A banker by profession, Salim Ansar has a passion for history and historic books. His personal library already boasts a treasure trove of over 7,000 rare and unique books.
Every week, we shall take a leaf from one such book and treat you to a little taste of history.
BOOK NAME: The Founder of Pakistan (Through Trial to Triumph)
PUBLISHER: The Pakistan National Movement, Cambridge, England
DATE OF PUBLICATION: 1942
The following excerpt has been taken from Page: 9 – 13
“In the recent history of South Asia, the vision of a single individual has seldom transformed the fate of a nation so completely as has been done by Choudhary Rahmat Ali, the Founder of Pakistan.
Crisis Predicted
“The author here outlines four alternative British policies for the North-West Frontier, summing up in favour of, what he calls, the ‘Progressive Policy,’ which aims at a gradual penetration of the Tribal Territories, lying between India and the Afghan frontier.”
“This ideal policy can never be achieved until we move to the Durand Line.”
“30 YEARS HENCE”
(Statesman, Delhi, August 3, 1933)
“If we do not now begin some sort of progressive policy, what will be the result in, say, thirty years’ time? My outlook is pessimistic because of the cursory reading of Indian History, a petty knowledge of Indian politics and my own prophetic conceit. I visualize a Central Government with an inevitable Hindu majority; a Moslem minority continually in opposition on religious and imaginary grounds; an army cut to the bone so as to make Federation safe for democracy; and, finally, a forward policy such as we have now, only less so.
“Then the Mahsud loots the rich cantonment of Razmak or the Afridi occupies the Hindu bungalows of Peshawar, or the Achakzai raids the Staff College in Quetta. A crisis will develop. The Commander-in-Chief will demand strong action and 50 crores, and will be supported by the Central Government. And then, ladies and gentlemen, the sinister figure of Pakistan will rear its arrogant head.
“It is idle and extremely foolish for anybody in India to shut his eyes to the Islamic movement which dreams of an Indian Moslem Confederation composed of the Punjab, the tribal territory (called Afghania), Kashmir and Sind. On … a pretext of war against the Mohammedans of the border, an agitation, spreading through Provinces and States, will arise which will make Civil Disobedience look like a dhobi-ghat scuffle. Pakistan will have tremendous backing; it already possesses great resources in fighting men; and it still dreams of the old Mughal glories in Hindustan. It would split Federation from top to bottom.
“Then, the Duchess of Atholl, M.P., writing on the Indian Problem, thus showed her apprehensions of the Pakistan Scheme:
“The determination of some Muslims not to submit under any conditions to a Hindu yoke at the Centre is shown by the proposal to set up an independent Federation of the five mainly Muslim areas, i.e., the Punjab, Sind, North-West Frontier, Kashmir, Baluchistan. In view of the fact that such a Federation would include the bulk of the fighting races of India, that it would control her most vulnerable frontier, and that beyond that frontier lies a continuous belt of Muslim states stretching to the Mediterranean, a greater political and military danger to India could hardly be imagined. It might well mean civil war in India and an Afghan invasion with Soviet support.
“Muslim witnesses described this to the Joint Committee as only a student’s scheme, but the anxiety shown by a leading Muslim delegate to cut short questions on this matter suggests that the proposal has aroused interest in more responsible quarters. A later witness, an ex-district magistrate, told the Joint Committee that the idea of a great Islamic State, to include not only the area in question, but also Afghanistan, was being discussed in Muslim circles in the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province. It is also being spoken of in Chinese Turkestan, which is rapidly being penetrated by Islamic ideas, though Soviet representatives, since the conclusion of a commercial treaty in 1931 with the Chinese authorities, are said to have become the actual rulers of this huge province a fact which incidentally brings Britain and Soviet Russia in direct contact with each other for four hundred miles along the northern border of Kashmir.
