Number of words: 375 The League’s propaganda, on the other hand, routinely underscored the negative. It refused to define the nature of Pakistan that was to be, and also never attempted to place the full picture of Pakistan either before the Muslims or those who were to concede it; it refused to define what Pakistan … Read more

Number of words: 826 After the 1937 elections, where it had contested very few Muslim seats and had been routed even in these, the Congress still continued to see itself as a national party because it now switched emphasis on to its assumed ‘secularism’, this then became a substitute for Muslim support. This was really … Read more

Number of words: 448 In the elections that followed the cultivating tenants of United Provinces, for the first time, decided to record a protest against prevailing conditions. In all the earlier elections (before 1937) they had consistently voted for their zamindar’s candidates, but on this occasion they refused to be so influenced. The zamindars remained … Read more

Number of words: 393 ‘The first public clash between Gandhi and his political heir-to-be, Jawaharlal Nehru, occurred in December 1927, at the Congress’ annual session in Madras. The issue that divided them was whether the Indian National Congress should keep dominion status as its political goal or abandon it and adopt a new goal, “complete … Read more

Number of words: 701 In the 1920s Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi had been back in India for just about five years, Jinnah, on the other hand, had been politically active for fifteen. Gandhi having worked actively in South Africa for twentyone years, upon return to India, very soon gained political primacy by taking politics out of … Read more

Number of words: 321 However, Punjab’s record on communalism was perhaps the worst in India. Just before the elections of 1923, when people like C.R. Das, Nehru, Azad and Sarojini Naidu visited the province, (in March 1923) they found the situation virtually beyond control. It has to be understood that there was an inbuilt conflict … Read more

Number of words: 433 The Hindu–Muslim unity witnessed during the Khilafat agitation of 1920-21 did not last long. With the Khalifa abolished and the NonCooperation Movement called off by Gandhi, the common front against the British soon crumbled. The Montford reforms, brought to the Indian polity through the Act of 1919— diarchy being its main … Read more

Number of words: 836 We have earlier, though very briefly, considered these two great but incompatible Indians, both born of Kathiawari trading communities but not endowed with much other similarities. One was devoutly and expressly Hindu, the other but a casual votary of Islam. One shaped religion to his political ends; the other shunned it … Read more

Number of words: 232 In 1915 and 1916, when the UP Municipal Bill was introduced the provincial interests were fully aroused, for this Bill proposed a large-scale devolution of power to the municipalities, thus sharpening communally-oriented demands, for it seemed to the aspirants that the power of municipal patronage was now within their grasp. Inevitably, … Read more

Number of words: 222 By 1914, Jinnah’s reputation as an all-India leader had been fully established. Tilak, having completed his sentence of imprisonment, was back in India from Mandalay, and Gandhi was also then on his way back to India. At this juncture, what lay before Jinnah was the stupendous challenge of not only attaining … Read more