| Lahore Resolution | |
|---|---|
 Muslim leaders from across British India at theAll-India Muslim League Working Committee session in Lahore | |
| Presented | 22 March 1940 |
| Ratified | 23 March 1940; 85 years ago (1940-03-23) |
| Location | Lahore,Punjab, British India |
| Signatories | All-India Muslim League |
| Purpose | Establishment of a separate homeland for the minorities of (British) India. |
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TheLahore Resolution,[a] later called thePakistan Resolution, was a formal political statement adopted by theAll-India Muslim League on the occasion of its three-day general session inLahore,Punjab, from 22 to 24 March 1940, calling for a separate homeland for the Muslims of British India.
It was written and prepared by a nine-member subcommittee of the All-India Muslim League (which includedMuhammad Ali Jinnah,Liaquat Ali Khan,Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan,Khawaja Nazimuddin,Abdullah Haroon, andNawab Ismail Khan)[1][2][3] and was presented byA. K. Fazlul Huq, thePrime Minister of Bengal.[4]
The resolution mainly called for independent sovereign states:
That geographically contiguous units are demarcated regions which should be constituted, with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in the North Western and Eastern Zones of (British) India should be grouped to constitute 'independent states' in which the constituent units should be autonomous and sovereign.
Although the name "Pakistan" had been proposed byChoudhary Rahmat Ali in hisPakistan Declaration,[5] it was not until after the resolution that it began to be widely used.
Jinnah's address to the Lahore conference was, according toStanley Wolpert, the moment when Jinnah, once a proponent ofHindu-Muslim unity, irrevocably committed to force the creation of an independent Pakistan.[6]
Until the mid-1930s the Muslim leaders were trying to ensure maximum political safeguards forMuslims within the framework offederation of India in terms of seeking maximumautonomy for Muslim majority provinces. They got some safeguards through a system ofseparate electorate on communal basis in theGovernment of India Act 1935. As a result ofelections held under this Act,Indian National Congress formed government in six out of eight provinces. During Congress rule from 1937 to 39, its "High Command whose iron control over its own provinces clearly hinted at what lay ahead for the Muslim majority provinces once it came to dominate the centre. Much of theLeague's propaganda at this stage was directed against the Congress ministries and their alleged attacks onMuslim culture; the heightened activity ofHindu Mahasabha, the hoisting of Congresstricolor, the singing ofBande Mataram, the Vidya Mandir scheme in theCentral Provinces and theWardha scheme of education, all were interpreted as proof of 'Congress atrocities'. So, the Congress was clearly incapable of representing Muslim interests, yet it was trying to annihilate every other party."[7]
Therefore, by 1938–39, the idea ofseparation was strongly gaining ground. The Sindh Provincial Muslim League Conference held its first session inKarachi in October 1938, adopted a resolution which recommended to the All-India Muslim League to devise a scheme of constitution under which Muslims may attain full independence. Thepremier of the Bengal province,A. K. Fazal-ul-Haque, who was not in the All-India Muslim League, was quite convinced in favour of separation. The idea was more vividly expressed byM. A. Jinnah in an article in the London weeklyTime & Tide on 9 March 1940.[8] Jinnah wrote:
Democratic systems based on the concept of homogeneous nations such as England are very definitely not applicable toheterogeneous countries such asIndia, and this simple fact is the root cause of all of India's constitutional ills... If, therefore, it is accepted that there is in India amajor and aminor nation, it follows that aparliamentary system based on themajority principle must inevitably mean the rule of major nation. Experience has proved that whatever the economic andpolitical programme of any political Party, theHindu, as a general rule, will vote for hiscaste-fellow, the Muslim for hiscoreligionist.
About theCongress-led provincial governments, he wrote:
An India-wide attack on the Muslims was launched. In the five Muslim provinces every attempt was made to defeat the Muslim-led-coalition Ministries. In the six Hindu provinces a "Kulturkampf" was inaugurated. Attempts were made to have Bande Mataram, the Congress song, recognized as thenational anthem, and the real national language,Urdu, supplanted byHindi. Everywhere oppression commenced and complaints poured in such force...that the Muslims, despairing of theViceroy and Governors ever taking action to protect them, have already been forced to ask for aRoyal Commission to investigate their grievances.
Furthermore, he added:
Is it the desire (ofBritish people) that India should become atotalitarianHindu State...? ...I feel certain thatMuslim India will never submit to such a position and will be forced to resist it with every means in their power.
