Editing Pakistan Movement (section)

===Punjab===
[[File:Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman seconding the Resolution with Jinnah and Liaquat presiding the session.]]

In the British Indian province of [[Punjab (British India)|Punjab]], Muslims placed more emphasis on the Punjabi identity they shared with Hindus and Sikhs, rather than on their religion.{{citation needed|date=September 2020}} The [[Unionist Party (Punjab)|Unionist Party]], which prevailed in the [[1923 Indian general election]], [[1934 Indian general election]] and the [[1937 Indian provincial elections]], had the mass support of the Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs of the Punjab; its leaders included Muslim Punjabis, such as [[Fazl-i-Hussain]] and Hindu Punjabis, such as [[Chhotu Ram]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jaffrelot |first1=Christophe |author-link=Christophe Jaffrelot |year=2015 |title=The Pakistan Paradox: Instability and Resilience |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i5GMCwAAQBAJ&pg=PG71 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=71 |isbn=978-0-19-061330-3 |access-date=16 September 2020 |archive-date=30 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200930210100/https://books.google.com/books?id=i5GMCwAAQBAJ&pg=PG71 |url-status=live }}</ref> The Punjab had a slight Muslim majority, and local politics had been dominated by the secular Unionist Party and its longtime leader Sir [[Sikandar Hayat Khan (Punjabi politician)|Sikandar Hayat Khan]]. The Unionists had built a formidable power base in the Punjabi countryside through policies of patronage allowing them to retain the loyalty of landlords and pirs who exerted significant local influence.<ref name="Talbot">{{cite journal|last=Talbot|first=I. A.|year=1980|title=The 1946 Punjab Elections|journal=Modern Asian Studies|volume=14|issue=1|pages=65–91|jstor=312214|doi=10.1017/S0026749X00012178|s2cid=145320008 }}</ref>

For the Muslim League to claim to represent the Muslim vote, they would need to win over the majority of the seats held by the Unionists. Following the death of Sir Sikander in 1942, and bidding to overcome their dismal showing in the elections of 1937, the Muslim League intensified campaigning throughout rural and urban Punjab.<ref>W. W. J. "The Indian Elections – 1946." The World Today, vol. 2, no. 4, 1946, pp. 167–175</ref> A major thrust of the Muslim's League's campaign was the promotion of [[Communalism (South Asia)|communalism]] and spreading fear of a supposed "Hindu threat" in a future united India.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jaffrelot |first1=Christophe |author-link=Christophe Jaffrelot |year=2015 |title=The Pakistan Paradox: Instability and Resilience |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i5GMCwAAQBAJ&pg=PG76 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=76–77 |isbn=978-0-19-061330-3 |access-date=16 September 2020 |archive-date=4 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210204131356/https://books.google.com/books?id=i5GMCwAAQBAJ&pg=PG76 |url-status=live }}</ref> Muslim League activists were advised to join in communal prayers when visiting villages, and gain permission to hold meetings after the Friday prayers.<ref name="Talbot" /> The [[Quran]] became a symbol of the Muslim League at rallies, and pledges to vote were made on it.<ref name="Talbot" /> Students, a key component of the Muslim League's activists, were trained to appeal to the electorate on communal lines, and at the peak of student activity during the Christmas holidays of 1945, 250 students from [[Aligarh Muslim University|Aligarh]] were invited to campaign in the province along with 1550 members of the Punjab Muslim Student's Federation.<ref name="Talbot" /> A key achievement of these efforts came in enticing [[Jat Muslim|Muslim Jats]] and [[Gurjar|Gujjars]] from their intercommunal tribal loyalties.<ref name="Talbot" /> In response, the Unionists attempted to counter the growing religious appeal of the Muslim League by introducing religious symbolism into their own campaign, but with no student activists to rely upon and dwindling support amongst the landlords, their attempts met with little success.

