Iqbal was one of the earliest proponents of the Two Nation Theory after Syed Ahmed Khan. He was also a prominent leader of the All India Muslim League.
To honour Muhammad Iqbal popularly known as Allama Iqbal, the All India Trinamool Congress celebrated Jashn-e-Iqbal. Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal has taken minority appeasement to a ridiculou proportion. Urdu posters with Iqbal’s and Mamata’s pictures were seen spattered across the Kolkata skyline which few were able to read and comprehend. Not many would be aware that Iqbal was one of the earliest proponents of the Two Nation Theory after Syed Ahmed Khan. He was also a prominent leader of the All India Muslim League. It was Muhammad Iqbal who provided an ideological justification for the creation of a “State in north-western India for Muslims” under the British rule.
In his presidential address to the 25th session of the All-India Muslim League on December 29 1930, at Allahabad, Iqbal called for the creation of “a Muslim India within India”, especially in north-western India and demanded the right of self-government for the Muslims. In his correspondences with Jinnah in 1937 he also sought to include Bengal in his proposed state. Iqbal was against secularism and was a fanatical Muslim. In his book, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, he expressed fears that secularism would weaken the spiritual foundations of Muslim society. India’s Hindu-majority population would destroy Muslim heritage, culture and political influence. That such a communal figure was conferred with the title of Tarana-e-Hind does not really come as a surprise as this government has been consistently subverted national conscious. However no member of the famed intelligentsia in Kolkata or the political parties murmured a word of protest against the event. The establishment of an Urdu department at the Alia University was hurriedly announced within days and a Chair in the name of Iqbal has been announced to carry out research on his work and thoughts.
—Nilanjan Nandi
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