Ahmadiyyat - The Renaissance of Islam — Page 243
THE RENAISSANCE OF ISLAM 243 formed his own Muslim League Party and the Muslim members of the Legislative Assembly rallied round him. He early put forward the claim that the Muslim League alone represented Muslim public opinion in the political field. But it took him some time and a spell of very hard work to establish that position in fact and to have it recognized by the government and his non-Muslim opponents. From the beginning, however, the trend had set in very strongly in his favour and in the very first elections to the legislatures the Muslim League representation became a factor to be reck- oned with. The Khalifatul Masih and the Ahmadiyya Com- munity throughout lent him their support and became a source of strength for him upon which he could rely confi- dently. In the 1937 elections the Muslim League succeeded in consolidating its position in the Muslim majority provinces and also won almost all the Muslim seats in the provinces in which Muslims were in. a minority. The Congress had won majorities in those provinces and refused to appoint any Muslim League member of the Provincial Legislatures to the post of Minister in any of those provinces. This brought about a direct confrontation between the Muslim League and the Congress. When, on the outbreak of the Second World War, the Congress Ministries resigned as a protest against the entry of India into the war without any consultation with the representatives of the people, the Muslims celebrated the occasion as the Day of Deliverance. In March 1940 the Muslim League in its Lahore session adopted the well-known resolution which has been construed as the demand for Pakistan. The one weakness in the position of the Muslim League. and of its leader, MrJinnah, was that in the Punjab which was to be the heart of Pakistan, the Provincial Government was headed at first by Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan, and after his death by Malik Sir Khizar Hayat Khan. The party that they headed was the Unionist Party, the membership of which comprised Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs. While Sir Sikandar