Editing History of Pakistan (section)

=== Final phase of the Pakistan Movement ===
[[File:KWGC_Cemetery_Karachi_2005.jpg|thumb|[[Karachi War Cemetery]]. About 87,000 soldiers from [[British India]] (which includes modern [[India]], [[Pakistan]] and [[Bangladesh]]) died in [[World War II]]. Millions of civilians also died due to [[Bengal famine of 1943|famines]].]]  Islamic scholars debated over whether it was possible for the proposed Pakistan to truly become an Islamic state.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://tribune.com.pk/story/943379/was-pakistan-sufficiently-imagined-before-independence/|title=Was Pakistan sufficiently imagined before independence? – The Express Tribune|date=23 August 2015|work=The Express Tribune|access-date=8 March 2017|language=en-US}}</ref><ref name="Ashraf">{{Cite news|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'|last=Ashraf|first=Ajaz|work=Scroll.in|access-date=8 March 2017|language=en-US}}</ref>

While the Congress' top leadership had been in prison following the 1942 Quit India Movement, there was intense debate among Indian Muslims over the creation of a separate homeland.<ref name="Ashraf" /> The majority of Barelvis<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nzivCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA167|title=State and Nation-Building in Pakistan: Beyond Islam and Security|last1=Long|first1=Roger D.|last2=Singh|first2=Gurharpal|last3=Samad|first3=Yunas|last4=Talbot|first4=Ian|publisher=Routledge|year=2015|isbn=978-1-317-44820-4|page=167|quote=In the 1940s a solid majority of the Barelvis were supporters of the Pakistan Movement and played a supporting role in its final phase (1940-7), mostly under the banner of the All-India Sunni Conference which had been founded in 1925.}}</ref> and Barelvi ulema supported the creation of Pakistan<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XfI-hEI8a9wC&pg=PA87|title=Pakistan: The Struggle Within|last=John|first=Wilson|publisher=Pearson Education India|year=2009|isbn=9788131725047|page=87|quote=During the 1946 election, Barelvi Ulama issued fatwas in favour of the Muslim League.}}</ref> and ''pirs'' and Sunni ulema were mobilized by the Muslim League to demonstrate that India's Muslim masses wanted a separate country.<ref name="Dawn-2013">{{Cite news|url=http://www.dawn.com/news/1042583|title='What's wrong with Pakistan?'|date=13 September 2013|work=Dawn|access-date=10 January 2017|quote=However, the fundamentalist dimension in Pakistan movement developed more strongly when the Sunni Ulema and pirs were mobilised to prove that the Muslim masses wanted a Muslim/Islamic state...Even the Grand Mufti of Deoband, Mufti Muhammad Shafi, issued a fatwa in support of the Muslim League's demand.}}</ref> The Barelvis believed that any co-operation with Hindus would be counter productive.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WgFeAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA135|title=The Awakening of Muslim Democracy: Religion, Modernity, and the State|last=Cesari|first=Jocelyne|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2014|isbn=978-1-107-51329-7|page=135|quote=For example, the Barelvi ulama supported the formation of the state of Pakistan and thought that any alliance with Hindus (such as that between the Indian National Congress and the Jamiat ulama-I-Hind [JUH]) was counterproductive.}}</ref> On the other hand, most Deobandis, who were led by Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani, were opposed to the creation of Pakistan and the two-nation theory. According to them Muslims and Hindus could be one nation and Muslims were only a nation of themselves in the religious sense and not in the territorial sense.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q9sI_Y2CKAcC&pg=PA224|title=A History of Pakistan and Its Origins|last=Jaffrelot|first=Christophe|publisher=Anthem Press|year=2004|isbn=978-1-84331-149-2|page=224|quote=Believing that Islam was a universal religion, the Deobandi advocated a notion of a composite nationalism according to which Hindus and Muslims constituted one nation.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KPKoCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA26|title=Indian Muslims and Citizenship: Spaces for Jihād in Everyday Life|last=Abdelhalim|first=Julten|publisher=Routledge|year=2015|isbn=978-1-317-50875-5|page=26|quote=Madani...stressed the difference between ''qaum'', meaning a nation, hence a territorial concept, and ''millat'', meaning an Ummah and thus a religious concept.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7-tWCgAAQBAJ&q=deoband%20composite%20nationalism&pg=PA52|title=Living with Religious Diversity|last=Sikka|first=Sonia|publisher=Routledge|year=2015|isbn=9781317370994|page=52|quote=Madani makes a crucial distinction between ''qaum'' and ''millat''. According to him, qaum connotes a territorial multi-religious entity, while millat refers to the cultural, social and religious unity of Muslims exclusively.}}</ref> At the same time some Deobandi ulema such as Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, Mufti Muhammad Shafi and Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani were supportive of the Muslim League's demand to create a separate Pakistan.<ref name="Dawn-2013"/><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=910eAAAAMAAJ|title=The Lahore resolution: arguments for and against : history and criticism|last=Khan|first=Shafique Ali|publisher=Royal Book Co.|year=1988|page=48|isbn=9789694070810|quote=Besides, Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, along with his pupils and disciples, lent his entire support to the demand of Pakistan.|access-date=10 January 2017}}</ref>

Muslims who were living in provinces where they were demographically a minority, such as the United Provinces where the Muslim League enjoyed popular support, were assured by Jinnah that they could remain in India, migrate to Pakistan or continue living in India but as Pakistani citizens.

