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Pakistani nationalism refers to the political, cultural, linguistic, historical, religious and geographical expression of patriotism by the people of Pakistan, of pride in the history, heritage and identity of Pakistan, and visions for its future.
Unlike the secular nationalism of most other countries, Pakistani nationalism is religious in nature of being the nationalism of the culture, traditions, languages and historical region that make up Pakistan, inhabited by mostly Muslims. The culture, languages, literature, history of the region along with influence of Islam was the basis of Pakistani nationalist narrative. (see Secularism in Pakistan) [2] It is also a militarist nationalism in that it often involves glorification of war and the military. [3] [1]
From a political point of view and in the years leading up to the independence of Pakistan, the particular political and ideological foundations for the actions of the Muslim League can be called a Pakistani nationalist ideology. It is a singular combination of philosophical, nationalistic, cultural and religious elements.
The roots of Pakistani nationalism lie in the separatist campaign of the Muslim League in British India, which sought to create a new state for Indian Muslims called Pakistan, on the basis of Islam. [4] This concept of a separate state for India's Muslims traces its roots to Allama Iqbal, who has retroactively been dubbed the national poet of Pakistan. [5] Iqbal was elected president of the Muslim League in 1930 at its session in Allahabad in the United Provinces, as well as for the session in Lahore in 1932. In his presidential address on 29 December 1930 he outlined a vision of an independent state for Muslim-majority provinces in north-western India: [6]
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 formation of a consolidated Northwest Indian Muslim state appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of Northwest India. [6]
For a large majority of the Muslim intelligentsia, including Iqbal, Indo-Muslim culture became a rallying ground for making the case for a separate Muslim homeland. [7] The concept of Indo-Muslim culture was based on the development of a separate political and cultural identity during Muslim rule which built upon the merging of Persian and Indic languages, literature and arts. [8] According to Iqbal, the uppermost purpose of establishing a separate country was the preservation of the Muslim "cultural entity", which he believed would not be safe under the rule of the Hindu majority. [9] [10] Syed Ahmed Khan, the grandson of the Mughal Vizier, Dabir-ud-Daulah, [11] emphasized that Muslims and Hindus made up two different nations on the basis that Hindus were not ready to accept the contemporary Muslim culture and tradition which was exemplified by Hindu opposition to the Urdu language. [12]
The demand for the creation of Pakistan as a homeland for Indian Muslims, according to many academics, was orchestrated mainly by the elite class of Muslims in colonial India primarily based in the United Provinces (U.P.) and Bihar who supported the All India Muslim League. [13] [14] [15] [16] In the colonial Indian province of Sind, the historian Ayesha Jalal describes the actions that Jinnah's pro-separatist Muslim League used in order to spread communal division and undermine the government of Allah Bakhsh Soomro, which stood for a united India: [17]
Even before the 'Pakistan' demand was articulated, the dispute over the Sukkur Manzilgah had been fabricated by provincial Leaguers to unsettle Allah Bakhsh Soomro's ministry which was dependent on support from the Congress and Independent Party. Intended as a way station for Mughal troops on the move, the Manzilgah included a small mosque which had been subsequently abandoned. On a small island in the near distance was the temple of Saad Bela, sacred space for the large number of Hindus settled on the banks of the Indus at Sukkur. The symbolic convergence of the identity and sovereignty over a forgotten mosque provided ammunition for those seeking office at the provincial level. Making an issue out of a non-issue, the Sind Muslim League in early June 1939 formally reclaimed the mosque. Once its deadline of 1 October 1939 for the restoration of the mosque to Muslims had passed, the League started an agitation. [17]
The Muslim League, seeking to spread religious strife, "monetarily subsidized" mobs that engaged in communal violence against Hindus and Sikhs in the areas of Multan, Rawalpindi, Campbellpur, Jhelum and Sargodha, as well as in the Hazara District. [18] [19] Jinnah and the Muslim League's communalistic Direct Action Day in Calcutta resulted in 4,000 deaths and 100,000 residents left homeless in just 72 hours, sowing the seeds for riots in other provinces and the eventual partition of the country. [20] [21]
The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at staunchly supported Jinnah's separatist demand for Pakistan, [22] such as Chaudary Zafarullah Khan, an Ahmadi leader, who drafted the Lahore Resolution and was aked by Jinnah to represent the Muslim League to the Radcliffe Commission. [23] Ahmadis argued to try to ensure that the city of Qadian, India would fall into the newly created state of Pakistan, though they were unsuccessful in doing so. [24]
