Chapter 15
BEING a political organisation Muslim League had the right to adopt
whatever policies it considered best to obtain its demands. But
before deciding on “direct action” it ought to have pondered the
basic difference between itself and the Congress movement. The
latter had been directed at the independence of the country, whereas
the Muslim League move was not really aimed against the British, but
against the Congress and that too not the Congress as a national
organisation but as a supposed body of the Hindus only.
All the Muslim League speeches, statements and propaganda had been
so devised as if all the powers lay in the hands of the Hindus and
it were they who were denying the Muslims their share in them. The
British had barely figured in the League confrontation. It was
natural therefor that the direct action would pit the Indian
communities themselves against each other. Thus, in logical
consequence of the British policies of the past, Hindus and the
Muslims were now to advance from political warning to the state of
direct confrontation in a situation of virtual civil war.
August 16, 1946, was fixed as the day of direct action. There wasn’t
much that the Muslim League could do anywhere save Bengal, where it
had its ministry with Mr. Hussein Shaheed Suhrawardy as the chief
minister. (In fact the assembly there had 25 British members, but
for whose support the Muslim League could not have attained the
necessary majority to stay in power.) The provincial government thus
itself announced direct action, and declared complete holiday on
that day so that the whole government machinery could take part in
organising meetings and processions it was an odd situation that the
local administration itself was setting out to create a law and
order problem. If the action was to cause Hindu-Muslim friction, its
fires were bound to spread to the rest of the country. What would
then happen in the provinces where Muslims were in a minority? It
was characteristic of Muslim League politics that the party was
strongest in the non-Muslim majority areas. Who would gain by
communal riots there? And who would lose?
The Bengal chief minister thus himself led the direct action in his
province – and it had its predictable consequences. Riots started.
The Muslims had lit the fire, the Hindus fanned it, and the Sikh
caused widespread devastation. Muslims were in a minority in
Calcutta. Sikhs had virtual control over the city’s transport.
Almost all taxis were run by them. According to Hodson:
Whole streets were strewn with corpses – men, women and children of
all communities – impossible to count, let alone identify. If the
Muslims gave the provocations and started the holocaust, they were
certainly its worst victims for they were in a minority in the city.
Being a commercial centre, Calcutta was filled with migrant labour
and trading classes from different parts of the country. It was
especially a magnet for the people from the poor and backward
neighbouring province of Bihar, a majority of who were non-Muslims.
When this mix of migrants fled to their homes in the wake of the
communal riots and carried tales – no doubt exaggerated in the
telling – of arson, loot, rape and murder, the fire of hate and
revenge spread to all corners and it caused an outburst of
incredible barbarism.
It was obvious that such incidents could benefit no one except the
British. Their communal oriented policies of a hundred years bore
fruit. It caused Muslims and non-Muslims to slit each other’s
throats.
On the same August 16, 1946, While Mr. Suhrawardy was causing the
outbreak of Hindu-Muslims riots in Calcutta, Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru
was proposing that if Mr. Jinnah co-operated an interim government
could be set up comprising six ministers from the Congress, five
from the Muslim League and one each from the minority communities of
Sikhs, Christians, and Parsis. Mr. Jinnah was however firm on his
stands that apart from the Muslim League nominees there would be no
Muslim representative in the cabinet. Without this guarantee there
could be no advance, he ruled.
This was the only issue on which the whole thing collapsed. It was
strange logic. After all, Punjab too was a Muslim-majority province.
NWFP had the largest Muslim concentration-of 93 per cent-and it was
represented not by the Muslim League but by Khudai Khidmatgars. How
could the Muslim League chief then claim the right to nominate a
representative on behalf of this province?
