HISTORY IN CHRONOLOGICAL
ORDER
Pakistan emerged on the world map on
August 14,1947. It has its roots into the remote past. Its
establishment was the culmination of the struggle by Muslims of the
South-Asian subcontinent for a separate homeland of their own and
its foundation was laid when Muhammad bin Qasim subdued Sindh in 711
A.D. as a reprisal against sea pirates that had taken refuge in Raja
Dahir's kingdom.
The advent of Islam further strengthened the historical
individuality in the areas now constituting Pakistan and further
beyond its boundaries. Stone Age Some of the earliest relics of
Stone Age man in the subcontinent are found in the Soan Valley of
the Potohar region near Rawalpindi, with a probable antiquity of
about 500,000 years. No human skeleton of such antiquity has yet
been discovered in the area, but the crude stone implements
recovered from the terraces of the Soan carry the saga of human toil
and labor in this part of the world to the inter-glacial period.
These Stone Age men fashioned their implements in a sufficiently
homogenous way to justify their grouping in terms of a culture
called the Soan Culture. About 3000 B.C, amidst the rugged
wind-swept valleys and foothills of Balochistan, small village
communities developed and began to take the first hesitant steps
towards civilization. Here, one finds a more continuous story of
human activity, though still in the Stone Age.
These pre-historic men established their settlements, both as
herdsmen and as farmers, in the valleys or on the outskirts of the
plains with their cattle and cultivated barley and other crops. Red
and buffer Cultures Careful excavations of the pre-historic mounds
in these areas and the classification of their contents, layer by
layer, have grouped them into two main categories of Red Ware
Culture and Buff Ware Culture. The former is popularly known as the
Zhob Culture of North Balochistan, while the latter comprises the
Quetta, Amri Nal and Kulli Cultures of Sindh and South Balochistan.
Some Amri Nal villages or towns had stone walls and bastions for
defence purposes and their houses had stone foundations. At Nal, an
extensive cemetery of this culture consists of about 100 graves. An
important feature of this composite culture is that at Amri and
certain other sites, it has been found below the very distinctive
Indus Valley Culture. On the other hand, the steatite seals of Nal
and the copper implements and certain types of pot decoration
suggest a partial overlap between the two. It probably represents
one of the local societies which constituted the environment for the
growth of the Indus Valley Civilization.
The pre-historic site of Kot Diji in the Sindh province has provided
information of high significance for the reconstruction of a
connected story which pushes back the origin of this civilization by
300 to 500 years, from about 2500 B.C.. to at least 2800 B.C.
Evidence of a new cultural elements of pre-Harappan era has been
traced here. Pre-Harappan Civilization When the primitive village
communities in the Balochistan area were still struggling against a
difficult highland environment, a highly cultured people were trying
to assert themselves at Kot Diji, one of the most developed urban
civilizations of the ancient world which flourished between the
years 2500 and 1500 B.C. in the Indus Valley sites of Moenjodaro and
Harappa. These Indus Valley people possessed a high standard of art
and craftsmanship and a well developed system of quasi pictographic
writing, which despite continuing efforts still remains undeciphered.
The imposing ruins of the beautifully planned Moenjodaro and Harappa
towns present clear evidence of the unity of a people having the
same mode of life and using the same kind of tools. Indeed, the
brick buildings of the common people, the public baths, the roads
and covered drainage system suggest the picture of a happy and
contented people. Aryan Civilization In or about 1500 B.C., the
Aryans descended upon the Punjab and settled in the Sapta Sindhu,
which signifies the Indus plain. They developed a pastoral society
that grew into the Rigvedic Civilization. The Rigveda is replete
with hymns of praise for this region, which they describe as "God
fashioned". It is also clear that so long as the Sapta Sindhu
remained the core of the Aryan Civilization, it remained free from
the caste system. The caste institution and the ritual of complex
sacrifices took shape in the Gangetic Valley. There can be no doubt
that the Indus Civilization contributed much to the development of
the Aryan civilization. Gandhara Culture The discovery of the
Gandhara grave culture in Dir and Swat will go a long way in
throwing light on the period of Pakistan's cultural history between
the end of the Indus Culture in 1500 B.C. and the beginning of the
historic period under the Achaemenians in the sixth century B.C.