In his concluding remarks he wrote:
While Muslim League irrevocably opposed to anyFederal objective which must necessarily result in amajority community rule under the guise of Democracy andParliamentary system of Government... To conclude, a constitution must be evolved that recognises that there are in Indiatwo nations who both must share thegovernance of theircommon motherland.
The session was held on 22–24 March 1940, at Iqbal Park, Lahore. The welcome address was made by Sir Shah Nawaz Khan of Mamdot, as the chairman of the local reception committee. The various draft texts for the final resolution/draft were deliberated over by the Special Working Committee of the All India Muslim League[9]
The resolution text, unanimously approved by the Subject Committee, accepted the concept of a united homeland for Muslims[citation needed] and recommended the creation of independent Muslim-majority states.[10]
The resolution was moved in the general session byA. K. Fazlul Huq, the chief minister of undivided Bengal, and was seconded byChaudhry Khaliquzzaman from the United Provinces,Zafar Ali Khan from Punjab,Sardar Aurangzeb Khan from North-West Frontier Province, Pir Ziauddin Andrabi from Kashmir, and SirAbdullah Haroon from Sindh.[11]Qazi Muhammad Essa from Balochistan and other leaders announced their support.[citation needed]
The resolution for the establishment of a separate homeland for the Muslims of British India passed in the annual session of the All India Muslim League held in Lahore on 22–24 March 1940 is a landmark document of Pakistan's history.[12] In 1946, it formed the basis for the decision of Muslim League to struggle for one state [ later named Pakistan] for the Muslims.[13] The statement declared:
No constitutional plan would be workable or acceptable to the Muslims unless geographical contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be so constituted with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary.[14]
The Hindu press and leaders were quick to describe the resolution as the demand for the creation of Pakistan; some people began to call it the Pakistan Resolution soon after the Lahore session of the Muslim League. It is landmark document in history of Pakistan.[12]Additionally, it stated:
That adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards shall be specifically provided in the constitution for minorities in the units and in the regions for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights of the minorities.
Most importantly, to convince smaller provinces such as Sindh to join, it provided a guarantee:
That geographically contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be constituted, with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in the North Western and Eastern Zones of (British) India should be grouped to constitute 'independent states' in which the constituent units should be autonomous and sovereign.
The full text of the resolution document was as follows:
"THE LAHORE RESOLUTION"
Resolved at the Lahore Session of All-India Muslim League held on 22nd-24th March, 1940.
(1) While approving and endorsing the action taken by the Council and the Working Committee of the All Indian Muslim League as indicated in their resolutions dated the 10th of August, 17th and 18th of September and 22nd of October, 1939, and 3rd February 1940 on the constitutional issues, this Session of the All-Indian Muslim League emphatically reiterates that the scheme of federation embodied in the Government of India Act 1935, is totally unsuited to, and unworkable in the peculiar conditions of this country and is altogether unacceptable to Muslim India.
(2) Resolved that it is the considered view of this Session of the All India Muslim League that no constitutional plan would be workable in this country or acceptable to Muslims unless it is designed on the following basic principle, namely that geographically contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be so constituted, with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary, that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in the North-Western and Eastern Zones of India, should be grouped to constitute "Independent States" in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.
(3) That adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards should be specifically provided in the constitution for minorities in these units and in these regions for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights and interests in consultation with them; and in other parts of India where the Mussalmans are in a minority, adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards shall be specially provided in the constitution for them and other minorities for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights and interests in consultation with them.
(4) This Session further authorizes the Working Committee to frame a scheme of constitution in accordance with these basic principles, providing for the assumption finally by the respective regions of all powers such as defense, external affairs, communications, customs and such other matters as may be necessary."[15][16]
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There remains a debate on whether the resolution envisaged two sovereign states in the eastern and western parts of British India. Abdul Hashim of the Bengal Muslim League interpreted the text as a demand for two separate countries.[17] In 1946, Prime MinisterH. S. Suhrawardy of Bengal, a member of the All India Muslim League, mooted theUnited Bengal proposal with the support of Muslim and Hindu leaders, as well as the Governor of Bengal.
Although there were and continue to be disagreements on the interpretation of the resolution, it was widely accepted that it called for a separate Muslim state.[citation needed] Opposing opinions focus on the phrase "independent states" claiming this means Muslim majority provinces, i.e. Punjab, Sindh, etc. would be independent of each other. They ignore the phrase "geographically contiguous units." They also rely on the claims of certain Bengali nationalists who did not agree with one state. They accuse their opponents of diverting the "spirit" of the resolution.
