Former Prime Minister of Jawahar Lal Nehru and picture from a rally in Kerala, Image: Twitter
Former Member of Parliament Rahul Gandhi is on a ten-day visit to the United States. During his visit, Gandhi talked about press freedom, his disqualification as MP and a score of issues relating to the country. During one such interaction organised at the National Press Club, Washington DC, Gandhi said their ally in Kerala, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) is a ‘Secular’ party. The same party which is formed out of the fractions of the All India Muslim League and held responsible for the partition of the country on religious grounds.
It is pertinent to mention that his own ancestors had similar views. During his Kerala visit in 1958, Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru said, “I don’t know what else the Muslim League represents, other than the sad and tragic incidents during the Partition. Except for Kerala, the Muslim League flags are not seen anywhere in India. The Muslim League is nothing but a party of riots & bunch of evil emotions.”
In the US a reporter asked Rahul Gandhi about the Congress’s alliance with the Muslim League in Kerala in the context of its championing secularism and opposing the BJP’s Hindutva politics. To which he replied, “Muslim League is a completely secular party. There is nothing non-secular about Muslim League,”
“I think the person [who asked the question] hasn’t studied the Muslim League,” he added.
However, Nehru was the one who blamed the party for the tragic events during the Partition. He called it a party of Riots, representing all evils present in the world.
The bizarre statement made by the Congress supremo has stirred criticism from the BJP and all those who find the Muslim League controversial, considering their past.
Drawing parallels between IUML and founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s political party All India Muslim League, Union minister Kiren Rijiju called Gandhi’s comment ‘extremely unfortunate’.
“Jinnah’s Muslim League is a secular party? The party responsible for India’s partition on religious lines is a secular party? Extremely unfortunate that some people in India still consider the person who supports the Muslim League as Secular!” he tweeted.
BJP I-T Cell in-charge Amit Malviya Tweeted, “Jinnah’s Muslim League, the party responsible for India’s partition, on religious lines, according to Rahul Gandhi is a ‘secular’ party. Rahul Gandhi, though poorly read, is simply being disingenuous and sinister here It is also his compulsion to remain acceptable in Wayanad,”
Union minister KJ Alphons said Gandhi shouldn’t be ‘pardoned’ because he holds ‘very limited intellectual capacity’. He added, “Indian Union Muslim League – it obviously means that it is a party only for the Muslims, there are no Hindus or Christians; there has never been and there will never be…The party has become completely silent on extremism, and fundamentalism. Kerala has become the laboratory for ISIS & these people don’t say a word,” as quoted by ANI.
Another minister in the Union cabinet Prahlad Singh Patel said, “The mindset that calls the Muslim League ‘secular’ is dangerous…if they say Muslim League is secular, they are sowing seeds of division,” he said.
On the other hand, senior Congress leader Pawan Khera told news agency PTI, “We are talking about IUML. PM Modi and Amit Shah only understand Jinnah’s Muslim league,”.
Before getting into the history of IUML let us tell you what Nehru said about the party. During his speech at Alappuzha, seeing the flags of the Indian Union Muslim League in Kerala. Nehru commented that the IUML flags are seen only in Kerala and they are no longer present anywhere else in the country. In retaliation for criticising the IUML and calling it a ‘dead horse’, the Kerala leaders of the Muslim League, Nehru a Hindu fanatic. His speech criticising IUML was also published in Kesari Malayalam Weekly in the month of May 1958.
The History of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML)
Let us take you to a brief history of the IUML (Indian Union Muslim League), an ally of the Congress party in Kerala and the party that played a major role in Rahul Gandhi’s election from the Wayanad constituency.
The IUML was founded in 1948 in Madras, by the remaining Indian Members of the All India Muslim League, led by M Mohammed Ismail. A new party by the name of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) was then formed “to advance the interests of Muslims in the Union”. It is also said that, At the Karachi conference of the Muslim League in December 1948, Jinnah designated Muhammad Ismail, an Islamist from Tamil Nadu to start IUML in India.
Cut to 1952 when the party was divided into two over the question of joining hands with Congress. Notably, the Congress high command refused to accept the party’s demands in the run-up to 1952 elections.
With the formation of Kerala as a state and the Malabar region as its part, having a substantial Muslim population did changed the course of the party and its work culture. Then came the state assembly elections in 1957 and the Communist Party of India (CPI) came into power. Following the dissatisfaction among people, The Kerala unit of the Muslim League allied with the Congress and the then-existing Praja Socialist Party (PSP) to form a joint committee to pull down the Communist government, which eventually happened in July 1959.
The PSP, the IUML, and the Congress united for the 1960 elections and won a resounding victory. No cabinet posts were not awarded to the IUML. In the end, the collaboration failed, and the League left it in 1961. A seven-party coalition led by EMS Namboodiripad, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the CPI, and the IUML took power in 1967 after a protracted period of political unrest.
Under this government came the infamous decision was taken to carve parts of Palakkad and Kozhikode districts to create a Muslim-majority Malappuram district. Soon the coalition broke down as IUML joined Congress.
Since then the League stayed with the Congress, going on to become a founding member of the United Democratic Front (UDF) coalition. CH Mohammed Koya was the only member of the IUML to get the Chief Minister’s seat, having lasted 50-odd days during the turbulent late 1970s.
Koya remains to date the only Muslim Chief Minister of Kerala. His son, MK Muneer, is a prominent Muslim League politician and is currently the Deputy Opposition Leader. The IUML enjoys a substantial amount of support from the Muslim community in the state, but more radical and extreme groupings such as the Socialist Democratic Party of India (SDPI) and Welfare Party of India (WPI) have gained some traction lately.
IUML fought the following battles in the past:
History of All India Muslim League
The All-India Muslim League (AIML) was a political party established in Dhaka in 1906 when some well-known Muslim politicians. The goal of the party was of securing Muslim interests on the Indian subcontinent. During the 1906 annual meeting of the All India Muslim Education Conference held in Israt Manzil Palace, Dhaka, the Nawab of Dhaka, Khwaja Salimullah, forwarded a proposal to create a political party that would protect the interests of Muslims in British India. Sir Mian Muhammad Shafi, a prominent Muslim leader from Lahore, suggested the political party be named the ‘All-India Muslim League’.
In the 1930s, the idea of a separate nation-state and influential philosopher Sir Muhammad Iqbal’s vision of uniting the four provinces in North-West British India further supported the rationale of the two-nation theory. This aligned with the ideas proposed by Syed Ahmad Khan.
The Muslim League played a decisive role in the 1940s, becoming a driving force behind the division of India along religious lines and the creation of Pakistan as a Muslim state in 1947.
After the Partition of India and the establishment of Pakistan, the All-India Muslim League was formally disbanded in India. The League was officially succeeded by the Pakistan Muslim League, which eventually split into several political parties. Other groups diminished to a minor party, that too only in the Kerala state of India. In Bangladesh, the Muslim League was revived in 1976, but it was reduced in size, rendering it insignificant in the political arena. In India, its smallest entity called the Indian Union Muslim League was formed, which continues to have a presence in the Indian parliament to this day.
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