The 1946 Punjab Elections

Author(s): I. A. Talbot
Source: Modern Asian Studies , 1980, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1980), pp. 65-91
Published by: Cambridge University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/312214

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Modern Asian Studies, I4, I (i980), pp. 65-9I. Printed in Great Britain.

The 1946 Punjab Elections

I. A. TALBOT

Royal Holloway College, University of London

ON August 2Ist I945 the viceroy announced that elec

held that Winter to the Central and Provincial Legislat
They were to precede the convention of a constitutio
for British India. The Muslim League had to succeed
test if its popular support of its demand for Pakistan was
In particular it had to succeed in the Punjab as there cou
stan without that province. But in the Punjab's last el
I937 the League had fared disastrously. It had put fo
seven candidates for the 85 Muslim seats and only two
cessful. In the 1946 elections the League won 75 of th
seats. This improvement in its performance which h
implications for the future for the subcontinent require
The process has yet to be examined in detail. Pendere
attributes the League's rise to power to the alluring a
appeal of the Pakistan cry to the Muslim masses.l Pet
planation that the Muslim League gained its electora
Punjab by making a religious appeal over the heads of th
politicians2 raises more questions than it solves. For insta
the League bypass the traditional channels of politic
within the province? And how can this explanation be re
the fact that the majority of the League candidates in
perienced politicians who had only very recently tran
allegiance from the Unionist Party? Pakistani historians
the League's success in the Punjab, as elsewhere in the
solely in terms of the Two Nation Theory3 which is that
of India had always constituted a separate nation, awai
Abbreviations
NAI National Archives of India.
IOR India Office Records.
FMA Freedom Movement Archives, Karachi University.
NAP National Archives of Pakistan, Islamabad.
QEAP Quaid-e-Azam Papers.
1 Sir Penderel Moon, Divide And Quit (London, I96I), p. 43.
2 Peter Hardy, The Muslims of British India (Cambridge, 1972) p. 238.
3 Khalid bin Sayeed, The Political System of Pakistan (Boston, 1967), p. 8.
oo26-749X/8o/02o8-o607 $02.00 ? 1980 Cambridge University Press

65

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66 I. A. TALBOT

organized and inspired by the League to assert this fact. Most recently
of all, Paul Brass has developed a model for understanding Muslim
Separatism in the United Provinces of India.4 The League grew because
there were both an dlite which chose to manipulate separatist symbols
in order to serve its own power interests and a socially mobilized com-
munity which responded to the sense of communal identification com-
municated to it. This argument, whether it works or not in the U.P.,
which seems doubtful, explains none of the League's success in the very
different conditions of the Punjab.
Despite their inadequacies all these arguments do raise questions
which are of central importance to an understanding of the League's
success in the I946 provincial elections. How important are ideas in
moving a peasant society? Can peasant support be gained without
appealing to its immediate and practical interests ? Are levels of social
mobilization relevant to successful political mobilization in predomin-
antly peasant societies? To what extent can the role played by tradi-
tional social networks be ignored in the business of winning support for
political parties?
Further questions which must be tackled in any detailed explanation
of the Muslim League's success concern the Second World War's
extensive social and economic impact on the province. Did the neces-
sity of running an efficient war effort force the Unionist Party to pursue
policies detrimental to its own interests? The Punjab was the largest
army recruiting area in India. How important in the elections was the
large military vote? Finally, the question must be asked: what was
most important in the League's success: its organizational development
in the province or its use of the traditional channels of political mobiliz-
ation-the Sufi and biraderi networks ? The answer to this question will
have significant bearing on our understanding of voting behaviour in
traditional societies.
The task which faced the Muslim League on the eve of the elections
appeared formidable. In order to achieve a political breakthrough it
had to defeat the Unionist Ministry in the Punjab countryside as all
but i o of the 85 Muslim seats were situated there. But ever since its
creation in I923 the Unionist Party had dominated this area. Its influ-
ence stemmed from its ability to provide the patronage5 which retained
the loyalty of the landlords and pirs who led the leading local political
4 Paul R. Brass, Language, Religion and Politics in North India (Cambridge, I974),
pp. 178ff.
5 At the time of the 1939 New Years' Honours' List no less than a third of the
Unionist Party Assembly members held titles from the rank of Rai Bahadur to
Knight. The Tribune (Ambala), 5 January 1939.

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 THE I946 PUNJAB ELECTIONS 67
factions and controlled the biraderi and Sufi networks6 through which
votes were traditionally gathered.
The Muslim League's I937 election campaign had foundered upon
the entrenched position of the Unionists in the countryside. However,
in 1946 the League fought the elections from a much stronger position.
In 1937 not only had it no influence in the villages, following Jinnah's
failure in May 1936 to win the Unionist Party's support for the Muslim
League election campaign,7 but even in many of the towns it had vir-
tually no organization or popular support. By 1946 League branches
existed in many of the rural as well as urban districts of the province,
as a result of the campaign launched in the summer of I944 to open
primary and district League branches and to enrol 2 annas members of
the League throughout the rural areas. As the elections approached,
the League intensified its activities in the countryside. In November
I945 the Provincial League leadership issued instructions to extend its
organization down to the tehsil level, from which propaganda parties
could be organized to tour the villages.8
The League's campaign was most intensive in the Rawalpindi
Division of the province, where as a result of the efforts of the Organiz-
ing Secretary, Ghulam Mustafa Shah Gilani, a dozen new primary
branches were established in the Rawalpindi District and 4,500 new
members enrolled in the Sargodha District alone.9 However, in other
areas of the Division much of the League's advance at this time was on
paper only. The district organizer for Mianwali, for example, reported
in July I944 that 17 new primary Leagues with some 2,000 members
had been created there.10 But 2 years later during the election campaign
the League was still trying to establish an effective organization in the
district.1l As late as May 1945 only i? lakhs of members were enrolled
in the League.12
6 For the semantics of the term biraderi see H. A. Alavi, 'Kinship in West Punjab
Villages', in T. N. Madan (ed.), Muslim Communities of South Culture and Society (Delhi,
I976). For our purposes here, biraderi is best translated as brotherhood or kinship
group. As Alavi points out, despite the existence of caste names among the Muslims
of the Punjab, it was the biraderi endogamous organization which commanded the
primordial loyalties of the Muslim population. At the village level biraderis were
controlled by panchayats which ensured their corporate functioning in such areas
as politics. At the provincial level biraderis were governed by conferences presided
over by representatives from their leading families.
7 (FR Ist half of May 1936) Home Poll. I8/5/36-Poll NAI.
8 (FR ist half of November i945) L/P&J/5/248 IOR.
9 Report of The Organizing Secretary Rawalpindi Division. Vol. 162, Pt 7,
Punjab Muslim League I943-44, pp. 74ff, FMA. o1 Ibid.
" Mumtaz Daultana to Mian Amiruddin, I6 January 1946, QEAP File 58
NAP. 12 The Eastern Times (Lahore), 23 May 1945.

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68 I. A. TALBOT

Far more important than its patchy organizational growth was its
winning over the support of no less than 30 Unionist Party Assembly
members in the period I944-6. In 2 districts, Jhang and Sheikhupura,
all 7 of the sitting Muslim members joined the League. Although in
other areas such as Amritsar and Gujrat the Unionist Party members
remained steadfastly loyal, the League had by 1946 nevertheless made
a substantial inroad into its power base. For the defection of many of
its landlord and pir representatives not only weakened the Unionist
Party's position in the Legislative Assembly but robbed it of the control
of the networks through which its peasant support had been mobilized
during elections.13 After its initial campaign in the countryside in I944,
the League increasingly concentrated its efforts on the winning of lite
support rather than on the establishment of local branches.14 In such
areas as the Rawalpindi District where its organizational activity was
intense, this was activated more by the hope that it would force the
Unionist Party's landlord supporters to reconsider their attitude to its
overtures than in the belief that success could be achieved by thus by-
passing the traditional political structure in the countryside. The
League's ambivalent attitude towards its grass-roots development was
manifested in the attitude of the Nawab of Mamdot, its President, who
refused to allow the establishment of primary League branches on his
Ferozepore Estate.15
The landlords who had joined the League by 1946 included amongst
their number members from such families as the Hayats, the Noons and
the Daultanas from which the Unionist Party had traditionally drawn
its leadership. They wielded immense social and economic power in
their home districts and amongst their biraderi throughout the province.
As such their loss constituted a crippling blow for the Unionist Party
from which it was never able fully to recover. It had also to face the
setback of having lost the support of many of the province's leading pirs
and sajjada nashins.
The Unionist Party's success in the 1937 elections had been based on
the joint support of the leading landlords and pirs. By I946 this had
been lost in many of the western districts of the province. Leading pir
families such as those of the pirs ofJalapur, Jahanian Shah, Rajoa and
Shah Jiwana which had represented the Unionist Party since 1923
13 The Unionist Party's 1937 electoral success was based on the support of the
province's leading landlord and pir families. Despite Mian Fazl-i-Husain's reorgani-
zation of the party in 1936, at the time of the elections it had no formal organization
in most areas of the province.
14 (FR ist half of December I944) L/P&J/5/247 IOR.
Is Khan Rab Nawaz Khan toJinnah, 25 March 1943, QEAP File 579/46 NAP.

