Vol. 8 · pages 431–435

406 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES (7) On the assumption that the two-nation theory has come to stay, will not India as one single unit become an incoherent body without organic unity, incapable of developing into a strong united nation bound by a common faith in a common destiny and therefore likely to remain a feeble and sickly country, easy to be kept in perpetual subjection either of the British or of any other foreign power ? (8) If India cannot be one united country, is it not belter that Indians should help India in the peaceful dissolution of this incoherent whole into its natural parts, namely, Pakistan and Hindustan ? (9) Whether it is not better to provide for the growth of two independent and separate nations, a Muslim nation inhabiting Pakistan and a Hindu nation inhabiting Hindustan, than pursue the vain attempt to keep India as one undivided country in the false hope that Hindus and Muslims will some day be one and occupy it as the members of one nation and sons of one motherland ? Nothing can come in the way of an Indian getting to grips with these issues and reaching his own conclusions with the help of the material contained in the foregoing pages except three things : (1) A false sentiment of historical patriotism, (2) a false conception of the exclusive ownership of territory and (3) absence of willingness to think for oneself. Of these obstacles, the last is the most difficult to get over. Unfortunately thought in India is rare and free thought is rarer still. This is particularly true of Hindus. That is why a large part of the argument of this book has been addressed to them. The reasons for this are obvious. The Hindus are in a majority. Being in a majority, their view point must count. There is not much possibility of peaceful solution if no attempt is made to meet their objections rational or sentimental. But there are special reasons which have led me to address so large a part of the argument to them and which may not be quite so obvious to others. I feel that those Hindus who are guiding the destinies of their fellows have lost what Carlyle calls “the Seeing Eye” and are walking in the glamour of certain vain illusions, the consequences of which must, I fear, be terrible for the Hindus. The Hindus are in the grip of the Congress and the Congress is in the grip of Mr. Gandhi. It cannot be said that Mr. Gandhi has given the Congress the right lead. Mr. Gandhi first sought to avoid facing the issue by taking refuge in two things. He started by saying that to partition India is a moral wrong and a sin to which he will never be a party. This is a strange argument.

407 PAKISTAN : EPILOGUE India is not the only country faced with the issue of partition or shifting of frontiers based on natural and historical factors to those based on the national factors. Poland has been partitioned three times and no one can be sure that there will be no more partition of Poland. There are very few countries in Europe which have not undergone partition during the last 150 years. This shows that the partition of a country is neither moral nor immoral. It is unmoral. It is a social, political or militay question. Sin has no place in it. As a second refuge Mr. Gandhi started by protesting that the Muslim League did not represent the Muslims and that Pakistan was only a fancy of Mr. Jinnah. It is difficult to understand how Mr. Gandhi could be so blind as not to see how Mr. Jinnah’s ... influence over the Muslim masses has been growing day by day and how he has engaged himself in mobilizing all his forces for battle. Never before was Mr. Jinnah a man for the masses. He distrusted them.* To exclude them from political power he was always for a high franchise. Mr. Jinnah was never known to be a very devout, pious or a professing Muslim. Besides kissing the Holy Koran as and when he was sworn in as an M.L.A., he does not appear to have bothered much about its contents or its special tenets. It is doubtful if he frequented any mosque either out of curiosity or religious fervour. Mr. Jinnah was never found in the midst of Muslim mass congregations, religious or political. Today one finds a complete change in Mr. Jinnah. He has become a man of the masses. He is no longer above them. He is among them. Now they have raised him above themselves and call him their Qaid-e-Azam. He has not only become a believer in Islam, but is prepared to die for Islam. Today, he knows more of Islam than mere Kalama. Today, he goes to the mosque to hear Khutba and takes delight in joining the Id congregational prayers. Dongri and Null Bazaar once knew Mr. Jinnah by name. Today they know him by his presence. No Muslim meeting in Bombay begins or ends without Allah-ho-Akbar and Long Live Qaid-eAzam. In this Mr. Jinnah has merely followed King Henry IV of France—the unhappy father-in-law of the English * Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in his autobiography says that Mr. Jinnah wanted the Congress to restrict its membership to matriculates.

