Vol. 8 · pages 291–295

266 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES were adequately pressed when the Congress-League compact was in the making. They are conspicuously a backward and impoverished community. The repartition of the presidency in 1912 came as a severe disappointment to them, and we should be very loath to fail in seeing that their interests are now generously secured. In order to give the Bengal Muslims a representation proportionate to their numbers, and no more, we should allot them 44 instead of 34 seats [due to them under the Pact].” This enthusiasm for the Bengal Muslims shown by the Government of India was not shared by the British Government. It felt that as the number of seats given to the Bengal Muslims was the result of an agreement, any interference to improve the bargain when there was no dispute about the genuineness of the agreement, could not but create the impression that the British Government was in some special sense and for some special reason the friend of the Muslims. In suggesting this augmentation in the seats, the Government of India forgot to take note of the reason why the Muslims of the Punjab and Bengal were not given by the Pact seats in proportion to their population. The Lucknow Pact was based upon the principle, now thrown to the winds, that a community as such was not entitled to political protection. A community was entitled to protection when it was in a minority. That was the principle underlying the Lucknow Pact. The Muslim community in the Punjab and Bengal was not in a minority and, therefore, was not entitled to the same protection which it got in other Provinces where it was in a minority. Notwithstanding their being in a majority, the Muslims of the Punjab and Bengal felt the necessity of separate electorates. According to the principle underlying the Pact they could qualify themselves for this only by becoming a minority which they did by agreeing to a minority of seats. This is the reason why the Muslims of Bengal and the Punjab did not get the majority of seats they were entitled to on the population basis.* * There is no doubt that this was well understood by the Muslims who were parties to the Pact. This is what Mr. Jinnah said as a witness appearing before the Joint Select Committee appointed by Parliament on the Government of India Bill, 1919, in reply to question No. 3808 : “ The position of Bengal was this: In Bengal the Muslims are in a majority, and the argument was advanced that any section or any community which is in the majority cannot claim a separate electorate: separate electorate is to protect the minority. But the counter-argument was perfectly true that numerically we are in a majority but as voters we are in the minority in Bengal, because of poverty and backwardness and so on. It was said: Very well, then fix 40 per cent., because if you are really put to test you will not get 40 per cent because you will not be qualified as voters. Then we had the advantage in other Provinces.”

267PAKISTAN : COMMUNAL AGGRESSION The proposal of the Government of India to give to the Bengal Muslims more than what they had asked for did not go through. But the fact that they wanted to do so remains as evidence of their inclinations. The second occasion when the British Government as an arbiter gave the Muslims more than they asked for was when the Communal Decision was given in 1932. Sir Muhammad Shafi made two different proposals in the Minorities Sub-Committee of the R. T. C. In his speech on 6th January 1931, Sir Muhammad Shafi put forth the following proposal as a basis for communal settlement*:— “We are prepared to accept joint electorates on the conditions named by me : Firstly, that the rights at present enjoyed by the Musalmans in the minority Provinces should be continued to them; that in the Punjab and in Bengal they should have two joint electorates and representation on a population basis; that there should be the principle of reservation of seats coupled with Maulana Mahomed Ali’s condition.” † In his speech on 14th January 1931 before the same Committee he made a different offer. He said‡:— “ To-day I am authorized to make this offer: that in the Punjab the Musalmans should have through communal electorates 49 per cent. of the entire number of seats in the whole House, and should have liberty to contest the special constituencies which it is proposed to create in that Province : so far as Bengal is concerned that Musalmans should have through communal electorates 46 per cent. representation in the whole House, and should have the liberty to contest the special constituencies which it is proposed to create in that Province; in so far as the minority Provinces are concerned the Musalmans should continue to enjoy the weightage which they have at present through separate electorates, similar weightage to be given to our Hindu brethren in Sind, and to our Hindu and Sikh brethren in the North-West Frontier Province. If at any time hereafter two-thirds of the representatives of any community in any Provincial Legislative Council or in the Central Legislative Council desire to give up communal electorates and to accept joint electorates then thereafter the system of joint electorates should come into being.” * Report of the Minorities Sub-Committee of the first R. T. C. (Indian Edition), p. 96. † Mr. Mahomed Ali’s formula was for Join Electorates and Reserved Seats with this proviso that no candidate shall be declared elected unless he had secured at least 40 per cent. of the votes of his own community and at least 5 or 10 per cent. of the votes of the other community. ‡ Ibid., p. 123.

