Pakistan
emerged on the world map on August 14,1947. It has its roots into
the remote past. Its establishment lwas the culmination of the struggle
by Muslims of the South-Asian subcontinent for a separate homeland of
their own and its foundation was laid when Mohammad bin Qasim subdued
Sindh in 711 A.D. as a reprisal against sea pirates that had taken
refuge in Raja Dahir's kingdom.
The
advent of Islam further strengthened the historical individuality in the
areas now constituting Pakistan and further beyond its boundaries. Stone
Age Some of the earliest relics of Stone Age man in the subcontinent are
found in the Soan Valley of the Potohar region near Rawalpindi, with a
probable antiquity of about 500,000 years. No human skeleton of such
antiquity has yet been discovered in the area, but the crude stone
implements recovered from the terraces of the Soan carry the saga of
human toil and labor in this part of the world to the inter-glacial
period. These Stone Age men fashioned their implements in a sufficiently
homogenous way to justify their grouping in terms of a culture called
the Soan Culture. About 3000 B.C, amidst the rugged wind-swept valleys
and foothills of Balochistan, small village communities developed and
began to take the first hesitant steps towards civilization. Here, one
finds a more continuous story of human activity, though still in the
Stone Age.
These
pre-historic men established their settlements, both as herdsmen and as
farmers, in the valleys or on the outskirts of the plains with their
cattle and cultivated barley and other crops. Red and buffer Cultures
Careful excavations of the pre-historic mounds in these areas and the
classification of their contents, layer by layer, have grouped them into
two main categories of Red Ware Culture and Buff Ware Culture. The
former is popularly known as the Zhob Culture of North Balochistan,
while the latter comprises the Quetta, Amri Nal and Kulli Cultures of
Sindh and South Balochistan. Some Amri Nal villages or towns had stone
walls and bastions for defence purposes and their houses had stone
foundations. At Nal, an extensive cemetery of this culture consists of
about 100 graves. An important feature of this composite culture is that
at Amri and certain other sites, it has been found below the very
distinctive Indus Valley Culture. On the other hand, the steatite seals
of Nal and the copper implements and certain types of pot decoration
suggest a partial overlap between the two. It probably represents one of
the local societies which constituted the environment for the growth of
the Indus Valley Civilization.
The
pre-historic site of Kot Diji in the Sindh province has provided
information of high significance for the reconstruction of a connected
story which pushes back the origin of this civilization by 300 to 500
years, from about 2500 B.C.. to at least 2800 B.C. Evidence of a new
cultural elements of pre-Harappan era has been traced here. Pre-Harappan
Civilization When the primitive village communities in the Balochistan
area were still struggling against a difficult highland environment, a
highly cultured people were trying to assert themselves at Kot Diji, one
of the most developed urban civilizations of the ancient world which
flourished between the years 2500 and 1500 B.C. in the Indus Valley
sites of Moenjodaro and Harappa. These Indus Valley people possessed a
high standard of art and craftsmanship and a well developed system of
quasi pictographic writing, which despite continuing efforts still
remains undeciphered. The imposing ruins of the beautifully planned
Moenjodaro and Harappa towns present clear evidence of the unity of a
people having the same mode of life and using the same kind of tools.
Indeed, the brick buildings of the common people, the public baths, the
roads and covered drainage system suggest the picture of a happy and
contented people. Aryan Civilization In or about 1500 B.C., the Aryans
descended upon the Punjab and settled in the Sapta Sindhu, which
signifies the Indus plain. They developed a pastoral society that grew
into the Rigvedic Civilization. The Rigveda is replete with hymns of
praise for this region, which they describe as "God
fashioned". It is also clear that so long as the Sapta Sindhu
remained the core of the Aryan Civilization, it remained free from the
caste system. The caste institution and the ritual of complex sacrifices
took shape in the Gangetic Valley. There can be no doubt that the Indus
Civilization contributed much to the development of the Aryan
civilization. Gandhara Culture The discovery of the Gandhara grave
culture in Dir and Swat will go a long way in throwing light on the
period of Pakistan's cultural history between the end of the Indus
Culture in 1500 B.C. and the beginning of the historic period under the
Achaemenians in the sixth century B.C. Hindu mythology and Sanskrit
literary traditions seem to attribute the destruction of the Indus
civilization to the Aryans, but what really happened, remains a mystery.
