Searching for Synergies, Making Majorities:the demands for Pakistan and Maharashtra

This paper re-examines the Pakistan demand as part of a wider ‘federal moment’ in India, by addressing its connections with the coterminous calls for Samyukta Maharashtra in the context of the Cabinet Mission of spring/summer 1946. It highlights how the twinned processes of democratisation and provincialisation during the interwar years informed these demands. Both Muslim and Maratha representatives looked to locate and secure autonomous political spaces that would better secure their political representation. Their demands exemplified a shift away from a commensurative logic expressed through separate representation in the legislatures, and towards support for majority rule at the provincial level.