The Two Nation Theory, as adopted by Jinnah and the Muslim League in 1940, was a mere restatement of the minority problem in national terms and not a clarion call, to use Dr Ayesha Jalal’s vocabulary, for partition. What Jinnah was aiming for was what in recent years has been coined as ‘consociationalism’, a power sharing between disparate ethnic and communal groups in multinational and multiethnic states. Though the term was coined only a decade or so ago, consociationalism as a political system is quite old and is tried and tested in states like The Netherlands, Switzerland and Canada.
When the Quaid-e-Azam articulated the Two Nation Theory, he referred to language, culture, family laws and historical antecedents. He was, as an adroit lawyer, making the case for changing the status of a minority to that of a nation and not for separation of Islam from India as is alleged by his detractors.
For Jinnah and the Muslim League, the Two Nation Theory was not an ideological position etched in stone. It was the restatement of the arguments needed to ensure national status for Muslims in a multinational independent India. It was also a vehicle to get parochial elements in Muslim majority provinces into line behind the Muslim League at the All India Centre. At the very least, Jinnah’s Pakistan did not necessarily envisage a partition, secession from or division of United India. This is why he jumped at the opportunity of the Cabinet Mission Plan, which did not even deliver 50 percent of what he had demanded. In the end, however, the idea of power sharing with the League and Muslims was too much for the Indian National Congress to gulp, even if Gandhi and Nehru could have been brought around to the idea. Maulana Azad’s grudging admissions in his book India Wins Freedom seal this argument.
If the sole objective of the All-India Muslim League were to isolate Muslims from Hindus, then in June 1946 it would not have accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan of the British government which had proposed a confederation of United India comprising three provinces. The Muslim League was forced to withdraw its backing to the Plan when Pandit Nehru, on assuming the presidency of the Indian National Congress from Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, stated that Congress could make changes to the Plan after the British left. This assertion defeated the very objective of the acceptance of the Plan and the Muslim League was left with no option but to move on with its demand for Pakistan. It can therefore be said that Pandit Nehru partly contributed to the creation of Pakistan. Thus, the Two Nation Theory or the false notion of Muslims not being able to live with Hindus or the setting up of a Muslim theocracy had nothing to do with the creation of Pakistan.
The following questions spring to mind:
1. If Hindus and Muslims could not live together under any circumstances, why did it take Muslims a few centuries to realise this fact? Where was the Two Nation Theory when India was being ruled by Muslims?
2. If the Two Nation Theory was to be followed, why were there Muslims left in India to live under Hindu rule?
3. If the Two Nation Theory is still applicable, what is the status of Hindus living in Pakistan today? Why do we issue them National Identity Cards when they are not to be considered part of the same nation as Muslims? And why do they have representation in the Pakistani parliament?
4. Aside from the Two Nation Theory, are Muslims one nation themselves? If Muslims were one nation, why would the more wealthy Muslim states not grant nationality to less privileged Muslims from other countries, including Pakistan? On the contrary, why would Pakistan have a visa requirement for a Muslim from another country – including India?
5. If the Two Nation Theory was the binding force, why did East Pakistan secede to become Bangladesh?
- The Punjabis had not been converted into supporters of the Pakistan idea until the close of the 1940s. The Bengalis were manifestly different from the people who lived in the western segment of what became Pakistan.
- The Ullema class in Pakistan from its early days have capitalised on these grey shades and unleashed campaigns that have succeeded in setting Pakistan on a continually widening path of Islamisation.
- while integral to Islam, cannot be reconciled with the evolving modern universally accepted principles of relationship between state, polity and governance.
- The people of Pakistan, by and large, displayed secular tendencies, differentiating between the roles of religion in personal life and political life. In elections, the results always showed that the religious groups exist in the margins of political consciousness of the people.
- Islam itself creates neither ecclesiastical authority nor accords to the class of Ullemas a defining role. Muslim minority was an eloquent commentary on the spirit of tolerance of the self-appointed guardians of Islam in Pakistan
