The
elections in Britain in July 1945 brought the Labour
party into power. Congress circles expected quick action from the new
government, but the Labour's desire to settle the Indian problem did not
necessarily mean that they were in any hurry to end the empire. It did,
however, accept the recommendation of a Governor's Conference held in Delhi on
1-2 August that elections to the provincial and central legislatures should be
held in the coming winter: the Governors agreed unanimously that an official
government could not solve post-war problems.
On 21
August Wavell announced that the elections would take place. What gave the
elections immense significance was Attlee's statement in Parliament on 11
September; that the 'broad definition of British policy contained in the
Declaration of 1942. . . stands in all its fullness and purpose'. Wavell would
undertake discussions with new representatives in the provincial legislatures
to ascertain whether it was acceptable or whether some alternative or modified
scheme would be preferable. Their election would be followed by positive steps
to set up a constituent assembly which would frame a new constitution.
Obviously, the imminence of the British departure was clear to all parties and
sections of public opinion, though the British government had not fixed a date
for it, or even declared it to be an immediate aim of policy.
If the
Cripps offer stood as the basis of British policy, it meant that the right of
provinces to opt out of an Indian Union stood with it. For Jinnah, it was
necessary, if he had any hope of achieving a sovereign Pakistan, to get a majority in the
legislatures in the Muslim majority provinces. Wavell knew that Jinnah attached
'more importance to the number of seats the League can win both in the Central
Assembly and in the Provincial Assemblies than to the ability of the League to
form Ministries in the Muslim majority provinces.' The League must also win the
support of the Muslim masses, especially in the Punjab and Bengal, where a plebiscite might
eventually be necessary to decide the case for Pakistan. Thus, the 'immediate and
paramount issues' before Jinnah were Pakistan and to make good the League's
claim to represent the Muslims of India.
Jinnah's
task was not easy. The League organization in most places was poor; the leaders
were mostly men of some social standing and did not bother themselves with mass
contacts and local committees. Mamdot, for example, had not allowed mass
contact committees on his estate. In the NWFP, the League was divided and
lacked funds. Aurangzeb stood discredited because of the corrupt methods he had
used to retain himself in power. In Sind, the provincial League was riven
by factions. In Bengal, the tussle between Nazimuddin and Suhrawardy
culminated in the former not being given the League ticket for the elections.
Nevertheless,
Jinnah appears to have been able to assert his authority over the provincial
Leagues. The Central Parliamentary Board of the League had the final say in the
selection of candidates for the provincial and central legislatures. In Sind, G.M. Syed's group were not given
any tickets, which stirred them to put up their own candidates against Jinnah's
in every constituency. [Statesman 3, 5 and 9 January 1946 and 1 February 1946. That the majority of Syed's candidates were defeated was
a personal triumph for Jinnah.] Jinnah got his way in Punjab as well. The provincial League
was divided; and most provincial Leaguers did not want Firoz Khan Noon, who had
resigned from the Viceroy's executive in October to contest the elections in
the Punjab, to stand as the League's
candidate for Rawalpindi. They regarded him as an outsider
and were afraid that he would take the credit for the League's success in the Punjab. That he was nevertheless allowed
to contest from Rawalpindi at Jinnah's bidding points to the increasing
authority Jinnah had come to exercise over the provincial League since the
break with Khizar Hayat in June 1944.
That
the AIML was able for the first time to have the final say in the selection of
candidates suggests that it was expanding its own organization instead of
relying entirely on provincial Muslim Leagues or parties; and that it also had
its own provincial machinery. In the Punjab, for example, the League's
Committee of Action had started propaganda to popularize the party even before
Khizar's expulsion from it. Permanent paid workers were employed to carry out
propaganda in the rural area, and a center was set up in Lahore to train volunteers and to employ
members of the Punjab Muslim Students Federation during their vacations.
The Committee of Action moved its office to Lahore in May 1944 and Liaqat Ali Khan,
then General Secretary of the League, supervised the organization of
propaganda, which included preaching in mosques. The stake the AIML had in the
province is illustrated by the fact that it donated half the money for the
party's activities in the Punjab; the rest was raised by the provincial League. It
was when Jinnah had his own machinery in the provinces, that "Pakistan" was popularized. It could
be used to brand provincial Muslim politicians who were lukewarm or opposed to
it as traitors to Islam, and it could suggest that the League was the only
party offering a guarantee of political security and opportunity at the
all-India level; where decisions on the political future of India would be taken.
