torates for Muslims. AIML and INC also agreed to
support the British in World War I; more than 1
million Indians served in the British armed forces
during this war.
After the war, both organizations participated
in the Khilafat movement (1919–24), but their
relations grew more strained when the move-
ment failed. Muslims continued to participate in
the effort to achieve self-government, but AIML
leadership became increasingly concerned about
their minority status in a democratic republic
where Hindus would be in the majority. They
knew that not only were they in the minority,
but also that the Muslim populace was scattered
across India, speaking different languages and
having different social statuses. Instituting the
sharia or an Islamic government was not on
their agenda. Rather, they sought ways to create
a sense of common purpose among India’s Mus-
lims to protect their political interests. Whereas
the leadership in Congress favored creating a
centralized federal government elected by the
majority with no guaranteed reservations for
Muslims, AIML leaders wanted more provin-
cial autonomy in parts of India where Muslims
were in the majority. They also wanted at least
a third of the seats in the legislature reserved
for Muslims. Not all Muslim leaders, however,
favored Muslim political advocacy. Indian ulama,
especially the Deobandis, envisioned a Muslim
community who were educated in Islam and
its moral principles living together with other
Indians. Indeed, many supported the INC, as did
several prominent secular Muslims.
As Hindu and Muslim approaches to self-gov-
ernment diverged internally as well as externally,
many Indians joined in opposing British reluc-
tance to surrender power to the Indian people.
In the forefront of those opposed to Indian inde-
pendence was Winston Churchill (d. 1965), an
imperialist and political conservative who would
become England’s heroic prime minister during
World War II. Regarding Indians as children who
needed to be disciplined, the British resorted on
several occasions to the use of brute force to quell
acts of civil disobedience and nonviolent demon-
strations. Nevertheless, Indian political parties
achieved greater voting rights and were able to
hold elections in 1937. This brought the INC to
power for the first time. The AIML had a weak
showing in these elections; even where Muslims
were in the majority, local parties based on class
rather than religious identity did better than the
AIML. The INC, on the other hand, failed to bring
about meaningful changes in the aftermath of the
election, thus limiting its ability to win skeptical
Muslim voters to its ranks.
World War II brought further division between
the two parties. The INC, departing from its pro-
British stance in World War I, refused to support
the British. Subhash Bose (d. 1945), a two-term
INC president, even raised an army with Japanese
support to fight against them, hoping to achieve
independence by bringing about a British defeat.
The mainstream INC leadership, led by Gandhi,
won widespread popular support by mobiliz-
ing large-scale acts of civil disobedience against
the British, known as the Quit India Movement.
Many of the party’s leaders spent the war in prison
as a consequence, but they triumphed after the
war by sweeping the elections of 1945–46. The
AIML, on the other hand, decided to support the
British war effort in the hope that their political
position would improve with the war’s conclu-
sion. In the postwar elections, it, too, could claim
victory. It won all reserved seats in the national
legislature, plus most of the Muslim seats in local
legislatures.
The AIML’s success was a result of a strategy
of reaching out to rural voters through Sufi pirs
and taking advantage of divisions among local
political parties. Jinnah’s party also gained popu-
lar support among Muslims by invoking the ideal
of Pakistan, a “pure land” for all Indian Muslims
where they could be free to realize their ideals to
the fullest. The idea of a political entity to protect
Muslims from domination by non-Hindus had
been articulated earlier by mUhammad iqbal (d.K 356 India