Road to Independence -part II

FOCUS ARCHIVE:

Crisis managment topped every consecutive government's agenda for a couple of decades after independence yet mass corruption prevailed and Land Rights were not truely established till the late 90's.

We shall return to these aspects of 'coming of age' of our society in the coming issues, but here we focus on the political dilemma faced by many muslims at the time of independence.

To Join or Not to Join

In 1906 All India Muslim League [AIML] was formed by some muslim fundamentalists to counter the hindu threats although Indian National Congress was a Hindu-Muslim joint and was widely accepted by muslims all over india as their representative party as party leaders included many learned muslims themselves. At the time of Independence, some muslims were still of the view that Congress holds true spirit of national unity and AIML was doing nothing but dividing the country into two. They obviously backed a United India but again there were millions who opposed them and wanted a seperate Muslim homeland.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah himself was in favour of United India till the 1930s but as he later felt the Hindu intentions he seperated himself from the Congress although he was thought to become the aspiring Congress Leader to lead india to independence. He went in self-imposed exile to london but was later called upon by a number of reputed muslim scholars to return and lead the AIML. It was never proven that Jinnah's intentions of a United India ever changed since there is conflicting evidence about his personal opinions on this matter. His Personal Secretary has made this statement earlier that "On his death bed, Jinnah confessed that Pakistan was his biggest mistake in life".

Still again there were many big Muslim leaders that chose to stay in Congress and oppose the partition and also its said that some of these leaders delibrately later joined the Pakistan movement since they saw the partition inevitable and had better chances of power in Pakistan than India.

We shall never know what really went on during those troubled times but one thing is sure, the father of nation Mohammad Ali Jinnah, whatever his personal opinions were, carved this country single handedly on the map of the world and deserves all praise for his efforts for the Muslims of India. Would we have been happy living in a United India is a question perhaps no one can answer, are we happy in our own Islamic State today? Were the objectives of Partition ever achieved?....contd to part III

Filed on August 18th 2001.