Talk:All-India Muslim League

"Wiped out" or just defeated?
But when the military regime of Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan fell in December 1971, and Pakistan's first genuine free elections were held, both factions of the League were wiped out, in West Pakistan by the Pakistan People's Party of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and in East Pakistan by the National Awami League of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Now, does "wiped out" here mean that the Muslim League was exterminated, or assassinated, or forcibly disbanded? Or does it simply mean that they were roundly defeated in the elections? Could someone please clarify this? Thanks. --Skoosh 19:03, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
 * The meaning is electoral. No, there was no massacre. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:03, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
 * Great. I'm going to edit the text to clarify that. --Skoosh 10:52, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

POV remark, but something may belong
The following remark was recently and anonymously added to the list of current factions. "(Word of caution: Almost all of these factions are either King Party or some rich winnders club cobbled together by bringing in regional politicians. None of these groups can legitimately claim any real lineage to the All India Muslim League)". I've cut it to here, because it is opinionated, uncited, and not terribly well-written, but I suspect it has a reasonable basis. Can someone who knows more than me about current Pakistani politics possibly weigh in with something more solid on the history by which these current factions do, or do not, trace back to the All India Muslim League? -- Jmabel | Talk 03:23, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
 * This was correct actually. It should be re-written and added back with a tag incase the citation is still not found. --lTopGunl (talk) 11:13, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

"currently in power"
In what sense is "Muslim League (Q group) currently in power"? I was under the impression that Pervez Musharraf was more or less an autocratic ruler. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Muslim League (Q) was the majority party (probably with allies) in the National Assembly from 2002 till 2007. The Prime Ministers during this time were from this party as were most of the Federal Ministers. Hence they were in power during this period as Pakistan has a parliamentary form of government. However, Musharraf was indirectly ruling as he had assumed more power than what a president is suppose to have. Rzafar (talk) 12:54, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Ghulam Muhammad
The italicized part of the following was recently removed without comment. What is the objection to it? Factual? Off-topic? I have no particular opinion on the result, just don't think substantive material should be removed without comment: "Liaquat was succeeded by Khawaja Nazimuddin, a Bengali, who was forced from office in April 1953 by Ghulam Muhammad who found Khawaja Nazimuddin's proposed changes to laws and poor handling of massacre of Ahmadis, a religious minority group, unacceptable. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:39, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Disamb
What about making this page a disamb page, with links to the original AIML, the current IUML, and PML factions and the Bangladesh ML? All those parties come from the same root. --Soman 06:27, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I second this, sort of. Instead of having the whole page to disambiguate, we could just have something on the top. (I wrote the same thing below) Lihaas (talk) 19:51, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Pakistan
The portion on Pakistan after its formation should be a separate article, as it is a national party of Pakistan, and not the British Raj. 70.55.84.126 (talk) 06:01, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that the section about the League in Pakistan should form a separate article as it is no longer the same party.Rzafar (talk) 13:04, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
 * There is already an article on Pakistan Muslim League that can be expanded. However, this section should be kept as a legacy.-- Isles CapeTalk 11:59, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

muslim league
There's apparently a muslim league that started in india in 1974 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/597558.cms I was wondering if we ought to have this too. There's also the Muslim League Kerala State Committee (national party) which should probably have a disambiguation here. Lihaas (talk) 19:48, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Bias
The section on the Calcutta killings seems a bit biased. for example, it starts with 'the black day'. Clearly, this is not NPOV I have added the POV template to the section

== Vandalism Some lifeless freak has clearly vandalised the article. Please correct it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.109.19.18 (talk) 15:22, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

On Iqbal's part in "The Conception of Pakistan"
The article takes a disproven stand on whether or not Iqbal in fact proposed a separate Muslim nation-state ("Dr. Safdar Mehmood also fell a prey to the same misconception"). Several respectable scholars have shown, that in no good sense can such a proposal be credited to Iqbal's Presidential Address in 1930 (Cf. esp. K.K. Aziz 'The history of the idea of Pakistan'). Also, reading the actual speech itself helps to understand that he proposes a Muslim majority state in the Northwest of South Asia as part of an Indian federation among other things by explaining in long, why a Muslim majority state as part of an Indian federation would be a good defender of India against potential foreign aggressors. At the end of his speech he does use the word 'nation'. Assuming that Iqbal was mentally present and did not intend to contradict himself, he can logically only have meant 'nation' as a culturally adherent group of people, not a separate territorial state. In fact, attributing the proposal of a separate Muslim nation-state to Iqbal's 1930 Presidential Address is a misconception at least, actually more a willful misrepresentation for reasons of constructed national historiography. Yetanotherkontributor (talk) 16:00, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

A Diaspora?
I wouldn't call the Muslim population a "diaspora", as described below:

"The All-India Muslim League,(Urdu: آل انڈیا مسلم لیگ), was founded by the All India Muhammadan Educational Conference at Dhaka (now Bangladesh), in 1906, in the context of the circumstances that were generated over the partition of Bengal in 1905. Being a political party to secure the interests of the Muslim diaspora in British India . . ."