408 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES King Charles I. Henry IV was a Huguenot by faith. But he did not hesitate to attend mass in a Catholic Church in Paris. He believed that to change his Huguenot faith and go to mass was an easy price to pay for the powerful support of Paris. As Paris became worth a mass to Henry IV, so have Dongri and Null Bazaar become worth a mass to Mr. Jinnah and for similar reason. It is strategy ; it is mobilization. But even if it is viewed as the sinking of Mr. Jinnah from reason to superstition, he is sinking with his ideology which by his very sinking is spreading into all the different strata of Muslim society and is becoming part and parcel of its mental makeup. This is as clear as anything could be. The only basis for Mr. Gandhi’s extraordinary view is the existence of what are called Nationlist Musalmans. It is difficult to see any real difference between the communal Muslims who form the Muslim League and the Nationalist Muslims. It is extremely doubtful whether the Nationalist Musalmans have any real community of sentiment, aim and policy with the Congress which marks them off from the Muslim League. Indeed many Congressmen are alleged to hold the view that there is no different between the two and that the Nationalist Muslim inside the Congress are only an outpost of the communal Muslims. This view does not seem to be quite devoid of truth when one recalls that the late Dr. Ansari, the leader of the Nationalist Musalmans, refused to oppose the Communal Award although it gave the Muslims separate electorates in teeth of the resolution passed by the Congress and the Nationalist Musalmans. Nay, so great has been the increase in the influence of the League among the Musalmans that many Musalmans who were opposed to the League have been compelled to seek for a place in the League or make peace with it. Anyone who takes account of the turns and twists of the late Sir Sikandar Hyat Khan and Mr. Fazlul Huq, the late Premier of Bengal, must admit the truth of this fact. Both Sir Sikandar and Mr. Fazlul Huq were opposed to the formation of branches of the Muslim League in their Provinces when Mr. Jinnah tried to revive it in 1937. Notwithstanding their opposition, when the branches of the League were formed in the Punjab and in Bengal within one year both were compelled to join them. It is a case of those coming to scoff

409 PAKISTAN : EPILOGUE remaining to pray. No more cogent proof seems to be necessary to prove the victory of the League. Notwithstanding this Mr. Gandhi instead of negotiating with Mr. Jinnah and the Muslim League with a view to a settlement, took a different turn. He got the Congress to pass the famous Quit India Resolution on the 8th August 1942. This Quit India Resolution was primarily a challenge to the British Government. But it was also an attempt to do away with the intervention of the British Government in the discussion of the Minority question and thereby securing for the Congress a free hand to settle it on its own terms and according to its own lights. It was in effect, if not in intention, an attempt to win independence by bypassing the Muslims and the other minorities. The Quit India Campaign turned out to be a complete failure. It was a mad venture and took the most diabolical form. It was a scorch-earth campaign in which the victims of looting, arson and murder were Indians and the perpetrators were Congressmen. Beaten, he started a fast for twenty-one days in March 1943 while he was in gaol with the object of getting out of it. He failed. Thereafter he fell ill. As he was reported to be sinking the British Government released him for fear that he might die on their hand and bring them ignominy. On coming out of gaol, he found that he and the Congress had not only missed the bus but had also lost the road. To retrieve the position and win for the Congress the respect of the British Government as a premier party in the country which it had lost by reason of the failure of the campaign that followed up the Quit India Resolution, and the violence which accompanied it, he started negotiating with the Viceroy. Thwarted in that attempt, Mr. Gandhi turned to Mr. Jinnah. On the 17th July 1944 Mr. Gandhi wrote to Mr. Jinnah expressing his desire to meet him and discuss with him the communal question. Mr. Jinnah agreed to receive Mr. Gandhi in his house in Bombay. They met on the 9th September 1944. It was good that at long last wisdom dawned on Mr. Gandhi and he agreed to see the light which was staring him in the face and which he had so far refused to see. The basis of their talks was the offer made by Mr. Rajagopalachariar to Mr. Jinnah in April 1944 which, according to the

410 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES somewhat incredible* story told by Mr. Rajagopalachariar, was discussed by him with Mr. Gandhi in March 1943 when he (Mr. Gandhi) was fasting in gaol and to which Mr. Gandhi had given his full approval. The following is the text of Mr. Rajagopalachariar’s formula popularly spoken of as the C. R. Formula:— (1) Subject to the terms set out below as regards the constitution for Free India, the Muslim League endorses the Indian demand for Independence and will co-operate with the Congress in the formation of a provisional interim government for the transitional period. (2) After the termination of the war, a commission shall be appointed for demarcating contiguous districts in the north-west and east of India, wherein the Muslim population is in absolute majority. In the areas thus demarcated, a plebiscite of all the inhabitants held on the basis of adult suffrage or other practicable franchise shall ultimately decide the issue of separation from Hindustan. If the majority decide in favour of forming a sovereign State separate from Hindustan, such decision shall be given effect to, without prejudice to the right of districts on the border to choose to join either State. (3) It will be open to all parties to advocate their points of view before the plebiscite is held. (4) In the event of separation, mutual agreements shall be entered into for safeguarding defence, and commerce and communications and for other essential purposes. (5) Any transfer of population shall only be on an absolutely voluntary basis. (6) These terms shall be binding only in case of transfer by Britain of full power and responsibility for the governance of India. The talks which began on the 9th September were carried on over a period of 18 days till 27th September when it was announced that the talks had failed. The failure of the talks *The formula was discussed with Mr. Gandhi in March 1943 but was not communicated to Mr. Jinnah till April 1944.