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| Cong, SP doing what League did before 1947 | | Towards Another Partition -- III | | Rustam
JAMMU, Jan 23: The British Government, which had all through employed its policy of divide and rule in India, took full advantage of the situation the followers of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, the Muslim League and the Jamiat-ul-Ulma-e-Islam (a section of Deobandis) had created by opposing the Congress and its demands on the ground that these demands, if accepted, would only promote the Hindus and throw in the lot of the Muslims with them. The British Government enacted an Act in 1909, called the Indian Councils Act of 1909, which provided for a separate register or religion-based representation to the Muslims in the provincial councils. The Congress, which had in December 1906 at Calcutta (Kolkata) moved an official resolution recommending religion-based reservation for the Muslims in the councils, district boards, municipalities and jobs but failed to get it adopted owing to the stiff opposition from Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who at that time was a prominent member of the Congress, opposed the institution of communal electorates saying it was divisive and against the established democratic and secular norms. But nothing came out of the Congress's opposition. The Muslims got the religion-based reservation.
The attitude of the Congress underwent a radical change in 1916. It accepted the Muslim League's demand for separate electorates. In fact, it entered into a pact with the Muslim League in August 1916, called the Lucknow Pact, which endorsed the League's demand for separate electorates. In return, the League promised to join the freedom struggle. (The Muslim League worked with the Congress and supported the freedom struggle just for six years, up to 1922.) It was this pact that culminated in the communal partition of India in August 1947.
The British Government repealed the Act of 1909 in 1919 and enacted a new Act, called the Indian Councils Act of 1919. The new Act not only provided for separate electorates for the Muslims but also extended this principle to cover the Sikhs, the Anglo-Indians, the Indian Christians and the Europeans. The Congress opposed the Act tooth and nail, but finally contested the elections under this new Act. It accepted the communal electorates. The British Government also thought of treating the depressed classes, all Hindus, at par with the Muslims, the Anglo-Indians, the Indian Christians and the Europeans as far as the representation issue was concerned, but failed owing to the opposition from Mahatma Gandhi. Dr B R Ambedakar was for the reserved seats for the depressed classes. Gandhi started fast-unto-death at Yeravada Jail, Pune, against the British move and this led to the signing of a Pact between him and Ambedakar, called the Poona Pact of 1932. Gandhi said, "I can understand the claims advanced by the minorities, but the claims advanced on behalf of the untouchables, that to me is the 'unkindest cut of all". It means a permanent bar sinister..." The Poona Pact, among other things, said: "The system of representation of the depressed classes by reserved seats would continue until terminated by mutual agreement". The existing reservation for the Scheduled Castes owes its origin to the Poona Pact.
In 1935, the British Government repealed the Indian Councils Act of 1919 and enacted the Government of India Act, 1935. It retained the system of religion-based reservation. The Congress and the Muslim League contested elections to the provincial councils under this Act. The Congress scored a massive victory in 9 out of 11 British Indian provinces and formed ministries in Madras, Bombay, Bihar, Orissa, Central Provinces, the United Provinces and the North West Frontier Province. The Congress also formed coalition governments in Sind and Assam. The non-Congress ministries functioned only in Punjab and Bengal. In Punjab, the Unionist Party of Fazal-ul-Haq formed the government and in Bengal it was the Praja Krishak Party of Dr. Suhrawardy that formed the government. The Muslim League suffered massive defeat even in the Muslim-majority provinces of Bengal, Punjab, Sind and North West Frontier Province. It was only in UP that the Muslim League won seats disproportionate to the Muslim population because Islam was on the offensive. And it was from UP that the demand from Pakistan came.
In 1939, the Congress ministries resigned in the wake of the Second World War. The Congress said it was "opposed to all attempts to impose a war on India, and use Indian resources in a war without the consent of the Indian people…The issue of war and peace must be decided by the Indian people…India cannot offer any cooperation in war which was conducted on imperialist lines and which was meant to consolidate imperialism in India and elsewhere…" The Muslim League celebrated the exit of the Congress from office as a day of "deliverance and thanksgiving". It also supported the British war efforts.
Then came the Lahore session of the Muslim League in March 1940. Jinnah presided over the session. In his presidential address, Jinnah said: "The Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs and literatures…They belong to two different civilizations which are based on conflicting ideas and conceptions. To yoke together two such communities under a single state, one as a numerical majority and the other as a minority, must lead to a growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be built up for the government of such state". The Lahore session of the League passed a resolution on March 23 and demanded Pakistan. "The cry for Pakistan", according to Penderal Moon, author of Divide and Quit, "appealed to and excited power appetites and individual hopes, and these, once aroused, would not be readily assuaged". (To be continued) |
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