The Punjab Elections of 1951

Following the creation of Pakistan and Jama‘at’s move to Lahore, Mawdudi escalated the party’s involvement in politics just as he consolidated its identity and organizational structure. The Jama‘at grew in numbers during these years, but more important, it was able to do so with greater facility. It was no longer plagued with the kinds of problems of morale and discipline that had characterized its prepartition years. Difficulty, however, continued to loom on the horizon for a party which remained divided over the extent of the rights of its leader, its religious calling, and political agenda, and the question of ideological principles versus political interests. Even as late as 1951 the Jama‘at had described its plan of action as (1) the reform of the life and minds of individual Muslims, (2) organization and training of virtuous men, (3) social reform, and (4) reform of the government and the political structure.^[1] Politics was not only listed last, but it could not be addressed until the first three phases of the plan had been completed. Until the end of the first decade of its existence, the Jama‘at remained a movement immersed in religious work; it strove to control the souls of men and eyed politics with awe and suspicion. Although it spoke of its political ideals, it stayed aloof from the day-to-day conduct of politics, preferring the seclusion of its holy community to the vicissitudes of action. It deliberately, for instance, avoided any involvement in the Indian national elections of 1945.^[2]

The resolution of the conflict over the party’s ultimate aim continued to attract the attention of the Jama‘at’s leaders during an otherwise uneventful period in the party’s history following its move to Pakistan. It continued to operate as it had in its days in India. No longer inhibited by the fear of lending support to the Congress, it became bolder in its opposition to the Muslim League, but its politicization remained in the nature of moral guidance and the articulation of an ideal for Pakistan. It continued to rely on the power and appeal of its message and to operate more in the mold of a holy community than that of a political party. This was in keeping with Mawdudi’s reading of Jinnah’s success. Pakistan was the product not of the Muslim League’s efficacy as a political machine but of the appeal of Islam on the one hand and Jinnah’s ability to relay his vision to the multitude of Indian Muslims on the other. The Jama‘at therefore began its activity in Pakistan debating with the country’s founders and its citizens, hoping to replicate the intellectual and emotional process which Jinnah had initiated a decade earlier. The party’s emphasis remained on propaganda, and its campaign to publish its literature during those early years is indicative of its understanding of politics in Pakistan.

It was not long before the Jama‘at’s hopes for a quick and easy Islamization of Pakistan were dashed. Mawdudi’s political naïveté and the limits of the Jama‘at’s ingenuous political program began to show. Pakistan was not going to fall into the hands of the Jama‘at through propaganda alone; the party had to politicize its activities to stave off challenges from a hostile government and to push Pakistan toward an Islamic goal. Elections scheduled in Punjab for March 1951 provided the occasion for the Jama‘at to initiate a new plan of action and enter into an era of more direct political involvement.

Participation in elections and expanding the Jama‘at’s political horizons were questions that came before the party when Mawdudi was temporarily out of power. He had been put in prison for questioning the Islamicity of the state, and the party was being led by the two provisional amirs, ‘Abdu’l-Ghaffar Hasan and ‘Abdu’l-Jabbar Ghazi. They put the matter before the shura’, which debated it extensively. Despite the opposition of some members to participating in the elections and associating with the political system, the shura’ sanctioned the party’s participation,^[3] but did not put forward any candidates of its own. It would lend support to those candidates whom it deemed virtuous (salih)^[4] as determined by voters’ councils (panchayats). Each of these councils would consist of fifty-three members, twenty-three of whom would be appointed by the Jama‘at. The role the Jama‘at chose in the elections was peculiar: it was not vying for its own political gain but fighting to prevent the election of those who would prevent it from gaining in the future. The party still saw its role as providing religious education and propaganda and regarded elections as merely a tool for sanitizing politics.

The election results were not a triumph for the Jama‘at. The candidates it favored collected only two hundred thousand votes in the thirty-seven constituencies in which it was active.^[5] Either the people of Punjab had not heard the Jama‘at’s call or they had chosen to ignore it. Whichever the case, the Jama‘at was clearly dejected by the results, aside from Mawdudi, who saw gains even in defeat. The election, he argued, had served to propagate the Jama‘at’s program far and wide and had strengthened the party by bringing in many new members, workers, and sympathizers, an argument that was ever after repeated by the Jama‘at leaders to justify participation in elections and to make defeats therein palatable.

Despite Mawdudi’s optimism, the defeat was serious enough to cause much soul-searching. The party thenceforth became more diligent in its organizational and propaganda efforts, hoping to amend those shortcomings which it saw as responsible for its defeat and to redeem itself in future elections. Coveting electoral victories required a different organizational outlook and a different attitude toward politics and elections. The Jama‘at found it had a vested interest in the electoral process. It began to compare itself with other political parties, transforming its aim of establishing virtuous leadership (salih qiyadat) from a distant goal into an immediate objective.

The election campaign had also presented the Jama‘at with an unwelcome breakdown of discipline. To the chagrin of Mawdudi and the elders of the Jama‘at, workers and rank-and-file members were sufficiently swayed by the demands of the electoral campaign to transgress the party’s code of ethics. The frequency and extent of complaints put before the party’s leaders were disconcerting and led Mawdudi to reiterate the need to maintain party discipline. The election and its aftermath had, all in all, thrown the Jama‘at into confusion. On the surface, the party continued to adhere to its four-point plan of action, outlined shortly before the elections in November 1951. In reality politics was no longer last on the list. Debates over whether the party’s mission was religious propaganda or politics were waged with increasing frequency. Senior members such as Mas‘ud ‘Alam Nadwi, ‘Abdu’l-Jabbar Ghazi, and ‘Abdu’l-Rahim Ashraf, citing the deleterious effect of electoral politics on the morale of the holy community, argued against remaining active in politics for the time being.^[6] Mawdudi and Islahi were inclined toward politics, and hence suggested two agendas—political activism and religious work—simultaneously, which only added to both the confusion and the debate.^[7] The anti-Ahmadi agitations of 1953–1954 and Mawdudi’s subsequent imprisonment gave them no opportunity to resolve this issue satisfactorily. It was left to fester until it eventually caused the most serious rupture in the party’s history.