ABSTRACT
To take two instances from the domestic history of Pakistan: we cannot understand the relationship between what were until last December the two wings of the State of Pakistan uniess we remember that East Bengal Muslims were indigenous converts to Islam and that West Pakistan was the heir of a North Indian Muslim ascendancy in which the native Bengali Muslims had no historical part. By way of illustration, here is a very revealing remark made in 1888 by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. With the growth of representative institutions, he remarked, "the government of the who le country will be in the hands of Bengalis, or other Hindus like Bengalis, and Muslimswill be in a miserable position". But when Curzon's partition of Bengal was undone in 1911, it was of course the Bengali Muslims - whose existence was ignored by Sir Syed-who were ab le to take advantage of representative institutions within the boundaries of the new province of Bengal, so drawn as to give the Muslims a majority. As earlyas 1937, the differences between Sir Nazimuddin's Muslim League and Fazlul Haq's Krishak Praja Samiti must be seen as the political expression of a latent conflict between Muslim Bengal and Muslim north India. And the issue over which Fazlul Haq was expelled from the Muslim League in 1942 -
that of provincial government as against All-India Muslim policy-was in principle the self-sameissue upon which Pakistan split in 1971.