The basic fact was that the Muslim League was being accorded its
share-in fact more than its share-of seats at the centre. How could
it then place a binding on the Congress that the latter should name
no Muslim in its own quota of seats? If the Congress had claimed
that since Muslim League had a majority only in two provinces,
Bengal and Sindh, it could not represent Punjab and NWFP, what would
Mr. Jinnah’s legal mind have said to that? If one looks at the
situation more closely it would appear that Mr. Jinnah’s principal
focus was not the Muslims as such but the establishing of Muslim
League’s exclusive domain over all Muslims.
The person most worried was the Viceroy, Lord Wavell. His ‘Breakdown
Plan’ was coming to grief. He first pressed on Mr. Nehru to leave
five of the cabinet seats vacant against the possibility of Muslim
League joining in later. But when Nehru refused on the basis that it
had been a condition of the proposal that which over party did not
accept it would have to stay out. Wavell himself set out to argue
with Mr. Jinnah and wasn’t rested until Mr. Jinnah left no door
open.
Having failed in this, Wavell called over Gandhiji and Jawarharlal
in a bid to create new snags in the way of Congress setting up a
ministry by itself. The government of India, however, reprimanded
him against these efforts and thus on August 24, 1946 the first
interim government of India was announced under the leadership of
Jawaharlal Nehru.
Jawaharlal left two Muslim seats vacant in his cabinet for the
representatives of the two Muslim League provinces, Bengal and
Sindh. Oddly, in his broadcast of that day, even as the new cabinet
was being announced, Wavell again urged the Muslim League to join in
and offered it the original terms.
The setting up of the Congress ministry caused Wavell to virtually
lose all restraint. He openly began to argue with his government on
Muslim League’s behalf. The Secretary of State Lord Pathick Lawrence
pulled him up several times, but he persisted in the special
pleadings. One manifestation of this was his procrastination in
calling the constituent assembly into session. The Congress kept
pointing out that after the formation of the interim government it
became obligatory for him to convene the elected assembly, but
without effect. Wavell knew that once that was done the Cabinet
Mission Plan would have been completed and it would have become
unavoidable to transfer all power to that assembly, it would have
also meant Britain’s putting the final seal on the country’s federal
unified structure. As Hodson wrote:
“The Viceroy, who was being pressed by the Congress to call the
constituent assembly, felt that he would rather lose their
cooperation than go ahead with constitution-making on a one-party
basis.” (P-169).
Wavell’s concern was not the interests of the Muslims or the Muslim
League. His fixed conviction was that the good of Britain and the
British Crown lay in the division of India, and he was resolved on
pursuing that course as long as he could help it. His effort now was
to create a political crisis that would lead to a constitutional
stalemate. And then, Whitehall would be forced to ask him to proceed
with his ‘Breakdown Plan’. The subcommittee he had set up to study
the plan–which had proposed that if the British were forced to leave
India they would later return to the Muslim province–sent it to the
British government. The reaction of the authorities in London was
strong. As Wavell recorded:
The proposals greatly perturbed them and they concluded that they
could not justify to parliament so drastic a policy and that on this
ground alone his plan was impossible. They said that if withdrawal
from India became unavoidable than withdrawal should take place from
India as a whole. (P-345).
However, Wavell was not the one to admit defeat. He continued
working on the two alternatives, namely, that the Muslim League
should somehow be brought into the interim government, and that the
convening of the constituent assembly should continue to be
postponed for as long as possible. In other words his effort was
that what the Cabinet Mission had offered to the Indians should not
reach them. London kept pressing on him to move forward, but he kept
putting it off.
However, if on one side Wavell was worried that the Muslim League
might’s slip out of the hands, on the other League hierarchy of
feudal and capitalists and British-honored grandees felt concerned
about losing all the favours it had enjoyed. The party largely
comprised people who looked to their personal interests. That had
been the reason for their trying to remain on the right side of the
colonial rulers. Such people have no principle: their loyalty is
only to those who hold power. The danger now was, that if these
people became disillusioned with the British and the Muslim League
while the Congress held power, there was the great likelihood of
their crossing over and going and setting on the Congress’
ministerial benches.