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 THE I946 PUNJAB ELECTIONS 69
were supporting the League. So also were such pirs as Pir Taunsa and
Pir Golra who had previously been less politically active but had
nevertheless always provided the Unionist Party with valuable tacit
support. Pirs played an important part in the League's success16
because of their immense spiritual and temporal sway over their
numerous followers in the villages. The League achieved its greatest
electoral success in such districts as Multan, Jhang, Jhelum and Karnal,
where it had obtained the support of the leading pirs and sajjada nashins.
In order to understand the political background to the Unionist
Party's crucial loss of dlite support, we must turn to its relationship
with the Muslim League in the period I937-44. From October I937 it
had been governed by the terms of the Jinnah-Sikander Pact. This was
surrounded by controversy from its inception. Iqbal, then Punjab
League President, claimed to Jinnah that Sikander had only acquiesced
to it in order to capture the League organization and smother it at
birth, 7 whilst Sikander and Malik Barkat Ali, its co-drafters, contra-
dicted each other in their interpretation of its political consequences.
Sikander's view was that 'The position of the parties so far as the Pun-
jab is concerned will remain unaltered by the agreement. The change
will be however that Muslim members of the Unionist Party will be
advised to join the League if they so desire.'18 Whereas Malik Barkat
Ali declared:

The status and character of the Unionist Party will under the agreement
undergo a radical transformation. The Unionist Party will consist of (I) the
Muslim League Party within the Legislature as constituted under the agree
ment and subject to the full control of the All-India Muslim League and
bound by its rules and regulations and (2) the party of Sir Chhotu Ram or
any other party that agrees to form a coalition with the League Party..
The allegiance of the Muslim League members will primarily be to the
All-India Muslim League and if ever a conflict arises between the funda-
mental policy and programme of the League and the coalescing group the
Muslim League Party will be bound by the mandate and orders of the parent
body.19

Whatever its interpretation and the motivation of its signatories, the

effect of the Pact was to seal off the Punjab countryside from League
influence and to create a position of political dualism within the pro-
vince in which the Muslim dlite could retain its loyalty to the Unionist

16 See The Eastern Times (Lahore), 15 March I946, for an assessment of their role
in the Muslim League's success.
17 B. A. Dar (ed.), Letters and Writings of Iqbal (Lahore, I967), pp. Io5-1 I.
18 The Tribune (Ambala), 19 October 1937.
19 The Tribune (Ambala), 23 October 1937.

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 I. A. TALBOT
70

Party in provincial politics whilst supporting the League at the All-

India level. While the different interpretations of the Jinnah-Sikander
Pact were only of academic importance in I937, as the League's power
and prestige increased during the war years, the question of the Union-
ist Party's independence in provincial affairs began to assume much
greater political significance. Long after the League needed to rely on
the Unionist Party's support at the national level of politics, Jinnah,
still chastened by the failure of his intervention in Punjabi politics in
I936,20 was reluctant to resolve the ambiguities which the Pact had
created within the province. Finally, in I944, prompted by unauthor-
ized efforts from within the Punjab to do his work for him21 and by the
successful establishment of League Ministries in other provinces, he
decided to force the new Unionist Premier's hand. In early April he
had talks with Khizr endeavouring to clarify the relationship between
the Unionist Party and the League at both the national and provincial
levels of politics. A compromise formula was drafted and discussed22
but the talks finally broke down over Khizr's insistence that the new
coalition ministry which would be created after the establishment of a
Muslim League Assembly Party should retain the Unionist Party name.
A bitter dispute followed in which the League denied that it had ever
recognized the Jinnah-Sikander Talks of 1937 as constituting a formal
and binding pact. It culminated in Khizr's expulsion from the League.
Thereafter the Punjab's Muslim dlite was faced with a conflict of
loyalties between the Unionist Party and the League. Propaganda
which depicted Unionist supporters as traitors to Islam and their
Millat greatly intensified this, especially as it was reinforced by the
belief that the Unionist Party had caused the Simla Conference of July

20 On his departure from Lahore after his failure to win Unionist Support for the
Muslim League Central Parliamentary Board, Jinnah had said: 'I shall never come
back to the Punjab again. It is such a hopeless place'. Azim Husain, Mian Fazl-i-
Husain. A Political Biography (London, 1966), p. 31 I.
21 Nawabzada Rashid Ali Khan and a few other mainly urban-based League
activists had attempted to set up a Muslim League Workers' Board in I943 to put life
into the provincial party. Jinnah's opposition to this independent venture, however
doomed it to failure.
22 This called for the establishment of a Muslim League Assembly Party to which
the Muslim MLA's would owe sole allegiance. It would, however, coalesce with other
parties in the legislature and thus constituted carry out the Unionist Party programme
under the Unionist Coalition name. Khizr as leader of the Muslim League Assembly
Party would select his ministerial colleagues from among those members of the
Assembly in whom he had confidence. The Punjab Provincial Muslim League
would not thereafter raise any matter about the working of the Muslim League
Assembly Party except with Khizr's permission or through the Assembly Party
itself. File I6, Khizr Papers, Chicago.

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 THE I946 PUNJAB ELECTIONS 7I

1945 to fail.23 When the Khizr-Noon Talks collapsed 2 months later,

ending the hope that there might be a Unionist-League rapprochement
before the elections, the trickle of Unionist supporters to the League be-
came a flood. It was still further swollen by the air of uncertainty created
by the imminence ofthe British departure from India. A growing number
of leading Muslims came to believe that in the light of the radically trans-
formed political situation by I946, the Unionist Party's non-communal
approach to politics had outlived its raison d'tre.24 The growing com-
munalism of Hindu and Sikh district officials25 strengthened this belief. As
did the League's own threats against its opponents26 and the agitations
it aroused in some of the villages of Unionist supporters.27 The strength
of biraderi loyalty in the Punjab also contributed to the rapid growth
of the League's support. The Daultana and Hayat families for example,
despite their long history of loyalty to the Unionist Party, followed en
masse Mian Mumtaz Daultana and Shaukat Hyat into the League.
The impact of such pressures to join the League was unmitigated by
feelings of personal attachment to the Unionist Party on the part of
many of its members.28 It had been looked to for patronage and to safe-
guard their local interests. When it became uncertain whether it would
be able to continue to discharge these functions, they deserted it. This
is one of the many instances of the Punjabi landlord's remarkable
capacity for political accomodation, the history of which can be traced
back at least as far as the days of Ranjit Singh29 and which is still evi-
dent in the province's contemporary politics.30

