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By the 1930s–40s, the All-India Muslim League (AIML) under Muhammad Ali Jinnah claimed to represent all of British India’s Muslims, even demanding a separate state (Pakistan) at its 1940 Lahore session. League leaders pointed to electoral successes – for example, winning 87% of all Muslim seats in the 1946 provincial elections – as proof that they were “the sole representative of Muslim India” . The League’s spectacular rallies (such as the August 1946 “Direct Action Day” meeting in Calcutta, shown below) underscored its mass appeal. Yet this picture was incomplete: many Muslims and Muslim organizations disagreed that the League spoke…