The forgotten Iqbal

Iqbal believed that a promise to take Muslims of India out of poverty was only way to mobilise them for independence

In Lahore’s Greater Iqbal Park yesterday, a nouveau political class observed Iqbal’s 84^th death anniversary by exploiting his poetry for narrower ends. This class needs to be reminded of his prose on real economic issues of poverty, population, feudalism and land reform. In Ilmul Iqtisad (1904), he identified poverty as the main problem: “The question has arisen in the present age whether poverty is also a necessary element in the world system. Is it not possible that every individual be free from the suffering of poverty? Can it not be that the heart-rending calls of those quietly groaning all over the place silence for ever and the sad spectacle of poverty that frightens a caring heart, disappear from the face of the earth like a blot on the landscape?” To him, the study of economics and “reflecting on its results is particularly important for the Indians, as poverty is becoming a common complaint here. Due to the lack of universal education, our country is totally unaware of her weaknesses and also of the social factors, the understanding of which is judged as a panacea for national welfare and prosperity. History of man is witness to the fate befalling nations who neglected their social and economic conditions.” An important reflection was the relationship between population and poverty: “In our country economic resources are limited but the population is growing day by day. Nature cures it by famine and disease. But we should also free ourselves from the limitations placed by the practice of marrying in childhood and the number of wives ... to have fewer children.”

In the same book, Iqbal observed that the “welfare of the nations of the world therefore lies in the elimination altogether of these unreasonable distinctions and the restoration of traditional and natural principle of joint ownership of things. If nothing else, this principle should at least be implemented in the ownership of land, as this thing is not the result of the labour of a particular individual or nation but the common gift of nature to which each individual of the nation has an equal right.” His speeches in the Punjab Legislative Council during 1926-30 show a continuation of the theme. He proposed the distribution of half of the Nilibar land to tenants. Moreover, he pleaded for exempting smaller holdings from land revenue just like the exemption under income tax below a threshold. Presiding over the All India Muslim Conference in Lahore in March 1932, Iqbal maintained that “the future of Islam in India depends on the emancipation of the Muslim peasantry of the Punjab”. Reportedly, a Punjabi Pir requested Iqbal to write an application to the government for allotment of land. Iqbal told him that land belonged to Allah. If the Pir Sahib so wished, he would write an application to Allah!

Iqbal believed that a concrete promise to take the Muslims of India out of poverty was the only way to mobilise Muslims for independence. He wrote to Jinnah in May 1937: “The problem of bread is becoming more and more acute. The Muslim has begun to feel that he has been going down and down during the last 200 years… The question therefore is: how is it possible to solve the problem of Muslim poverty? And the whole future of the League depends on the League’s activity to solve this question. If the League can give no such promises I am sure that Muslim masses will remain indifferent to it as before.”

The poor and the landless were forgotten at the venue where their independence was resolved.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 22^nd, 2022.

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