Two-nation theory: Difference between revisions

The '''two-nation theory''' was an [[ideology]] of [[religious nationalism]] that advocated [[Muslim nationalism in South Asia|Muslim Indian nationhood]], with separate homelands for [[Islam in South Asia|Indian Muslims]] and [[Hinduism in South Asia|Indian Hindus]] within a decolonised [[British India]], which ultimately led to the [[Partition of India]] in 1947.<ref name="International Conflict Analysis in">{{cite book |last1=Bhatti |first1=Safeer Tariq |title=International Conflict Analysis in South Asia: A Study of Sectarian Violence in Pakistan |date=3 December 2015 |publisher=UPA |isbn=978-0-7618-6647-3 |page=xxxi |language=en |quote=The religious nationalism sentiment is based upon the two nation theory that Hindus and Muslims are of two separate religious communities and separate nations.}}</ref> Its various descriptions of religious differences were the main factor in Muslim separatist thought in the [[Indian subcontinent]], asserting that Indian Muslims and Indian Hindus are two separate nations, each with their own customs, [[tradition]]s, [[art]], [[architecture]], [[literature]], interests, and ways of life.

The theory was adopted and promoted by the [[All-India Muslim League]] and [[Muhammad Ali Jinnah]] and became the basis of the [[Pakistan Movement]].<ref>{{citation |last=O'Brien |first=Conor Cruise |title=Holy War Against India |newspaper=The Atlantic Monthly |date=August 1988 |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/88aug/obrien.htm |access-date=20 August 2014 |archive-date=28 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210128075043/https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/88aug/obrien.htm |url-status=live }} Quoting Jinnah: "Islam and Hinduism are not religions in the strict sense of the word, but in fact different and distinct social orders, and it is only a dream that the Hindus and Muslims can ever evolve a common nationality.... To yoke together two such nations under a single state ... must lead to a growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the government of such a state."</ref> The Two-Nation theory argued for a different state for the Muslims of the [[British Raj|British Indian Empire]] as Muslims would not be able to succeed politically in a Hindu-majority India; this interpretation nevertheless promised a democratic state where Muslims and non-Muslims would be treated equally.<ref name="caldarola1982">{{Citation | title=Religions and societies, Asia and the Middle East | author=Carlo Caldarola | year=1982 | isbn=978-90-279-3259-4 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R1ME01zxL98C |pages=262–263|quote="They simply advocated a democratic state in which all citizens, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, would enjoy equal rights."}}</ref> The two nation theory sought to establish a separate state for Indian Muslims from the northwestern provinces and [[Bengal|Bengal region]] of colonial India.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Chakrabarty |first1=Bidyut |last2=Pandey |first2=Rajendra Kumar |title=Modern Indian Political Thought: Text and Context |date=10 July 2009 |publisher=SAGE Publishing |isbn=978-93-5280-189-3 |language=en |quote=Conceptualising Pakistan in a two nation theory format, Iqbal offered a map of the redistribution of territory forming a Muslim state comprising the north-west part of India and Bengal (Datta 2002: 5037).}}</ref> [[Pakistan]] claims to be the inheritor of the traditions of Muslim India, and the heir of the two-nation theory.<ref name="chandra1996">{{Citation | title=Historiography, Religion, and State in Medieval India | author=Satish Chandra | year=1996 | publisher=Har-Anand Publications | isbn=9788124100356 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XAkVclcWWeUC&dq=two+nation+theory+delhi+sultanate&pg=PA43 | access-date=28 March 2023 | archive-date=22 April 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230422040537/https://books.google.com/books?id=XAkVclcWWeUC&dq=two+nation+theory+delhi+sultanate&pg=PA43 | url-status=live }}</ref> [[Hindu Mahasabha]] under the leadership of [[Vinayak Damodar Savarkar]] and [[Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh]] (RSS) perhaps supported the Two-nation theory. According to them, Hindus and Muslim cannot live together so they favour India to become a religious Hindu state.<ref>{{cite book | last=Bapu | first=Prabhu | title=Hindu Mahasabha in Colonial North India, 1915-1930: Constructing Nation and History | publisher=Routledge | series=Online access with subscription: Proquest Ebook Central | year=2013 | isbn=978-0-415-67165-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iUFalxUFFWkC | page=76 |quote= "I have no quarrel with Mr. Jinnah's two-nation theory. We, Hindus, are a nation by oursleves and it is a historical fact that Hindus and Muslims are two nations."}}</ref>

