20th Century Timeline

1905 Cruzon first attempts to partition India based on religion. This attempt failed after much
protest from Hindus and Muslims.

1906    Mohammad Ali Jinnah joins Indian congress for unity between Hindus and Muslims. In
    this same year the Muslim League was formed as an elitist group. Its primary objectives
    were loyalty and support for the sustenance of British Rule. The majority of Muslims did
    not support the League and chose to stay with the Indian National Congress.

1907 Indian National Congress (founded in 1885) splits into two groups, the moderates, and
the radicals who demanded self-rule. These two sides eventually re-united for WWI.

1911 Jinnah influences the Muslim League to change its pro-British stance and join the Indian
political mainstream.

1913 Jinnah joins the Muslim League.

1929   Gandhi's Civil Disobedience Movement was passed by congress. The mainstream of [Jinnah and Ghandi]
    Indian Muslim political leaders, including Maulana Mohammed Ali, Maulana Shaukat Ali,
    Jinnah, and many others, quit Congress after the realization that it was dominated by
    Hindu communalists and fanatics who were visibly influencing its policies.

1931 The Congress and the Muslim League drifted far apart in their programs and goals.

1940 Muslim League officially demanded for a separate homeland for Muslims in areas of
India with a Muslim majority.

1945    Muslims obtain 30 seats in legislature. The Indian government begins to plan for an
     interim government; Jinnah and many other Muslims see this as lessening their power.
     Riots break out, and this violence continued in 1946.

1947    India gains independence from the British. India is partitioned and Pakistan is born as
    an Islamic State. Approximately 17 million Hindus and Muslims are uprooted. Violence
    breaks out which causes the death of 1 million; Mahatma Gandhi eases tensions. During the
    Partition, India and Pakistan dispute over Kashmir, which has a Muslim majority but is
    controlled by a Hindu Prince. Indian troops move into Kashmir to defend it as an Indian
    state. Fighting is halted after a United Nations resolution gave 2/3 of Kashmir to India and
    the remaining 1/3 to Pakistan. Muhammad Ali Jinnah becomes governor-general of
    Pakistan; Liaquat Ali Khan becomes Prime Minister. Jawaharal Nehru became Prime
    Minister of India.

1948 Mahatma Gandhi assassinated by militant Hindu because of his tolerant attitude toward
Muslims and Jinnah dies.

1950 India forms a republic by adopting a constitution providing for a federal system
with parliamentarian government

1956 Indian states are reorganized on a linguistic basis. Pakistan adopts a constitution and
Maj. Gen. Iskander Mirza becomes president.

1958 Mirza abrogates the Constitution and declares martial law. In this same year he is sent
into exile and General Mohammad Ayub Khan assumes presidency.

1962 Brief battle over territorial borders between India and China.

1964 Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru dies

1965 India and Pakistan go to war over Kashmir; this war lasts 22 days.

1966    Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri dies at Indo-Pak summit at Tashkent shortly after the
    peace treaty is signed; Indira Gandhi (Nehru's daughter) comes to power. She began to open
    close relations with the U.S.S.R., primarily due to the U.S. cold war policy in aiding
    Pakistan with military assistance.

1968 India and Pakistan refuse to sign Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

1969 Martial Law is declared in Pakistan once again; Ayub Khan resigns; General Agha
Mohammad Yahya Khan assumes presidency

1970    First general elections are held in Pakistan; Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Awami League
    secures absolute majority in new Pakistan National Assembly; the West Pakistan-dominated
    government declines to convene the assembly.

1971    East Pakistan attempts to secede from Pakistan and a civil war begins. India intervenes
    on behalf of Bengali separatists; Bangladesh declares itself independent from Pakistan. India
    and Pakistan wage another war; Pakistani military surrenders to Indian armed forces by
    December, ending the war; Yahya Khan resigns and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto becomes president
    of Pakistan.

1972    Simla agreement signed between India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Pakistan
    Prime Minister Bhutto. The agreement adjusts the cease-fire line between the two countries
    and creates a new Line of Control.

1974    India becomes the world's sixth nuclear power, by testing a "peaceful" nuclear device
    in Pokhran, Rajasthan. Following India's test, Pakistan's Prime Minister tells a secret
    meeting of the country's top scientists that Pakistan intends to produce nuclear weapons.