In the [[Constituent Assembly of India|Constituent Assembly]] elections of 1946, the Muslim League won 425 out of 496 seats reserved for Muslims (polling 89.2% of total votes).<ref name="hkdr1" /> The Congress had hitherto refused to acknowledge the Muslim League's claim of being the representative of Indian Muslims but finally acquiesced to the League's claim after the results of this election. The Muslim League's demand for Pakistan had received overwhelming popular support from India's Muslims, especially those Muslims who were living in provinces such as UP where they were a minority.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OTMy0B9OZjAC&pg=PA68|title=Pakistan: A Global Studies Handbook|last=Mohiuddin|first=Yasmin Niaz|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2007|isbn=978-1-85109-801-9|page=70|quote=In the elections of 1946, the Muslim League won 90 percent of the legislative seats reserved for Muslims. It was the power of the big zamindars in Punjab and Sindh behind the Muslim League candidates, and the powerful campaign among the poor peasants of Bengal on economic issues of rural indebtedness and zamindari abolition, that led to this massive landslide victory (Alavi 2002, 14). Even Congress, which had always denied the League's claim to be the only true representative of Indian Muslims had to concede the truth of that claim. The 1946 election was, in effect, a plebiscite among Muslims on Pakistan.}}</ref>

The British had neither the will, nor the financial resources or military power, to hold India any longer but they were also determined to avoid partition and for this purpose they arranged the Cabinet Mission Plan.<ref>Barbara D. Metcalf; Thomas R. Metcalf (2002).&nbsp;[https://books.google.com/books?id=jGCBNTDv7acC&pg=PA212 ''A Concise History of India'']. Cambridge University Press. pp.&nbsp;212–.&nbsp;{{ISBN|978-0-521-63974-3}}</ref> According to this plan India would be kept united but would be heavily decentralized with separate groupings of Hindu and Muslim majority provinces. The Muslim League accepted this plan as it contained the 'essence' of Pakistan but the Congress rejected it. After the failure of the Cabinet Mission Plan, Jinnah called for Muslims to observe [[Direct Action Day]] to demand the creation of a separate Pakistan. The Direct Action Day morphed into violent riots between Hindus and Muslims in Calcutta, with the violence displaying elements of [[ethnic cleansing]]. The riots in Calcutta were followed by intense communal rioting elsewhere, including in [[Noakhali riots|Noakhali]] (where Hindus were attacked by Muslims) and [[1946 Bihar riots|Bihar]] (where Hindus attacked Muslims) in October, resulting in large-scale displacement. In March 1947, such violence reached Punjab, where Sikhs and Hindus were [[1947 Rawalpindi massacres|massacred and driven out]] by Muslims in the Rawalpindi Division.<ref>{{citation |last1=Talbot |first1=Ian |last2=Singh |first2=Gurharpal |title=The Partition of India |publisher=Cambridge University Press  |isbn=978-0-521-67256-6 |year=2009 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/in/academic/subjects/history/twentieth-century-regional-history/partition-india?format=PB&isbn=9780521672566 |page=67 |quote=The signs of ‘ethnic cleansing’ are first evident evident in the Great Calcutta Killing of 16–19 August 1946. Over 100,000 people were made homeless. They were also present in the wave of violence that rippled out from Calcutta to Bihar, where there were high Muslim casualty figures, and to Noakhali deep in the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta of Bengal. Concerning the Noakhali riots, one British officer spoke of a 'determined and organized' Muslim effort to drive out all the Hindus, who accounted for around a fifth of the total population. Similarly, the Punjab counterparts to this transition of violence were the Rawalpindi massacres of March 1947. The level of death and destruction in such West Punjab villages as Thoa Khalsa was such that communities couldn't live together in its wake.}}</ref>

The British Prime Minister Attlee appointed [[Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma|Lord Louis Mountbatten]] as India's last viceroy, to negotiate the independence of Pakistan and India and immediate British withdrawal. British leaders including Mountbatten did not support the creation of Pakistan but failed to convince Jinnah otherwise.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a0FuAAAAMAAJ|title=The Destruction of Pakistan's Democracy|last=McGrath|first=Allen|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1996|isbn=978-0-19-577583-9|page=38|quote=Undivided India, their magnificent imperial trophy, was besmirched by the creation of Pakistan, and the division of India was never emotionally accepted by many British leaders, Mountbatten among them.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGdiqF6V8wYC&pg=PA136|title=Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin|last=Ahmed|first=Akbar S.|publisher=Psychology Press|year=1997|isbn=978-0-415-14966-2|page=136|quote=Mountbatten's partiality was apparent in his own statements. He tilted openly and heavily towards Congress. While doing so he clearly expressed his lack of support and faith in the Muslim League and its Pakistan idea.}}</ref> Mountbatten later confessed that he would most probably have sabotaged the creation of Pakistan had he known that Jinnah was dying of tuberculosis.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RqyniTHXFxUC&pg=PT209|title=Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin|last=Ahmed|first=Akbar|publisher=Routledge|year=2005|isbn=978-1-134-75022-1|quote=When Mountbatten was asked by Collins and Lapierre if he would have sabotaged Pakistan if he had known that Jinnah was dying of tuberculosis, his answer was instructive. There was no doubt in his mind about the legality or morality of his position on Pakistan. 'Most probably,' he said (1982:39).}}</ref>

In early 1947, the British had announced their desire to grant India its independence by June 1948. However, Lord Mountbatten decided to advance the date. In a meeting in June, Nehru and [[Abul Kalam Azad]] representing the Congress, Jinnah representing the Muslim League, [[B. R. Ambedkar]] representing the [[Dalit|Untouchable]] community, and [[Master Tara Singh]] representing the [[Sikhs]], agreed to partition India along religious lines.{{citation needed|date=April 2023}}