Communalism in Nationalist Politics - Study Notes

Lesson summary

Before British rule many Muslims shared in power as sovereigns, landlords, generals and officials, and Persian was the official and court language. After the 1857 revolt was crushed they lost land, jobs and opportunities and withdrew into a shell. As Indian nationalism grew among educated upper-caste Hindus, the British used the Muslim middle class to keep the Congress in check. Three strands of nationalism competed: Indian, Hindu and Muslim.

6.1 Origin and growth of communalism

• Hindu revivalism: voiced in politics through the Arya Samaj (1875). Annie Besant called for the revival of ancient religions as the start of rebuilding the nation.
• Muslim consciousness: the Aligarh movement, backed by the British through the Aligarh college and Syed Ahmed Khan; the Wahabis sought to restore Islam's pristine purity. The Bengal government's order of the 1870s replaced Urdu with Hindi and the Perso-Arabic script with Nagri in courts and offices.
• Divide and Rule: Bombay Governor Elphinstone wrote that Divide et Impera should be the British motto.
• Moves of the Congress: at its third session the leadership refused a resolution making cow killing a penal offence, and resolved not to take up any resolution opposed by the delegates of the community it affected.
• Syed Ahmed Khan: first supported the Congress, then held that Muslims would be helpless under Hindu rule. Tyabji, Sayani, Nawab Syed Mohammed Bahadur and A. Rasul still backed the Congress. Syed Ameer Ali, first Indian in the London Privy Council, called the Congress a Hindu body; only 2 of 72 delegates at its first session were Muslims.
• Local bodies: in the 1880s municipal patronage communalised local politics; Lal Chand of the Punjab Hindu Sabha described councillors seated as Muslims versus Hindus.
• Weak-kneed Congress: Muslim Swadeshi supporters (1905-06) were called Congress touts. Tilak's Ganapati festival mixed religion with radical politics.

6.2 All India Muslim League

• 1 October 1906: a 35-member delegation under Aga Khan met Viceroy Lord Minto at Simla, seeking a fair share of jobs, judges and council seats.
• The All India Muslim League followed in 1907. It backed the partition of Bengal and demanded separate electorates.
• Objectives: loyalty to the British Government, protection of Muslim political rights, and preventing hostility towards other communities.
• Separate electorate: only Muslims voted for Muslim candidates. The Minto-Morley Reforms of 1909 gave Muslims 8 of 27 elected seats in the Imperial Legislative Council; provinces: Madras 4, Bombay 4, Bengal 5.
• The Lucknow Pact (1916) sealed a separate political identity for Muslims. A British officer wrote to Lady Minto that 62 million people had been pulled back from sedition.

6.3 All India Hindu Mahasabha

• After the Punjab Hindu conferences at Ambala and Ferozepur, the first all-India conference of Hindus met at Haridwar in 1915 and started the Mahasabha with headquarters at Dehra Dun.
• Strong in trading cities of north India: Allahabad, Kanpur, Benares, Lucknow and Lahore. It ceased to function between 1920 and 1922 during the Khilafat movement.
• The Suddhi movement gained new importance; in 1921 Swami Shradhananda used cow-protection propaganda to revive the Mahasabha.
• Malabar rebellion (1921): Muslim peasants against British rulers and Hindu landlords; basically agrarian, but Gandhi viewed it as a Hindu-Muslim conflict.
• Suspension of non-cooperation (1922) and abolition of the Caliphate (1924) frustrated Muslims; the Khilafat-Congress alliance crumbled.
• Sixth annual conference at Varanasi, August 1923: 968 delegates.
• Allahabad: Motilal Nehru against Madan Mohan Malaviya after the 1923 municipal elections.
• 1924: Lala Lajpat Rai advocated partition of the Punjab. The Mahasabha raised the slogan Akhand Hindustan.
• Delhi Conference of Muslims, 20 March 1927: would give up separate electorates for four proposals. Jinnah, called the ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity by Sarojini, was let down at the All Parties Convention in Calcutta in 1928.
• Communal Award: announced by Ramsay MacDonald after the Round Table Conferences.
• RSS (1925) grew to 1,00,000 volunteers; Hedgewar, Savarkar and Golwalkar spoke of a Hindu Rashtra. The Congress Working Committee made Mahasabha membership a disqualification in December 1938.

6.4 First Congress ministries

Gandhi rejected the narrow nationalism of the Arya Samaj and the Aligarh movement. In the 1937 elections the Congress won in 7 of 11 provinces and was the largest party in 3 others; the League won only 4.8 per cent of Muslim votes.

6.5 Day of Deliverance

• 1939: Linlithgow declared India at war without consulting the Congress; Congress ministries resigned.
• 22 December 1939: the League celebrated a Day of Deliverance.
• Iqbal (Allahabad, 1930) wished for a North-west Indian Muslim State; Rahmat Ali pressed the idea; Sir Wazir Hasan first gave the Two Nation Theory (Bombay, 1937).
• 1940: the Lahore resolution demanded independent states for Muslim-majority areas.

6.6 Direct Action Day

• The League boycotted Quit India (1942) and won all 30 Muslim seats in the Central Legislative Assembly in 1946.
• Cabinet Mission (1946) under Pethick-Lawrence, drafted mainly by Cripps: Group A Hindu-majority provinces, Group B Punjab, Sind, NWFP and Baluchistan, Group C Bengal and Assam.
• 29 July 1946: the League rejected the plan; 16 August 1946 Direct Action Day brought four days of rioting in Calcutta. Gandhi accepted Pakistan. Mountbatten succeeded Wavell to carry out partition.