In the first decade after Pakistan gained independence after the partition of India, "Pakistan considered its history to be a part of larger India's, a common history, a joint history, and in fact Indian textbooks were in use in the syllabus in Pakistan." [25] The government under Ayub Khan, however, wished to rewrite the history of Pakistan to exclude any reference India and tasked the historians within Pakistan to manufacture a nationalist narrative of a "separate" history that erased the country's Indian past. [25] Elizabeth A. Cole of the George Mason University Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution noted that Pakistani textbooks eliminate the country's Hindu and Buddhist past, while referring to Muslims as a monolithic entity and focusing solely on the advent of Islam in the Indian subcontinent. [26] During the rule of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq a "program of Islamization" of the country including the textbooks was started. [27] General Zia's 1979 education policy stated that "[the] highest priority would be given to the revision of the curricula with a view to reorganizing the entire content around Islamic thought and giving education an ideological orientation so that Islamic ideology permeates the thinking of the younger generation and helps them with the necessary conviction and ability to refashion society according to Islamic tenets". [28] According to Pakistan Studies curriculum, Muhammad bin Qasim is often referred to as the first Pakistani despite having been alive several centuries before its creation through the partition of India in 1947. [29] Muhammad Ali Jinnah also claimed the Pakistani separatist movement to have started when the first Muslim put a foot in the Gateway of Islam, [30] and that Bin Qasim is actually the founder of Pakistan. [31]
The idea of Pakistan implied that Pakistan would be the modern extension or the successor state of Islamic empires and kingdoms that ruled medieval India for almost a combined period of one millennium, [32] the empires and kingdoms in order are the Ghaznavid Empire, Ghorid Kingdom, Delhi Sultanate, Deccan sultanates and Mughal Empire. This history of Muslim rule in the subcontinent composes possibly the largest segment of Pakistani nationalism. [33] Pakistani historians such as Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi based Pakistani nationhood on the distinctiveness of medieval Indo-Muslim culture or civilization, and that Pakistan was an heir to the Indo-Muslim traditions of the Sultanates. Indo-Muslim culture is described that by assimilating many aspects of Indian culture in customs, social manners, architecture, painting and music, the Muslims of India established a new culture or civilization, which not only maintained its separate identity from other Muslim peoples such as the Arabs and the Persians, etc., but also simultaneously maintained the distinctiveness of this new culture from the former Hindu India by being essentially Indo-Persian in character. [34] [35] This is seen as a conscious decision of the Muslims of India. According to Qureshi, the distinctiveness of Muslim India could only be maintained by the political domination of the Muslims over the Hindus. Any sharing of political power with the Hindus was considered dangerous and the first step towards the political abdication of the Indian Muslims. [34] [36] The assumption of the Muslims of India of belonging to a separate identity, and therefore, having a right to their own country, also rested on their pre-eminent claim to political power, which flowed from the experience of Muslim dominance in India. [37]
Such approach to history is encapsulated in the document Pakistan Nationalism, that General Ayub Khan issued as an order in 1961 to Islamize the armed forces and the public:
It would not be quite logical to say that the notion of Pakistan came into being only with the establishment of Pakistan on 14 August 1947. Its roots go very deep into our history. In fact, it was a concept which evolved and emerged in course of time, as a result of the inevitable and unalterable forces of history... . Amongst the first settlers of course were the Arabs who came with trade convoys, or with the armies of Mohammad Bin Qasim, and found a footing in Sind. The impress of the stay of these Arabs can still be recognised on the religion, culture and language of the Sindhi people. [38]
To this end, many Pakistani nationalists claim monuments like the Taj Mahal, located in Agra, which was built by Ustad Ahmad Lahori, [39] an ethnic Punjabi Muslim, [40] as being Pakistani and part of Pakistan's history. [33] The Red Fort, and the Jama Masjid, Delhi are also claimed by Pakistani nationalists as belonging to Pakistanis. [41]
See also: Syed Ahmed Khan, Indian rebellion of 1857
Syed Ahmed Khan, the grandson of the Mughal Vizier, Dabir-ud-Daula, [11] believed that Muslims and Hindus belonged to two separate nations. [42] He promoted Western-style education in Muslim society, seeking to uplift Muslims economically and politically in British India. He founded the Aligarh Muslim University, then called the Anglo-Oriental College.
