Punjab Muslim League and its Victory of Elections 1945-46: An Analysis of Internal Party Organization
Abstract
The victory of Punjab Muslim League in elections of 1945-46 represented a turning point in the political history of India. Since that time a scholarly debate started about the causes of this swiping victory of the Muslim League. In this regard, most of the scholars focused on external factors like that it was not the Muslim League, but its opponents that failed to perform well and they gave the chance to Muslim League to win the elections. In the same way, some scholars presented that slogan ‘Islam in danger’, support of landlords, or weaknesses of Unionists or support from the salaried class made Muslim League popular in Punjab; while they ignored the internal cohesiveness of the Punjab Muslim League in that election. So in this context, this paper contends that along with external factors, the internal party organizational strength like its leadership, manifesto, organization, electoral campaign also contributed in the victory of Punjab Muslim League in the elections. In this regard, in order to advance the argument this paper is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on the Punjab Muslim League’s internal party strengths while the second part is about the counter arguments of other writers
Authors
Samia Khalid
Assistant Professor, Department of History, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Punjab, Pakistan
Muhammad Fiaz Anwar
Assistant Professor, Department of Pakistan Studies, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Punjab, Pakistan
Keywords
Political Leadership, Party Manifesto, Organizational Structure, Landlords, Salaried Class