Sunday, November 17, 2002		Books

The Muslim League gamble that paid off
Kanwalpreet

Punjab Divided: Politics of the Muslim League & Partition, 1935-1947
by Amarjit Singh. Kanishka Publisher, New Delhi. Pages 235. Rs 495.

THE prelude to the Partition, the aftermath of which saw the eruption of the worst communal carnage the country ever faced, has been a constant source of interest for historians as well as novelists. Historians study the role of the Muslim League, especially in Punjab politics, as the partition affected this area as no other. Almost a million persons died and 10 million stumbled into this part of the sub-continent, fending for themselves.

Amarjit Singh endeavours to analyse the growth of the Muslim League and how with the help of Muslim students and religious symbols it managed to touch the remotest corners of rural Punjab and thus build up a frenzy for a land called "Pakistan." In the process, he wants to prove that the Muslim League not only used religion but also the caretakers of religion, the pirs and sajjada nashns, to help strengthen the demand for Pakistan.

The pirs, it was believed, inherited baraka (charisma) from their ancestors and people flocked to their dargah (shrine). People took an oath of allegiance to a particular pir and became his disciples (murid). The latter were supposed to be completely subservient to the pir. It was this that, the author subsequently proves, the Muslim League tapped to win support for its cause. This point is a refreshingly new angle in the study of Punjab politics and that of the Muslim League. The pirs, like other Muslims, supported the vague idea of Pakistan, each for his own vested interest. If the pirs did not want to be marginalized in their own areas, Muslim businessmen expected a new market free from Hindu competition and the officials and bureaucrats saw a shortcut to seniority.

While tracing the growth of the Muslim League, the author at times catches the helplessness of Jinnah, who advocated "the theory of hostages" whenever Muslims worried about their future in Punjab. In April 1936 when he was told "to keep his finger out of the Punjab pie" by Sir Fazl-i-Husain, it led Jinnah to say, " Fazli thinks he carries the Punjab in his pocket. I am going to smash Fazli."

Alexander and Juliette George say in their psychological treatise Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House that Jinnah, devoured by his own unfulfilled ambition, moved on determined to assert his leadership, irrespective of the price that his country or community might have to pay. These authors point to a "severe deprivation relatively late in life which leads an ambitious man to furious concentration of power." The author sets out to study the role of Jinnah and how he went about organising the Muslim League in Punjab, an area that had once spurned him. Unable to shed light on Jinnah the spokesman, the writer has managed to trace his activities.

The writer does not talk much about the British Raj and the much-talked about topic of the policy of "divide and rule." He confines himself to the Muslim League and the causes, which led to the rift between communities. Talk about the British government is always there, but in the background as the happenings cannot be understood without looking at the people at the helm of affairs who believed that "We have to take care that in picking up the Mussalman we don’t drop our Hindu parcels" (Lord Morley to Lord Minto).

What, however, is enlightening from the study is that there were leaders like Sir Fazl-i-Husain and Sir Sikander who did not entertain the idea of a communal party or that of a nation based on religion. The author rightly concludes that the Muslim League achieved a lot in an amazingly short period of time. The League used the communal card to the hilt and created a Frankenstein, which later could not be laid to rest. The book comes in the category of serious reading with its rich references and the year-by-year record. The book moves at a fast pace. While it is useful for those doing their research on Punjab, the Muslim League or the Partition, for the casual reader there is lighter stuff in the market.