In 1835 Lord Macaulay's minute recommending that Western rather than Oriental learning predominate in the East India Company's education policy had led to numerous changes. In place of Arabic and Persian, the Western languages, history and philosophy were taught at state-funded schools and universities whilst religious education was barred. English became not only the medium of instruction but also the official language in 1835 in place of Persian, disadvantaging those who had built their careers around the latter language. Traditional Islamic studies were no longer supported by the state, and some madrasahs lost their waqf or endowment. The Indian rebellion of 1857 is held by nationalists[ who? ] to have ended in disaster for the Muslims, as Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal, was deposed. Power over the subcontinent was passed from the East India Company to the British Crown. The removal of the last symbol of continuity with the Mughal period spawned a negative attitude amongst some Muslims[ who? ] towards everything modern and western, and a disinclination to make use of the opportunities available under the new regime. As Muslims were generally agriculturists and soldiers, while Hindus were increasingly seen as successful financiers and businessmen, the historian Spear noted that to the Muslim "an industrialized India meant a Hindu India". [43]
Seeing this atmosphere of despair and despondency, Syed launched his attempts to revive the spirit of progress within the Muslim community of India. He was convinced that the Muslims, in their attempt to regenerate themselves, had failed to realise that mankind had entered a very important phase of its existence, i.e., an era of science and learning. He knew that the realisation of that was the source of progress and prosperity for the British. Therefore, modern education became the pivot of his movement for regeneration of the Indian Muslims. He tried to transform the Muslim outlook from a mediaeval one to a modern one. Syed's first and foremost objective was to acquaint the British with the Indian mind; his next goal was to open the minds of his countrymen to European literature, science and technology. Therefore, in order to attain these goals, Syed launched the Aligarh Movement, of which Aligarh was the center. He had two immediate objectives in mind: to remove the state of misunderstanding and tension between the Muslims and the new British government, and to induce them to go after the opportunities available under the new regime without deviating in any way from the fundamentals of their faith.[ citation needed ]
Syed Ahmed Khan converted the existing cultural and religious entity among Indian Muslims into a separatist political force, throwing a Western cloak of nationalism over the Islamic concept of culture. The distinct sense of value, culture and tradition among Indian Muslims, which originated from the nature of Islamization of the Indian populace during the Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent, was used for a separatist identity leading to the Pakistan Movement. [43]
In the Indian rebellion of 1857, both Hindu and Muslims fought the forces allied with the British Empire in different parts of British India. [44] The war's spark arose because the British attacked the "Beastly customs of Indians" by forcing the Indian sepoys to handle Enfield P-53 gun cartridges greased with lard taken from slaughtered pigs and tallow taken from slaughtered cows. The cartridges had to bitten open to use the gunpowder, effectively meaning that sepoys would have to bite the lard and tallow. This was a manifestation of the insensitivity that the British exhibited to Muslim and Hindu religious traditions, such as the rejection of pork consumption in Islam and the rejection of slaughter of cow in Hinduism. There were also some kingdoms and peoples who supported the British. Historians such as Shashi Tharoor maintain that the British government's divide-and-rule policies in India were established after witnessing Hindus and Muslims joining forces together to fight against Company rule in India during this First War of Indian Independence. [44]
The desire among some for a new state for the Indian Muslims, or Azadi was born with Kernal Sher Khan, who looked to Muslim history and heritage, and condemned the fact Muslims were ruled by the British Empire and not by Muslim leaders. The idea of complete independence did not catch on until after World War I, when the British government reduced civil liberties with the Rowlatt Acts of 1919. When General Reginal Dyer ordered the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in Amritsar, Punjab which took place in the same year, the Muslim public was outraged and most of the Muslim political leaders turned against the British government. Pakistan was finally actualized through the partition of India in 1947 on the basis of Two Nation Theory. Today, Pakistan is divided into 4 provinces. The last census recorded the 1981 population at 84.3 million, nearly double the 1961 figure of 42.9 million. By 1983, the population had tripled to nearly 93 million, making Pakistan the world's 9th most populous country, although in area it ranked 34th. [45]
Because of the country's identity with Islam, mosques like Badshahi Mosque and Faisal Mosque are also used as national symbols either to represent "glorious past" or modernistic future. Pakistan has many shrines, sights, sounds and symbols that have significance to Pakistani nationalists. These include the Shrines of Political leaders of pre-independence and post-independence Pakistan, Shrines of Religious leaders and Saints, The Shrines of Imperial leaders of various Islamic Empires and Dynasties, as well as national symbols of Pakistan. Some of these shrines, sights and symbols have become a places of Pilgrimage for Pakistani ultra-nationalism and militarism, as well as for obviously religious purposes.