268 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES The difference between the two proposals is clear. “Joint electorates, if accompanied by statutory majority. If statutory majority was refused, then a minority of seats with separate electorates.” The British Government took statutory majority from the first demand and separate electorates from the second demand and gave the Muslims both when they had not asked for both. The second thing that is noticeable among the Muslims is the spirit of exploiting the weaknesses of the Hindus. If the Hindus object to anything, the Muslim policy seems to be to insist upon it and give it up only when the Hindus show themselves ready to offer a price for it by giving the Muslims some other concessions. As an illustration of this, one can refer to the question of separate and joint electorates. The Hindus have been to my mind utterly foolish in fighting over joint electorates especially in Provinces in which the Muslims are in a minority. Joint electorates can never suffice for a basis for nationalism. Nationalism is not a matter of political nexus or cash nexus, for the simple reason that union cannot be the result of calculation of mere externals. Where two communities live a life which is exclusive and self-inclosed for five years, they will not be one, because, they are made to come together on one day in five years for the purposes of voting in an election. Joint electorates may produce the enslavement of the minor community by the major community : but by themselves they cannot produce nationalism. Be that as it may, because the Hindus have been insisting upon joint electorates the Muslims have been insisting upon separate electorates. That this insistence is a matter of bargain only can be seen from Mr. Jinnah’s 14 points* and the resolution† passed in the Calcutta session of the All-India Muslim League held on 30th December 1927. Therein it was stipulated that only when the Hindus agreed to the separation of Sind and to the raising of the N.-W. F. P. to the status of a selfgoverning Province the Musalmans would consent to give up * See point No. 15 in Mr. Jinnah’s points. † For the resolution and the speech of Mr. Barkat Ali thereon, see the Indian Quarterly Register, 1927. Vol. II. pp. 447-48.

269PAKISTAN : COMMUNAL AGGRESSION separate electorates.* The Musalmans evidently did not regard separate electorates as vital. They regarded them as a good quid pro quo for obtaining their other claims. Another illustration of this spirit of exploitation is furnished by the Muslim insistence upon cow-slaughter and the stoppage of music before mosques. Islamic law does not insist upon the slaughter of the cow for sacrificial purposes and no Musalman, when he goes to Haj, sacrifices the cow in Mecca or Medina. But in India they will not be content with the sacrifice of any other animal. Music may be played before a mosque in all Muslim countries without any objection. Even in Afghanistan, which is not a secularized country, no objection is taken to music before a mosque. But in India the Musalmans must insist upon its stoppage for no other reason except that the Hindus claim a right to it. The third thing that is noticeable is the adoption by the Muslims of the gangster’s method in politics. The riots are a sufficient indication that gangsterism has become a settled part of their strategy in politics. They seem to be consciously and deliberately imitating the Sudeten Germans in the means employed by them against the Czechs.† So long as the Muslims were the aggressors, the Hindus were passive, and in the conflict they suffered more than the Muslims did. But this is no longer true. The Hindus have learned to retaliate and no longer feel any compunction in knifing a Musalman. This spirit of retaliation bids fair to produce the ugly spectacle of gangsterism against gangsterism. How to meet this problem must exercise the minds of all concerned. There are the simple-minded Hindu Maha Sabha patriots who believe that the Hindus have only to make up their minds to wipe the Musalmans and they will be brought to their senses. On the other hand, there are the Congress Hindu Nationalists whose policy is to tolerate and appease the Musalmans by political and other concessions, because they believe that they cannot reach their cherished goal of independence unless the *The unfortunate thing for the Hindus is that they did not get joint electorates although the Musalmans got the concessions. †In the Karachi session of the All-India Muslim League both Mr. Jinnah and Sir Abdullah Haroon compared the Muslims of India to the “Sudeten” of the Muslim world and capable of doing what the Sudeten Germans did to Czechoslovakia.

270 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Musalmans back their demand. The Hindu Maha Sabha plan is no way to unity. On the contrary, it is a sure block to progress. The slogan of the Hindu Maha Sabha President— Hindustan for Hindus— is not merely arrogant but is arrant nonsense. The question, however, is: is the Congress way the right way ? It seems to me that the Congress has failed to realize two things. The first thing which the Congress has failed to realize is that there is a difference between appeasement and settlement, and that the difference is an essential one. Appeasement means buying off the aggressor by conniving at his acts of murder, rape, arson and loot against innocent persons who happen for the moment to be the victims of his displeasure. On the other hand, settlement means laying down the bounds which neither party to it can transgress. Appeasement sets no limits to the demands and aspirations of the aggressor. Settlement does. The second thing the Congress has failed to realize is that the policy of concession has increased Muslim aggressiveness, and what is worse, Muslims interpret these concessions as a sign of defeatism on the part of the Hindus and the absence of the will to resist. This policy of appeasement will involve the Hindus in the same fearful situation in which the Allies found themselves as a result of the policy of appeasement which they adopted towards Hitler. This is another malaise, no less acute than the malaise of social stagnation. Appeasement will surely aggravate it. The only remedy for it is a settlement. If Pakistan is a settlement, it is a proposition worth consideration. As a settlement it will do away with this constant need of appeasement and ought to be welcomed by all those who prefer the peace and tranquillity of a settlement to the insecurity due to the growing political appetite shown by the Muslims in their dealings with the Hindus. zz