23 Several Muslim Leaguers issued statements to the press attacking Khizr's atti-
tude at the Simla Conference. See, for example, Dawn (Delhi), 21 July I945.
24 The Eastern Times (Lahore), I8 September 1945. 25 QEAP File Io92/600 NAP.
26 See Nawab Muzaffar Ali Khan Qizilbash's statement in reply to Muslim
League allegations concerning the Unionist Party's use of official pressure during the
elections. The Civil and Military Gazette (Lahore), 23 October 1945.
27 Report of Sayed Ghulam Mustafa Shah Gilani, Hon. Sec. Rawalpindi Division
Muslim League. Vol. I62, Pt 7, Punjab Muslim League 1943-44, FMA.
28 Craik to Linlithgow, I May I939, Linlithgow Papers, IOR.
29 G. S. Chhabra, Advanced History of The Punjab, Vol. 2 (Ludhiana, 1965), p. 49.
Ranjit Singh, in order to strengthen his position in the western districts of the Punjab,
wisely attached to his fortunes representatives of the leading Muslim families. The
head of the Noon family served in Ranjit Singh's army and held several villages in
jagir as a result. He, however, deserted the Sikh cause in favour of the British during
the Sikh Wars. Similar opportunism was shown by the Tiwanas. Their head, Malik
Bakhsh Khan, served with distinction in Ranjit Singh's Army and was rewarded
with considerable grants of land in the Shahpur District. He, too, joined the British
forces during the Sikh Wars. C. F. Massy, Chiefs and families of note in the Punjab,
Vol. 2 (Lahore, I9I0), pp. 193 and 5.
30 Many of the Punjab landlords who had been defeated by the PPP in 1970 joined
it during the period to I977.

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72 I. A. TALBOT

The Unionist Party responded to the League's disruption of its sup-

port in the countryside by reactivating the Zemindara League.31 It also
moved nearer than ever before to the Congress, thus foreshadowing the
post election coalition between the two parties. Tikka Ram, the Jat
Revenue Minister, in a speech at Sonepat in July 1945, went so far to
say that there was no difference between the Unionist Party and the
Congress. The former was really only carrying out the constructive part
of the Congress programme, in its non-communal policy of uplift for
the backward agricultural communities and desire for Muslim-Hindu
unity.32 The League naturally turned this unguarded utterance to
good account. The Unionist Party also became unpopular as a result of
its increasing reliance on the machinery of government to maintain
control of those districts where it had been deserted by its traditional
allies. For it thus became closely identified with the district officials,
whom the villagers disliked because of the officials' increasing intrusion
into the villagers' lives as they endeavoured to ensure obedience to the
multitude of wartime ordinances.33 During the election campaign in
such districts as Lyallpur, the Unionist Party went so far as to put
pressure on the voters.34 It was not good policy. Village communities
resented such treatment which did much to destroy the Unionist's
surviving popularity.
As a result of the impact of the wartime economic dislocations, the
Unionist Party had also become unpopular amongst many of its petty
zamindar, Jat and Arian supporters in the eastern districts of the pro-
vince.35 Although the war's demands on the province's manpower36 and
produce had removed the low agricultural prices which had beset it
throughout the I930S,37 it brought with it a new range of economic
31 The Zemindara League which was created as a result of Sir Chhotu Ram's
efforts was the Unionist Party's extra parliamentary organization. It had originally
been formed to mobilize support for the 'Golden' Agricultural Legislation of the late
I930s. It was revived again in 1944 in an effort to counter the Muslim League's
growing influence in the countryside.
32 The Eastern Times (Lahore), 2 August I945.
33 As a result of the worsening supply situation towards the end of the war, the
district magistrates issued an ever increasing number of controls which affected the
villager as he went about his daily life. See Board of Economic Inquiry Punjab
Publication No go. Annual Review of Economic Conditions in The Punjab I945-6 (Lahore,
I946), p. 4.
34Abdul Bari, President of the Lyallpur District Muslim League to Jinnah,
23 January 1946, Shamsul Hasan Collection, Punjab Vol. I, General Correspondence.
35 The Unionist Party's power base in East Punjab was amongst the small peasant
proprietors which predominated in that area, unlike in the western part of the
province which was dominated by large landlords.
36 Over 800,000 Punjabis served in the British Army during the war.
37 The price of cotton sold in Rohtak, for example, had fallen from 7 seers to the

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 THE I946 PUNJAB ELECTIONS 73

difficulties, including shortages of consumer and capital goods, high

prices and inflation.38 The worst effects of inflation and consumer
shortages were at first felt by the wage earners and those on fixed in-
comes in the towns. But the Unionist Party's zemindar supporters also
became increasingly affected. Admittedly they obtained high prices for
their produce throughout most of the war, but like the town dwellers
they suffered shortages of vital commodities such as cloth, sugar and
kerosene. When rationing was introduced into the Ambala District
there were constant complaints from the villagers that they received
smaller quotas than the urban population. Most of the supplies of kero-
sene never in fact found their way into the villages.39 Evidence for
agrarian prosperity in the increase of agricultural savings and land
redemptions reflect more the inability of increased rural income to find
an outlet in consumer expenditure in these years, than an appreciable
improvement in the real standard of living.
Until I944 the high prices which the zemindars gained for their
wheat and other agricultural produce outweighed the increased prices
and shortages of consumer products. But in the Autumn of that year a
substantial and sustained fall in agricultural prices set in.40 The Unionist
Party came under increasing pressure from its supporters to alleviate the
situation.41 But its hands were tied by the Central Food Department's
continued ban on the free movement of grain between the Punjab and
the United Provinces.42 The much higher prices which could be
obtained in the U.P. than in the Punjab, as a result of the operation of
its statutory maximum price ordinance, were a constant source of irri-
tation in the east Punjab and encouraged the growth of large-scale
smuggling operations.43 Grain prices staged a recovery in the first few
rupee in March 1931 to 10 seers to the rupee by that October. The retail price of gur
ranged between 9 and 10 seers to the rupee in March I931 before the worst impact
of the agricultural depression was felt. By March 1933 it had so fallen that the price
of 25 seers to the rupee was recorded in Rohtak. Note by K. B. Mian Asiz, Commis-
sioner Ambala Division, on the present Economic Situation in the Ambala Division.
Punjab Government Proceedings, Vol. 12017. Development Dept. Proceedings
August I933 No. 22, pp. 72ff, IOR.
38 The retail price index in Lahore rose from a base of oo00 in August I939 to 398
by March I946. Board of Economic Inquiry Punjab Publication No. 90. Annual
Review of Economic Conditions in the Punjab I945-6, Table 12, p. 62.
39 (FR 14 August 1946) L/P&J/5/249 IOR.
40 (FR 20 September I944) L/P&J/5/247 IOR.
41 (FR 25 October I944) L/P&J/5/247 IOR. See also The Tribune (Ambala),
8 October I944.
42 This was in spite of the representations made by the deputation led by Baldev
Singh which discussed the food grains situation with the Central Food Department
in October I944.
43 (FR ist half of November I945) L/P&J/5/248 IOR.

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 I. A. TALBOT
74

months of I945, but as the year progressed the zemindars became in-
creasingly reluctant to market their goods. Political insecurity, the un-
favourable prospects for the I946 rabi crop and the enticement of the
black market all contributed to this. Many regarded the high black
market prices which they obtained for their produce as a legitimate
compensation for their other economic difficulties. By December I945
wheat, maize and gram had virtually disappeared from the open
market.44 Many towns in the province even in the Canal Colony areas
began to experience a wheat famine. The large landlords-of the West
Punjab still brought at least part of their grain to the mandis but virtu-
ally none came from the petty zemindars of the East Punjab. The
Unionist Government was forced to requisition grain from the villages
there, although it wished to retain its popularity in the area to counter-
balance its loss of influence throughout much of the West Punjab.
Unfortunately for its electoral prospects, grain requisitioning aroused
considerable opposition. Disturbances broke out as a result in the
Ludhiana, Hoshiarpur and Ferczepore districts right in the middle of
the elections.45
The Muslim League exploited wartime economic discontent. It
frequently organized protest meetings about alleged communal fav-
ouritism in rationing.46 Six resolutions complaining about cloth dis-
tribution in Lahore were, for example, passed after a series of such
meetings in its leading mosques in May 1945.47 Even more important
was its policy of seeking political support in the villages by helping the
peasants to overcome their economic problems. The success of this
strategy in politically mobilizing peasants (so dramatically illustrated
in later years by the victories of the Chinese Communist Party and the
Vietnamese NLF) had been brought home to it by the Punjab Com-
munist Party's campaign run on this line in the Central Punjab villages
during the winter of 1943.48
League propagandists took medical supplies, which had become in-
creasingly expensive and difficult to obtain during the war, with them
to the villages.49 They also distributed cloth there and endeavoured to
obtain increased ration allowances for the villagers.50 Wherever possible
44 Board of Economic Inquiry Punjab Publication No. 90. Annual Review of Econo-
mic Conditions in the Punjab I945-6, pp. 6ff.
45 (FR 2nd half of February 1946) L/P&J/5/249 IOR.
46 Hawa-e-Waqt (Lahore), 19 April I945.
47 The Eastern Times (Lahore), 27 May 1945.
48 (Fr 2nd Half of October 1943 and ist Half of November I943) L/P&J/5/246
IOR.
49 The Eastern Times (Lahore), 28 December 1945.
50 The Eastern Times (Lahore), 28 August 1945.

