A Muslim State in the North-West

Personally, I would go further... I would like to see the Punjab, the 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. The proposal was put forward before the Nehru Committee. They rejected it on the ground that, if carried into effect, it would give a very unwieldy state. This is true in so far as the area is concerned in point of population, the state contemplated by the proposal would be much smaller than some of the present Indian provinces. The exclusion of Ambala division, and perhaps of some districts where non-Muslims predominate, will make it less extensive and more Muslim in population... so that the exclusion suggested will enable this consolidated state to give a more effective protection to non-Muslim minorities within its area.

The idea need not alarm the Hindus or the British, India is the greatest Muslim country in the world. The life of Islam as cultural force in this living country very largely depends on its centralization in a specified territory... Possessing full opportunity of development within the body-politic of India, the North-West Indian Muslims will prove the best defenders of India against a foreign invasion, be that invasion one of the ideas or of the bayonets... The Muslim demand....is actuated by a genuine desire for free development, which is practically impossible under the type of unitary government contemplated by the nationalist Hindu politicians with a view to securing permanent communal dominance in the whole of India.

Nor should the Hindus fear that the creation of autonomous Muslim states will mean the introduction of a kind of religious rule in such states... I, therefore, demand the formation of a consolidated Muslim State in the best interests of India and Islam. For India, it means security and peace resulting from an internal balance of power; for Islam, an opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian imperialism was forced to give it, to mobilize its laws, its education, its culture, and to bring them into closer contact with its own original spirit and with the spirit of modern times.