Hindu-Muslim Question and Our Freedom Struggle: 1857-1935 (In 2 Volumes)

The book is a document written in 1946 regarding the genesis of the Pakistan demand of Muslim League. It was submitted to the Communist Party of India for discussion. Due to the hectic political activities, partition and its aftermath and change in the CPI leadership in 1948 etc. this discussion did not take place. In this book Ashraf traces the genesis of the Hindu-Muslim question and shows that at various phases the two communities had very closely cooperated in the freedom movement and how, again through stages they drifted away to reach a stage of no compromise and insistence on partition. Through profuse documentation Ashraf demonstrates the evolution of Congress-league relationship from serious cooperation to its total disruption. He shows that their real difference rested on the nature of the future Indian State whether it should be Federal or Central. The book traces year by year and session by session the evolution of the differences in the two approaches that ended up in total rupture. Most significant point that Ashraf makes concern national question per se. In other words, the question from the side of the Muslims was not of safeguarding minority rights but of economic and administrative power in provides where they were in majority to act according to their perceptions and interests. On the other hand Congress was looking at the whole problem exclusively from the angle of minority safeguards. Today, when national questions is emerging as an explosive problems almost all over the world, viz. UK., USA, Europe, Central Asia, South-east Asia, South Asia, Latin America and Africa, the discussion and approach of the author to his very question has become more pertinent and important than it was at the moment of its writing.