While the Indian National Congress was calling for Britain to quit India, in 1943, the Muslim League passed a resolution demanding the British to divide and quit.
There were several reasons for the separate Muslim homeland in the sub-continent:
(i) As colonizers, the British had followed a divide-andrule policy in India. In the census, they categorized people according to religion and viewed and treated them as separate from each other.
(ii) The British based their knowledge of the people of India on religious texts and the intrinsic differences they found in them, instead of examining how people of different religions coexisted.
(iii) As soon as the Muslim League was formed. Muslims were placed on a separate electorate. Thus, the separateness of Muslims in India was built into the Indian electoral process,
(iv) There was also an ideological divide between the Muslims and the Hindus of India. While there were strong feelings of nationalism in India, by the late 19th century there were also communal conflicts and movements in the country that were based on religious identities rather than class or regional ones.
(v) Both Hindu Mahasabha and Muslim League claimed that the interests of the Hindus and Muslims were different and hostile to each other.
(vi) The British policy of divide and rule, through measures such as Partition of Bengal, Communal Award, had encouraged the vested interests out to exploit the religious differences.
