From: mece1e3@Jane.UH.EDU (Arindam Ghosh)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan
Subject: Re: Pakistan
Date: 2 Jan 1993 19:32:46 GMT
Organization: University of Houston
Reply-To: mece1e3@Jane.UH.EDU
NNTP-Posting-Host: jane.uh.edu

>There is no doubt that Iqbal, Jinnah and others in the Muslim League were
>striving for the creation of a muslim majority Islamic state of Pakistan.
>
>The foundation for this struggle was the belief that (correct me if I am wrong)
>it is impossible for muslims to stay as a minority and are hence ordained by
>Islam that Muslims must strive for the creation of seperate "political"
>Islamic states; even if this means that non-muslims and muslims may be forced to
>abandon their homelands to move to that Islamic state  and many innocent people
>may be killed in the process.
>
>See the distinction. 
>
>--Javed.
>
>
As far as I understand the history of the partition goes as follows:
Iqbal was interested in the upliftment of Muslim masses and he did not
believe that the solution can be achieved by the socialism as followed
by Nehru. He envisioned a solution based on the framework of Islam. But
he also knew that this solution cannot be based on the framework of a
secular India as the majority Hindu population will never accept a solution
based on Islam. However, Iqbal died long before the actual scenerio of Pakistan
became clear; so any amount of blame for the bloodshed should not rest on
him. I think he would have been the first person to protest and die a la Gandhi
if people were killed in the name of Hindustan/Pakistan.

Jinnah was not interested in Islam per se; but he found Iqbal's premise logical
and went on ahead with it. He envisioned an essentially secular state but where
Islamic solutions can be implemented. His personal ambition also played a big
role.

Muslim league local level leaders did not understand any of the grandidose
plans of either Iqbal or Jinnah but mounted a pure hate campaign which as
expected went out of hand. The similar situation can be seen in RJB issue
today. While the politicians like Advani may want to use the RJB as a political
lever or symbolic protest the ground level Vajrangdal will go on simple hate.

Jamat-i-islami leaders like Maududi did not have a political agenda. They were
interested in the spread of Islam and thus opposed partition. As by definition
it will prevent Islam from spreading into any of the remaining Hindu areas.

Nehru never understood how an educated person can dream of Islamic solutions
and never tried to understand the fine distinctions between a ground level
Muslim league approach and the Iqbal-Jinnah approach. Hence there was no
common ground and no hope of compromise between Nehru and Jinnah. As any one
can see Nehru and Jinnah represented the educated Hindu and Muslim sections
of that day. They never understood each other and thus made the partition a
fate-accompli.

Maulana Ajad believed that the solution even if based on Islam can benifit all
the Muslims only if fought within the framework of a secular state. As any
other solution will generate such hatred that will vitiate the whole atmosphere
and nobody will be able to develop; such seems to have been the case, indeed!

Gandhi of course presented an idealistic view which was too much for both the
practical secular Indian and Muslim pakistan proponents each with their own
personal ambitions.

The bottom line is that Islam nowhere dictated that Pakistan must be created
; but Pakistan was created because of Islam

Love
Arindam

Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan,soc.culture.bangladesh,soc.culture.indian