In the
Punjab, the brunt of the League's attack
was directed against the Unionists. The party had ruled the province since
1920, and had successfully countered the influence of both the Congress and the
Muslim League. It was not easy for the League to fight through the maze of
power and influence that the Unionists had built up over the last twenty odd
years. Writing in Dawn on 2 September, a League sympathizer observed that
Panchayat officers in most cases were nominees or relatives of Unionist MLAs.
The Unionists represented the jagirdars, honorary magistrates and government
grantees. Therefore, the bureaucracy and aristocracy were dependent on each
other, and their influence over the peasants had been demonstrated in the
elections of 1937. The success of the League would not come from
working in the top strata of the Punjab Muslims alone. The League
should work from the bottom upwards. The villager must be contracted(sic) by
mass propaganda. The Congress was successful in the U.P. Not because it won
over the landlords but, because it made the peasantry class conscious.'
It was
in this tactic that the cry of Pakistan could be made most effective. The
Punjab League's election manifesto was believed to have been drawn up by G.
Adhikari, a Communist leader, and touched up by Jinnah. [FR for Punjab for
the second half of November 1944, HP file no. 18/11/44 and Civil and Military
Gazette, 8 November 1944].
In December 1944, Muslim Leaguers in the province
were being told to associate with Communists to draw on their supporters. [FR
for Punjab for first half of December 1944,
HP file no. 18/12/44].
Since 1944, the Communists themselves had decided to
infiltrate the Congress, the League and the Akalis and were working among the
Muslim masses with "Pakistan" as their slogan, which may
be taken as an indication of its popular appeal.
The Communist contribution to
the League's victory in the elections cannot yet be ascertained from the
material available. Not that their part in drawing up the League's manifesto
implies any significant Communist or radical influence within the League.
Landlords were the largest single group within the province and all India Leagues, though a struggle
between them and more radical elements may have been taking place in the party.
But if the manifesto was drawn up by them with Jinnah's knowledge, it shows the
lengths to which he was prepared to go to win the majority of Muslim votes in
the Punjab and to out the Unionists.
The
Unionists-and their British supporters-were attacked on any pretext which
presented itself. The Unionist decision not to contest any seat for the Central
Assembly gave rise to the League's argument that if the central elections were
beyond their scope of work, their demand for a seat in the Viceroy's executive
was also not within their sphere of action. Dawn editorialized about the
disreputable caucus known as the Unionist Ministry of the Punjab. That reactionary junta who has
long fattened on the ignorance of the Punjab masses and traded on the latter's
dread of the bureaucracy. Most shamefully servile of all Indian Ministries,
the Khizar Hayat Cabinet had learned to depend upon the support of permanent
officials through whom it bestowed patronage for its own nefarious political
and personal ends.
Wavell's
favorable reference to the Unionists even induced Jinnah to proclaim: 'When
we fight for Pakistan we are fighting against the
British and not against the Hindus.' Muslim League alleged official
interference in favour of the Unionists and the provincial League passed a
resolution demanding the dismissal of the ministry and the 'liquidation' of
bureaucratic machinery. Glancy declined a demand by the provincial League to
issue a communiqué assuring voters that the provincial election would be
entirely free from official interference. This only intensified attacks on the
Unionists and the British by the Muslim League.
Evidence
of official interference and pressure comes from both League and British
sources. Campaigning in Mamdot's constituency, a League worker asked Jinnah for
one lakh rupees from the League's central fund as official pressure was 'too
much'. The British Deputy Commissioner in Attock wrote to his parents that
Khizar Hayat was sympathetic to his application for leave.
'Actually,
certain interested parties-which I think includes the premier-want me to get
out of Attock as I am not prepared to swing the Elections for the Unionist
Party (which is the party in power).'
Again,
the Deputy Commissioner of Lyallpur reported that 'nearly 80 per cent' of the
subordinate Muslim staff, both revenue and District Board had active League
sympathies and a large number of them had been used as instruments by the
League for submitting false and forged applications of Muslim League voters.
