A Man Alone: Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the All-India Muslim League's Support for the British During World War II

During World War II, the All-India Muslim League was the only major Indian independence organization to support the British war effort. This paper examines what caused the League to offer such support and how the relationship established with the British during this era impacted the League and the foundation of Pakistan. This thesis argues that the League offered support to protect the organization's politically fragile future and that League leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah furthered used the war to increase control over the party. In doing so, the League acquired a special place of power from the British yet become more homogeneous as different concepts of Pakistan were unintentionally shunned as Jinnah's pragmatic, non-definite view of the future state came to dominate the party. The result was a League that, while politically powerful, relied heavily on the will of one person and approached the Partition and creation of Pakistan with no definite goals for the new state.Bachelor of Art