A magnificent gift: Muslim nationalism and the election process in colonial Punjab

Comparative Studies in Society and History

Volumn 40, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 415-436

  Gilmartin, David ^a  

^a NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ELECTION; ISLAMISM; NATIONALISM; POLITICAL HISTORY;

PAKISTAN;

EID: 0032232805     PISSN: 00104175     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0010417598001352     Document Type: Article

References (62)

1. For a good discussion of the 1946 elections in the Punjab, see I. A. Talbot, "The 1946 Punjab Elections," Modern Asian Studies, 14:1 (1980), 65-91.
2. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991).
3. See, for example, Hamid Enayat, Modern Islamic Political Thought (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982), 115-25. For the intellectual debate on Muslim nationhood in India, see Farzana Shaikh, Community and Consensus in Islam: Muslim Representation in Colonial India, 1860-1947 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 200-7.
4. See, for example, Hamid Enayat, Modern Islamic Political Thought (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982), 115-25. For the intellectual debate on Muslim nationhood in India, see Farzana Shaikh, Community and Consensus in Islam: Muslim Representation in Colonial India, 1860-1947 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 200-7.
5. The inherent tensions between Islam and nationalism are stressed, for example, in Bruce Lawrence, Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt against the Modern Age (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989), 87-89.
6. Ernest Gellner, "Fundamentalism as a Comprehensive System: Soviet Marxism and Islamic Fundamentalism Compared," in Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds. Fundamentalisms Comprehended (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 285.
7. Peter van der Veer, Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).
8. Bernard Cohn, Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge: the British in India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).
9. For a discussion of the significance of such "enumerated" identities, see Sudipta Kaviraj, "Religion and Politics and Modernity," in Sybille Fritsch-Oppermann, ed. Fundamentalismus Der Moderne? Christen und Muslime im Dialog (Rehburg-Loccum: Evangelische Akademie Loccum, 1996), 241-62. Kaviraj's contrast of enumerated identities with pre-modern "fuzzy" identities is seriously misleading, however, to the extent that it ignores the pervasive significance of "fuzzy" identities (such as kinship and genealogy) in both pre-modern and modern identity construction and fails to stress how the meaning of enumerated identities was negotiated in public only in relationship to these other identities. This is the burden of the argument here.
10. For analysis, see Sandria B. Freitag, "Introduction," in the special issue on "Aspects of the Public in Colonial South Asia," South Asia (New Series), XIV:1 (June 1991), 1-13.
11. How separate electorates affected the process of community representation and community self-definition remains a critical subject that has not, as far as I am aware, been seriously studied. For a step in this direction, see James Chiriyankandath, "'Democracy' Under the Raj: Elections and Separate Representation in British India," Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 30:1 (March 1992), 39-64.
12. In the Punjab, approximately 24 percent of the adult population (and a perhaps somewhat larger percentage of the adult male population) gained the vote in Assembly elections after 1935. Kripal C. Yadav, Elections in Panjab, 1920-1947 (Delhi: Manohar, 1987), 19. Access to the franchise was established primarily by educational qualifications, payment of a minimum land revenue or tax for property owners, or occupation by tenants of a minimum quantity of land (or payment of a minimum house rent in the cities). There were other miscellaneous qualifications for voting as well. Women had separate qualifications and their own constituencies. When the Legislative Assembly franchise was established in the mid-1930s, approximately 2.25 million Punjabis were included on the rolls. Ian Talbot, Punjab and the Raj, 1849-1947 (Delhi: Manohar, 1988), 96.
13. In the Punjab, approximately 24 percent of the adult population (and a perhaps somewhat larger percentage of the adult male population) gained the vote in Assembly elections after 1935. Kripal C. Yadav, Elections in Panjab, 1920-1947 (Delhi: Manohar, 1987), 19. Access to the franchise was established primarily by educational qualifications, payment of a minimum land revenue or tax for property owners, or occupation by tenants of a minimum quantity of land (or payment of a minimum house rent in the cities). There were other miscellaneous qualifications for voting as well. Women had separate qualifications and their own constituencies. When the Legislative Assembly franchise was established in the mid-1930s, approximately 2.25 million Punjabis were included on the rolls. Ian Talbot, Punjab and the Raj, 1849-1947 (Delhi: Manohar, 1988), 96.
