The political development of the Muslim-majority provinces of British India in the period between the end of World War I and the establishment of the State of Pakistan was marked by a confrontation between the Muslim League (ML) party, which advocated the creation of a unified Muslim state, and ethno-regional organizations that defended the interests of specific provinces. Initially very influential and massive, they nevertheless gradually lost their secular positions under the onslaught of the idea of creating a Muslim state. The task of creating Pakistan in the Muslim-majority provinces was only the first stage in the confrontation between ethnoregionalism and the idea of a Muslim community, a confrontation that for many years determined the political development of Pakistan.

Keywords: ethnoregionalism, Muslim community, Pakistan, Muslim majority provinces, Muslim League, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

The political processes that took place between 1918 and 1947 in British India in the Muslim-majority provinces are of great interest. It was then that the idea of the Muslim nation as a unique socio-cultural community of Indian Muslims, which formed the basis of Pakistan, began to take shape, and the contradictions inherent in this idea also became apparent. It was they who provoked the split of the state, the formation of Bangladesh in 1972, and the subsequent internal political instability in Pakistan. During the same period, Punjab, East Bengal, Sindh, North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Balochistan1 gained extensive political experience, which resulted in the creation of ethno-regional parties there.

How was the establishment of the idea of Pakistan in the Muslim-majority provinces carried out, which is why this process turned out to be only the first stage in the confrontation between ethnoregionalism and the idea of a Muslim nation - a confrontation that for many years became an integral feature of the political development of Pakistan2?

During the period under review, the development of Muslim-majority provinces included a number of general trends. Already in the 1920s. in the above-mentioned provinces, ethnopolitical mobilization began, which led to the emergence of regional ethnic parties.

1 Researchers traditionally combine these territories with the concept of "Muslim-majority provinces". According to the 1931 census, Muslims accounted for 95.4% of the population of the NWFP, 92.2% of the population of Balochistan, 78.4% of the population of Sindh, 55.8% of the population of Punjab, and 50.1% of the population of East Bengal. [http://censusindia...].

2 This issue is considered in the research of Yu. V. Gankovsky, V. Ya. Belokrenitsky, V. N. Moskalenko, Yu.A. Ponomarev. Their work notes a direct correlation between the political activity of the provinces of British India and the subsequent surge of ethnoregionalism in independent Pakistan. In foreign historiography, this problem is addressed in the works of S. M. Ikram, S. Cohen, and S. Wolpert.

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At an early stage, pan-Indian organizations could easily compete with regional ones. Two organizations - the Indian National Congress (INC) and the All India Muslim League (ML) - could play the role of a unifying force in India in general and in the mentioned provinces in particular. Up until the 1920s-the beginning of the separation between the Congress and the League - the attitude towards both parties in North India, even among educated, politicized Muslims, was often the same: many figures enjoyed dual membership and attended the congresses of both organizations.3
The role that the League and Congress played in the life of the Muslim communities of these provinces was insignificant: the regional branches were virtually inactive, and the political slogans put forward by the parties in relation to the provinces were very vague and inconsistent. For the INC, the support of Muslims was not so important, as the party already had a significant number of supporters, the vast majority of whom were concentrated in other areas-primarily in the Central Provinces (CP), Bihar, Orissa and Madras. 4 However, the ML, while positioning itself as a representative of the interests of Muslims, did not work actively in Bengal, Punjab, NWFP, and later in Sindh and Balochistan, which deprived it of mass support and minimized its political role.

This can be explained by the fact that in the face of political uncertainty, the party leaders were in no hurry to adapt to constantly changing circumstances and stuck to their original program. This program can be expressed by the slogan put forward by the League at the dawn of its existence: "Rights to minorities" (Ikram, 1970, p. 191). At the same time, while in India as a whole, Muslims were a minority, at the regional level, this slogan covered only Muslims who were a minority in their provinces - i.e., first of all, in the United Provinces (JV), CP, Bombay, Bihar and Delhi. This administrative attachment to the League's installations was due to the fact that in the first years of the party's existence, only Muslims in these provinces showed political activity. They took over the affairs of the entire community. At that time, the ML did not yet see the need to coordinate the interests of voters: in the conditions of the underdeveloped parliamentary and representative institutions of British India in the first two decades of the twentieth century, since this could not give the party influence on a national scale.

In Bengal, a regional branch of the party emerged in 1906 , at the same time as the League itself was established. In the period 1918-1937, it was headed by Abdul Qasim Fazlul Haq , a charismatic personality with great personal authority. An analysis of the activities of the Bengal branch of ML suggests that up to the 1937 elections, this branch independently determined the League's policy. The central leadership did not have the ability to limit it, and did not set such a task.