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 THE 1946 PUNJAB ELECTIONS 75

they gained control of the rationing machinery. They enjoined Pakistan

to the peasants not only as a religious imperative but as a panacea for
their social and economic problems. Propagandists were directed when
they visited a village to: 'Find out its social problems and difficulties to
tell them [i.e. the villagers] that the main cause of their problems was
the Unionists [and] give them the solution-Pakistan.'51 The League
workers attempted to win support by solving the economic problems of
the villagers, as Mao was doing in China at the same time.52
Far removed from the subsequent portrayal of the League fighting
and winning the elections on one issue-namely, Pakistan--was the
contemporary criticism of its manifesto for opportunistically attempt-
ing to placate every conceivable interest group within the province.53
One such group the League wooed was the Punjabi servicemen. Their
numbers alone-the Punjab supplied 27 per cent of the total number
of Indian Army recruits during the war, some 800,000 men-gave them
political importance. This was increased by their constituting a large
proportion of the electorate54 in a number of key constituencies such as
those of Rawalpindi, Jhelum and Mianwali, in which the League faced
strong Unionist opposition and was organizationally weak. The Union-
ist Party had endeavoured to maintain the traditional loyalty of the
recruiting areas by a series of measures designed to aid the servicemen's
dependants whilst they were abroad. Free medical aid was given to the
families and dependants of soldiers on active duty, free schooling for
their children up to the fifth class, and remissions of land revenue, as
during the First World War, were made for villages with especially

51 Translation of a pamphlet issued by the election board of the Punjab Muslim

Students' Federation. FMA.
52 Mao Tse-tung in the I920S had declared that the key to peasant political mo
ization lay in providing them with immediate material aid. Ideological appeal o
own would not be sufficient to achieve this.
'If we do no other work than simply mobilizing the people to carry out the war,
can we achieve the aim of defeating the enemy? Of course not. If we want to win, we
still have a great deal of work. Leading the peasants in agrarian struggles and dis-
tributing land to them; arousing their labour enthusiasm so as to increase agricultural
production; safeguarding the interests of the workers; establishing cooperatives;
developing trade with outside areas; solving the problems that face the masses,
problems of clothing, food, and shelter, of fuel, rice, cooking oil and salt, of health
and hygiene, and of marriage. In short, all problems facing the masses in their actual
life should claim our attention'. Mao Tse-tung, Mind the Living Conditions of the
Masses and Attend to the Methods of Work (Peking, 1953), p. 2.
53 The Tribune (Ambala), 3 December I944.
54 In the Rawalpindi District, the leading recruiting area in the province, I man
in every 2 served during the war, 1,420 persons were recorded as having sent 3 or
more sons to the services. File I6, Khizr Papers.

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76 I. A. TALBOT

good recruiting records.55 Its Post-War Five Years Development Plan

had been drawn up with the specific purpose of benefiting the recruiting
areas and providing employment for the demobilized soldiers.56 How-
ever, despite its efforts many grievances existed amongst Punjabi
servicemen on the eve of the elections. The slump which had hit the
Punjab's trade and industry as a result of the fall in the high wartime
levels of demands7 meant that many servicemen returned home to face
the same high levels of unemployment which had originally prompted
their enlistment.58 Even by the end of 1946, less than 20 per cent of the
demobilized soldiers registered with employment exchanges had been
found work. 59 The speedy end of the war in Asia had taken the Unionist
Government by surprise so that its plans to ease the situation by re-
settling servicemen on land in the Canal Colonies were not yet ready.
That there was no reward for the servicemen's efforts, despite all the
Unionist Party's promises, was hammered home by League propa-
ganda.60 Prompted by the Congress example of providing work for un-
employed ex-servicemen in its organization, the League set up a com-
mittee to see how immediate aid of this kind could be given them.61 It
also addressed itself to the servicemen's wider areas of concern which
included such issues as the Palestine Question, the use of Muslim troops
in Indonesia and, most important of all, the fate of Punjabi members
of the India National Army. The League's decision to follow the Con-
gress lead and establish a Defence Committee for I.N.A. members who
were on trial undoubtedly secured it support throughout the province's
recruiting districts.62
Although there were other factors at work in the League's success in
the major Muslim recruiting areas, notably the influence exerted in
the League's favour by Pir Fazl Shah ofJalalpur in the Jhelum District,

55 The Eastern Times (Lahore), 8 November I942.

56 Government of Punjab Five Year Postwar Development Plan (Lahore, 1945). See for
example p. 214.
57Ibid.; see fn. 44 above, pp. 13ff.
58 See W. Couley Peacocks Calling, 'One Man's experience of India I939-47',
Typed Manuscript, Centre of South Asian Studies, Cambridge University, pp. 6off.
59 (FR 14 December I946) L/P&J/5/249 IOR.
60 Shaukat Hyat who had been serving in the army before his return to the Punjab
to take up his ill-fated ministerial post in the Khizr Cabinet was the League's chief
spokesman on this matter. He delivered a series of hard-hitting speeches against the
Unionist Party in the main recruiting areas in September 1945. The Eastern Times
(Lahore), 29 September I945.
61 Dawn (Delhi), 8 October I945.
62 This decision was the result of pressure from local League branches in the major
recruiting areas. Shamsul Hasan Collection, Punjab Vol. 2, General Correspondence.
Resolution of the Montgomery District Muslim League.

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 THE I946 PUNJAB ELECTIONS 77

it is nevertheless still significant that its greatest success in the Rawal-

pindi Division was recorded in the two major recruiting areas of Rawal-
pindi and Jhelum, where despite its earlier weakness, it won all 13 of
the Muslim seats and polled over 75 per cent of the popular Muslim
vote, some 13 per cent more than its average for the division as a whole.
The other major thrust of League propaganda, apart from the
exploitation of wartime economic grievances, was the use of Islamic
appeals and symbolism. It had been official League policy long before
I946 to use religious appeals in mobilizing support. Even before the
Pakistan Resolution was passed in I940, it had resolved to use festivals
such as Id, 'To promote political unity and social solidarity amongst the
Muslims of India.' and to ensure that: 'Such occasions should be utilised
for some useful and practical work in support of the Muslim League.'63
Mosques, because of their importance as centres of Muslim life,
were similarly used to spread League propaganda. A grandiose proposal
was once placed before the All-India Muslim League Working Com-
mittee to use 5,000 mosques in the Pakistan areas as League missionary
sub-centres.64 Propagandists were advised when they visited a village
to join in the prayers at the local mosque and to gain its iman's per-
mission to hold a meeting there. League meetings were regularly held in
mosques especially after the Friday prayers. The Quran was frequently
paraded during the elections as the League's symbol, pledges to vote
for it being made on it.65 Students who played an important part in the
League's election campaign66 had in particular been trained to appeal
to the electorate along religious lines. The lectures which the Aligarh
students attended at their Worker's Training Camp before they left for
the Punjab, were on such topics as the Muslim League in the light of
Islam and Islamic History and the religious background to Pakistan.67

63 Muslim League Council Meetings, Vol. 253, Pt 2, p. 60, FMA.

64 Muslim League Working Committee Meetings 1943-7, Vol. 142, p. 23, FMA.
65 Such practice on one occasion in the Khanewal Tehsil in the Multan District
almost proved detrimental to the League, when the Parliamentary Board in an en-
deavour to maintain its authority rode roughshod over the religious susceptibilities
of the local electorate, and elected Pir Budhan Shah as candidate for the constituency
-despite the fact that he had written a promise on the first page of the Quran to
stand down as candidate in favour of someone else. Hussain Bakhash Propaganda
Secretary Anjuman Islah-ul-Muslemeen, Miancharri, Multan District to Jinnah,
2I January I946, Shamsul Hasan Collection, Punjab Vol. i, General Correspon-
dence.
66 Immediately after the results were known the Punjab Provincial Muslim League
issued a statement praising the students' crucial role in its success. The Eastern Times
(Lahore), I7 March I946.
67 Muslim University Union Aligarh and Muslim University Muslim League,
Vol. 237, p. 7I, FMA.

