Was Pakistan necessary?

Express Tribune

2 days ago

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Was Pakistan necessary? The question, as always, arises as we are close to celebrating the 78th anniversary of "independent" Pakistan. The creation of Pakistan in 1947 remains one of South Asia's most contested events. To its proponents, it was an essential homeland for Hindustani Muslims to safeguard their religious and political rights. To critics, it was a tragic consequence of failed negotiations, colonial strategy, and the politics of religious nationalism.
To address this question, we must understand the ideological foundations, political context, human cost and post-partition realities.
At the heart of Pakistan's creation was the Two-Nation Theory, articulated by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the All-India Muslim League. It claimed Muslims and Hindus were not just religious groups but distinct nations with irreconcilable differences. In his Lahore Resolution speech (March 22, 1940), Jinnah declared: "We are a nation with our own distinctive culture and civilisation."
Writers like Stanley Wolpert (Jinnah of Pakistan, 1984) portray Jinnah as a pragmatic leader who saw partition as the only solution after failed talks with the Congress. Ayesha Jalal, in The Sole Spokesman (1985), suggests Jinnah may have used the demand for Pakistan as a bargaining tool for maximum Muslim autonomy within a united India, only accepting partition when compromise failed.
Opponents of the theory, such as Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, argued religion alone could not define nationhood. In India Wins Freedom (1959), Azad called the partition a historical blunder, insisting that Hindustani Muslims were too culturally rooted in Hindustan to be separated by ideology.
The political collapse of the 1930s-40s shaped the final outcome. The Muslim League's poor showing in the 1937 provincial elections and the Congress's reluctance to form coalition governments deepened Muslim fears of exclusion. Ian Talbot (Pakistan: A Modern History, 2009) identifies this as a turning point for Jinnah's mobilisation of Muslim sentiment.
The failure of the 1946 Cabinet Mission Plan, which proposed a loose federation to avoid partition, was decisive. Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal (Modern South Asia, 2004) argue that partition was not inevitable; it became "necessary" only after mistrust and political rigidity destroyed the possibility of compromise.
The consequences were catastrophic. Between 1-2 million people died in communal massacres, and over 15 million were displaced. Contemporary reports in The New York Times and The Times of London recorded mass killings, abductions and sexual violence. Yasmin Khan, in The Great Partition (2007), highlights British unpreparedness for the transfer of power, noting that the partition "created not just new borders but new wounds" that remain unhealed.
Post-independence, Pakistan faced deep identity dilemmas. Should it be a secular Muslim-majority state or an Islamic theocracy? The 1971 secession of East Pakistan into Bangladesh exposed the fragility of religious unity in the face of linguistic and ethnic differences. As Akeel Bilgrami (Secularism, Identity and Enchantment, 2014) observes, the premise of a single Muslim identity was flawed when confronted with South Asia's diversity.
In India, Muslims who stayed behind became a vulnerable minority. The rise of Hindutva politics under BJP has reinforced some of Jinnah's warnings, but others contend that the partition itself hardened communal divisions, making reconciliation harder.
So, was Pakistan necessary? It depends on the perspective. Through ideology, it provided a political refuge for Muslims in an increasingly majoritarian India. Through hindsight, it appears as a tragic product of political failure, religious nationalism and colonial opportunism.
Hamza Alavi, in Pakistan and Islam: Ethnicity and Ideology (1987), urges us to see Pakistan's creation as not just nationalism, but a complex interplay of class interests, imperial strategy and identity politics.
In the end, Pakistan was neither inevitable nor universally desired. It was born of missed opportunities, rigid leadership positions and imperial designs. Yet, its creation permanently altered the subcontinent, offering a lasting lesson in the perils of division and the staggering cost of political failure.