The Muslims in India

Compiled By: Syed Ali Shahbaz
On February 20, 1947 AD, the British finally agreed to grant independence to the Subcontinent later that year in August but only after partitioning it into India, West Pakistan, and East Pakistan (which in 1971 became Bangladesh), while deliberately leaving Muslim-majority Kashmir as a bone of contention. The fate of Haiderabad-Deccan which was a Muslim kingdom and the largest of the subcontinent's semi-independent states (nearly the size of France) was left by the British in limbo despite the fact that the ruler of that state, Nizam ul-Mulk Asef Jah VII, had generously helped Britain in both the World Wars with tens of millions of pounds-sterling in addition to troops.
Landlocked Haiderabad-Deccan, which for a year functioned as an independent sovereign state with membership in the UN, was forced to surrender to India in September 1948 following a week-long war. It is worth noting that the British had entered Muslim-ruled India as traders in the 17th century, but with the weakening of the Mughal Empire, they treacherously seized in mid 18th century the large province of Bengal (today's Bangladesh and the Indian state of Bengal) from its Muslim rulers of Iranian origin – Siraj od-Dowla, Mir Ja'far, Mir Qassem – and thereupon gradually expanded their influence by taking control of all the Subcontinent through wars and imposed treaties.
In 1857, when both the Muslims and Hindus rose against British rule in northern India, they were crushed, Delhi was stormed, and the nominal Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was imprisoned and exiled to Burma. India was subsequently declared as part of the British Empire with Queen Victoria as Empress of India.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, because of the struggles of the Indian people against colonialism under the leadership of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the Ali Brothers, Jawaherlal Nehru, etc, the British were forced to agree to independence. India despite being a non-Muslim country has the world's largest population of Muslims, exceeding 240 million.