seems to have prevaricated in his understanding of Pakistan as a separate, sovereign nation state distinct from India. It seems more likely, in the early days of the constitutional negotiations, at least, that he was rallying his supporters in order to extract the best possible deal from the British for the League, and would have settled for a federal solution if it guaranteed a firm element of decentralised power in the hands of Muslims. 7 Among Jinnah's supporters, what Pakistan meant was even more opaque. Many did not think primarily of Pakistan as a territorial reality at all, and when they did, they wishfully hoped that large tracts of India would be included in it. The talismanic word ‘Pakistan’ was used strategically to rally supporters and the League achieved impressive and emphatic endorsement across India. Yet few knew what this Pakistan would mean, and absolutely nobody knew what its construction would really cost.
This ambiguity was convenient. Jinnah was facing the problem of welding together diverse constituents, many of whom read into the Pakistan demands their own local interpretations or seized upon the League as a vehicle for their own regional campaigns. The issue of territory was repeatedly fudged. The town of Aligarh could never have been included in the Pakistani state and today is still a university town in India – many miles from the border with Pakistan. Maps painted on pro-Pakistani propaganda reflect the lack of clarity concerning territory in Pakistani nationalism. In one, the black silhouette of the whole of the Indian subcontinent is marked uncompromisingly with the words ‘Pakistani Empire’ – the bold typeface in a diagonal line branding the whole of India and Afghanistan, from the Himalayas to its southern tip at Cape Comorin, as part of this Pakistani realm. Another map, in contrast, shows a fragmented patchwork subcontinent with different provinces marked off as regional ‘nations’, including Dravidstan, Usmanistan, Rajistan, Pakistan, Balochistan and Bangsamistan. A third map, created around the same time, shows a more easily recognisable outline of Pakistan as we know it today but with the southern Indian princely state of Hyderabad included as part of the Muslim state's natural limits. 8 Pakistan was an imaginary, nationalistic dream as well as a cold territorial reality.
Even Muslim Leaguers who believed Pakistan could be a territorial state – distinct from India – had different ideas about where this land would be and what its relationship would be with India. The final shape of the country came as a shock to some of its most fervent supporters. Strolling through Delhi on a sunny afternoon with her family after the elections, the Muslim League leader Begum Ikramullah looked up at the domes of Humayan's tomb, the sixteenth-century red sandstone and white marble masterpiece of Mughal architecture. Her husband reassured her that Delhi would definitely be in Pakistan when the country came into being. ‘The frontiers of Pakistan had not been defined and it never entered our heads that Delhi would not be within it.’ 9 There were a small handful of far-sighted individuals who saw the dangers of a two-state solution to the constitutional problem. Two Congress workers from North India suggested that the weakness in the League's strategy, and its failure to outline Pakistan's proposed territory, should be exposed. They wrote asking the Congress to paste up posters and flyers around the streets with a suggested map of Pakistan under the caption ‘Are you ready to leave your house, land, property and everything and go to Pakistan?’ 10 But this was a rare appeal. Nobody knew what this map was – and nobody was contemplating migrating in 1946, let alone the mass movement of twelve million people only one year later.
Getting ready to rule
On 28 March 1946, the provincial governors formally returned the election results from their provinces. Ministry-making could begin in
This ambiguity was convenient. Jinnah was facing the problem of welding together diverse constituents, many of whom read into the Pakistan demands their own local interpretations or seized upon the League as a vehicle for their own regional campaigns. The issue of territory was repeatedly fudged. The town of Aligarh could never have been included in the Pakistani state and today is still a university town in India – many miles from the border with Pakistan. Maps painted on pro-Pakistani propaganda reflect the lack of clarity concerning territory in Pakistani nationalism. In one, the black silhouette of the whole of the Indian subcontinent is marked uncompromisingly with the words ‘Pakistani Empire’ – the bold typeface in a diagonal line branding the whole of India and Afghanistan, from the Himalayas to its southern tip at Cape Comorin, as part of this Pakistani realm. Another map, in contrast, shows a fragmented patchwork subcontinent with different provinces marked off as regional ‘nations’, including Dravidstan, Usmanistan, Rajistan, Pakistan, Balochistan and Bangsamistan. A third map, created around the same time, shows a more easily recognisable outline of Pakistan as we know it today but with the southern Indian princely state of Hyderabad included as part of the Muslim state's natural limits. 8 Pakistan was an imaginary, nationalistic dream as well as a cold territorial reality.
Even Muslim Leaguers who believed Pakistan could be a territorial state – distinct from India – had different ideas about where this land would be and what its relationship would be with India. The final shape of the country came as a shock to some of its most fervent supporters. Strolling through Delhi on a sunny afternoon with her family after the elections, the Muslim League leader Begum Ikramullah looked up at the domes of Humayan's tomb, the sixteenth-century red sandstone and white marble masterpiece of Mughal architecture. Her husband reassured her that Delhi would definitely be in Pakistan when the country came into being. ‘The frontiers of Pakistan had not been defined and it never entered our heads that Delhi would not be within it.’ 9 There were a small handful of far-sighted individuals who saw the dangers of a two-state solution to the constitutional problem. Two Congress workers from North India suggested that the weakness in the League's strategy, and its failure to outline Pakistan's proposed territory, should be exposed. They wrote asking the Congress to paste up posters and flyers around the streets with a suggested map of Pakistan under the caption ‘Are you ready to leave your house, land, property and everything and go to Pakistan?’ 10 But this was a rare appeal. Nobody knew what this map was – and nobody was contemplating migrating in 1946, let alone the mass movement of twelve million people only one year later.
Getting ready to rule
On 28 March 1946, the provincial governors formally returned the election results from their provinces. Ministry-making could begin in
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