Hindu mythology and Sanskrit literary traditions seem to attribute
the destruction of the Indus civilization to the Aryans, but what
really happened, remains a mystery. The Gandhara grave culture has
opened up two periods in the cultural heritage of Pakistan: one of
the Bronze Age and the other of the Iron Age. It is so named because
it presents a peculiar pattern of living in hilly zones of the
Gandhara region as evidenced in the graves. This culture is
different from the Indus Culture and has little relations with the
village culture of Balochistan. Stratigraphy as well as the
artifacts discovered from this area suggest that the Aryans moved
into this part of the world between 1,500 and 600 B.C. In the sixth
century B.C., Buddha began his teachings, which later on spread
throughout the northern part of the South-Asian subcontinent. It was
towards the end of this century, too, that Darius I of Iran
organized Sindh and Punjab as the twentieth satrapy of his empire.
There are remarkable similarities between the organizations of that
great empire and the Mauryan empire of the third century B.C., while
Kautilya's Arthshastra also shows a strong Persian influence,
Alexander of Macedonia after defeating Darius III in 330 B.C. had
also marched through the South-Asian subcontinent up to the river
Beas, but Greek influence on the region appears to have been limited
to contributing a little to the establishment of the Mauryan empire.
The great empire that Asoka, the grandson of Chandragupta Maurya,
built in the subcontinent included only that part of the Indus basin
which is now known as the northern Punjab. The rest of the areas
astride the Indus were not subjugated by him. These areas, which now
form a substantial part of Pakistan, were virtually independent from
the time of the Guptas in the fourth century A.D. until the rise of
the Delhi Sultanate in the thirteenth century. Gandhara Art Gandhara
Art, one of the most prized possessions of Pakistan, flourished for
a period of 500 years (from the first to the fifth century A.D.) in
the present valley of Peshawar and the adjacent hilly regions of
Swat, Buner and Bajaur. This art represents a separate phase of the
cultural renaissance of the region. It was the product of a blending
of Indian, Buddhist and Greco-Roman sculpture. Gandhara Art in its
early stages received the patronage of Kanishka, the great Kushan
ruler, during whose reign the Silk Route ran through Peshawar and
the Indus Valley, bringing great prosperity to the whole area.
Advent of Islam The first followers of prophet Muhammad (Peace be
upon him), to set foot on the soil of the South-Asian subcontinent,
were traders from the coast land of Arabia and the Persian Gulf,
soon after the dawn of Islam in the early seventh century A.D.
DAWN OF ISLAM
The first permanent Muslim foothold in
the subcontinent was achieved with Muhammad bin Qasim's conquest of
Sindh in 711 A.D. An autonomous Muslim state linked with the Umayyed,
and later, the Abbassid Caliphate was established with jurisdiction
extending over southern and central parts of present Pakistan. Quite
a few new cities were established and Arabic was introduced as the
official language. At the time of Mahmud of Ghazna's invasion,
Muslim rule still existed, though in a weakened form, in Multan and
some other regions. The Ghaznavids (976-1148) and their successors,
the Ghaurids (1148-1206), were Central Asian by origin and they
ruled their territories, which covered mostly the regions of present
Pakistan, from capitals outside India. It was in the early
thirteenth century that the foundations of the Muslim rule in India
were laid with extended boundaries and Delhi as the capital. From
1206 to 1526 A.D., five different dynasties held sway. Then followed
the period of Mughal ascendancy (1526-1707) and their rule
continued, though nominally, till 1857. From the time of the
Ghaznavids, Persian more or less replaced Arabic as the official
language. The economic, political and religious institutions
developed by the Muslims bore their unique impression. The law of
the State was based on Shariah and in principle the rulers were
bound to enforce it. Any long period of laxity was generally
followed by reinforcement of these laws under public pressure. The
impact of Islam on the South-Asian subcontinent was deep and
far-reaching. Islam introduced not only a new religion, but a new
civilization, a new way of life and new set of values. Islamic
traditions of art and literature, of culture and refinement, of
social and welfare institution, were established by Muslim rulers
throughout the subcontinent. A new language, Urdu, derived mainly
from Arabic and Persian vocabulary and adopting indigenous words and
idioms, came to be spoken and written by the Muslims and it gained
currency among the rest of the Indian population.
