What happened to his secular politics after he joined the Muslim League?
Jinnah did not pursue a hardcore communal agenda after he returned from London to join the Muslim League. In 1937, when provincial elections were held in undivided India under British rule, the Muslim League lost badly. The Unionist Party won Punjab state, the North West Frontier Province was won by the Congress Party while Sindh was won by Allah Baksh’s Independent party. This election rout led Jinnah to realise that if the Muslim league had to survive it had to adopt communal policies. Of course, his supporters always feel the policies of the Congress provincial government like banning cow slaughter and giving Hindi importance over Urdu made Jinnah take that communal route. Does it mean he demanded a separate state of Pakistan right after the 1937 defeat? The word ‘Pakistan’ was first coined by Chaudhary Rahmat Ali in the early 1930s. It means the land of the pure. Ali had envisioned a Muslim state within Indian territory. One of its supporters later was the legendary poet Mohammad I
