ABSTRACT
Pakistan achieved independence on August 14, 1947. On the morning of that day, Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy of British India, swore in Mohammad Ali Jinnah as Pakistan's first governor-general. Lord Mountbatten presided over the dissolution of British India in the conviction that it was in the interest of the Hindus as well as the Muslims to keep India united. Mohammad Ali Jinnah accepted provincial partitions in the belief that both India and Pakistan would continue to have large minorities of Muslims and Hindus. Both streams of migrants—that of the urban Muslims from the provinces of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bombay, and Gujarat; and that of the rural Muslims from the eastern districts of Punjab—were to profoundly influence Pakistan's future economic and political development. If the story of Pakistan's political development is to be told in chronological order, however, one must start with the entry into the country of urban Indian Muslims.