URDU IS THE NATIONAL
LANGUAGE OF PAKISTAN
Apart from religion, Urdu also enabled
the Muslim community during the period of its ascendancy to preserve
its separate identity in the subcontinent.
Muslim Identity -- The question of Muslim identity, however assumed
seriousness during the decline of Muslim power in South Asia. The
first person to realize its acuteness was the scholar theologian,
Shah Waliullah (1703-62). He laid the foundation of Islamic
renaissance in the subcontinent and became a source of inspiration
for almost all the subsequent social and religious reform movements
of the nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. His immediate
successors, inspired by his teachings, tried to establish a modest
Islamic state in the north-west of India and they, under the
leadership of Sayyed Ahmad Shaheed Barelvi (1786-1831), persevered
in this direction. British Expansionism and Muslim Resistance
Meanwhile, starting with the East India Company, the British had
emerged as the dominant force in South Asia. Their rise to power was
gradual extending over a period of nearly one hundred years. They
replaced the Shariah by what they termed as the Anglo-Muhammadan law
whereas Urdu was replaced by English as the official language. These
and other developments had great social, economic and political
impact especially on the Muslims of South Asia. The uprising of
1857, termed as the Indian Mutiny by the British and the War of
Independence by the Muslims, was a desperate attempt to reverse the
adverse course of events. Religious Institutions The failure of the
1857 War of Independence had disastrous consequences for the Muslims
as the British placed all the responsibility for this event on them.
Determined to stop such a recurrence in future, the British followed
deliberately a repressive policy against the Muslims. Properties and
estates of those even remotely associated with the freedom fighters
were confiscated and conscious efforts were made to close all
avenues of honest living for them. The Muslim response to this
situation also aggravated their plight. Their religious leaders, who
had been quite active, withdrew from the mainstream of the community
life and devoted themselves exclusively to imparting religious
education. Although the religious academies especially those of
Deoband, Farangi Mahal and Rai Bareilly, established by the Ulema,
did help the Muslims to preserve their identity, the training
provided in these institutions hardly equipped them for the new
challenges. Educational Reform The Muslims kept themselves aloof
from western education as well as government service. But, their
compatriots, the Hindus, did not do so and accepted the new rulers
without reservation. They acquired western education, imbibed the
new culture and captured positions hitherto filled in by the
Muslims. If this situation had prolonged, it would have done the
Muslims an irreparable damage. The man to realise the impending
peril was Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-1889), a witness to the tragic
events of 1857. He exerted his utmost to harmonize British Muslim
relations. His assessment was that the Muslims' safety lay in the
acquisition of western education and knowledge. He took several
positive steps to achieve this objective. He founded a college at
Aligarh to impart education on western lines. Of equal importance
was the Anglo-Muhammadan Educational Conference, which he sponsored
in 1886, to provide an intellectual forum to the Muslims for the
dissemination of views in support of western education and social
reform. Similar were the objectives of the Muhammadan Literary
Society, founded by Nawab Adbul Latif (1828-93), active in Bengal,
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan's efforts transformed into a movement, known as
the Aligarh Movement, and it left its imprint on the Muslims of
every part of the South-Asian subcontinent. Under its inspiration,
societies were founded throughout the subcontinent which established
educational institutions for imparting education to the Muslims.
