Was going through my old hard drive and came across this paper I wrote over a decade ago, whose relevance has only increased, especially as the struggle between those Pakistanis who wish to see their country as an 'Islamic' state and those who argue that it was meant to be a secular polity is intensifying.
Theoretical Framework
Conclusion
A
Constructivist Rendering of Partition
Abstract
The
Lahore session of the All-India Muslim League (AIML) on March 23, 1940 marked
the formal beginning of the demand by the AIML for a separate homeland for the
Muslims of India. Seven years later on August 14, 1947, with the partition of
India and the creation of Pakistan, this demand, which until then was only an
idea, became a reality. This paper explores the role of Islam as the ideational
driving force behind the creation of Pakistan. It is an attempt to address the
lacuna in the existing literature that has tried to explain the creation of
Pakistan. Each of the existing theories offers varying accounts by focusing on
different determinants that led to the partition of India. However, they cannot
explain how Pakistan became a desirable norm, which was the prime motivation
for the Pakistan movement. A constructivist approach furnishes a better
explanation, for it is able to account for the relationships between a wide
variety of actors, i.e., individuals, groups, and states. The paper’s larger
implications for the study of the phenomenon of partition is that it may help
envisage the success or failure of the ongoing disputes involving partition
such as the ones in Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir, etc.
Introduction
More than half a century has elapsed since the
partition of India took place, as a consequence of which Pakistan came in to
existence. Pakistan’s creation characterizes the first time in history that a
modern state came into being with religion as its basis. What makes this event
even more significant is that it took place at a time when the rest of the
world had more or less become accustomed to secular polities. Moreover, it was
only two decades ago in the spring of 1924 that the newly formed legislature of
the then nascent Turkish republic had formally abolished the paramount Islamic
political institution of the khilafah
(caliphate). At the time, it appeared as if the era of religiously based
polities had finally ended. However, the emergence of the first ever “Islamic
republic” proved to be a rude awakening for those anticipating such a
development.
Islam as the driving force behind the demand for
partition proved to be a potent unifying factor, but in the post-partition era,
this very factor became a divisive element in the way of Pakistani national
unity[1].
In addition, to this day Pakistanis continue to debate amongst one another
regarding the ‘Islamic’ nature of their republic. This basic yet unsettled
question underscores Pakistan’s arrested political development. The political
history of Pakistan is a testimony to the struggle between the two sides to
this debate, i.e., Islamists and secularists. Both camps are by no means
monolithic, as they each have their respective factions divided across various
crosscutting social and ideological cleavages. Nevertheless, both wish to steer
Pakistan along the lines of their preferred ideology. Interestingly, both sides
seek the legitimacy of their position in the historic movement for Pakistan.
Simply stated, the debate orbits around the
question of whether the demand for Pakistan was a struggle for the creation of
a homeland for the Muslims of India where they would be able to live their
lives in accordance with their religio-ideological ideal, i.e., shari’ah (Islamic law). Alternatively,
was it an attempt by the founders to create a separate state for the Muslims
(elites and/or masses) of South Asia where their material interests would be
safeguarded from the perceived threats of the Hindu majority in a united India?
I claim that in the answer to this dialectical question lies the key to
descrambling the reasons for the creation of Pakistan. If indeed, there was a
vision of an Islamic state then that requires further elaboration and evidence.
However, if the state was to be secular then this seriously calls into question
the two-nation theory as well as the grounds for the mobilization of Muslims in
pre-partition India to express the demand for Pakistan. The answer to this
question, I contend, can also offer valuable insights into the subsequent
evolution of Pakistan as a relatively unstable polity.
The purpose of this paper is to understand the
antecedent reasons for the creation of Pakistan by examining the ideological
impetus behind it. This task of explaining the creation of the Pakistani
republic will entail an examination of the Islamic v. secular debate vis-à-vis
the rationale behind the creation of Pakistan. There exists a plethora of
literature inundated with competing explanations offering a host of sundry
arguments as to how the South Asian Muslim separatist movement successfully
realized its political objective of an independent state in the Indian sub-continent.
