Vol. 8 · pages 421–425

396 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES claim a plebiscite of the whole province for ascertaining the will of the people. In the case of the plebiscite, a bare majority would be enough. Sir Stafford explained that for completing accession there would have to be a positive vote from the Provincial Assembly concerned. The non-acceding province could, if they wanted, combine into a separate union through a separate Constituent Assembly, but in order to make such a Union practicable they should be geographically contiguous.” The main difference between my plan and that of Sir Stafford Cripps is quite obvious. For deciding the issue of accession or secession which is only another way of saying, will there be or will there not be Pakistan, Sir Stafford Cripps took the Province as a deciding unit. I have taken community as the deciding unit. I have no doubt that Sir Stafford adopted a wrong basis. The Province can be a proper unit if the points of dispute were inter-provincial. For instance, if the points of dispute related to questions such as distribution of taxation, of water, etc., one could understand the Province as a whole or a particular majority in that Province having the right to decide. But the dispute regarding Pakistan is an intercommunal problem which has involved two communities in the same Province. Further the issue in the dispute is not on what terms the two communities will agree to associate in a common political life. The dispute goes deeper and raises the question whether the communities are prepared at all to associate in a common political life. It is a communal difference in its essence and can only be decided by a community-wise plebiscite. IV I do not claim any originality for the solution I have proposed. The ideas which underlie it are drawn from three sources, from the Irish Unity Conference at which Horace Plunket presided, from the Home Rule Amending Bill of Mr. Asquith and from the Government of Ireland Act of 1920. It will be seen that my solution of the Pakistan problem is the result of pooled wisdom. Will it be accepted ? There are four ways of resolving the conflict which is raging round the question of Pakistan. First is that the British Government should act as the deciding authority. Second is that

397 PAKISTAN : WHO CAN DECIDE ? the Hindus and the Muslims should agree. Third is to submit the issue to an International Board of Arbitration and the fourth is to fight it out by a Civil War. Although India today is a political mad-house there are I hope enough sane people in the country who would not allow matters to reach the stage of Civil War. There is no prospect of an agreement between political leaders in the near future. The A.I.C.C. of the Indian National Congress at a meeting in Allahabad held in April 1942 on the motion of Mr. Jagat Narayan Lal resolved* not to entertain the proposal for Pakistan. Two other ways are left to have the problem solved. One is by the people concerned ; the other is by international arbitration. This is the way I have suggested. I prefer the former. For various reasons this seems to me the only right course. The leaders having failed to resolve the dispute it is time it was taken to the people for decision. Indeed, it is inconceivable how an issue like that of partition of territory and transference of peoples’ allegiance from one government to another can be decided by political leaders. Such things are no doubt done by conquerors to whom victory in war is sufficient authority to do what they like with the conquered people. But we are not working under such a lawless condition. In normal times when constitutional procedure is not in abeyance the views of political leaders cannot have the effect which the fiats of dictators have. That would be contrary to the rule of democracy. The highest value that can be put upon the views of leaders is to regard them as worthy to be placed on the agenda. They cannot replace or obviate the necessity of having the matter decided by the people. This is the position which was taken by Sir Stafford Cripps. The stand taken by the Muslim League was, let there be Pakistan because the Muslim League has decided to have it. That position has been negatived by the Cripps proposals and quite rightly. The Muslim League is recognized by the Cripps proposals only to the extent of having a right to propose * The text of the resolution is as follows :— “The A.I.C.C. is of opinion that any proposal to disintegrate India by giving liberty to any component State or territorial unit to secede from the Indian Union or Federation will be highly detrimental to the best interests of the people of the States and Provinces and the country as a whole and the Congress, therefore, cannot agree to any such proposal.”

398 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES that Pakistan as a proposition be considered. It has not been given the right to decide. Again it does not seem to have been realized that the decision of an All-India body like the Congress which does not carry with it the active consent of the majority of the people, immediately affected by the issue of Pakistan, cannot carry the matter to solution. What good can it do if Mr. Gandhi or Mr. Rajagopalachariar agreeing or the All-India Congress Committee resolving to concede Pakistan, if it was opposed by the Hindus of the Punjab, or Bengal. Really speaking it is not the business of the people of Bombay or Madras to say, ‘let there be Pakistan’. It must be left to be decided by the people who are living in those areas and who will have to bear the consequences of so violent, so revolutionary and so fundamental a change in the political and economic system with which their lives and fortunes have been closely bound up for so many years. A referendum by people in the Pakistan Provinces seems to me the safest and the most constitutional method of solving the problem of Pakistan. But I fear that solving the question of Pakistan by a referendum of the people howsoever attractive may not find much favour with those who count. Even the Muslim League may not be very enthusiastic about it. This is not because the proposal is unsound. Quite the contrary. The fact is that there is another solution which has its own attractions. It calls upon the British Government to establish Pakistan by the exercise of its sovereign authority. The reason why this solution may be preferred to that which rests on the consent of the people is that it is simple and involves no such elaborate procedure as that of a referendum to the people and has none of the uncertainties involved in a referendum. But there is another ground why it is preferred, namely, that there is a precedent for it. The precedent is the Irish precedent and the argument is that if the British Government by virtue of its sovereign authority divided Ireland and created Ulster why cannot the British Government divide India and create Pakistan ? The British Parliament is the most sovereign legislative body in the world. De L’home, a French writer on English Constitution, observed that there is nothing the British Parliament cannot do

