Zusammenfassung der Ressource
1937 Elections/Lahore Resolution 1940
- 1937 elections
- Congress landslide victory
- Now effectively the governing party of India
- Congress felt so powerful that they refused to
cooperate with the viceroy unless he promised to
not overrule decisions made by provincial govts
- Linlithgow reluctantly agrees - no option
- Congress refused to include any
Muslim politicians in Provincial govts
- Described as "one of the gravest miscalculations by the
Congress leadership in its long history" - Ayesha Jalal
- Muslim results
- there were 482 Muslim reserved
seats in the 1937 elections
- Muslim league only claimed 109 of them
- held 15% of all seats in legislatures
- Muslim population make up 22% - poor result
- Lahore Resolution 1940
- Overview
- Sets out Muslim demands for an
independent state
- ML were demanding areas of Muslim majority
to be separated off as independent states
- These states would be autonomous and sovereign
- Ambiguity
- Much confusion over exact demands
- Fazlul Huq, a muslim leader, thought that independent states meant two
equal separations, one in the east - Bengal, one in the west - Pakistan
- Jinnah let it be known privately that he
only intended 2 wings to one state
- Jinnah also open to idea that
independent muslim states could be
part of an All-India superstate
- Jinnah did not announce this until 6 years after
- Has caused historians to question his true objectives
- Hostage Theory
- Lahore resolution came under much scrutiny based on
the idea that minority rights were not protected
- Jinnah responded with his idea of hostage theory
- He argued that because there would be minorities in
both the Hindu and the Muslim state, the majorities
would be forced to protect the rights of the minorities
- to prevent their minorites being attacked in the other state