Official interference inspite of Government instructions regarding neutrality
in the matter 'is largely on the side of the League rather than the Unionist
Party.' As it turned out, the League achieved its greatest victories in
constituencies where it had made the strongest allegations of official
interference. Earlier, Glancy expressed the view that the Unionists suffered
'at least as much' as any other party from the activities of officials who were
not impartial.
The
defection of 30 Muslim Unionists to the League since 1944 made the League's
task easier, but it did not imply a walkover for the League in the provincial
elections. The ex-Unionists included Daultana, Mamdot, and Ghazanfar Ali, all
big landlords. At the beginning of October 1945, Major Mumtaz Tiwana, the
biggest Tiwana landowner and one of the pillars of the Tiwana tribe, joined the
League. He was followed by Firoz Khan Noon, who resigned from the Viceroy's
Council to work for the League and to counter the influence of Khizar, who was
his cousin. Families were divided-would Muslims vote for Khizar or Mumtaz? And
who would win when two candidates of great social and religious influence were
pitted against each other-for example, Mustafa Shah Jilani and his Unionist
opponent, Makhdum Murid Husain Qureshi? The Qureshis claimed descent from the
Muslim saint Bahauddin, the hereditary guardian of the shrines of Bahauddin,
who was said to have descended lineally from Hasham, the grandfather of the
Prophet. One of his brothers was a Sajjad[Sajjda] Nashin; Murid Husain himself
was President of the Zamindara League. The Jilanis came from Jilan in Persia, had enjoyed a grant of Rs.
12,5000 from the Mughals, and were regarded as one of the most influential
families in Multan. Mamdot was opposed by Mohammed
Ghulam Sarwar, who belonged to an important landowning family of Ferozepur
district, and was also a pir. The influence of Daultana in Multan was offset by Major Ashiq Husain,
regarded by his followers as a hereditary saint.
With
many men of influence pitted as candidates against each other, social influence
could not have been the decisive factor in the League's win in the Punjab in 1946. It may have counted
where a candidate of influence was set up against one with less influence or a
political unknown. But it must also be remembered that the Punjab was not a province of many big
landlords-most of the landed classes in the province comprised of small peasant
proprietors. It was to them the League had addressed its appeal since November
1944. But it was not before November 1945 that the provincial League set up branches
in tehsils. The League's entry into the villages, then, occurred at a very late
stage; only three months before the polling for the provincial elections took
place in the Punjab.
Even
so, the organization of the League was very much better than that of the
Unionists. The calm in the Unionist headquarters in Lahore was explained by the secretary of
the Unionist Party thus:
'We
are a rural party. . . . We do not believe in public meetings. . . . Our men go
to villages and talk to local notables who wield influence over voters. They
explain to them the work we have done and the benefits our legislation has
conferred on peasants. Villagers, we know, will follow them.'
His
remarks accounted for the difference in the propaganda technique of the two parties.
The League held forty to fifty meetings a day all over the province. The
Unionist Party's average was 'not even one a day'. Almost a statement a day was
issued from the League office in Lahore, criticizing the government or
explaining their stand on one thing to another. Ghazanfar Ali used to preside
over a daily round table conference with a European cartoonist and a number of
journalists working for the League.
It was
in the countryside that the issue was to be decided, for only 12 of the 85 Muslim
seats were allotted to the urban areas. The game was tough; at the beginning of
February 1946, the League and the Unionists were reportedly running neck and
neck in the villages. In some constituencies a voter was alleged to be richer
by almost half a year's income if he pledged his vote. It was estimated that
over 15 crores had changed hands during the elections, which were certainly not
a poor man's show. In some constituencies they cost 7 to 10 lakhs of rupees.
There was cases of whole villages pledging themselves to the highest
bidder.[Civil and Military Gazette, 8 February 1946]. Paper, petrol and transport
played an exceptionally important part in the Punjab elections, and prices of buses
soared. Most of the 100 trucks ordered by the League in December 1945 were used
in the Punjab to cart their potential voters
from distant villages to polling booths. The Statesman commented that the
success or failure of a candidate could depend on the ability to provide
transport. 'This is particularly true of rural areas where promise of a joyride
is all the price one need pay for a voter.'
