Nationalist Muslim Opposition to the Partition of India: Madani, Azad, and Khan

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Rajesh, Rohan
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Curriculum in Global Studies

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In advocating for the Partition of India, the All-India Muslim League sought to protect the Muslims of British India by giving them their own homeland. Instead, hundreds of millions of Muslims remain divided among three countries, including a significant minority population in a Hindu-majority India. While India’s leaders envisioned the country as a secular, democratic republic in which all citizens would be equal under the law, Muslims faced economic and political marginalization since independence. Much of the marginalization stems from enduring suspicion, particularly among Hindu Nationalists, about Indian Muslims’ roles in dividing Mother India.2 However, the above quote came not just from a leader of the nominally secular Indian National Congress (INC), but from independent India’s first Home Minister, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Two years before writing that letter, Patel himself ordered an investigation in 1948 within India’s bureaucracy to ascertain the loyalty of Muslim employees. To this day, Muslims are often treated as suspect citizens in India. Their loyalty is questioned on everything from sports, “Is it true that every Indian Muslim secretly cheers for the Pakistan cricket team?”, to matters of identity, “Tell us what is more important to you, being an Indian, or being a Muslim?”

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