Pakistan movement: Freedom struggle: Formation of Muslim-owned economic institutions: 1940-1947
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Formation of Muslim-owned economic institutions: 1940-1947
By Dr. Naureen Talha
Almost all groups of the Muslim society in India saw in Pakistan a land where the opportunities denied to them so far would be available. In a united India they could foresee the Hindus emerging as absolute masters after the withdrawal of the British. All those Muslims who saw themselves remaining backward as a community under a Hindu-dominated government favoured Pakistan.
The students backed the Muslim League most of all because the educated Muslim class was lagging behind the Hindus in government jobs and professions and the future did not seem to hold much promise for them. Similarly, the salaried class supported the Pakistan movement, which to them was a movement of Muslims as an underprivileged class.
Jinnah symbolized different things to different Muslim groups. To the salaried class he embodied ‘the aspirations and character of the educated Muslim salariat who felt themselves to be at a disadvantage in India’. Government officials were glad to discover the new vistas which were expected to open up to them, without Hindu seniors hovering over their heads. The motive of the support of the Muslim members of the Indian Civil Services was both ‘from a sense of inferiority vis-à-vis some of their British and Hindu colleagues’ and they ‘felt that a Muslim state like Pakistan would mean their domination’. K. B. Sayeed points out that the Muslim educated classes ‘were not so much concerned about their religious and cultural rights as they were about their share in the government of the country’. ‘Muslims traders and industrialists began to cherish visions of free fields for prosperous ventures without the intrusion of Hindu competitors’.
Jinnah was successful in developing vital economic institutions for the Muslims of India with the help of the Muslim industrialist classes. Memons, Khojas, Bohras, and Muslim businessmen like the Ispahanis, Habibs, and Adamjees supported the League. In Bombay, Sindh, Madras, and Bengal a very powerful section of the mercantile, professional, and industrialist support ‘formed the backbone of the Pakistan movement’. Hide merchants, the Memon Merchants Association, the Puniabi Hides and Skins Merchants Association, Karachi, the Punjab Muslim Chamber of Commerce, Lahore, and the Memon Chamber of Commerce, Bombay also supported the movement.
In setting up a Muslim daily from Delhi, Ahmed Ispahani, elder brother of M.A.H. Ispahani, and Haji Dawod Adamjee, a Calcutta merchant, supported the venture financially. Haji Dawood Adamjee backed another Muslim newspaper, Star of the India, and Dawn. Rafi Butt, an industrialist and owner of the Central Exchange Bank, was among the prominent supporters for the cause of the economic development of the Muslims.
In April 1944, Raft Butt, in response to Jinnah’s letter, offered his assistance in looking after the commercial side of the proposed English daily and contributed 25 per cent of the capital for launching the daily which came to be called The Pakistan Times. Even young Leaguers tried to raise funds for the Muslims newspapers.
In October-November 1943, meetings were held ‘for the purpose of forming the Federation of Muslim Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India with a view to bring within its orbit all the existing chambers, also to merge with it the All India Muslim Chamber of Commerce and Industry , Bombay, so that there is one Federation for the whole of India’. Jinnah worked indefatigably to establish such a Federation. Such Muslim industrialists and businessmen as Sir Adamjee Haji Dawood, Sir Sultan Chinoy, Habib Rahimtoola, and Sikandar Dehlavi supported the formation of the Federation.
By October 1944, the Federation of the Muslim Chamber of Commerce and Industry at Delhi had grown into a robust and representative organization of Muslim merchants and industrialists of India. M.A.H. Ispahani reported to Jinnah that in setting up the Federation ‘no source has been left untapped ands no person of influence has been left un-approached. We had to labour, under many difficulties and shortcomings right through from the start.
The idea of a Muslim airline was given by Jinnah in June 1946. With the help of Ahmed Ispahani and Sir Adamjee Haji Dawood, the Orient Airways was floated. Jinnah was concerned about the number of Muslim pilots in the Indian Air Force and their experience. Mohammad Asghar Khan (later Air Marshal) was commanding a fighter squadron in the Royal Indian Air Force and wanted to go to Indonesia to fight the Dutch. During a brief talk with him in 1945, Jinnah told him to stay in India since Pakistan would need pilots and officers for its air force.
He asked M. A. H. Ispahani, ‘Do you know how many Muslim pilots and mechanics we have in the country? How can we do anything with the inadequacy of material which every nation must have in ample supply?’
Orient Airways was the first and the only Muslim airline operated in pre-partition India. Muslims all over India bought shares in the airline, valued upto one crore. The airline symbolized the growing economic independence of the Muslims of India. After partition, Orient Airways was transferred to Karachi and later absorbed in Pakistan International Airlines, growing even more in significance in view of the distance of 1200 miles between the east and west wings of Pakistan.
Jinnah realized the vital importance of banking and insisted on the creation of another first class Muslim bank in the sub-continent. ‘We claim that we are a nation one hundred million strong and yet have just one bank out of the scores which operate in India. He was aware that banking had always been a close prerogative of non-Muslims. The Muslim Commercial Bank was brought into existence by Adamjee Haji Dawood and Mirza Ahmed Ispahani, on the eve of the partition in July 9, 1947.
The Habib Bank was small in size as compared with other banks operated by Hindus and foreigners. A Muslim bank was set up in Singapore and branches of the Habib Bank were opened in Bhopal and Assam.
Jinnah was also instrumental in the floatation of the Muhammadi Steamship Company by the Habib brother in Bombay. It gave an opportunity to create Muslim workers in yet another nation-building effort. The realization by the Muslim leadership and the Muslim professional and business classes of their economic backwardness in India generated interest in the economic development of the Muslim majority areas and lent mass support to the Pakistan cause.
Since Jinnah had emerged as the major representative of Muslim interests, both political and economic, it was difficult for the Muslim commercial classes to refuse his bidding. Moreover, they could perceive the economic opportunities offered by Pakistan to their class interests. Jinnah himself belonged to a Khoja family and his father had been a hide merchant. Coming from a business background, he was able to secure and value the support of the Muslim industrial and business class to the Pakistan cause.
The readiness and enthusiasm displayed by different Muslim classes in supporting Pakistan were reflective of a desire to see Pakistan offer as many economic opportunities to the Muslims as India did to the Hindus. They wanted new economic opportunities in a new country .The support that the professional and business classes gave to Pakistan resulted in the emergence to Karachi as one of the major industrial centres in South Asia.
It remains one of the drawbacks of the Pakistan movement that in spite of the interest generated in the economic future of Pakistan and the reports prepared by the planning committee, including the one developed by Daniyal Latifi, the working committee of the AIML did not adopt any economic plan as the official agenda of the League. Even after independence, there was no mention of the Planning Committee Report. In an interview for the Voice of America in February 1948, Jinnah stated that ‘the blueprints of a scheme for the rapid industrialization of both Western and Eastern Pakistan have already been drawn up by my government’.
It remained a blueprint, and after Jinnah’s death, the successor League leadership could not implement these plans. In contrast, the decision of the National Planning Committee of the Congres Party, which was appointed in 1938 under the chairmanship of Nehru, was adopted in a modified form in the Industrial Resolution Policy (IRP) which the Government of India published on 6 April 1948.
From these analyses, it becomes evident that the educated Muslim classes and business groups did play an important role in the final phase of the Pakistan movement.
The author is Associate Professor at the National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad
