Nation / Mon, 08 Apr 2024 The Indian Express

When Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha formed coalition governments — what history says

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday (April 6) said that the Congress manifesto “has the stamp of the Muslim League”, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge hit back, accusing the BJP’s “ideological ancestors” of supporting “the British and Muslim League” during India’s freedom struggle. Notably, the Muslim League, which claimed to be the sole representative of Indian Muslims, performed abysmally in the elections. In the coming years, communal parties such as the Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha played on their co-religionists’ fears and anxieties. Alliance between the Muslim League and Hindu MahasabhaMany scholars have pointed out that the politics and ideology of the League and the Mahasabha mirrored each other. The Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha did not join the movement.

“Modi-Shah’s ideological ancestors opposed Mahatma Gandhi’s call for “Quit India” in 1942… Everyone knows how [Syama] Prasad Mukherjee formed his governments in Bengal, Sindh, and NWFP in the 1940s in coalition with the Muslim League,” he posted on X on Monday.

Modi-Shah’s political and ideological ancestors supported the British and Muslim League against the Indians in the Freedom Struggle. Even today, they are invoking the Muslim League against the ‘Congress Nyay Patra’ guided and shaped according to the aspirations, needs and… — Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) April 8, 2024

Are Kharge’s claims historically accurate? A quick recall.

The provincial elections of 1937

Congress performed admirably in the 1937 provincial elections, held under the mandate of the Government of India Act of 1935.

It won 711 of a total 1,585 provincial assembly seats, with absolute majorities in 5 of the 11 provinces (Madras, Bihar, Orissa, Central Provinces, and United Provinces) and a near-majority in Bombay (86 out of 175). Congress ministries were formed in all of these provinces. Some time later, the Congress also formed governments in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Assam.

Non-Congress governments were formed in the remaining 3 provinces — Sindh, Punjab, and Bengal. In Sindh, a coalition led by the Sind United Party formed the government; in Punjab, Sikandar Hayat Khan’s Unionist Party won a majority. And in Bengal, Fazlul Huq’s Krishak Praja Party (KPP) formed a coalition government with the Muslim League — even though the Congress was the single largest party with 54 seats.

Notably, the Muslim League, which claimed to be the sole representative of Indian Muslims, performed abysmally in the elections.

The League won just 106 out of the 482 seats allotted to Muslims under separate electorates, and it failed to win even a single seat in the NWFP. It won only 2 out of 84 reserved constituencies in Punjab, and only 3 out of 33 in Sindh. All these were Muslim-majority provinces.

The Hindu Mahasabha, which had entered electoral politics in the 1930s under V D Savarkar’s leadership, too was decimated.

“The communalists now realized that they would gradually wither away if they did not take to militant, mass-based politics,” Bipan Chandra and others wrote in India’s Struggle for Independence (1988). In the coming years, communal parties such as the Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha played on their co-religionists’ fears and anxieties.

Alliance between the Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha

Many scholars have pointed out that the politics and ideology of the League and the Mahasabha mirrored each other. Dr B R Ambedkar wrote: “Strange as it may appear, Mr Savarkar and Mr Jinnah instead of being opposed to each other on the one nation versus two nations issue are in complete agreement about it. Both agree, not only agree but insist, that there are two nations in India — one the Muslim nation and the other the Hindu nation.” (Pakistan or the Partition of India, 1940).

This ideological coming-together of sorts would soon translate to political alliances — albeit short-lived — on the ground.

In September 1939, the Congress registered a strong protest against Viceroy Linlithgow’s decision to declare war on Germany (on behalf of India) without any consultation with elected Indian representatives. The Congress demanded that in return for India’s support for the war effort, Britain must formally commit to India’s independence post-war.

Linlithgow refused, and all Congress ministries resigned in protest in October 1939.

The resignation of the Congress ministries led to massive political churn in the provinces. The Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha both saw a political opportunity amidst the Congress’ decision to cede power, and hurried to become part of the provincial governments. Ultimately, they would enter into an alliance in two (Muslim-majority) provinces — Sindh and NWFP.

In Bengal, the Mahasabha supported Fazlul Huq, another Muslim communalist, and his KPP. Notably the Forward Bloc, founded by Subhas Chandra Bose, supported this coalition.

Savarkar, the foremost ideological and political figure in the Mahasabha, justified these alliances in terms of “reasonable compromises”. In his Presidential Address delivered at the 1942 Hindu Mahasabha session in Kanpur, he said:

“In practical politics…the Mahasabha knows that we must advance through reasonable compromises. …Only recently in Sind, the Sind-Hindu-Sabha on invitation had taken the responsibility of joining hands with the League itself in running [a] coalition Government… The case of Bengal is well known. Wild Leaguers whom even the Congress with all its submissiveness could not placate grew quite reasonably compromising and sociable as soon as they came in contact with the Hindu Mahasabha and the Coalition Government, under the premiership of Mr Fazlul Huq and the able lead of our esteemed Mahasabha leader Dr Syama Prasad Mookerji… [this] proved demonstratively that the Hindu Mahasabhaites endeavoured to capture the centres of political power only in the public interests, and not for the loaves and fishes of the office.”

Opposition to Quit India Movement

After talks between the Congress and the Viceroy regarding India’s post-War status fell through, Mahatma Gandhi launched the Quit India Movement from Bombay’s Gowalia Tank Maidan on August 8, 1942. By August 9, most of the Congress leadership had been arrested as the British ordered a vicious crackdown. This led to a nationalist upsurge as the masses took to the street with hartals, public demonstrations, and processions.

The Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha did not join the movement. They continued in their ministries, and even offered support to the Viceroy towards the British war effort. This was a political decision, aimed at conserving power.

Also Read | How Syama Prasad Mookerjee fought for J&K’s integration with India

Savarkar, in a now-famous letter, instructed Hindu Mahasabhaites across the country who were “members of municipalities, local bodies, legislatures or those serving in the army… to stick to their posts”, and not to join the Quit India Movement at any cost. (as quoted in Prabhu Bapu, Hindu Mahasabha in Colonial North India, 2013).

Syama Prasad Mookerjee, who was a part of the Bengal government, wrote a letter pledging his support to “defeat” the Quit India Movement.

He wrote: “Anybody, who during the war, plans to stir up mass feeling, resulting in internal disturbances or insecurity, must be resisted by any Government… Indians have to trust the British, not for the sake of Britain, not for any advantage that the British might gain, but for the maintenance of the defence and freedom of the province itself”. (Mookerjee in Leaves from a Diary, published posthumously in 1993).

Jinnah was of a similar opinion. While Congress leaders were in prison, Jinnah further intensified his movement for Pakistan, continuing his rhetoric warning Muslims against Hindu domination. He referred to the mass movement as Congress’s “open rebellion for the establishment of Hindu Raj in India”. (As quoted in “The Quaid-i-Azam and Quit India Movement”, published in the newspaper The Nation, 2011).

Jinnah’s decision paid off. Sumit Sarkar wrote in Modern India: 1885-1947 (1983): “The rapid advance of the Muslim League, which took full advantage of the suppression of the Congress, was in fact the most striking political development of the closing years of the war. By 1943, League ministries had been installed in Assam, Sind, Bengal and NWFP… Jinnah himself was well on the way toward establishing his claim to be sole spokesman of Muslims with the right to be treated on equal terms with the ‘Hindu’ Congress under Gandhi.”