March Twenty-Third is a momentous date in Pakistan’s political history. It was on this date in 1940 that the All-India Muslim League – the most prominent Muslim political organization— formally designated the Muslim minority community of British India as a nation that needed a separate homeland to secure its civilizational and cultural identity inspired by Islam, their rights and interests in the context of the modern state system established by the British in India.
The Muslim League held its three-day annual session at Lahore on March 22-23-24, 1940 and the Muslim leaders and delegates from all over British India participated in it. This annual meeting was open to public. Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah presided over the session as the President of the Muslim League.
It was on the second day of the annual session, March 23, that the Muslim League leadership presented a resolution demanding a separate homeland for the Muslims of British India comprising the Muslim majority regions of British India.
This resolution was thoroughly debated on March 23-24 and it was passed in the final session on March 24 with wholehearted support of the Muslim League leaders and delegates. The Muslim League decided to commemorate March 23 as the Pakistan Resolution Day. Though the word “Pakistan” was not included in the text of the resolution, it began to be described as the Pakistan Resolution by the press and political leaders. It was also described as the Lahore Resolution.
Major Features
The demand for a separate and independent homeland for the Muslims of British India was a departure from the Muslim League’s earlier demand for a federal system with provincial autonomy for ensuring the protection and advancement of Muslim civilizational and cultural identity, rights and interests. The following are the major features of the Lahore Resolution (March 1940):
The Resolution rejected the federal system of governance as articulated in the Government of India Act, 1935 because it was “totally unsuited to, and unworkable in the peculiar conditions of this country, and is altogether unacceptable to the Muslim India.”
The Muslims would reject any revised constitutional plan if it was formulated without their “approval and consent.”
Geographically adjoining areas should be demarcated into regions that may include some territorialmodifications so that the areas where the Muslims constitute a numerical majority like in north-western and eastern zones of India, “should be grouped to constitute Independent States in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.”
The religious minorities were promised “adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards” in constitutional arrangements in the Muslim majority areas “for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights and interests in consultation with them.” The resolution also declared that similar rights and safeguards would be provided in the constitution to the Muslims and other religious minorities in the regions where Muslims were a numerical minority.
The Muslim League Working Committee was directed to frame a constitutional scheme based on the principles outlined in the resolution that should provide for “the assumption finally by the respective regions, of all powers, such as defence, external affairs, communications, customs [and] such other matters as may be necessary.”
While moving this resolution, Fazlul Haq, Premier of Bengal, declared that “We have stated definitely and unequivocally that what we want is not merely a tinkering with the idea of federation, but its thorough overhauling so that the federation may ultimately go. This idea of federation must not only be postponed but abandoned altogether.”
The Pakistan Resolution discarded the notion of federalism as outlined in the Government of India Act, 1935 and suggested the establishment of a homeland for the Muslims of British India in the context of the Hindu-Muslim question in the politics of British India in the late 1930s.
It proposed a new option for addressing the question of the political future of the Muslims whose details were articulated in the next seven years. However, the resolution was interpreted differently by different people keeping in view their political agendas.
Some people raised the question soon after its passing of the Resolution if it proposed one or two states. This issue was raised because the resolution used the word “states.” Further, there were several non-official proposals in circulation at that time which talked of several Muslim territorial units or homelands. One proposal suggested seven homelands.
In the post-independence period, some political leaders and intellectuals in Pakistan argued that the text of the Pakistan Resolution offered guidelines for the relationship between the central government and the provinces. They argued that the Pakistan Resolution envisaged a weak Centre with minimum powers and maximum autonomy to the provinces. Some went to the extent of suggesting that the text of the Pakistan Resolution suggested a confederal model for post-independence Pakistan.
The alternative perspective on the Pakistan Resolution is that it did not offer any framework for distribution of power between the central government and the provinces in post-independence Pakistan because this was not the issue under consideration at the annual session of the Muslim League in March 1940. It addressed the Hindu-Muslim question as it existed at that time and projected the idea of a separate homeland for the Muslims rather than one Indian federation for all Indians.
The whole discussion was in the context of British India and the political future of the Muslims. If we read Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s article published in a British magazine “Time and Tide” in March 1940 and review his presidential address in the Muslim League session it is clear that the focus of the Muslim League leaders was on Indian politics and how to save the Muslims from being overwhelmed by a hostile majority under the cover of pure and simple democracy and the federal system.
Jinnah highlighted the divergence between the Hindus and the Muslims and argued that the Muslims were a separate nation with a distinct socio-cultural identity, civilizational heritage, political rights and interests and future aspirations which could not be protected and advanced in a united federal India.