The situation is similar in Punjab. Evidence of this can be found in the almost simultaneous creation of two separate branches of the League here: the first was established in 1906 by Fazl-i-Hussein, and the second - in 1907. Shah Din (who was briefly succeeded by Muhammad Shafi) 5.

3 Among them are Mian Fazl-i-Hussein and Sir Fazlul Haq, whose activities in pan-Indian and regional politics will be discussed later.

4 It was in these provinces that the Congress later won an absolute majority in the 1937 elections.

5 Both organizations were officially named the same: the Punjab Provincial Muslim League, and their leaders jointly attended the ML session in Karachi in 1907 as party representatives from Punjab. This situation in itself is significant: it demonstrates that the creation of branches did not begin at the will of the center. It was initiated by local forces. Even after the emergence of both organizations, the leadership of the League could not adequately respond to the "dual power" for a year - only in 1908 did the two branches of the party merge, and from 1916 the Punjabi branch was headed solely by Fazl-i-Hussein.

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At that stage, both in the Punjabi and Bengali branches of ML, the leaders belonged to the elite and were wealthy landowners, had great personal authority and economic influence. This provided them with a massive popularity that the League as a party did not yet have.

The arrival of influential representatives of Muslim communities in the organization that was not the most popular at that time - ML-should be explained primarily by the high political activity of these people. Many of them, in particular, enjoyed the aforementioned right of dual membership in both the INC and the League. Belonging to the elite of society, they considered it necessary to support the largest pan-Indian party, and being Muslims, they did not ignore the religiously marked political institution6.

The general demands made by the Congress and the vague language on the rights of Muslims put forward by the League were not objectionable until the contradictions emerged in practice and forced the regional Muslim elites to seek independent political representation.

Gradually, however, provincial leaders in the Muslim communities of Bengal and Punjab realized the fundamental difference in interests between their regions and the League. While M. A. Jinnah favored an equal distribution of votes between Hindus and Muslims with a strong central government, Bengal and Punjab were much more profitable to create a federation with broad provincial autonomy. As Fazl-i-Hussein later formulated this position: "a weak federal center with autonomous components, within which the Muslim majority will be protected by reserving seats or dividing electorates "(Shaikh, 1989, p. 189).

Dissatisfaction with the ML's policies among Muslims in Bengal and Punjab coincided with a change in the political attitudes of its main rival, Inc. The INC's rejection of primarily constitutional methods of struggle and the transition to satyagraha7 in 1920 triggered the withdrawal of a number of provincial figures from the Congress, including Fazlul Haq and Fazl - i-Hussein. These steps were dictated not only by religious motives: the commitment of representatives of Muslim provinces to constitutional methods of struggle also played an important role.

At the same time, the introduction of Hindu terminology and rhetoric into Congress politics coincided with a surge of religiosity in the Muslim community, which began after the end of World War I and the transfer of parts of the Turkish possessions, sacred places for Muslims, under European control. Under these conditions, the disease that spread in India in 1919-1924. The caliphate 8 movement revived the political life of Muslims not only at the pan-Indian level, but also at the provincial level. These developments coincided with the enactment of the Indian Government Act, 1919, which gave provinces the right to elect political representatives subject to an electoral majority.

The ill-defined position of the ML, the strengthening of pro-Hindu sentiment in Congress, the collapse of the caliphate movement and the general development of political processes-

6 Thus, Fazlul Haq became both president of the All India Muslim League and General Secretary of the INC in 1918; Fazl-i-Hussein, being the founder of the Punjabi branch of the League, at the same time "continued to associate himself with the INC" [Shaikh, 1989, p. 214].

7 A method of Indian political struggle for independence that involves sabotaging the activities of colonial State institutions.

8 The Caliphate movement is one of the political movements among Muslims in British India. Its emergence was associated with the policy of the Ottoman Empire after the coming to power of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, which sought to enlist the support of Muslims from various countries of the world during its confrontation with European powers. According to M. Kramer, an American researcher of pan - Islamic issues, the formation of the Indian caliphate movement was associated with the active activity of Ottoman diplomatic representatives in India, and in particular in Madras [Kramer, 1986, p. 6-9].

