Everything about Muslim League totally explained
The
All India Muslim League (
Urdu:مسلم لیگ,
Bengali:মুসলিম লিগ) founded at
Dhaka in 1906, was a political party in
British India that developed into the driving force behind the creation of
Pakistan as a
Muslim state from British India on the
Indian subcontinent. After the independence of
India and
Pakistan, the League continued as a minor party in India, especially in
Kerala, where it's often in government within a coalition with others. In Pakistan, the League formed the country's first government, but disintegrated during the 1950s following an army coup. One or more factions of the Muslim League have been in power in most of the civilian governments of Pakistan since
1947. In
Bangladesh, the party was revived in
1976 and won 14 seats in
1979 parliamentary election. Since then it eventually became a party of insignificant importance.
Background
Islamic rule was established across
northern India between the
7th and the
14th centuries. The Muslim
Mughal Empire ruled most of India from
Delhi from the early
16th century until its power was broken by the
British in the
19th century. This left a disempowered and discontented Muslim minority, afraid of being swamped by the Hindu majority. Muslims represented about 23% of the population of British India, and constituted the majority of the population in
Baluchistan,
East Bengal,
Kashmir valley,
North-West Frontier Province,
Punjab region and the
Sindh region of the
Bombay Presidency.
A turning point came in 1900 when the British administration in the largest Indian state, the
United Provinces (now
Uttar Pradesh), acceded to Hindu demands and made
Hindi, written in the
Devanagari script, the
official language. This seemed to aggravate Muslim fears that the Hindu majority would seek to suppress Muslim culture and religion in an independent India. A British official,
Sir Percival Griffiths, wrote of "the Muslim belief that their interest must be regarded as completely separate from those of the Hindus, and that no fusion of the two communities was possible."
In the late 19th century an Indian nationalist movement developed, with the
Indian National Congress being founded in
1885. Although the Congress made efforts to enlist the Muslim community in its struggle for Indian independence, most of the Muslims remained reluctant to join the Party. Although some Muslims were active in the Congress, the majority of Muslim leaders didn't trust the Hindu majority.
Foundation
The founding meeting of the League was held on 30 December 1906 at the occasion of the annual
All India Muhammadan Educational Conference in
Shahbagh, Dhaka that was hosted by
Nawab Salimullah Khan. The meeting was attended by three thousand delegates and presided over by
Nawab Viqar-ul-Mulk. The resolution was moved by Nawab Salimullah which was seconded by
Hakim Ajmal Khan. Nawab Viqar-ul-Milk declared:
The Musalmans (Muslims) are only a fifth in number as compared with the total population of the country, and it's manifest that if at any remote period the British government ceases to exist in India, then the rule of India would pass into the hands of that community which is nearly four times as large as ourselves... our life, our property, our honour, and our faith will all be in great danger, when even now that a powerful British administration is protecting its subjects, we the Musalmans have to face most serious difficulties in safe-guarding our interests from the grasping hands of our neighbors. |
Early years
Sir Sultan Mahommed Shah, The Aga Khan III was appointed the first Honorary President of the Muslim League. The headquarters were established at
Lucknow. There were also six vice-presidents, a secretary and two joint secretaries initially appointed for a three-years term, proportionately from different provinces. The principles of the League were espoused in the "Green Book," which included the organisation's constitution, written by
Maulana Mohammad Ali. Its goals at this stage didn't include establishing an independent Muslim state, but rather concentrated on protecting Muslim liberties and rights, promoting understanding between the Muslim community and other Indians, educating the Muslim and Indian community at large on the actions of the government, and discouraging violence.
The idea of a Muslim political party wasn't new, but Sir Syed Ahmed Khan's advice to stand aloof from separatist ideas had previously persuaded Indian Muslims to avoid political mobilisation. Among those Muslims in the Congress who didn't initially join the AIML was
Muhammed Ali Jinnah, a prominent
Bombay lawyer. This was because the first article of the League's platform was "To promote among the Mussalmans [Muslims] of India, feelings of loyalty to the British Government." Jinnah didn't join the League until 1913, when it changed its platform to one of Indian independence as a reaction against the British decision to reverse the
1905 Partition of Bengal, which the League regarded as a betrayal of the Bengali Muslims. At this stage Jinnah believed in Muslim-Hindu co-operation to achieve an independent, united India, although he argued that Muslims should be guaranteed one-third of the seats in any Indian Parliament.
With a few years the League had become the sole representative body of Indian Muslims. Jinnah became its president in 1916, and negotiated the
Lucknow Pact with the Congress, in which Congress conceded the principle of separate electorates and weighted representation for the Muslim community. But Jinnah broke with the Congress in 1920 when the Congress leader,
Mohandas Gandhi, launched a
Non-Cooperation Movement against the British, which Jinnah disapproved of. Jinnah also became convinced that the Congress would renounce its support for separate electorates for Muslims, which indeed it did in 1928. Jinnah had little liking for either the Hindu
asceticism of Gandhi or the secular
socialism of the other major Congress leader,
Jawaharlal Nehru.
The search for a solution
Jinnah became disillusioned with politics after the failure of his attempt to form a Hindu-Muslim alliance, and he spent most of the 1920s in Britain. The leadership of the League was taken over by
Sir Muhammad Iqbal, who in 1930 first put forward the demand for a separate Muslim state in India. The "
Two-Nation Theory," the belief that Hindus and Muslims were two different nations who couldn't live in one country, gained popularity among Muslims. The two-state solution was rejected by the Congress leaders, who favoured a united, secular, and democratic India. Iqbal's policy of uniting the North-West Frontier Province, Baluchistan, Punjab, and Sindh into a new Islamic state united the many factions of the League.