Students,
politicians, and ulema carried out religious propaganda for the League.
Politicians would often preach in mosques after the Friday prayers. Students
had earlier campaigned against Unionists who had cooperated with the National
Defence Council in 1941. Aligarh Muslim University started a special election
training camp for students in August 1945, and more than one thousand students
worked for the League in the Punjab and Sind alone. Student leaders were in
constant touch with Jinnah. Their youthful idealism may have made them more
reliable than some party politicians as propagandists for the League. Ali Ahmad
Faziel, a League worker writing in Dawn, was especially keen that college
students be trained as party workers in different areas. The League would
provide at least one trained worker for every 1000 voters; therefore at least
800 chief workers would have to be trained, and every constituency was to have
'at least' 12 such workers. A minimum of six of these workers should belong to
the constituency in which they would campaign for the League, and in addition
an equal number of outside workers. The headquarters of the constituency would
act as the link between the provincial committees and individual field workers.
They would be assisted in everyday affairs by the League's National Guard.
Muslim League newspapers put students in the 'vanguard' of the League's
election campaign in the Punjab. Daultana declared that in many districts in
Multan division, student workers had been able to turn the tide in favour of
the League.
Now
that the League was expanding its organization into the countryside, it was
able to exploit the religious appeal of Pakistan effectively, and its
propaganda was based on the identification of Pakistan with Islam. For example,
Firoz Khan Noon openly preached that a vote cast for the League was a vote in
favour of the Prophet.[Glancy to Wavell, 27 December 1945, L/P&J/5/248].
Omar Ali Siddiqi, leader of the Aligarh Election Delegation to the Punjab
declared that 'the battle of the Karbala is going to be fought again in this
land of the five rivers.' A poster issued in Urdu over the signature of Raja
Khair Mehdi Khan, the League candidate in Jhelum district, asked Muslims to
choose between 'Din' and 'Dunya'; in the 'battle of righteousness and
falsehood.'
Din
Dunya
On one
side is your belief in On the other side you are
the
Almighty and your con- offered squares and jagirs
science
Righteousness
and faithful- The other side has to offer
nes
are on one side Lambardaris and Zaildaris
One
side is the rightful On the other side is Sufedposhi
cause
One
side has Pakistan for The other has Kufristan
you
(reign of infidels)
On the
one side is the prob- As opposed to this there is
lem of
saving Muslims from only consideration of per-
slavery
of Hindus sonal prestige of one man
On one
side you have to On the other is Baldev
bring
together all those who Singh and Khizar Hyat
recide
the Kalima(the basis
of
Islam)
On the
one side is the con- On the other side is the
sideration
of the unity and Danda(big stick) of
brotherhood
of all Muslims bureaucracy and terror of
officialdom
One
the one side are the lov- On the other are the admir-
ers of
Muslim League and ers of Congress and Union-
Pakistan
ists
On the
one side is the hon- On the other is the Gover-
our of
the Green Banner ment of Khizar Ministry
For
the sake of your religion, you have now to decide in the light of your strength
of faith, to vote for ..'[Translation enclosed in Glancy to Wavell, 28 February
1946, L/P&J/5/249, italics of non-English words by author]
Ulema
from UP, Punjab, Bengal and Sind and local pirs threatened Muslims with
excommunication which included a refusal to allow their dead to be buried in
Muslim graveyards and a threat to debar them from joining in mass Muslim
prayers, if they did not vote for the League. Those who opposed the League were
denounced as infidels, and copies of the Holy Quran were carried around 'as an
emblem peculiar to the Muslim league.'
The
religious appeal of Pakistan was admitted by Khizar Hayat when he declared that the
Unionists were for Pakistan; that Muslims would be voting for Pakistan whether
they voted for a Muslim League candidate or a Muslim Unionist. The banner flown
on the election camps of the Unionists and League were an identical green,
bearing the Muslim legend of the Crescent. Khizar Hayat was on the defensive and
lacked conviction in adding that intercommunal cooperation was necessary in
Punjab. The Unionists argued that the crucial electoral issue for voters was
not Pakistan, to which the Unionists were already committed; the choice was between
chaos, disorder and communal bitterness on the one side, which is the only
prospect held out by the Muslim League group, and a stable and efficient
administration offered by the Unionists in the interests of the masses to which
the majority of the Muslims of the province belong.'