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All these factors stimulated the activity of provincial leaders in Muslim-majority areas in the first half of the 1920s. The direct result of their activities was the creation of the first ethno-regional parties.9
It is interesting to note that all the major ethno-regional organizations in Northern India were created and led by Muslims who have already taken an active part in pan-Indian politics. In 1923, Fazl-i-Hussein founded the Union Party (UWT)in Punjab10; in 1926-1927. Abdul Ghaffar Khan established the Pakhtun Jirga (PD)in the NWFP 11; in 1927, Fazlul Haq launched the Bengal Proja Krishok Party (PKP)12. In the NWFP, where Muslims made up the absolute majority of the population, their leadership in the ethnic party was natural. However, in Punjab and East Bengal, where the Muslim majority was small, it seemed more logical for Muslim politicians to form parties based on religious principles rather than ethnic ones, to protect their co-religionists. The fact that the activity of Muslims in the 1920s found its expression in the form of ethnic rather than religious struggle is due to a number of reasons.

It should be remembered that Muslims in Punjab and East Bengal were not overwhelming, but still the majority, and the development of ethnic consciousness there did not change the existing balance of power in the religious sphere and did not provoke religious conflicts. In addition, the creation of political parties meant putting forward a whole range of political demands, while Muslims at the regional level did not have any special complaints against the authorities at that time.

What Bengal, Punjab, and the NWFP had in common was that the parties that emerged there were secular organizations "based on the ideals of rural society and led by the landowning elite of that society" [India's Party... 2006, p. 207]. Religious rhetoric was rejected by these organizations, and the ratio of Hindus and Muslims in a particular party was determined by the structure of the population of the province as a whole.

The reaction of pan-Indian parties to the emergence of such competitors depended on their position in a particular province. It should be noted that the creation of the UPP in Punjab did not come as a surprise to ML and INC. As early as 1921, Fazl-i-Hussein, the future founder of the YUP, or, as it was also called informally, the Agrarian Party, openly expressed concern that there was no "active political organization in the province that would ensure the interests of Muslims" [Ikram, 1970, p. 211]. However, over time, Fazl-i-Hussein, according to his own statement, realized that "the Muslims of Punjab need the votes of non-Muslims" and that the best guarantee of the protection of the Muslim majority is the preservation of the unity of the province [Ikram, 1970, p. 226]. He rightly believed that in Punjab, a religious approach would not provide a sufficient majority to establish a government, and would have to cooperate with members of other parties. Fazl-i-Hussein believed that a coalition government would always be weaker than a one-party government, so he founded the UPP. Earlier, in 1920, he had resigned from Congress to protest the idea of a boycott of government offices. In the future, t.e. Until Fazl-i-Hussein's death on August 8, 1936, there were no permanent ties between his party and the INC, and no agreements were concluded.

9 In this case, we are talking about Punjab, Bengal and NWFP. As mentioned earlier, in Sindh and Balochistan, due to their lack of political representation, these processes began later.

10 Supporters of the territorial unity of the province.

11 "Pashtun Conference".

12 "People's Peasant Party". In the literature, there is also an abbreviated version of the name: "Peasant Party".

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The relationship between YUP and ML developed in a different way. Fazl-i-Hussein himself remained not only a member of the League until the end of his life, but also took an active part in its activities. It was he who breathed new life into the League's Punjab branch by restructuring the organization and inviting the All India ML to hold the 1924 session in Lahore. However, the attitude of the ML towards the unionists was contradictory. M. A. Jinnah understood that "Punjab is in Fazl-i-Hussein's pocket" and any other organization there can not count on anything yet. At the same time, the League leader believed that if Fazl-i-Hussein was sufficiently involved in the ML's activities, he could "lead the Muslims of India" [Iqbal, Jinnah... 1979, p. 126 - 127]. This is precisely the reason for M. A. Jinnah's persistent attempts to establish contact with Fazl-i-Hussein and use him at least in the status of a prominent "Muslim nationalist" who sympathizes with ML. In 1936, M. A. Jinnah tried to reach an agreement with Fazl-i-Hussein on the joint appearance of the ML and unionists in the upcoming elections, or at least on his chairmanship of the 1936 League meeting. The emphasis was placed on the religious feelings of the Punjabi leader: "Your presence is necessary first of all solely in the interests of the community" [Ikram, 1970, p. 226]. Fazl-i-Husayn, however, refused both offers. By this time, his desire to protect Muslims was already limited to a specific province: in 1920, he resigned from the post of general secretary of the League and even declared "the inadmissibility of its interference in provincial politics" [Bahadur and Johari, 1988, p. 218]. Fazl-i-Hussein prepared to run in the elections on behalf of his regional party and even held elections in 1935-1936. its reorganization.