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan was averse to the idea of participation by the
Muslims in any organized political activity which, he feared, might
revive British hostility towards them. He also disliked Hindu Muslim
collaboration in any joint venture. His disillusionment in this
regard stemmed basically from the Urdu Hindi controversy of the late
1860s when the Hindu enthusiasts vehemently championed the cause of
Hindi to replace Urdu. He, therefore, opposed the Indian National
Congress when it was founded in 1885 and advised the Muslims to
abstain from its activities. His contemporary and a great scholar of
Islam, Syed Ameer Ali (1849-1928), shared his views about the
Congress, but, he was not opposed to Muslims organizing themselves
politically. In fact, he organised the first significant political
body of the Muslims, the Central National Muhammadan Association.
Although, its membership was limited, it had more than 50 branches
in different parts of the subcontinent and it accomplished some
solid work for the educational and political advancement of the
Muslims. But, its activities waned towards the end of the nineteenth
century. The Muslim League At the dawn of the twentieth century, a
number of factors convinced the Muslims of the need to have an
effective political organization. Therefore, in October 1906, a
deputation comprising 35 Muslim leaders met the Viceroy of the
British at Simla and demanded separate electorates. Three months
later, the All-India Muslim League was founded by Nawab Salimullah
Khan at Dhaka, mainly with the objective of safeguarding the
political rights and interests of the Muslims. The British conceded
separate electorates in the Government of India Act of 1909 which
confirmed the Muslim League's position as an All-India party.
Attempt for Hindu Muslim Unity The visible trend of the two major
communities progressing in opposite directions caused deep concern
to leaders of All-India stature. They struggled to bring the
Congress and the Muslim League on one platform. Quaid-i-Azam
Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948) was the leading figure among them.
After the annulment of the partition of Bengal and the European
Powers' aggressive designs against the Ottoman Empire and North
Africa, the Muslims were receptive to the idea of collaboration with
the Hindus against the British rulers.
The Congress Muslim League rapprochement was achieved at the Lucknow
sessions of the two parties in 1916 and a joint scheme of reforms
was adopted. In the Lucknow Pact. as the scheme was commonly
referred to, the Congress accepted the principle of separate
electorates, and the Muslims, in return for `weightage' to the
Muslims of the Muslim minority provinces, agreed to surrender their
thin majorities in the Punjab and Bengal. The post Lucknow Pact
period witnessed Hindu Muslim amity and the two parties came to hold
their annual sessions in the same city and passed resolutions of
identical contents.
KHILAFAT MOVEMENT
The Hindu Muslim unity reached its
climax during the Khilafat and the Non-cooperation Movements. The
Muslims of soothsayer, under the leadership of the Ali Brothers,
Maulana Muhammad Ali and Maulana Shaukat Ali, launched the historic
Khilafat Movement after the First World War to protect the Ottoman
Empire from dismemberment. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)
linked the issue of Swaraj (self-government) with the Khilafat issue
to associate the Hindus with the Movement. the ensuing Movement was
the first countrywide popular movement.
Although the Movement failed in its objectives, it had a
far-reaching impact on the Muslims of South Asia. After a long time,
they took united action on a purely Islamic issue which momentarily
forged solidarity among them. It also produced a class of Muslim
leaders experienced in organizing and mobilizing the public. This
experience was of immense value to the Muslims later during the
Pakistan Movement The collapse of the Khilafat Movement was followed
by a period of bitter Hindu Muslim antagonism. The Hindus organized
two highly anti Muslim movements, the Shudhi and the Sangathan. The
former movement was designed to convert Muslims to Hinduism and the
latter was meant to create solidarity among the Hindus in the event
of communal conflict. In retaliation, the Muslims sponsored the
Tabligh and Tanzim organizations to counter the impact of the Shudhi
and the Sangathan. In the 1920s, the frequency of communal riots was
unprecedented. Several Hindu-Muslim unity conferences were held to
remove the causes of conflict, but, it seemed nothing could mitigate
the intensity of communalism. Muslim Demand Safeguards In the light
of this situation, the Muslims revised their constitutional demands.
They now wanted preservation of their numerical majorities in the
Punjab and Bengal, separation of Sindh from Bombay, constitution of
Balochistan as a separate province and introduction of
constitutional reforms in the North-West Frontier Province. It was
partly to press these demands that one section of the All-India
Muslim League cooperated with the Statutory commission sent by the
British Government under the chairmanship of Sir John Simon in 1927.
