IDEOLOGICAL ORIENTATION OF IQBAL�S DEMAND FOR PAKISTAN[1]

Syed Abdul Rahman

We are still too close to the times of Iqbal to be able to make an impartial and objective assessment of his thought as well as of his mission. Admittedly, Iqbal, so to say in Toynbee�s termi�nology, was "creative individual,"[2] whose inspiration enabled the Muslim community of India to discover its ideal and destiny at a crucial moment of its history.

It is well known that the Indo-Muslim society, which was already in the process of decay, was subjected to a great catastrophe in 1857. As a reprisal to their participation in the War of Liberation the Muslims were made to suffer greatly. In the words of Hunter, "they [Muslims] were a race ruined under British rule."[3] The hostility of their new masters was also exhibited in the favour and patronage they (the British) extended to the Hindus. This state of affairs proved a great handicap for Muslims in the ensuing competition with Hindus, for their economic and political salvation under alien rule.

Moreover, there was another factor of far greater importance which placed Muslims in an exceedingly disadvantageous position. As Aziz Ahmed says: "Centuries of Muslim rule had helped Hinduism to shed its shell of insularity, and infused it with an apparatus of eclectic receptivity by which it could adapt itself to comfortable co-existence with the influx of Western ideas which education in English brought necessarily in its wake. Muslim India had passed through no, similar process of immunization. For it the change meant secession from its own cultural heritage to adopt to an alien one."[4]

Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817-1898) was among the first to diagnose the Muslims� plight and to offer a solution. Not only did he prescribe a separate course for the Muslims, but also thought of demanding from the Government a special status for Muslims commensurate with their historical importance as former rulers of the subcontinent and architects of a great civilisation.[5] So successful were Sayyid Ahmad Khan�s efforts and of his successors that before long Muslims were assured of their "political rights and interests as a community". Sayyid Ahmad Khan�s movement is generally held to have been inspired by the British policy which was based upon the principle of "divide and rule". Although this question lies outside the scope of the present study, it may be remarked that "the real problem confronting British officials, as they saw it, was not how to divide and rule India, but rather was how to rule a divided country."[6] A careful analysis of the facts will reveal that, far from being an attempt to divide the electorate and the national movement itself, the contitutional safeguard of separate electorates was in recognition of the religious and cultur�al differences which already existed between Hindus and Muslims. At first, "special electorates" and weightage were distasteful to the Hindus, but, later, either because of the legitimacy of their demands or out of sheer expediency they reconciled to them, as evidenced by Lucknow Pact of 1916.[7] The Hindus Muslim unity forged by Lucknow Pact reached its high watermark during the Khilafat and the non-cooperation movements in early 1920�s. The unity which was actuated by pure negotiations, however, proved to be artificial, and very soon the inherent tension assumed enormous proportions, thus accentuating the Hindu-Muslim situa�tion. Differences came to a head when the Nehru Committee tried to solve the Muslim political problem just by ignoring it. It did away with separate electorates "as thoroughly bad"[8] and weightage as "harmful to the development of Muslims themselves on national lines."[9] As a matter of fact, the Nehru Committee looked at the Muslim problem from a different angle. It refused to con�sider Muslims as a political minority; instead, it treated it as a religious and cultural community which needed only certain reli�gious and cultural safeguards.[10] This led to a strong urge for unity and cooperation among Muslims and forced them, not only to revive their old demands for separate electorates and weightage, but also to demand the highest degree of provincial autonomy in the forthcoming reforms envisaging an all-India federation. The Nehru Report and the League�s reaction expressed in Jinnah�s Fourteen Points led to a cul-de-sac.[11]

It was at this critical juncture that Iqbal (1877-1938) emerged as a great leader, whose insight proposed a new solution to the constitutional tangle. In his Presidential Address to the Annual Session of the League at Allahabad in 1930 he declared that "The principle of European democracy cannot be applied to India without recognising the facts of communal groups."[12] He, therefore, proposed the creation of a separate Muslim state in India. "I would like to see," he said, "the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims at least of North-West India."[13] A group of Muslim students at Cambridge, most prominent being Rahmat Ali (Choudhary), later, suggested the name Pakistan[14] for the proposed state which captured the imagination and fired the zeal of the masses of Mus�lim India.