A similar situation was observed in Bengal. The PKK, which was founded by Fazlul Haq as an all-Bengali organization and did not put forward religious slogans, in fact limited its activities to the eastern part of the province, i.e. territories inhabited mainly by Muslims. In other parts of Bengal, the Swaraj 13 wing of the INC was active during this period, and the PKK, feeling competition from the Congress, feared a takeover and did not enter into any relations with this party. Fazlul Haq, who retired from the INC in 1920, later repeatedly accused Congress of incompetence and "excesses" in favor of Hindus. At the same time, Fazlul Haq himself was in no hurry to lose the votes of non-Muslims: the PKK program focused on general economic reforms (including the abolition of the Zamindari system) and a broad political amnesty.

The relationship between PKP and ML was built differently. As the head of the League's Bengal branch from 1918 to 1936, Fazlul Haq did not prevent his followers from joining the organization. Moreover, some PKP figures even campaigned in favor of the League, calling on its members to be more active [Ikram, 1970, p. 288].

Fear of competition, divergent interests, unwillingness to compromise, and differences over methods of struggle have left relations between provincial parties and the Indian National Congress unsettled. At the same time, the leaders of the PKK and Unionist parties were aware of the need to defend Muslim rights in Bengal and Punjab. The Hindu communities there were large, and the fear of discrimination brought these parties closer to ML, an organization not yet powerful enough to compete with them, but capable of acting as a link between the provinces. This rapprochement, however, was held back by the fact that

13 Swaraj members are part of the INC Party, which formed an independent party within the Congress in 1923. Its leaders are M. Nehru and C. Das. Unlike M. K. Gandhi, who called for a boycott of the legislative bodies created in 1921, the Swarajists considered it possible to use the parliamentary rostrum in the struggle for Swaraj (self-government), which they interpreted as a struggle for India to gain dominion rights. During the period of revolutionary upsurge in 1928-1933, which was held under the slogan of achieving full independence of India, this party collapsed.

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The League focused on provinces with a Muslim minority population and could not properly represent the interests of Bengali and Punjabi Muslims.

In the NWFP, the circumstances were different from the very beginning. This province with an absolute majority of the Muslim population did not feel the need for additional protection of Muslim rights. The Pashtuns faced another problem: this ethnic group, divided into two parts by the state border with Afghanistan, was thus drawn not only into intra-Indian, but also to some extent into international politics, namely, in the relations between Afghanistan and Great Britain. The PD, the first mass political organization of Pashtuns, once established, immediately began an active anti-British agitation, opposing British interference in the affairs of Afghanistan. The head of the party, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, also demanded the unification of all Pashtun-populated areas into a single autonomous province [Blood, 2007]. The anti-colonial orientation brought the PD closer to the INC, and after the opening of a Congress branch in the province in 1928, the PD joined it.

There were no internal conflicts in the mono-confessional and mono-ethnic provinces, and the existing problem of ethnic division went beyond the NWFP. Unlike the Muslims of Punjab and Bengal, the NWFPs did not have the task of expressing their religious interests and maintaining inter-confessional balance. Because of this, the ML's popularity in the NWFP was low, and its branch here was established only in 1937, after the elections.

It is necessary to mention separately the situation that developed by the end of the 1930s in Sindh and Balochistan - regions that had not yet received the status of autonomous provinces and did not formally participate in all-Indian politics. Sindh was part of the Bombay Province and was one of its districts until April 1, 1936. Since the majority of Sindhis were Muslims, the role of representatives of Sindhi interests at the official level was assumed by their co-religionists from Punjab and Bombay. There were no established parties of their own, either ethnic or religious, in Sindh at that time.14 As Mehtab Ali Shah notes in his work, the Sindhis, being Muslims, nevertheless never sought to emphasize their religious affiliation. They defined themselves primarily through ethnicity, not religion, and "tended to resist any non-Indian power, regardless of its ideology or degree of Islamization" (Ali Shah, 1997, p. 46). The religious leaders of Sindh did not form their own parties and operated mainly within the madrasahs. Ethnic groups, on the other hand, were disorganized due to their clannishness, and none of them had enough influence to defend the Sindhi positions at the national level.

The same factors determined the state of affairs in Balochistan: formally, it never became a province of British India, and the general administration there was carried out by a political agent controlled by the viceroy. On the ground, independent administrative structures were formed, which consisted of tribal leaders who formally swore allegiance to the mother country. The British in Balochistan relied on the traditional system of clan governance and did not leave a niche for the activities of any political parties. The largest ethnic organization in Balochistan, the Kalat Princedom Party, created in 1931 in the wake of anti-British sentiments, spent all its efforts to rally the Baloch population around this principality, but failed to gain support outside of it. Religious sentiments in Balochistan have never been strong, and Hindu-Muslim clashes did not arise due to the small number of Hindus here.