However, each of these contending accounts at best is a partial exposition of
the issue or at worst a highly reductionist narrative of history, each of which
arbitrarily privileges certain factors over others. While there is much
glorification of the Pakistan movement led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah and his AIML,
very few studies exist that dispassionately investigate and map out the
successful mobilization of masses by nationalist movements that eventually
conclude in the partition of a colonial possession into two separate sovereign
states. In fact, there is virtually very little research examining the role of
ideas vis-à-vis the issue of partition in general. The creation of Pakistan
inspite of opposition from both the main nationalist party (the Indian National
Congress), as well as from the British colonial government is an event that
merits serious enquiry into the complex relationships between the three sides.
It also calls into question the theories on partition that emphasize violence
between the two sides as a necessary antecedent to the actual partition of the
land in question.
This expose is an attempt at offering a
comprehensive understanding of how Pakistan came into being by examining the
issue as an ideational function. The mobilization of the Muslim masses in India
in the form of a movement demanding a separate state based on a religious
identity poses a profound challenge to those theories that suggest that the
masses were driven by the dominant element of fear. This paper is a rendition of
how the Muslim League’ was able to rally Indian Muslims by appealing to their
Islamic/Muslim identity, in an effort to seek a separate homeland in a
post-colonial arrangement. It does not however seek to evaluate the substance
or legitimacy of the AIML’s separatist call, or the group’s Islamicity; rather
it presents an attempt to examine specifically the role of the Muslim League in
creating, and developing Pakistan. In doing so, it puts forth two broad
findings.
First,
by examining the dialectical argument over the intended vision of Pakistan, it
divulges the crucial role that ideas played in initiating and sustaining the
demand for partition, which in turn altered the behavior of Congress, and the
British (and even the AIML itself[2]);
thereby facilitating the realization of Pakistan. While the creation of states
is not in any way an atypical phenomenon, however, this article illustrates how
ideas can be a forceful determinant in the process of nation building. This
treatise is a candid rejoinder to scholars with realist leanings, who would
argue that ethnic groups adopt separatism for reasons having to do with
material self-interest alone. The fact that the Muslim identity played a
pivotal role in the Pakistan movement raises doubts about the realist assertions.
Secondly, and more essentially from a theoretical
standpoint it demonstrates how a constructivist approach can provide greater
theoretical purchase in explicating the role of Islam vis-à-vis the creation of
Pakistan. The rationalist methodologies seeking to explain partition do not
privilege ideas as affecting the behavior of actors such as individuals and
groups in ethnic conflict. Instead, they consider groups as rational unitary
utility-maximizing actors, which is why their explanatory power is severely
marginalized. Furthermore, since these approaches view group behavior as
directed by tapered material self-interest, they tend to downgrade the role
that ideas and norms play in determining individual and group behavior. What is
even more noteworthy is that they would argue that identity and norms do not
affect the behavior of ethnic groups, particularly when it comes to issue of
survival of the community.
Theoretical Framework
Constructivism[3]
is a relatively new methodological approach, which was incorporated into the
theoretical body of political science (particularly its sub-discipline
international relations), from sociology. Some scholars see a similarity
between the institutionalist methodology of inquiry and constructivism.
Constructivism has for the most part been employed in the international
relations literature; however, there is nothing that confines its application
to that discipline. The very fact that scholars of international politics
borrowed this paradigm from sociology provides ample evidence for its
across-the-board applicability in the social sciences. In terms of the
sub-field of comparative politics, its utilization has been relatively limited[4].
Therefore, in a sense this paper represents a humble experiment and adventure
in a somewhat uncharted direction.
As opposed to taking an a priori view of actors and
interests, constructivism regards them as being the focus of investigation.
