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The idea of establishing Pakistan as a separate country developed in
1930s especially after the elections of 1937.At the end of 2nd World
War Pakistan emerged on the world map as an independent country
. It has its roots into the remote past. Its establishment laws
the culmination of the struggle by Muslims of the South-Asian
subcontinent for a separate homeland of their own and its foundation
was laid when Mohammad bin Qasim subdued Sindh in 711 A.D. as a
reprisal against sea pirates that had taken refuge in Raja Dahir's
kingdom.
The
advent of Islam further strengthened the historical individuality in
the areas now constituting Pakistan and further beyond its boundaries.
Stone Age Some of the earliest relics of Stone Age man in the
subcontinent are found in the Soan Valley of the Potohar region near
Rawalpindi, with a probable antiquity of about 500,000 years. No human
skeleton of such antiquity has yet been discovered in the area, but
the crude stone implements recovered from the terraces of the Soan
carry the saga of human toil and labor in this part of the world to
the inter-glacial period. These Stone Age men fashioned their
implements in a sufficiently homogenous way to justify their grouping
in terms of a culture called the Soan Culture. About 3000 B.C, amidst
the rugged wind-swept valleys and foothills of Balochistan, small
village communities developed and began to take the first hesitant
steps towards civilization. Here, one finds a more continuous story of
human activity, though still in the Stone Age.
These pre-historic men established their settlements, both as herdsmen
and as farmers, in the valleys or on the outskirts of the plains with
their cattle and cultivated barley and other crops. Red and buffer
Cultures Careful excavations of the pre-historic mounds in these areas
and the classification of their contents, layer by layer, have grouped
them into two main categories of Red Ware Culture and Buff Ware
Culture. The former is popularly known as the Zhob Culture of North
Balochistan, while the latter comprises the QUETTA, Amri Nal and Kulli
Cultures of Sindh and South Balochistan. Some Amri Nal villages or
towns had stone walls and bastions for defense purposes and their
houses had stone foundations. At Nal, an extensive cemetery of this
culture consists of about 100 graves. An important feature of this
composite culture is that at Amri and certain other sites, it has been
found below the very distinctive Indus Valley Culture. On the other
hand, the steatite seals of Nal and the copper implements and certain
types of pot decoration suggest a partial overlap between the two. It
probably represents one of the local societies which constituted the
environment for the growth of the Indus Valley Civilization.
The
pre-historic site of Kot Diji in the Sindh province has provided
information of high significance for the reconstruction of a connected
story which pushes back the origin of this civilization by 300 to 500
years, from about 2500 B.C.. to at least 2800 B.C. Evidence of a new
cultural elements of pre-Harappan era has been traced here. Pre-Harappan
Civilization When the primitive village communities in the Balochistan
area were still struggling against a difficult highland environment, a
highly cultured people were trying to assert themselves at Kot Diji,
one of the most developed urban civilizations of the ancient world
which flourished between the years 2500 and 1500 B.C. in the Indus
Valley sites of Moenjodaro and Harappa. These Indus Valley people
possessed a high standard of art and craftsmanship and a well
developed system of quasi pictographic writing, which despite
continuing efforts still remains undeciphered. The imposing ruins of
the beautifully planned Moenjodaro and Harappa towns present clear
evidence of the unity of a people having the same mode of life and
using the same kind of tools. Indeed, the brick buildings of the
common people, the public baths, the roads and covered drainage system
suggest the picture of a happy and contented people. Aryan
Civilization In or about 1500 B.C., the Aryans descended upon the
Punjab and settled in the Sapta Sindhu, which signifies the Indus
plain. They developed a pastoral society that grew into the Rigvedic
Civilization. The Rigveda is replete with hymns of praise for this
region, which they describe as "God fashioned". It is also clear that
so long as the Sapta Sindhu remained the core of the Aryan
Civilization, it remained free from the caste system. The caste
institution and the ritual of complex sacrifices took shape in the
Genetic Valley. There can be no doubt that the Indus Civilization
contributed much to the development of the Aryan civilization.