14 V. F. Ageev points out the existence of a number of political groups in Sindh, but they cannot be considered permanent parties [Ageev, 1986, p. 43].

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From all the above, it can be concluded that in none of the regions of northern India, where Muslims accounted for more than half of the population, during this period there was no authoritative religious political organization that represented their interests at the pan-Indian level. Thus, ML focused on the protection of Muslim minorities and, accordingly, was not popular in areas where Muslims were the majority. The INC formally maintained a neutral position on religious issues, but its leaders periodically resorted to Hindu rhetoric in their speeches. The regional parties themselves were generally ethnic. Although they were characterized by a numerical predominance of Muslims, their programs did not contain the developed principles of interfaith settlement.

The results of the 1936-1937 elections clearly defined the spheres of influence of the existing pan-Indian parties and largely predetermined their future policies. The INC won an absolute majority of seats in five out of eleven provinces (134 out of 228 in the United Provinces, 95 out of 152 in Bihar, 159 out of 215 in Madras, 70 out of 112 in the Central Provinces, and 36 out of 60 in Orissa). In addition, the Congress's superiority in Bombay was almost absolute - 87 seats out of 175 [Growth of Communalism in India..., 2006]. The Muslim-majority provinces (Punjab, Bengal, Sindh, and NWFP) were the few where the INC failed to fully establish itself. Its success there was relative and even artificially stimulated in some cases. Thus, in the NWFP Legislative Council, the Congress won 19 seats out of 50, largely due to the disproportionate representation of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs. In Sindh, the INC won only 8 out of 60 seats - more than any other party, but only because there were no reputable political organizations in Sindh in principle (the closest competitor of the Congress - ML-won even less, only 3 seats). The results shown by the Congress in Bengal and Punjab (60 and 18 seats, respectively) are quite modest for such a party (Ikram, 1970, p. 319).

Muhammad Iqbal, a well-known poet and representative of the "Muslim renaissance" in India, described the election results in Punjab, Bengal, Sindh and NWFP as a victory of "provincialism over Muslim identity" [Ali Shah, 1994, p. 191]. ML received a small number of seats. In Punjab, the League won only 2 out of 86 seats (one of these two MPs later left the ML and joined the Unionists), in Bengal - 40 out of 119, in Sindh - 3 out of 33. In the NWFP, the party did not participate in the elections at all [Ali Shah, 1994, p. 191].

The majority of votes in Muslim-majority provinces were given either to local independent deputies representing the social elite of society, or, as in the case of Punjab, to ethno-regional parties (in Punjab, the number of independent deputies was also large). This circumstance testified to the lack of unambiguous political attitudes among the local population. Accordingly, both the League and the Congress had the opportunity to hope to improve their positions here by attracting independent deputies.

INK, however, was not quick to take advantage of this opportunity. On the one hand, the existing political program brought him 716 out of 1,585 provincial mandates, 15 and it was irrational to adjust his course to any new group of voters. On the other hand, of these 716 mandates, only 26 were Muslim. The INC inevitably had to listen to the majority of its constituents and respond to their requests. Accordingly, if in the future the Congress adjusted its policies in a certain way, this was done to a greater extent

15 The Muslim League, for comparison, received only 109 [Wolpert, 1997, p. 176].

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not to attract Muslims, but to clarify and strengthen their position among Hindus.

ML behaved quite differently after the announcement of the election results. ML showed the best result quite predictably in the United Provinces, winning 29 of the 35 seats allocated to Muslims [Hamdani, 2004]. However, in absolute terms, this number was extremely small and not enough to form their own government (there were 228 deputies in the Legislative Council of the United Provinces) [Growth of Communalism in India..., 2006]. Quotas for Muslims in other provinces with a Muslim minority were even lower than in the United Provinces , so the League's results there were even more modest. As for the districts where, according to the new electoral system, Muslims could really influence the formation of governments (Punjab, Bengal, Sindh and NWFP), ML actually failed in its strategy. Under the current circumstances, adjusting the course in order to gain the support of the Muslim-majority provinces became the only opportunity for ML to remain in the political arena.

