ABSTRACT
The British conquest of India, facilitated by erosions in the ruling Mughal dynasty’s power, resulted not only in the political displacement of the Muslim elite, but also, in many cases, its economic ruin. Colonial rule, and Orientalism in particular, not only failed to imbue Muslims with the same sort of “national,” political, or religious pride as it had the Hindus, but it put them on the defensive by throwing into question not only their standing in India, but their status as Muslims as such. The idea, however, that Hindu nationalism was secular while the Muslim was a communal aberration and that, too, created by “imperialism to fracture the secular national identity thereby destroying the larger national unity,” is both simplistic and misleading. The party’s call for the creation of “free democratic States” for the Muslims in 1937, anticipating the Lahore Resolution by three years, and the Sind League’s adoption of a similar resolution in 1938 failed to elicit notice.
