Thanks, EjazR.
So if the Muslim League was there only to canvass Muslim votes then its demand for separate electorates was very 'decisive' from the beginning because a Muslim candidate from a Muslim majority constituency wouldn't care much about other groups such as the Hindus. It should have been the way where the votes gets the chance to vote for any candidate irrespective of what religion he/she belonged to. I don't know what this kind of system would be called? Do you know?
Assuming the Muslim League very rarely fielded a Hindu candidate against the Hindu Congress candidate, then the National Congress had only to struggle for Muslim votes because as far as I know there was no other major 'Hindu' party except the National Congress so the Hindu votes were already in its pocket.
I would like know your informed opinion on all that. Thanks.
Best wishes
Haroon
Again, please understand that until late 1930s, there was no catostrophic differences between Congress and Muslim Leauge that someone would have expected partition. There was no sepratism or Two Nation theory talk. People could be members of both ML and Congess and similarly for Hindu Mahasabha and Congress.
When the Nehru report came, only Muslim League leaders like Agha Khan and a few other elites were categorically opposed to it. One of the reasons could be because of the idea of land reforms in the NWFP and Balochistan and also the idea of universal franchise. That is all people in the provinces would have the power to vote. Until 1947 only a few people selected by the British based on land ownership e.t.c. and comprising maybe around 14-15% of the population had the power to vote.
Many other muslims (as opposed to Muslim League leaders) were in favor of Nehru report. Some had worked with Motilal Nehru on the report to resolve the communal question along with Sikh and SC representatives. Others like Jinnah had suggested some changes which were not that dramatically different (except for the 1/3 representation to continue demand ) and had not rejected it categorically. But because of this difference of opinion among Muslims, the Nehru report could not be formally adopted and was just kept under consideration. There was also extensive oppostition to it from the Hindu Mahasabha as well.
However, two things happened later. Jinnah who had long been associated with the Indian National Congress (longer than Gandhi or Jawaharlal Nehru as well) and the architect of the Luchnow pact of 1916 was increasingly sidelined as he was not able to sway the masses due to his lack of connection with the masses at that time. Later he left for the UK after his wife died and basically gave up on Indian politics till 1936. Secondly, in 1929, a session of the Congress passed a resolution basically rejecting the Nehru report. Most prominent leaders of the Congress like Gandhi and Azad were at that time in the UK attending the round table conference. This session was dominated by Hindu Mahasabha members and muslims in the Congress and outside felt betrayed or concerned at how even those points raised by the Congress itself (like reserved consituencies, seperation of Sindh and provinces of NWFP and Balochistan) was rejected by the Congress simply because Hindus had a majority in its working comittee based on a report that the Congress themselves had come out with.
It was in this backdrop that Iqbal also gave his 1930 Allahabad Presidential Address to Muslim League. He mentions about the importance of resolving the communal question satisfactorily to stregthen Indian unity and to embark on the path to progress and requests to not block efforts on legitimate minority demands on safeguards as Hindu Mahasabha members had done with the Nehru report.
By 1932, the British had come forward and made their decision with the Communal Award of 1932 that gave seperate electorates even though it was agreed by almost all knowledgable people including Jinnah that they were bad for politics. Seperate electorates were awarded to not just Muslims, but Sikhs, Anglo Indians, Christians and SCs as well. This is how the 1937 elections were conducted.
Again, there were many parties like for example the Unionist party in Punjab which consisted of Hindus Muslims and Sikhs and was the bigger than Congress. While in NWFP with 90% Muslims, Congress was the biggest party. In Bengal, the Proja party (peasant party) was the biggest and also consisted of Hindus and Muslim peasants. Then there was also a strong Communist party across the country as well.
So Congress although having the biggest mandate was not dominant all over India or even in all Hindu pockets. But it was able to co-opt most parties under its umbrella. Post 1937 elections, the Muslim Leauge also tried to work with Congress and it was accepted that two MLAs from Muslim League will be part of the UP cabinet for example. But because of the very poor showing of Muslim League in 1937, the Congress president of UP (who happened to be a muslim) just lured the Muslim Leauge party members to resign from Muslim Leauge and join Congress to get their ministerial berths. (Yes horse trading was happening then too).
There were also instances were for example, Chief Ministers of Bombay and Bihar had been decided to be a parsi and a muslim respectively but under enormous pressure from the Hindu Mahasabha wing of the Congress, they were changed to choose a caste Hindu in their place. This also created a bitter feeling among the Muslim League and the local Muslim Congress workers as well.
All of these issues were still quite resolvable IMO, but post 1937 and the increasingly communal and hostile attitude by both Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha led to bitterness and then major riots. By 1942 Wavell was already drawing up plans to partition India to secure British interests down to which district should go where with the British intelligence working as much as possible to support it. And we had that Wavell partition plan being followed almost to the letter in 1947.
Another good book to read is Narendra Singh Sarila's "The Shadow of the Great Game" where he has quoted extensively from British documents of that era.