14. The collection of these flyers that I used comes from the Mian Abdul Aziz Collection in Lahore. There are approximately 40 different flyers in 2 separate printed collections, referred to hereafter as the small collection [SC], with 8 sheets, and the large collection [LM], with 44 sheets, some flyers running to more than 1 sheet. All are in Urdu (though a few have Qur'anic quotations in Arabic, with Urdu explanations, and one or two have Persian verses or quotations in English).
15. Ian Talbot, Punjab and the Raj, 163-6. The Unionist Ministry was led by Sikandar Hayat Khan until his death in late 1942, then by Malik Khizar Hayat Khan Tiwana. The high-water mark in the development of the League's economic critique of the Unionists came with the publication of a provincial Muslim League manifesto in late 1944 whose wording was strongly influenced by the Punjab Communists.
16. Flyer no. 28 (LC): "Musalman votaron kafarz; paidal chat kar bhi vot den."
17. This was linked in at least one flyer with the broader movement of Muslim opposition to colonialism in the world at large: "Do the Muslims of Punjab . . . understand that the independence of the Muslim world is connected to Pakistan?" Flyer no. 6 (SC): "Kangresi rahnuma Mistar Rajagopalacharya ne kaha tha. . . ."
18. Flyer no. 4-5 (LC): "Amir-i Hizbullah ka ailan."
19. For example, "Pakistan or akhand Hindustan?" one flyer asked. "That is, are they [the Muslims] one qaum or a sect (firqa) [that is, part of a larger whole]?" And the eventual answer is that they are themselves by their own nature (khud apni zat se) a qaum: "Their politics are separate, their society separate, their culture, civilization and principles of life are separate." Flyer no. 7 (SC): "Anewale intikhabat kis liye hen?"
20. Flyer no. 38 (LC): "Islami riyasat qa'im hokar rahegi."
21. In provinces with a Hindu majority, Hindus would rule. Flyer no. 4-5 (LC): "Amir-i Hizbullah ka ailan."
22. Flyer no. 3 (LC): "Shaikh al-masha'ikh Hazrat Diwan Saiyid Al-i Rasul 'Ali Khan, sajjada nishin, . . . ka paigham Musalmanan-i Panjab aur subah Sirhad ke nam."
23. For example, a pamphlet of the Punjab Muslim Students Federation simply directed its rural canvassers to find out a village's "social problems and difficulties" and then to tell the villagers, whatever the problems, that "the main cause of their problems was the Unionists" and that the solution was "Pakistan." Quoted in Ian Talbot, Punjab and the Raj, 165.
24. Founded in 1929 by ex-khilafatists and ex-Congress Muslims, the Ahrar party combined an egalitarian social program with a strong religious commitment to shari'at. The Khaksar party stressed regimented organization and obedience to its leader, Inayatullah Mashriqi. Both strongly opposed the Muslim League in 1945-46 and attacked Jinnah, as much on personal as on ideological grounds.
25. Flyer no. 2 (LC): "'Ulama aur masha'ikh-i Islam ki apil." The quoted description of Jinnah is not in this flyer. It comes instead from Flyer no. 7 (LC): "Ghulam Murtaza Shah Ajmeri al-Pakpattani . . . ka ailan-i haq."
26. Flyer no. 12 (LC): "Musalmanon! Laghar baten se bacho."
27. Flyer no. 5 (SC): "Kangres tahiyya kar chuki he ki Muslim Lig aur Musalmanon ko kuchal den." Emphasis in original.
28. Flyer no. 27 (LC): "Yaum-i hisab a rahi he."
29. Flyer no. 3 (SC): "Yunyanist Parti yun hi kahti he." The Simla conference was called in June 1945 by the Viceroy, Lord Wavell, to reconstitute the Viceroy's Executive Council as a step toward the transfer of power. Jinnah blamed Punjab's Unionist Muslims for conspiring with the Viceroy and the Congress to gain separate representation and undermine the Muslim League's claim to appoint all the Muslims on the Council, a claim which led to the conference's failure.
30. Flyer no. 32 (LC): "Wizarat! Wizarat! Wizarat! Yunyanist Parti ki ek hi rat."
31. Ibid.
32. Flyer no. 8 (SC): "Ao."
33. Flyer no. 36 (LC): "Yun to Saiyid bhi ho, Mirza bhi ho, Afghan bhi ho, tum sabhi kuch ho, batao to Musalman bhi ho."
34. Flyer no. 2 (SC): "Sab Musalman bhai bhai hen."
35. For a brief account of the opposition of the 'ulama of the Jam'iyat-i 'Ulama-i Hind to the Muslim League and Pakistan at this time, see Peter Hardy, The Muslims of British India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 243-6.
36. Flyer no. 6 (LC): "Kalimat al-haq." The phrase "fana fi'l-Kangres" is a pun on the mystical phrase "fana fi'llah," or "annihilating the self in the contemplation of God." Here they are accused of annihilating themselves (and the community) in the Congress. Thanvi, perhaps the leading 'alim of Deoband in his generation, had died in 1943.
