Iqbal and Politics:
These thoughts crystallized
at Allahabad Session (December, 1930) of the All India Muslim League,
when Iqbal in the Presidential Address, forwarded the idea of a Muslim
State in India:
I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Provinces, Sind and
Baluchistan into a single State. Self-Government within the British
Empire or without the British Empire. The formation of the consolidated
North-West Indian Muslim State appears to be the final destiny of the
Muslims, at least of the North-West India.
The seed sown, the idea began to evolve and take root. It soon assumed
the shape of Muslim state or states in the western and eastern Muslim
majority zones as is obvious from the following lines of Iqbal's letter,
of June 21, 1937, to the Quaid-i Azam, only ten months before the
former's death:
A separate federation of Muslim Provinces, reformed on the lines I have
suggested above, is the only course by which we can secure a peaceful
India and save Muslims from the domination of Non-Muslims. Why should
not the Muslims of North-West India and Bengal be considered as nations
entitled to self-determination just as other nations in India and
outside India are.
There are some critics of Allama Iqbal who assume that after delivering
the Allahbad Address he had slept over the idea of a Muslim State.
Nothing is farther from the truth. The idea remained always alive in his
mind. It had naturally to mature and hence, had to take time. He was
sure that the Muslims of sub-continent were going to achieve an
independent homeland for themselves. On 21st March, 1932, Allama Iqbal
delivered the Presidential address at Lahore at the annual session of
the All-India Muslim Conference. In that address too he stressed his
view regarding nationalism in India and commented on the plight of the
Muslims under the circumstances prevailing in the sub-continent. Having
attended the Second Round Table Conference in September, 1931 in London,
he was keenly aware of the deep-seated Hindu and Sikh prejudice and
unaccommodating attitude. He had observed the mind of the British
Government. Hence he reiterated his apprehensions and suggested
safeguards in respect of the Indian Muslims:
In so far then as the fundamentals of our policy are concerned, I have
got nothing fresh to offer. Regarding these I have already expressed my
views in my address to the All India Muslim League. In the present
address I propose, among other things, to help you, in the first place,
in arriving at a correct view of the situation as it emerged from a
rather hesitating behavior of our delegation the final stages of the
Round-Table Conference. In the second place, I shall try, according to
my lights to show how far it is desirable to construct a fresh policy
now that the Premier's announcement at the last London Conference has
again necessitated a careful survey of the whole situation.
It must be kept in mind that since Maulana Muhammad Ali had died in Jan.
1931 and Quaid-i Azam had stayed behind in London, the responsibility of
providing a proper lead to the Indian Muslims had fallen on him alone.
He had to assume the role of a jealous guardian of his nation till
Quaid-i Azam returned to the sub-continent in 1935.
The League and the Muslim Conference had become the play-thing of petty
leaders, who would not resign office, even after a vote of
non-confidence! And, of course, they had no organization in the
provinces and no influence with the masses.
During the Third Round-Table Conference, Iqbal was invited by the London
National League where he addressed an audience which included among
others, foreign diplomats, members of the House of Commons, Members of
the House of Lords and Muslim members of the R.T.C. delegation. In that
gathering he dilated upon the situation of the Indian Muslims. He
explained why he wanted the communal settlement first and then the
constitutional reforms. He stressed the need for provincial autonomy
because autonomy gave the Muslim majority provinces some power to
safeguard their rights, cultural traditions and religion. Under the
central Government the Muslims were bound to lose their cultural and
religious entity at the hands of the overwhelming Hindu majority. He
referred to what he had said at Allahabad in 1930 and reiterated his
belief that before long people were bound to come round to his viewpoint
based on cogent reason.
In his dialogue with Dr. Ambedkar Allama Iqbal expressed his desire to
see Indian provinces as autonomous units under the direct control of the
British Government and with no central Indian Government. He envisaged
autonomous Muslim Provinces in India. Under one Indian union he feared
for Muslims, who would suffer in many respects especially with regard to
their existentially separate entity as Muslims.
Allama Iqbal's statement explaining the attitude of Muslim delegates to
the Round-Table Conference issued in December, 1933 was a rejoinder to
Jawahar Lal Nehru's statement. Nehru had said that the attitude of the
Muslim delegation was based on "reactionarism." Iqbal
concluded his rejoinder with:
In conclusion I must put a straight question to punadi Jawhar Lal, how
is India's problem to be solved if the majority community will neither
concede the minimum safeguards necessary for the protection of a
minority of 80 million people, nor accept the award of a third party;
but continue to talk of a kind of nationalism which works out only to
its own benefit? This position can admit of only two alternatives.
Either the Indian majority community will have to accept for itself the
permanent position of an agent of British imperialism in the East, or
the country will have to be redistributed on a basis of religious,
historical and cultural affinities so as to do away with the question of
electorates and the communal problem in its present form.
Allama Iqbal's apprehensions were borne out by the Hindu Congress
ministries established in Hindu majority province under the Act of 1935.
Muslims in those provinces were given dastardly treatment. This
deplorable phenomenon added to Allama Iqbal's misgivings regarding the
future of Indian Muslims in case India remained united. In his letters
to the Quaid-i Azam written in 1936 and in 1937 he referred to an
independent Muslim State comprising North-Western and Eastern Muslim
majority zones. Now it was not only the North-Western zones alluded to
in the Allahabad Address.
There are some within Pakistan and without, who insist that Allama Iqbal
never meant a sovereign Muslim country outside India. Rather he desired
a Muslim State within the Indian Union. A State within a State. This is
absolutely wrong. What he meant was understood very vividly by his
Muslim compatriots as well as the non-Muslims. Why Nehru and others had
then tried to show that the idea of Muslim nationalism had no basis at
all. Nehru stated:
This idea of a Muslim nation is the figment of a few imaginations only,
and, but for the publicity given to it by the Press few people would
have heard of it. And even if many people believed in it, it would still
vanish at the touch of reality.
BIOGRAPHY - IQBAL WORKS - IQBAL'S ENGLISH WORKS - IQBAL LETTERS -
IQBAL THE VISIONARY - IQBAL AND POLITICS - IQBAL AND THE QUAID i AZAM
IQBAL IN YEARS - IJTIHAD AND ISLAMIC MOVEMENT BY IQBAL
ETHNIC, RACIAL ISLAMIC REVOLUTION