Gandhara Culture The discovery of the Gandhara grave culture in Dir
and Swat will go a long way in throwing light on the period of
Pakistan's cultural history between the end of the Indus Culture in
1500 B.C. and the beginning of the historic period under the
Achaemenians in the sixth century B.C. Hindu mythology and Sanskrit
literary traditions seem to attribute the destruction of the Indus
civilization to the Aryans, but what really happened, remains a
mystery. The Gandhara grave culture has opened up two periods in the
cultural heritage of Pakistan: one of the Bronze Age and the other of
the Iron Age. It is so named because it presents a peculiar pattern of
living in hilly zones of the Gandhara region as evidenced in the
graves. This culture is different from the Indus Culture and has
little relations with the village culture of Balochistan. Stratigraphy
as well as the artifacts discovered from this area suggest that the
Aryans moved into this part of the world between 1,500 and 600 B.C. In
the sixth century B.C., Buddha began his teachings, which later on
spread throughout the northern part of the South-Asian subcontinent.
It was towards the end of this century, too, that Darius I of Iran
organized Sindh and Punjab as the twentieth satrapy of his empire.
There are remarkable similarities between the organizations of that
great empire and the Mauryan empire of the third century B.C., while
Kautilya's Arthshastra also shows a strong Persian influence,
Alexander of Macedonia after defeating Darius III in 330 B.C. had also
marched through the South-Asian subcontinent up to the river Beas, but
Greek influence on the region appears to have been limited to
contributing a little to the establishment of the Mauryan empire. The
great empire that Asoka, the grandson of Chandragupta Maurya, built in
the subcontinent included only that part of the Indus basin which is
now known as the northern Punjab. The rest of the areas astride the
Indus were not subjugated by him. These areas, which now form a
substantial part of Pakistan, were virtually independent from the time
of the Guptas in the fourth century A.D. until the rise of the Delhi
Sultanate in the thirteenth century. Gandhara Art Gandhara Art, one of
the most prized possessions of Pakistan, flourished for a period of
500 years (from the first to the fifth century A.D.) in the present
valley of Peshawar and the adjacent hilly regions of Swat, Buner and
Bajaur. This art represents a separate phase of the cultural
renaissance of the region. It was the product of a blending of Indian,
Buddhist and Greco-Roman sculpture. Gandhara Art in its early stages
received the patronage of Kanishka, the great Kushan ruler, during
whose reign the Silk Route ran through Peshawar and the Indus Valley,
bringing great prosperity to the whole area. Advent of Islam The first
followers of prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him), to set foot on the
soil of the South-Asian subcontinent, were traders from the coast land
of Arabia and the Persian Gulf, soon after the dawn of Islam in the
early seventh century A.D.
The first permanent Muslim foothold in the subcontinent was
achieved with Mohammad bin Qasim's conquest of Sindh in 711 A.D. An
autonomous Muslim state linked with the Umayyed, and later, the
Abbassid Caliphate was established with jurisdiction extending over
southern and central parts of present Pakistan. Quite a few new cities
were established and Arabic was introduced as the official language.
At the time of Mahmud of Ghazna's invasion, Muslim rule still existed,
though in a weakened form, in Multan and some other regions. The
Ghaznavids (976-1148) and their successors, the Ghaurids (1148-1206),
were Central Asian by origin and they ruled their territories, which
covered mostly the regions of present Pakistan, from capitals outside
India. It was in the early thirteenth century that the foundations of
the Muslim rule in India were laid with extended boundaries and Delhi
as the capital. From 1206 to 1526 A.D., five different dynasties held
sway. Then followed the period of Mughal ascendancy (1526-1707) and
their rule continued,
though nominally, till 1857. From the time of the Ghaznavids, Persian
more or less replaced Arabic as the official language. The economic,
political and religious institutions developed by the Muslims bore
their unique impression. The law of the State was based on Shariah and
in principle the rulers were bound to enforce it. Any long period of
laxity was generally followed by reinforcement of these laws under
public pressure. The impact of Islam on the South-Asian subcontinent
was deep and far-reaching. Islam introduced not only a new religion,
but a new civilization, a new way of life and new set of values.
