However the Muslims were not unified and there were many currents of opinions inside the community

1. During the first thirty years of the 20th century the British gradually developed in India a system of government where an increasing number of Indians were involved • In 1909, with the so called Morley-Minto reforms, the British formed elective legislative councils in the provinces and at the centre • The 1935 Government of India Act (also called Montagu-Chelmsford reforms) created elective assemblies in the provinces and the centre

2. This evolution was in part the result of an overall strategy of devolution that the British had devised since the beginning of their rule • It was also pushed forward by the pressure brought by the Indian nationalist movement led by the Congress • Between the 1920s and the 1930s the Congress led vigorous and very effective mass protest movements under the guidance of Gandhi

3. The decision of the British to gradually develop representative government was also the consequence of the first world war • India had contributed to the war effort with more than a million soldiers • After the war it expected the concession of the Dominion status as a reward for its contribution • The refusal by the British to declare India a Dominion gave new impetus to the nationalist opinion

4. The international public opinion was also sympathetic to the Indian struggle, mainly for the popularity of Gandhi’s figure • India was also made a member of the League of Nations and participated to the peace treaties • India had almost acquired an autonomous international status after the first war • President Wilson’s fourteen points

5. At the same time, the devolution process reinforced the minorities’ fears for their future status in India • This fact concerned the Muslims, but also the problem of the untouchables came out in the same period • Between the two world wars, the leader of the untouchables, B.R. Ambedkar asked for separate electorates for the untouchable castes • He gave up the request in 1932 after Gandhis’s fast “unto death” and accepted reserved seats with joint electorates

6. In the 1930s the problem of the Muslims became the most important question to be solved in order to achieve India’ self government • During this period, despite the many divisions of the community, a small but influential group of Muslim intellectuals started developing the idea that for the survival of Islam in India, it was necessary to maintain a connection between the Islamic community and the control over a specified territory • In other words, to refuse the idea that Islam could survive without a territory of its own, only as a “spiritual force”

7. In a famous session of the Muslim League in 1930, its President Muhammad Iqbal declared that the creation of a “consolidated Muslim state” in the North-West Indian Muslim State” was the “final destiny of the Muslims” • he therefore proposed the amalgamation in one state of the provinces where the Muslims where in a majority

8. However the Muslims were not unified and there were many currents of opinions inside the community • The Muslim League was not really representative of the community • The geographical distribution and the weakness of the Muslims in India

10. If the Muslims do not trust the Congress, the latter has difficulties in accommodating the fears of the minorities; this can be seen a major historical weakness of the Congress party • But why was the Congress not ready to accommodate the minorities? • Two main explanations:

11. One explanation makes reference to the strong nationalist faith of many of the top leaders of the Congress • Jawaharlal Nerhu, for example, for his intellectual formation, was unlikely to admit the possibility of any form of government which was not strongat the centre and unified • The possibility of a federal form of government, or a system composed of a weak centre with largely autonomous provinces was unacceptable to him

12. At a conference in USA in 1938, Jawaharlal Nehru stated: “The tremendous and fundamental fact of India is her essential unity through the ages…In India today no one, whatever his political views or religious persuasions, thinks in terms other than those of national unity…There is no religious or cultural conflict in India. What is called the religious or communal problem is really a dispute among upper-class people for a division of the spoils of office or of representation in a legislature”.

13. Therefore, people like Nehru would never accept that Muslims did not consider themselves part of a common Indian nationality • Another explanation makes reference to the growing influence inside the Congress of the Hindu revivalist movement • This movement considered Hindu identity as an essential part of the Indian nationality; therefore it excluded the Muslims • Although in 1938 it was barred for members of the most radical Hindu group (the Hindu Mahasabha) to be member of the Congress, the influence remained, particularly at the local level

14. Until the late 1930s, the Muslim League was scarcely representative, and the Islamic community deeply divided • The turning point came in 1937 after the elections organized by the British to implement the 1935 reforms • The Congress obtained a great success while the Muslim League was defeated (except in the United Provinces, which was the one where the League was most influential)

15. Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s proposal of collaboration and the refusal of the Congress: Nehru’s mistake? • The “two nations” theory of March 1940