In 1927 the British proposed a constitution for India as recommended by the
Simon Commission, but they failed to reconcile all parties. The British then turned the matter over to the League and the Congress, and in 1928 an All-Parties Congress was convened in
Delhi. The attempt failed, but two more conferences were held. At the
Bombay conference in May, it was agreed that a small committee should work on the constitution. The respected Congress leader
Motilal Nehru (father of Jawaharlal) headed the committee, which included two Muslims,
Syed Ali Imam and
Shoaib Quereshi.
The League, however, rejected the proposal that the committee returned (called the
Nehru Report), arguing that it gave too little representation (one quarter) to Muslims – the League had demanded at least one-third representation in the legislature. Jinnah reported a "parting of the ways" after reading the report, and relations between the Congress and the League began to sour.
The election in Britain of
Ramsay MacDonald's
Labour government in 1929 fuelled new hopes for progress towards self-government in India. Gandhi traveled to London, claiming to represent all Indians and criticising the League as sectarian and divisive.
Round-table talks were held, but these achieved little, since Gandhi and the League were unable reach a compromise. The fall of the Labour government in 1931 ended this period of optimism.
Sir
Muhammad Zafrulla Khan presided at the Delhi Meeting of the All India Muslim League in 1931 and advocated the cause of the Indian Muslims through his presidential address.
In the 1935
Government of India Act, the British for the first time proposed to hand over substantial power to elected Indian provincial legislatures, with elections to be held in 1937. Jinnah returned to India and resumed leadership of the League, which now perceived the Hindu majority as a threat. After the elections the League took office in Bengal and Punjab, but the Congress won office in most of the other Indian states, and refused to share power with the League in states with large Muslim minorities.
Campaign for Pakistan
At a League conference in
Lahore in 1940, Jinnah said: "Hindus and the Muslims belong to two different religions, philosophies, social customs and literature... It is quite clear that Hindus and Muslims derive their inspiration from different sources of history. They have different epics, different heroes and different episodes... To yoke together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a 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."
At Lahore the League formally recommitted itself to creating an independent Muslim state called
Pakistan, including Sindh, Punjab, the North West Frontier Province and Bengal, that would be "wholly autonomous and sovereign." The resolution guaranteed protection for non-Muslim religions. The
Lahore Resolution was adopted on
March 23 1940, and its principles formed the foundation for Pakistan's first constitution. Talks between Jinnah and Gandhi in 1944 in
Bombay failed to achieve agreement. This was the last attempt to reach a single-state solution.
In the 1940s Jinnah emerged as the recognised leader of the Indian Muslims and was popularly known as
Quaid-e-Azam (Great Leader). In the
Constituent Assembly elections of 1946, the League won 425 out of 496 seats reserved for Muslims (and about 89.2% of Muslim votes) on a policy of creating an independent state of Pakistan, and with an implied threat of secession if this wasn't granted. Gandhi and Nehru, who with the election of another Labour government in Britain in 1945 saw independence within reach, were adamantly opposed to dividing India. They knew that the Hindus, who saw India as one indivisible entity, could never agree to such a thing.
By 1946 the British had neither the will, nor the financial or military power, to hold India any longer, and Jinnah knew that independence was imminent. Political deadlock ensued in the Constituent Assembly, and Britain's Prime Minister,
Clement Attlee, sent a special mission to India to mediate the situation. When the talks broke down, Attlee sent
Earl Mountbatten, India's last Viceroy, to negotiate the partition of India and immediate British withdrawal. Mountbatten told Gandhi and Nehru that if they didn't accept partition there would be civil war. Civil war did in fact break out in Punjab and other areas of mixed population.
The Muslim League survived as a minor party in India after partition, but later splintered into several groups, the most important of which is the
Indian Union Muslim League.
The League in Pakistan
In Pakistan, Jinnah became
Governor-General, and another League leader,
Liaquat Ali Khan became Prime Minister. All India Muslim League was disbanded in December 1947 and succeeded by two organisations, the Pakistan Muslim League and the Indian Union Muslim League. Jinnah resigned as the president of the Muslim League on 17 December and the two Muslim Leagues respectively elected Ch. Khaliquzzaman as President for Pakistan Muslim League and Nawab Muhammad Ismail as the president for
Indian Union Muslim League.
Jinnah died in September 1948 and Liaquat was assassinated in October 1951. Robbed of its two senior leaders, the League began to disintegrate. By 1953 dissensions within the League had led to the formation of several different political parties. Liaquat was succeeded by
Khawaja Nazimuddin, a Bengali, who was forced from office in April 1953. Pakistan was racked by riots and famine, and at the first national elections in May 1955 (held by a system of indirect voting) the League was heavily defeated.
In October 1958 the Army seized power and the martial law regime of
Muhammad Ayub Khan banned all political parties. This was the end of the old Muslim League. The name still held great prestige, however, and Ayub Khan later formed a new party, the
Convention Muslim League. The opposition faction became known as the
Council Muslim League. This latter group joined a united front with other political parties in 1967 in opposition to the regime. But when the military regime of
Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan fell in December 1971, and Pakistan's first genuine free elections were held, both factions of the League were swept out of power, in West Pakistan by the
Pakistan Peoples Party of
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and in East Pakistan by the
Awami League of
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
After the death of Pakistan's next dictator,
Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, in 1988, a new Muslim League was formed under the leadership of
Nawaz Sharif, but it had no connection with the original Muslim League. Sharif was Prime Minister from 1990 to 1993 and again from 1997 to 1999, when he was ousted in Pakistan's third military coup. At the stage-managed elections held by the military regime of
Pervez Musharraf in October, five different parties using the name Muslim League contested seats. The largest of these, the
Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam), won 69 seats out of 272, and the
Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), loyal to Nawaz Sharif, won 19 seats.
Current factions
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