Vol. 8 · pages 336–340

311 PAKISTAN : NATIONAL FRUSTRATION The Poona Pact between the Hindus and the Depressed Classes gave another spurt to the efforts to bring about unity. * During the months of November and December 1932 Muslims and Hindus did their best to come to some agreement. Muslims met in their All-Parties Conferences, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs met in Unity Conferences. Proposals and counter-proposals were made but nothing came out of these negotiations to replace the Award by a Pact and they were in the end abandoned after the Committee had held 23 sittings. Just as attempts were made to bring about unity on political questions, attempts were also made to bring about unity on social and religious questions such as:— (1) Cow slaughter, (2) music before the Mosques and (3) conversions over which differences existed. The first attempt in this direction was made in 1923 when the Indian National Pact was proposed. It failed. Mr. Gandhi was then in gaol. Mr. Gandhi was released from gaol on the 5th February 1924. Stunned by the destruction of his work for Hindu-Muslim unity, Mr. Gandhi decided to go on a twenty-one days’ fast, holding himself morally responsible for the murderous riots that had taken place between Hindus and Muslims. Advantage was taken of the fast to gather leading Indians of all communities at a Unity Conference,† which was attended also by the Metropolitan of Calcutta. The Conference held prolonged sittings from September 26th to October 2nd, 1924. The members of the Conference pledged themselves to use their utmost endeavours to enforce the principles of freedom of conscience and religion and condemn any deviation from them even under provocation. A Central National Panchayet was appointed with Mr. Gandhi as the chairman. The Conference laid down certain fundamental rights relating to liberty of holding and expressing religious beliefs and following religious practices, sacredness of places of worship, cow slaughter, and music before mosques, with a statement of the limitations they must be subject to. This Unity Conference did not produce peace between the two communities. It only produced a *For an account of these efforts, see the Indian Quarterly Register, 1932, Vol. II, p. 296 et seq. † Pattabhi Sitarammaya— History of the Congress, p. 532.

312 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES lull in the rioting which had become the order of the day. Between 1925 and 1926, rioting was renewed with an intensity and malignity unknown before. Shocked by this rioting, Lord Irwin, the then Viceroy of India, in his address to the Central Legislature on 29th August 1927 made an appeal to the two communities to stop the rioting and establish amity. Lord Irwin’s exhortation to establish amity was followed by another Unity Conference which was known as the Simla Unity Conference.* This Unity Conference met on the 30th August 1927 and issued an appeal beseeching both the communities to support the leaders in their efforts to arrive at a satisfactory settlement. The Conference appointed a Unity Committee which sat in Simla from 16th to 22nd September under the chairmanship of Mr. Jinnah. No conclusions were reached on any of the principal points involved in the cow and music questions and others pending before the Committee were not even touched. Some members felt that the Committee might break up. The Hindu members pressed that the Committee should meet again on some future convenient date. The Muslim members of the Committee were first divided in their opinion, but at last agreed to break up the Committee and the President was requested to summon a meeting if he received a requisition within six weeks from eleven specified members. Such a requisition never came and the Committee never met again. The Simla Conference having failed, Mr. Srinivas Iyengar, the then President of the Congress, called a special conference of Hindus and Muslims which sat in Calcutta on the 27th and 28th October 1927. It came to be known as the Calcutta Unity Conference.† The Conference passed certain resolutions on the three burning questions. But the resolution had no support behind them as neither the Hindu Maha Sabha nor the Muslim League was represented at the Conference. At one time it was possible to say that Hindu-Muslim unity was an ideal which not only must be realized but could be realized and leaders were blamed for not making sufficient efforts for its realization. Such was the view expressed in 1911 even by * For the proceedings of this Conference, see the Indian Quarterly Register, Vol. II, pp. 39-50. † For the proceedings of the Conference, see Ibid., pp. 50-58.

313 PAKISTAN : NATIONAL FRUSTRATION Maulana Mahomed Ali who had not then made any particular efforts to achieve Hindu-Muslim unity. Writing in the Comrade of 14th January 1911 Mr. Mahomed Ali said * : “We have no faith in the cry that India is united. If India was united where was the need of dragging the venerable President of this year’s Congress from a distant home? The bare imagination of a feast will not dull the edge of hunger. We have less faith still in the sanctimoniousness that transmutes in its subtle alchemy a rapacious monopoly into fervent patriotism…..the person we love best, fear the most, and trust the least is the impatient idealist Goethe said of Byron that he was a prodigious poet, but that when he reflected he was a child. Well, we think no better and no worse of the man who combines great ideals and a greater impatience. So many efforts, well meaning as well as illbegotten, have failed in bringing unity to this distracted land, that we cannot spare even cheap and scentless flowers of sentiment for the grave of another ill-judged endeavour. We shall not make the mistake of gumming together pieces of broken glass, and then cry over the unsuccessful result, or blame the refractory material. In other words, we shall endeavour to face the situation boldly, and respect facts, howsoever ugly and ill-favoured. It is poor statesmanship to slur over inconvenient realities, and not the least important success in achieving unity is the honest and frank recognition of the deep-seated prejudices that hinder it and the yawning differences that divide.” Looking back on the history of these 30 years, one can well, ask whether Hindu-Muslim unity has been realized ? Whether efforts have not been made for its realization ? And whether any efforts remain to be made? The history of the last 30 years shows that Hindu-Muslim unity has not been realized. On the contrary, there now exists the greatest disunity between them: that efforts—sincere and persistent—have been made to achieve it and that nothing now remains to be done to achieve it except surrender by one party to the other. If anyone, who is not in the habit of cultivating optimism where there is no justification for it, said that the pursuit of HinduMuslim unity is like a mirage and that the idea must now be given up, no one can have the courage to call him a pessimist or an impatient idealist. It is for the Hindus to say whether they will engage themselves in this vain pursuit in spite of the tragic end of all their past endeavours or give up the pursuit of unity and try for a settlement on another basis. * Quoted in his presidential address at Coconada session of the Congress, 1923.