Now, it is to be pointed out that, although the idea of a Muslim state in India was proclaimed from the platform of the A11-India Muslim League, it did not attract the attention even of the League leaders, so much so that when it was brought to the notice of the members of the Round Table Conference in 1931 it was dismissed as "chimerical," "impracticable" and "a student scheme" and as one which has not been "considered by any re-presentative gentlemen and association so far".[15] This lack of interest of Muslim leaders is understandable, for at the time it was presented the idea could not be carried out constitutionally. Moreover, it has been held that Iqbal�s scheme of amalgamation of North-West area into a single state was tantamount to the for�mation of a Muslim block[16] within the Indian Empire rather than to the demand of an independent Muslim state. As held by Tara Chand, Iqbal was not thinking in terms of "the partition of India," but in terms of a federation of autonomous states within India.[17] But I.H. Qureshi contends this view. According to him, had Iqbal proposed formation of a big Muslim province he would not have talked of that unit being within the British Empire or without. He has talked of other matters in the address, not because he was asking for mere autonomy, but because he was speaking from the platform of a body which had not yet accepted the policy of complete separation from India. The resolution of the Muslim All-Parties Conference he considered to be a demand for free Islam within a free India. This is autonomy; therefore, he prefaced his remark about a Muslim state by saying that personally he would like to go even further which could mean only independence. In the third Round Table Conference Iqbal reiterated the opinion ex-pressed by the Aga Khan that there should be no central government in the subcontinent and that there should be autonomous and independent dominions.[18]

Dr Qureshi�s analysis carries much weight. However, it would not be going too far to say that the idea of independent Muslim state in the subcontinent did not emerge from Iqbal�s mind as a fully developed concept all at once. It matured in his mind in the late� thirties when at length he envisioned an independent Muslim state to be carved out of India, comprising the North-West and the North-East zones.[19] Only when Iqbal had crystallised his vision into the idea of an independent state the Quaid-i Azam became convinced of its viability which he himself admitted. Said he:

"His views were substantially in consonance with my own and had finally led me to the same conclusions as a result of careful examination and study of constitutional problems facing India, and found expression in due course in the united will of Muslim India as adumberated in the Lahore Resolution of the All-India Muslim League, popularly known �Pakistan Resolutian� passed on 23rd March 1940."[20]

In any case, it is certain that Iqbal was not the first to put forth the idea of a Muslim state to be carved out in India. In fact, the idea can be traced back to the advent of Islam in India. K.M. Paniker says:

"The main social result of the introduction of Islam as a reli�gion into India was division of society on a vertical basis. Before the tenth century Hindu society was divided horizontally and neither Buddhism nor Jainism affected the division. Islam, on the other hand, split Indian society into two sections from top to bottom and what has now come to be known in the phraseology of today as two separate nations came into being from the begin�ning. At all stages they were different and hardly any social com�munications or intermingling existed between them."[21]

Notwithstanding that during the Mughal period, especially after 1555, the hostility of Hindus to Muslims� presence in India had toned down, and there had been extensive cultural and religious communication between Hindus and Muslims. However, this communication, on the part of the Hindus, was in the nature of insular cc existence with Islam, so, "despite the conscious efforts of a few individuals or movements as eclecticism. The soul of Hinduism remained as distrustful of Islam as ever, and the principle of repulsion remained operative in the case of both, con�siderably more than that of attraction".[22]

It is customary to claim that the unification of the subconti�nent was the greatest contribution of the British rule in India. But even as early as 1858 British statesmen doubted that an extensive country like India, with its different nations and languages, could be consolidated into one compact and enduring empire, while others foresaw the division of India and withdrawal of the British from India.[23] Apart from some faint hints about the division of India, some thinkers even put forward the scheme of carving oat an Islamic state in the subcontinent. In 1870�s, Jamaluddin Afghani conceived "an European idea of a Central-Asian and North-West Indian State," which would necessarily involve separation of the North-Western region from the rest of the country. Sayyid Ahmad Khan was the first to declare that India was a continent rather than a country. "In his whole attitude," says Percival Spear, "was implicit the concept of Pakistan."[24] Not longer afterwards in 1911 Mohamed Ali said: "The problems of India are almost international."[25] After Iqbal�s famous Address at Allahabad on 29 December 1930, Mohamed Ali in his last letter to the Prime Minister of England on 1 January 1931 decided:

