History Taught In Pakistan

[acharya]

VIEW: Pakistan and Shia and Ahmediyya stands —Ishtiaq Ahmed



Sir Zafarullah enjoyed Jinnah’s personal trust. Such factors hugely helped to persuade the head of the Ahmediyya community, Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad, subsequently to change his decision on Pakistan



Mr Ammar Ali Qureshi’s rejoinder ‘The idea of Pakistan’ (Daily Times, June 14, 2010), to my article ‘The demand for Pakistan and Islam’ (Daily Times, June 8, 2010), provides a useful basis for further discussion of the origins and implications of establishing a Muslim-majority state in the Indian subcontinent.



When I quoted Raja Sahib Mahmudabad, it was with reference to his personal convictions. Raja Sahib was a prominent leader of the Muslim League and one of its main patrons. Maulana Hasrat Mohani was another prominent Muslim who wanted Pakistan to be an Islamic state. More names can be given. The exchange of views between Syed Ali Zaheer and Jinnah were of a personal nature, but Zaheer was a prominent Shia politician of Lucknow and, therefore, represented an important voice in the Shia community.



On the other hand, when I refer to the rejection on December 25, 1945 of the Pakistan idea by the All Parties Shia Conference, then it is an organisation that took that decision and one can legitimately attribute to it a collective point of view. However, I pointed out that such a ruling was not accepted by most Shias who decided to support the demand for Pakistan. There is nothing contradictory in what I said; these are facts.



Now, when we come to the position of the Ahmediyya community, I had done my homework before I wrote my previous article. At the time of the Lahore Resolution, Sir Muhammad Zafarullah Khan was a member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council. Viceroy Linlithgow instructed Sir Zafarullah to prepare a memorandum advising the Muslim League to demand a separate state (Wali Khan, Facts are Facts, 2004, page 40).



At that time, World War II was raging in full fury and Britain was facing defeat on all fronts. The British wanted to put pressure on the Indian National Congress, which was not cooperating with them. In September 1939, the Congress ministries had resigned to protest over India being committed to World War II without Indian leaders being consulted. Moreover, the Congress had started demanding transfer of power and the British wanted to prevent such menace from gaining momentum. Nothing would have done it better than the Indian Muslims demanding a separate state and thus calling into question the Congress’ claim to represent Indian opinion. Sir Zafarullah was by no means acting as a free agent when he prepared a memorandum on Pakistan. He simply carried out a task given to him by the viceroy.



The fact is that at the time of the adoption of the March 23, 1940 Lahore Resolution, the Ahmediyya community was under instruction from their khalifa not to join the Muslim League. Sir Henry Craik, governor of Punjab, makes this crystal clear in his secret fortnightly report dated March 25, 1940 that he sent to Linlithgow. He wrote: “I had an interesting talk this morning with Pir Akbar Ali, a Unionist member of our assembly, who belongs to the Ahmediyya community...Pir Akbar Ali gave me two items of information, which may interest you. The Ahmedis, he said, have always considered the Khaksar Movement a dangerous one and not a single Ahmedi has joined it. The second item was that the Ahmedis as a body have not been allowed by the religious head of their movement to join the Muslim League. Akbar Ali himself has been allowed to join as a member of the Unionist Party for a term of six months only. The question whether his followers should be allowed to join the League is, I understand, shortly to be considered by the head of the community” (Lionel Carter, Punjab Governors’ Fortnightly Reports vol. 1, Punjab Politics 1940-1943: Strains of War, 2005, page 101).



Sir Zafarullah was associated with the Muslim League since the 1930s, but at that time the Muslim League was merely a platform for expressing demands about Muslim representation and quotas in government services. When Iqbal made his famous ‘demand for Pakistan’ speech in Allahabad, the house was empty. The quorum of 75 persons needed to pass a resolution could only be filled after several hours of effort to bring Muslims from all over Allahabad to the meeting hall. It was the first move by the Muslims to challenge the Congress, which had adopted the Swaraj (self-rule) Resolution in January that year. In the 1937 elections, the Muslim League won only two seats in Punjab, which became one when Raja Ghazanfar Ali Khan crossed the floor and joined the Punjab Unionist Party. The first party office in Punjab was opened in Lahore in 1938.



Doctrinal disputes between the Ahmedis and other Muslims were a harsh fact and, therefore, hesitation on the part of the head of the Ahmediyya community to give the green signal to his followers to hitch their future to Pakistan makes perfect sense. Rather, not to look for assurances and guarantees for his followers would be a case of criminal negligence and gross irresponsibility. Moreover, as a community closely aligned with the British, it was equally necessary not to antagonise them.



Jinnah’s stature rose sharply only after the Lahore Resolution was adopted. This is also recorded in the March 25 secret fortnightly report of Governor Craik. Sir Zafarullah enjoyed Jinnah’s personal trust. Such factors hugely helped to persuade the head of the Ahmediyya community, Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad, subsequently to change his decision on Pakistan. Why all this silly myth-building about the Ahmedis championing the idea of Pakistan in the 1930s remains a mystery to me.



It is equally silly of people like Wali Khan to promote another myth that after the Lahore Resolution the British had definitively made up their mind to partition India. After the war, the British were very keen to keep India united because they wanted to use India as a base and their most valued institution — the British Indian Army — for the geopolitical interests they believed they would still have in South Asia and the Middle East. Between 1945 and August 1947, the pendulum would swing dramatically between the polar extremes of a united and a partitioned India. Also, the British, Congress, Muslim League and even the Sikhs would prevaricate a number of times before the pendulum stopped on partition. To talk of a Pakistan project in 1906 or 1930 or 1940 is therefore innacurate.



Ishtiaq Ahmed is a Visiting Research Professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) and the South Asian Studies Programme at the National University of Singapore and Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Stockholm University. He is currently working on a book, Is Pakistan a Garrison State? He can be reached at isasia@nus.edu.sg