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As a result of Jinnah's ceaseless efforts, the Muslims awakened from what
Professor Baker calls (their) "unreflective silence" (in which they had so
complacently basked for long decades), and to "the spiritual essence of
nationality" that had existed among them for a pretty long time. Roused by
the impact of successive Congress hammerings, the Muslims, as Ambedkar
(principal author of independent India's Constitution) says, "searched their
social consciousness in a desperate attempt to find coherent and meaningful
articulation to their cherished yearnings. To their great relief, they
discovered that their sentiments of nationality had flamed into
nationalism". In addition, not only had they developed" the will to live as
a "nation", had also endowed them with a territory which they could occupy
and make a State as well as a cultural home for the newly discovered nation.
These two pre-requisites, as laid down by Renan, provided the Muslims with
the intellectual justification for claiming a distinct nationalism (apart
from Indian or Hindu nationalism) for themselves. So that when, after their
long pause, the Muslims gave expression to their innermost yearnings, these
turned out to be in favor of a separate Muslim nationhood and of a separate
Muslim state.
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