CREATING A NEW MEDINA
State Power, Islam and the Quest for Pakistan in Late Colonial North India
Venkat Dhulipala
Cambridge University Press
530 pages; Rs 995
The story of the partition of India in 1947 and the creation of Pakistan continue to engage the attention of scholars because, first, the explanation for this surgical operation still baffles and divides, and, second, the narrative cannot ignore the great human tragedy that resulted from the mindless transfer of populations and powers to two governments.
That story is integral to the study of the events that led to the creation of the Islamic state of Pakistan, the New Medina for Muslims of the Indian sub-continent. Venkat Dhulipala explains that this title was chosen not only from the religious history of Islam from the days of Prophet Mohammad but also by voters of a separate Islamic state.
The title emphasises that it is not only the Muslim League or M A Jinnah or Liaquat Ali Khan or Jinnah's alter ego, the Raja of Mahmudabad, who deserve to be studied to understand the genesis of the movement for Pakistan. The Islamic ulemas (scholars) and the voters of Sharia also deserve attention because they were active in defining the idea of Pakistan.
As the author says, "My argument is that, the origins of the 'ideological' state in Pakistan lie not just in its post-independent insecurities, but at the very core of its nationalist ideology that developed in the run-up to 1947." He adds, "Studies of Pakistan that emphasize [sic] its insufficient imagination" overstate the case. "Partition was not insufficiently imagined, but plentifully and with ambition".
Among the myths Dr Dhulipala seeks to bury is that Jinnah's idea of Pakistan was based on the notion of a "secular democracy". The author unmasks Jinnah's so-called secular pretensions by pointing out that he and the ulemas were quite close to one another in their struggle for Pakistan. It is essential to highlight this fact because Jinnah's famous August 11, 1947, address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan clearly talked of an "Islamic Democracy".
This ambiguous phrase and the declaration made in February 1948 that Pakistan's constitution "…will be of [a] democratic type embodying the essential principles of Islam" are as applicable to life as they were 1,300 years ago. Prefixing "Islamic" or "Hindu" to the noun democracy is a contradiction in terms.
This study also highlights a flaw in Ayesha Jalal's historiography in suggesting that Jinnah, as the "sole spokesman", was only "bargaining" for special spaces for Muslims in undivided India and he was not an advocate of separate Pakistan. He quotes documents to show that Jinnah's ambition could not have been accommodated by the nationalist leadership of the Congress led by Gandhi. The Raja of Mahmudabad, anticipating other Muslim League leaders, observed that "Gandhian philosophy of narrow nationalism is based on Hindu Overlordism".
The author provides enough evidence to show that the League leaders, including Jinnah, dreamed of partition as a great Islamic nation and were intoxicated with the idea of pan-Islamism in which Pakistan would play a pivotal role. "Even before the Pakistan, Jinnah set the ball rolling by proposing a World Muslim Conference as a provisional step to bringing about the creation of an Islamic block involving Muslim countries of the Middle East and Far East," he writes.
Chapter 4, titled "Muslim League and the idea of Pakistan in the United Provinces", is a well-documented account on the role Muslim intellectuals, political leaders and the Muslim Leaguers of UP played in shaping the ideology of Pakistan, which would include the Muslim-majority provinces of Punjab, Sind and North West Frontier Province in north India and Bengal and Assam in east India. At the same time, Jinnah clarified that UP Muslims, though constituting 14 per cent of the United Province's population, could not be granted a separate state. Despite this, the Muslim population of the United Provinces enthusiastically supported the idea of Pakistan.
Dr Dhulipala's remarkable study lacks a chapter on the objectives of the British, who were neither innocent nor neutral when the struggle for independence, with or without partition, was being waged in India. He does, however, mention that the British "divide and rule" policy, which set the stage for Hindu-Muslim separatism, had its origins in the Partition of Bengal, which the Congress fought against and had annulled in 1911. Bengal's Muslim leadership did not take to the anti-Partition struggle kindly because it was interpreted to be against Muslims, who would have taken power for the first time in administering partitioned Bengal.
The journey of separatism had begun and the British showed their cards when the Cabinet Mission announced a "confederal" status by making a distinction between Muslim-majority provinces of the north and east and the Hindu majority provinces that would be joined in a loose kind of Central Government of India.
Dr Dhulipala's study is more than just one more addition to the on-going debate on the viability of multi-religious states and their capacity to balance the conflicting interests and claims of distinct religious communities. It plays a role in understanding Hindu majoritarianism or its variants. If practised in a multi-religious country it will give birth to mini civil wars as shown by India in the 20th century.
The reviewer is emeritus professor, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University