The Gandhara grave culture has opened up two periods in the cultural
heritage of Pakistan: one of the Bronze Age and the other of the Iron
Age. It is so named because it presents a peculiar pattern of living in
hilly zones of the Gandhara region as evidenced in the graves. This
culture is different from the Indus Culture and has little relations
with the village culture of Balochistan. Stratigraphy as well as the
artifacts discovered from this area suggest that the Aryans moved into
this part of the world between 1,500 and 600 B.C. In the sixth century
B.C., Buddha began his teachings, which later on spread throughout the
northern part of the South-Asian subcontinent. It was towards the end of
this century, too, that Darius I of Iran organized Sindh and Punjab as
the twentieth satrapy of his empire.
There
are remarkable similarities between the organizations of that great
empire and the Mauryan empire of the third century B.C., while
Kautilya's Arthshastra also shows a strong Persian influence, Alexander
of Macedonia after defeating Darius III in 330 B.C. had also marched
through the South-Asian subcontinent up to the river Beas, but Greek
influence on the region appears to have been limited to contributing a
little to the establishment of the Mauryan empire. The great empire that
Asoka, the grandson of Chandragupta Maurya, built in the subcontinent
included only that part of the Indus basin which is now known as the
northern Punjab. The rest of the areas astride the Indus were not
subjugated by him. These areas, which now form a substantial part of
Pakistan, were virtually independent from the time of the Guptas in the
fourth century A.D. until the rise of the Delhi Sultanate in the
thirteenth century. Gandhara Art Gandhara Art, one of the most prized
possessions of Pakistan, flourished for a period of 500 years (from the
first to the fifth century A.D.) in the present valley of Peshawar and
the adjacent hilly regions of Swat, Buner and Bajaur. This art
represents a separate phase of the cultural renaissance of the region.
It was the product of a blending of Indian, Buddhist and Greco-Roman
sculpture. Gandhara Art in its early stages received the patronage of
Kanishka, the great Kushan ruler, during whose reign the Silk Route ran
through Peshawar and the Indus Valley, bringing great prosperity to the
whole area. Advent of Islam The first followers of prophet Muhammad
(Peace be upon him), to set foot on the soil of the South-Asian
subcontinent, were traders from the coast land of Arabia and the Persian
Gulf, soon after the dawn of Islam in the early seventh century A.D.
The
first permanent Muslim foothold in the subcontinent was achieved
with Mohammad bin Qasim's conquest of Sindh in 711 A.D. An autonomous
Muslim state linked with the Umayyed, and later, the Abbassid Caliphate
was established with jurisdiction extending over southern and central
parts of present Pakistan. Quite a few new cities were established and
Arabic was introduced as the official language. At the time of Mahmud of
Ghazna's invasion, Muslim rule still existed, though in a weakened form,
in Multan and some other regions. The Ghaznavids (976-1148) and their
successors, the Ghaurids (1148-1206), were Central Asian by origin and
they ruled their territories, which covered mostly the regions of
present Pakistan, from capitals outside India. It was in the early
thirteenth century that the foundations of the Muslim rule in India were
laid with extended boundaries and Delhi as the capital. From 1206 to
1526 A.D., five different dynasties held sway. Then followed the period
of Mughal ascendancy (1526-1707) and their rule continued,
though
nominally, till 1857. From the time of the Ghaznavids, Persian more
or less replaced Arabic as the official language. The economic,
political and religious institutions developed by the Muslims bore their
unique impression. The law of the State was based on Shariah and in
principle the rulers were bound to enforce it. Any long period of laxity
was generally followed by reinforcement of these laws under public
pressure. The impact of Islam on the South-Asian subcontinent was deep
and far-reaching. Islam introduced not only a new religion, but a new
civilization, a new way of life and new set of values. Islamic
traditions of art and literature, of culture and refinement, of social
and welfare institution, were established by Muslim rulers throughout
the subcontinent. A new language, Urdu, derived mainly from Arabic and
Persian vocabulary and adopting indigenous words and idioms, came to be
spoken and written by the Muslims and it gained currency among the rest
of the Indian population.
