ShahidT
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Said by Allama Iqbal in the Allahabad address. I shall quote the relevant and preceding paragraph below for context:
I recommend going through the whole address again if it's been a while, because at least it gives me a fresh perspective every time I do.
What interested me was that, despite the heated exchanges between Nehru & co. and the Muslim league at the time, Iqbal still saw it relevant to assert this idea (whether for reassurance or as an argumentative tool, we'll perhaps never know). But my feeling is he sincerely felt that way if you pay attention to the next paragraph's closing sentence:
Now let's forget that things took a turn for the worse over the following decade and we remained at each other's throats ever since. But for a moment I'd really like to delve deeper into that statement. What could he have meant deep down? What was the larger thinking behind these words? Or should it remain just an abstract thought destined to be confined to that specific historical/political context?
@Oscar @Joe Shearer @EjazR
[[3b]] Personally, I would go farther than the demands embodied in it. 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 Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India. The proposal was put forward before the Nehru Committee. They rejected it on the ground that, if carried into effect, it would give a very unwieldy State. This is true in so far as the area is concerned; in point of population, the State contemplated by the proposal would be much less than some of the present Indian provinces. The exclusion of Ambala Division, and perhaps of some districts where non-Muslims predominate, will make it less extensive and more Muslim in population – so that the exclusion suggested will enable this consolidated State to give a more effective protection to non-Muslim minorities within its area. The idea need not alarm the Hindus or the British. India is the greatest Muslim country in the world. The life of Islam as a cultural force in the country very largely depends on its centralisation in a specified territory. (emphasis added) This centralisation of the most living portion of the Muslims of India, whose military and police service has, notwithstanding unfair treatment from the British, made the British rule possible in this country, will eventually solve the problem of India as well as of Asia. It will intensify their sense of responsibility and deepen their patriotic feeling.
[[3c]] Thus, possessing full opportunity of development within the body politic of India, the North-West Indian Muslims will prove the best defenders of India against a foreign invasion, be that invasion one of ideas or of bayonets. (emphasis added) The Punjab with 56 percent Muslim population supplies 54 percent of the total combatant troops in the Indian Army, and if the 19,000 Gurkhas recruited from the independent State of Nepal are excluded, the Punjab contingent amounts to 62 percent of the whole Indian Army. This percentage does not take into account nearly 6,000 combatants supplied to the Indian Army by the North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan. From this you can easily calculate the possibilities of North-West Indian Muslims in regard to the defence of India against foreign aggression. The Right Hon'ble Mr. Srinivasa Sastri thinks that the Muslim demand for the creation of autonomous Muslim states along the north-west border is actuated by a desire "to acquire means of exerting pressure in emergencies on the Government of India." I may frankly tell him that the Muslim demand is not actuated by the kind of motive he imputes to us; it is actuated by a genuine desire for free development which is practically impossible under the type of unitary government contemplated by the nationalist Hindu politicians with a view to secure permanent communal dominance in the whole of India.
[[3c]] Thus, possessing full opportunity of development within the body politic of India, the North-West Indian Muslims will prove the best defenders of India against a foreign invasion, be that invasion one of ideas or of bayonets. (emphasis added) The Punjab with 56 percent Muslim population supplies 54 percent of the total combatant troops in the Indian Army, and if the 19,000 Gurkhas recruited from the independent State of Nepal are excluded, the Punjab contingent amounts to 62 percent of the whole Indian Army. This percentage does not take into account nearly 6,000 combatants supplied to the Indian Army by the North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan. From this you can easily calculate the possibilities of North-West Indian Muslims in regard to the defence of India against foreign aggression. The Right Hon'ble Mr. Srinivasa Sastri thinks that the Muslim demand for the creation of autonomous Muslim states along the north-west border is actuated by a desire "to acquire means of exerting pressure in emergencies on the Government of India." I may frankly tell him that the Muslim demand is not actuated by the kind of motive he imputes to us; it is actuated by a genuine desire for free development which is practically impossible under the type of unitary government contemplated by the nationalist Hindu politicians with a view to secure permanent communal dominance in the whole of India.
I recommend going through the whole address again if it's been a while, because at least it gives me a fresh perspective every time I do.
What interested me was that, despite the heated exchanges between Nehru & co. and the Muslim league at the time, Iqbal still saw it relevant to assert this idea (whether for reassurance or as an argumentative tool, we'll perhaps never know). But my feeling is he sincerely felt that way if you pay attention to the next paragraph's closing sentence:
For India, it means security and peace resulting from an internal balance of power; for Islam, an opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian Imperialism was forced to give it, to mobilise its law, its education, its culture, and to bring them into closer contact with its own original spirit and with the spirit of modern times.
Now let's forget that things took a turn for the worse over the following decade and we remained at each other's throats ever since. But for a moment I'd really like to delve deeper into that statement. What could he have meant deep down? What was the larger thinking behind these words? Or should it remain just an abstract thought destined to be confined to that specific historical/political context?
@Oscar @Joe Shearer @EjazR
. The idea of not as Pakistan but as a muslim autonomous state/s. There were lots of Muslims who opposed this thought not only in Allahabad but in whole British India. One of them was prominent poet "Akbar Allahabadi" who opposed thoughts of Allama along with Doeband and Barelvi Imams.