314 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES In the second place, it must be admitted that the Muslim point of view has undergone a complete revolution. How complete the revolution is can be seen by reference to the past pronouncements of some of those who insist on the twonation theory and believe that Pakistan is the only solution of the Hindu-Muslim problem. Among these Mr. Jinnah, of course, must be accepted as the foremost. The revolution in his views on the Hindu-Muslim question is striking, if not staggering. To realize the nature, character and vastness of this revolution it is necessary to know his pronouncements in the past relating to the subject so that they may be compared with those he is making now. A study of his past pronouncement may well begin with the year 1906 when the leaders of the Muslim community waited upon Lord Minto and demanded separate electorates for the Muslim community. It is to be noted that Mr. Jinnah was not a member of the deputation. Whether he was not invited to join the deputation or whether he was invited to join and declined is not known. But the fact remains that he did not lend his support to the Muslim claim to separate representation when it was put forth in 1906. In 1918 Mr. Jinnah resigned his membership of the Imperial Legislative Council as a protest against the Rowlatt Bill.* In tendering his resignation Mr. Jinnah said: “I feel that under the prevailing conditions, I can be of no use to my people in the Council, nor consistently with one’s self-respect is co-operation possible with a Government that shows such utter disregard for the opinion of the representatives of the people at the Council Chamber and the feelings and the sentiments of the people outside.” In 1919 Mr. Jinnah gave evidence before the Joint Select Committee appointed by Parliament on the Government of India Reform Bill, then on the anvil. The following views were expressed by him in answer to questions put by members of the Committee on the Hindu-Muslim question. EXAMINED BY MAJOR ORMSBY-GORE Q. 3806.—You appear on behalf of the Moslem League— that is, on behalf of the only widely extended Mohammedan organisation in India ?—Yes. * The Bill notwithstanding the protest of the Indian members of the Council was passed into law and became Act XI of 1919 as “The Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act”.

315 PAKISTAN : NATIONAL FRUSTRATION Q. 3807.—I was very much struck by the fact that neither in your answers to the questions nor in your opening speech this morning did you make any reference to the special interest of the Mohammedans in India: is that because you did not wish to say anything ?—No, but because I take it the Southborough Committee have accepted that, and I left it to the members of the Committee to put any questions they wanted to. I took a very prominent part in the settlement of Lucknow. I was representing the Musalmans on that occasion. Q. 3809.—On behalf of the All-India Moslem League, you ask this Committee to reject the proposal of the Government of India ?—I am authorised to say that—to ask you to reject the proposal of the Government of India with regard to Bengal [i.e., to give the Bengal Muslims more representation than was given them by the Lucknow Pact]. Q.3810.—You said you spoke from the point of view of India. You speak really as an Indian Nationalist ?—I do. Q. 3811.—Holding that view, do you contemplate the early disappearance of separate communal representation of the Mohammedan community?—I think so. Q. 3812.—That is to say, at the earliest possible moment you wish to do away in political life with any distinction between Mohammedans and Hindus ?—Yes. Nothing will please me more than when that day comes. Q. 3813—You do not think it is true to say that the Mohammedans of India have many special political interests not merely in India but outside India, which they are always particularly anxious to press as a distinct Mohammedan community? —There are two things. In India the Mohammedans have very few things really which you can call matters of special interest for them—I mean secular things. Q.3814.—I am only referring to them, of course?—And therefore that is why I really hope and expect that the day is not very far distant when these separate electorates will disappear. Q. 3815.—It is true, at the same time, that the Mohammedans in India take a special interest in the foreign policy of the Government of India ?—They do ; a very,—No, because what you propose to do is to frame very keen interest and the large majority of them hold very strong sentiments and very strong views. Q.3816.—Is that one of the reasons why you, speaking on behalf of the Mohammedan community, are so anxious to get the Government of India more responsible to an electorate ?—No. Q. 3817.—Do you think it is possible, consistently with remaining in the British Empire, for India to have one foreign policy and for His Majesty, as advised by his Ministers in London, to have another?— Let me make it clear. It is not a question of foreign policy at