Urdu
is the National Language of Pakistan. Apart from religion, Urdu also
enabled the Muslim community during the period of its ascendancy to
preserve its separate identity in the subcontinent.
Muslim
Identity -- The question of Muslim identity, however assumed seriousness
during the decline of Muslim power in South Asia. The first person to
realize its acuteness was the scholar theologian, Shah Waliullah
(1703-62). He laid the foundation of Islamic renaissance in the
subcontinent and became a source of inspiration for almost all the
subsequent social and religious reform movements of the nineteenth, and
twentieth centuries. His immediate successors, inspired by his
teachings, tried to establish a modest Islamic state in the north-west
of India and they, under the leadership of Sayyed Ahmad Shaheed Barelvi
(1786-1831), persevered in this direction. British Expansionism and
Muslim Resistance Meanwhile, starting with the East India Company, the
British had emerged as the dominant force in South Asia. Their rise to
power was gradual extending over a period of nearly one hundred years.
They replaced the Shariah by what they termed as the Anglo-Muhammadan
law whereas Urdu was replaced by English as the official language. These
and other developments had great social, economic and political impact
especially on the Muslims of South Asia. The uprising of 1857, termed as
the Indian Mutiny by the British and the War of Independence by the
Muslims, was a desperate attempt to reverse the adverse course of
events. Religious Institutions The failure of the 1857 War of
Independence had disastrous consequences for the Muslims as the British
placed all the responsibility for this event on them. Determined to stop
such a recurrence in future, the British followed deliberately a
repressive policy against the Muslims. Properties and estates of those
even remotely associated with the freedom fighters were confiscated and
conscious efforts were made to close all avenues of honest living for
them. The Muslim response to this situation also aggravated their
plight. Their religious leaders, who had been quite active, withdrew
from the mainstream of the community life and devoted themselves
exclusively to imparting religious education. Although the religious
academies especially those of Deoband, Farangi Mahal and Rai Bareilly,
established by the Ulema, did help the Muslims to preserve their
identity, the training provided in these institutions hardly equipped
them for the new challenges. Educational Reform The Muslims kept
themselves aloof from western education as well as government service.
But, their compatriots, the Hindus, did not do so and accepted the new
rulers without reservation. They acquired western education, imbibed the
new culture and captured positions hitherto filled in by the Muslims. If
this situation had prolonged, it would have done the Muslims an
irreparable damage. The man to realise the impending peril was Sir Syed
Ahmad Khan (1817-1889), a witness to the tragic events of 1857. He
exerted his utmost to harmonize British Muslim relations. His assessment
was that the Muslims' safety lay in the acquisition of western education
and knowledge. He took several positive steps to achieve this objective.
He founded a college at Aligarh to impart education on western lines. Of
equal importance was the Anglo-Muhammadan Educational Conference, which
he sponsored in 1886, to provide an intellectual forum to the Muslims
for the dissemination of views in support of western education and
social reform. Similar were the objectives of the Muhammadan Literary
Society, founded by Nawab Adbul Latif (1828-93), active in Bengal, Sir
Syed Ahmad Khan's efforts transformed into a movement, known as the
Aligarh Movement, and it left its imprint on the Muslims of every part
of the South-Asian subcontinent. Under its inspiration, societies were
founded throughout the subcontinent which established educational
institutions for imparting education to the Muslims.