It should be borne in mind that not only has ML begun to focus on an alliance with leading regional politicians, but they have also shown open interest in such cooperation at various times. For Bengal and Punjab, the main factor influencing the rapprochement of their ethno-regional organizations with the League was the refusal of the INC in 1937 to form governments with non-congressional Muslims. 16 This step of the Congress was particularly negatively perceived in Bengal, where the formation of coalition governments by the leading parties was an objective necessity. The Congress ' position left the PKK no choice: Fazlul Haq held talks with M. A. Jinnah, as a result of which he was instructed to form a coalition government. In Punjab, the boycott announced by the Congress was also very painful, as local Muslims saw it as a violation of their religious and political rights. As a result, what Muhammad Iqbal called the "Muslim awakening" began in Punjab: the press began openly declaring that "Islam in India is in danger" (Symons, 1950, p. 55). In this situation, the new leader of the YUP, Sikander Hayat Khan, and the head of the PKK, Fazlul Haq, decided to further expand cooperation with the ML. At the League's session in Lucknow in September 1937, Fazlul Haq and Sikander Hayat Khan declared their full support for the ML's positions and called on members of their respective parties to join it as dual members.

Since that time, the ML has been building relationships with ethno-regional parties and local politicians in a completely new capacity-as a representative of all Muslims. The change in policy primarily affected the ML's provincial branches: organizations in Bengal and Punjab were expanded and reformed, and the party opened branches in Sindh and NWFP.

The first step in the restructuring of the Bengali and Punjabi branches was the appointment of a new management team. To prove the League's independence from the Unionist Party and PKK, respectively, M. A. Jinnah put respected provincial politicians at the head of the branches, who at the same time were not noticed in their relations with ethno-regional parties: the Punjabi branch was headed by Muhammad Iqbal after the death of Fazl-i - Hussein, and the Bengali branch was headed by Hussein Shahid Suhrawardi.

The ML's policy towards the Unionist Party and PKK in the late 1930s and early 1940s was extremely loyal. M. A. Jinnah forbade H. S. Suhrawardi and M. Iqbal to criticize the actions of the Fazlul Haq and Sikander Hayat Khan governments,

16 In Sindh and the NWFP, where there were no other influential parties and the INC held a leading position after the elections, the boycott did not prevent the Congress from attracting the necessary number of independent deputies and forming pro-congress governments.

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even in cases where they did not meet the interests of Muslims [Jinnah of Pakistan..., 2006].

ML's willingness to compromise with the ethno-regional parties of Punjab and Bengal was mutual and was accompanied by a massive outflow of non-Muslims from these organizations. This was due to the fact that in the context of the "Muslim revival" in Punjab and Bengal, which researchers point out, Sikander Hayat Khan and Fazlul Haq found it increasingly difficult to maintain the secularity of their organizations. As the position of Muslims became stronger as a result of the measures taken, such support stopped working to preserve the interreligious balance and, on the contrary, began to undermine it. The ethno-regional parties of Punjab and Bengal have become somewhat hostage to the situation. The numerical predominance of Muslims in them and the need to adequately respond to the prevailing mood in the provinces forced these organizations to speak out more and more strongly in defense of representatives of Islam. A vicious circle emerged: the more consistently the UP and PKP defended Muslims, the less they were supported by the Hindu and Sikh populations. The departure of non-Muslims from these supra-communal parties has jeopardized their original political platform. The internal crisis weakened the Sikander Hayat Khan and Fazlul Haq organizations, which in turn increased their dependence on ML. The League orientation required these parties to be even more loyal to the Muslims.

The denouement came in the early 1940s. In 1940, the UN adopted the Lahore Resolution, a document that called on Muslim-majority areas to fight for their own statehood. Thus, Sikander Hayat Khan and Fazlul Haq finally discredited their own regional parties, because, as members of the League, they were forced to recognize the concept of dividing the interests of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs.

The political situation in the NWFP and Sindh contributed to the growth of ML's popularity in Muslim-majority provinces. After the INC leadership decided in November 1939 to withdraw its members from the provincial governments (in protest at India's involvement in World War II), the coalition governments of the NWFP and Sindh collapsed (in November 1939 and March 1940, respectively). The NWFP came under the direct rule of Governor George Cunningham. In Sindh, under the direct influence of the British, a coalition government of independent deputies was hastily formed, which was characterized by such instability that the Pakistani researcher Muhammad Ayyub Khuro called the period of his work "torture for the whole of Sindh" [World Scholars..., 1986, p. 206].