SIMON COMMISSION
The other section of the League, which
boycotted the Simon Commission for its all-White character,
cooperated with the Nehru Committee, appointed by the All-Parties
Conference, to draft a constitution for India. The Nehru Report had
an extremely anti-Muslim bias and the Congress leadership's refusal
to amend it disillusioned even the moderate Muslims. Allama Muhammad
Iqbal Several leaders and thinkers, having insight into the
Hindu-Muslim question proposed separation of Muslim India. However,
the most lucid exposition of the inner feeling of the Muslim
community was given by Allama Muhammad Iqbal(1877-1938) in his
Presidential Address at the All-India Muslim League Session at
Allahabad in 1930. He suggested that for the healthy development of
Islam in South-Asia, it was essential to have a separate Muslim
state at least in the Muslim majority regions of the north-west.
Later on, in his correspondence with Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali
Jinnah, he included the Muslim majority areas in the north-east also
in his proposed Muslim state. Three years after his Allahabad
Address, a group of Muslim students at Cambridge, headed by Chaudhry
Rehmat Ali, issued a pamphlet, Now or Never, in which drawing
letters from the names of the Muslim majority regions, they gave the
nomenclature of "Pakistan" to the proposed State. Very few even
among the Muslim welcomed the idea at the time. It was to take a
decade for the Muslims to embrace the demand for a separate Muslim
state. Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah Meanwhile, three Round Table
Conferences were convened in London during 1930-32, to resolve the
Indian constitutional problem. The Hindu and Muslim leaders, who
were invited to these conferences, could not draw up an agreed
formula and the British Government had to announce a `Communal
Award' which was incorporated in the Government of India Act of
1935. Before the elections under this Act, the All-India Muslim
League, which had remained dormant for some time, was reorganized by
Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who had returned to India in
1934,after an absence of nearly five years in England. The Muslim
League could not win a majority of Muslim seats since it had not yet
been effectively reorganized. However, it had the satisfaction that
the performance of the Indian National Congress in the Muslim
constituencies was bad. After the elections, the attitude of the
Congress leadership was arrogant and domineering. The classic
example was its refusal to form a coalition government with the
Muslim League in the United Provinces. Instead, it asked the League
leaders to dissolve their parliamentary arty in the Provincial
Assembly and join the Congress. Another important Congress move
after the 1937 elections was its Muslim mass contact movement to
persuade the Muslims to join the Congress and not the Muslim League.
One of its leaders, Jawaharlal Nehru, even declared that there were
only two forces in India, the British and the Congress. All this did
not go unchallenged.
Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah countered that there was a third
force in South-Asia constituting the Muslims. The All-India Muslim
League, under his gifted leadership, gradually and skillfully
started organising the Muslims on one platform. Towards a Separate
Muslim Homeland The 1930s witnessed awareness among the Muslims of
their separate identity and their anxiety to preserve it within
separate territorial boundaries. An important element that brought
this simmering Muslim nationalism in the open was the character of
the Congress rule in the Muslim minority provinces during 1937-39.
The Congress policies in these provinces hurt Muslim
susceptibilities. There were calculated aims to obliterate the
Muslims as a separate cultural unit. The Muslims now stopped
thinking in terms of seeking safeguards and began to consider
seriously the demand for a separate Muslim state. During 1937-39,
several Muslim leaders and thinkers, inspired by Allama Iqbal's
ideas, presented elaborate schemes for partitioning the subcontinent
according to two-nation theory. Pakistan Resolution The All-India
Muslim League soon took these schemes into consideration and
finally, on March 23, 1940, the All-India Muslim League, in a
resolution, at its historic Lahore Session, demanded a separate
homeland for the Muslims in the Muslim majority regions of the
subcontinent. The resolution was commonly referred to as the
Pakistan Resolution. The Pakistan demand had a great appeal for the
Muslims of every persuasion. It revived memories of their past
greatness and promised future glory. They, therefore, responded to
this demand immediately. Cripps Mission The British Government
recognized the genuineness of the Pakistan demand indirectly in the
proposals for the transfer of power after the Second World War which
Sir Stafford Cripps brought to India in 1942. Both the Congress and
the All-India Muslim League rejected these proposals for different
reasons. The principles of secession of Muslim India as a separate
Dominion was however, conceded in these proposals. After this
failure, a prominent Congress leader, C. Rajgopalacharia, suggested
a formula for a separate Muslim state in the Working Committee of
the Indian National Congress, which was rejected at the time, but
later on, in 1944, formed the basis of the Jinnah-Gandhi talks.