The case for Indo-Muslim identity was based on cultural grounds, understood as an ethnic Muslim identity as well as a clearly identifiable cultural history. In 1947, Dawn made a case for cultural nationalism based on art, literature, and way of life, and crucial to this claim of a nationhood separated from the majority 'Hindu' community was the fixing of a national culture that could be specific to Indian Muslims. In this case, the writer's rather sophisticated definition of 'common culture' - 'developed manifestations of thought and feeling' - serve to reinforce this distinctiveness. Indian Muslims thought differently, felt differently, had a different and unique history and therefore had a common purpose and interest, and therefore belonged to a different nation.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DUgsAwAAQBAJ&dq=two+nation+theory+islam+ethnic+identity+culture&pg=PA203 |title=Being Bengali: At Home and in the World |date=2014 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=9781317818908 |quote=Dawn made a case for cultural nationalisn based on art/architecture, literature/language, and 'way of life'. Crucial to this claim of a nationhood separated from the majority 'Hindu' community was the fixing of a national culture that could be specific to Indian Muslims. In this case, the writer's rather sophisticated definition of 'common culture' - 'developed manifestations of thought and feeling' - serve to reinforce this distinctiveness. Indian Muslims thought differently, felt differently, had a different and unique history and therefore had a common purpose and interest |access-date=30 March 2023 |archive-date=22 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230422040528/https://books.google.com/books?id=DUgsAwAAQBAJ&dq=two+nation+theory+islam+ethnic+identity+culture&pg=PA203 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The Two Nation Theory has also led to debate over whether Pakistan was intended as a secular homeland for Indian Muslims or an Islamic state |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-40961603 |access-date=2024-10-30 |website=BBC News}}</ref>

In his August 11, 1947 speech, [[Muhammad Ali Jinnah|Jinnah]] had spoken of composite [[Pakistani nationalism]], effectively negating the faith-based nationalism that he had advocated in his speech of March 22, 1940. In his August 11 speech, he said that non-Muslims would be equal citizens of Pakistan and that there would be no discrimination against them. "You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the state." On the other hand, far from being an ideological point (transition from faith-based to composite nationalism), it was mainly tactical: [[Dilip Hiro]] says that "extracts of this speech were widely disseminated" in order to abort the communal violence in Punjab and the NWFP, where Muslims and Sikhs-Hindus were butchering each other and which greatly disturbed Jinnah on a personal level, but "the tactic had little, if any, impact on the horrendous barbarity that was being perpetrated on the plains of Punjab."<ref>Dilip Hiro, ''The Longest August: The Unflinching Rivalry Between India and Pakistan'', Hachette UK (2015), p. 101</ref> Another Indian scholar, Venkat Dhulipala, who in his book ''Creating a New Medina'' precisely shows that Pakistan was meant to be a new Medina, an Islamic state, and not only a state for Muslims, so it was meant to be ideological from the beginning with no space for composite nationalism, in an interview also says that the speech "was made primarily keeping in mind the tremendous violence that was going on", that it was "directed at protecting Muslims from even greater violence in areas where they were vulnerable", "it was pragmatism", and to vindicate this, the historian goes on to say that "after all, a few months later, when asked to open the doors of the Muslim League to all Pakistanis irrespective of their religion or creed, the same Jinnah refused, saying that Pakistan was not ready for it."<ref>{{cite web |author=Ajaz Ashraf |date=28 June 2016 |url=https://scroll.in/article/810132/the-venkat-dhulipala-interview-on-the-partition-issue-jinnah-and-ambedkar-were-on-the-same-page |title=The Venkat Dhulipala interview: 'On the Partition issue, Jinnah and Ambedkar were on the same page |website=[[Scroll.in]] |access-date=11 April 2019 |archive-date=5 December 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161205112539/http://scroll.in/article/810132/the-venkat-dhulipala-interview-on-the-partition-issue-jinnah-and-ambedkar-were-on-the-same-page |url-status=live }}</ref>

The theory has faced scepticismskepticism because Muslims did not entirely separate from Hindus and about one-third of all Muslims continued to live in post-partition India as Indian citizens alongside a much larger Hindu majority.<ref name="haqqani2005">{{Citation | title=Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military | author=Husain Haqqani | year=2005 | isbn=978-0-87003-214-1 |publisher=Carnegie Endowment | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nYppZ_dEjdIC }}</ref><ref name="urdupoint2010jsa">{{Citation | title=کالم نگار جہالت اور جذبات فروشی کا کام کرتے ہیں ('Columnists are peddling ignorance and raw emotionalism') | newspaper=Urdu Point | access-date=22 October 2010 | url=http://akhbar.urdupoint.com/khas/interviews/Hassan-Nissar.shtml | archive-date=12 January 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160112183547/http://akhbar.urdupoint.com/khas/interviews/Hassan-Nissar.shtml | url-status=dead }}</ref>