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78 I. A. TALBOT

Students from the Punjab Muslim Students' Federation were advised

to follow the Prophet's example in all things the whole of the time they
were in a village. They were to join in the prayers at the mosque or lead
them like 'Holy Warriors'. Their speeches were to be filled with
emotional appeal and always to commence with a text from the Quran,
invoking God's protection and praising His Wisdom.68 Because of its
importance in North Indian society, poetry, particularly that of Iqbal,
was to be declaimed at such meetings.69
During the peak of student activity, the I945 Christmas vacation,
there were 1550 members of the Punjab Muslim Students' Federation
and 250 Aligarh students working on the League's behalf. The latter
had been expressly invited to the province by the Punjab League,
which had declared that it would meet their expenses.70 Although the
extent of such student political activity in the Punjab was novel, its
principle was not. Student workers had supported the Congress in the
I937 elections, they had also worked in the villages on the Unionist
Party's behalf in the early months of the war, to publicize the British
war effort. Members of the Punjab Muslim Students' Federation had
engaged in extensive League propaganda activity in the villages of the
Sheikhupura District in June and July of 1941.71 Even more important
had been their almost single-handed achievement of wrecking the 1943
LyallpurJat Mahasabha Conference, which far more than Sir Chhotu
Ram's death removed the threat to the League of intercommunal Jat
support for the Unionist Party. During the election campaign, student
workers rendered invaluable assistance in the eastern districts of the
province, where there were fewer large landlords to mobilize support
for the League.72 Their training in religious propaganda enabled them
to prise the Muslim Jats and Gujjars of these areas from their inter-
communal tribal loyalties.
Faced with the effectiveness of the Muslim League's use of Islamic

68 Ibid.; see fn. 51.

69 The Unionist Party employed Mirasis to work on its behalf during the elections.
The Eastern Times (Lahore), 30 December I945.
70 It never in fact kept this promise. The Punjab League ran into financial diffi-
culties during the campaigning and had to resort to a 3 lac rupee loan from its
parent body's Central Election Fund. In such circumstances the question of the pay-
ment of the student workers became a vexed issue. At one point, because of difficul-
ties over funds, the Aligarh students were able to stay only ten days at a time in the
Punjab. Jinnah handed over 30,000 rupees in all from the Central Election Fund to
the Aligarh Election committee. See Shamsul Hasan Collection U.P. Vol. 3.
71 Report of Mohd. Sadiq. Muslim Student Deputation 22 July 194I, QEAP File
1099/84 NAP.
72 The Eastern Times (Lahore), 30 December I945.

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 THE 1946 PUNJAB ELECTIONS 79

appeals and symbolism, the Unionist Party began to introduc

religious content into its own propaganda. Malik Khizr Hayat
Tiwana began to garnish with quotations from the Quran his
courses on the economic benefits which the party had brought to
countryside. In a speech at Gujrat for example, he used the first v
of the Sura Fatiha to prove that the Unionist Party had a gre
Islamic justification than the League.73 The Unionist Party flew at
election camps an Islamic flag identical to the League's. Shortly bef
his death, Sir Chhotu Ram drew up a plan for employing Ule
campaign against the League.74 Some indeed worked for the Union
during the elections. But their influence was weak in the country
So with dwindling support amongst the province's landlords, many
whom adopted a religious garb for the election's duration, and wit
student volunteers to call upon, the Unionists only feebly imitated
League's Islamic appeals. It may at first appear surprising tha
ulema should have had little influence in the countryside. For even
smallest villages had their own mosque. However, peasant religious
was centred not on the alim and the mosque but on the pir an
shrine. Throughout particularly the western districts of the provinc
village maulvi cut a very poor figure in comparison with the local
A few leading ulema from Deoband and Firangi Mahall75 did
the province on the League's behalf, and at the end of January 194
provincial conference of the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam was held
Lahore which was attended by leading ulema from throughout
some of whom took up propaganda work following its conclusion.
on the whole the ulema's role in mobilizing support for the Le
outside of the towns, where it was already well established, rem
minimal in comparison with that of the pirs.
The pirs' popular religious influence sprang from the belief that
had inherited baraka76 from their ancestors, the Sufi Saints who
the I Ith century A.D. onwards had played a major role in the prov

73 Khizr's point was that Allah is described in the Quran as Rabb-ul-Alam

Lord of everything and everyone not just the Muslims. In this light the U
Party's non-communalism was more Islamic than the League's avowed comm
ism.

74 Madan Gopal, Sir Chhotu Ram. A Political Biography (New Delhi, I977), p.
75 Maulana Jamal Mian of Firangi Mahal made several tours to the Punj
the League's behalf, including one of the Ambala District in January 194
League Ulema from Deoband headed by Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Ut
attended the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam conference in Lahore from which they
ceeded to tour several districts of the province.
76 Baraka was the religious charisma believed to be transmitted by a saint
descendants and his shrine.

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80 I. A. TALBOT

conversion to Islam. During the course of a year multitudes of people

flocked to them at their ancestors' shrines in order to seek some spiritual
or material blessing. Many of the larger shrines provided welfare facili-
ties such as sick dispensaries and soup kitchens and thus provided out-
door relief for their surrounding areas. Food was always distributed at
shrines during the Urs celebrations held on the anniversary of the
Saint's death, when his soul was believed to have entered into union
with God. This was the most important date in any shrine's calendar.
The Urs had originally provided the meeting point of the 2 sources of
a pir's authority. That stemming from his being an object of popular
veneration and that accorded to him through the piri-mureedi relation-
ship. For in Sufism's early development not all of a shrine's devotees
entered into this relationship. To do so an aspirant disciple-murid-
of a pir had to perform ba'yat, that is, take an oath of obedience to
follow his teaching. By the twentieth century the piri-mureedi relation-
ship as a result of the proliferation of shrines and the indiscriminate
taking of ba'yat had lost its earlier dlitism. Almost every Muslim in the
Punjab by this time owed allegiance to a pir. Indeed to be without a pir
was a cause for reproach. Pir Syed Fazl Shah ofJalalpur in the Jhelum
District alone claimed to have 200,000 murids. Despite its growth the
piri-mureedi relationship retained its former discipline and cohesion
as its underpinning remained the absolute obedience enjoined upon a
murid to his pir.77
The existence of such authority had always given pirs considerable
political importance within the countryside. From the days of the Delhi
Sultanate, central governments endeavoured to integrate them within
the political status quo by a policy of granting extensive amounts of land
to the leading sufi shrines in return for assurances of their loyalty. At
first, members of the Chishti order refused to be thus drawn into
relations with the state, but following Mohammed-bin-Tughlaq's
forcing many of them out of Delhi in the fourteenth century,78 the
Chishtis, too, became drawn into relationship with the state. State
inam grants to shrines were in addition to the considerable Waqf en-
dowments they received from individuals. Many pirs thus acquired
considerable economic importance as large landlords in addition to
their great religious influence.
Large landholdings were attached to many of the Punjab's shrines
77 Complete obedience and respect towards his pir was demanded of a murid. The
relationship between the pir and his murids was likened to that of the Prophet and
his companions. Menahem Milson (trans.), Kitab Adab al-Muridin of Abu al-Najib
al-Suhrawardi. A Sufi Rule For Novices (Cambridge Mass., 1978), p. 46.
78 W. D. Begg, The Big Five of India in Sufism (Ajmer, 1972), p. 8.

