Vol. 8 · pages 311–315

286 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES had really accepted* independence in 1927 as the resolution says. The clause in the resolution that the Congress would accept Dominion Status if given before 31st December 1929, if not, it would change its faith from Dominion Status to Independence was only a face-saving device and did not connote a real change of mind. For time can never be of the essence in a matter of such deep concern as the political desiny of the country. That notwithstanding the resolution of 1927, the Congress continued to believe in Dominion Status and did not believe in Independence, is amply borne out by the pronouncements made from time to time by Mr. Gandhi who is the oracle of the Congress. Anyone, who studies Mr. Gandhi’s pronouncements on this subject from 1929 onwards, cannot help feeling that Mr. Gandhi has not been happy about the resolution on Independence and that he has ever since felt necessary to wheel the Congress back to Dominion Status. He began with the gentle process of interpreting it away. The goal was first reduced from Independence to substance of Independence. From substance of Independence it was reduced to equal partnership and from equal partnership it was brought back to its original position. The wheel completed the turn when Mr. Gandhi in 1937 gave the following letter to Mr. Pollock for the information of the English people :— “ Your question is whether I retain the same opinion as I did at the Round Table Conference in 1931. I said then, and repeat now, that, so far as I am concerned, if Dominion Status were offered to India in terms of the Statute of Westminster, i.e., the right to secede at will, I would unhesitatingly accept,”† Turning to the pronouncements of Muslim political organizations on the Nehru Report it is interesting to note the reasons given by them for its rejection. These reasons are wholly unexpected. No doubt some Muslim organizations such as the Muslim League * Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in moving the resolution said : “It declares that the Congress stands today for complete Independence. Nonetheless it leaves the doors of the Congress open to such persons as may perhaps be satisfied with a lesser goal”.— Ibid., p. 381. †Times of India 1-2-37. In view of this, the declaration made by the National Convention— consisting of the members elected to the new Provincial legislatures under the new constitution— on the 20th March 1937 held at Delhi in favour of independence has no significance. But from his having launched the Quit India movement it may be said that Mr. Gandhi now believes in Independence.

287PAKISTAN : NATIONAL FRUSTRATION rejected the Report because it recommended the abolition of separate electorates. But that was certainly not the reason why it was condemned by the Khilafat Conference or the Jamiatul-Ulema— the two Muslim organizations which went with the Congress through the same fiery ordeal of non-co-operation and civil disobedience and whose utterances expressed far more truly the real opinion of Muslim masses on the issues relating to the political affairs of the country than did the utterances of any other Muslim organization. Maulana Mahomed Ali set out his reasons for the rejection of the Nehru Report in his Presidential address to the All-India Khilafat Conference held in Calcutta in 1928. He said* :— “ [I] was a member of the Indian National Congress, its Working Committee, the All-India Muslim League and [I] have come to the Khilafat Conference to express (my views) on the important political issues of the time, which should have the serious attention of the whole Muslim community. * * * * * “ In the All-Parties Convention he had said that India should have complete independence and there was no communalism in it. Yet he was being heckled at every moment and stopped during his speech at every step. * * * * * “The Nehru Report had as its preamble admitted the bondage of servitude.... Freedom and Dominion Status were widely divergent things......... * * * * * “I ask, when you boast of your nationalism and condemn communalism, show me a country in the world like your India—your nationalist India. * * * * * “You make compromises in your constitution every day with false doctrines, immoral conceptions and wrong ideas but you make no compromise with our communalists — with separate electorates and reserved seats. Twentyfive per cent, is our portion of population and yet you will not give us 33 per cent, in the Assembly. You are a Jew, a Bania. But to the English you give the status of your dominion.” *The Indian Quarterly Register, 1928, Vol. II, pp. 402-403.

288 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES The conference passed a short resolution in the following pithy terms:— “This Conference declares once more that complete independence is our goal”. Maulana Hasrat Mohani, as President of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema Conference held in Allahabad in 1931, gave the same reasons for condemning the Nehru Report in words measured but not less scathing. Said* the Maulana :— “My political creed with regard to India is now well known to everybody. I cannot accept anything short of complete independence, and, that too, on the model of the United States of America or the Soviet Russia which is essentially (1) democratic, (2) federal and (3) centrifugal, and in which the rights of Muslim minorities are safeguarded. “For some time the Jamiat-ul-Ulema of Delhi held fast to the creed of complete independence and it was mostly for this reason that it repudiated the Nehru Report which devised a unitary constitution instead of a federal one. Besides, when, after the Lahore session, the Congress, at the instance of Mahatma Gandhi, declared the burial of the Nehru Report on the banks of the Ravi and the resolution of complete independence was unanimously agreed upon, the Delhi Jamiat ventured to co-operate with the Congress and its programme of civil disobedience simply because it was the duty of every Indian, Hindu or Muslim, to take part in the struggle for independence. “But unfortunately Gandhiji very soon went back upon his words and (1) while yet in jail he told the British journalist Mr. Slocombe that by complete independence he meant only the substance of independence, (2) besides, when he was released on expressing his inclination for compromise he devised the illusory term of ‘Purna Swaraj’ in place of complete independence and openly declared that in ‘Purna Swaraj’ there was no place for severance of the British connection, (3) by making a secret pact with Lord Irwin he definitely adopted the ideal of Dominion Status under the British Crown. “After this change of front by Gandhiji the Delhi Jamiat ought to have desisted from blindly supporting the Mahatma and like the Nehru Report it should have completely rejected this formula of the Congress Working Committee by which the Nehru Report was sought to be revived at Bombay. “But we do not know what unintelligible reasons induced the Delhi Jamiat-ul-Ulema to adopt ‘Purna Swaraj’ as their ideal, in spite of the knowledge that it does not mean complete independence but something *The Indian Quarterly Register, 1931, Vol. II, pp. 238-39.