So when Wavell once again invited Mr. Jinnah to press him to join
the government he noted that “Jinnah was less aggressive and
aggrieved than I had expected had expected and easier to talk to”
(P-251). However, Wavell’s action was open to question. When the
Congress had agreed to form an interim government it was decided
that the viceroy would not interfere in cabinet matters. The latter
had even been snubbed by London and told that since Muslim League
had withdrawn its acceptance of the May 16 proposal it could not now
be brought into the Cabinet. Wavell had also been told that if any
further negotiations were to be done with Mr. Jinnah that was now
the responsibility not of the Viceroy but of the head of the interim
government, Nehru. Accordingly, Nehru later raised the issue with
the British cabinet. As Wavell noted, he “complained that the
approach to the Muslim League to join the interim government had
been made over his head” (P-390).
The upshot of it all, however, was that Muslim League agreed to
withdraw its rejection of the May 16 plan and accepted the principle
of unified, federal nationhood, and on the basis to join the interim
government. Thus, in order to get the ministries the Muslim League
made a non-too-dignified retraction, and the Pakistan demand too
again fell by the wayside. Also the bone of prolonged unsavoury
contention, that no Muslim could be nominated to the centre except
by the Muslim League, was also unceremoniously buried. Barrister
Asif Ali remained on the central cabinet from the Congress side.
Although, at the same time, the Muslim League too made a principled
move – among its five nominees for the ministries posts it included
a Hindu. Mr. Jogindernath Mandal was actually a Harijan chosen to
represent the Muslim League.
Thus on October 15, 1946, Muslim League joined the interim
government. Three members of the Nehru cabinet, Sarat Chandra Bose,
Sir Shafaat Ahmad Khan, and Syed Ali Zaheer, made way for them by
resigning their seats. The new Muslim League ministers included
Nawabzada Liaqat Ali Khan, Mr. I.I. Chundrigar, Raja Ghazanfar Ali
and Sardar Abdur Rab Nishter.
BEING a political organisation Muslim League had the right to adopt
whatever policies it considered best to obtain its demands. But
before deciding on “direct action” it ought to have pondered the
basic difference between itself and the Congress movement. The
latter had been directed at the independence of the country, whereas
the Muslim League move was not really aimed against the British, but
against the Congress and that too not the Congress as a national
organisation but as a supposed body of the Hindus only.
All the Muslim League speeches, statements and propaganda had been
so devised as if all the powers lay in the hands of the Hindus and
it were they who were denying the Muslims their share in them. The
British had barely figured in the League confrontation. It was
natural therefor that the direct action would pit the Indian
communities themselves against each other. Thus, in logical
consequence of the British policies of the past, Hindus and the
Muslims were now to advance from political warning to the state of
direct confrontation in a situation of virtual civil war.
August 16, 1946, was fixed as the day of direct action. There wasn’t
much that the Muslim League could do anywhere save Bengal, where it
had its ministry with Mr. Hussein Shaheed Suhrawardy as the chief
minister. (In fact the assembly there had 25 British members, but
for whose support the Muslim League could not have attained the
necessary majority to stay in power.) The provincial government thus
itself announced direct action, and declared complete holiday on
that day so that the whole government machinery could take part in
organising meetings and processions it was an odd situation that the
local administration itself was setting out to create a law and
order problem. If the action was to cause Hindu-Muslim friction, its
fires were bound to spread to the rest of the country. What would
then happen in the provinces where Muslims were in a minority? It
was characteristic of Muslim League politics that the party was
strongest in the non-Muslim majority areas. Who would gain by
communal riots there? And who would lose?
The Bengal chief minister thus himself led the direct action in his
province – and it had its predictable consequences. Riots started.
The Muslims had lit the fire, the Hindus fanned it, and the Sikh
caused widespread devastation. Muslims were in a minority in
Calcutta. Sikhs had virtual control over the city’s transport.