Sir
Syed Ahmad Khan was averse to the idea of participation by the Muslims
in any organized political activity which, he feared, might revive
British hostility towards them. He also disliked Hindu Muslim
collaboration in any joint venture. His disillusionment in this regard
stemmed basically from the Urdu Hindi controversy of the late 1860s when
the Hindu enthusiasts vehemently championed the cause of Hindi to
replace Urdu. He, therefore, opposed the Indian National Congress when
it was founded in 1885 and advised the Muslims to abstain from its
activities. His contemporary and a great scholar of Islam, Syed Ameer
Ali (1849-1928), shared his views about the Congress, but, he was not
opposed to Muslims organizing themselves politically. In fact, he
organised the first significant political body of the Muslims, the
Central National Muhammadan Association. Although, its membership was
limited, it had more than 50 branches in different parts of the
subcontinent and it accomplished some solid work for the educational and
political advancement of the Muslims. But, its activities waned towards
the end of the nineteenth century. The Muslim League At the dawn of the
twentieth century, a number of factors convinced the Muslims of the need
to have an effective political organization. Therefore, in October 1906,
a deputation comprising 35 Muslim leaders met the Viceroy of the British
at Simla and demanded separate electorates. Three months later, the
All-India Muslim League was founded by Nawab Salimullah Khan at Dhaka,
mainly with the objective of safeguarding the political rights and
interests of the Muslims. The British conceded separate electorates in
the Government of India Act of 1909 which confirmed the Muslim League's
position as an All-India party. Attempt for Hindu Muslim Unity The
visible trend of the two major communities progressing in opposite
directions caused deep concern to leaders of All-India stature. They
struggled to bring the Congress and the Muslim League on one platform.
Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948) was the leading figure
among them. After the annulment of the partition of Bengal and the
European Powers' aggressive designs against the Ottoman Empire and North
Africa, the Muslims were receptive to the idea of collaboration with the
Hindus against the British rulers.
The
Congress Muslim League rapprochement was achieved at the Lucknow
sessions of the two parties in 1916 and a joint scheme of reforms was
adopted. In the Lucknow Pact. as the scheme was commonly referred to,
the Congress accepted the principle of separate electorates, and the
Muslims, in return for `weightage' to the Muslims of the Muslim minority
provinces, agreed to surrender their thin majorities in the Punjab and
Bengal. The post Lucknow Pact period witnessed Hindu Muslim amity and
the two parties came to hold their annual sessions in the same city and
passed resolutions of identical contents.
Khilafat
Movement. The Hindu Muslim unity reached its climax during the
Khilafat and the Non-cooperation Movements. The Muslims of soothsayer,
under the leadership of the Ali Brothers, Maulana Mohammad Ali and
Maulana Shaukat Ali, launched the historic Khilafat Movement after the
First World War to protect the Ottoman Empire from dismemberment.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) linked the issue of Swaraj
(self-government) with the Khilafat issue to associate the Hindus with
the Movement. the ensuing Movement was the first countrywide popular
movement.
Although
the Movement failed in its objectives, it had a far-reaching impact on
the Muslims of South Asia. After a long time, they took united action on
a purely Islamic issue which momentarily forged solidarity among them.
It also produced a class of Muslim leaders experienced in organizing and
mobilizing the public. This experience was of immense value to the
Muslims later during the Pakistan Movement The collapse of the Khilafat
Movement was followed by a period of bitter Hindu Muslim antagonism. The
Hindus organized two highly anti Muslim movements, the Shudhi and the
Sangathan. The former movement was designed to convert Muslims to
Hindusim and the latter was meant to create solidarity among the Hindus
in the event of communal conflict. In retaliation, the Muslims sponsored
the Tabligh and Tanzim organizations to counter the impact of the Shudhi
and the Sangathan. In the 1920s, the frequency of communal riots was
unprecedented. Several Hindu-Muslim unity conferences were held to
remove the causes of conflict, but, it seemed nothing could mitigate the
intensity of communalism. Muslim Demand Safeguards In the light of this
situation, the Muslims revised their constitutional demands. They now
wanted preservation of their numerical majorities in the Punjab and
Bengal, separation of Sindh from Bombay, constitution of Balochistan as
a separate province and introduction of constitutional reforms in the
North-West Frontier Province. It was partly to press these demands that
one section of the All-India Muslim League cooperated with the Statutory
commission sent by the British Government under the chairmanship of Sir
John Simon in 1927.