A diaspora is commonly described as a "the movement, migration, or scattering of a people away from an established or ancestral homeland," however, the Mughal period ended with the last of the Mughals; Bahadur Shah Zafar around 1862 or so. Additionally, the Mughals arrived in Hindusthan as invaders, a movement which in its true sense cannot be described as a "disapora." Other than the initial invaders who were the original carriers of Islam, the majority of the Muslim in India and Pakistan are indigenous people; a class of Hindus who converted to Islam. Therefore, this way of describing the Muslim population in India is incorrect and misleading. Jbwikidu (talk) 23:47, 18 February 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jbwikidu (talk • contribs)

Background: factual inaccuracies and NPOV.
"The Congress made no conscious efforts to enlist the Muslim community in its struggle for Indian independence. Although some Muslims were active in the Congress, majority of Muslim leaders did not trust the Hindu predominance and most of the Muslims remained reluctant to join the Congress Party."

This is biased and inaccurate as explained below.

"The Congress made no conscious efforts to enlist the Muslim community in its struggle for Indian independence.": This could be said with equal justice of the Hindu or the Sikh communities as well. Most of Congress's efforts were secular in nature. The exception to this was the Khilafat movement, which would never have become as big as it got if not for the Congress's support - and this was a Muslim issue, not a Hindu or a Sikh one! In fact, this opened the Congress to allegations from the Hindu right of appeasement of the Muslims. So to say that the Congress made no efforts (conscious or otherwise) to enlist the Muslim community is incorrect.

"Although some Muslims were active in the Congress, majority of Muslim leaders did not trust the Hindu predominance and most of the Muslims remained reluctant to join the Congress Party.": Badruddin Tyabji, Rahimtulla M. Sayani, Nawab Syed Muhammad Bahadur, Syed Hasan Imam, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Maulana Mohammad Ali, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad were all *presidents* of the Congress even before 1924 when Mahatma Gandhi became the Congress President for the first time. So this is factually incorrect. Further, saying "majority of Muslim leaders did not trust the Hindu predominance" is definitely not NPOV. "Most of the Muslims remained reluctant to join the Congress Party." This is again true of the the Hindus and the Sikhs as well, if you are referring to formal membership in the party. In fact, most Muslims were not members of the Muslim league either! If you are referring to popular support, then it is a fact that in provincial elections till (and including) the 1937 elections, the Congress won outright majorities even in Muslim majority states.

Both Aurion (23:35, 16 March 2012‎) and me (16:12, 2 April 2012‎) tried to reduce its bias and make it factual, but both have been reverted by TopGun. I have undone the revert. TopGun, before reverting again, let us cease warring. Please explain your POV here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PrasanthVRegy (talk • contribs)
 * the problem is not well stated. "The Congress made no conscious efforts to enlist the Muslim community in its struggle for Indian independence" is not negated by Gandhi's Khilafat; that had to do with the califate and did not demand Indian independence. So it's true, and when discussing the Muslims it is highly relevant and should be included. Everyone agrees "Most of the Muslims remained reluctant to join the Congress Party." is true. Brown emphasizes that Congress had a few "token Muslims" but that;s about it. (Brown, Modern India p 184) That means it can be included without any POV. "Although some Muslims were active in the Congress, majority of Muslim leaders did not trust the Hindu predominance and most of the Muslims remained reluctant to join the Congress Party." -- Brown makes this point repeatedly and naming 7 Muslim "tokens" (her term) who were highly visible in Congress does not refute it. This article is about the Muslims and their perspective, and is not about Hindus or Sikhs (therefore not mentioning what Hindus or  Sikhs thought is not a POV.)  Rjensen (talk) 06:00, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
 * PrasanthVRegy, please read WP:BRD... reverting an unexplained edit by Aurorion does not add to any kind of edit war (and he didn't even try to discuss it later). I reverted your edit with reason, and I see that you've been reverted by another user too, so do not imply an editwar when you get reverted the first time. You seem to be adding some kind of POV in the article . Implying such demand from an election which had a completely different result in the end. See WP:SYNTH which might get you started on how to go about this. We can not make assumptions based on facts ourselves... sources have to explicitly state what you add (not that you gave any source at all) and even then other facts contradict in this case. -- lTopGunl (talk) 17:00, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Misleading use of evidence
In the 'searching for a solution' section the "proportion of Muslims among delegates to Congress fell from 11% in 1921 to under 4% in 1923.[9]" is used to exemplify the 'parting of the ways' and the downturn in relations between Muslims and Congress after Jinnah's rejection of the Nehru report. However the Nehru report was published in 1928 so, whilst this information is clearly interesting, it seems not to match the point it is quoted as evidence of. Any thoughts? Jlctom (talk) 10:07, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
 * yes that needed rephrasing, so I changed it. The point Brown makes was that the coming apart was underway in the 1920s, as the % of Muslim delegates had already fallen by 1923 to an inconsequential number. Sarkar (Modern India p233) and Markovits (Hist Modern India p 372) all agree regarding the very rapid growth of communalism in 1920s. Rjensen (talk) 10:32, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Introduction
I took a crack at correcting the confused language and factual inaccuracies of the first paragraph, but I stopped at this sentence: "From 1906–30s, the party worked on its organizational structure, its credibility in all over the Muslim communities of British Indian Empire, and lacked as a mass organisation but represented the landed and commercial Muslim interests of the United Provinces (today's Uttar Pradesh)." First I don't know what it is trying to say, and, second, whatever that is, it is not supported by the reference it cites.