The older ten rupee notes of the Pakistani rupee included background images of the remains of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. In the 1960s, the imagery of Gandharan and Greco-Buddhist artefacts were unearthed in Pakistan, and some Pakistani nationalists "creatively imagined" an ancient civilisation which differentiated the provinces now lying in Pakistan from the rest of the Indian subcontinent, which is not accepted by mainstream historians; they tried to emphasize its contacts with the West and framed Gandharan Buddhism as antithetical to 'Brahmin' (Hindu) influence. [46]
The political identity of the Pakistani Armed Forces, Pakistan's largest institution and one which controlled the government for over half the history of modern-day Pakistan and still does, is reliant on the connection to Pakistan's Imperial past. The Pakistan Muslim League's fortunes up till the 1970s were propelled by its legacy as the flagship of the Pakistan Movement, and the core platform of the party today evokes that past, considering itself to be the guardian of Pakistan's freedom, democracy and unity as well as religion. Other parties have arisen, such as Pakistan Peoples Party, once advocating a leftist program and now more centrist. [47] In contrast, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal employs a more aggressively theocratic nationalistic expression. The MMA seeks to defend the culture and heritage of Pakistan and the majority of its people, the Muslim population. It ties theocratic nationalism with the aggressive defence of Pakistan's borders and interests against India, with the defence of the majority's right to be a majority.
Ethnic nationalist parties include the Awami National Party, which is closely identified with the creation of a Pashtun-majority state in North-West Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas includes many Pashtun leaders in its organization. However, the Awami National Party, At the last legislative elections, 20 October 2002, won a meagre 1.0% of the popular vote and no seats in the lower house of Parliament. In Balochistan, the Balochistan National Party uses the legacy of the independent Balochistan to stir up support, However at the legislative elections, 20 October 2002, the party won only 0.2% of the popular vote and 1 out of 272 elected members.
Almost every Pakistani state has a regional party devoted solely to the culture of the native people. Unlike the Awami National party and the Balochistan national party, these mostly cannot be called nationalist, as they use regionalism as a strategy to garner votes, building on the frustration of common people with official status and the centralization of government institutions in Pakistan. However, the recent elections as well as history have shown that such ethnic nationalist parties rarely win more than 1% of the popular vote, with the overwhelming majority of votes going to large and established political parties that pursue a national agenda as opposed to regionalism.
The political ethos in Pakistan, since its first military regime in 1958, reveals that the Pakistani military has incrementally acquired an institutional identity and role which is the supra-governmental and transcends all other constitutional governance arrangements in Pakistan. The Pakistani Army had declared itself, the ideological guardian of the two-nation theory which Pakistanis believe to be the basis of Pakistan's national foundation. It has become the final repository responsible for protecting and consolidating its nationhood. According to Dixit, the Pakistan Army claims to be the shadow of God responsible for exercising state sovereignty for the welfare of the Pakistani people, of which it claims to be the most competent judge. [48] Early Muslim thinkers viewed the idea of Pakistan, with its strong military tradition, as a guardian of South Asia. In subsequent years Pakistani strategists came to see Pakistan as a balance to both the Soviet Union from Central Asia and the pro-Soviet government of India. [49]
In a June 2023 survey titled "National Public Opinion Poll Report", Gallup Pakistan found that the military remained the institution Pakistanis trust the most, with 88% of approval, ahead of the media and the judiciary, with 56% for both, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa the approval for the army reaching its highest at 91% followed by Punjab with 90% with a lowest of 66% in Balochistan. [50]
The intense guerrilla war in far Eastern Pakistan, followed by India's successful intervention led to the secession of Eastern contingent as Bangladesh. The outcomes of the war played a crucial role in the civil society. In January 1972, a clandestine crash programme and a spin-off to literary and the scientific revolution as response to that crash programme led Pakistan becoming the nuclear power.
