North-West Muslims will prove the best defenders of India

[ShahidT]

Said by Allama Iqbal in the Allahabad address. I shall quote the relevant and preceding paragraph below for context:

[[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.​

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

 

[SQ8]

There was a discussion undertaken on this elsewhere. Lost track of it due to other commitments.

 

[Contrarian]

Your thoughts and supporting statements of Iqbal and all were quite a revelation I must say.

There was a discussion undertaken on this elsewhere. Lost track of it due to other commitments.

 

[Sliver]

It is a bit confusing as to what was the original ask of the Muslim League. Autonomy? Independent Nation? The reports from those times surely post a conflicting picture although some amount of autonomy is agreed upon, the nature of "autonomy" is probably different between the moderate and the non-moderate sections of the Muslim Society.

It is probably like the extremist Hindu groups declaring India a "Hindu" country whilst the moderates never having an issue with India being secular. Only thing is the moderate Hindu groups have so far been successful in denying the extremist Hindu groups in getting their so called "Hindu" India. Pakistan, in my opinion, followed a different route and appeased these hardliners during crucial phases.

 

[Joe Shearer]

@pehgaam e mohabbat

There was a similar thread started by @Oscar not so long ago, within the last month, I think. You may find it interesting reading. I failed to contribute as I had hoped to as I got mired in day-to-day work, but got very, very interesting results from an exposition of his citation of the speech interspersed with his own insightful comments and very individual interpretations. The exposition was done to a very private mailing list which fortuitously, not by design, contains equal numbers of Pakistanis and Indians (none members of this forum, btw). None of the Pakistanis replied, on various grounds; even the most articulate and engaged ones claimed that they were studying the entire extract very hard, but never responded. Only one of the Indians, not I, replied. It was a bitter, biting reply, very dismissive of Iqbal, and of his views and philosophy, and quite cold to the emotive parts of the speech, while being bluntly doubtful of the way the whole thing hung together. This shadowed what might have been my views, but was not exactly the same.

The incident gave me insight into the respective views of Iqbal on either side of the Radcliffe line. The Indians remember Iqbal as the composer of the default national anthem, the one that should have been the second, the back-up, the demotic counterpart of "Jana Gana Mana". If the Congress had not been so strongly attached to the slogan of "Vande Mataram", the song in which the phrase occurred might never have been elevated, ironically to become the spoiling party's rallying cry in today's topsy-turvy world. The national anthem should by rights have been "Saare Jahaan se Achhaa", and Iqbal is remembered as the brilliant poet who composed it. Very few know about his second, Islamic composition on very much the same lines, creating very much the same doubts as his political views expressed in prose.

Pakistanis, in contrast, view him as a composite of poet and philosopher, something like, in Indian terms, as I say to understand the position, a mingling of Tagore, Naidu and Bharati with Radhakrishnan, but an intensely Hindu Radhakrishnan. There is nobody quite like him in Indian terms, as it happens; his role is played by a number of separate players, and nobody approximates the philosopher-politician. Remembering the mysticism which is core to his philosophical constructs, one is strongly reminded of J. Krishnamurthy.

Pakistanis are notably reverential towards him. Not his music, but his philosophy is the aspect of his personality that places him on a pedestal for most Pakistanis. This philosophy belongs to that difficult to understand branch of mysticism, and this difficulty in understanding perhaps contributes to the awe and reverence which surround him.

<more>

 

[Umair Nawaz]

This Allahbad Address was the first one where he game the idea of Pakistan in 1930 i think.

This remains as one of the most historically important sermon in the history.

 

[FaujHistorian]

It is a bit confusing as to what was the original ask of the Muslim League. Autonomy? Independent Nation? The reports from those times surely post a conflicting picture although some amount of autonomy is agreed upon, the nature of "autonomy" is probably different between the moderate and the non-moderate sections of the Muslim Society.

It is probably like the extremist Hindu groups declaring India a "Hindu" country whilst the moderates never having an issue with India being secular. Only thing is the moderate Hindu groups have so far been successful in denying the extremist Hindu groups in getting their so called "Hindu" India. Pakistan, in my opinion, followed a different route and appeased these hardliners during crucial phases.

It was never between "Hindu" and "Muslim" on the street.

In reality!

Indian Congress was not able to figure out how to accommodate HMP (Hindu Majority Provinces) combined with MMPs (Muslim Majority Province).

