The All-India Muslim League Is Founded in Dhaka

On December 30, 1906, delegates gathering at the Nawab's garden house at Shahbag in Dacca, now Dhaka, agreed to establish the All-India Muslim League. The decision came during the session of the All-India Muhammadan Educational Conference, which was chaired by Nawab Viqar-ul-Mulk (also spelled Waqar-ul-Mulk). Khwaja Salimullah, the Nawab of Dacca, formally moved the proposal to organise a permanent political party. Conceived to safeguard the collective interests of Muslims across British India, the new body emerged directly out of tensions surrounding representative reforms and political divisions in Bengal.

The roots of the organisation drew heavily from intellectual currents established in northern India during the late nineteenth century. Syed Ahmad Khan had created the Muhammadan Educational Conference in 1886 to foster modern scientific and literary instruction while deliberately avoiding political involvement, a venture tied to his wider educational institution at Aligarh. Khan's educational work stimulated a broader political consciousness among upper-class Muslims. By the early twentieth century, leaders emerging from this tradition concluded that educational advocacy alone was no longer sufficient to secure their community's political standing, particularly in the face of national political initiatives led by the Indian National Congress.