Two-nation theory (Pakistan)

The two-nation theory is the basis for justifying Pakistan as a separate state in the Indian subcontinent. It states that Muslims and Hindus cannot live together in the same state because of their different religions.

The theory is based on the inaugural speech of the newly elected chairman of the All India Muslim League (AIML), Muhammad Iqbal, at the party's convention in Allahabad on December 29, 1930:

I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India.

In this context, Iqbal propagates a state structure in which the culturally and religiously differentiated groups form separate units that are to form a "harmonious whole" within India. The recognition of differences between ethnic groups is central to this for Iqbal. "The Muslim demand for the creation of a Muslim India within India is therefore fully justified."

For Iqbal, Islam represents the central element for the development of a Muslim state. In Islam, he sees an ethical ideal developed into a form of law and government that had a culture-shaping effect on society in India. Here, Iqbal thinks of an Islamic state in terms of a social legal structure. In this context, Iqbal criticizes European societies, in which he identifies a problematic separation of church and state that results in neighboring European states "getting along badly." He discovers major problems due to the European privatization of religion and therefore sees the ethical component he identifies in Islam as constitutive of a legal order. Islam thus becomes a state-bearing factor for Iqbal in a constructive way. "The truth is that Islam is not a church. It is a state, conceived as a contractual organism [...] and animated by an ethical ideal that regards man not as an earth-rooted creature [...] but as a spiritual being to be understood within a social mechanism and possessing rights and duties as a living factor in that mechanism [...]." To be sure, Iqbal's remarks as a whole emphasize a communalism within India. However, Iqbal has in mind both the harmony external to the state, in the sense of a peaceful coexistence of cultures, and the harmony internal to the state of a Muslim state, for which Islam is, in his view, decisive.

The later founder and first head of state of Pakistan Muhammad Ali Jinnah took up the idea of a separate state for Indian Muslims in his speech at a Muslim League meeting on March 22, 1940:

Hindus and Muslims have different religious backgrounds, have different daily life and literature. They do not intermarry or eat together because they belong to two different cultures based on contradictory ideas and concepts. [...] The squeezing of such peoples into a single state - one as a numerical minority, the other as a majority - must lead to growing discontent and eventual destruction of the governmental structures of such a state.

The following day, the Muslim League adopted the Lahore Resolution.

The two-nation theory was not supported by the entire Indian independence movement. The Hindu-majority Indian National Congress (INC) rejected it, considering itself a secular organization and not wanting to include religious issues in the formation of the state. The proponents of the two-nation theory prevailed, which led to the partition of British India into the two states of India and Pakistan with the implementation of the Mountbatten Plan.