The
other section of the League, which boycotted the Simon
Commission for its all-White character, cooperated with the Nehru
Committee, appointed by the All-Parties Confernece, to draft a
constitution for India. The Nehru Report had an extremely anti-Muslim
bias and the Congress leadership's refusal to amend it disillusioned
even the moderate Muslims. Allama Muhammad Iqbal Several leaders and
thinkers, having insight into the Hindu-Muslim question proposed
separation of Muslim India. However, the most lucid exposition of the
inner feeling of the Muslim community was given by Allama Muhammad
Iqbal(1877-1938) in his Presidential Address at the All-India Muslim
League Session at Allahabad in 1930. He suggested that for the healhy
development of Islam in South-Asia, it was essential to have a separate
Muslim state at least in the Muslim majority regions of the north-west.
Later on, in his correspondence with Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah,
he included the Muslim majority areas in the north-east also in his
proposed Muslim state. Three years after his Allahabad Address, a group
of Muslim students at Cambridge, headed by Chaudhry Rehmat Ali, issued a
pamphlet, Now or Never, in which drawing letters from the names of the
Muslim majority regions, they gave the nomenclature of
"Pakistan" to the proposed State. Very few even among the
Muslim welcomed the idea at the time. It was to take a decade for the
Muslims to embrace the demand for a separate Muslim state. Quaid-i-Azam
Mohammad Ali Jinnah Meanwhile, three Round Table Conferences were
convened in London during 1930-32, to resolve the Indian constitutional
problem. The Hindu and Muslim leaders, who were invited to these
conferences, could not draw up an agreed formula and the British
Government had to announce a `Communal Award' which was incorporated in
the Government of India Act of 1935. Before the elections under this
Act, the All-India Muslim League, which had remained dormant for some
time, was reorganized by Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who had
returned to India in 1934,after an absence of nearly five years in
England. The Muslim League could not win a majority of Muslim seats
since it had not yet been effectively reorganized. However, it had the
satisfaction that the performance of the Indian National Congress in the
Muslim constituencies was bad. After the elections, the attitude of the
Congress leadership was arrogant and domineering. The classic example
was its refusal to form a coalition government with the Muslim League in
the United Provinces. Instead, it asked the League leaders to dissolve
their parliamentary arty in the Provincial Assembly and join the
Congress. Another important Congress move after the 1937 elections was
its Muslim mass contact movement to persuade the Muslims to join the
congres and not the Muslim League. One of its leaders, Jawaharlal Nehru,
even declared that there were only two forces in India, the British and
the Congress. All this did not go unchallenged.
Quaid-i-Azam
Mohammad Ali Jinnah countered that there was a third force in South-Asia
constituting the Muslims. The All-India Muslim League, under his gifted
leadership, gradully and skilfully started organising the Muslims on one
platform. Towards a Separate Muslim Homeland The 1930s witnessed
awareness among the Muslims of their separate identity and their anxiety
to preserve it within separate territorial boundaries. An important
element that brought this simmering Muslim nationalism in the open was
the character of the Congress rule in the Muslim minority rpovinces
during 1937-39. The Congress policies in these provinces hurt Muslim
susceptibilities. There were calculated aims to obliterate the Muslims
as a separate cultural unit. The Muslims now stopped thinking in terms
of seeking safeguards and began to consider seriously the demand for a
separate Muslim state. During 1937-39, several Muslim leaders and
thinkers, inspired by Allama Iqbal's ideas, presented elaborate schemes
for partitioning the subcontinent according to two-nation theory.
Pakistan Resoluation The All-India Muslim League soon took these schemes
into consideration and finally, on March 23, 1940, the All-India Muslim
League, in a resolution, at its historic Lahore Session, demanded a
separate homeland for the Muslims in the Muslim majority regions of the
subcontinent. The resolution was commonly referred to as the Pakistan
Resolution. The Pakistan demand had a great appeal for the Muslims of
every persuasion. It revived memories of their past greatness and
promised future glory. They, therefore, responded to this demand
immediately. Cripps Mission The British Government recognized the
genuineness of the Pakistan demand indirectly in the proposals for the
transfer of power after the Second World War which Sir Stafford Cripps
brought to India in 1942. Both the Congress and the All-India Muslim
League rejected these proposals for different reasons. The principles of
secession of Muslim India as a separate Dominion was however, conceded
in these proposals. After this failure, a prominent Congress leader, C.