The
election manifesto of the Unionist Party stressed the economic achievements of
the ministry, including the reduction of the agriculturist debt by two crores of
rupees. Provincial autonomy, complete independence, free and compulsory primary
education for the poor, a reduction in military expenditure were the party's
aims. But the economic achievements of the Unionists seem to have had little
influence on the Punjabi Muslim voter in 1946.
That
Khizar's Pakistan, implying intercommunal cooperation, was rejected so
decisively by the Muslim voter points to the success of the communal propaganda
of the League and to the appeal of a communal Pakistan for Muslims. But though
the cry for Pakistan had now become the most successful means of politicizing
the Muslim masses, it is by no means clear what they understood by it.
Statements by the Punjab Leaguers based precisely on Jinnah's definition of
Pakistan as a sovereign state[See, for example, Jinnah's reply to Patel in
Statesman, 19 November 1945] are hard to find, as are statements opposed to it
or even a discussion on Pakistan as a part of a federation. To most Leaguers in
1945-6, Pakistan appears to have stood for some sort of general salvation from
Hindu domination and symbolized and[sic] Islamic revival in India.
What
counted most in the League's victory in the Punjab in 1945-6? The great effort
it made; the fact that for the first time the League's organization had reached
down to contact the Muslim voter, partly accounted for its win. The appeal was
essentially religious and attempted to convince Muslims of the benefits of
Pakistan. Propagandists were directed when they visited a village to: 'Find out
its social problems and difficulties to tell them [the villagers] that the main
cause of their problems was the Unionists[and] give them the
solution-Pakistan'. Soldiers were told that the Unionists had not done anything
for them after the war.
For the students who campaigned for the League,
Pakistan held out the promise of the resurgence of Islam-'our aim is
essentially to reorient Islam in the modern world, purge our ranks of the
reactionary Muslim Church and to free ourselves from economic and political
bondage'.[Translation of pamphlet issued by the election board of the Punjab
Muslim Students Federation, quoted by Talbot, 'The 1946 Punjab Elections'.
Modern Asian Studies, 14,1, 1980, p. 75].
These seemed a far cry from the assurance
given by Jinnah to the Pir of Manki Sharif in November 1945 that Pakistan would
be based on the laws of the Quran in which shariat would be
established,[Sayeed, Pakistan:The formative Phase, p. 208] but it showed that
Pakistan could mean, as it was intended to mean, all things to all men.
S.E.Abbott, then Secretary to Khizar, attributed the League's victory to the
Muslim belief in the inevitability of Pakistan.
The League had presented the
elections as a plebiscite for Pakistan. The claim had not been contradicted by
the British, who would actually transfer or confer power. To that extent, their
silence on the subject also contributed to the League's victory.
In
Bengal, the League's influence in urban areas had been rising since its
coalition with Huq in 1937. After provincial Leaguers fell out with Huq in
1941, they had organized demonstrations against him in several towns of the
province. The popularity of the League in urban Bengal was evident by 1944,
when Huq's Muslim candidates lost every seat in the elections to the Calcutta
Corporation to the League. Radical Leaguers like Suhrawardy built up a base
among Muslim labour during the League's tenure in power from 1943-5. Involved
in ministerial politicking, Huq had gradually lost the rural base which had
swept him into power in 1937. In 1946, Bengal League candidates were personally
selected by Suhrawardy and approved of by Jinnah. "Pakistan" as
Bengal Leaguers presented it to their voters lead to prosperity for backward
Muslims. At a Bengal League conference, Liaqat Ali Khan promised the abolition
of zamindari without compensation-a promise which could have only won the
League support of the poor Muslim peasantry of Bengal. But were Bengal
Leaguers, thinking of the sovereign Pakistan of Jinnah's conception? It seems
unlikely. Ispahani, one of Jinnah's most loyal lieutenants in Bengal, told the
Governor in January 1946 that Muslims needed opportunities for
self-advancement, administratively and otherwise, and Casey's 'definite
impression' was that adequate safeguards would be acceptable to the Muslims.
Ispahani said he realized very well that the day of small states was past, and
that if the British imposed an interim government of India, which had adequate
safeguards for the Muslims, it would be accepted.
