The All-India Muslim League

The All-India Muslim League began as a loyalist, elite political body. Within four decades, it became the driving force behind Pakistan’s creation.

This lesson follows that change, from Dacca in 1906 to Lahore in 1940 and beyond.

1How was the Muslim League founded in 1906?

It began at an education conference, not a political rally.

• The League was founded on 30 December 1906 at Dacca (now Dhaka).
• It formed during a session of the All India Muhammadan Educational Conference.
• More than 2,000 delegates met at the Nawab of Dacca’s family garden-house in Shahbag.
• Nawab Salimullah of Dacca proposed the resolution to form the League. Hakim Ajmal Khan seconded it.
• Salimullah became the League’s Vice-President.
• The Aga Khan III was the first honorary President. Nawab Viqar-ul-Mulk was General Secretary.
• Its early leaders had close Aligarh movement ties.
• Its original stance was largely loyal to British rule. It aimed to protect Muslim political interests, not to demand a separate country.

2What was the Simla Deputation, and what did it win?

A petition to the Viceroy showed that asking the British could work.

• The Simla Deputation met Viceroy Lord Minto on 1 October 1906.
• About 35 Muslim leaders took part. The Aga Khan led them.
• They asked for separate electorates for Muslims.
• The demand was granted in the Morley-Minto Reforms of 1909.
• The reforms also lowered the property qualification for Muslim voters.
• They expanded the Central Legislative Council from 16 to 60 members.
• The quick success taught early leaders that direct petitions to the British could bring results.
• Do not mix up the two years. The League was founded in 1906. Separate electorates came in 1909.

3What was the Lucknow Pact?

For one moment, the League and Congress agreed.

• In 1916, the League and the Indian National Congress signed the Lucknow Pact.
• It gave Muslims one-third of the central legislature’s elected Indian seats. That was above their share of roughly one-fourth of the population.
• Muhammad Ali Jinnah helped negotiate it.
• Sarojini Naidu called him the “Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity” in a 1918 book of his speeches.
• The provincial shares had a twist. In Punjab and Bengal, Muslims got less than their population share.
• In Muslim-minority provinces, they got more.

4Why did the League turn to Pakistan in 1940?

Ideas mattered. So did election results.

• At its Lahore session in 1940, the League adopted the Lahore Resolution. A.K. Fazlul Haq moved it.
• It demanded separate “independent states” for Muslims, based on the Two-Nation Theory.
• The word “Pakistan” did not appear in the resolution’s own text.
• Electoral failure also pushed the League. In the 1937 provincial elections, it won only about a fifth of the reserved Muslim seats.
• It failed to form a government in any province, even Muslim-majority Punjab and Bengal.
• Congress then rejected a coalition offer in the United Provinces. It insisted that League members join Congress individually.
• That pushed the League toward mass mobilisation and the separate-state demand.
• By the mid-1940s, the League sought a separate country, Pakistan, not just safeguards.
• On 16 August 1946, its Direct Action Day led to violence in Calcutta. Over 4,000 people died within 72 hours.

5How did Jinnah and Iqbal shape the story?

One man led the League. Another gave it an idea.

• Jinnah began as a champion of Hindu-Muslim unity. He later became the chief architect of Pakistan.
• After a period largely in London, he became the League’s permanent President on 4 March 1934.
• He held that post until his death in 1948.
• Muhammad Iqbal’s 1930 Allahabad address is often cited as the root of the Two-Nation Theory.
• But Iqbal proposed a Muslim-majority state within a federated India. He did not ask for full separation.
• He named Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province, Sindh and Baluchistan.
• The League adopted the separatist demand a decade later, in 1940.
• Only 24 years separate the Lucknow Pact of 1916 and the Lahore Resolution of 1940.