Constructivism views politics as a socially constructed phenomenon. It is based
on a criticism of the more traditional neo-realist and neo-liberal theories.[5]
Constructivists see both these rationalist theories as advancing a materialist
understanding of politics. On the other hand, constructivism offers a more
social and idea-based comprehension. Some have argued that constructivism
reverses the causal arrows placed by neo-realism and neo-liberalism.
Constructivism nevertheless, is a social and not a political theory, but it
remains useful in the sense that it provides a technique for investigating the
complex correlations between agentic and structural forces.[6]
Still other constructivist scholars take it
one-step further by claiming that constructivism is not even a theory, and thus
should not be compared to the rationalist theories of neo-realism and
neo-liberalism. In fact, the argument is made that constructivism is an
alternative ontology, which is able to explain why certain behavior is even
deemed neo-realist, neo-liberalist or even constructivist to begin with.[7]
Because both neo-realism and neo-liberalism assume the state as the preferred
actor, and do not consider the role of ideas and non-state actors, they are
unable to account for the role of ideas, individuals, and groups in the shaping
of ethnic conflict. Notwithstanding this deficiency, one has to acknowledge
that constructivism does not replace neo-realism and neo-liberalism, as it only
complements them in the sense that it explains those factors that are beyond
the scope of the rationalist theories.
Constructivism permits one to acknowledge the false
assumption that states and other actors actually know what they want. It
permits the researcher to entertain the thought that ideas can actually supply
individuals, groups, and states with a host of preferences. Therefore, in my
opinion it has much to offer in the way of understanding partition of
territories as a means to terminating ethnic conflicts. While this study deals
with a specific case of partition, it is obvious that issue is not limited to
one particular region of the world (let alone a single-country).
Hence, by incorporating the constructivist paradigm
in explaining ethnic disputes and territorial partitions, one can yield far
more explanatory power, which can facilitate the task of examining micro-level
activity that informs the evolution of a dispute and possible partition of a
single land that both parties to the dispute claim as their own. This, I
contend, is a more rigorous alternative than what is offered by neo-realism and
neo-liberalism, which simplify the process as one based on interest
calculations of the ethnic groups involved and/or pursue peace processes that
are incognizant of the realities on the ground.
The Significance of a Vanguard
Movement
It is highly unlikely that when the
poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal began corresponding with Mohammed Ali Jinnah in
the mid-1930s, they (or anyone else for that matter) envisioned the birth of an
independent and sovereign homeland for the Muslims of South Asia. The best
possible and practical objective was no more than greater political autonomy
for a Muslim entity within the confines of a future post-colonial Indian union.
Pakistan at the time was not more than a term coined by an Indian Muslim
student by the name of Choudhary Rahmat Ali and his comrades studying at
Cambridge in 1933. Given Rahmat Ali's pan-Islamist ideological leanings and the
abolition of the khilafah still fresh in memory, it can be argued that he and
his friends were thinking more along the lines of a supra-national state.
Pakistan at best was the dream of a handful of young enthusiastic Muslims who
had taken a quantum leap with the ideas of Muhammad Iqbal and at worst a
fanciful and wild idea.
However, when the British granted independence late
in the summer of 1947, they gave it to two mutually independent political
entities. Even Jinnah and his colleagues in the League could not have predicted
this outcome when they took up the mantle of the leadership of India's Muslims
roughly decade earlier. It is quite obvious that Pakistan quite rapidly moved
from the status of a mere idea to that of a norm when the Muslim League led by
Jinnah took up the cause after being converted to the ideology of Muslim
political autonomy (if not independence). Prior to the League's indulgence and
Jinnah's emergence as the exclusive leader of the Muslims of India, Iqbal was
considered as the principal ideologue and theoretician of Islam and the affairs
of Indian Muslims. Iqbal arguably was closer in approach to Sayyid Ahmad Khan
than to Jinnah. Like Khan, Iqbal too was very sensitive to the project of an
intellectual re-configuration of Islam in the modern age. He wrote and spoke
extensively on the idea of Muslim renaissance in the world in general but more
specifically in the context of India.
