Muslim League
The Muslim League
The Muslim League was a political party that called for a separate Muslim nation to be created at the time of Independence. It was founded in 1906 with an aim to safeguard the views of Indian Muslims. At first the league was encouraged by the British and was generally favourable to their rule, but it lost British support when the organization adopted self-governance for India as its goal in 1913. In 1916 Mohammed Ali Jinnah managed to bring together the League and the Congress on one platform working together for the Independence of India. However, during the Khilafat Movement and the non-cooperation movement, the League became sidelined when Gandhi led Congress made alliances with the Khilafat Conference and Jamiat-e-ulema-Hind, two radically Islamic organizations agitating for the safeguard of the Islamic institution of Khilafat. Consequently, Jinnah broke with the Congress in 1920.
After the 1937 elections, the Muslim League captured a significant number of seats under the Muslim electorate, though it lost in the Muslim majority states of Punjab, Sindh and the North West frontier province. Jinnah offered an alliance with the Congress if Congress agreed to accept separate electorates and the League as the representative of India's Muslims. The Congress did not agree to this proposal as it had its own national Muslim leaders and as it adhered to secularism. Following the failure to work with the Congress, Jinnah turned to the policy of separate states for Muslims and Hindus, an idea that was first proposed in 1930 by Muhammad Iqbal, one of the early leaders of the league The League’s transformation was complete in 1940 when it adopted Iqbal’s slogan of separate Muslim majority state(s) as per the Lahore Resolution. However, the resolution was rejected outright by the Congress, and criticised by many Muslim leaders.
The elections of 1945-1946 saw the Muslim League sweep the Muslim vote. Having won 445 out of a total 490 Muslim seats, the League was now able to lay exclusive claim to speaking for the Muslims of India. In 1946, the British government dispatched the Cabinet mission that proposed a decentralized state with much power given to local governments. Though the proposal won initial acceptance, Nehru was unwilling to accept such a decentralised state and declared that the Congress was not bound by any agreements and that it would decide the fate of India in the constituent assembly itself. Therefore, Jinnah soon returned to demanding an independent Pakistan. He called for all Muslims to launch "Direct Action" on August 16 to achieve Pakistan. Strikes and protests were planned and violence broke out all over India, especially in Calcutta. Interim Government portfolios were announced on October 25, 1946. The coalition was unable to work due to which the Congress agreed that independence of Pakistan was the only way of avoiding political chaos and possible civil war. As per the Mountbatten plan, agreements for the creation of Pakistan were reached and the independent state of Pakistan was created on August 14, 1947. The Muslim League formed the country's first government, but disintegrated during the 1950s following an army coup.
