The Lahore Resolution is a milestone in the transition of the Indian Muslim community to nationhood. The All India Muslim League declared in unequivocal terms in March 1940 that it would no longer be content with the federal model as the basis for the future constitutional and political arrangements for India. It demanded the establishment of a separate territorial national sovereign entity for the Muslims of the sub-continent because the Muslim League leaders and activists had come to the conclusion that their identity, rights and interests could not be adequately protected in a united and federal India.
This was a new approach to what was then described as the Hindu-Muslim question in British India. In the past, the Muslim League leaders sought different solutions within the framework of federal India. They demanded constitutional and legal safeguards and guarantees to secure the rights and interests of the Muslims. They also favoured a federal system with autonomy to the provinces. The underlying assumption was that a federal arrangement would enable the Muslims to manage their affairs in the Muslim majority provinces without unnecessary interference of the federal government which was expected to be dominated by the majority community.
When they realised that the Congress Party was not prepared to accommodate their concerns by agreeing to safeguards and securities, they demanded the establishment of a separate State. The shift from the federal model to a separate State reflected a change in their strategies rather than the goal which remained the same - the protection and advancement of their religio-political identity, rights and interests.
The Muslim League annual session that passed the 'Lahore Resolution' was held in Lahore on March 22-24, 1940. The resolution was moved on March 23 and passed the next day.
THE RESOLUTION HIGHLIGHTED THE FOLLOWING ISSUES:
-- The federal system under the Government of India Act, 1935 is not acceptable because it is "totally unsuited to, and unworkable in the peculiar conditions" of India.
-- No revised constitutional plan would be acceptable to the Muslims unless it was framed with their "approval and consent."
-- Adjacent geographic units where the Muslims are in a majority, as in north-western and eastern zones of India, should constitute, with necessary territorial adjustments, "independent states where the constituent units will be autonomous and sovereign."
-- "Adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards" should be provided in the constitution for the protection of "the religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights and interests" of the minorities in consultation with them.
The word "Pakistan" did not appear in the text of the resolution but it came to be known as the Pakistan Resolution. The demand for a separate homeland for the Muslims of British India was repeated in the speeches made on the resolution in the sessions of the Muslim League.
The demand for a separate homeland for the Muslims of British India was the crystallisation of their long cherished Muslim desire to protect and promote their identity, rights and interests whose roots could be traced back to the period when the Muslims came to this region. The Islamic socio-cultural system that emphasised equality and social justice inspired a large number of people of India who converted to Islam.
The people of two major faiths, Hinduism and Islam, lived side by side and they influenced each other in the matters of daily routines and local practices. However, the two religio-culutral systems maintained their distinct identities. Islam could not be absorbed into Hinduism and its followers jealousies guarded their distinct identity and resisted attempts by other religio-cultural systems to overwhelm them.
The Islam based Muslim identity acquired political relevance in the post-1857 period, especially in the last quarter of the 19th Century. The British effort to introduce competitive recruitment to services and the gradual implementation of the electoral system, coupled with the establishment of the Congress Party in 1885, made the religo-culutral identities relevant to issues of governance and politics.
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and his colleagues advised the Muslims to concentrate on getting modern education and preparing themselves for the transformed Indian context after the firm establishment of the British rule. He advised the Muslims to stay aloof from the Congress and created a host of educational and cultural organisations which were essentially non-political but their working caused political implications for the Muslims.
The drift between the two major communities began to take a definite shape against the backdrop of the Hindu revivalist movement in the 1890s. This took a definite shape with the Muslim demand in 1906 for separate electorate and the establishment of the Muslim League in the same year. The Muslim League worked towards organising the Muslims on an exclusively Muslim platform and adopted different strategies to protect and promote the distinct Muslim identity, rights and interests.
Initially, they demanded separate electorate and worked towards co-operation and friendship with the Congress Party for securing guarantees for their rights and interests. The Lucknow Pact (1916) between the Muslim League and the Congress Party was an attempt to bring the two major political parties on a platform on the conditions that the Congress would accommodate some of their demands. The Muslims and the Congress worked together in the Khilafat movement and the non-co-operation movement.
This co-operative phase ended after some years and the two communities drifted in opposite directions.
The Muslim League put forward several demands during 1929-1940 for safeguarding the identity, interests and rights of the Muslims of British India. These included reservations of seats in the central and provincial legislatures, reservations of government jobs, separate electorate, adequate protection and promotion of Muslim religion, culture and personal laws, education and the charitable institutions, establishment of Sindh as a province by separating it from Bombay, and constitutional and political reforms in NWFP and Balochistan, and introduction of a federal system that guaranteed provincial autonomy.
This was a case of a self-conscious and highly motivated community with an historical legacy of exercise of power. They wanted that the new constitutional and political arrangements created by the British should not only acknowledge their identity but also provide guarantees for enabling them to play their legitimate role in India.
By the late 1930s the Muslim League leaders realised that guarantees and federalism did not offer them adequate security for their identity, rights and interests. What really convinced them to review their approach towards the constitutional and political issues was their bitter experience under the Congress ministries in the provinces in 1937-39. They interpreted this as a limited display of how the Congress would treat them if they established their rule in the post-British India.
The Muslim League leaders began to give a serious thought to the option of separation. Allama Iqbal, in his letter, dated June 21, 1937, to the Quaid-i-Azam Jinnah wrote that the idea of a single Indian federation was redundant. He observed that the establishment of a separate federation of the Muslim majority provinces would protect the Muslims from being dominated by the non-Muslim. In 1938, the Sindh Provincial Muslim League suggested that the All India Muslim League should prepare a constitutional formula for the complete independence of the Muslims.
Meanwhile, a number of Muslim leaders and intellectual were offering different proposals for creating one or more Muslim homelands in India. Therefore, when the Muslim League prepared the Lahore Resolution, they were aware of various partition proposals that had been floated during the last decade. It was not surprising that the Lahore Resolution talked in general terms and used the terms like independent states, autonomous and sovereign provinces. The Muslim League leaders were talking of separate Muslim territorial entity or entities vis-à-vis united and independent India.
The Muslim demands were articulated gradually over time. The Muslim League started as a political organisation loyal to the British. However, its disposition and demands changed over time, as discussed earlier in this article. The passing of the Lahore Resolution was an important stage in the Muslim struggle for protection and promotion of their identity, rights and interests. However, the Pakistan movement did not end in 1940.
The leadership continued to evolve their responses to the changing political situation. They maintained flexibility in their disposition during 1940-47. By 1943-44, the Muslim League leadership began to use the term "state" rather than "states" and the 1946 convention of the Muslim League parliamentarians formally adopted the idea of a one Muslim state. The Muslim League was prepared to show flexibility with reference to the Cabinet Mission Plan, hoping that this would facilitate the achievement of their ultimate goal of the establishment of Pakistan.
The political experience and the shared views about the future transformed the Muslims from a community to a nation. Therefore, as a separate nation they wanted a separate homeland to secure their future. In an article published in a British magazine, Time and Tide in March 1940, Quaid-i-Azam Jinnah described the Muslims of British India as a nation and that no constitution could be enforced by ignoring them.
In a statement on March 13, 1940, he said that if some satisfactory settlement cannot be found for the Muslims in united India, they will have to demand the division of India.
The substance of nationhood was described by the Quaid-i-Azam Jinnah in these words: "We are a nation with our own distinctive culture and civilisation, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of values and proportions, legal laws and moral codes, customs and calendar, history and traditions, aptitude and ambitions. In short, we have our own distinctive outlook on life and of life."