Almost all taxis were run by them. According to Hodson:
Whole streets were strewn with corpses – men, women and children of
all communities – impossible to count, let alone identify. If the
Muslims gave the provocations and started the holocaust, they were
certainly its worst victims for they were in a minority in the city.
Being a commercial centre, Calcutta was filled with migrant labour
and trading classes from different parts of the country. It was
especially a magnet for the people from the poor and backward
neighbouring province of Bihar, a majority of who were non-Muslims.
When this mix of migrants fled to their homes in the wake of the
communal riots and carried tales – no doubt exaggerated in the
telling – of arson, loot, rape and murder, the fire of hate and
revenge spread to all corners and it caused an outburst of
incredible barbarism.
It was obvious that such incidents could benefit no one except the
British. Their communal oriented policies of a hundred years bore
fruit. It caused Muslims and non-Muslims to slit each other’s
throats.
On the same August 16, 1946, While Mr. Suhrawardy was causing the
outbreak of Hindu-Muslims riots in Calcutta, Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru
was proposing that if Mr. Jinnah co-operated an interim government
could be set up comprising six ministers from the Congress, five
from the Muslim League and one each from the minority communities of
Sikhs, Christians, and Parsis. Mr. Jinnah was however firm on his
stands that apart from the Muslim League nominees there would be no
Muslim representative in the cabinet. Without this guarantee there
could be no advance, he ruled.
This was the only issue on which the whole thing collapsed. It was
strange logic. After all, Punjab too was a Muslim-majority province.
NWFP had the largest Muslim concentration-of 93 per cent-and it was
represented not by the Muslim League but by Khudai Khidmatgars. How
could the Muslim League chief then claim the right to nominate a
representative on behalf of this province?
The basic fact was that the Muslim League was being accorded its
share-in fact more than its share-of seats at the centre. How could
it then place a binding on the Congress that the latter should name
no Muslim in its own quota of seats? If the Congress had claimed
that since Muslim League had a majority only in two provinces,
Bengal and Sindh, it could not represent Punjab and NWFP, what would
Mr. Jinnah’s legal mind have said to that? If one looks at the
situation more closely it would appear that Mr. Jinnah’s principal
focus was not the Muslims as such but the establishing of Muslim
League’s exclusive domain over all Muslims.
The person most worried was the Viceroy, Lord Wavell. His ‘Breakdown
Plan’ was coming to grief. He first pressed on Mr. Nehru to leave
five of the cabinet seats vacant against the possibility of Muslim
League joining in later. But when Nehru refused on the basis that it
had been a condition of the proposal that which over party did not
accept it would have to stay out. Wavell himself set out to argue
with Mr. Jinnah and wasn’t rested until Mr. Jinnah left no door
open.
Having failed in this, Wavell called over Gandhiji and Jawarharlal
in a bid to create new snags in the way of Congress setting up a
ministry by itself. The government of India, however, reprimanded
him against these efforts and thus on August 24, 1946 the first
interim government of India was announced under the leadership of
Jawaharlal Nehru.
Jawaharlal left two Muslim seats vacant in his cabinet for the
representatives of the two Muslim League provinces, Bengal and
Sindh. Oddly, in his broadcast of that day, even as the new cabinet
was being announced, Wavell again urged the Muslim League to join in
and offered it the original terms.
The setting up of the Congress ministry caused Wavell to virtually
lose all restraint. He openly began to argue with his government on
Muslim League’s behalf. The Secretary of State Lord Pathick Lawrence
pulled him up several times, but he persisted in the special
pleadings. One manifestation of this was his procrastination in
calling the constituent assembly into session. The Congress kept
pointing out that after the formation of the interim government it
became obligatory for him to convene the elected assembly, but
without effect. Wavell knew that once that was done the Cabinet
Mission Plan would have been completed and it would have become
unavoidable to transfer all power to that assembly, it would have
also meant Britain’s putting the final seal on the country’s federal
unified structure. As Hodson wrote:
“The Viceroy, who was being pressed by the Congress to call the
constituent assembly, felt that he would rather lose their
cooperation than go ahead with constitution-making on a one-party
basis.” (P-169).
