The Pittsburgh Press (February 26, 1946)
Background of news –
‘Pakistan’
By Buel W. Patch
One of the principal stumbling blocks to a solution in India is the division between Hindus and Moslems.
Some 260 million of India’s 400 million people are Hindus; around 90 million are Moslems. The differences are religious rather than racial, for most Moslems are of the same racial stock as the Hindus. But the Moslem minority fears dominance by the Hindus in a self-governing India.
These fears are responsible for the so-called Pakistan plan, put forward in 1940 by the Moslem League, headed by Mohammed Ali Jinnah. The plan calls for division of British India into two separate states. Pakistan and Hindustan.
Originally, Pakistan was to comprise only areas in which Moslems were in a majority. Now Jinnah demands inclusion of the whole of six provinces: Bengal and Assam in northeastern India, and the Punjab, Sind, Baluchistan and the Northwest Frontier Province in northwestern India. The two areas are 1,500 miles apart.
Populations mixed
Moslems generally are in the majority in the three small provinces of Sind. Northwest Frontier and Baluchistan. In Assam, except in one district, they are in the minority. While Moslems are a majority of the whole population in Bengal and the Punjab, Hindus are in the majority in the western half of Bengal and the eastern half of the Punjab.
Bengal is the largest province of India, having a population of over 60 million, and it contains India’s largest city, Calcutta, in the southwestern part of the province. The Punjab is India’s fifth largest province, with a population of over 28 million.
The Congress Party, representing the Hindus, at first opposed the Pakistan pian outright. But in September 1944, Gandhi indicated that he would agree to the plan on certain conditions. He proposed that after India had been freed, a commission demarcate contiguous districts in the northeast and northwest in which the Moslem population had an absolute majority and that the issue of Pakistan then be decided on the basis of a plebiscite of all the inhabitants of those districts.
Plebiscite opposed
Jinnah’s demand for the Hindu areas may be agreed to without a plebiscite, and that Pakistan include the whole of the six provinces. The total population of the six provinces is over 100 million. If western Bengal and eastern Punjab and all of Assam except the Moslem Sylhet district were omitted, as contemplated under the Gandhi proposal, the population of Pakistan would be around 60 million.
Jinnah’s demand for the Hindus areas may reflect a belief, shared by others, that they would be needed to make Pakistan economically feasible. His opposition to a plebiscite may reflect doubt as to the strength of Moslem support for Pakistan.
The word “Pakistan” means “Holy Land.” Moslem League followers say also that the P stands for Punjab, and A for Afghanistan, the K for Kashmir (an Indian state north of the Punjab) and “istan” for the final letters of Baluchistan.
The reference to Afghanistan has led observers to suggest that Pakistan revives the idea of a Pan-Islamic Federation.