Chapter 20
The Referendum
THE seeds sown by the British were bearing fruit. The Communal
insanity in the country had reached such a point of mutual mayhem
that, as Mr. Jinnah had said there was no longer a cure save a
surgery. India where Hindus and Muslims had lived in harmony for
centuries and which had also seen centuries of peaceful Muslim rule,
that same India was today being prepared for carving by the
sharpened knives of the British. It looked to us at the time not
just a division of India but a division of the Muslim of the
country.
On June, 2 Lord Mountbatten invited three members each of the
congress and the Muslim League and one of the Sikh communities.
Earlier, Mr. Nehru had pointed out that since Mr. Acharya kriplani
had just assumed the presidentship of the Congress and only he could
speak on behalf of the party, his presence too was necessary at any
presentation of Mountbatten’s plan besides that of himself and Mr.
Vallabhbai Patel. When Mr. Jinnah learnt of this he also asked for
an invitation for a Third member of his party and proposed the name
of Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar.
Mr. Nishtar’s position was a curious one. When the Muslim League had
proposed his name for Minister Ship in the interim government, the
Congress had objected. It asked how he could be a nominee for NWFP
when just then, in 1946; he had lost an election in his home
constituency, Peshawar: how could a person not able to obtain votes
for representation at the provincial level assume that role on the
national scale? It was eventually resolved that the Viceroy would
ask the Khudai Khidmatgar leader khan Abdul Ghaffar khan if he had
any objection. When the matter was referred to Bacha khan he said
that the Sardar was after all a pushtoon and so he wouldn’t object.
To return to the Viceroy’s meeting, he presented the details of his
independence plan to this Congress-Muslim League-Sikh Jirga. The
plan stipulated division of Bengal and Punjab, and referendums in
the district of Assam and in NWFP to ask if the people there wished
to join India or Pakistan.
A boundary commission was set up for the partition of Bengal and
Punjab. It was provided that its decision would be final and neither
party could with hold acceptance. It was also announced that
although June 1948 had been fixed for transfer of power, the effort
would be to make it possible even sooner.
In outlining his plan Mountbatten said that he would not press for
an immediate answer. The parties could call a meeting of their
working committees and then let him know their decision. Mr. Jinnah
pointed out that his working committee did not have the powers to
decide on such a major issue and that he would have to convene a
session of the party’s national council and that would take time.
The congress thought that it was Mr. Jinnah’s practice to delay his
decision until he knew of the congress response and then to react in
the light of this.
Accordingly it asked the viceroy to fix the same time for a reply
from both sides. Mr. Jinnah then agreed to let the viceroy know of
his party’s decision by the same evening.
However, as Mountbatten reported, Mr. Jinnah called on him at the
middle of the night and reverted to his earlier plea that he was
only a constitutional head of his party and the decision could only
be taken by the Muslim League council. Mountbatten remonstrated in
the strongest terms and said that this time there was no way that
the congress would agree; it demanded a clear answer from the
League. Mr. Jinnah did not relent. But nor did Mountbatten who
declared:
Mr. Jinnah, I do not intend to let you wreck all the work that has
gone into this settlement. Since you will not accept it for the
Muslim League, I will speak for them myself.
(Campbell Johnson. Mission with Mountbatten)
Mountbatten went even further, he said that when all the leaders
would gather the next morning he would announce acceptance of the
plan by the Muslim League, and with that he would look at Mr. Jinnah
and the latter should then nod his head to show agreement.
It is thus clear that the June, 3 partition plan was not in fact
endorsed by either the Muslim League or its leader, but that it was
approved on behalf of the League by the viceroy lord Mountbatten
himself. Whether the authority to do so was conceded to him by the
Muslim League or he had assumed it himself is not known, but the
fact that the he exercised it is a matter of Britain’s own official
records.
With the announcement of the referendum proposal, there was strong
opposition to it in N.W.F.P. If the idea was to the view of the
people that had been demonstrated just a year earlier when the
Khudai Khimatgars had defeated the Muslim League on the basis not
only of the entire population but that of Muslim electorate as well.
What had happen in the space of a year to make a renewed reference
to the people necessary? The central leader ship of the Congress had
also agreed in the light of the stand of the province to oppose
referendum.
Abut that time Mountbatten went to Simla and invited Mr. Jawaharlal
Nehru there. On their way back, the announcement was made that the
referendum would go ahead. Jawaharlal said that he had a detailed
discussion with the NWFP chief minister Dr. Khan Sahib and the
latter had agreed to the idea.
Khudai Khidmatgars’ first objection was that since the Congress and
the Muslim league had both agreed on Partition, and since they
considered themselves bound by the congress decisions (Bacha Khan
himself used to represent Khudai Khidmatgars in the Congress working
Committee), and since the congress had accepted that NWFP had to be
part of Pakistan, then why hold a referendum? The exercise would
only exacerbate the existing communal and political tension and
political tension and create an atmosphere of confrontation.
The fact was that the Muslim League and the British had their own
purpose behind the design. Muslim league was keen to convey the
impression that Pakistan was formed its demand and its demand alone;
and that the Khudai Khidmatgars had opposed Pakistan which was why a
referendum had become necessary. There was in other purpose in
singling out NWFP for a different treatment from other provinces. In
the rest of India only the assembly members of the Muslim majority
provinces were asked to give their vote. Bengal and Punjab
assemblies voted for the partition and thus the provinces were
divided. Sindh assembly was asked to vote for Pakistan. Why not then
NWFP assembly also? The reason was obvious. Here the Khudai
Khidmatgars were in Majority in the assembly. If they for Pakistan
the decision would have been the Khudai Khidmatgars. The Muslim
League was not prepared to concede that credit. Nor were the
British.
