[“It is needless to emphasise that the Constituent Assembly, which
would be predominantly Muslim in its composition, would be able to
enact laws for Muslims, not inconsistent with the Shariat laws and the
Muslims will no longer be obliged to abide by the un-Islamic laws” -
Muhammad Ali Jinnah]

http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\06\08\story_8-6-2010_pg3_2

Daily Times, Lahore, Pakistan
Tuesday, June 08, 2010

The demand for Pakistan and Islam
By Ishtiaq Ahmed
isasia@nus.edu.sg

The recent attack on a congregation of Ahmedis during prayers, which
claimed more than 90 innocent lives, has revived a discussion as to
whether there is a connection between the creation of Pakistan and
Islam. Within the Muslim League there was always a constituency in
favour of Pakistan becoming an Islamic state. One of its proponents
was a close confident of Jinnah: Raja Sahib Mahmudabad, a Shia. In
1939 he wrote to the historian Mohibul Hassan:

“When we speak of democracy in Islam it is not democracy in the
government but in the cultural and social aspects of life. Islam is
totalitarian — there is no denying about it. It is the Quran that we
should turn to. It is the dictatorship of the Quranic laws that we
want — and that we will have — but not through non-violence and
Gandhian truth” (Mushirul Hasan, 1997: 57-8).

If the March 23, 1940, Lahore Resolution be taken as the start of the
Pakistan campaign, then Jinnah had to make a breakthrough in the
Muslim-majority provinces of northwestern India — Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,
Punjab and Sindh — each of which had regional parties headed by
Muslims. The Muslim League had to convince the Muslim voters in these
provinces that their leaders were courting Hindus and Sikhs and thus
were paving the way for Hindu Raj under the Indian National Congress.
That opportunity arrived in July 1945 when the British government
announced provincial elections for February 1946. Punjab Governor Sir
Bertrand Glancy has recorded in several secret fortnightly reports
(FR) the tactics that the Muslim League adopted during the long
election campaign. In the FR of December 27, 1945, Glancy noted:

“Among Muslims the Leaguers are increasing their efforts to appeal to
the bigotry of the electors. Pirs and maulvis have been enlisted in
large numbers to tour the province and denounce all who oppose the
League as infidels. Copies of the Holy Quran are carried around as an
emblem peculiar to the Muslim League. Feroz [Khan Noon] and others
openly preach that every vote given to the League is a vote cast in
favour of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). These deplorable tactics, as I have
frequently said, were only to be expected; they provide a grim augury
of the future peace of India and they are certainly not easy for the
Unionists to counter” (Lionel Carter, 2006: 160).

In the FR of February 2, 1946, Glancy wrote:

“The ML [Muslim League] orators are becoming increasingly fanatical in
their speeches. Maulvis and pirs and students travel all round the
province and preach that those who fail to vote for the League
candidates will cease to be Muslims; their marriages will no longer be
valid and they will be entirely excommunicated...It is not easy to
foresee what the results of the elections will be. But there seems
little doubt the Muslim League, thanks to the ruthless methods by
which they have pursued their campaign of ‘Islam in danger’, will
considerably increase the number of their seats and Unionist
representatives will correspondingly decline” (Carter, 2006: 171).

Similar tactics were adopted in the campaigns in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
and Sindh. In his doctoral dissertation, India, Pakistan or
Pakhtunistan?, Erland Jansson writes:

“The pir of Manki Sharif...founded an organisation of his own, the
Anjuman-us-asfia. The organisation promised to support the Muslim
League on the condition that Shariat would be enforced in Pakistan. To
this Jinnah agreed. As a result the pir of Manki Sharif declared jihad
to achieve Pakistan and ordered the members of his anjuman to support
the League in the 1946 elections” (pg 166).

Jinnah wrote in November 1945 a letter to Pir Manki Sharif in which he
promised that the Shariat would apply to the affairs of the Muslim
majority. He wrote:

“It is needless to emphasise that the Constituent Assembly, which
would be predominantly Muslim in its composition, would be able to
enact laws for Muslims, not inconsistent with the Shariat laws and the
Muslims will no longer be obliged to abide by the un-Islamic
laws” (Constituent Assembly of Pakistan Debates, Volume 5, 1949, pg
46).

The Muslim League’s propaganda struck terror in the hearts of the
Hindus and Sikhs who were told that they would be paying jazya and
Islamic law will prevail in all sectors of individual and collective
life. The minority Shia and Ahmediyya communities were also fearful
that it would result in Sunni domination. This is obvious from the
correspondence between the Shia leader Syed Ali Zaheer and Jinnah in
July 1944 (G Allana, 1977: 375-9). Although the Council of Action of
the All-Parties Shia Conference passed a resolution on December 25,
1945, rejecting the idea of Pakistan (SR Bakshi, 1997: 848-9), most
Shias shifted their loyalty to the Muslim League in the hope that
Pakistan will be a non-sectarian state. Initially the Ahmediyya were
also wary and reluctant to support the demand for a separate Muslim
state (Munir Report, 1954: 196). It is only when Sir Zafarullah was
won over by Jinnah that the Ahmedis started supporting the demand for
Pakistan. To all such groups Jinnah gave assurances that Pakistan will
not be a sectarian state.

In my forthcoming book on the partition of Punjab, now running into
more than 1,000 pages but which is at last completed and for which I
am now looking for a publisher, I will shed light on how the fierce
Islamist propaganda impacted on the partition of Punjab. The Sikhs had
more fears than anyone else about what could happen to minorities in
Pakistan. In a meeting in May 1947 sponsored by Lord Mountbatten to
help the Muslims and Sikhs reach an agreement on keeping Punjab
united, Jinnah offered the Sikhs all the safeguards they wanted if
they agreed to support Pakistan. Only in March 1947 some 2,000-10,000
Sikhs — depending on who you cite — were butchered in the Rawalpindi
rural areas so the Sikhs were very wary of Jinnah’s overtures. Chief
Minister of Patiala Hardit Singh Malik writes he had an inspiration
and asked Jinnah: “Sir you are making all the promises but God forbid
if something happens to you, what will happen then?” The exact words
Jinnah used in reply will be revealed in my forthcoming book, but the
reasoning was that his followers will treat his words as sacred.

[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?]