Demand for Pakistan
PAKISTAN MOVEMENT
The Pakistan demand became popular
during the Second World War Every section of the Muslim
community-men , women,students,Ulema and businessmen-were organized
under the banner of the All-India Muslim League. Branches of the
party were opened even in the remote corners of the subcontinent.
Literature in the form of pamphlets, books, magazines and newspapers
was produced to explain the Pakistan demand and distributed widely.
The support gained by the All-India Muslim League and its demand for
Pakistan was tested after the failure of the Simla Conference,
convened by the Viceroy, Lord Wavell, in 1945. Elections were called
to determine the respective strength of the political parties. The
All-India Muslim League election campaign was based on the Pakistan
demand. The Muslim community responded to this call in an
unprecedented way. Numerous Muslim parties were formed making united
parliamentary board at the behest of the Congress to oppose the
Muslim League. But the All-India Muslim League swept all the thirty
seats in the Central Legislature and in the provincial elections
also, its victory was outstanding. After the elections, on April
8-9,1946, the All-India Muslim League called a convention of the
newly-elected League members in the Central and Provincial
Legislatures at Delhi. This convention, which constituted virtually
a representative assembly of the Muslims of South Asia, on a motion
by the Chief Minister of Bengal, Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy,
reiterated the Pakistan demand in clearer terms. Cabinet Plan In
early 1946, the British Government sent a Cabinet Mission to the
subcontinent to resolve the constitutional deadlock. The Mission
conducted negotiations with various political parties, but failed to
evolve an agreed formula. Finally, the Cabinet Mission announced its
own Plan, which among other provisions, envisaged three federal
groupings,two of them comprising the Muslim majority provinces,
linked at the Centre in a loose federation with three subjects. The
Muslim League accepted the plan, as a strategic move, expecting to
achieve its objective in not-too-distant a future. The All-India
Congress also agreed to the Plan, but, soon realising its
implications, the Congress leaders began to interpret it in a way
not visualized by the authorise of the Plan. This provided the
All-India Muslim League an excuse to withdraw its acceptance of the
Plan and the party observed August 16, as a `Direct Action Day' to
show Muslim solidarity in support of the Pakistan demand. Partition
Scheme In October 1946, an Interim Government was formed. The Muslim
League sent its representative under the leadership of its General
Secretary, Mr. Liaquat Ali Khan, with the aim to fight for the party
objective from within the Interim Government. After a short time,
the situation inside the Interim Government and outside convinced
the Congress leadership to accept Pakistan as the only solution of
the communal problem. The British Government, after its last attempt
to save the Cabinet Mission Plan in December 1946, also moved
towards a scheme for the partition of India. The last British
Viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, came with a clear mandate to draft
a plan for the transfer of power.
After holding talks with political leaders and parties, he prepared
a Partition Plan for the transfer of power, which, after approval of
the British Government, was announced on June 3,1947. Emergence of
Pakistan Both the Congress and the Muslim League accepted the Plan.
Two largest Muslim majority provinces, Bengal and Punjab, were
partitioned. The Assemblies of West Punjab, East Bengal and Sindh
and in Balochistan, the Quetta Municipality, and the Shahi Jirga
voted for Pakistan. Referenda were held in the North-West Frontier
Province and the District of Sylhet in Assam, which resulted in an
overwhelming vote for Pakistan. As a result, on August 14,1947, the
new state of Pakistan came into existence.
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