"The real problem before us is to give full power to Musalmans in such provinces as those in which they are in majority, whether small or large, and protection to them in such provinces as those in which they are in a minority, and in order to be absolutely fair to the Hindu community also, precisely the same thing must be done with the Hindus. . . . Unless in these few provinces Muslim Majorities are established by the new constitution, I must submit, not as threat, but as a very friendly warning, there will be civil war in India."[26]

Earlier in March and April 1920, one Muhammad Abdul Qadir Bilgrami published in the Dhu!-Qarnain of Badaun "An Open Letter to Mahatma Gandhi,"[27] advocating the division of the subconti�nent between Hindus and Muslims giving even a list of districts, fundamentally not very different from the present boundaries of East and West Pakistan.[28]

Despite these not insignificant anticipations, Iqbal�s own con�tribution to the idea of Pakistan is incommensurable with them. All earlier ideas were either prompted by the immediate fear of the domination of Hindu majority, or by the desire for appropriate sharing of power while still remaining a minority, or inspired by romantic ideal of pan-Islamism. But, Iqbal�s idea of a Muslim state was born out of his keen insight into Islam as a religion and a polity, not only its past and its present, but also its destined role in world history. As this point needs elucidation it would be appropriate to dwell upon it at some length here.

Iqbal was essentially a philosopher whose:

��Theme was the all-embracing sufficiency of Islam as expressing a dynamic spirit of struggle for spiritual freedom. Islam was not merely a valid religion to be compared favourably with others, it was the root and branch of all religious experience. It was not a fixed and a precious deposit to be treasured with the zeal of the antiquarian, but a living principle of action which could give pur�pose and remake worlds."[29]

Iqbal elaborates his theme by elucidating the nature of the human self and the way to its prefection, individually and collectively. According to him, "Self is a veritable reality. It exists and exists in its own right."[30] Unlike those philosophies which presume the world of phenomena as unreal and non-existent and look upon the        human self as a mere fragment of the External Mind,[31] constantly striving for reabsorption into it,[32] Iqbal emphasises the reality of the human ego and its unfolding into a complete and perfect personality.[33] Ego or personality, he argues, is primarily a state of tension and as such it continues to develop only if that state is maintained. This constant strife is possible only if it keeps itself involved with other egos. This prerequisite for the perfection of the human ego calls for necessary membership of society. As a matter of fact, Iqbal greatly stresses man�s need for social life, which alone affords opportunities for the individual to discover its in�herent riches and its potentialities to grow fully and ideally. This brings us to the nature of an ideal society envisaged by Iqbal. Certainly to him the ideal society is Islamic society as he understood it, It must be pointed out that, like his entire thought, his political philosophy was based on the two essential tenets of Islam, Unity of God (tauḥīd) and Prophethood (risālat) of Muham�mad (peace be upon him). These two principles make Islamic civilisation dynamic reconciling the categories of the temporal and the spiritual as well as those of permanence and change. Of the basic features of Islamic civilisation is the unity of mankind based on the idea of a common human origin. Owing to its emphasis on the unity of human origin, a corollary of tauḥīd, Islamic culture largely excludes racialism and geographical nationalism.

