Editing Pakistan Movement (section)

=== North-West Frontier Province ===
[[File:Gandhi and Abdul Gaffa Khan.jpg|thumb|250px|[[Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan|Bacha Khan]] with Gandhi in 1946.]]
The Muslim League had little support in [[North-West Frontier Province (1901–2010)|North-West Frontier Province]]. Here the Congress and [[Pashtunistan|Pashtun nationalist]] leader [[Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan|Abdul Ghaffar Khan]] had considerable support for the cause of a united India.<ref name="Encyclopædia Britannica-Abdul Ghaffar Khan">{{cite encyclopedia|url = https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/232353/Khan-Abdul-Ghaffar-Khan|title = Abdul Ghaffar Khan|encyclopedia = Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date = 24 September 2008|archive-date = 27 May 2008|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080527182525/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/232353/Khan-Abdul-Ghaffar-Khan/|url-status = live}}</ref>

During the Independence period there was a [[Congress party of India|Congress]]-led ministry in the province, which was led by secular [[Pashtuns|Pashtun]] leaders, including [[Abdul Ghaffar Khan]], who preferred joining [[India]] instead of Pakistan. The secular Pashtun leadership was also of the view that if joining India was not an option then they should espouse the cause of an independent ethnic Pashtun state rather than Pakistan.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ceg-kSmft94C&q=congress+party+united+india+north+west+frontier+province&pg=PA66|title=Explaining Pakistan's Foreign Policy: Escaping India|last=Pande|first=Aparna|publisher=Taylor & Francis|year=2011|isbn=9781136818943|pages=66|quote=At Independence there was a Congress-led ministry in the North West Frontier...The Congress-supported government of the North West Frontier led by the secular Pashtun leaders, the Khan brothers, wanted to join India and not Pakistan. If joining India was not an option, then the secular Pashtun leaders espoused the cause of Pashtunistan: an ethnic state for Pashtuns.|access-date=18 November 2020|archive-date=26 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210126145454/https://books.google.com/books?id=ceg-kSmft94C&q=congress+party+united+india+north+west+frontier+province&pg=PA66|url-status=live}}</ref> The secular stance of Abdul Ghaffar Khan had driven a wedge between the Jamiyatul Ulama Sarhad (JUS) and the otherwise pro-Congress (and pro-Indian unity) [[Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind|Jamiat Ulema Hind]], as well as Abdul Ghaffar Khan's [[Khudai Khidmatgar]]s, who also espoused [[Hindu-Muslim unity]]. Unlike the centre JUH, the directives of the JUS in the province began to take on communal tones. The JUS ulama saw the Hindus in the province as a 'threat' to Muslims. Accusations of molesting Muslim women were leveled at Hindu shopkeepers in [[Nowshera, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa|Nowshera]], a town where anti-Hindu sermons were delivered by mullas. Tensions also rose in 1936 over the abduction of a Hindu girl in [[Bannu]]. Such controversies stirred up anti-Hindu sentiments amongst the province's Muslim population.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Haroon|first=Sana|year=2008|title=The Rise of Deobandi Islam in the North-West Frontier Province and Its Implications in Colonial India and Pakistan 1914–1996|journal=Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society|volume=18|issue=1|page=55|jstor=27755911|doi=10.1017/S1356186307007778|s2cid=154959326|quote=The stance of the central JUH was pro-Congress, and accordingly the JUS supported the Congressite Khudai Khidmatgars through to the elections of 1937. However the secular stance of Ghaffar Khan, leader of the Khudai Khidmatgars, disparaging the role of religion in government and social leadership, was driving a wedge between the ulama of the JUS and the Khudai Khidmatgars, irrespective of the commitments of mutual support between the JUH and Congress leaderships. In trying to highlight the separateness and vulnerability of Muslims in a religiously diverse public space, the directives of the NWFP ulama began to veer away from simple religious injunctions to take on a communalist tone. The ulama highlighted 'threats' posed by Hindus to Muslims in the province. Accusations of improper behaviour and molestation of Muslim women were levelled against 'Hindu shopkeepers' in Nowshera. Sermons given by two JUS-connected maulvis in Nowshera declared the Hindus the 'enemies' of Islam and Muslims. Posters were distributed in the city warning Muslims not to buy or consume food prepared and sold by Hindus in the bazaars. In 1936, a Hindu girl was abducted by a Muslim in Bannu and then married to him. The government demanded the girl's return, But popular Muslim opinion, supported by a resolution passed by the Jamiyatul Ulama Bannu, demanded that she stay, stating that she had come of her free will, had converted to Islam, and was now lawfully married and had to remain with her husband. Government efforts to retrieve the girl led to accusations of the government being anti-Muslim and of encouraging apostasy, and so stirred up strong anti-Hindu sentiment across the majority Muslim NWFP. ... Involvement of the Deobandi ''ulama'' in public political activity and in the negotiation of a Muslim identity in the NWFP appeared in no way to rely upon a wider consensus of Indian Deobandis.}}</ref> By 1947 the majority of the JUS ulama in the province began supporting the Muslim League's idea of Pakistan.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Haroon|first=Sana|year=2008|title=The Rise of Deobandi Islam in the North-West Frontier Province and Its Implications in Colonial India and Pakistan 1914–1996|journal=Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society|volume=18|issue=1|pages=57–58|jstor=27755911|doi=10.1017/S1356186307007778|s2cid=154959326|quote=By 1947 the majority of NWFP ulama supported the Muslim League idea of Pakistan. Because of the now long-standing relations between JUS ulama and the Muslim League, and the strong communalist tone in the NWFP, the move away from the pro-Congress and anti-Pakistan party line of the central JUH to interest and participation in the creation of Pakistan by the NWFP Deobandis was not a dramatic one.}}</ref>

