Indian National Movement In The Role Of Muslim League

Abstract

The history of origin and growth of political parties in India can be traced from the days of freedom movement of India. The Indian National Congress and Muslim league both are important political parties. It was an inevitable and sad fact that the partition happened due to the split in the Indian National Congress and the differences between Hindus and Muslims. Muslim communities feel that they are neglected and poorly represented in comparison to majority. Hence it was the same feeling and ideology that led to the formation of Muslim league with the support of British government. The British had always been accepting, fanning and supporting such Muslim demands that divide the Indian people. However, the support of the British government to the political Islamists in their non-secular intention as well as contemptuous attitude towards majority rule helped the league to become the sole representative body of Indian Muslims. Jinnah who played an important role during that period, Jinnah and Muslim league led the struggle for the partition of British India in to separate Hindu and Muslim states, and after the partition of Pakistan in 1947 the league became Pakistan’s dominant political party. It had a mass-based pressure group in British India, and hence it gradually declined in popularity and cohesion. Before the partition of India, in Indian politics, generally, there were two main schools of politics, the Indian National Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha which had been described as one of the most militant Hindu organizations of that period. So far as the Indian National Congress was concerned, it had been realized that without the Hindu Muslim unity, there was no hope of any constitutional reforms in British India. However, there was a group within the Congress party which believed that the Indian Muslims were not patriotic so far as the Indian Nationalism was concerned. The Congress party was established in 1885 with a view to represent all the communities of India; its claim was to be the sole-representative of Indian opinion. But as soon as some national issues such as the Hindi-Urdu controversy, the Partition of Bengal, (1905), and the issue of separate electorates for Muslims arose, the Congress Party adopted anti-Muslim attitude. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, the founder of two-nation theory had been giving the message all along that when it will come to choosing one party the Congress Party will always support the Hindu community.