In what is seen as a pivotal moment in the history
of the making of Pakistan, Iqbal articulated the first ever vision of what was
later on to become Pakistan. At the annual session of the AIML in Allahabad in 1930,
he stated:
"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 consolidation of a North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me the
to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India."
Even
such a definitive statement made in the presidential address at the annual
convention of the Muslim League by the foremost ideologue of the Muslims was
not directly instrumental in mobilizing the masses towards achieving the task
that Iqbal laid out. This fact was laid bare in the humiliating performance of
the League seven years later in 1937.
Ideas without the agency of a vanguard group led by an astute political
leadership are just aspirations that never materialize. Paul Brass, who offers
a highly sophisticated explanation of how nations are formed, involving the
role of religion and language, argues that it is the leading elite group, which
appropriates the concepts, and values venerated by the masses and shapes the
identity of the group.[8]
More importantly, it furnishes its constituency with a set of preferences and
defines the community's interests. Lastly, the group mobilizes its supporters
to press for their demands as a route to achieving its objectives.
Its is this mitigating process engineered by the
leadership of the group and not the rote consciousness among a people regarding
their interests and the associated threats to these interests that transform an
idea into reality. Change in public opinion requires the awakening of the
masses around an idea. Here too, we can see that it was not until Jinnah had
moved away from the nationalist strand of politics and had been converted to
the separatist cause that the League was able to capture the imagination of a
bulk of Muslim masses. The latter requires the agency of a well-organized
party. Jinnah, an extremely shrewd politician, charismatic leader, and able
manager upon assuming the mantle of the League's leadership was able to
transform the League from 'a' defeated party with not much in the way of grass
roots support into 'the' exclusive voice of Indian Muslims. Nevertheless,
before he could do this he himself needed to under an ideological overhaul.
Jinnah who for the longest time had been the
champion of Hindu-Muslim unity eventually became greatly influenced by the
views of Iqbal. It is in the aftermath of the League's rout in the 1937
elections and the subsequent attitude of the Congress that we see a more
accelerated progression of the League towards the goal of Pakistan. What
further propelled Jinnah and the League on the Pakistan track was the manner in
which the Congress governments exercised power. The projection of Gandhi and
Congress as the exclusive leadership of Indians and the institution of several
small measures (such as the new educational curriculum, the singing of Bande
Matram in schools) was seen by Muslims as attempts to establish Hindu
domination over India. In an ironic way it was the attitude of the Congress and
other Hindu communalist groups that influenced and reinforced the identity (and
interests) of the Muslim community.
There is a plethora of scholarship that discusses
how nationalist movements define the objectives for the masses they are leading
and that even the forces they oppose influence the objectives of such movements.
What has yet to be demonstrated is how a secular group like the All India
Muslim League utilized a religious identity to rally public opinion away from
other competing groups from two concentric spheres of influence. The larger
sphere being that of mainstream secular Indian nationalism as well the smaller
intra-Muslim sphere where the faced challenges from rival Muslim groups (most
notably the traditional u'lema and Maududi's Jama'at-i-Islami). While much has
been written about nationalist struggles involving singular movements, but not
much has been said of situations where there were parallel nationalist
movements seeking to capture the loyalties of the same constituency in two
mutually incompatible directions. The remainder of this paper applies constructivism
in the search of answers to the questions that have been raised thus far.
A Constructivist Understanding of
the Creation of Pakistan
Sayyid
Ahmad Khan ---> Muhammad
Iqbal ---> Mohammed
Ali Jinnah[9]
Maturation of the Two-Nation
Theory
The core philosophical principle fueling Muslim
separatism in India was the Two-Nation theory. The protagonists of this theory
incessantly argued that India did not represent a single homogenous nation.
