ABSTRACT
India's partition in August 1947 is supposedly 'the most eloquent and compelling witness to the Muslim sense of separate identity and of the validity of Islamic nationalism as the contemporary force of its expression'. The rhetoric of Muslim solidarity which preceded that cataclysmic event reinforces the impression that Muslims are susceptible to religious appeals, act as a cohesive entity, and further their interests through religious and political networks. A common assumption in several historical writings is that the League's support structure remained unchanged throughout the 1930s and '40s. It is also taken for granted that everyone who rallied round the green flag was uniformly wedded to, and inspired by, a shared ideal of creating an egalitarian society based on the Islamic model. Notions of 'Islamic identity' and romanticised visions of a Muslim/Islamic nation that ran through poems exemplify a form of religious awareness that was deliberately heightened through a systematic campaign.
