The consequence of the constitutional advance from the Reforms of 1919 to the India Act of 1935 encouraged, in the Muslim majority provinces, powerful centrifugal forces based on community and regional identity. However, the basic parameters of Muslim politics were established by 1937. The Muslims were divided between weak centripetal and strong centrifugal forces. The opposition between the two forces formed the framework for the political developments of the 1940s and ultimately remained the basis of politics in Pakistan. As the independence drew closer, exclusive attention was paid to the politics of the centre and in the process the inconsistencies of mass nationalism were often overlooked. By shifting the analysis to an examination of the political developments in the Muslim-majority provinces, it became clear that the rise of mass Muslim nationalism was not a unilinear triumph but a complex process marked by deep inner contradictions.
British Acts of 1919 and 1935
This initiation of the British was further maintained and enlarged by the Reforms Acts of 1919 and 1935. The new provision had encouraged interest groups to compete for collaboration with the Raj and thus help shield the administration from the onslaught of the nationalist movement. With the 1919 Reforms, the political focus shifted to the Muslims of the rural areas and particularly of Punjab and Bengal who were the dominant in their region. Out of a total of thirty-two seats, twenty-seven were allocated to the, Muslim–majority districts of western- Punjab. Thus the landlords and agriculturists benefited from the constitutional advance at the expense of the urban interests; and the powerful Muslim Zamindars of the Rawalpindi and Multan areas became dominant in the council. They formed a major centre of centrifugal politics among Muslims. Similarly in Bengal, thirty-three out of the thirty-nine seats allocated to Muslims were for rural areas, mainly in the eastern districts of Bengal. The most significant impact of the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms on Muslim politics was the shift of power and influence from the Muslim minority provinces to the Muslim majority provinces. 5 Before the passing of the Act of 1919, All-India Muslim organisations were dominated by the Western-educated elite of the United Provinces, Bihar and Bombay. It set in motion the centrifugal forces that were responsible for deflecting Indian politics away from the All-India stage to the provinces. The India Act of 1935 reconfirmed and consolidated the centrifugal developments initiated explicitly or implicitly by the Reforms of 1919. It made provisions for provincial autonomy and an Indian Federation to be composed of the princely states and the provinces of British India, and a legislature in which the representatives of the majority of Indians would be permanently in a minority. The Act also suited the princes who could decide how and when to federate, and they were assured that the centre would remain in British hands. The position of the Muslims were further reinforced by the Communal Award, which gave them separate electorates and weightages.
British policy and Muslim middle class
The British policy of pick and choose among the Muslims, apart from the constitutional causes, was all behind the delay in the development of a Muslim middle class in India. Essentially the internal conflict in India besides the nationalist struggle against foreign domination, was between the remnants of the feudal order and modernist ideas and institutions. This conflict existed on the national plane as well as within each major group, Hindu, Muslim and others. On the Hindu side an exclusive and rigid social order had come in the way of growth, but it has been undermined and is fast losing its rigidity and, in any event, is not strong enough to obstruct the growth of the national movement in its widest political and social sense. On the Muslim side, feudal elements, as promoted by the British, had continued to be strong and have usually succeeded in imposing their leadership on their masses. There had been a difference of a generation or more in the development of the Hindu and Muslim middle classes, and that difference continues to show itself in many directions, political economic and other. This situation produced a psychology of fear and backwardness among the Muslims and as a solution of the problem they began to strengthen the hold of feudal elements for some time longer and delay the economic progress of the Muslims. The delay in the development of middle class in the Muslims and the unequal composition of intelligentsia , particularly in comparison to Hindus, had totally changed the class character and nature of leadership in the community. The Muslim intelligentsia, at least in the initial stage, was composed of the landlords, whereas the Hindu intelligentsia recruited members from all sections of society. This unequal development of this class also affected differently the growth of nationalism in these two communities. The Hindu intelligentsia, because of its middle-class composition, could seek inspirations from the writings of Bentham, Mill and Comte. They developed a progressive and critical outlook. The Muslim intelligentsia, on the other hand, remained conservative and feared that if such ideas were allowed to spread among the Muslims, they would have a pernicious effect. They also feared that these ideas would undermine their leadership in the Muslim society. That is why the educationists like Nawab Abdul Latif advised the British to encourage Madarsa education instead of English education among the Muslims in Bengal.
Rise of Muslim middle class
Behind the backwardness of the Muslim masses was the policy of the British Government who always ignored all round progress with real and effective planning for the whole of India. The disparate social and economic advancement of the two communities intensified this feeling. The rise of a Muslim middle class in the first quarter of this century and its relative backwardness from the Hindu middle class made the Muslims bitter towards the Hindus. In fact the Pakistan Movement could not have been successful if the upper class of Muslim society which led the movement were not backed by the middle class. Muslims wanted more opportunities of employment in government, commerce, trade and industry. As most of the big landlords were Hindus, the Muslims, in humbler circumstances also felt that their lot would improve if they could form a new State free of Hindu exploitation. The relatively smaller number of Muslim capitalists, bankers and businessmen that emerged by this time mainly in Bombay and Uttar Pradesh saw in the creation of a Muslim State better prospects of profit free of Hindu competition. Therefore, when Jinnah declared, “We maintain and hold that Hindus and Muslims are two major nations by any definition or test of a nation” , almost all Muslims enthusiastically supported this theory. They were waiting economic emancipation, and they felt that they could get it only in a free Muslim State.