The majority of the Muslim League leadership contended that it was intended for not only the separation of India but into only 2 states (Muslim majority and Hindu majority). Therefore, it is indeed a statement calling for independence and one Muslim state.[citation needed] Eventually, the name "Pakistan" was used for the envisioned state.
TheAll India Azad Muslim Conference gathered in Delhi in April 1940 to voice its support for anindependent and united India, in response to the Lahore Resolution.[18][19] Its members included several Islamic organisations in India, as well as 1400 nationalist Muslim delegates.[20][21][22] The pro-separatist All-India Muslim League worked to try to silence those nationalist Muslims who stood against the partition of India, often using "intimidation and coercion".[22][21] The murder of theChief Minister of Sind and All India Azad Muslim Conference leaderAllah Bakhsh Soomro also made it easier for the All-India Muslim League to demand the creation of a Pakistan.[22]
While Sir Sikander Hayat Khan had originally drafted the Lahore Resolution and had been an individual who passed it, he did not support the creation of Pakistan. He was committed to secularism and originally wrote the resolution to simply be a proposed federal system within a unified India in order to protect the rights of the provinces from the central government, particularly his own, Punjab.[23] Sikander had stated that: “We do not ask for freedom that there may be Muslim Raj here and Hindu Raj elsewhere. If that is what Pakistan means I will have nothing to do with it…if you want real freedom for the Punjab, that is to say a Punjab in which every community will have its due share in the economic and administrative fields as partners in a common concern, then that Punjab will not be in Pakistan, but just Punjab, land of five rivers; Punjab is Punjab and will always remain Punjab whatever anybody may say. This then, briefly, is the political future which I visualise for my province and for my country under any new constitution.”[24]
TheSindh assembly was the firstly British Indian legislature to pass the resolution in favour of Pakistan.G. M. Syed, an influential Sindhi activist, revolutionary andSufi and later one of the important leaders in the forefront of the Sindh independence movement,[25] joined the Muslim League in 1938 and presented the Pakistan resolution in the Sindh Assembly. A key motivating factor was the promise of "autonomy and sovereignty for constituent units".[26]
This text was buried under the Minar-e-Pakistan during its building in the Ayub regime.[citation needed]In this session the political situation was analysed in detail and Muslim demanded a separate homeland only to maintain their identification and to safeguard their rights. Pakistan resolution was the landmark in the history of Muslim of South-Asia. It determined for the Muslims a true goal and their homeland in north-east and north-west.
Jinnah's Lahore address lowered the final curtain on any prospects for a single united independent India ... once his mind was made up he never reverted to any earlier position ... The ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity had totally transformed himself into Pakistan's great leader. All that remained was for his party first, then his inchoate nation, and then his British allies to agree to the formula he had resolved upon.
the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority, as in the North-Western and Eastern zones of India, should be grouped to constitute independent States
In the open session, on 24 March, the resolution was moved ... by Fazlul Haq, and was seconded by Khaliquzzaman (UP), Zafar Ali Khan (Punjab), Aurangzeb (NWFP), and Haroon (Sindh).
Within five weeks of the passage of the Pak resolution, an assembly of nationalist Muslims under the name of the Azad Muslim Conference was convened in Delhi. The Conference met under the presidentship of Khan Bahadur Allah Bakhsh, the then Chief Minister of Sind.
This was also reflected in one of the resolutions of the Azad Muslim Conference, an organization which attempted to be representative of all the various nationalist Muslim parties and groups in India.
However, the book is a tribute to the role of one Muslim leader who steadfastly opposed the Partition of India: the Sindhi leader Allah Bakhsh Soomro. Allah Bakhsh belonged to a landed family. He founded the Sindh People's Party in 1934, which later came to be known as 'Ittehad' or 'Unity Party'. ... Allah Bakhsh was totally opposed to the Muslim League's demand for the creation of Pakistan through a division of India on a religious basis. Consequently, he established the Azad Muslim Conference. In its Delhi session held during April 27–30, 1940 some 1400 delegates took part. They belonged mainly to the lower castes and working class. The famous scholar of Indian Islam, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, feels that the delegates represented a 'majority of India's Muslims'. Among those who attended the conference were representatives of many Islamic theologians and women also took part in the deliberations ... Shamsul Islam argues that the All-India Muslim League at times used intimidation and coercion to silence any opposition among Muslims to its demand for Partition. He calls such tactics of the Muslim League as a 'Reign of Terror'. He gives examples from all over India including the NWFP where the Khudai Khidmatgars remain opposed to the Partition of India.
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