So they started a propaganda war to cut off and chop off MMPs. See the following thread.

Congressi Propaganda: Hindu Majority provinces and Muslim Majority provinces can't live together

 

[Chronos]

This Allahbad Address was the first one where he game the idea of Pakistan in 1930 i think.

This remains as one of the most historically important sermon in the history.

Jesus Christ's sermon on the mount still remains in the top spot.

If you believe in that sort of thing that is

It was never between "Hindu" and "Muslim" on the street.

In reality!

Indian Congress was not able to figure out how to accommodate HMP (Hindu Majority Provinces) combined with MMPs (Muslim Majority Province).

So they started a propaganda war to cut off and chop off MMPs. See the following thread.

Congressi Propaganda: Hindu Majority provinces and Muslim Majority provinces can't live together

And I am pretty sure that there was internal debate within the Muslim league as to what it iwhat it really wants.

Even in the Hindu majority provinces, subsequently the issue of linguistics, ethnicity and caste later arrived

 

[FaujHistorian]

This Allahbad Address was the first one where he game the idea of Pakistan in 1930 i think.

This remains as one of the most historically important sermon in the history.

Actually he did not.

And he expressly negated any kind of partition or Pakistan in his letters to his friends. I believe one letter went to his buddy Prof. Weiss that is in official records.


In fact Allahbad Khutba showed that Iqbal was rather naive about the real politics going on the subcontinent.

Not only in Allahbad,

Iqbal could not come up with anything concrete even during the three roundtable conferences of 1930s.

Then unfortunately he died soon after

So we'll never know what this so called mufakker-pakistan would have done when the challenging years of 1940s rolled around.


Please do not spread ignorance based on 5th grade government school history books.

Thank you

And I am pretty sure that there was internal debate within the Muslim league as to what it iwhat it really wants.

ML just wanted constitutional protection for MMPs within the framework of United India.

But Indian Congress was too dumb to follow a model similar to US Congress and US model of giving states exclusive rights.

Those idiots were too stuck with Indo-British model of parliament. Copy paste idiots dare I say.


peace

 

[Umair Nawaz]

Actually he did not.

He did.....Educate yrself with out a bias mind or keep yr views to yrself.

Jesus Christ's sermon on the mount still remains in the top spot.

There is nothing like this....His sermons hold no credibility and r outdated....... He along with many Prophets was send for a specific time and for specific nation.

Thats all.

 

[Pride]

I am from Allahabad so I have privilege for the topic . 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.

Little bit off topic but then Muslim league followers started abusing Akbar Allahabadi and said him as "drunk" and then he wrote famous ghazal "Hanagama hai Kyon Barpa thodi is jo pee li hai" though he never touched and drink.

Back on to the topic, Current ideology of Pakistan came around 1941-42 while till 1946 it was discussion going for Autonomous Muslim states.

 

[AUz]

Relevant part

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.

Very accurate and I also argued this on this forum many times. Good to see Iqbal's endorsement

There are 500 million+ Muslims in Indian subcontinent...

And Pakistan is the centralized territory, armed to teeth, and with nuclear capability protecting the remarkable cultural force of Islam in the region. If it wasn't for Pakistan, Islam would have been much, much weaker not only in India, but in Afghanistan, and entire Central Asia too.

 

[FaujHistorian]

He did.....Educate yrself with out a bias mind or keep yr views to yrself.

.

Show me one place where he talked about partitioning India and forming Pakistan.

Just one tiny place.

And yes please do not quote the 4th grade Mutala-e-Pakistan book. That is meant for kids and not grown ups.


Thank you

I am from Allahabad so I have privilege for the topic . The idea of not as Pakistan but as a muslim autonomous state/s. .

Please elaborate if you can.

Muslim states as part of India or partitioned?

Peace

 

[Truth Finder]

The Allahabad address(1930) by Iqbal was the beginning of a new chapter in Indian history.But, what he said was not what were being said about it in 1940s.

 

[surya kiran]

Relevant part

And Pakistan is the centralized territory, armed to teeth, and with nuclear capability protecting the remarkable cultural force of Islam in the region. If it wasn't for Pakistan, Islam would have been much, much weaker not only in India, but in Afghanistan, and entire Central Asia too.

seriously? The culture of Islam is what is in Pakistan? So Islam is strong in central and south asia because of Pakistan. There is no worse role model of an Islamic state as it exists in Pakistan.