Role of muslim league in indian politics betwwen 1930-1947
Answers
The Muslim League story from 1937 onwards is quite hazy. All that is generally
held and documented is that stung by the Congress refusal to accommodate two
Leaguers in the UP ministry, Muslim League party launched a massive offensive against
the Congress government, successfully generated a fear psychosis among Muslims
about their fate in a 'Hindu' state and reaped a rich harvest by becoming a mass
organization by 1939. The partition, it is argued, was a logical consequence of this
phenomenon. 1 That the process of Muslim League becoming a mass organization could
not possibly have beert so smooth, without its own problems and complexities and
entirely determined by what happened in 1937, is proposed to be demonstrated in this
chapter.
Constructing the Muslim League story is no easy task. There do not exist many
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•• autobiographies ( Khaliquzzaman is one of the very few to have attempted one),
memoirs, private papers and recorded interviews of League leaders, at least not in India.
Presumably many ofthem would have migrated to Pakistan after 1947.2 There exist very
few authoritative works on Muslim League focusing on the organization, its
1 See Uma Kaura, Muslims and Indian Nationalism; Deepak Pandey, "Congress-Muslim
League Relations, 1937-39; The Parting ofthe Ways" in Modern Asian Studies, 12, 4, 1978, pp.
629-54; Z.H.Zaidi, "Aspects of the Development of Muslim League Politics, 1937-47'" in
Phillips and Wainwright (ed.), The Partition of India, pp. 245-75.
2 There does not appear to have been a tradition of recording memoirs among Muslim League
leaders. This is in sharp contrast to the Congress tradition where most of the top leaders wrote
extensively and left many written records. Gandhi (Autobiography), Nehru (Autobiography,
Discovery of India and other works), Azad ( India Wins Freedom), Subhash Bose (India's
Struggle), Rajendra Prasad (Autobiography and India Divided), Ram Manohar Lohia (Guilty
Men of India's Partition) are only some of them. composition, different strands within it, and its political ideological development. 3
Regional case studies are even more scarce. 4 The all India, homogenous character of
Muslim League, devoid of any regional variations, has been readily assumed, even
though not stated explicitly.
For a good account of the public activities of Muslim League, British government
records, League's official publications and newspapers provide useful data. But a more
comprehensive study of the organization must await the unearthing of more material.
Two other important sources of information on Muslim League are biographies of
Jinnah,5 and general works on communal politics.6 Given the Jinnah centred focus of the
studies on the League, he occupies as important a place in the works on Muslim League
as League does in his biographies. This is also indicative of the role that he played, or is
3 A notable exception would be Khalid Bin Sayeed, Pakistan: The Formative Phase. 1857-
~ (Oxford, 1968). For general works on the Muslim League, see Mohammad Noman,
Muslim India: Rise and Growth of the All India Muslim League. (Allahabad, 1942); La!
Bahadur, The Muslim League: Its Histozy. Activities and Achievement, (Agra, 1945); Deepak
Pandey, The Role of Muslim League in National Politics. 1935-47, (Delhi, 1991); and
A.B.Rajput, Muslim League: Yesterday and Today, (Lahore, 1948). For different perspectives
on the Muslim League, see Tufail Ahmad Manglori, Towards a Common Destiny: A
Nationalist Manifesto, pp. 224-32 (for 1937-39 see pp. 274-80); W.C.Smith, Modem Islam in
India: A Social Analysis (London, 1946), pp. 246-92 (for 1937-39 see 249-56); B.B.Misra, 1M
Indian Political Parties: An Historical Analysis ofPolitical Behaviour up to 1947, pp. 395-436
(for 1937-39 see pp. 420-34); and K.B.Sayeed, Pakistan: The Foonative Phase. 1857-1948, pp.
176-219. Whereas Manglori looks at Muslim League from the perspective of Indian
nationalism, Smith applies a Marxian analysis to Muslim League. Sayeed looks at Muslim
League as the leader of a national movement for Indian Muslims.
4 A notable exception is Ian Talbot, Provincial Politics and the Pakistan Movement: The
Growth of the Muslim Lea~e in North West and North East India. 1937-47, (Oxford, 1988).
Shila Sen offers glimpses of Muslim League activities in Bengal in her Muslim Politics in
Ben2al. 1937-47, (New Delhi, 1977).
5 Hector Bolitho, Jinnah: Creator of Pakistan: Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Sharif-ul
Mujahid, Quaid-i-Azam Jinuah: Studies in Interpretation; Stanley Wolpert, Jinnah of Pakistan,
among others.
6 Humayun Kabir, Muslim Politics; Bipan Chandra, Communalism in Modern India; Peter
Hardy, Muslims of British India; Ram Gopal, Indian Muslims; Anita Inder Singh, Ori2ins of
the Partition of India. 1936-47: Mushirul Hasan, Nationalism and Communal Politics in India,
1870-1930, among others.
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