ALLAHABADADDRESSANDTHEPOLITICSOFFEDERAL FUTURES

From India to the EU and Nigeria, recent elections show federalism is live bargaining—coalitions, revenue, and security—echoing Iqbal’s call to balance autonomy with collective stability.

- TDG NETWORK

Muslim leaders at Allahabad, 1930

The Allahabad Address delivered by philosopher-poet Muhammad Iqbal to the Muslim League's annual session on 29 December 1930 was one of the most consequential speeches in South Asian history.

Speaking during a period of constitutional bargaining with the British imperial government, Iqbal articulated a vision of self-government for India's Muslims that drew upon Islamic tradition, liberal constitutionalism and the pragmatic realities of colonial politics. His emphasis on federalism—not merely as an administrative convenience but as a method for managing diversity—remains relevant in 2025 to debates about identity, state legitimacy and coalition politics around the world. This article revisits the 1930 speech and places it within the broader politics of federal futures, then and now.

In contrast, Islam did not separate church and state; it saw matter and spirit as organically linked. These philosophical reflections set the stage for his practical proposals.

In the most famous passage of the speech, Iqbal declared that he would “like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state”. Whether within the British Empire or outside it, “the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim state appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India”. He acknowledged that the proposed state would cover a large area but noted that its population would be smaller than existing provinces and that excluding districts with non-Muslim majorities would make it more homogeneous. This homogeneity, he argued, would better protect non-Muslim minorities in the region.