The next paragraph as well needs some surgery. AnthroMimus (talk) 17:31, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

1906 picture: can the faces be labelled?
Could there be a version of the 1906 picture with (at least some of) the faces labelled? Perhaps numbers superimposed, and a look-up table, or by some other means? JDAWiseman (talk) 13:36, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Hyman, Ghayur & Kaushik failed verification
I have moved from the article to here this ostensibly sourced paragraph:

"After the death of ultraconservative President Zia-ul-Haq, the PML convention ultimately collapsed and an inter-party struggle between each faction ensued. The factions led by Fida Mohammad, Pir Pagara, and Junejo were primarily competing against each other to gain influence of ailing Muslim League. Eventually, Fida Mohammad's faction eventually gained the most the control of the PML factions as Nawaz Sharif becoming the leader of the faction when Fida Mohammad stepped down."

It fails verification. The book mentions the Islamic Democratic Alliance (IDA), of which the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) was a member. Perhaps that is what the editor who added this meant by "PML convention", but the book does not discuss its collapse. The book mentions two Leagues, one led by Junejo, but does not name the second, does not mention a third faction, does not mention Pagara in this context, and does not mention Fida Mohammad anywhere. All the book says about Nawaz Sharif is that he was a key leader of the IDA.

Furthermore, the book is not the preferred type of source for the history of a political party. It is not written by historians or political scientists or published by an academic or scholarly press. According to the preface, it was dashed off by a trio of journalists (in a remarkable 12 days between conception and delivery to the printers) with the stated aim of being "a readable and authentic analysis of a highly complex political subject". The chapter that covers the period in question identifies no sources, and does not appear to have received much attention, if any, from an editor. In the months immediately following Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq's death, a book like this may have been the only source available, but surely nearly three decades later there are better sources.

I have no objection to some variation of the paragraph being restored if a reliable source is supplied (and the tortured English is fixed). --Worldbruce (talk) 04:15, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

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Iqbal's Conception of Pakistan
The continued misrepresentation of Iqbal's speech during the annual session of the All India Muslim League is amazing. You do not need so-called scholars to interpret and argue what he said. He was very clear. The context of his speech was part of the same conversation that had been going since 1916 with the Lucknow Pact and the desire among all Indians for a form of autonomy and self-rule. He was in particular responding to the Nehru Report while also discussing the Simon Commission. How would self-rule in India look like and the Muslim League was always clear about needing autonomy for the Muslim majority provinces within a united federated India. He was simply proposing a consolidation in the northwest into one very large Muslim majority province because he thought that would allow the Muslims to consolidate their power and be the best way for them to have their space and build their Indian identity. These so-called scholars either do not know what they are talking about or they are engaged in an intentional gross misrepresentation of history.

Was the founding a result of British meddling?
Here is what Shashi Tharoor writes in Inglorious Empire: "..the British watched the rise to prominance of Congress, a secular body transcending religion, with growing disapproval, and pronounced it a Hindu-dominated organisation. They instigated a Muslim nobleman, Nawab Khwaja Salimullah of Dacca, to start a rival organization in 1906 for his co-religionists alone, the Muslim League'. In other words the League was created as a British ploy as part of Divide and Rule. Is this true? If it is it should surely be included. If not well, then I'd like to know that too! LastDodo (talk) 14:11, 17 April 2020 (UTC)