Islamic traditions of art and literature, of culture and refinement,
of social and welfare institution, were established by Muslim rulers
throughout the subcontinent. A new language, Urdu, derived mainly from
Arabic and Persian vocabulary and adopting indigenous words and
idioms, came to be spoken and written by the Muslims and it gained
currency among the rest of the Indian population.
Urdu is the National Language of Pakistan. Apart from religion,
Urdu also enabled the Muslim community during the period of its
ascendancy to preserve its separate identity in the subcontinent.
Muslim Identity -- The question of Muslim identity, however assumed
seriousness during the decline of Muslim power in South Asia. The
first person to realize its acuteness was the scholar theologian, Shah
Waliullah (1703-62). He laid the foundation of Islamic renaissance in
the subcontinent and became a source of inspiration for almost all the
subsequent social and religious reform movements of the nineteenth,
and twentieth centuries. His immediate successors, inspired by his
teachings, tried to establish a modest Islamic state in the north-west
of India and they, under the leadership of Sayyed Ahmad Shaheed
Barelvi (1786-1831), persevered in this direction. British
Expansionism and Muslim Resistance Meanwhile, starting with the East
India Company, the British had emerged as the dominant force in South
Asia. Their rise to power was gradual extending over a period of
nearly one hundred years. They replaced the Shariah by what they
termed as the Anglo-Muhammadan law whereas Urdu was replaced by
English as the official language. These and other developments had
great social, economic and political impact especially on the Muslims
of South Asia. The uprising of 1857, termed as the Indian Mutiny by
the British and the War of Independence by the Muslims, was a
desperate attempt to reverse the adverse course of events. Religious
Institutions The failure of the 1857 War of Independence had
disastrous consequences for the Muslims as the British placed all the
responsibility for this event on them. Determined to stop such a
recurrence in future, the British followed deliberately a repressive
policy against the Muslims. Properties and estates of those even
remotely associated with the freedom fighters were confiscated and
conscious efforts were made to close all avenues of honest living for
them. The Muslim response to this situation also aggravated their
plight. Their religious leaders, who had been quite active, withdrew
from the mainstream of the community life and devoted themselves
exclusively to imparting religious education. Although the religious
academies especially those of Deoband, Farangi Mahal and Rai Bareilly,
established by the Ulema, did help the Muslims to preserve their
identity, the training provided in these institutions hardly equipped
them for the new challenges. Educational Reform The Muslims kept
themselves aloof from western education as well as government service.
But, their compatriots, the Hindus, did not do so and accepted the new
rulers without reservation. They acquired western education, imbibed
the new culture and captured positions hitherto filled in by the
Muslims. If this situation had prolonged, it would have done the
Muslims an irreparable damage. The man to realise the impending peril
was Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-1889), a witness to the tragic events of
1857. He exerted his utmost to harmonize British Muslim relations. His
assessment was that the Muslims' safety lay in the acquisition of
western education and knowledge. He took several positive steps to
achieve this objective. He founded a college at Aligarh to impart
education on western lines. Of equal importance was the Anglo-Muhammadan
Educational Conference, which he sponsored in 1886, to provide an
intellectual forum to the Muslims for the dissemination of views in
support of western education and social reform. Similar were the
objectives of the Muhammadan Literary Society, founded by Nawab Adbul
Latif (1828-93), active in Bengal, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan's efforts
transformed into a movement, known as the Aligarh Movement, and it
left its imprint on the Muslims of every part of the South-Asian
subcontinent. Under its inspiration, societies were founded throughout
the subcontinent which established educational institutions for
imparting education to the Muslims.