[[File:Pir-mehar-ali-shah.jpg|Pir Meher Ali Shah|thumb]]
To further their religious appeal, the Muslim League also launched efforts to entice [[Pir (Sufism)|Pirs]] towards their cause. Pirs dominated the religious landscape, and were individuals who claimed to inherit religious authority from [[Sufism in India|Sufi Saints]] who had proselytised in the region since the eleventh century.<ref name="Talbot" /> By the twentieth century, most Punjabi Muslims offered allegiance to a Pir as their religious guide, thus providing them considerable political influence.<ref name="Talbot" /> The Unionists had successfully cultivated the support of Pirs to achieve success in the 1937 elections, and the Muslim League now attempted to replicate their method of doing so. To do so, the Muslim League created the Masheikh Committee, used [[Urs]] ceremonies and shrines for meetings and rallies and encouraged fatwas urging support for the Muslim League.<ref name="Talbot" />

Reasons for the pirs switching allegiance varied. For the Gilani Pirs of Multan the overriding factor was local longstanding factional rivalries, whilst for many others a shrine's size and relationship with the government dictated its allegiance.<ref name="Talbot" />

Despite the Muslim League's aim to foster a united Muslim loyalty, it also recognised the need to better exploit the [[Baradari (brotherhood)|biradari]] network and appeal to primordial tribal loyalties. In 1946 it held a special [[Gurjar|Gujjar]] conference intending to appeal to all Muslim Gujjars, and reversed its expulsion of [[Jahanara Shahnawaz]] with the hope of appealing to [[Arain]] constituencies.<ref name="Talbot" /> Appealing to biradari ties enabled the Muslim League to accelerate support amongst landlords, and in turn use the landlords's client-patron economic relationship with their tenants to guarantee votes for the forthcoming election.<ref name="Talbot" />

A separate strategy of the Muslim League was to exploit the economic slump suffered in the Punjab as a result of the [[Second World War]].<ref name="Talbot" /> The Punjab had supplied 27 per cent of the [[Indian Army]] recruits during the war, constituting 800,000 men, and representing a significant part of the electorate. By 1946, less than 20 per cent of those servicemen returning home had found employment.<ref name="Talbot" /> This in part was exacerbated by the speedy end to the war in Asia, which caught the Unionists by surprise, and meant their plans to deploy servicemen to work in canal colonies were not yet ready.<ref name="Talbot" /> The Muslim League took advantage of this weakness and followed Congress's example of providing work to servicemen within its organisation.<ref name="Talbot" /> The Muslim League's ability to offer an alternative to the Unionist government, namely the promise of Pakistan as an answer to the economic dislocation suffered by Punjabi villagers, was identified as a key issue for the election.<ref name="Talbot" />

On the eve of the elections, the political landscape in the Punjab was finely poised, and the Muslim League offered a credible alternative to the Unionist Party. The transformation itself had been rapid, as most landlords and pirs had not switched allegiance until after 1944.<ref name="Talbot" /> The breakdown of talks between the Punjab Premier, [[Malik Khizar Hayat Tiwana]], and Jinnah in late 1944 had meant many Muslims were now forced to choose between the two parties at the forthcoming election.<ref name="Talbot" /> A further blow for the Unionists came with death of its leading statesman Sir [[Chhotu Ram]] in early 1945.

The [[West Punjab|Western Punjab]] was home to a minority population of Punjabi Sikhs and Hindus up to 1947 apart from the Muslim majority.<ref name="Royal Book Company">{{cite book|last=Salamat|first=Zarina|title=The Punjab in 1920s : a case study of Muslims|year=1997|publisher=Royal Book Company|location=Karachi|isbn=978-969-407-230-2}}</ref> In 1947, the [[Provincial Assembly of the Punjab|Punjab Assembly]] cast its vote in favour of Pakistan with [[Super-majority|supermajority rule]], which made many minority Hindus and Sikhs migrate to India while Muslim refugees from India settled in the Western Punjab and across Pakistan.<ref>Dube, I. &. S. (2009). From ancient to modern: Religion, power, and community in India hardcover. Oxford University Press.</ref>