Vol. 8 · pages 356–360

331 PAKISTAN : NATIONAL FRUSTRATION as his kith and kin. That is probably the reason why Maulana Mahomed Ali, a great Indian but a true Muslim, preferred to be buried in Jerusalem rather than in India. The real explanation of the ideological transformation of the Muslim leaders is not to be attributed to any dishonest drift in their opinion. It appears to be the dawn of a new vision pointing to a new destiny symbolized by a new name, Pakistan. The Muslims appear to have started a new worship of a new destiny for the first time. This is really not so. The worship is new because the sun of their new destiny which was so far hidden in the clouds has only now made its appearance in full glow. The magnetism of this new destiny cannot but draw the Muslims towards it. The pull is so great that even men like Mr. Jinnah have been violently shaken and have not been able to resist its force. This destiny spreads itself out in a concrete form over the map of India. No one, who just looks at the map, can miss it. It lies there as though it is deliberately planned by Providence as a separate National State for Muslims. Not only is this new destiny capable of being easily worked out and put in concrete shape but it is also catching because it opens up the possibilities of realizing the Muslim idea of linking up all the Muslim kindred in one Islamic State and thus avert the danger of Muslims in different countries adopting the nationality of the country to which they belong and thereby bring about the disintegration of the Islamic brotherhood.* With the separation of Pakistan from Hindustan, Iran, Iraq, Arabia, Turkey and Egypt are forming a federation of Muslim countries constituting one Islamic State extending from Constantinople down to Lahore. A Musalman must be really very stupid if he is not attracted by the glamour of this new destiny and completely transformed in his view of the place of Muslims in the Indian cosmos. So obvious is the destiny that it is somewhat surprising that the Muslims should have taken so long to own it up. There is evidence that some of them knew this to be the ultimate destiny of the Muslims as early as 1923. In support of this, reference may be made to the evidence of Khan Saheb Sardar M. Gul Khan who *Sir Muhammad Iqbal strongly condemned nationalism in Musalmans of any non-Muslim country including Indian Musalmans in the sense of an attachment to the mother country.

332 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES appeared as a witness before the North-West Frontier Committee appointed in that year by the Government of India under the chairmanship of Sir Dennis Bray, to report upon the administrative relationship between the Settled Districts of the N.-W.F. Province and the Tribal Area and upon the amalgamation of the Settled Districts with the Punjab. The importance of his evidence was not realized by any member of the Committee except Mr. N. M. Samarth who was the one member who drew pointed attention to it in his Minority Report. The following extracts from his report illuminate a dark corner in the history of the evolution of this new destiny.* Says Mr. Samarth :— “There was not before the Committee another witness who could claim to speak with the authority of personal knowledge and experience of not only the North-West Frontier Province and Independent Territory but Baluchistan, Persia and Afghanistan, which this witness could justly lay claim to. It is noteworthy that he appeared before the Committee as a witness in his capacity as ‘President, Islamic Anjuman, Dera Ismail Khan’. This witness (Khan Saheb Sardar Muhammad Gul Khan) was asked by me: ‘Now suppose the Civil Government of the Frontier Province is so modelled as to be on the same basis as in Sind, then this Province will be part and parcel of the Punjab as Sind is of the Bombay Presidency. What have you to say to it ?’ He gave me, in the course of his reply, the following straight answer: ‘As far as Islam is concerned and the Mahommedan idea of the League of Nations goes, I am against it’. On this answer, I asked him some further questions to which he gave me frank, outspoken replies without mincing matters. I extract the pertinent portions below:— ‘Q.—The idea at the back of your Anjuman is the Pan-Islamic idea which is that Islam is a League of Nations and as such amalgamating this Province with the Punjab will be detrimental, will be prejudicial, to that idea. That is the dominant idea at the back of those who think with you ? Is it so ? ‘A.—It is so, but I have to add something. Their idea is that the Hindu-Muslim unity will never become a fact, it will never become a fait accompli, and they think that this Province should remain separate and a link between Islam and Britannic Commonwealth. In fact, when I am asked what my opinion is—I, as a member of the Anjuman, am expressing this opinion—we would very much rather see the separation of the Hindus and Muhammadans, 23 crores of Hindus to the south and 8 crores of Muslims to the north. Give the whole portion from Raskumari† to Agra to Hindus and from Agra to Peshawar to Muhammadans, I mean *Report of the North-West Frontier Inquiry Committee, 1924, pp. 122-23. † This is as in the original. It is probably a misprint for Kanya Kumari.