Sir
Syed Ahmad Khan was averse to the idea of participation by the Muslims
in any organized political activity which, he feared, might revive
British hostility towards them. He also disliked Hindu Muslim
collaboration in any joint venture. His disillusionment in this regard
stemmed basically from the Urdu Hindi controversy of the late 1860s
when the Hindu enthusiasts vehemently championed the cause of Hindi to
replace Urdu. He, therefore, opposed the Indian National Congress when
it was founded in 1885 and advised the Muslims to abstain from its
activities. His contemporary and a great scholar of Islam, Syed Ameer
Ali (1849-1928), shared his views about the Congress, but, he was not
opposed to Muslims organizing themselves politically. In fact, he
organised the first significant political body of the Muslims, the
Central National Muhammadan Association. Although, its membership was
limited, it had more than 50 branches in different parts of the
subcontinent and it accomplished some solid work for the educational
and political advancement of the Muslims. But, its activities waned
towards the end of the nineteenth century. The Muslim League At the
dawn of the twentieth century, a number of factors convinced the
Muslims of the need to have an effective political organization.
Therefore, in October 1906, a deputation comprising 35 Muslim leaders
met the Viceroy of the British at Simla and demanded separate
electorates. Three months later, the All-India Muslim League was
founded by Nawab Salimullah Khan at Dhaka, mainly with the objective
of safeguarding the political rights and interests of the Muslims. The
British conceded separate electorates in the Government of India Act
of 1909 which confirmed the Muslim League's position as an All-India
party. Attempt for Hindu Muslim Unity The visible trend of the two
major communities progressing in opposite directions caused deep
concern to leaders of All-India stature. They struggled to bring the
Congress and the Muslim League on one platform. Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad
Ali Jinnah (1876-1948) was the leading figure among them. After the
annulment of the partition of Bengal and the European Powers'
aggressive designs against the Ottoman Empire and North Africa, the
Muslims were receptive to the idea of collaboration with the Hindus
against the British rulers.
The
Congress Muslim League rapprochement was achieved at the Lucknow
sessions of the two parties in 1916 and a joint scheme of reforms was
adopted. In the Lucknow Pact. as the scheme was commonly referred to,
the Congress accepted the principle of separate electorates, and the
Muslims, in return for `weightage' to the Muslims of the Muslim
minority provinces, agreed to surrender their thin majorities in the
Punjab and Bengal. The post Lucknow Pact period witnessed Hindu Muslim
amity and the two parties came to hold their annual sessions in the
same city and passed resolutions of identical contents.
Khilafat Movement. The Hindu Muslim unity reached its climax
during the Khilafat and the Non-cooperation Movements. The Muslims of
soothsayer, under the leadership of the Ali Brothers, Maulana Mohammad
Ali and Maulana Shaukat Ali, launched the historic Khilafat Movement
after the First World War to protect the Ottoman Empire from
dismemberment. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) linked the issue
of Swaraj (self-government) with the Khilafat issue to associate the
Hindus with the Movement. the ensuing Movement was the first
countrywide popular movement.
Although the Movement failed in its objectives, it had a far-reaching
impact on the Muslims of South Asia. After a long time, they took
united action on a purely Islamic issue which momentarily forged
solidarity among them. It also produced a class of Muslim leaders
experienced in organizing and mobilizing the public. This experience
was of immense value to the Muslims later during the Pakistan Movement
The collapse of the Khilafat Movement was followed by a period of
bitter Hindu Muslim antagonism. The Hindus organized two highly anti
Muslim movements, the Shudhi and the Sangathan. The former movement
was designed to convert Muslims to Hindusim and the latter was meant
to create solidarity among the Hindus in the event of communal
conflict. In retaliation, the Muslims sponsored the Tabligh and Tanzim
organizations to counter the impact of the Shudhi and the Sangathan.
In the 1920s, the frequency of communal riots was unprecedented.
Several Hindu-Muslim unity conferences were held to remove the causes
of conflict, but, it seemed nothing could mitigate the intensity of
communalism. Muslim Demand Safeguards In the light of this situation,
the Muslims revised their constitutional demands. They now wanted
preservation of their numerical majorities in the Punjab and Bengal,
separation of Sindh from Bombay, constitution of Balochistan as a
separate province and introduction of constitutional reforms in the
North-West Frontier Province. It was partly to press these demands
that one section of the All-India Muslim League cooperated with the
Statutory commission sent by the British Government under the
chairmanship of Sir John Simon in 1927.