People or religious organisationsorganizations amongstamong others, who moved from India to Pakistan after the partition and instigated the anti-Ahmadi movement, compelled Pakistan into giving up its inclination to secularism in favourfavor of a theocratic state.<ref name="The Express Tribune pk 2011 h847">{{cite web | title=Jinnah and the religious right | website=The Express Tribune | date=2011-01-16 | url=https://tribune.com.pk/story/104683/jinnah-and-the-religious-right | access-date=2024-04-04}}</ref>

Also, because partition divided Indian Muslims into three groups (of roughly 190 million people each in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh) instead of forming a single community inside a united India that would have numbered about 570 million people and potentially exercised great influence over the entire subcontinent. So, the two-nation theory is sometimes alleged to have ultimately weakened the position of Muslims on the subcontinent and resulted in large-scale territorial shrinkage or skewing for cultural aspects that became associated with Muslims (e.g., the decline of [[Urdu language]] in India).<ref name="kibria2009">{{Citation | title=A shattered dream: understanding Pakistan's underdevelopment | author=Ghulam Kibria | year=2009 | isbn=978-0-19-577947-9 |publisher=Oxford University Press | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CNDsAAAAMAAJ}}</ref><ref name="mahajan2002">{{Citation | title=The multicultural Path: Issues of Diversity and Discrimination in Democracy | author=Gurpreet Mahajan | year=2002 | isbn=978-0-7619-9579-1 |publisher=Sage | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wanZAAAAMAAJ}}</ref>

Nevertheless, in post-independence India, the two-nation theory helped advance the cause of [[Hindu nationalism|Hindu nationalist]] groups seeking to identify a "Hindu national culture" as the core identity of an Indian.<ref>{{cite journal |author1=Sammyh S. Khan, Ted Svensson, Yashpal A. Jogdand, James H. Liu |title=Lessons From the Past for the Future: The Definition and Mobilisation of Hindu Nationhood by the Hindu Nationalist Movement of India |journal=Journal of Social and Political Psychology |date=2017 |volume=5 |issue=2 |pages=477–511 |doi=10.5964/jspp.v5i2.736 |url=https://jspp.psychopen.eu/index.php/jspp/article/view/5027/5027.html |quote=Hindu nationalist movement in fact supported the notion of a two-nation theory. |access-date=1 March 2024 |archive-date=1 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240301155748/https://jspp.psychopen.eu/index.php/jspp/article/view/5027/5027.html |url-status=live }}</ref> This allows the acknowledgment of the common ethnicity of Indian Hindus and Muslims while requiring that all adopt a Hindu identity to be truly Indian. From the Hindu nationalist perspective, this concedes the ethnic reality that Indian Muslims are "flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood" but still presses for an officially recognized equation of national and religious identity, i.e., that "an Indian is a Hindu."<ref name="suryadinata2000">{{Citation |first=Kripa |last=Sridharan |chapter=Grasping the Nettle: Indian Nationalism and Globalization | title=Nationalism and globalization: east and west | editor=Leo Suryadinata | year=2000 | isbn=978-981-230-078-2 |publisher=Institute of Southeast Asian Studies |pages=294–318 | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eEcHhROO_qUC&pg=PA310}}</ref>

The theory and the very existence of Pakistan has caused Indian far-right extremist groups to allege that Indian Muslims "cannot be loyal citizens of India" or any other non-Muslim nation, and are "always capable and ready to perform traitorous acts".<ref name="ref54jezil">{{Citation | title=Muslims in India: Contemporary Social and Political Discourses | author=Yogindar Sikand | publisher=Hope India Publications, 2006 | isbn=9788178711157 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AqII1zqXt-4C| year=2006 }}</ref><ref name="ref29gixuv">{{Citation | title=Peoples of South Asia | author=Clarence Maloney | publisher=Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974 | isbn=9780030849695 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cOptAAAAMAAJ | year=1974 }}</ref> BJP's general secretary [[Kailash Vijayvargiya]] has said that after the partition in 1947, whatever was left of India constituted a "Hindu Rashtra" (Hindu Nation).<ref>{{Cite web |title=After Partition, India became a Hindu nation: BJP's Kailash Vijayvargiya |url=https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/hindu-rashtra-partition-india-pakistan-bjp-kailash-vijayvargiya-2349908-2023-03-22 |access-date=2023-07-18 |website=India Today |date=22 March 2023 |language=en |archive-date=16 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230416111920/https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/hindu-rashtra-partition-india-pakistan-bjp-kailash-vijayvargiya-2349908-2023-03-22 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |author=MM News Staff |date=2023-03-22 |title=Is the BJP proving Two-Nation Theory right? |url=https://mmnews.tv/india-became-a-hindu-state-after-partition-bjp-leader/ |access-date=2023-07-18 |website=MM News |language=en-US |archive-date=18 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230718093059/https://mmnews.tv/india-became-a-hindu-state-after-partition-bjp-leader/ |url-status=live }}</ref>