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 THE I946 PUNJAB ELECTIONS 8I

The descendants of Baba Farid, the province's leading Saint of the

Chishti Order, possessed a tenth of all the land in the Pakpattan Tehsil
in which the shrine was situated, some 43,000 acres in all.79 The Shah
Jiwana Bukhari Sayed estate in Jhang was nearly Io,ooo acres in
extent,80 and while the pirs of Jahanian Shah owned nearly 7,000
acres,81 5,000 acres of land were attached to the leading shrine of the
Suhrawardi order in the province, the shrine of Shaikh Baha'u'd-Din
Zakariya in Multan.82
The British had restored land to those shrines which had suffered
during the Sikh interregnum. In true Mughal fashion pirs were asso-
ciated with the British administration of the province by conferring
Provincial and Divisional Darbari seats on their leading representatives
such as the Diwan of Pakpattan and the Sajjada Nashin of the Shaikh
Baha'u'd-Din Zakariya shrine, while less influential pirs were granted
such honours as Zaildarships and Honorary Magistracies. Thus in the
twentieth century pirs acquired considerable religious, economic and
social importance in the Punjab countryside.
Not surprisingly they played an important role in both local and
provincial politics both in endorsing candidates and in standing as
representatives themselves. Pir Syed Fazl Shah even created his own
political party, the Hizbullah or 'party of God'. The unionists victory
in the I937 elections owed much to the support it had gained from the
leading pirs of the province and also from the leading Sufi Shrine in
India at Ajmer in neighbouring Rajputana.83 The Muslim League
endeavoured to repeat the Unionist formula for victory in 1946, when it
created a committee of men of religious influence known as the Mash-
eikh Committee to marshal Sufi support behind its cause.84 In so doing

79 Punjab Revenue and Agricultural Proceedings P I 372. Assessment Report of

the Pakpattan Tehsil of the Montgomery District (Lahore, 1921), IOR.
80 Report of the Administration of Estates Under The Court of Wards For The
Year Ending 30 September 1911, IOR.
81 G. L. Chopra, Chiefs and familes of note in the Punjab, Vol. 2 (Lahore, I940),
p. 242. 82 Ibid.; see fn. 80.
83 The Unionist Party approach
Nashins for support in I937: D
Mahar Sharif Bahawalpur (Chish
Golra (Chishti), Pir Fazal Shah (C
Sultan Bahu, Sajjada Nashin Pirk
(Suhrawardi), Pir Jamiat Ali Sha
Rajputana (Chisti), Sajjada Nashin
Nizamudin Auylia Delhi (Chishti
Fazl-i-Husain (Lahore, 1976), pp.
84 Interview with Abu Saeed En
in this period), Lahore, Io April I

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82 I. A. TALBOT

the Punjab League was pursuing the line of action proposed at the
All-India level in I943 that of:
Respectfully requesting the Muslim religious heads, pirs and sufis to help
the Muslim Nation of India in its present life and death struggle, by their
sincere prayers and by exhorting their followers to sacrifice their all in the
cause of the attainment of a free and independent Muslim India.85

It would be a mistake, however, to picture the Unionist and Muslim

League politicians in 1937 and I946 cynically and dispassionately
manipulating the Sufi orders to support them. Leading politicians had
pirs as their spiritual guides to whom they were deeply attached. Few
were as bold as Khizr who not only expressly defied his spiritual guide's
instructions by leading the Unionist Party election campaign but even
dared to arrest Pir Golra during the Civil Disobedience Campaign
which followed it.86 Moreover, some leading politicians such as Raja
Ghazanfar Ali Khan, who was Pir Fazl Shah's uncle, were closely
related to leading pirs. Such links facilitated the League's creation of
the Masheikh Committee.
Urs ceremonies provided an important platform for the League in
its spread into the countryside from I944 onwards.87 During the elec-
tions pirs were active as League propagandists and candidates. Shrines
were frequently used for League meetings. Fatwas were issued from
many of them in its support. These were disseminated by means of
small leaflets and wall posters as well as by publication in Urdu news-
papers such as 'Nawa-e-Waqt' and 'Inqilab'. There were wide vari-
ations in their content. Some, like that issued by Syed Fazal Ahmed
Shah, Sajjada Nashin of the shrine of Hazrat Shah Nur Jamal, were
couched solely in terms of an appeal to piri-mureedi loyalty:
An announcement from the Dargarh of Hazrat Shah NurJamal. I command
all those people who are in my Silsilah to do everything possible to help the
Muslim League and give their votes to it. All those people who do not act
according to this announcement should consider themselves no longer mem-
bers of my Silsilah. Signed Fazal Ahmad Shah, Sajjada Nashin Hazrat Shah
Nur Jamal.88

Others appealed to the glories of Muslim history, as for example the

fatwa issued from the Qadiri dargarh of Hazrat Shah Muqim Mujravi
at Hujra:
85 G. F. Ansari toJinnah, 25 April I943, QEAP File I I1/105 R NAP.
86 Interview with Shaukat Hyat, Islamabad, 28 March 1978.
87 The Sajjada Nashin of the shrine of Pir Sayed Mohd. Ghaus, for example, used
the Urs ceremonies at the shrine to appeal to his murids to support the Muslim
League candidate in the Shakargarh constituency.
88 Nawa-e-Waqt (Lahore), 19 January 1946.

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 THE I946 PUNJAB ELECTIONS 83
Brothers in unity many of my friends, brother Sufis and my murids have
asked my help as to whom they should give their votes in the Provincial
Elections. I'm not only making an announcement but a compassionate
appeal to my brothers in unity that they should give every vote to the
nominated candidates of the Muslim League and prove their solidarity. The
bold struggle of the Muslim League against a well organized party like the
Congress has given it an immense respect as also has its provincial success.
God willing after it has captured political power in the provinces, the Sun
of the glory of the Muslim Government that has ruled India for 800 years
and which set in I857 in the Red Fort of Delhi with its last ray of glory, will
rise again from the land of India. We can see the harbingers in the dawning
light of the sky of slavery and cruelty. God's promise that He made in the Sura
'Nur' in the Quran will be fulfilled. If you are in love with Islam you should
do things the way Iqbal asked you to do it.
Sayed Ymdad Ali Shah Gilani, Sajjada Nashin Dargarh Hzrat Shah
Muqim Nujravi. I-I-1946.89
Mobilization of support for the League through religious appeals has
so far been examined only with regard to the older areas of settlement
within the province. Were such appeals so important in gaining it
support in the new Canal Colony areas ?
The development of the Canal Colonies was the most important
event in the province's modern economic history. It had transformed
vast areas of land in such districts as Jhang, Montgomery and Lyallpur
from arid wasteland into the richest agricultural areas of the whole of
India. The colonies had experienced rapid economic growth in the
I920S and I930s. Colony towns such as Jaranwala in the Lyallpur
District grew in population by as much as 72 per cent in this period.90
Despite their rapid economic growth there was no breakdown of com-
munal life or traditional ties of allegiance within the colony areas. This
was because the British had deliberately attempted to recreate within
them the rural structure of the rest of the Punjab with all its social and
political controls. Such social engineering was achieved by the judicious
award of land grants within the colonies. Provision was specifically
made for awards to landlords in the colonization scheme, in the hope
that they would provide a responsible social and political lead to these
new areas.91

The only fundamental social change brought by the colonies was in

the lifestyle of the nomadic 'Jangli' inhabitants of their area. Pirs had
89 Ibid., 3 January 1946.
90 Punjab Proceedings P I2096. Revenue Department Proceedings November
1936, The Assessment Report of the Jaranwala Tehsil of The Lyallpur District, p. I2,
IOR.
91 F. C. Bourne, The Final Settlement Report of The Lower Bari Doab Canal
1927-35 (Lahore, 1935), p. 3.

