The Great Partition

The Great Partition by Yasmin Khan

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Authors: Yasmin Khan
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read: ‘The road to freedom lies through Pakistan’ and the other, ‘We are determined to fight till the last ditch for our rights in spite of the British or the Congress.’ The world's press were starting to take note and photographers packed the front row. Impassioned speeches followed one after another. Begum Shah Nawaz called for Muslim women to encourage their husbands and sons to take up arms for Pakistan if the British tried to establish a united Hindustan. Telling the story of a visit to a grieving mother in the Punjab whose son had been stabbed to death by a militia group, she claimed that the woman had told her that she was happy to have given her son to the nation. ‘Muslim women were prepared for all sacrifices,’ the begum announced, ‘and were prepared to be put to the test.’ 3 The crescendo came with Jinnah's own closing speech: ‘Is Britain going to decide the destiny of 100 million Muslims? No. Nobody can. They can obstruct, they can delay for a little while, but they cannot stop us from our goal. Let us, therefore, rise at the conclusion of this historic convention full of hope, courage and faith. Insha'Allah we shall win.’ It was rousing stuff but the fine details – and the meanings of this Pakistan for the Muslims of South Asia – had been deliberately and conveniently evaded and ignored. 4
    Nonetheless, League membership figures continued moving steadily upwards. Membership had rocketed from just 1,330 card-carrying Leaguers in 1927 to an official membership of two million claimed by 1944. During the Congress leaders' time behind bars, the League had had the chance to swell and as Jinnah himself admitted, ‘The war which nobody welcomed proved to be a blessing in disguise.’ 5 The numbers alone do not tell the whole story. By 1946, even taking into account important exceptions, the League had the popular backing of South Asian Muslims in the urban centres and even in large chunks of the countryside: some Punjabi Leaguers were so confident of their support that they called for a universal franchise in 1946.
    Jinnah became – as had Gandhi and Nehru – for many of his supporters an ideal type and was hero-worshipped by millions who endowed him with the characteristics of a saviour. Passionate supporters, both men and women, sent him presents and adoring fan mail, including cards, telegrams and letters of congratulation, cigar boxes and attar of roses, different maps of Pakistan carved in wood, and donations ranging from significant lump sums to the pocket money of young children. Stall-holders outside post offices sold postcards and postal envelopes stamped with Jinnah's portrait and League mottoes. Followers begged him to take the protection of bodyguards. ‘Pray let no chance be taken in guarding your person, the greatest single asset of the Muslim nation,’ wrote one. 6 Jinnah fuelled this personal adoration and was unassailably ‘the sole spokesman’ of the League, which was equipped with a remarkably over-centralised and undemocratic internal structure, with budgetary and decision-making powers firmly in Jinnah's own grip. For many of these Leaguers, Pakistan became much more than the sum of its parts or the territorial outline of a nation state: it meant personal identification with a cause which was increasingly expressed in black and white terms.
    Crucially, though, anti-Congress feeling and heartfelt support for Jinnah and the League did not necessarily translate into support for Pakistan as we know it today with its current borders and boundaries. The Lahore Resolution, passed at the annual Muslim League meeting on 23 March 1940 and identified by Pakistanis as the foundation stone for their state, is not much of a guide. It pinpointed the Muslim desire for a more loosely federated state structure, calling for a collection of independent states with autonomy and sovereignty. There was a lack of knowledge or concern about Pakistan's actual territorial limits. Jinnah himself

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