ABSTRACT
Jinnah had first revealed his Islamic card at the Lucknow session of the Muslim League in October 1937; within a year it did wonders for him and his party. The Muslim members of the provincial legislatures in the Hindu-majority provinces, who had won their seats as independent candidates in 1937, joined the Muslim League party. In his presidential address to the League session in 1930, Iqbal had propounded what he called a ‘territorial solution of the Indian problem’. He argued that the criterion of autonomous states based on unity of language, race, history, religion and identity of economic interests is the only possible way to secure a stable constitutional structure in India. Iqbal was not, however, advocating partition of India. By ‘autonomy’ he did not mean full independence. He was not thinking primarily of Muslim consolidation.
