Iqbal's letter to Daily Times London

[Meesna]

From our history;

Sir,— Writing in your issue of October 3 last, Dr. E. Thompson has torn the following passage from its context in my presidential address to the All-India Moslem League of last December, in order to serve as evidence of “Pan-Islamic plotting”:

I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind, and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Moslem State appears to me to be the final destiny of the *******, at least of North-West India.

May I tell Dr. Thompson that in this passage I do not put forward a “demand” for a Moslem state outside the British Empire, but only a guess at the possible outcome in the dim future of the mighty forces now shaping the destiny of the Indian sub-continent. No Indian Moslem with any pretence to sanity contemplates a Moslem state or series of States in North-West India outside the British commonwealth of Nations as a plan of practical politics..

Although I would oppose the creation of another cockpit of communal strife in the Central Punjab, as suggested by some enthusiasts, I am all for a redistribution of India into provinces with effective majorities of one community or another on lines advocated both by the Nehru and the Simon Reports. Indeed, my suggestion regarding Moslem provinces merely carries forward this idea. A series of contented and well-organized Moslem provinces on the North-West Frontier of India would be the bulwark of India and of the British Empire against the hungry generations of the Asiatic highlands.

Yours faithfully,
Muhammed Iqbal
St. James’s court, S.W.1, Oct. 10.

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[EjazR]

This letter is actually a set of nine letters from Iqbal to the Oxford University professor Edward Thomas.

They are part of the book and published in The Idea of Pakistan and Iqbal - A Disclaimer

Here is one of his other letters

Dr. Sir Mohd Iqbal, M.A., Ph.D. Barrister-at-Law

Lahore 4 March 1934

My Dear Mr. Thompson,

I have just received your review of my book. It is excellent and I am grateful to you for the very kind things you have said of me. But you have made one mistake which I hasten to point as I consider it rather serious. You call me a protagonist of the scheme called “Pakistan”. Now Pakistan is not my scheme. The one that I suggested in my address is the creation of a Muslim Province – i.e; a province having an overwhelming population of Muslims in the North-West of India. This new province will be, according to my scheme, a part of the proposed Indian Federation. Pakistan scheme proposes a separate federation of Muslim Provinces directly related to England as a separate dominion. This scheme originated in Cambridge. The authors of this scheme believe that we Muslim Round Tablers have sacrificed the Muslim nation on the altar of Hindu or the so called Indian Nationalism.

Yours Sincerely,

Mohammed Iqbal

 

[Halaku Khan]

^^^ Very interesting. Now Iqbal can be deleted from the list of ideologues of Pakistan.

Basically, Pakistan is a result of Jinnah's deliberate whipping up of fanaticism, under the guidance and encouragement of Churchill. There is a lot of information available on the clandestine contacts between Jinnah and Churchill.

Jinnah sold his soul for the sake of power. But before he died, he realized his mistake:

This newspaper of record which informs us on its masthead each day that it was founded by Mohammad Ali Jinnah, has allowed me to reiterate time and time again words spoken by that great man to his friend, my father Rustom Fakirjee Cowasjee, when one day he remarked, in dismal tone: ‘Mark my words, each successive government of Pakistan will be worse than its predecessor.’ And so it has been — such is our fate.

DAWN.COM | Columnists | Not the business of the state

Nobody is calling for Akhand Bharat or anything like that, but it is good to set the historical record straight.