GM Syed Tabled the Resolution in Sindh Assembly
Prepared and researched by: Mohammad Mashhood Qasmi
The Lahore Resolution was passed in the month of March in 1940. After three years, on March 3, 1943, a resolution was passed in the Sindh Assembly in favor of Pakistan, and thus the Sindh Assembly was the first British Indian legislature to pass a resolution in favor of Pakistan. Sain GM Syed, who joined the Muslim League in 1938, presented the resolution. An important point of this resolution was the proposal of complete autonomy for the provincial units joining Pakistan.
The important to mention is that the All India Muslim League formally laid the foundation of Tehreek-e-Pakistan in Sindh almost two years before the Lahore Resolution. Although some other proposals for partition including Chaudhry Rehmat Ali’s Pakistan scheme had come to the fore, since the proposal put forward by Allama Iqbal in 1930 from the platform of the All India Muslim League (which included a demand for a separate Muslim state within a loose federation) no demand for the partition of India was raised. The political leaders of Sindh also have the honor of having liberated Sindh from the Bombay Presidency after a long struggle and on April 1, 1936, the province of Sindh came into existence with its own separate assembly. And then on June 26, 1947, the Assembly of Sindh province first announced its accession to Pakistan by holding a special session.
Before GM Syed presented the resolution in the Sindh Assembly, in 1938 the All India Muslim League Sindh meeting was held in Karachi where resolutions regarding the partition of India were presented.
ALL INDIA MUSLIM LEAGUE SINDH CONFERENCE IN KARACHI 1938 (Resoltion passed in Conference)
• Whereas it [Congress] has deliberately established purely Hindu rule in certain provinces by forming ministries either without Muslim ministers or with Muslim ministers having no following among the Muslim members, in direct and flagrant violation of the letter and spirit of the Government of India Act 1935 and Instrument of Instruction. Whereas the ministries so formed have established a sort of rule which has for its aim the intimidation and demoralization of Muslims, the extermination of the healthy and nation building influences of the Muslim Culture, the suppression of Muslim religious customs and their religious obligations and elimination of their political rights as a separate community.
• Whereas it [congress] has in open defiance of the democratic principles persistently endeavors to render the power of the Muslim majorities ineffective and unimportant in the North Western Frontier Province, Bengal, the Punjab and Sindh by trying to bring into power or by supporting coalition ministries not enjoying the confidence of the majority of Muslims and the Muslim masses of those provinces.
• Whereas the evolution of a single united India and united Indian nation inspired by common aspirations and common Ideals being impossible for realization on account of the caste-ridden mentality and anti-Muslim policy of the majority community, and also on account of acute difference of religion, language, script, culture, social laws and outlook on life of the two major communities and even of race in certain parts-
• This Conference consider it absolutely essential in the interests of an abiding peace of the vast Indian continent and in the interests of unhampered cultural development, the economic and social betterment, political self-determination of the two nations known as Hindus and Muslims, to recommend to All India Muslim League to review and revise the entire question of what should be the suitable constitution for India which will secure honorable and legitimate status due to them, and that this conference, therefore recommends to the All India Muslim League to device a scheme of constitution under which Muslims may attain full Independence.
Text of resolution moved by GM Syed in Sindh Assembly
The text of the resolution presented by GM Syed on 3 March 1943 was,
This House recommends to Government to convey to His Majesty’s Government through His Excellency the Viceroy, the sentiments and wishes of the Muslims of this Province that whereas Muslims of India are a separate nation possessing religion, philosophy, social customs, literature, traditions, political and economic theories of their own, quite different from those of the Hindus, they are justly entitled to the right, as a single, separate nation, to have independent national states of their own, carved out in the zones where they are in majority in the sub-continent of India.”
“Wherefore they emphatically declare that no constitution shall be acceptable to them that will place the Muslims under a Central Government dominated by another nation, as in order to be able to play their part freely on their own distinct lines in the order of things to come, it is necessary for them to have independent National States of their own and hence any attempt to subject the Muslims of India under one Central Government is bound to result in Civil War with grave unhappy consequences.”