Jinnah said in his presidential address in the Lahore session of the Muslim League: “The problem in India is not an inter-communal but manifestly of an international character, and it must be treated as such…. If the British Government are really in earnest and sincere to secure the peace and happiness of the people of this Subcontinent, the only course open to us all is to allow the major nations separate homelands by dividing India into ‘autonomous national states.” It is to be noted that Jinnah has used the word “states” in the context of British India emphasizing the need to establish separate states for the Muslims and Hindus.
Jinnah further stated in his presidential address: “Muslim India cannot accept any constitution which must necessarily result in a Hindu majority government…. Musalimans are a nation according to any definition of a nation and they must have their homelands, their territory and their State.” All other Muslim leaders who spoke in the three-day annual session focused on British Indian political context, interaction between the Muslim League and the Congress Party over the years that caused serious concern among the Muslim leaders about their socio-political and economic future in the Congress Party dominated federation, and the notion of separate homeland for the Muslims of British India.
Historical Overview
The history of the movement for the establishment of Pakistan shows that the Muslim leaders did not start with the demand of a separate homeland. Initially, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and his colleagues urged the Muslims to get modern education to make space for them in the British modern state system. Later, the Muslim leaders demanded separate electorate for electing Muslims representatives to the assemblies and established the All-India Muslim League in December 1906 as a forum to present Muslim demands to the British and to protect Muslim rights and interests. They talked of constitutional and legal guarantees and safeguards for Muslim representation in assemblies, cabinets and government jobs. The Lucknow Pact between the Muslim League and the Congress Party in December 1916 accepted most of these demands. However, the Congress Party reversed these commitments in 1927. The Muslim League supported the idea of a federal system with autonomy to the provinces, hoping that this would enable the Muslims to rule Muslim majority provinces.
The Muslim leadership demanded constitutional guarantees for addressing the above-mentioned demands in the Delhi Muslim proposals (1927), All Parties Muslim Conference (1929) and Jinnah’s Fourteen Points (1929). The Muslim leaders raised the issue of constitutional safeguards, including federalism, for the protection and advancement of Muslim identity, rights and interests in the Roundtable Conferences in 1930-32.
The Muslim League began to think about discarding the federal option in 1938 when the Sindh Provincial Muslim League proposed to the All-India Muslim League to review its traditional position on constitutional issues, including federalism, in view of the Muslim experience under Congress ministries in non-Muslim majority provinces. These provincial governments (1937-39) alienated the Muslims by their cultural and educational policies and discrimination against the Muslims in recruitment to government jobs.
The bitter experience of the Congress rule in provinces (1937-39) led the Muslim League to explore the political substitute to a single Indian federation. It was the political experience of the Muslim League leadership over the years that led them to change their strategy for the protection of Muslim Civilizational and cultural identity, rights and interests. They realized that the Congress party would not accommodate their socio-political and economic concern and that it would establish Hindu cultural and political hegemony in the name of Indian unity. The Muslim League dropped the demand for constitutional safeguards and federalism and proposed that the Muslims of British India should have a separate homeland.
Importance in Muslim Political Struggle
Thus, the Pakistan Resolution of March 23, 1940, was a turning point in the Muslim political struggle. They not only defined them as a nation distinct from other communities in British India but also discarded the notion of federalism and called for the establishment of a separate homeland for the Muslims of British India. Professor Sharif al Mujahid compared the Pakistan Resolution with the Magna Carta (1215) that ushered in the process of devolution of power from all-powerful monarch to the nobility, which gradually established parliamentary democracy in Great Britain. Similarly, the Pakistan Resolution marked the beginning of the process of separate homeland that blossomed into an independent and sovereign Pakistan on August 14, 1947.
The Pakistan Movement continued after the passage of the Pakistan Resolution and the original idea of separate homeland was fully articulated in the next seven years. The Muslim League session in Madras in April 1941 inserted the word “together” after the word “grouped” in the Pakistan Resolution. The speeches and statements of the Muslim League leaders and comments by others in 1941-46 clearly showed that the Muslim League was advocating a single sovereign state for the Muslims. Jinnah’s letter to Gandhi in September 1944, Jinnah’s statements and the resolution of the convention of the Muslim League parliamentarians in April 1946 made it clear that the Muslim League stood for one state. The Muslim League election campaign for the 1946 provincial elections declared that the Muslim League’s goal was the establishment of a single nation-state and homeland of Pakistan.
It is not possible to understand the establishment of Pakistan without considering the developments in Muslim politics in the post-Pakistan Resolution period. The idea of a separate homeland floated on March 23, 1940 was fully articulated in the next seven years. Its dynamics cannot be understood without examining its historical context, the Muslim political experience of interaction with the leadership of the majority community and how the public support was mobilized for a separate homeland. The Pakistan Resolution was a landmark event in the struggle for the making for Pakistan which took the final shape in August 1947.
PAKISTAN RESOLUTION DAY 23rd March
About the Author :- Hasan Askari Rizvi is an Independent Political Analyst who holds PhD in Political Science/International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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