Ayesha Jalals Book the Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan - Essay Example

It is interesting to read Ayesha Jalal’s book The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan as it changes these perceptions. Using documented evidence, it clearly lays down that while Jinnah was a true nationalist, it was Gandhi who created religious and communal schisms by bringing religion into politics, and that the Muslims of the subcontinent were not a united entity to have together been interested in asking for a separate country that constituted a Muslim majority.

Jinnah, a member of the Indian National Congress, had always been drawn to nationalist politics. He proclaimed himself to be a devoted Congressman who had “no love for sectarian cries” (Jalal 7). When the All-India Muslim League was created, he did not scramble to join it. It was seven years later, in 1913, that he formally became a member, and that, too, when he got assurance from his two sponsors, that his membership to the League would not “imply even a shadow of disloyalty to the National cause to which his life was dedicated” (Matlubul Hasan Saiyid qtd. in Jalal 7). This clearly shows that he was not interested in politics along sectarian or communal lines.

Interestingly enough, it was Gandhi who brought religion into politics for political gain. With his support for the Khilafat movement, Gandhi managed to receive the support of many religious scholars, as well as zealous political activists, for his non-cooperation movement. This resulted in Gandhi taking control of Congress. This move was denounced openly by Jinnah, who was still a Congressman, at the Nagpur session of Congress in 1920 in no uncertain terms. He proclaimed that such acts created a religious frenzy and zealotry that harmed the national cause (Jalal 8). It was perhaps this divide that Gandhi created that snowballed into a communal rift so deep that Muslims started to think of forming another country for themselves.

Yet, even now, the Muslims of India had not formed a united front, and were not, as opposed to the belief held today, demanding separate land for themselves. This is clearly visible in the elections that were held in 1937. Punjab, a sizable Muslim majority province dominated by rich agriculturalists, was not amenable to Muslim League at all. These elections were fought in Punjab along the “old lines with personal, tribal and factional rivalries” (Jalal 22) with no divides along party lines. The N.W.F.P. was divided into factions, the results of the 1937 elections clearly show that with 21 out of the 50 seats being won by “No party Muslims” (Jalal 29). What is more, under Dr. Khan Sahib, Congress was the majority party there with 19 seats (Jalal 29). Sind, another majority Muslim province, was so apathetic towards the League that Jinnah failed to create a League Parliamentary Board in Sindh, and in the elections “Sind went to polls…without any League presence” (Jalal 28). Even U.P., where a sizable population of Muslims existed, the League won the elections by getting support from the top, without any populist support from the base (Jalal 32).

It is clear to see from the results of the elections that the Muslims were not a united group of people. Even as late as 1937, merely ten years before the partition of the subcontinent, Muslims went to vote with different agendas, with not much credence given to a separate country – even Muslim League was not campaigning for it. However, when Gandhi mixed religion and politics, a lot of zealots were brought into the fray and communal and religious rifts were created. This proved damaging to the nationalist cause in the long run, as Jinnah had predicted. As opposed to commonly held beliefs, it was not Jinnah, a self-proclaimed staunch nationalist, who demanded a separate country, nor were Muslims, a very divided group of people, interested in it, nor were they in a position to ask for it, but it was Gandhi who divided the populace along communal lines by combining politics and religion for political gain.