Politics and Religion in Colonial Punjab: A case study of Mianwali

Abstract

This article explores the dynamics of politics in colonial Mianwali in the twentieth century. It explains how religion played a central role as rhetoric for political mobilization. The support of the local elite to the British government was of cardinal importance for the establishment and the smooth functioning of administration in the colonial Punjab. The major task that the British administrators set for themselves after 1849 was to build an indigenous hierarchy by identifying and winning over local elite to effect and exercise the British control. Most of the landed elite were members of British patronized Unionist party. Like rest of the rural Punjab the politics in Mianwali had a strong pro-British orientation. The local landed elite worked as a bulwark as against various religio-political and nationalist movements particularly of Majlis-e-Ahrar. The Unionist Party dominated by the landed aristocrats was the sole political organization calling shots in the district until 1940. However, from 1943 onwards Muslim League won rural support in the district in 1945-46 elections and reduced Unionist Party to insignificance. I argue in this article that religion, a dominant ideology underpinning nationalism, provided an impetus for political shift from politics centered on the state agency towards the nationalist one.