Sinha), and two Indians on the Secretary of State's Council in London;
• the central council grew from 16 to about 60 additional members, and the provincial councils to about 50 (in Bengal, Madras and Bombay) or 30 (in the rest), though the British kept a majority of official members at the centre.

Importance. The separate electorates were a great success for the Muslim League and were the first constitutional recognition that Muslims were a separate political community. Congress opposed them. Separate electorates remained until 1947.

The First World War (1914–18) and the Muslims

• Turkey (the Ottoman Empire, whose Sultan was the Caliph) joined the war on the side of Germany, against Britain. Indian Muslims were divided between loyalty to the British and loyalty to the Caliph.
• The British promised self-government after the war, and about 1.3 million Indians fought. In 1917 the Secretary of State Montagu announced the aim of "responsible government" for India.
• The war and the British treatment of Turkey caused the Khilafat Movement (chapter 7).

Congress, the Muslim League and the Lucknow Pact (1916)

• In 1916 the Congress and the Muslim League held sessions at Lucknow. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a member of both, helped to bring them together.
• The Lucknow Pact: Congress accepted separate electorates for Muslims (and the Muslim League agreed to demand self-government). It gave Muslims weightage in provinces where they were a minority and a fixed share (one-third) of the seats in the Central Legislature. Both parties made joint demands for more reform.
• Other clauses included a larger central council, that no bill affecting a community should pass if three-quarters of that community's members opposed it, and a demand that half of the Viceroy's Executive Council should be Indians.
• Why it was made: Muslims felt betrayed when Bengal was reunited in 1911 and no longer trusted the British; the League had moved to a self-government aim (1913); the First World War and Turkey's position had made Muslims angry; Jinnah belonged to both parties and worked for agreement; and Congress wanted Muslim support for its demand for self-rule (the Home Rule Leagues of Tilak and Annie Besant were active in 1916).
• It was the high point of Hindu–Muslim unity. Jinnah was called the "ambassador of Hindu–Muslim unity" (by Sarojini Naidu). The pact was important because Congress recognised the Muslim League as the representative of Muslims. However, many Hindus and Muslims in the Punjab and Bengal were unhappy, as Muslims were a majority there but given less weightage.

The Rowlatt Act and the Amritsar Massacre

• The Rowlatt Act (March 1919) allowed the Government to imprison people without trial for up to two years, and to try political cases without juries. It was passed in spite of the opposition of all the Indian members. Indians were angry, because they expected reforms as a reward for helping in the war.
• Gandhi called for protests, a hartal (strike).
• On 13 April 1919, in Amritsar, a large crowd (many had come to the Baisakhi festival) gathered in Jallianwala Bagh, a walled garden with few exits. General Reginald Dyer, without warning, ordered his troops to fire into the crowd. About 379 people were killed officially (Indian estimates are higher) and over 1,000 injured.
• The massacre turned many Indians against the British. The Hunter Committee (1920) criticised Dyer, but he was only forced to retire; some in Britain praised him and a fund was raised in his honour, which angered Indians further.

The Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms (Government of India Act, 1919)

• Dyarchy in the provinces: some subjects (such as education, health, local government) were transferred to elected Indian ministers, while others (such as law and order, finance) were reserved for the British governor.
• A bicameral central legislature: a Council of State (about 60 members, five-year term) and a Legislative Assembly (about 145 members, three-year term), with a majority of elected members, but the Viceroy kept full control of defence, foreign affairs and finance. The franchise was limited to a small, property-owning minority.
• Reserved subjects included justice, police, land revenue and irrigation; transferred subjects included local government, education, public health and agriculture.
• Separate electorates for Muslims were continued (and extended to Sikhs).
• Reaction: Congress and many Indians thought the reforms were too small. Muslims accepted separate electorates but felt that more was needed.

The Non-Cooperation Movement (1920–22)

Led by Gandhi and linked to the Khilafat Movement, Indians were asked to boycott British courts, schools, titles and cloth, and not to pay taxes. It ended in February 1922 after violence at Chauri Chaura (a mob killed policemen) and Gandhi called it off. Many Muslims thought that Gandhi had abandoned them (see chapter 7).

Communalism and divisions in Congress

• After the end of the Khilafat Movement, Hindu–Muslim relations worsened. There were riots in the 1920s (Kohat, 1924; Multan; Calcutta, and others). Hindu organisations began Shuddhi (reconversion of Muslims) and Sangathan (organisation of Hindus), and Muslims responded with Tabligh and Tanzim.
• In Congress, there was a split in 1923 when Motilal Nehru and C.R. Das formed the Swaraj Party to take part in the councils, against Gandhi's boycott.
• The Muslim League also split (the Jinnah and Shafi groups, over whether to boycott the Simon Commission, 1927).

The Delhi Proposals, 1927

In March 1927, a group of Muslim leaders led by Jinnah met in Delhi and made proposals to Congress. They offered to give up separate electorates (and accept joint electorates with reserved seats) if Congress accepted these demands:

1. Sindh separated from the Bombay Presidency to become a separate Muslim-majority province;
2. reforms (the same constitutional rights as other provinces) in the North-West Frontier Province and Balochistan;
3. Muslims to have one-third of seats in the Central Legislature;
4. in the Punjab and Bengal, representation in proportion to population.

Result. Congress did not accept them fully (the Nehru Report, 1928, rejected separate electorates and the one-third demand) and the Hindu Mahasabha opposed them. The failure pushed Jinnah towards a harder position (chapter 8).

Outline. 1916: Lucknow Pact, a high point of cooperation. 1919–22: Khilafat and Non-Cooperation brought Hindu–Muslim cooperation under Gandhi, but it collapsed after 1922 (the end of the Khilafat Movement, Gandhi's decision to end it, Chauri Chaura). 1920s: communalism, riots, Shuddhi and Sangathan. 1927: the Delhi Proposals offered a compromise, but were not accepted. Conclusion: relations changed from cooperation to suspicion and conflict.