399 PAKISTAN : WHO CAN DECIDE ? except make man a woman and woman a man. And although the sovereignty of the British Parliament over the affairs of the Dominions is limited by the Statute of Westminster it is still unlimited so far as India is concerned. There is nothing in law to prevent the British Parliament from proceeding to divide India as it did in the case of Ireland. It can do it, but will it do it ? The question is not one of power but of will. Those who urge the British Government to follow the precedent in Ireland should ask what led the British Government to partition Ireland. Was it the conscience of the British Government which led them to sanction the course they took or was it forced upon them by circumstances to which they had to yield ? A student of the history of Irish Home Rule will have to admit that the partition of Ireland was not sanctioned by conscience but by the force of circumstances. It is not often clearly realized that no party to the Irish dispute wanted partition of Ireland. Not even Carson, the Leader of Ulster. Carson was opposed to Home Rule but he was not in favour of partition. His primary position was to oppose Home Rule and maintain the integrity of Ireland. It was only as a second line of defence against the imposition of Home Rule that he insisted on partition. This will be quite clear from his speeches both inside and outside the House of Commons. Asquith’s Government on the other side was equally opposed to partition. This may be seen from the proceedings in the House of Commons over the Irish Home Rule Bill of 1912. Twice amendments were moved for the exclusion of Ulster from the provisions of the Bill, once in the Committee stage by Mr. Agar-Roberts and again on the third reading by Carson himself. Both the times the Government opposed and the amendments were lost. Permanent partition of Ireland was effected in 1920 by Mr. Lloyd George in his Government of Ireland Act. Many people think that this was the first time that partition of Ireland was thought of and that it was due to the dictation of the Conservative—Unionists in the Coalition Government of which Mr. Lloyd George was the nominal head. It may be true that Mr. Lloyd George succumbed to the influence of the predominant party in his coalition. But it is not true that partition was thought of in 1920 for the first time. Nor is it true that the Liberal Party had not undergone a

400 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES change and shown its readiness to favour partition as a possible solution. As a matter of fact partition as a solution came in 1914 six years before Mr. Lloyd George’s Act when the Asquith Government, a purely Liberal Government, was in office. The real cause which led to the partition of Ireland can be understood only by examining the factors which made the Liberal Government of Mr. Asquith change its mind. I feel certain that the factor which brought about this change in the viewpoint of the Liberal Government was the Military crisis which took place in March 1914 and which is generally referred to as the “Curragh Incident”. A few facts will be sufficient to explain what the “Curragh Incident” was and how decisive it was in bringing about a change in the policy of the Asquith Government. To begin at a convenient point the Irish Home Rule Bill had gone through all its stages by the end of 1913. Mr. Asquith who had been challenged that he was proceeding without a mandate from the electorate had however given an undertaking that the Act would not be given effect to until another general election had been held. In the ordinary course there would have been a general election in 1915 if the War had not supervened. But the Ulstermen were not prepared to take their chance in a general election and started taking active steps to oppose Home Rule. They were not always very scrupulous in choosing their means and their methods and under the seductive pose that they were fighting against the Government which was preventing them from remaining loyal subjects of the King they resorted to means which nobody would hesitate to call shameless and nefarious. There was one Maginot Line on which the Ulstermen always depended for defeating Home Rule. That was the House of Lords. But by the Parliament Act of 1911 the House of Lords had become a Wailing Wall neither strong nor high. It had ceased to be a line of defence to rely upon. Knowing that the Bill might pass notwithstanding its rejection by the House of Lords, feeling that in the next election Asquith might win, the Ulstermen had become desperate and were searching for another line of defence. They found it in the Army. The plan was twofold. It included the project of getting the House of Lords to hold up the Annual Army Act so as to ensure that there would be no Army in existence to be used