289PAKISTAN : NATIONAL FRUSTRATION even worse than complete independence. And the only explanation for adopting this creed is said to be that, although Gandhiji has accepted Dominion Status, he still insists that Britain should concede the right of secession from the British Empire to the Indians. “Although it is quite clear that insistence on this right has no better worth than the previous declaration of complete independence, in other words, just as Gandhiji insisted on complete independence with the sole object of forcing the British Government to accede to the demand of Dominion Status, which was the sole ultimate aim of the Mahatma, in the same way the leaders of the Congress insisted upon the right of secession with the object of extorting the largest measure of political rights from the British people who might not go beyond a certain limit in displeasing them. Otherwise Gandhiji and his followers know it full well that even if this right of secession is given to Indians, it would perhaps be never put into practice. “If someone considers this contention of mine to be based on suspicion and contends that the Congress will certainly declare for secession from the Empire whenever there is need of it, I will ask him to let me know what will be the form of Indian Government after the British connection is withdrawn. It is clear that no one can conceive of a despotic form and a democratic form, whether it be unitary or federal but centripetal, will be nothing more than Hindu Raj which the Musalmans can in no circumstances accept. Now remains only one form, viz., after complete wihdrawal of the British connection India with its autonomous Provinces and States forms into united cetrifugal democratic government on the model of the United States Republic or Soviet Russia. But this can never be acceptable to the Mahasabhaitc Congress or a lover of Britain like Mahatma Gandhi. “ Thus the Jamiat-ul-Ulema of Delhi after washing its hands of complete independence has stultified itself, but thank God the Ulemas of Cawnpore, Lucknow, Badaun, etc., still hold fast to their pledge and will remain so, God willing. Some weak-kneed persons urge against this highest ideal that, when it is not possible for the present to attain it, there is no use talking about it. We say to them that it is not at all useless but rather absolutely necessary, for if the highest ideal is not always kept before view, it is liable to be forgotton. “We must, therefore, oppose Dominion Status in all circumstances as this is not the half-way house or part of our ultimate aim, but its very negation and rival. If Gandhiji reaches England and the Round Table Conference is successfully concluded, giving India Dominion Status of any kind, with or without safeguards, the conception of complete independence will completely vanish or at any rate will not be thought of for a very long time to come.”

290 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES The All-India Khilafat Conference and the Jamiat-ul-Ulema were surely extremist bodies avowedly anti-British. But the All-India Muslim Conference was not at all a body of extremists or anti-British Musalmans. Yet the U. P. Branch of it in its session held at Cawnpore on 4th November 1928 passed the following resolution :— “In the opinion of the All-Parties U. P. Muslim Conference, Musalmans of India stand for the goal of complete independence, which shall necessarily take the form of a federal republic.” In the opinion of the mover, Islam always taught freedom, and for the matter of that the Muslims of India would fail in their religious duty, if they were against complete independence. Indian Muslims were poor, yet they were, the speaker was sure, devoted to Islam more than any other people on earth. In this Conference an incident* of some interest occurred in the Subjects Committee when Maulana Azad Sobhani proposed that the Conference should declare itself in favour of complete independence. Khan Bahadur Masoodul Hassan and some other persons, objected to such declaration, which, in their opinion, would go against the best interests of Musalmans. Upon this, a number of women from their purdah gallery sent a written statement to the President saying that if men had not the courage to stand for complete independence, women would come out of purdah, and take their place in the struggle for independence. III Notwithstanding this difference in their ultimate destiny, an attempt is made to force the Hindus and Muslims to live in one country, as one people, bound by the political ties of a single constitution. Assuming that this is done and that the Muslims are somehow manoeuvered into it, what guarantee is there that the constitution will not break down ? The successful working of a Parliamentary Government assumes the existence of certain conditions. It is only when these *See The Indian Quarterly Register , 1928, Vo. II, p. 425.