Instead, they maintained that Muslims and Hindus, on account of their acute
religious, cultural, and civilizational differences were two distinct nations,
which could not be accommodated in the body of a single Indian polity. The
maturation of the two-nation theory from its birth during the time of Sayyid
Ahmad Khan, to its reincarnation and further development by Muhammad Iqbal, and
finally its translation from theory to practice under the leadership of
Mohammed Ali Jinnah is directly correlated with the solidification of Muslim
separatist demands. Tracing the historical evolution of this theory can
facilitate a better appreciation of how Pakistan became a preference.
Sayyid Ahmad Khan was the first to draw the
attention of Indian Muslims about the altered state of politics and its greater
implications for them as a minority group in India. Khan was pointing to the
fact that the Muslims had never encountered the loss of sovereignty until the
advent of British colonialism.[10]
What Khan was alluding to was the pre-1857 political history of India during
which the Muslims though a minority community had been the rulers of India for
over seven centuries. Muslims first began arriving in India as early as 710 CE
with the expedition led by the well-known Arab military commander Muhammad bin
Qasim who in a matter of a few years brought the entire area of Sind and parts
of Punjab under Umayyad suzerainty. Muslim rule under Arab leadership was
highly regionalized in India, and it was not until the Muslim forces of Turkic
descent coming from the northwest that Muslim rule was firmly established on a
sub-continental basis. Muslim rule in India was institutionalized in the form
of the Delhi Sultanate (1192-1398) which was presided over by the Slave,
Tughlaq (1206-90), and Khilji (1290-1340) dynasties. The breakdown of the Delhi
Sultanate at the hands of the forces of Tamerlane ushered in an era of
competing Muslim kingdoms. However, relative stability was restored with the
rise of the Mughal Empire (1526-1857) before the Mughals themselves succumbed
to a combination of British colonialism and rival Muslim, Hindu and Sikh
forces.
Thus, quintessentially the Muslim presence in India
from their very first contact with the sub-continent in 711 up until 1857 had
always been in the capacity of a sovereign group (if not the sovereign group). However,
all that was to change forever with the coming of the British. With the
increasing trend towards representative governance and majoritarian politics,
initially under the British but more particularly in an anticipated
post-colonial political arrangement, Khan wanted his constituency to consider
their position as a religious minority. Numerically outnumbered, Khan argued
that the Muslims had much to loose from the then new wave of democratic
politics that was introduced by the British colonial administration. This line
of thinking marked the first stirrings of a religion-based nationalism as an
identity for Indian Muslims as separate and distinct from Indian nationalism.
The roots of Muslim separatism in the Indian sub-continent can
undoubtedly be traced to the single fact that Muslims prior to the coming of
the British were the rulers of India for roughly seven centuries. With the
consolidation of the British rule in 1857 following the failed War of
Independence in 1857, began an era unprecedented in the history of Indian
Muslims. For the longest time, despite being a minority community, they had the
privilege of living under Muslim/Islamic rule. Now having been removed from
power there was increasing consciousness of their status as a minority group. In
addition, no other Muslim was perhaps more sensitive to this new situation than
Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817-98), the leading Muslim intellectual and educator
of India during the 19th century.[11]
Hailing from an
aristocratic background during the days of the Mughal dominion, Khan did not
support the 1857 war and instead was employed in the British civil service.
Initially Khan devoted a considerable amount of attention to the educational
uplift of Indian Muslims whom he viewed as having declined to an all-time low.
He achieved this through the founding of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental (MAO)
College at Aligarh in 1877. Although he had at first advocated native participation
in the legislative council but with the rise of Congress, he made a volte-face
on this demand. He went so far as to condemn elections and representative
government as completely inappropriate for India. He displayed a similar
attitude for the notion of competitive exams as means to acquiring employment.
Khan saw the latter privileging those with better education and the latter as
benefiting the majority to the detriment of the minority. Initially he viewed
his constituency to be the Urdu- speaking Muslims and Hindus, which led to the
creation of the United Indian Patriotic Association, an umbrella organization
of anti-Congress Hindus and Muslims. However, the tensions over the issue of
the Nagari script and cow slaughter along with the Council reform of 1892 led
to the demise of the United Indian Patriotic Association.