“‘It should not be forgotten that in the middle of the eighteenth century, Kashmir and the four provinces in question, referred to to-day by supporters of the scheme as ‘Pakistan’ actually formed part of an Afghan kingdom. The recovery of this great territory, given favourable political conditions, might well be the aim of future Afghan policy, as it was in the war of 1919.’ (The Duchess of Atholl, The Main Facts of the Indian Problem, London, 1933)
“Again, speaking in the House of Commons on 8th May, 1935, on the Government of India Bill, 1935 (All-India Federation Bill), Mr. Vyvyan Adams, M.P., voiced his disapproval of the Pakistan Scheme in the following words:
“‘We need the fidelity of the Hindu community no less than we need the fidelity of the Moslems. Some strange evidence was submitted to the Joint Parliamentary Committee suggesting that at some date there would be a federation of Moslems comprising Baluchistan, Sind, the Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province and Kashmir, and it was proposed that with them was to be federated Afghanistan. Such an arrangement is not in accordance with our traditional ideas of Moslem loyalty, and would be quite inconsistent with what, during our history, we have grown to expect from the Moslem community.’” (Parliamentary Debates, 1935)
“Yet again, discoursing on the effects of Muslim renaissance on the international situation, Professor John Coatman, formerly Professor of Inter-Imperial Relations, London University, expressed himself thus on the Pakistan Scheme:
“‘The Islamic renascence now in progress across the whole Middle East and North of Africa can be a powerfully disruptive factor in international relations and the world order of the future. Although, as we have seen, there is no substance in the talk of Pan-Islamism, there is very material substance in some of the plans, or at any rate possibilities, of the growth of greater Muhammadan States by the union of neighbouring Muhammadan peoples; and further, there is the certainty that such growth will be partly at the expense of non-Muhammadan peoples. One example of the international disorganisation which would be produced by any such development as this would be provided by the amalgamation of Afghanistan and the Muhammadans of North-western India into one state. Such a project as this may be a chimera, but it is discussed seriously enough by some Muhammadans of standing in both the countries concerned. There are enthusiasts who foresee the rise of a great Muhammadan kingdom, stretching from the eastern borders of Persia to Calcutta, and including Kashmir and some of the khanates, or little kingdoms, of Turkestan and Central Asia. It is easy enough to point out the tremendous dislocation which would ensue from the realisation of such dreams as this and the permanent insecurity and the certainty of ultimate disaster from the inclusion in such a new State of millions of Hindus, who would form the Hindustan irredents.’ (John Coatman, Magna Britannia, London, 1936)
Sir Alfred Watson, Editorial Director of Great Britain and the East, made a personal attack on Rahmat Ali and opposed the Pakistan National Movement in the following words:
“‘Let there be no mistake; this new movement is formidable and threatens to hold up all constitutional advance in India and might well lead to chaos in the country. The idea is not that of Mr. Jinnah. He has adopted it, but its principal advocate is C. Rahmat Ali, who uses the language of fanaticism in urging it upon the Muslims of India. To him Indian territorial unity is “a mischievous myth.” For the Muslims to remain in India is “for ever to rot in subjection to Indianism.” The Muslim people will be “coerced and crushed into complete captivity.”’
“‘To argue with this kind of opponent is futility. One can only point out the absurdity of the proposals. Pakistan is to establish itself in the Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province, Kashmir, Sind, and Baluchistan, which would form a fairly homogeneous group of states in the north; to extend to Bengal, where there is a Muslim majority of the population, and to take in Hyderabad. A glance at the map is sufficient to dispel the idea that these scattered areas could be combined in one nation.’ (Great Britain and the East, London, September 4, 1941)
“Ch Rehmat Ali proposed in his Millat of Islam and the Menace of Indianism, that:
“‘If we really wish to rid ourselves of “Indianism” to reestablish our nationhood as distinct from “India,” and to link our national domains to one another as South Asiatic countries, we must scrap the All-Indian Muslim League as such and create instead an alliance of the nations of Pakistan, Bengal, and Usmanistan.’
“It is clear from the above quotation that Rahmat Ali plans to create three Muslim nations in the Islamic strongholds of Pakistan, Bengal and Usmanistan and then to bring them together by an alliance of mutual solidarity and defence. This is a very different thing from combining scattered areas into one nation.
“We need hardly add that this opposition of British politicians, prompted as it is by imperial expediency, rather than by any fundamental flaw in the Pakistan Scheme, is foredoomed to failure. For history shows that if an ideal is basically just, as that of Pakistan certainly is, and if it has won the allegiance of the people, as the Pakistani ideal has of the Muslims, no power on earth can prevent its fulfillment.”
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