333 PAKISTAN : NATIONAL FRUSTRATION transmigration from one place to the other. This is an idea of exchange. It is not an idea of annihilation. Bolshevism at present does away with the possession of private property. It nationalizes the whole thing and this is an idea which of course appertains to only exchange. This is of course impracticable. But if it were practicable, we would rather want this than the other. ‘Q.—That is the dominant idea which compels you not to have amalgamation with the Punjab ? ‘A.—Exactly. * * * * * ‘Q.—When you referred to the Islamic League of Nations, I believe you had the religious side of it more prominently in your mind than the political side ? ‘A.—Of course, political. Anjuman is a political thing. Initially of course, anything Muhammadan is religious, but of course Anjuman is a political association. ‘Q.—I am not referring to your Anjuman but I am referring to the Musalmans. I want to know what the Musalmans think of this Islamic League of Nations, what have they most prominently in mind, is it the religious side or the political side ? ‘A.—Islam, as you know, is both religious and political. ‘Q.—Therefore politics and religion are intermingled ? ‘A.—Yes, certainly’. * * * * * Mr. Samarth used this evidence for the limited purpose of showing that to perpetuate a separate Pathan Province by refusing to amalgamate the N.-W. F. P. with the Punjab was dangerous in view of the Pathan’s affiliations with Afghanistan and with other Muslim countries outside India. But this evidence also shows that the idea underlying the scheme of Pakistan had taken birth sometime before 1923. In 1924 Mr. Mahomed Ali speaking on the resolution on the extension of the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms to the N.-W. F. Province, which was moved in the session of the Muslim League held in Bombay in that year is said to have suggested* that the Mahomedans of the Frontier Province should have the right of selfdetermination to choose between an affiliation with India or with Kabul. He also quoted a certain Englishman who had said that if *For reference see Lala Lajpatrai’s Presidential address to the Hindu Maha Sabha session held at Calcutta on 11th April 1925 in the Indian Quarterly Register, 1925, Vol. I, p. 379.

334 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES a straight line be drawn from Constantinople to Delhi, it will disclose a Mahomedan corridor right up to Shaharanpur. It is possible that Mr. Mahomed Ali knew the whole scheme of Pakistan which came out in the evidence of the witness referred to by Mr. Samarth and in an unguarded moment gave out what the witness had failed to disclose, namely, the ultimate linking of Pakistan to Afghanistan. Nothing seems to have been said or done by the Muslims about this scheme between 1924 and 1930. The Muslims appear to have buried it and conducted negotiations with the Hindus for safeguards, as distinguished from partition, on the basis of the traditional one-nation theory. But in 1930 when the Round Table Conference was going on, certain Muslims had formed themselves into a committee with headquarters in London for the purpose of getting the R. T. C. to entertain the project of Pakistan. Leaflets and circulars were issued by the committee and sent round to members of the R. T. C. in support of Pakistan. Even then nobody took any interest in it, and the Muslim members of the R. T. C. did not countenance it in any way.* It is possible that the Muslims in the beginning, thought that this destiny was just a dream incapable of realization. It is possible that later on when they felt that it could be a reality they did not raise any issue about it because they were not sufficiently well organized to compel the British as well as the Hindus to agree to it. It is difficult to explain why the Muslims did not press for Pakistan at the R. T. C. Perhaps they knew that the sheme would offend† the British and as they had to depend upon the British for a decision on the 14 points of dispute between them and the Hindus, the Musalmans, perfect statesmen as they are and knowing full well that politics, as Bismarck said, was always the game of the possible, preferred to wait and not to show their teeth till they had got a decision from the British in their favour on the 14 points of dispute. * If opposition to one common central government be taken as a principal feature of the scheme of Pakistan, then the only member of the R. T. C. who may be said to have supported it without mentioning it by name was Sir Muhammad Iqbal who expressed the view at the third session of the R. T. C. that there should be no central government for India, that the provinces should be autonomous and independent dominions in direct relationship to the Secretary of State in London. † It is said that it was privately discussed with the British authorities who were not in favour of it. It is possible that the Muslims did not insist on it for fear of incurring their displeasure.

335 PAKISTAN : NATIONAL FRUSTRATION There is another explanation for this delay in putting forth the scheme of Pakistan. It is far more possible that the Muslim leaders did not until very recently know the philosophical justification for Pakistan. After all, Pakistan is no small move on the Indian political chess-board. It is the biggest move ever taken, for it involves the disruption of the state. Any Mahomedan, if he had ventured to come forward to advocate it, was sure to have been asked what moral and philosophical justification he had in support of so violent a project. The reason why they had not so far discovered what the philosophical justification for Pakistan is, equally understandable. The Muslim leaders were, therefore, speaking of the Musalmans of India as a community or a minority. They never spoke of the Muslims as a nation. The distinction between a community and a nation is rather thin, and even if it is otherwise, it is not so striking in all cases. Every state is more or less a composite state and there is, in most of them, a great diversity of populations, with varying languages, religious codes and social traditions, forming a congeries of loosely associated groups. No state is ever a single society, an inclusive and permeating body of thought and action. Such being the case, a group may mistakenly call itself a community even when it has in it the elements of being a nation. Secondly, as has been pointed out earlier, a people may not be possessed of a national consciousness although there may be present all the elements which go to make a nation. Again from the point of view of minority rights and safeguards this difference is unimportant. Whether the minority is a community or a nation, it is a minority and the safeguards for the protection of a minor nation cannot be very different from the safeguards necessary for the protection of a minor community. The protection asked for is against the tyranny of the majority, and once the possibility of such a tyranny of the majority over a minority is established, it matters very little whether the minority driven to ask for safeguards is a community or is a nation. Not that there is no distinction between a community and a nation. The difference indeed is very great, it may be summed up by saying that a community, however different from and however opposed to other communities, major or minor, is one with the rest in the