In its place, the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental Defence Association of
Upper India was founded in the December of 1893. It had the same objectives as
it predecessor but this organization was an all-Muslim affair. It should be
noted that Khan’s loyalty to the British and his efforts to prevent Muslims
from agitating against the British rule both were instrumental in changing the
British attitude towards Muslims whom they otherwise viewed with suspicion.
This facilitated the advent of Muslims in terms of education, as the MAO
College later became a leading center of Muslim learning owing to the patronage
of the British, which Khan was able to secure due to his favorable position in
the eyes of the British. Khan’s efforts to bridge the gap between traditional
Islamic learning and the modern western curriculum bore fruit in the evolution
of the MAO University, which would later on groom the future leadership of
Indian Muslims, i.e., the All India Muslim League.
Another organization that Sayyid Ahmad Khan established was the
Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental Defence Association in 1893, which can be seen as a
predecessor to the All-India Muslim League, which was founded after Khan's
death in 1906. The first translation of Muslim separatist ideas into concrete
forms was the creation of the system of separate electorates for Muslims in
1909 in the shape of the Morley-Minto Reforms[12]. With
the death of Sayyid Ahmad Khan and the granting of separate electorate status
for the Muslims, the idea of Muslim separatism for the time being seemed to
have reached its zenith. It is actually rather ironic that while Khan
throughout his career tried to keep Muslims clear of any form of agitational
politics, he nevertheless laid the down the grounds for the principle upon
which the notion of Muslim separatism was later crystallized. The British rule
in India had just begun but Khan entertaining the hypothetical scenario of a
post-British India was fearful of what might happen to Muslims being governed
by a Hindu majority. This is perhaps why he was not interested in democratic
politics.[13]
The discourse of Muslims separatism gradually trekked along both the
political as well as the intellectual spaces after Sayyid Ahmad Khan. In the fall
of 1906, a group of leading Muslim under the leadership of Sir Aga Khan met
with the then Viceroy of India Lord Minto to put forth the demand of separate
electorates for Muslims. This was even before the birth of the All India Muslim
League, which was established two months later. Three years later in 1909 the League,
which had as a group taken up the demand of separate electorates, got the first
taste of victory in the form of the Morley-Minto reforms. Here we see the
British recognition of the idea of Muslim uniqueness even though many would
argue that it was the interest of the British to treat India as composed of two
major communal groups. Even if this is true, it still does not diminish the
fact that the British could not have and would not have instituted separate
electorates independent of the demand by the Muslims. By 1916, even the
Congress had accepted the principle of separate electorates. In a sense, a
national atmosphere had been generated that recognized Muslims as a distinct
community within the nationalist framework.
In the next two decades, the idea of Muslim separatism was largely
relegated to the intellectual plane. Surrounding the issue of the ill-fated
Istanbul based caliphate many Muslims and increasing dominance of Congress by
Hindu communalists brought back the fear among Muslims regarding their future
as a minority. The most prominent voice among them was Muhammad Iqbal who was
already dealing with the state of Islam and Muslims. As the thirties rolled on,
he became more and more concerned about Islam in the Indian context. Being well
aware of the divided loyalties of the Muslims, he contacted Jinnah in whom he
saw the perfect man for the post of the leadership of the Muslims. Jinnah at
this time had left Congress after years of trying to tread two parallel paths,
i.e., that of the League (which he had joined in 1913) and the Congress. Unable
to forge anything in the way of joint action and unity amongst the two groups
and at the same the increasing communalist character of the Congress laid the groundwork
for Jinnah's total conversion from nationalist to separatist politics.
Notwithstanding that in as late as 1946 Jinnah was still entertaining the idea
of a Pakistan within the constitutional framework of an Indian union, it should
be realized that he was no longer a nationalist in the Indian sense. His
willingness to accept the three-tiered political arrangement of the Cabinet
Mission was based on how it would benefit Muslims and protect their interests.
