Why did Muslims demand a seperate state of Pakistan during the Indian independence movement?
Would you believe that they didn’t? Jinnah actually only wanted greater autonomy for the Muslim majority provinces in Pakistan… he did not want to partition India into two separate countries because he feared that would only weaken the Muslim nation as they would be unable to benefit from the economic and political strength of a united India. What ended up happening was that the British and the Hindu Indians realized that if they met Jinnah’s demands, then they would no longer be able to run India as they pleased, since the Muslims would in essence be governing themselves. So the best solution in their eyes was to cut up the country, get rid of the economically and politcally weaker parts (the Muslim majority parts) and focus on maintaining the strength of a Hindu India. India inherited all the British political, military and economic infrastructure and Pakistan had to start from scratch. This is a prime reason for the disparity in economic growth and political maturity between India
