Re: Land Reforms
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Gandhi was representing Hindu Industrialists and Jinnah was for the Muslim Landowners. **
Ganguly I appreciate your view of the 1930’s politics. There are few analysts / historians who want to go beyond simple Hindu-Muslim clash theory and look at the aspects such as landlord role in politics.
However you ought to see that landlords formed Muslim League and Jinnah joined the party much later. You will understand the need for landlord party when you closely scrutinize Indian Congress.
Many Baboos of today ignore the fact that Congress party (formed by British), quickly went into the hands of industrialists. These industrialists were dominated by the followers of Hinduism with small sprinkling of Parsi, or Muslims mainly of Gujrati decent. This group kept the landlords at bay, so the landowners ended up making their own party called Muslims League.
Industrialists wanted more power and money so they raised the slogan of “swa-deshi”. This was very similar to the slogan by GM and Ford when they said “Be American and Buy American”. It is comical as GM was importing 80% of its parts from overseas. In reality their slogan was meant to bring more profit to the owners rather than the benefit for ordinary American. This is how swadeshi movement was trying to bring mo-money to the industrialists.
Swadeshi movement was going nowhere, so Tilak the old leader of Congress was forced out and industrialists brought a young aspiring rebel rouser from South Africa called Mohandas Karam Chand Gandhi.
Gandhi promptly set about creating instability (woops non-violent struggle) so the British would relent and give tax breaks to the industrialists. However his success was limited because Tilak had mostly used Hindu symbols to rouse the public.
Gandhi got a gift from God when Turkey got trampled as a result of WWI. Gandhi fully exploited this chance and got most of the UPites, Biharis, and some Bengalis enraged against British government. All the Mullahs went to Gandhi camp and thus we saw the major anarchy in the country.
Jinnah was against Gandhian shenanigans. He left Congress and later joined ML.
Dear Ganguly, the bottom line is that Congress was socialist-anarchist from day one, whereas ML was a free marketer constitutionalist from day1. Jinnah and Gandhi simply followed the policies set by the king makers of the two parties.
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Big land lords existed even before British East India Company’s rule **
The current crop of feudal lords may contain some British made richie rich like Doltanas. However most of the Nawabs and Subedars were given lands by Mogals and other rulers way before 1857. So yes the land belonged to the owners just like all the Hindu industrialist like Tatas who became big thanks to British rule.
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Who formed Muslim league:**
ML was made by Nawabs and Chaudharies. Just look it the history man Nawab Salimullah, Muhsinul Mulk and Waqarul Mulk were no street urchins. It had to be dominated by Punjab as Punjab was the most prosperous region in the whole country. Even Congress was utterly dependent on “donations” from Lahore business elite and their lobbyists called Lala Lajpat Rai.