West Indian Culture

Provincial autonomy, tortuous journey from idea to reality

Provincial autonomy, tortuous journey from idea to reality

By Zubair Shah

Dr Muhammad Iqbal in his December 1930 presidential address of All India Muslim League at Allahabad proposed in a tentative style a lose federation of Muslim majority provinces of North Western India within Indian federation. Our beloved Sindh was not a province in itself then rather it was part of Hindu majority province of Bombay yet Iqbal included it in his vision of a contiguous Muslim majority autonomous region. Apparently, for reasons unbeknownst to us Iqbal did not present any similar plan for Muslim majority province of Bengal in the North East.

Muslim League, 10 years down the road adopted its famous Lahore Resolution, later termed as Pakistan Resolution by the Hindu press of Lahore, by proposing what can only be termed as a confederation in constitutional terminology. The resolution reads unequivocally in pertinent parts:

“That the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in majority as in the North-Western and Eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute independent states in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.”

That was the ideological and theoretical underpinnings of what was later to be emerged as the British Dominion of Pakistan. The resolution clearly identified those constituent units as Bengal, Punjab, Sindh, British Balochistan, North West Frontier Province as a League’s representative from each of those constituent units formally endorsed the resolution in party’s three day long session from March 22 to 24, 1940. Kashmir was never part of the calculus as it was a princely state ruled by a Hindu Dogra Maharaja and it then included vassal states of Gilgit-Baltistan.

Interestingly, soon after its inception, British Dominion of Pakistan became a highly centralised state at the expense of its constituent units in derogation of Muslim League’s several declarations and promises. Numerous efforts by the politicians for constitutional solutions were sabotaged by an evil nexus of civil and military bureaucracy dominated by the Western wing of the country. In fact, instead of devolving, on October 14, 1955 Pakistan moved closer to become a unitary state as a single unit was formed ostensibly for administrative reasons in what was then West Pakistan, thus further clouding the ethno-cultural identities of smaller federating units.

Mixed Race Studies » Scholarly Perspectives on Mixed-Race » Hybrid ...

Spring Term 2011

Kimberly Chang , Associate Professor of Cultural Psychology

This course explores two related concepts—hybridity and authenticity—that underlie many present-day struggles over cultural identity and representation. The former calls attention to the multiplicity of social identities that vie for recognition within a person, while the latter emphasizes what is unique or essential to the self. While the hybrid is often charged with being inauthentic or fake, claims to authenticity are frequently criticized for being exclusive or reactionary. How do we negotiate among multiple and often contending identities? When do we feel the need to claim an authentic self? What are the pressures to do so and what purpose do such claims serve? We will read across disciplinary perspectives—including history, philosophy, psychology and literature—and explore these questions through both analytical and creative forms. While the “mixed race” experience will be the primary lens for the course, we will interrogate the ways that racial categories intersect with other axis of difference in the making of selves, identities, and communities.

For more information, click here .

The plural society in the British West Indies

The West Indies, patterns of development, culture, and environmental change since 1492

The argumentative Indian, writings on Indian history, culture, and identity

Origins of the Tainan Culture, West Indies

East Indian music in the West Indies, tān-singing, chutney, and the making of Indo-Caribbean culture