The
League's success in Bengal and Sind can be partly accounted for by the fact
that it did not face any serious, organized opposition in these provinces.
Huq's party was in disarray; in Sind, no Muslim stood on the Congress ticket as
this would have been fatal for any chances of victory. The Congress lacked the
money and organization required to contest Muslim seats in every province. The
release of Congress prisoners less than three months before the elections added
to their difficulties and large amounts of money were needed in the Muslim
majority provinces, especially in the Punjab and Bengal, which, for the
Congress, 'held the key position' in the election. But it was in these two
provinces that the provincial Congress groups were riven by factions, and
organizational work never really got under way. [Azad to Patel, 21 October 1945,
Patel to Prafulla Ghosh, 26 October 1945.]
Congress
strategy in Muslim constituencies sometimes confounded its own supporters. For
example, in Sind the Congress negotiated with the League for a coalition, even
as it was fighting the League in other provinces. Azad's offer to the League of
a coalition in Sind 'came as a great surprise' to Congressmen in Punjab.
Anti-League Muslims 'cannot understand these things, nor can the rest of
us'.[B.S.Gilani to Patel, 10 February 1946] The Congress allied with
Nationalist Muslims, Ahrars, Momins-indeed with any anti-League Muslim party.
It carried out propaganda for Nationalist Muslims, and the League and the
Congress vied with each other in the virulence of their appeals to religious
loyalty. The Congress used Muslim divines in the UP and Bengal. League
ministries during the war were condemned as the stronghold of the British. In
Bengal, Nationalist Muslims alleged that one of the 'wonders' of the League
ministry during the war was the 'man-made famine' of 1943. To this the League
reported that Hindus, who were in a majority in the Viceroy's executive
council, had refused to send food to Bengal and were therefore responsible for
the famine. League newspapers published reports of Hindu volunteers donning
Turkish caps while campaigning for Nationalist Muslims.
The
League, however, had the whip-hand in Muslim religious propaganda against the
Congress. The Morning News in Calcutta claimed that the Jamiat-ul-ulema-i-Hind,
which campaigned for the Congress was working for Hindiat, while the
Jammat-i-Islami, which supported the League, stood for Islamiat.[Morning News,
25 October 1945]. The Jammat-i-Islami accused the Jamiat-ul-ulema-i-Hind of
making a distinction between religious and secular matters.
'They
remembered the prayer, but they forgot the chain of armour donned by the
Prophet Muhammed when he went forth to fight the unequal battle with the
infidels... They misled the Muslims to the unworthy tenets of ahimsa.'
Its
attempts to outdo the League in religious propaganda, without having a
widespread popular base among Muslims, profited Congress little, and only
contributed to the atmosphere of communal bitterness.
Only
in the NWFP was the Congress successful in both Hindu and Muslim
constituencies. Here, in spite of defection from the Congress to the League
before the elections, the Congress was the better organized party. Aurangzeb
stood discredited because of the undignified method he had used to remain in
power and was not even given a League ticket. Although the Congress and their
Red Shirt allies used the religious appeal(the tri-colour was marked with the
Kalima), it was not this alone that won the election for the Congress. The
Congress was successful in representing the League as a catspaw of the British.
It appealed to the less well-to-do, over whom the Khans were losing their hold.
Moreover, the provincial League was disorganized, and it was only on 10 December
that a Committee of Action was set up. The fact that Mamdot was appointed as
its convener suggest that the League found it difficult to get a reliable man
from the province to head the committee.
All
candidates in the NWFP attached importance to personal contacts with voters and
visited individual houses or mohallas. Election officials reported a growing
sense of political discipline in canvassing, addressing and organizing mass
meetings. Appeals to tribal and sectional loyalties were made, but they may not
have made much difference in a province where a Khan only had to declare his
loyalty to the League, and his relatives would support the Congress. They would
also give their tenants a free running, and it was 'a tenantry which had been
primed that they would be allowed to take over the Land belonging to the Khan
if the Congress came to power'. The election saw a fight more on ideological
than on personal grounds. The League's charge that the Congress was using
office to win votes was balanced by the fact that most Muslim officials had
League sympathies, and even some British officers and their wives campaigned
for the League. Pakistan did not have much appeal for the Pathans, because,
according to Cunningham, they did not think they would be dominated by the
Hindus or anyone else!