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84 I. A. TALBOT

as much religious and social influence in the colonies as in other areas

of the countryside.92 As proprietors in a number of the riverain tracts
before their colonization, they acquired large amounts of the land
reserved in the colony areas for the indigenous population. As much as
35 per cent of the Chenab Canal Colony was thus reserved. Pirs played
an important part in the life of the colonies. Both as zaildars-heads of
groups of villages93-and as improving landlords. The Sajjada Nashin
of the shrine of Hazrat Daud Karmani at Shergarh in the Montgomery
District was, for example, the focus of a scheme to improve the famous
breed of Montgomery Cattle in the Lower Bari Doab Canal Colony,
and his brother managed a very successful model dairy farm there.94
The League gained its high level of support in the colonies in the
1946 elections, 95 not because of the social mobilization of their Muslim
inhabitants, but because of the strong support it received from their
pir and landlords who had retained their traditional influence within
the new surroundings of the colony areas. Two of its candidates for the
Jhang constituencies came, for example, from leading pir families, as
also were its candidates in such other colony constituencies as
Khanewal.
As amongst the landlords, a multiplicity of reasons lay behind the
switch in allegiance of many of the province's pirs to the League. In
some instances as, for example, that of The Gilani Pirs of Multan the
overriding consideration was local longstanding factional rivalries. In
the reverse instance these prompted Pir Makhad's opposition to the
League in the Attock District.96 A shrine's size and the nature of its
relationship with the Government were also important determining
factors in its Sajjada Nashin's political allegiance in I946. Sajjada
Nashins of small shrines who owed their status more to their political
loyalty to the Government than to their religious influence, were far
less likely to risk their position by joining the League than those from
large and influencial shrines whose reliance on Government patronage

92 B. H. Dobson, Final Report of The Chenab Colony Settlement (Lahore, 1915), p. 44.
93 The brother of the Sajjada Nashin of the Gilani shrine at Pirkot Sidhana in the
Jhang District was, for example, a zaildar in the Chenab Canal Colony. Jhang
District Gazetteer (Lahore, 1930), p. 45.
94 F. C. Bourne, Assessment Report of the Okara Tehsil of the Montgomery District
contained in the Lower Bari Doab Canal Colony (Lahore, I929), p. I9, Punjab Revenue
Proceedings May 1934, Pt A P I2048, IOR.
95 The Muslim League gained 80 per cent of the popular vote in theJhang District,
77 per cent in the Montgomery District and 70 per cent in the Lyallpur District,
the three main colony areas.
96 Pir Makhad had always been traditionally factionally aligned against the Khan
of Makhad who in 1946 was supporting the League.

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 THE I946 PUNJAB ELECTIONS 85

was much smaller. An interesting example of a pir from the first cate-
gory who had no choice but to remain loyal to the Unionists was the
son of the Sajjada Nashin of the Qadiri Dargarh at Batala-Pir Mian
Syed Badr Mohy-ud-Din, the narrowly defeated Unionist candidate
for the Batala constituency.
The dargarh was a small one. The estimated attendance at its annual
Urs was only 5,000. The family's high social position stemmed not
from its religious influence but rather from its long tradition of loyalty
to the central government. This dated back to before the Mutiny, after
which the then Sajjada Nashin of the shrine had been granted a jagir
for life and had been made a provincial darbari. The Sajjada Nashin
of the shrine in 1946, Khan Bahadur Syed Nazar Mohy-ud-Din, held
a hereditary seat in the Darbar and in the recent Civil Disobedience
Campaign in the province had helped the government. Mian Syed
Badr Mohy-ud-Din was himself an honorary magistrate and sub-
registrar, besides holding the title of Khan Bahadur.97
David Gilmartin has singled out the pirs of the Chishti revivalist
shrines of Taunsa, Golra, Sial and Jalalpur as the most influential of
the League's Sufi supporters. He has carefully analysed why these pirs
were so active on its behalf. They had been waiting a long time, he
declares, for the opportunity which the League offered of infusing a
greater religious influence into the politics of the countryside. The
prospect of a future Pakistan controlled by rural Muslim politicians
held none of the misgivings for them, which it did for religious oppon-
ents of the League such as many of the Ulema from Deoband.

The idea of a state in the hands of such leaders was for them perfectly natural,
for in the establishment of such a state based on the Shariat, they could see
the projection of their local religious work into a larger political arena....
The thrust of their concern had always been to influence the political
leaders and their followers to regulate their lives according to religious
injunctions.98

His thesis does not, however, explain why older established Chishti
shrines such as that of Sharfu'd-Din Bu Ali Qalandar at Panipat also
supported the League. These shrines, as also to a great extent the
revivalist shrines, had been influenced to support the League by the
premier shrine of their order at Ajmer. The Dargarh of Hazrat Khwaja

97 Information compiled from G. L. Chopra, Chiefs and families of note in the Punjab,
Vol. 2 (Lahore, I940), p. 52, and from Gurdaspur District Gazetteer (Lahore, I915),
P- 74.
98 David Gilmartin 'Religious Leadership and the Pakistan Movement in the
Punjab', Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 13, No 3 (1979), p. 509.

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86 I. A. TALBOT

Moinuddin Chishti at Ajmer had been one of the shrines which the
Unionist Party had approached for support in I937. During the I940S
this shrine of India's premier Sufi Saint, had, however, become closely
connected with the Muslim League. Mirza Abdul Qadir Beg, the
Vice-President of the Dargarh Committee which administered its
affairs, was the President of the Ajmer Muslim League. League meet-
ings were regularly held at the Dargarh.99 A huge assembly of over
20,000 gathered there in January 1946 to celebrate the Muslim League's
'Election Victory Day'. At the time of the Urs the Muslim League
message was spread amongst the vast numbers of pilgrims which flocked
to the shrine, among whom each year were representatives of all the
Punjab's Chishti shrines.100 This leadership from Ajmer was a major
factor in the Chishti Pirs' support for the League in the Punjab.
They were not the most influential pirs in mobilizing support for the
League in all areas of the province. In some districts pirs from the
Qadiri Order exerted a far greater influence. The Sajjada Nashin of
the Qadiri shrine of Pir Syed Mohd. Ghaus intervened on the League's
behalf in the Shakargarh constituency and thus enabled Ch. Abdul
Ghafoor to defeat the Unionist candidate Ch. Abdul Rahmin who had
been its representative since I937.101 A representative of the Qadiri Pir
family of Pirkot Sidhana was the successful League candidate for the
Jhang Central Constituency. Sahibzada Syed Mohd. Abbas, son of the
Sajjada Nashin of the Shergarh Estate whose influence in the Lower
Bari Doab Canal Colony has already been referred to, was the Divi-
sional Organizer of the Montgomery Muslim League.102 The shrine of
Mian Mir who was the founder of the Miyan Khel section of the Qadiri
Order was another of the province's influential shrines which issued
fatwas in the League's support.103 Makhdum Syed Mohd. Nazar
Hussain Shah Sajjada Nashin of Koranga in the Multan District
counterbalanced the influence of his brother Syed Nasir-ud-Din Shah
who was narrowly defeated as Unionist Candidate for the Toba Tek
Singh Constituency. The Gilani Pirs of Multan did much to counter
the influence in support of the Unionist Party throughout the district
by the leading Suhrawardi shrine of Shaykh Baha'u'd-Din Zakariya.
Makhumzada Mohd. Raza Shah Gilani defeated its representative
99 See FR Ajmer-Merwera for the 1940s. L/P&J/5, IOR.
100 The Urs of leading shrines were great meeting places not only for pilgrims but
for the pirs of the shrine's order. Pir Taunsa and Pir Golra were only 2 of the leading
pirs who annually attended Baba Farid's Urs at Pakpattan, for example.
101 Nawa-e-Waqt (Lahore), I8 January 1946.
02 Dawn (Delhi), 14 January 1945.
103 Inqilab (Lahore), 8 November 1945.