The
other section of the League, which boycotted the Simon Commission
for its all-White character, cooperated with the Nehru Committee,
appointed by the All-Parties Confernece, to draft a constitution for
India. The Nehru Report had an extremely anti-Muslim bias and the
Congress leadership's refusal to amend it disillusioned even the
moderate Muslims. Allama Muhammad Iqbal Several leaders and thinkers,
having insight into the Hindu-Muslim question proposed separation of
Muslim India. However, the most lucid exposition of the inner feeling
of the Muslim community was given by Allama Muhammad Iqbal(1877-1938)
in his Presidential Address at the All-India Muslim League Session at
Allahabad in 1930. He suggested that for the healhy development of
Islam in South-Asia, it was essential to have a separate Muslim state
at least in the Muslim majority regions of the north-west. Later on,
in his correspondence with Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, he
included the Muslim majority areas in the north-east also in his
proposed Muslim state. Three years after his Allahabad Address, a
group of Muslim students at Cambridge, headed by Chaudhry Rehmat Ali,
issued a pamphlet, Now or Never, in which drawing letters from the
names of the Muslim majority regions, they gave the nomenclature of
"Pakistan" to the proposed State. Very few even among the Muslim
welcomed the idea at the time. It was to take a decade for the Muslims
to embrace the demand for a separate Muslim state. Quaid-i-Azam
Mohammad Ali Jinnah Meanwhile, three Round Table Conferences were
convened in London during 1930-32, to resolve the Indian
constitutional problem. The Hindu and Muslim leaders, who were invited
to these conferences, could not draw up an agreed formula and the
British Government had to announce a `Communal Award' which was
incorporated in the Government of India Act of 1935. Before the
elections under this Act, the All-India Muslim League, which had
remained dormant for some time, was reorganized by Quaid-i-Azam
Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who had returned to India in 1934,after an
absence of nearly five years in England. The Muslim League could not
win a majority of Muslim seats since it had not yet been effectively
reorganized. However, it had the satisfaction that the performance of
the Indian National Congress in the Muslim constituencies was bad.
After the elections, the attitude of the Congress leadership was
arrogant and domineering. The classic example was its refusal to form
a coalition government with the Muslim League in the United Provinces.
Instead, it asked the League leaders to dissolve their parliamentary
arty in the Provincial Assembly and join the Congress. Another
important Congress move after the 1937 elections was its Muslim mass
contact movement to persuade the Muslims to join the congres and not
the Muslim League. One of its leaders, Jawaharlal Nehru, even declared
that there were only two forces in India, the British and the
Congress. All this did not go unchallenged.
Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah countered that there was a third
force in South-Asia constituting the Muslims. The All-India Muslim
League, under his gifted leadership, gradully and skilfully started
organising the Muslims on one platform. Towards a Separate Muslim
Homeland The 1930s witnessed awareness among the Muslims of their
separate identity and their anxiety to preserve it within separate
territorial boundaries. An important element that brought this
simmering Muslim nationalism in the open was the character of the
Congress rule in the Muslim minority rpovinces during 1937-39. The
Congress policies in these provinces hurt Muslim susceptibilities.