First public tests were experimented out in 1998 (code names:Chagai-I and Chagai-II) in a direct response to India's nuclear explosions in the same year; thus Pakistan became the 7th nation in the world to have successfully developed the programme. It is postulated that Pakistan's crash programme arose in 1970 and mass acceleration took place following the India's nuclear test in 1974. It also resulted in Pakistan pursuing similar ambitions, resulting in the May 1998 testings of five nuclear devices by India and six as a response by Pakistan, opening a new era in their rivalry. Pakistan, along with Israel and India, is three of the original states that have restrained itself from being party of the NPT and CTBT which it considers an encroachment on its right to defend itself. To date, Pakistan is the only Muslim nuclear state.
Because Pakistani nationalism is based on Muslim nationalism, many Pakistanis see no conflict in identifying themselves as Muslim before identifying as Pakistanis.
For example, in 2011 a Gilani Poll conducted by Gallup Pakistan revealed that 59% of the Pakistani citizens identified as Muslim first, while 22% chose Pakistani, 10% went for their provincial identity and 7% as human beings first. [51] On the other hand, the same year Pew Research Center found out that 94% of Pakistanis considered themselves Muslim first, 3% Pakistani first and 3% voted for both. [52]
In 2017, the UNDP Pakistan - National Human Development Report broke it down at provincial level as such, basing themselves on the 2015 National Youth Perception Survey : [53]
Administrative unit | Religion first | Nationality first | Other (ethnicity, ...) first |
---|---|---|---|
Punjab | 51.4% | 41.2% | 7.4% |
Sindh | 32.6% | 46.7% | 20.8% |
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa | 50% | 41.5% | 8.5% |
Balochistan | 38.8% | 40% | 21.2% |
FATA | 5% | 78.7% | 16.3% |
Azad Jammu and Kashmir | 7.6% | 86.8% | 5.6% |
Islamabad Capital Territory | 27.6% | 64.9% | 7.5% |
Gilgit-Baltistan | 3.6% | 95.7% | 0.7% |
The History of Pakistan prior to its independence in 1947 spans several millennia and covers a vast geographical area known as the Greater Indus region. Anatomically modern humans arrived in what is now Pakistan between 73,000 and 55,000 years ago. Stone tools, dating as far back as 2.1 million years, have been discovered in the Soan Valley of northern Pakistan, indicating early hominid activity in the region. The earliest known human remains in Pakistan are dated between 5000 BCE and 3000 BCE. By around 7000 BCE, early human settlements began to emerge in Pakistan, leading to the development of urban centres such as Mehrgarh, one of the oldest in human history. By 4500 BCE, the Indus Valley Civilization evolved, which flourished between 2500 BCE and 1900 BCE along the Indus River. The region that now constitutes Pakistan served both as the cradle of a major ancient civilization and as a strategic gateway connecting South Asia with Central Asia and the Near East.
The All-India Muslim League (AIML), simply called the Muslim League, was a political party established in Dhaka in 1906 when some well-known Muslim politicians met the Viceroy of India, Lord Minto, with the goal of securing Muslim interests in British India.
The Pakistan Movement was a political movement in the first half of the 20th century that aimed for the creation of Pakistan from the Muslim-majority areas of British India. It was connected to the perceived need for self-determination for Muslims under British rule at the time. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a barrister and politician led this movement after the Lahore Resolution was passed by All-India Muslim League on 23 March 1940.
The Lahore Resolution, also called the Pakistan Resolution, was a formal political statement adopted by the All-India Muslim League on the occasion of its three-day general session in Lahore, Punjab, from 22 to 24 March 1940, calling for a separate homeland for the Muslims of India.
The two-nation theory was an ideology of religious nationalism that advocated Muslim Indian nationhood, with separate homelands for Indian Muslims and Indian Hindus within a decolonised British India, which ultimately led to the Partition of India in 1947. Its various descriptions of religious differences were the main factor in Muslim separatist thought in the Indian subcontinent, asserting that Indian Muslims and Indian Hindus are two separate nations, each with their own customs, traditions, art, architecture, literature, interests, and ways of life.