The aggravation of the situation following the resignation of the Kongressist governments has seriously weakened the INC's position in the NWFP and Sindh. In addition, since both of these provinces were historically satellites of Punjab, the crisis in them negatively affected the popularity of the INC in Northwest India as a whole and indirectly contributed to the already mentioned improvement of relations between the UP and the opposing INC ML.

The Party of M. A. Jinnah was able to extract significant benefits from the resignation of congressional governments, since it remained, in fact, the only political organization capable of influencing the fate of Muslim-majority provinces. The escalation of sectarian tensions, caused equally by the policies of the Congress and the League, as well as by the actions of provincial politicians, helped the party of M. A. Jinnah to take advantage of the situation and fully find its national idea. Such an idea was the idea of a Muslim nation, which took shape in the task of creating Pakistan-a Muslim state in which followers of Islam will receive full democratic rights and freedoms and will be able to free themselves from harassment by representatives of other faiths.

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Taking into account that there were no serious interethnic contradictions at that time, and the League's guarantee of rights and freedoms for Muslims looked very tempting, the "Muslim state"appeared to be a completely acceptable compromise. 17 It was the observance of religious interests and a promising position on the ethnic question that ensured the success of the ML program in the 1940s.

The results shown by the League in the 1945-1946 elections proved the support of the voters. M. A. Jinnah's party was able to independently form governments in Bengal and Sindh (led by Hussain Shahid Suhrawardi and Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah, respectively), and also won a relative majority of seats in Punjab.19 The disappointing results of the NWFP vote for the ML were not due to ideological rejection of the party, but to its inability to reach an agreement with the local elite and the unsuccessful economic policies implemented by the government of ML member Aurangzeb Khan during World War II.

The main achievement of M. A. Jinny's party should also be considered a reduction in the number of representatives of ethno-regional parties, which indicates a weakening of ethnic sentiment on the ground. In this situation, in April 1946, the League's elected legislators of the central and provincial assemblies (about 500 people in total), abandoning provincial interests, unanimously vowed to fight for a united Pakistan.

Representatives of Bengal and Punjab especially strongly supported the creation of a Muslim state. The League's leadership continued to promise not to allow the division of provinces and to ensure that they were fully included in the future of Pakistan. However, being a party with an unambiguous religious orientation, the League could not claim the support of all representatives of these ethnic groups, which inevitably increased the confrontation along confessional lines. The inter-communal clashes that broke out in 1946 and the subsequent agreement on the division of provinces were the result of the current political situation. 20 In Bengal and Punjab, there was no influential ethnic organization left to act as a buffer between the conflicting religious communities. For the same reason, the idea of turning these provinces into independent states was not developed.21
The idea of Pakistan was most painlessly adopted in Sindh. The Sindh Assembly was the first to vote in favour of joining Pakistan22, just as it was the first to approve Lahore Resolution 23 earlier. This ethnically homogeneous province with a strong Muslim majority proved to be the most susceptible to ML's influence.

For the NWFP and Balochistan, the question of joining the new State of Pakistan was more difficult. In these monoreligious provinces, ethnic integrity was disrupted long before the formation of Pakistan, and the phenomenon of ethnic division was largely ignored.-

17 The League officially recognized the need to divide these provinces only in the first half of June 1947, when it agreed to the "Mountbatten Plan" of June 3, 1947.

18 From the very beginning, the leadership of the Muslim League tried not to make any unambiguous statements about the situation of individual ethnic groups within the Muslim state. The Lahore resolution did not even specify the number of proposed Muslim states, and this issue was officially resolved only in 1946 [Wolpert, 1997, pp. 303-304].

19 Despite the apparent consolidation of the League's position in Punjab politics, M. A. Jinnah's party failed to form a government: the INC, Akali Dal and the Unionist Party entered into a coalition, with the consent of which the Unionist Khizr Hayat Khan Tiwana retained the post of Chief Minister.

20 According to the partition plan of India of 3 June 1947, members of the Bengal and Punjabi legislative Assemblies first voted for the division of provinces, and then Muslim deputies decided on the inclusion of "Muslim" territories in Pakistan.

21 This was strongly opposed by the Hindu and Sikh communities, who realized that they would remain a minority in the new States.

22 26 June 1947

23 In March 1943.

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lived historically 24. This predetermined, on the one hand, the relatively indifferent attitude of Balochistan and the NWFP to the idea of Pakistan, and, on the other hand, the very late and unanimous demand for ethnic autonomy. The issue of entry into Pakistan by political figures of these provinces has not been considered at all for a long time. Abdul Ghaffar Khan , a respected Pashtun politician and brother of the NWFP Chief Minister Khan Sahib, was confident until June 1947 that the INC would not allow the creation of Pakistan and the NWFP would remain part of India. Mir Ahmad Yar Khan, the head of the largest Baloch principality of Kalat, who maintained correspondence with both members of the League and congressists, in any case intended to demand only the preservation of the "special status" of Kalat, but not the unification of all Balochis [Ali Shah, 1997, p. 95].

