Simla Deputation: Context & Consequences

6 min readSep 12, 2022

What is Simla Deputation?

Simla Deputation refers to the meeting held between the Governor General and Viceroy of British India Lord Minto, and the representatives of Indian Muslims in Simla on 1 October 1906. The deputation aimed to win the sympathies of the Raj relating to their interests as a community.

Context

Every event has a context, the peculiar situation obtaining on the ground at that particular moment in history which gives the specific causes responsible for that event greater relevance than any other point in time. Without understanding this context, it is not possible to determine the relative significance or otherwise of these specific events.

Some of the peculiar features of the situation before Simla Deputation can be

1. Start of Political Reforms

Fearing another “mutiny”, forced the new British Crown to become more liberal and democratic while dealing with the Indians and provide them with some safety valves through which they could express their grievances and channel frustration and sense of exclusion. It resulted in the first establishment of local government institutions and the municipal boards/corporations of Bombay Calcutta and Madras were created.

But this system proved totally futile, as from 1892 to 1906, not even a single Muslim representative could secure a seat in the legislative councils as the local bodies were also dominated by Hindus, who always voted on religious grounds.

Simla Delegation was the first formal effort by the Indian Muslim elite to safeguard the interest of their community by presenting their demands to the highest authority in British India

2. Countering Religious Militancy in Indian Muslims

Although the 1857 uprising was a common struggle of the Indians with Hindus playing equal, if not more than their Muslim compatriots, role to topple the government, the ultimate blame for this event was put on Muslim’s shoulders. They were singled out, individually and collectively, by the English for retribution. This blatant discrimination against the Indian Muslims inevitably resulted in creating three types of classes in them, each a trend blazer:

A. Islamists: Islamists, who ascribed the fall of the Mughal Empire to the deviation of the Muslims from their religion, advised aloofness from mainstream social and political life to Muslims and tried to revive the old Islamic spirit of jihad through religious education.

B. Loyalists: Loyalists, who to gain material benefits from the victors openly sided with the British and perpetuated the strength of the empire for another 90 years.

C. Moderates: Moderates who thought that the British were here to stay for long innings and that violent overthrow was impossible. They, therefore, advocated the acquisition of modern western knowledge and stressed cooperation with the British to safeguard their rights.

Fearing that the first group namely Islamists might take over the leadership of the Indian Muslims using the religious card, the British encouraged the other two groups to come forward and lead the Muslims.

The Simla Delegation was the start of this policy of inducting Muslim moderates into the political stream in the same way they had done with the Hindus by forming the Indian National Congress.

3. Birth of three Separatisms

The 1857 War of independence led to several trends out of which 3 are the most important namely Indian nationalism, Indian Muslim separatism, and its offshoot Bengali Muslims separatism

Hindu Nationalism: As a result of Lord Macaulay’s educational reforms, the English language had become not only the medium of instruction but also the official language in 1835 in place of Persian, disadvantaging those who had built their careers around the latter language. While the Indian Muslims were still in a shell shock after the 1857 War and the revenge taken by the British, the Hindu population seized the initiative, became more educated, and gained lucrative positions in the Indian Civil Service: many ascended to the influential posts in the British government. This economic empowerment of Hindus led to their collective consciousness of being the true inheritors of Indian Civilisation which led to their intensive Indianisation
Indian Muslim Separatism: One of the biggest offshoots of the 1857 uprising was the increased rift between the two major communities of British India namely Hindus and Muslims. On the other side, systematic persecution of Muslims led to their subconscious development of being a separate nation. It led to the creation of Indian nationalism among the Hindus while The Indian Muslims started considering them a separate nation. One of the biggest offshoots of the 1857 uprising was the increased rift between the two major communities of British India namely Hindus and Muslims.
Muslim Bengali Separatism: Bengal was punished for its alleged pioneering role in the uprising. Not only the economic development of this region was neglected, but Bengalis in general and Bengali Muslims, in particular, were also systematically kept out of the decision-making processes in Colonial India after the cataclysmic events of 1857 while regions and nationalities of northern India, which played the decisive role in crushing the rebellion, got very preferential treatment in their representation in institutions responsible for policy formulation and implementation. Resultantly East Bengal remained a comparatively more underdeveloped region and Bengali Muslims had scant representation in state organs like armed forces, law enforcement agencies, civilian bureaucracy, etc. during the colonial period. Pakistan inherited this vast disparity- a legacy that ultimately led to the separation of East Pakistan from its western wing for 100 years.

4. Social Re-engineering of Indian Society

To punish the disloyal families, besides mass-scale execution of their male members, all the properties of these families were confiscated and made paupers. On the other hand, those who remained loyal to the British were generously rewarded. Over some time, those who were rewarded became the social and political elite of India and later on the ruling elite of the independent states of India and Pakistan. Out of the marginalized underclass emerged the fundamentalists in all three major communities of India.

Significance OF Simla Delegation

The Simla Deputation occupies a very important place in the history of modern Muslim India.

For the first time, Hindu- the Muslim conflict was lifted to the constitutional plane. The rift in society was now to be translated into legal and political institutions.
The Muslims had made it clear that they had no confidence in the Hindu majority, and that they were not prepared to put their future in the hands of assemblies elected on the assumption of a homogeneous Indian nation. By implication, they rejected the idea of a single Indian nation on the ground that the minority could not trust the majority.
From this it was but a short step to demanding a separate state for the Muslims of India It is in this sense that in the beginnings of separate electorates may be seen the glimmerings of the two-nation theory. The significance of the Simla demand lay in the reservations that the Muslims had about their Indian nationality.

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