Indian nationalism is an instance of territorial nationalism, which is inclusive of all of the people of India, despite their diverse ethnic, linguistic and religious backgrounds. Indian nationalism can trace roots to pre-colonial India, but was fully developed during the Indian independence movement which campaigned for independence from British rule. Indian nationalism quickly rose to popularity in India through these united anti-colonial coalitions and movements. Independence movement figures like Mahatma Gandhi, Subhas Chandra Bose, and Jawaharlal Nehru spearheaded the Indian nationalist movement. After Indian Independence, Nehru and his successors continued to campaign on Indian nationalism in face of border wars with both China and Pakistan. After the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971 and the Bangladesh Liberation War, Indian nationalism reached its post-independence peak. However by the 1980s, religious tensions reached a melting point and Indian nationalism sluggishly collapsed in the following decades. Despite its decline and the rise of religious nationalism, Indian nationalism and its historic figures continue to strongly influence the politics of India and reflect an opposition to the sectarian strands of Hindu nationalism and Muslim nationalism.
From a historical perspective, Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed of the University of Stockholm and Professor Shamsul Islam of the University of Delhi classified the Muslims of Colonial India into two categories during the era of the Indian independence movement: nationalist Muslims and Muslim nationalists. The All India Azad Muslim Conference represented nationalist Muslims, while the All-India Muslim League represented the Muslim nationalists. One such popular debate was the Madani–Iqbal debate.
The Urdu movement was a socio-political movement aimed at making Urdu, as the universal lingua-franca and symbol of the cultural and political identity of the Muslim communities of the Indian subcontinent during the British Raj. The movement began with the fall of the Mughal Empire in the mid-19th century, fuelled by the Aligarh movement of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. It strongly influenced the All India Muslim League and the Pakistan movement.
United Bengal was a proposal to transform Bengal Province into an undivided, sovereign state at the time of the Partition of India in 1947. It sought to prevent the division of Bengal on religious grounds.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah's 11 August Speech is a speech made by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founding father of Pakistan and known as Quaid-e-Azam to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. While Pakistan was created as a result of what could be described as Indian Muslim nationalism, Jinnah was once an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity. When the Partition of India finally occurred, Jinnah, soon-to-be Governor-General of the Dominion of Pakistan, outlined his vision of Pakistan in an address to the Constituent Assembly, delivered on 11 August 1947. He spoke of an inclusive and impartial government, religious freedom, rule of law ,and equality for all.
Allah Bux Muhammad Umar Soomro, or Allah Baksh Soomro, was a zamindar, government contractor, Indian independence activist and politician from the province of Sindh in colonial India. He is considered to be amongst the best premiers of the province, known for promoting Hindu-Muslim unity and campaigning for an independent, united India. He was referred to as Shaheed or "martyr".
Jamaat-e-Islami is an Islamist fundamentalist movement founded in 1941 in British India by the Islamist author, theorist, and socio-political philosopher, Syed Abul Ala Maududi, who was inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood. It is considered one of the most influential Islamist organisations, and was the first to develop an ideology based on the modern revolutionary conception of Islam. Its founding branch in Pakistan is the nation's largest fundamentalist party.
Ghulam Murtaza Syed, known as G. M. Syed was a prominent Sindhi politician, who is known for his scholarly work, passing only constitutional resolution in favor of the establishment of Pakistan from British India's Sindh Assembly in 1943. Later proposing ideological groundwork for separate Sindhi identity and laying the foundations of Sindhudesh movement. He is regarded as one of the founding fathers of modern Sindhi nationalism.
When the All-India Muslim League was founded at Dacca, on 30 December 1906 at the occasion of the annual All India Muhammadan Educational Conference, It was participated by the Muslim leaders from Punjab, i.e., Sir Mian Muhammad Shafi, Mian Fazl-i-Hussain, Abdul Aziz, Khawaja Yusuf Shah and Sh. Ghulam Sadiq. Earlier Mian Muhammad Shafi organised a Muslim Association in early 1906, but when the All-India Muslim League was formed, he established its powerful branch in the Punjab of which he became the general secretary. Shah Din was elected as its first president. This branch, organised in November 1907, was known as the Punjab Provincial Muslim League.
The Muhajir people are Muslim immigrants of various ethnic groups and regional origins, and their descendants, who migrated from various regions of India after the 1947 independence to settle in the newly independent state of Pakistan. The community includes those immigrants' descendants, most of whom are settled in Karachi and other major urban centres of Pakistan.