There were calculated aims to obliterate the Muslims as a separate
cultural unit. The Muslims now stopped thinking in terms of seeking
safeguards and began to consider seriously the demand for a separate
Muslim state. During 1937-39, several Muslim leaders and thinkers,
inspired by Allama Iqbal's ideas, presented elaborate schemes for
partitioning the subcontinent according to two-nation theory. Pakistan
Resoluation The All-India Muslim League soon took these schemes into
consideration and finally, on March 23, 1940, the All-India Muslim
League, in a resolution, at its historic Lahore Session, demanded a
separate homeland for the Muslims in the Muslim majority regions of
the subcontinent. The resolution was commonly referred to as the
Pakistan Resolution. The Pakistan demand had a great appeal for the
Muslims of every persuasion. It revived memories of their past
greatness and promised future glory. They, therefore, responded to
this demand immediately. Cripps Mission The British Government
recognized the genuineness of the Pakistan demand indirectly in the
proposals for the transfer of power after the Second World War which
Sir Stafford Cripps brought to India in 1942. Both the Congress and
the All-India Muslim League rejected these proposals for different
reasons. The principles of secession of Muslim India as a separate
Dominion was however, conceded in these proposals. After this failure,
a prominent Congress leader, C. Rajgopalacharia, suggested a formula
for a separate Muslim state in the Working Committee of the Indian
National Congress, which was rejected at the time, but later on, in
1944, formed the basis of the Jinnah-Gandhi talks. Demand for Pakistan
The Pakistan demand became popular during the Second World War
Every section of the Muslim community-men , women,students,Ulema and
businessmen-were organized under the banner of the All-India Muslim
League. Branches of the party were opened even in the remote corners
of the subcontinent. Literature in the form of pamphlets, books,
magazines and newspapers was produced to expalin the Pakistan demand
and distributed widely. The support gained by the All-India Muslim
League and its demand for Pakistan was tested after the failure of the
Simla Conference, convened by the Viceroy, Lord Wavell, in 1945.
Elections were called to determine the respective strength of the
political parties. The All-India Muslim League election campaign was
based on the Pakistan demand. The Muslim community responded to this
call in an unprecedented way. Numerous Muslim parties were formed
making united parliamentary board at the behest of the Congress to
oppose the Muslim League. But the All-India Muslim League swept all
the thirty seats in the Central Legislature and in the provincial
elections also, its victory was outstanding. After the elections, on
April 8-9,1946, the All-India Muslim League called a convention of the
newly-elected League members in the Central and Provincial
Legislatures at Delhi. This convention, which constituted virtually a
representative assembly of the Muslims of South Asia, on a motion by
the Chief Minister of Bengal, Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy, reiterated
the Pakistan demand in clearer terms. Cabinet Plan In early 1946, the
British Government sent a Cabinet Mission to the subcontinent to
resolve the constitutional deadlock. The Mission conducted
negotiations with various political parties, but fialed to evolve an
agreed formula. Finally, the Cabinet Mission announced its own Plan,
which among other provisions, envisaged three federal groupings,two of
them comprising the Muslim majority provinces, linked at the Centre in
a loose federation with three subjects. The Muslim League accepted the
plan, as a strategic move, expecting to achieve its objective in
not-too-distant a future. The All-India Congress also agreed to the
Plan, but, soon realising its implications, the Congress leaders began
to interpret it in a way not visualized by the authoris of the Plan.
This provided the All-India Muslim League an excuse to withdraw its
acceptance of the Plan and the party observed August 16, as a `Direct
Action Day' to show Muslim solidarity in support of the Pakistan
demand. Partition Scheme In October 1946, an Interim Government was
formed. The Muslim League sent its representative under the leadership
of its General Secretary, Mr. Liaquat Ali Khan, with the aim to fight
for the party objective from within the Interim Government. After a
short time, the situation inside the Interim Government and outside
convinced the Congress leadership to accept Pakistan as the only
solution of the communal problem. The British Government, after its
last attempt to save the Cabinet Mission Plan in December 1946, also
moved towards a scheme for the partition of India. The last British
Viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, came with a clear mandate to draft a
plan for the transfer of power.
After holding talks with political leaders and parties, he prepared a
Partition Plan for the transfer of power, which, after approval of the
British Government, was announced on June 3,1947. Emergence of
Pakistan Both the Congress and the Muslim League accepted the Plan.
Two largest Muslim majority provinces, Bengal and Punjab, were
partitioned. The Assemblies of West Punjab, East Bengal and Sindh and
in Balochistan, the Quetta Municipality, and the Shahi Jirga voted for
Pakistan. Referenda were held in the North-West Frontier Province and
the District of Sylhet in Assam, which resulted in an overwhelming
vote for Pakistan. As a result, on August 14,1947, the new state of
Pakistan came into existence. |
