Abstract
Despite the bitter legacy of clashes between India's Hindus and Muslims since the 1880's, the alienation of Muslims from the Indian National Congress, which was reflected in die rise of the Muslim League, was reversed as the result of a number of political developments between 1910 and 1916 and through the efforts of leading personalities on both sides, most notably Jinnah, Wazir Hasan, Gokhale and Mrs. Annie Besant. Nationalist Muslims, some of whom were already prominent in Congress, increasingly captured control of key positions in the Muslim League, and linked hands with Congress' goal of secularism and its claims to represent all Indians. A series of developments and meetings led to the compromise of the Lucknow Pact. This prepared the way for Hindu-Muslim cooperation in agitational politics, 1919–22. Simultaneously, however, the negotiations for the Pact alienated important groups, notably Hindu groups in the Punjab and Bengal, and encouraged Hindu and Muslim communalists to build up communal organisations asserting and working for the separate interests of tJieir respective communities. This helped to prepare the way for the communal clashes in the 1920's.
