Communal Politics & Partition: previous-year questions

Answer: (B) Inayatullah Khan Mashriqi

The Khaksar movement was founded at Lahore in 1931 by Allama Inayatullah Khan Mashriqi, a Cambridge-educated mathematician. 'Khaksar' means humble (like dust); its volunteers wore khaki, carried a belcha (spade) as their symbol and practised drill and social service. It clashed with the Punjab government in 1940 and opposed both the Muslim League and the partition of India. Swami Shraddhanand (C) led the Shuddhi movement and founded Gurukul Kangri; M.R. Jayakar (printed in the booklet as M.A. Jayakar) was a Liberal and Hindu Mahasabha leader; Jinnah led the Muslim League. Compare other Muslim movements: the Ahrar movement (1929) and the Khudai Khidmatgars or Red Shirts of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan.

Answer: (A) Indian National Congress and Muslim League.

By the Lucknow Pact of 1916 the Congress and the Muslim League agreed on joint demands for reform, with the Congress accepting separate electorates. The Moderates and Extremists did reunite at the same Lucknow session, which makes (D) tempting, but the Pact itself was between the Congress and the League.

Answer: (C) Sir Syed Ahmad Khan

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan said this while opposing the Congress in his Lucknow (1887) and Meerut (1888) speeches, arguing that representative government would mean rule by the Hindu majority. He founded the United Indian Patriotic Association (1888) with Raja Shiv Prasad of Benares to counter the Congress, having earlier founded the MAO College at Aligarh (1875). Lord Dufferin, the Viceroy when the Congress was born, dismissed it as representing a "microscopic minority"; Lord Curzon said the Congress was "tottering to its fall"; and Jinnah was in fact a Congress member from 1906 before joining the Muslim League in 1913.

Answer: (C) Ehrar League

The Ahrar movement arose among young nationalist Muslims such as Maulana Mohammad Ali, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Hasan Imam, Mazhar-ul-Haq and Zafar Ali Khan, who disliked the loyalist politics of the Aligarh school and urged Muslims to take part in the national movement alongside the Congress. (The organised party Majlis-i-Ahrar-ul-Islam was formed later, in 1929.) The Muslim League (1906) began as a loyalist body, though it too reached the Lucknow Pact with the Congress in 1916. The Ahmadiyya movement (1889, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian) was a religious reform sect, and the Deoband school (1866) was an orthodox revivalist seminary, anti-British but primarily religious.

Answer: (C) 1906

The All India Muslim League was founded at Dacca on 30 December 1906, at a meeting hosted by Nawab Salimullah, with the Aga Khan as its first president. 1904 is the year of Curzon's Indian Universities Act. 1905 is the year of the partition of Bengal. 1907 is the year of the Surat split in the Congress.

Answer: (D) Turkey

The Khilafat Movement (1919-24) protested against the harsh treatment of Ottoman Turkey after the First World War (Treaty of Sevres, 1920) and sought to preserve the authority of the Ottoman Sultan as Khalifa (Caliph), the spiritual head of Sunni Muslims. It was led by the Ali brothers (Muhammad and Shaukat Ali), Maulana Azad, Hakim Ajmal Khan and Hasrat Mohani, and Gandhi linked it with Non-Cooperation. The issue died when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk abolished the Caliphate in 1924. Arabia and Iran were not its focus, and India was only the theatre of the agitation.

Answer: (D) Choudhury Rahmat Ali

Choudhury Rahmat Ali coined the name "Pakistan" and outlined the concept of a separate Muslim homeland in his 1933 pamphlet "Now or Never". This is distinct from Muhammad Iqbal's 1930 presidential address, in which he floated the broader idea of a separate Muslim state without naming or fully elaborating it — see the note on Q17 in this section for the important distinction between these two contributions.

Answer: (A) Muhammad Iqbal

In his 1930 presidential address to the Muslim League at Allahabad, the poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal first articulated the broad idea of consolidating India's north-western Muslim-majority provinces into a separate, self-governing entity. Note the companion Q12 in this section, where Choudhury Rahmat Ali is credited with coining the actual name "Pakistan" and detailing the scheme a few years later, in 1933 — the two men's contributions are often (and confusingly) both described as "conceiving the idea of Pakistan".

Answer: (B) 16 August 1946

The Muslim League, under Jinnah, called for "Direct Action Day" on 16 August 1946 to press its demand for Pakistan, which led to communal violence in Calcutta (the "Great Calcutta Killings") and beyond.

Answer: (A) Lahore

The Muslim League's Lahore Resolution, formally demanding separate independent states for Muslim-majority regions of India, was passed at its March 1940 session in Lahore — later popularly referred to as the "Pakistan Resolution".

Answer: (A) H. S. Surhawardi

In 1947, Bengal Premier H. S. Suhrawardy, along with figures like Sarat Chandra Bose and Kiran Shankar Roy, floated the idea of an independent, undivided Bengal instead of its partition between India and Pakistan — a plan that ultimately failed to gain traction with either Congress or the League leadership.

Answer: (D) Pakistan resolution was taken

At its Lahore session (23 March 1940), presided over by Jinnah, the Muslim League passed a resolution moved by A. K. Fazlul Huq demanding 'independent states' in the Muslim-majority areas of the north-west and east of India; it came to be called the Pakistan Resolution, although the word 'Pakistan' does not occur in it. The name was coined by Chaudhary Rahmat Ali in 1933, and the idea goes back to Iqbal's Allahabad address of 1930.

Answer: (C) it had the provision for creation of Pakistan

The Mountbatten Plan (3 June Plan, 1947) provided for the partition of India, including the division of Bengal and Punjab, referendums in the NWFP and Sylhet, and transfer of power to two dominions; the League accepted it because it conceded Pakistan. Separate electorates had been given long before, by the Morley-Minto Reforms of 1909, and the Congress also accepted the Plan. It was given effect by the Indian Independence Act, 1947, with boundaries drawn by the Radcliffe Commission.

Answer: (C) Shyama Prasad Mukherjee

The book's key links this slogan with Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, President of the Hindu Mahasabha in the 1940s and founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (1951), a party that campaigned for Hindi and Hindu nationalism. The slogan 'Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan' itself goes back to Hindi writers of the late 19th century and was later popularised by Hindu Mahasabha leaders. Of the other options, Madan Mohan Malaviya championed Hindi in the Nagari script and founded the Banaras Hindu University, and Lala Lajpat Rai was also a Hindu Mahasabha leader.

Answer: (B) Muslim League

The All India Muslim League was founded in Dhaka in 1906, initially to safeguard the political interests of Indian Muslims.

Answer: (C) 1916

The Lucknow Pact of 1916 saw the Congress and Muslim League jointly present demands for constitutional reform, including Congress's acceptance of separate electorates for Muslims.

Answer: (B) The Anglo-Oriental College

The Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental (MAO) College at Aligarh, founded by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, was the centre of the Aligarh Movement promoting modern education among Indian Muslims.

Answer: (C) 1940, Lahore

The Muslim League's Lahore Resolution, popularly called the "Pakistan Resolution", was adopted in March 1940.

Answer: (A) Muslim League; 16 August 1946

The Muslim League called for "Direct Action Day" on 16 August 1946 to press its demand for Pakistan, which led to widespread communal violence, particularly in Calcutta.

Answer: (B) Mohammad Ali Jinnah

Muhammad Ali Jinnah served as Pakistan's first Governor-General from independence in August 1947 until his death in September 1948.