Elaborating the ideal society Iqbal makes it clear that:

"In Islam the spiritual and the temporal are not two distinct domains, and the nature of an act, however secular in its import, is determined by the attitude of mind with which the agent does it. It is the invisible mental background of the act which ulti�mately determines its character. An act is temporal or profane if it is done in a spirit of detechment from the infinite complexity of life bebind it; it is spiritual if it is inspired by that complexity. In Islam it is the same reality which appears as Church looked at from one point of view and State from another. It is not true to say that Church and State are two sides or facets of the same thing. Islam is a single unanalysable reality which is one or the other as your point of view varies.��[34]

We have referred to the Islamic concept of human unity impli�cit in the essential principle of tauḥīd. Islam denounces national-ism based on race, colour, language and territory. The Islamic conception of society can be compared with the conception of a nation as defined by Ernest Renan. According to Renan, "Man is enslaved neither by his race, nor by his religion, nor by the course of rivers, nor by the direction of mountain ranges." To him "A great aggregation of men, sane of mind and warm of heart, creat�es a moral consciousness which is called a nation."[35]

While Iqbal emphasises unity of the Muslim millat and oneness of the religious centre (Ka�bah), he does not seem op-posed to political and cultural divisions within the framework of Islam. What he is opposed to is treating race, colour, language or territory as the basis of human solidarity. He pointed out that, although truth has a universal character, it engenders varieties of scientific and national cultures which comprise the totality of human knowledge. Much in the same way, Islamic culture creates varieties of national, moral and social ideals. In view of this the idea of the universal state (khīlāfah) is not wholly a Divine insti�tution and consequently not indispensable. In fact, it is merely a matter of expediency. Thus, instead of emphasising universalism, Iqbal advocates the international character of Islam. Applying his views to the present condition he endorsed the views of Ziya Pasha that, although a real universal caliphate of all Muslim nations would be an ideal thing, until this is achieved, each Muslim state should first try to put its own house in order. In the existing situation of the world, Islam can best survive neither by narrow nationalism, nor in the form of a universal state, but in a multi-national free association, something like a league of nations of Islam, "which recognizes artificial boundaries and racial distinc�tions for facility of reference only, and not for restricting the social horizon of its members."[36]

Iqbal�s mission of life was to rehabilitate Islam in the modern world and to reinterpret it as a religion and as a polity which was best suited to replace the heterogeneous systems under which humanity was reduced to the level of animal existence but this ideal of his remained a future dream. His immediate concern was the fate of the Muslims in the slowly growing pattern of self-government in India. As against the negative motif of the fear of Hindu domination and the romantic ideal of the universal khilāfah, he suggested the formation of an Islamic state in the subcontinent on the Muslims� claim to the right of self-determination on a more positive basis. He, in fact, asserted man�s right to live as he likes, which is possible only on the basis of the autonomy and in-dependence of his community. According to him, love of� one�s own community is a natural desire which does not necessarily involve hatred for other communities. "There are," he said, "com�munalisms and communalisms. A community which is inspired by feelings of ill-will towards other communities is low and ignoble. I entertain the highest respect for the customs, laws, religious and social institutions of other communities. Nay, it is my duty accord�ing to the teaching of the Quran, even to defend their places of worship, if need be. Yet I love the communal group which is the source of my life and behaviour and which has formed me what I am by giving me its religion, its literature, its thought, its culture and thereby recreating the whole past as a living operative factor in my present consciousness."[37]

Autonomy is thus indispensable for every community. It is even more so for the Muslims of the subcontinent. For, in Islam religion is not a private affair. It would not like to see, as a moral and political ideal, meeting the same fate as Christianity has met in Europe. It is not possible to retain Islam as an ethical ideal and reject it as a polity in favour of national polities in which religious attitude is not permitted to play any part. This question became of special importance in India where the Muslims happen to be in minority. "The religious ideal of Islam, therefore, is organically related to the social order which it has created. The rejection of the one will eventually involve the rejection of the other."[38]

He not only asserted that autonomy to the Muslim community was vital, but also pointed out that India lacked the prerequisites for Muslim-Hindu unity and living together harmoniously. He reiterated what Sayyid Ahmad Khan had said earlier that India was not a country but a continent which contained two major units: a Hindu solidarity and a Muslim solidarity.[39] These two nations had little in common between them and their sources of inspiration were altogether different. While Islam had its links with the Muslim Middle East, Hinduism had its cultural affinities with the Buddhist world in the Far East in South-East Asia.[40] This fact has made the two cultures so distinct rendering each to develop its own Ego. It would be in the greater interest of both Hindus and Muslims to allow their separate egos to develop mutually exclusively.