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 THE I946 PUNJAB ELECTIONS 87

Nawab Ashiq Hussain at Shujabad, although he was subsequently

returned as the Unionist candidate for Multan.
What made the activities of the Chishti revivalist pirs significant in
1946 was not so much that they were more important than other pirs
in gathering votes for the League, but that for many of them this was
the first occasion on which they had taken an active part in politics,
unlike such other pirs as the Gilanis, the Pirs of Shergarh and Rajoa
who had been active in provincial politics since 1919.
Biraderi loyalty as well as piri-mureedi loyalty was important in
mobilizing political support for the League. Biraderi ties not only
speeded its growth amongst the province's landlords but were one of
the channels (the other was their patron-client economic relationship
with their tenants) by which they delivered its votes in the election.
Ironically enough, the clearest statement on the importance of the
biraderi in political mobilization came from a disappointed applicant
for a League ticket, who thus complained to Jinnah:
I belong to Ambala District Rural Constituency (Ambala South) and am
an Arian by caste. I command about four thousand votes of my community
in this area. The majority is of Rajputs who hold a command of about eight
thousand votes in the said Halqa. I am also a member of the Muslim League
and have applied for the League ticket. There was nobody from the Rajputs
who did apply for it. The next tribe in majority to Rajputs are Arians and
an Arian has a sure chance of success. But owing to reasons unknown the
Punjab Muslim League Parliamentary Board has totally ignored the Arians
and has given the ticket to an outsider. I hereby invite your kind attention
to the fact that in the interest of justice and of the League, injustice has been
done.104

The force of this complaint lay in the fact that the League did usually
select its candidates with the strength of the biraderis within the consti-
tuency in mind. It also endeavoured to capture the support of their
provincial organization. The League, for example, organized in Janu-
ary 1946 a special Gujjar Conference which appealed to all the Muslim
Gujjars not only of the Punjab but of the whole of India to: 'Sacrifice
body, heart and wealth for Pakistan'.105 Before the elections, provincial
Leaguers successfully urged Jinnah to remove the ban on Begum Shah
Nawaz's membership of the League, so that her influence as Vice-
President of the Provincial Arian Conference could be utilized in the
Arian constituencies of the Lahore, Jullundur and Ferozepore
Districts.106
104 Mian Mahbub Ali to Jinnah, 7 December I945, QEAP File 882/229-30, NAP.
105 Jawa-e-Waqt (Lahore), 19 January I946.
106 Vicky Noon to Jinnah, I8 October 1945, Shamsul Hasan Collection, Punjab
Vol. 4.

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88 I. A. TALBOT

The use of biraderi loyalty to mobilize polit

constant feature of elections in the province. M
1970 Pakistan elections in West Punjab, for ex
support, including even the 'modernist' PPP in a
While the League's employment of this strate
it was nevertheless significant. For despite it
Unionist Party's efforts to bring 'tribalism' to it
such primordial loyalty could not everywhere b
against by appealing to the Muslims' wider se
Millat. Rather, political success lay through the
loyalty, even though this ran counter to the
which it was politically necessary for the League
The League's use of the Sufi and biraderi n
votes meant that candidate selection was ver
constituencies it was more important than th
itself-a point taken up by the Editor of 'T
Gazette', 4 September I945.
The parties have yet to choose their respective candi
and study will be needed for this important step in
which chooses a better set of candidates, keeping
and clannish feelings will of course have a tremen

The League's growth in landlord and pir suppo

to do so, although not without arousing much o
its activists who were disappointed at being p
in favour of recent landlord converts to the
garded as mere political opportunists. A most
policy was the League's selection of Sardar B
younger brother, as its candidate for the No
instead of the President of the Rawalpindi Ar
at the same time Vice President of the Rawalp
Despite the unpopularity of this policy with its a
the League's success in the majority of the West
Its failure to pursue a similar course of acti
Frontier Province was in part responsible for it
there.11o

107 W. H. Wriggins, Pakistan in Transition (Islamabad, I975), p. I6off.

108 The Civil And Military Gazette (Lahore), 4 September 1945.
109 M. Haqil Bukhsh to Jinnah, 14 January 1946, Shamsul Hasan Collection,
Punjab Vol. I, General Correspondence.
1lo The Khyber Mail (Peshawar), 15 February 1946.

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 THE 1946 PUNJAB ELECTIONS 89

Conclusion

The Muslim League succeeded in the I946 Punjab Elections beca

used religious appeals and traditional channels of political mobiliza
more effectively than the Unionist Party. This was possible becau
had captured the support of many of the landlords and pirs w
previously provided the backbone of the Unionist Party's stren
the countryside. During the elections pirs issued fatwas to their m
to support the League; landlords used their economic influen
their leading positions within the biraderi networks. The effectiv
of such traditional methods of electioneering was reflected in the
levels of support mobilized for the League in such backward d
as Multan, which according to the Brass Thesis lacked the nec
prerequisite for political mobilization, a socially mobilized M
community. The backwardness of the Punjabi Muslims, the fa
in only 6 of the province's 29 districts did more than a fifth of th
lims live in townsl11 and in only 2 districts could more than 2 pe
read English,112 renders the Brass model irrelevant as an expl
for the Muslim League's success.113 Even in the most develope
of the province, the Canal Colony Districts, the League's s
depended on its winning the support of the pir families of the ar
League selected pirs and landlords as its candidates rather th
long-standing members because it recognized how important trad
allegiances were in mobilizing support. The grass roots organi
was never more than a useful adjunct to the traditional meth
political mobilization.
The League's position in 1946 as a rival party to the Unionists in
countryside constituted a radical new dimension in Punjabi po
Its spread into the villages was a very recent development. Lan
and pirs did not begin to desert the Unionist Party until afte
The failure of the Jinnah-Khizr Talks in that year was a crucial t
ing point in the province's political history, as the rural 6lite was
faced with a straight choice between loyalty to the Unionists
League. The majority plumped for the League. A variety of re
social, economic and religious, prompted such a decision. But t
had their roots in the imminence of the British departure from

I11 Calculated from I94g Census, Punjab, Pt i, Table XIII, p. 42 (Lahore, I

112 193 Census, Punjab, Pt 2, Table XIII, pp. 233-47 (Lahore, I933).
113 Dependent as this is upon the existence of a socially mobilized commu
whom a sense of communal identification can be communicated.

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90 I. A. TALBOT

The Unionist Party paid the price for identifying its system of rule far
too closely with the British.
Faced with the disruption of their support in the countryside, the
Unionists increasingly turned to the machinery of government for
mobilizing support. Attempts to coerce the village voters proved
disastrous. They did irreparable damage to the reputation which the
Party had achieved during its early years in office, in complete con-
trast was the Muslim League's identification with the villager's war-
time economic difficulties. It recognized the support it could win from
them if it offered help to overcome these problems. Most importantly,
it presented Pakistan not only as a religious imperative but as a cure
for all their problems. The League's ability to provide answers to the
economic dislocation of the countryside caused by the War was the key
to its success in winning over the Punjabi villagers. Votes were traded
off for immediate material benefits and for the promise that Pakistan's
creation would solve their social and economic difficulties. The impor-
tance of interests rather than ideas in mobilizing peasant support has
been revealed to us by research on other peasant societies in Asia.
Jeffrey Race, for example, declares that the Communist Party's suc-
cessful takeover of Long An Province in Vietnam was not the result of
its ideological appeal but of the pragmatic and flexible way in which it
developed bonds of loyalty between the individual and itself on the
basis of its ability to: 'resolve concrete local issues of importance in the
peasant's life: land, taxation, protection from impressment into the
national army, or a personally satisfying role in the activities of the
community.'114
As the Unionist Party found to its cost, religious appeals alone were
insufficient to mobilize support. The League's demand for Pakistan
was certainly legitimized in the minds of the Muslim voters by its
religious appeal,115 especially as this was delivered by the pirs and
sajjada nashins-the religious elite in the countryside. But its potency
lay in the fact that it was a systematic expression of the Muslim
peasant's interests.
114Jeffrey Race, War Comes to Long An (Berkeley, I972), p. 179.
115 For evidence elsewhere of popular Islam legitimizing peasant protests and in-
terests see Clive S. Kessler, 'Muslim Identity and Political Behaviour in Kelantan',
in William R. Roff (ed.), Kelantan Religion, Society and Politics in a Malay State (London,
I974).

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 THE 1946 PUNJAB ELECTIONS 9I

Tnnl Punjab states - Indo-Pakistan border post partition

-- Division borders

- - Provincial border

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