The collapse of the non-co-operation movement in the mid twenties marked the end of joint political action by Hindus and Muslims. The Muslim league, which had been overshadowed by the Khilafat Commitee, again became prominent. Its leader, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, promoted Muslim interests at the negotiations in India and England that followed the coming of the Simon commission in 1927. His early demands, embodied in the fourteen points, were not excessive. But he became increasingly embittered at what he considered Hindu obstinacy, and eventually this man who once called himself an Indian first and a Muslim second became a fervent opponent of the congress.

Jinnah`s position as leader of his own community did not go unchallenged. Upset by the independent stance of Punjab`s Muslims, Jinnah spent the years 1930 to 1935 in London. Summoned back to India after the passing of the government of India act, he braced himself for the final fight.

Politicians were arguing over the details of the safeguards to be written into India`s future constitution. Right at that time Muslims outside the political arena began to formulate more ambitious demands. In 1930, the great poet sir Muhammad Iqbal, addressing the Allahabad session of the Muslim league, declared that `the formation of a consolidated north-west India Muslim state appears to me to be the final destiny of Muslims` in that region. Iqbal did not specify that this state would be independent of India. This element was introduced later, when his idea was taken up and expanded by some young Muslims studying in England. Chaudhury Rahmat Ali was the leader of these students. He proposed in pamphlets of 1933 and 1935 the creation of a separate Muslim nation in northwest India. It would be called Pakistan. The name was derived from the first letters of Punjab, afghan province, Kashmir and Sind, and the last three letters of Baluchistan. The name later was altered to Pakistan. When Rahmat Ali`s idea was presented to Muslim delegates of the joint select committee, they condemned it as an impractical `student`s scheme.` But as relations between Hindus and Muslims degenerated, the idea caught on.

After the league`s defeat in the 1937 elections, Jinnah turned to the Muslim masses. He claimed that they were not a minority community in India. They were really an entirely separate nation. Down through the ages the country was always divided into Hindu India and Muslim India. As for the congress governments, they were nothing but Hindu governments out to oppress members of the Muslim nation. Such were Jinnah`s contentions. Sadly, they were taken by many as truths. Enough provocation was offered to the Muslims during these years.