Iqbal, thus, gave the intellectual justification on more positive lines for Pakistan while others argued its case on a political plane. In fact, he envisioned on one hand a political solution of Hindu-Muslim problem and on the other hand conceived an Islamic state where Muslims would be able to realise Islam in such a manner as would meet the requirements of the modern age. It must be pointed out that the Islamic state which Iqbal dreamt was not to be either a theocracy[41] or a national democracy in the modern sense. Iqbal had observed the fruits of nationalism in Europe which led to constant international strife and exploitation of the weak by the strong. Despite his repulsion to Western nationalism, he does not hold that democracy is repugnant to Islam. While he is opposed to national democracy as a creed, he is of view that the true spirit of Islam in the modern age can best be expressed through democracy alone. The finality of the institution of Pro�phethood, which stands. Inter alia, for the abolition of priesthood as well as of kingship, leads to the idea that human affairs must be dealt with by the people themselves[42] through the principles of ījtihād and ijmā�. The failure of Muslims to establish a democratic tradition was due largely to entrusting ijtihād and ijmā�  to certain individuals, who were exploited by Muslim caliphs and kings. In order to provide Islam with opportunities to express itself best in the modern age it is now imperative that the power of ijtihād and ijmā� must be entrusted to Muslim legislative assembly. Iqbal, however, was critical of the manner Turkey had dealt with ijtihād. For, not realising the limitations Islam imposed on ijtihād and ijmā� the Turks gave themselves up to secularism. Iqbal was quite hopeful that, owing to the heritage of healthy conservatism of the people of the subcontinent, such state of affairs would not occur in Pakistan. Moreover, in order further to prevent any deviation from the Islamic path in the exercise of ijtihād and ijmā�he assert�ed that the ulema �should form a vital part of Muslim legislative assembly".[43]

In the economic field Iqbal held the belief that the economic principles of Islam, if properly understood and applied, would offer a far better solution as compared to the other systems be�lieved and practised in the modern world. According to him, the principle of zakāt is an effective source of income for an Islamic state for fulfilling the primary obligations of kifālat-ī-�āmmah, i.e. to provide and guarantee the means of subsistence to one and all. However, it appears that he is convinced of the state�s right to take surplus wealth from them who possess it in order to assure equitable distribution of wealth among the people. This fact is borne out by his following couplet:

���ی�H? H?A �� z?T?� �O t?O��� �ی� t?� Z?�
t?T_ ��T? �ی��t?ی� یH? z?�ی�Z? H?� n?���t?T?[44]

[Whatever remains concealled so far in the phrase:

May it unfold itself in the present age.]

This couplet has reference to a Qur�ānic verse:[45]یT_T?O�n?� �t? �t? یn?���n? t?O���[They ask you what they ought to spend. Say:What is superfluous.]

In another place Iqbal has stated that adoption of the socialistic economic system with certain modifications making it consistent with Islamic legal system would not be a deviation from Islam, but would be reverting to its original teachings.[46]

In calling for the establishment of an independent Islamic state in the subcontinent, Iqbal was inspired by a positive ideal. This ideal, in turn, was the result of the philosophical insight into the secrets of life and reality and an understanding of the mission of Islam as well as a realistic appraisal of the history of Islam in the subcontinent and elsewhere and, moreover, a prophetic imagina�tion of future. His concept of Pakistan, in fact, reconciles national-ism with the Islamic unity of mankind. Prior to Iqbal, Muslim efforts at regeneration were confined to the idea that the Muslims of the subcontinent were a minority of special importance whose interests must be assured through safeguards and weightages. In-deed, it was the imagination of Iqbal that created a consciousness among Muslims that they were a nation by themselves and in their own rights. Yet another of Iqbal�s achievements is that his concept of Pakistan provided a basis for the realisation of the Islamic ideal of unity which seized the Muslim imagination in the modern age since the time of Jamaluddin Afghani. And it was because of the fact that Iqbal had combined Afghani�s idealism with Sayyid Ahmad Khan�s realism that Muslims came to accept the Pakistan ideal as a new message for emancipation from all sort of exploita�tion. Admittedly it also led to the discovery of the potentials of the new culture of the future.

References