Rajgopalacharia, suggested a formula for a separate Muslim state in the
Working Committee of the Indian National Congress, which was rejected at
the time, but later on, in 1944, formed the basis of the Jinnah-Gandhi
talks. Demand for Pakistan
The
Pakistan demand became popular during the Second World War Every
section of the Muslim community-men , women,students,Ulema and
businessmen-were organized under the banner of the All-India Muslim
League. Branches of the party were opened even in the remote corners of
the subcontinent. Literature in the form of pamphlets, books, magazines
and newspapers was produced to expalin the Pakistan demand and
distributed widely. The support gained by the All-India Muslim League
and its demand for Pakistan was tested after the failure of the Simla
Conference, convened by the Viceroy, Lord Wavell, in 1945. Elections
were called to determine the respective strength of the political
parties. The All-India Muslim League election campaign was based on the
Pakistan demand. The Muslim community responded to this call in an
unprecedented way. Numerous Muslim parties were formed making united
parliamentary board at the behest of the Congress to oppose the Muslim
League. But the All-India Muslim League swept all the thirty seats in
the Central Legislature and in the provincial elections also, its
victory was outstanding. After the elections, on April 8-9,1946, the
All-India Muslim League called a convention of the newly-elected League
members in the Central and Provincial Legislatures at Delhi. This
convention, which constituted virtually a representative assembly of the
Muslims of South Asia, on a motion by the Chief Minister of Bengal,
Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy, reiterated the Pakistan demand in clearer
terms. Cabinet Plan In early 1946, the British Government sent a Cabinet
Mission to the subcontinent to resolve the constitutional deadlock. The
Mission conducted negotiations with various political parties, but
fialed to evolve an agreed formula. Finally, the Cabinet Mission
announced its own Plan, which among other provisions, envisaged three
federal groupings,two of them comprising the Muslim majority provinces,
linked at the Centre in a loose federation with three subjects. The
Muslim League accepted the plan, as a strategic move, expecting to
achieve its objective in not-too-distant a future. The All-India
Congress also agreed to the Plan, but, soon realising its implications,
the Congress leaders began to interpret it in a way not visualized by
the authoris of the Plan. This provided the All-India Muslim League an
excuse to withdraw its acceptance of the Plan and the party observed
August 16, as a `Direct Action Day' to show Muslim solidarity in support
of the Pakistan demand. Partition Scheme In October 1946, an Interim
Government was formed. The Muslim League sent its representative under
the leadership of its General Secretary, Mr. Liaquat Ali Khan, with the
aim to fight for the party objective from within the Interim Government.
After a short time, the situation inside the Interim Government and
outside convinced the Congress leadership to accept Pakistan as the only
solution of the communal problem. The British Government, after its last
attempt to save the Cabinet Mission Plan in December 1946, also moved
towards a scheme for the partition of India. The last British Viceroy,
Lord Louis Mountbatten, came with a clear mandate to draft a plan for
the transfer of power.
After
holding talks with political leaders and parties, he prepared a
Partition Plan for the transfer of power, which, after approval of the
British Government, was announced on June 3,1947. Emergence of Pakistan
Both the Congress and the Muslim League accepted the Plan. Two largest
Muslim majority provinces, Bengal and Punjab, were partitioned. The
Assemblies of West Punjab, East Bengal and Sindh and in Balochistan, the
Quetta Municipality, and the Shahi Jirga voted for Pakistan. Referenda
were held in the North-West Frontier Province and the District of Sylhet
in Assam, which resulted in an overwhelming vote for Pakistan. As a
result, on August 14,1947, the new state of Pakistan came into
existence.