37. Flyer no. 1 (LC): "Ek khadim-i din ka paigham Musalmanan-i Panjab o Sirhad ke nam." Like Thanvi, 'Usmani was also associated with Deoband.
38. See, for example, the collected statements of prominent pirs, some quite similar, in Flyer no. 1 (SC): "Hazrat sufiya-i karam ka ailan-i haq: Sirf Muslim Lig ki himayat karo." Pirs whose statements were included on this flyer were: Saiyid Al-i Rasul 'Ali Khan of Ajmer Sharif; Pir Ladle Husain Shah, sajjada nishin of Gulbarga Sharif; Khwaja Ghulam Sadiduddin, sajjada nishin of Taunsa Sharif; the sajjada nishin of Pakpattan Sharif (name not given); Shah Ghulam Mohiuddin, sajjada nishin of Golra Sharif; Shah Muhammad Qamaruddin, sajjada nishin of Sial Sharif; Pir Saiyid Jama'at 'Ali Shah of Alipur; and Saiyid Fazal Shah of Jalalpur Sharif.
39. Flyer no. 7 (LC): "Ghulam Murtaza Shah Ajmeri al-Pakpattani . . . ka ailan-i haq."
40. Flyer no. 4-5 (LC): "Amir-i Hizbullah ka ailan."
41. Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
42. Statement of Maulana Shabbir Ahmad 'Usmani. Flyer no. 2 (LC): "'Ulama aur masha'ikh-i Islam ki apil."
43. Quote of Shah Muhammad Qamaruddin, sajjada nishin, Sial Sharif. Flyer no. 1 (SC): "Hazrat sufiya-i karam ka ailan-i haq: Sirf Muslim Lig ki himayat karo."
44. Most of the election petitions filed charged the corrupt electoral practice of spiritual "undue influence" (particularly by pirs). Conflict over this corrupt electoral practice flared during the election campaign itself, when a pir was arrested for corrupt electoral rhetoric. This galvanized a protest by League leaders, who portrayed this as an attempt to use government influence to silence the message of the League. In the end, few of the election petitions were ruled on before being rendered moot by partition. For a discussion of these issues, see David Gilmartin, "'Divine Displeasure' and Muslim Elections: The Shaping of Community in 20th Century Punjab," in D. A. Low, ed., The Political Inheritance of Pakistan (London: Macmillan, 1991).
45. Flyer no. 28 (LC): "Musalman votaron ka farz; paidal chal kar bhi vot den. Emphasis added.
46. Flyer no. 31 (LC): "Muslim Ligi ummidwar aur musalman votar ghaur se parhen;" see also, Flyer no. 43-44 (LC): "Nawab Mamdot, Mian Mumtaz Muhammad Daultana, Sardar Shaukat Havat aur Raja Ghanzanfar 'Ali ki apil Musalmanan-i Panjab se (intikhabat se pahle)."
47. Flyer no. 30 (LC): "Dehati bhai yad rakhen - koi sirkari afisar ap ki majbur nahin kar sakta." Asamidar and khatadar are terms for holders of different types of land rights; mazdur and kisan refer to workers and peasants; nambardar, safedposh, and zaildar refer to rural officeholders; in'amdar and jagirdar are holders of government-granted lands or revenue concessions; sarpanch is a member of a panchayat, or local council.
48. Flyer no. 41 (LC): "Dushman bhag raha he."
49. Or, more commonly, for a ten-day period, which culminated on the tenth Muharram.
50. Flyer no. 24 (LC): "'Ashura-i Muharram aur Musalmanon ka farz." See also Flyer no. 25 (LC): "Hadisa-i Karbala ka abdi sabaq."
51. Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman, 173.
52. Flyer no. 3 (LC): "Shaikh al-masha'ikh Hazrat Diwan Saiyid Al-i Rasul 'Ali Khan, sajjada nishin, . . . ka paigham Musalmanan-i Panjab aur subah Sirhad ke nam."
53. Flyer no. 2 (SC) "Sab Musalman bhai bhai hen." As another poster put it, the Muslims "accept no other qaumiyat besides Islam." Flyer no. 37 (LC): "Farmuda-i Iqbal."
54. Prasenjit Duara, "Historicizing National Identity: Or Who Imagines What and When," in Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, eds., Becoming National: A Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 160-1.
55. Compare, for example, the vision of history in Flyer no. 38 (LC): "Islami riyasat qa'im hokar rahegi," with that in Flyer no. 24 (LC): "'Ashura-i Muharram aur Musalmanon ka farz."
56. Flyer no. 39 (LC): "Ek hojao."
57. Andre Wink, Land and Sovereignty in India: Agrarian Society and Politics under the Eighteenth-Century Maratha Svarajya (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 21-34, 379-88.
58. Flyer no. 4-5 (LC): "Amir-i Hizbullah ka ailan."
59. For a discussion of the League's electioneering in the 1946 campaign, see I. A. Talbot, "The 1946 Punjab Elections."
60. For a discussion of the manipulation of Pakistani national identity after 1947, see Ayesha Jalal, "Conjuring Pakistan: History as Official Imagining," International Journal of Middle East Studies, 27:1 (February 1995), 73-89.
61. The search of the Pakistan state for foundations of authority autonomous of society has figured prominently in many accounts of Pakistan's history. See, for example, Ayesha Jalal, The State of Martial Rule: The Origins of Pakistan's Political Economy of Defense (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
62. Flyer no. 2 (LC): "'Ulama aur masha'ikh-i Islam ki apil."