Immediately prior to Pakistani independence from [[Great Britain|Britain]] in 1947, the British held a referendum in the NWFP to allow voters to choose between joining Pakistan or India.  The referendum was held on 2 July 1947 while polling began on 6 July 1947 and the referendum results were made public on 20 July 1947. According to the official results, there were 572,798 registered voters out of which 289,244 (99.02%) votes were cast in favor of Pakistan while only 2874 (0.98%) were cast in favor of India. According to an estimate the total turnout for the referendum was only 15% less than the total turnout in the 1946 elections.<ref>{{cite thesis |author=Muhammad Shakeel Ahmad |year=2010 |title=Electoral politics In NWFP. 1988-1999 |type=PhD |chapter=Chapter-3: Electoral history of NWFP |publisher=Quaid-i-Azam University |chapter-url=http://prr.hec.gov.pk/Chapters/1159S-3.pdf |url-status=dead |access-date=28 December 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130810052331/http://prr.hec.gov.pk/Chapters/1159S-3.pdf |archive-date=10 August 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pj8DIT_bva0C&q=nwfp+referendum&pg=PA108|title=The Origins of Conflict in Afghanistan|author=Jeffrey J. Roberts|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=9780275978785|pages=108–109|access-date=18 April 2015|year=2003|archive-date=4 June 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210604145017/https://books.google.com/books?id=Pj8DIT_bva0C&q=nwfp+referendum&pg=PA108|url-status=live}}</ref> At the same time a large number of Khudai Khidmatgar supporters boycotted the referendum and intimidation against Hindu and Sikh voters by supporters of the Pakistan Movement was also reported.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Meyer |first1=Karl E. |year=2008 |title=The Dust of Empire: The Race for Mastery in the Asian Heartland |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M9iwFmvKTwcC |publisher=PublicAffairs |page=107 |isbn=978-0-7867-2481-9 |access-date=20 November 2013 |archive-date=11 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210211035434/https://books.google.com/books?id=M9iwFmvKTwcC |url-status=live }}</ref>