Nevertheless,
the League did not fare so badly in the province, contesting all 33 Muslim
seats and winning 15. It also won the special seats reserved for landholders,
none of which was contested by the Congress. The Congress won 19 Muslim seats
and lost 8. Anti-League parties secured 58.75 per cent of the total Muslim
vote. The extent of the League's success in Muslim constituencies in 1945-6 can
be gauged from the fact that it won 76 per cent of the total Muslim vote in India-
a very far cry indeed from the 4.8 per cent it had obtained in 1937! Its
achievements in the Punjab were remarkable; it defeated, and unseated, 57
Unionists in Muhammedan rural constituencies; the Congress in 9 rural
constituencies and swept the Ahrars from 5 urban seats. The Unionists defeated
the League in only 11 rural constituencies. With a total of 62 wins in rural
areas, all 9 urban seats and both the women's seats, the League chalked up 73
seats in the Punjab legislature, and polled 65.10 per cent of the votes polled
in Muslim constituencies.
In
Bengal, it did even better, obtaining 83.6 per cent of the Muslim votes polled.
The Krishak Praja party secured only 5.3 per cent, and the Jamiat-ul-ulema and
Nationalist Muslims, both supported by the Congress, won 1.2 and 0.2 per cent
of the Muslim votes polled.
The
NWFP was the only province where the League failed to secure a majority of
Muslim votes: anti-League parties obtained more than 58 per cent of the votes
polled. Nevertheless, of the extent of the League's victory, and its appeal to
Muslims, there was no doubt. The gains of the League clearly represented a
turning of many Muslims from the essentially provincial concerns to rally
behind the only Muslim party which would take care of their interests at the
all-India level, in the bargaining for the spoils of the transfer of power. The
League's success also represented a solidification and politicization of the
Muslim religious community, a rallying to "Pakistan", but whether
that meant the victory of Jinnah's conception of a sovereign state can perhaps
be questioned.
With
the election results out, there arose the question of the formation of
governments in the provinces. In Bengal and Sind, the League had enough seats
to form ministries, but in the Punjab it needed the support of 10 more members
to obtain a majority in the legislature. Here the League offered 3 portfolios
to the Sikhs if they would enter a Muslim League coalition.[Statesman, 26
February 1946] But Pakistan was the stumbling-block. The Sikhs objected to the
League's insistence on Pakistan, to which the Muslim League leaders replies
that the ministry came under the Act of 1935 and that all India issues did not
come into question. The Sikhs retorted that there was no all India issue for
them.[Civil and Military Gazette, 28 February 1946]. Negotiations between the
League and the Congress failed because the League refused to enter into a
coalition with any non-League Muslim groups.[Statesman, 6 and 9 March 1946].
This was in contrast to the years before 1945, when the AIML had not always
been able to prevent provincial Leagues from coalescing with non-League Muslim
parties. Jinnah's authority was now apparently sufficient to prevent such
coalitions. Every candidate for the elections had been selected with his
approval; their victory was therefore a personal triumph for him.
On 7
March, the Congress, Akalis, and the Unionists formed the Punjab Coalition
Party, under the leadership of Khizar. The strength of the Coalition worked out
to at least 10 more than that of the League. Glancy accordingly called on
Khizar as leader of the coalition to form a ministry, despite the contention of
Muslim League leaders that they represented the largest individual party.
Deprived
of constitutional power, the League organized demonstrations against the
Ministry. Muslim students were directed by provincial League leaders to
demonstrate before Khizar's residence in Lahore. Communal feeling had been
strengthened by an election fought on the slogan of Pakistan; and the Congress
leaders advised Hindu students not to start counter-demonstrations; while the
League demanded Glancy's dismissal. Local Muslim Leaguers were directed 'to
organize the Muslim masses to prepare them for the determined will of the Mussalmans
and a blot on the fair name of this Province'. The Congress was condemned for
joining the coalition whom it had formerly derided as reactionaries. A
coalition which included so small a percentage of Muslims was a strange anomaly
in the Province, especially when the party which commanded a majority of the
Muslim votes found no place in the government. It did not augur well for the
future.