In deed, ideas had a profound impact on the ambassador of Hindu-Muslim
unity that his increasingly tilt towards religion as the basis of identity
betrayed his secular outlook. The answer to the question of whether Pakistan
was to be a secular state or an Islamic one requires a re-working of the
categories. To think in terms of the binary categories of secular and Islamic
(or Islamist) only serves to obscure the reality of the founders' intent
regarding the nature of Pakistan. A more useful way of looking at the variety
of interpretations of Islam is to try to situate them on a continuum. In this way,
one can make sense of how Islam figured in the discourse of Jinnah and the
League and can be contrasted with the understanding of Islam held by Sayyid
Maududi and his Jama'at-i-Islami understood it.
After the League’s miserable performance in the
1937 elections (that too under a system of separate electorates), no one could
have predicted that in the next ten years this same party would play the role
of the vanguard movement and successfully establish a separate state for the
Muslims of India. However, in the elections of 1946 the Muslim League proved
its ability to rally the Muslim masses around its idea of a separate homeland
of Pakistan. This is even more intriguing given the fact that the League, which
was a secular group, had aroused the religious sensibilities of the Muslims and
leveraged it into a demand on both the British government as well as Congress.
It is actually quite ironic that Jinnah who in his heyday as a rising nationalist
and Congressman had at the turn of the century opposed the idea of separate
electorates was thirty some odd years later on his way to becoming the founder
of a separate Muslim state.[14]
The only way to explain this transformation and reconcile the two polar
positions is through an appreciation of the process of Jinnah's ideological
shift.
Existing Explanations
The existing literature that addresses the
partition of India advances several different theories about why and how the
genesis of Pakistan took place. The most popular thesis blessed by officialdom
in Pakistan argues that Muslims since their advent in India in the 8th
century had constituted a distinct, unique, and separate community. Since they
never wholly integrated into the Indian milieu, the partition of India was a
natural expected outcome of the process of decolonization of India. Whereas in
India the popularly held view is one which blames British colonialism for its
policy of ‘divide and conquer’ that
eventually led to the permanent division of India along communal lines. Among
the more rigorous and scholarly analyses is the more recent thesis that the
demand for Pakistan was in fact a bargaining chip exploited by Jinnah to
extract the maximum concessions from both the British and Congress in a
post-independence political arrangement. In fact this theory goes on to claim
that in the end Jinnah actually fell victim to his own political maneuvering
when the momentum he had generated among the Muslims demanding Pakistan
prevented him from concluding a settlement within the confines of a greater
Indian union.[15]
More recently quite a few works have surfaced that apply the concepts in the
international relations literature, e.g., security dilemma[16],
commitment problem[17]
to understanding partition and ethnic conflict.
The fact that Muslims were able to co-exist in
India with other religious communities since the 8th century
contradicts the first theory. As for the divide & conquer argument,
historical evidence does not support it either. As for the ‘bargaining counter’
thesis, it may be able to explain the dynamics of the Pakistan movement at the
group and leadership levels. However, it is unable to account for the role of
the Muslim masses that rallied behind the separatist call of Pakistan and were
able to provide Jinnah and the AIML with the support and political leverage
that they needed to engage in the bargaining process. It privileges elites over
masses and thus simplifies the long drawn out process of partition. As far as
the explanations informed by the notions of security dilemma and commitment
problem are concerned, they are unable to capture the complex historical
dynamics that were involved in the partition of India. They tend to converge on
the political events during a very short period of history, i.e., just before
the actual event of partition. Whereas constructivism affords the luxury of a
holistic view of partition by taking into account the various dynamics over an
extended time-period. Partition itself is an ultimate byproduct of the historical
evolution of ideas and actors.