It was only after the partition of British India into two states in June 1947 was officially recognized by both pan-Indian parties and became inevitable that Pashtun and Baloch politicians began to reconsider their positions. As a result, the self-determination of these provinces was based on religious grounds, which led to the final approval of the idea of Pakistan.25
Thus, the political development of Punjab, East Bengal, Sindh, NWFP, and Balochistan culminated in their unification into a Muslim state. At this historical stage, the idea of Pakistan as a Muslim state turned out to be acceptable to the ethnic groups that made it up. However, the destabilizing influence of the ethno-regional factor has not been completely removed. His influence on the development and practical implementation of the idea of a Muslim nation continued in independent Pakistan.

list of literature

Ageev V. F. Recent history of Sindh, Moscow, 1986.
Belokrenitsky V. Ya., Moskalenko V. N. History of Pakistan. XX century. Moscow, 2008.

Gankovsky Yu. V. Peoples of Pakistan (Main stages of ethnic history), Moscow, 1964.
Gankovsky Yu. V. The National Question and national movements in Pakistan, Moscow, 1967.
Ponomarev Yu. A. Istoriya Moslemskoy ligi Pakistanii [History of the Muslim League of Pakistan].
Walpert S. Jinnah-the Creator of Pakistan, Moscow, 1997.
Ali, Syed Amjad. Interview. January 15, 2007 // http://www.harappa.com/amjad_ali/amjadali_interview_pf.html#Congress

Ali Shah Mehtab. The Foreign Policy of Pakistan. Ethnic Impacts on Diplomacy, 1971 - 1994. L., 1997.

Baluch Mir Ahmad Yar Khan. Inside Baluchistan (A Political Autobiography of His Highness Baiglar Baigi: Khan-e-Azam XIII). July 28, 2006 // http://www.bso-na.org/files/InsideBaluchistan_Appendix_Treaties.pdf

Blood Peter R. Afghanistan: a Country Study. October 17, 2007 // http://countrystudies.us/afghanistan/

Cohen Stephen Philip. The Idea of Pakistan. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Growth of Communalism in India (1937 - 1947). 11 August, 2006 // http://www.mrmulliner.sulekha.com/blog/post/2006/08/growth-of-communalism-in-i ndia-ii-1937 - 1947.htm

Hamdani Yasser Latif. Muslim League's Politics (1937 - 1947). January 15, 2004 // http://www.chowk.com/articles/6551

Ikram S.M. Modern Muslim India and the Birth of Pakistan (1858 - 1951). Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1970.

India's Partition. Process, Strategy and Mobilization. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006.

24 Already at the time of the creation of these provinces, about 31% of Pashtuns lived in Afghanistan; about 30% of Balochs lived in Iran, and another 7% lived in Afghanistan (Blood, 2007).

25 A referendum was held in the NWFP on 17 July 1947. Since the issue of Pashtunistan was never put on the ballot, Abdul Ghaffar Khan called on the Pashtuns to boycott the vote. As a result, about 51% of the province's residents took part in the referendum; more than 98% of them supported joining Pakistan. In Balochistan, the vote to join Pakistan was held on June 29, 1947, at a meeting of elected deputies of the Quetta municipality and members of the jirga of Khans of local tribes. Non-Muslim deputies, as well as representatives of Kalat, did not participate in the voting. The head of Kalat, Mir Ahmad Yar Khan, declared independence of the principality on August 15 and, together with his brother Prince Abdul Karim Khan, fought for the creation of his own state.

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Iqbal, Jinnah and Pakistan: The Vision and The Reality. Syracuse: Syracuse University, 1979.

Jinnah of Pakistan. Documents. Iqbal to Jinnah. March 24, 2006 // http://www.humsafar.info/iqbrev371030.htm

Kramer M. Islam Assembles. The Advent of the Muslim Congresses. N.-Y., 1986.

Shaikh Farzana. Community and Consensus in Islam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Symons Richard. The Making of Pakistan. London: Faber & Faber, 1950.

World Scholars on Quaid-i-Azzam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Islamabad: Quaid-i-Azam University, 1986.

http://censusindia.gov.in/Census_And_You/old_report/Census_1931n.html

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