page_title: History of Pakistan
section_title: Early period of Pakistan Movement
hierarchical_section_title: History of Pakistan / British Rule / Early period of Pakistan Movement
caption_attribution_description: Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 4th Earl of Minto (1845-1914)
context_page_description: The history of Pakistan encompasses the region of the Indus Valley, which spans the western expanse of the Indian subcontinent and the eastern Iranian plateau. The region served both as the fertile ground of a major civilisation and as the gateway of South Asia to Central Asia and the Near East.
  Situated on the first coastal migration route of Homo sapiens out of Africa, the region was inhabited early by modern humans. The 9,000-year history of village life in South Asia traces back to the Neolithic site of Mehrgarh in Pakistan, and the 5,000-year history of urban life in South Asia to the various sites of the Indus Valley Civilization, including Mohenjo Daro and Harappa.
  The ensuing millennia saw the region of present-day Pakistan absorb many influences—represented among others in the ancient Buddhist sites of Taxila, and Takht-i-Bahi, the 14th-century Islamic-Sindhi monuments of Thatta, and the 17th-century Mughal monuments of Lahore.
context_section_description: In 1877, Syed Ameer Ali had formed the Central National Muhammadan Association to work towards the political advancement of the Indian Muslims, who had suffered grievously in 1857, in the aftermath of the failed Sepoy Mutiny against the East India Company; the British were seen as foreign invaders. But the organization declined towards the end of the 19th century.
  In 1885, the Indian National Congress was founded as a forum, which later became a party, to promote a nationalist cause. Although the Congress attempted to include the Muslim community in the struggle for independence from the British rule – and some Muslims were very active in the Congress – the majority of Muslim leaders, including the influential Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, did not trust the party.
  A turning point came in 1900, when the British administration in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh acceded to Hindu demands and made Hindi, the version of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script, the official language. The proselytisation conducted in the region by the activists of a new Hindu reformist movement also stirred Muslim's concerns about their faith. Eventually, the Muslims feared that the Hindu majority would seek to suppress the rights of Muslims in the region following the departure of the British.
caption: Lord Minto met with the Muslim delegation in June 1906. The Minto-Morley Reforms of 1909 called for separate Muslim electorates.
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