1975 Indira Gandhi found guilty of electoral malpractice; President declares state of
emergency due to "internal disturbance threat"

1976 India and Pakistan re-establish diplomatic relations; diplomatic ties are also established
between Pakistan and Bangladesh.

1977 Accusations of prime minister election violations cause riots in Karachi. Military coup
d'etat in Pakistan led by Gen Zia ul-Haq.

1979 Zia, the sixth President of Pakistan, introduces an Islamic penal code and hangs Bhutto.

1980 Indira Gandhi returns to power in India.

1983 Zia lifts martial law but says army will retain an important role in future governments.
China reportedly provides Pakistan with a nuclear bomb design.

1984 Indira Gandhi assassinated by Sikh militants; son Rajiv Gandhi becomes Prime Minister
of India.

1987    Leading Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan says Pakistan has nuclear bomb.
    A Sikh pro-independence insurgency leads to 25,000 deaths in Punjab. Movement is crushed
    by Chief Minister Beant Sigh of the Punjab state.

1988    India tests the Prithvi missile, which is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead into
    Pakistan. In Pakistan Zia dismisses Prime Minister Muhammad Khan Junejo's government,
    orders new elections; Zia is killed in mysterious plane crash; investigation concludes that
    his death was caused by "criminal act of sabotage;" elections held; Benazir Bhutto (Ali's
    Bhutto's daugther) is sworn in as the first woman Prime Minister of a Muslim nation.

1990 U.S. freezes military and economic aid to Pakistan because of suspicions that Pakistan
is proceeding with a nuclear weapons program.

1992    A Hindu mob demolishes the Babri Masjid a mosque at Ayodhya, India sparking
    Hindu-Muslim riots in several cities across India. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Secretary
    Shahryar Khan, reveled that his nation was now capable of building an atomic bomb, but
    refrains in adherence to nuclear proliferation agreements.

1993    Pakistan confirms that it has a nuclear bomb that it will use as a last resort in war
    against India. Fighting begins between Muslim separatist guerrillas and Indian soldiers in
    Kashmir. Organizations such as the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) support
    civil unrest and call for an independent Kashmir. The Kashmiri Hezbul Mujahedeen group
    demands unification with Pakistan. By September of 1993, Indian and Pakistani soldiers
    exchanged gunfire on the border of Jammu and Kashmir. India reports that it will produce its
    own fuel for nuclear weapons.

1995    The Jammu-Kasmir Islamic Front claims responsibility for a bomb that kills 6 in New
    Delhi, India. Violence erupts Charar-e-Sharief, in India's Jammu Kashmir region, between
    Indian troops and Muslim militants. It results in a 15th century mosque burning down that
    was dedicated to 14th century Sufi poet Sheik Nooridin Noorani, who is considered
    Kashmir's patron saint. Militant guerrillas of the Al-Faran, a separatist faction in Kashmir,
    kill a Norwegian tourist held hostage for the release of jailed Kashmiri separatists. Militant
    Sikh separatist group, Leaders of Babbar Khalsa International, assassinate Beant Sigh, Chief
    Minister of India's Punjab state. U.S. Senate votes to end a 5-year ban on direct economic
    aid to Pakistan. Indian Prime Minister denounces U.S. aid in fears of igniting an arms race
    between the two.

1996    India and Pakistan refuse to sign the nuclear test-ban treaty. Eleventh general elections
    are held in India, and result in the fall of PV Narasimha Rao and the Congress government.
    The pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party comes to power but falls after 13 days; United Front
    Coalition forms government under Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda; In Pakistan President
    Farooq Leghari dismisses Benazir Bhutto, accusing her government of corruption and
    nepotism.

1997    Indian Congress withdraws support from government; Deve Gowda resigns and I.K.
    Gujral becomes India's 12th Prime Minister. India moves missiles near Pakistani border.
    Abdul Majid Dar, a leading member of Hizbul Majahedeen, is killed by Indian troops. He
    called for unification of Kashmir with Pakistan.

1998 Pakistan and India step up their arms race; the conflict in Kashmir continues.

Sources and Links:
www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Lot/1346/history.html
www.peoplesoft.com/peoplepages/g/mohammad_ghazali/chronology.htm
www.pak.org/person/quaid.html
www.hizone.com/ali/Jinnah.html