Indian reunification refers to the potential reunification of India with Pakistan and Bangladesh, which were partitioned from British India in 1947.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a barrister, politician, and the founder of Pakistan. Jinnah served as the leader of the All-India Muslim League from 1913 until the inception of Pakistan on 14 August 1947, and then as the Republic of Pakistan's first governor-general until his death.
Opposition to the Partition of India was widespread in British India in the 20th century and it continues to remain a talking point in South Asian politics. Those who opposed it often adhered to the doctrine of composite nationalism in the Indian subcontinent. The Hindu, Christian, Anglo-Indian, Parsi and Sikh communities were largely opposed to the Partition of India, as were many Muslims.
Hindu–Muslim unity is a religiopolitical concept in the Indian subcontinent which stresses members of the two largest faith groups there, Hindus and Muslims, working together for the common good. The concept was championed by various persons, such as leaders in the Indian independence movement, namely Mahatma Gandhi and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, as well as by political parties and movements in British India, such as the Indian National Congress, Khudai Khidmatgar and All India Azad Muslim Conference. Those who opposed the partition of India often adhered to the doctrine of composite nationalism.
Composite nationalism is a concept that argues that the Indian nation is made up of people of diverse ethnicities, cultures, tribes, castes, communities, and faiths. The idea teaches that "nationalism cannot be defined by religion in India." While Indian citizens maintain their distinctive religious traditions, they are members of one united Indian nation. Composite nationalism maintains that prior to the arrival of the British into the subcontinent, no enmity between people of different religious faiths existed; and as such these artificial divisions can be overcome by Indian society.
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has generic name (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)He contends that it were the educated Muslim elite classes of the U.P. and Bihar who supported Pakistan out of fear of losing their privileges in these feudal States, there was no universal franchise at that time; only 10% of the population had franchise and not more than 5% voted in the crucial election of 1945. Out of these only 3.5% supported the Muslim League.
The idea of Pakistan emerged from the anxieties and prejudices of a decaying class of India's Muslim elites, who claimed that Islam's purity would be contaminated in a pluralistic society.
However, many Indian Muslims regarded India as their permanent home and supported the concept of a secular, unified state that would include both Hindus and Muslims. After centuries of joint history and coexistence, these Muslims firmly believed that India was fundamentally a multireligious entity and that Muslims were an integral part of the state. Furthermore, cleaving India into independent Muslim and Hindu states would be geographically inconvenient for millions of Muslims. Those living in the middle and southern regions of India could not conveniently move to the new Muslim state because it required travel over long distances and considerable financial resources. In particular, many lower-class Muslims opposed partition because they felt that a Muslim state would benefit only upper-class Muslims. At independence, the division of India into the Muslim state of Pakistan and the secular state of India caused a massive migration of millions of Muslims into Pakistan and Hindus into India, along with the death of over one million people in the consequent riots and chaos. The millions of Muslims who remained in India by choice or providence became a smaller and more interspersed minority in a secular and democratic state.
On the same dates, Muslim League-led mobs fell with determination and full preparations on the helpless Hindus and Sikhs scattered in the villages of Multan, Rawalpindi, Campbellpur, Jhelum and Sargodha. The murderous mobs were well supplied with arms, such as daggers, swords, spears and fire-arms. (A former civil servant mentioned in his autobiography that weapon supplies had been sent from NWFP and money was supplied by Delhi-based politicians.) They had bands of stabbers and their auxiliaries, who covered the assailant, ambushed the victim and if necessary disposed of his body. These bands were subsidized monetarily by the Muslim League, and cash payments were made to individual assassins based on the numbers of Hindus and Sikhs killed. There were also regular patrolling parties in jeeps which went about sniping and picking off any stray Hindu or Sikh. ... Thousands of non-combatants including women and children were killed or injured by mobs, supported by the All India Muslim League.
When the idea of Pakistan was not accepted in the Northern States of India, the Muslim League sent out its goons to drive the Hindus out of Lahore, Multan and Rawalpindi and appropriate their property.
When the Quaid-e-Azam was fighting his battle for Pakistan, only the Ahmadiya community, out of all religious groups, supported him.
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ignored (help)Nadir-ul-Asar Ahmad Mimar Lahori Shahjehani was also a Punjabi who designed the Taj Mahal of Agra
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