There is a decent
amount of literature that addresses the motivations of Mohammed Ali Jinnah and
the All-India Muslim League (AIML), a propos the demand for Pakistan. However,
it pays very little attention to the kind of state that Jinnah and the AIML
envisioned for Pakistan. Whatever little has been written on this issue is
polemical in nature as the respective conclusions are solely dependent upon the
ideological persuasion of the authors. For those who wish to see Pakistan as an
Islamic state will argue that Pakistan was created in the name of Islam and
will point to a select set of historical statements, documents, and events to
buttress their case. Similarly on the other hand are those who claim that
Jinnah did not have a theocratic state in mind, instead he wanted a secular
state that would safeguard the rights and interests of the Muslims of the
Indian sub-continent. They too will point to a select set of evidence in order
to support their claims. The fact that there exist contradictory statements
made by Jinnah himself on different occasions has further exacerbated the
confusion over the issue.
The problem with
the existing literature is the way in which the debate has been framed by the
two sides, i.e., Islamists and secularists. In order to understand the
intentions of the founders, one would need to move away from the mutual
exclusiveness of the secular v Islamic dichotomy, and re-frame it as two
competing interpretations of Islam. If there is a dichotomy, it is perhaps
about a modern v. traditional understanding of Islamic political thought. This
is the only way in which to reconcile the apparent contradictory evidences
posited by the two sides in the debate.
Conclusion
This paper seeks to contribute to the existing
literature on the issue of partition by offering an understanding of how ideas
by shaping the identity and preferences of actors. Such actors in turn are the
driving force that mobilizes the masses towards the goal of partitioning of
territories, as a possible avenue towards the resolution to seemingly
intractable ethnic conflict. The constructivist approach affords the researcher
the tools to investigate individuals and groups acting collectively as a singular
agent or a plurality of agents in the demand for partition. Critics may argue
that ideas after a while take a secondary role as an incentive for the actors
involved, and it is interests that ultimately influence the actors to continue
to move forward with their demands and hence effect political change. While
there may perhaps be some verity in this observation, it does not however
resolve the conundrum of what shapes the interests of the actors and how.
This paper argues that ideas indeed played a major role
in both initiating and developing the demand for the partition of India, which
in turn then lead to the changes in the behavior of other parties in this
conflict, Congress and the British government. Although the dominant approaches
addressing the issue of partition can explain aspects of the partition of India
and the subsequent creation of Pakistan, the constructivist approach provides a
better framework for explaining the behavior of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the Muslim
League, Congress, and the British government in the process that led up to
partition. This paper also furnishes a framework for analyzing the increasing
number of hyper-nationalist campaigns in other areas of the world, the Balkans,
the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Middle East, and South Asia. It may also
facilitate in gauging the success or failure of these movements to create new
states. The wider ramification is that, under certain conditions, ideas shape
the identity of ethnic actors, which in turn then effect changes in the
geo-political landscape of the areas under question.
One of the paper’s functional policy corollaries is
that it equips policy makers with the underlying dynamics that shape a
particular conflict, which can be extremely instructive in brokering agreements
that can bring seemingly intractable conflicts to a final settlement. As for
this particular case of partition, it is very relevant as it can possibly bring
to rest the half a century debate that has seemingly polarizing the Pakistani
society into two camps, Islamist and secularist. It is even more significant in
the light of the fact that there is an ongoing process of Islamic resurgence on
a global scale with Pakistan as one of the states, which is key staging ground
for Islamic political revival. Furthermore, this paper underscores the ongoing
evolution of Modern Islamic political thought characterized by the
intra-Islamist debate between the moderate and extremist forces sensitized
especially in the current post-9/11 global atmosphere.
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[2] It should be noted that it was not until the last
decade before partition that the AIML took up the cause of Pakistan and that
too in an ambivalent manner.
[3] As a term, constructivism was introduced in
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[4] Daniel M. Green .2002. Constructivism and Comparative Politics: International Relations in
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[9] Although this sequence represents the
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[11] For a detailed account of the early history and
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