Smokers’ Corner: The mysterious ideologue on Jinnah’s left Nadeem F. Paracha
Till the early 1940s, the All India Muslim League (AIML) was still far from being the sole political representative of India’s Muslims. The Muslims of the region — who constituted about 20 per cent of India’s population at the time — were being represented by various political parties and outfits. Till 1945 the AIML was just one of these parties. Other parties in this regard were the centre-right Unionist Party and right-wing religious outfits such as the Muttahida Majlis-i-Ahrar, the Jamiat Ulema Hind; the radical Khaksar; and, to the a certain extent, the Jamaat-i-Islami (that was formed in 1941). Other than these, a number of Muslims were also supporters and members of the Indian National Congress (INC), and the left-wing Pakhtun nationalist organisation (in the former NWFP), the Khudai Khidmatgar. Ever since 1940, the AIML (led by the refined lawyer and politician, Mohammad Ali Jinnah), had increasingly pushed for the idea of creating a separate nation-state for the Muslims of India, carved out from the Muslim-majority areas of the region. Article continues after ad The party saw the INC as a Hindu-dominated entity that would (in post-colonial India) usurp the political and economic interests of the region’s Muslims. Meet the Marxist who was instrumental in winning Punjab for the All India Muslim League But till 1944 the AIML had only managed to attract the attention of certain sections of urban Muslim youth in North India and East Bengal. The party’s increasing focus on propagating a separate Muslim state was entirely rejected by the INC and even by various Muslim outfits including the Unionist Party, the Khudai Khidmatgar as well as by the Islamic parties. The first to really warm up to AIML’s idea of a separate Muslim country — apart from certain sections of North India’s urban bourgeoisie — was the Muslim majority region of East Bengal. But the AIML was aware of the fact that to truly become the largest Muslim party in India, it will have to make inroads into another important Muslim-majority region: the Punjab province.