How Allama Iqbal re-energized Indian Muslims to get a separate state
How did Allama Iqbal re-energize Indian Muslims to get a separate state in his Allahabad Address in 1930? Justify your answer with five relevant points.
Solution
- Introduction/Background/Context/:
In 1930 Iqbal delivered the Presidential Address the Allahabad Address before the address Iqbal also delivered landmark lectures on Islam in 1928 and 1929 in Aligarh, Hyderabad, and Midas. Because Iqbal’s eye-plot was based on Islam and introversion with the model condition and modern situation helps him to generate the Allahabad Address. In 1932, Iqbal also presided over the All India Conference that was held at Lahore, and during that conference, he repeated some of the ideas and some of the thoughts which he had presented in his Address.
- Raised his voice for self-government:
In his address, Iqbal called for the creation of “a Muslim India within India’’, especially in North-eastern India. Iqbal demanded the right of self-government for the Muslims.
He said; India is a continent of human groups belonging to different races, speaking different languages, and professing different religions personally, I would like to see Punjab, North-West Frontier, Province, Sindh, and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of Muslims, at least of North-West India.
- Energized the Muslim by showing his fear about Islam:
Within his address, Allama Iqbal also touched on his fear that Islam may have a similar fate as Christianity. “To Islam, the matter is spirit realizing itself in space and time” whereas Europeans had accepted the separation of Church and state and disliked the fact that their leaders were “indirectly forcing the world to accept it is unquestionable dogma do not know what will be the final fate of the national idea in the world of Islam. Whether Islam will assimilate and transform it as it has before assimilated and transformed many ideas as expressive of a different spirit, or allow a radical transformation of its own structure by the force of this idea is hard to predict.
- Energized the Muslim by speaking about mutual harmony:
The unity of an Indian nation, therefore, must be sought not in use negation, but in the mutual harmony and cooperation, of the many. True statesmanship cannot ignore facts, however, unpleasant can maybe end it is on the discovery of Indian unity in the direction that the fate of India as well as of Asia really depends if an effective principle of the corporation is discover in India it will bring peace and mutual goodwill to the accident which has suffered so long and it will as the same time solve the entire political problem of Asia.
- Energized the Muslim by talking about the army:
In regard to the army, Iqbal stated: Punjab with 56 percent Muslim population supplies 54 percent of the total combatant troops to the Indians army, and if the 19000 Gurkhas recruited from the independent state of Nepal are excluded, Punjab contingents amount to 62 percent of the whole Indian army. This percentage does not take into account nearly 6000 combatants supplied to the Indian Army by the North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan. From this, you can easily calculate the possibilities of North-West Indian Muslims in regard to the defense of India again foreign aggression. Thus 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.
- Comparing the European democracy to Indian democracy, he justified the Muslim demand for a “Muslim India within India”
The principle of European democracy cannot be applied to India without recognizing the fact of communal groups. The Muslim demand for the creation of a Muslim India is, therefore, perfectly justified.
The resolution of All parties Muslim Conference at Delhi is, to my mind, wholly inspired by this noble ideal of a harmonious whole which instead of stifling the respective individualities of its components whole, affords them chances of fully working out the possibilities that may be latent in them. And I have no doubt that this house will emphatically endorse the Muslim demands embodied in this resolution.
Points that will prove beneficial for Muslims after 1930:
Iqbal’s address was known to have a forceful and logical presentation of the Muslim cases in India. His address arises the awareness of why should Muslim be treated as a political entity rather than a minority.
His address highlights the following views that would prove highly beneficial in the future.
- The territorial adjustment will able the Muslims to develop themselves in accordance with their ideas and serve the causes of Ummah.
- Redistribution of territory developed later on the concept of a Muslim homeland.
- He further expressed these ideas in a letter to Jinnah from May 1936 to November 1937.
- He talked of a separate federation of Muslim provinces. North-Western India and Bengal can be considered as entitled to self-determination like other nations in India and outside. Shariah’s is impossible without a free Muslim state.
- He advised the Muslims to be above self-interest and devote themselves to Islam.
- In difficult times Islam has saved the Muslims.
- Faith, culture, and historical traditions are more important than patriotism.