Wavell’s concern was not the interests of the Muslims or the Muslim
League. His fixed conviction was that the good of Britain and the
British Crown lay in the division of India, and he was resolved on
pursuing that course as long as he could help it. His effort now was
to create a political crisis that would lead to a constitutional
stalemate. And then, Whitehall would be forced to ask him to proceed
with his ‘Breakdown Plan’. The subcommittee he had set up to study
the plan–which had proposed that if the British were forced to leave
India they would later return to the Muslim province–sent it to the
British government. The reaction of the authorities in London was
strong. As Wavell recorded:
The proposals greatly perturbed them and they concluded that they
could not justify to parliament so drastic a policy and that on this
ground alone his plan was impossible. They said that if withdrawal
from India became unavoidable than withdrawal should take place from
India as a whole. (P-345).
However, Wavell was not the one to admit defeat. He continued
working on the two alternatives, namely, that the Muslim League
should somehow be brought into the interim government, and that the
convening of the constituent assembly should continue to be
postponed for as long as possible. In other words his effort was
that what the Cabinet Mission had offered to the Indians should not
reach them. London kept pressing on him to move forward, but he kept
putting it off.
However, if on one side Wavell was worried that the Muslim League
might’s slip out of the hands, on the other League hierarchy of
feudal and capitalists and British-honored grandees felt concerned
about losing all the favours it had enjoyed. The party largely
comprised people who looked to their personal interests. That had
been the reason for their trying to remain on the right side of the
colonial rulers. Such people have no principle: their loyalty is
only to those who hold power. The danger now was, that if these
people became disillusioned with the British and the Muslim League
while the Congress held power, there was the great likelihood of
their crossing over and going and setting on the Congress’
ministerial benches.
So when Wavell once again invited Mr. Jinnah to press him to join
the government he noted that “Jinnah was less aggressive and
aggrieved than I had expected had expected and easier to talk to”
(P-251). However, Wavell’s action was open to question. When the
Congress had agreed to form an interim government it was decided
that the viceroy would not interfere in cabinet matters. The latter
had even been snubbed by London and told that since Muslim League
had withdrawn its acceptance of the May 16 proposal it could not now
be brought into the Cabinet. Wavell had also been told that if any
further negotiations were to be done with Mr. Jinnah that was now
the responsibility not of the Viceroy but of the head of the interim
government, Nehru. Accordingly, Nehru later raised the issue with
the British cabinet. As Wavell noted, he “complained that the
approach to the Muslim League to join the interim government had
been made over his head” (P-390).
The upshot of it all, however, was that Muslim League agreed to
withdraw its rejection of the May 16 plan and accepted the principle
of unified, federal nationhood, and on the basis to join the interim
government. Thus, in order to get the ministries the Muslim League
made a non-too-dignified retraction, and the Pakistan demand too
again fell by the wayside. Also the bone of prolonged unsavoury
contention, that no Muslim could be nominated to the centre except
by the Muslim League, was also unceremoniously buried. Barrister
Asif Ali remained on the central cabinet from the Congress side.
Although, at the same time, the Muslim League too made a principled
move – among its five nominees for the ministries posts it included
a Hindu. Mr. Jogindernath Mandal was actually a Harijan chosen to
represent the Muslim League.
Thus on October 15, 1946, Muslim League joined the interim
government. Three members of the Nehru cabinet, Sarat Chandra Bose,
Sir Shafaat Ahmad Khan, and Syed Ali Zaheer, made way for them by
resigning their seats. The new Muslim League ministers included
Nawabzada Liaqat Ali Khan, Mr. I.I. Chundrigar, Raja Ghazanfar Ali
and Sardar Abdur Rab Nishter. |