Besides the Muslim League also knew that the Khudai Khidmatgars were
apposed to the referendum and would not participate in it. That
guaranteed a decision in favor of Pakistan. But the announcement of
the result the League would have the opportunity to cry from the
house-tops that the policies in the province had taken a complete
turn and that the khudai Khidmatgars ministry should for that reason
resign, and if didn’t the Viceroy should dismiss it and present the
reins of government to the Muslim League.
For their part the Khudai Khidmatgars decided that if the British
were insistent on holding the plebiscite despite the general
acceptance that NWFP would go to Pakistan, then following the same
principle of self-determination the province should also have the
freedom to a third option, of an in dependent Pukhtoonistan.
Mountbatten, however, refused to include this alternative. The
Khudai Khidmatgars then decided that since between the available two
options the decision had already been taken and the referendum was
there fore pointless they would boycott it.
The Britishers’ double standards and the Muslim league leaders’ lack
of principles ought to be noted. When the Muslim league leader in
Bengal, Mr. Hussain shah Suhrawardy proposed that Bengal should stay
united and independent, Mr. Jinnah happily agreed. But when in NWFP
the Khudai Khidmatgars asked for the same option they were termed
anti-Islam and traitors to Pakistan. It is also worth remembering
that in undivided Bengal the ratio of Muslim to non-Muslim was
54:46. There could be a danger there that if the non-Muslim won over
just a few Muslim Legislators the government would pass into the
hands of non-Muslim. In NWFP on the other hand no possibility
existed at all of non-Muslim ever forming a ministry, since Muslim
here constituted 93 per cent of the population. Besides, any
government in an independent Bengal would have always been dependent
on non-Muslim whereas no such situation existed in the frontier.
In the ends, thus, one keeps coming back to the same conclusion that
the British were keen on putting an Islamic halter round the
socialist order in the north and were not prepared to permit any
hurdle, Khudai Khidmatgars’ or whatever, in their way. In fact they
were convinced that unless they removed all the nationalist and anti
imperialist forces from their path would not be able to consummate
their design.
The Khudai Khidmatgar leaders were, however, convinced that the
abrasiveness of the Muslim League leadership would mend once
Pakistan was made. Otherwise they would have had no problem charting
out a course for themselves. In fact there was simple course
available to them as I had then myself pointed out. If the Khudai
Khidmatgars were determined on Pukhtoonistan and the British
remained opposed to it, the constituent assembly, with an over
whelming majority of congress, could have been asked to pass a
resolution that if NWFP voted to join India, India, would then grant
it complete independence and guarantee safeguard of that
independence too. The people of NWFP could then have been told that
if they wanted independent Pukhtoonistan they should vote to join
India. But it seems to me that the Muslim League’s appearances of
decency, humanity, Islamic spiritedness and our own considerateness
deceived us all.
A Muslim League friend of mine visited me at the time. He said
gleefully: “see how we have cornered you. You have got left out here
and India is on the other side. Punjab lies in between. Even in the
referendum you cannot now say you want to join India.” I laughed and
said: “That is just like you Muslim Leaguers. Cutting up countries
and parceling them suits you and your British masters. We believe in
construction not destruction. Don’t forget that you have made a
country that is split 1,500 miles apart, and in between lies what
you consider a heretical enemy-land.
If we were like you – why, our borders with India are not even miles
away, and next to us are Punjabi Muslim brothers.”
Anyway, the government of India started preparing for referendum.
Olaf Carore was replaced by Sir Robb Lokhart as the NWFP governor
and the vote was held under his supervision. Although the Khudai
Khidmatgars had announced boycott of the exercise and its result had
been a foregone conclusion, yet the Muslim Leaguers made
extraordinary efforts. They brought their leaders from all corners
of the country including students from the Aligarh University, who
all fanned out in the province to incite hatred against the
Pukhtoons.
For all that, on the polling day they resorted to such rigging that
it is hard to find a parallel. Ballot boxes were freely stuffed and
even the votes of Khudai Khidmatgar leaders were cast. Let me cite
two instances, one told to me by Sikandar Mirza himself who was
former deputy commissioner in Hazara. Touring the polling booths he
reached the one at the gullies. The staff proudly told him: “This is
mountainous area. We have just 200 voters on the list here. But,
Sir, we have already polled 210.”
Another instance is even more interesting. When several years later
as a result of the 1970 election the National Awami Party formed the
government in NWFP and several Muslim Leaguers came and joined us,
one of the Muslim League ladies told me that she had herself cast 51
votes in the referendum. I told her: When casting your own vote you
must have identified yourself as the wife of your own husband. But
what about the other 50? You must have sworn to the polling officer
that you are the wife 50 others. What happens then to you wedding
vows to your own husband? And to those of the others you named? What
if even one of those others had accosted you and said you had
yourself owned him as your husband?”
However, despite all the rigging by the British and the Muslim
officers of the government, the result was as follows:-
Number of votes 5,72,799
Polled votes (51%) 2,92,118
For Pakistan (51.5%) 2,89,244
For India 2,874
Thus despite all the fair and unfair effort the votes claimed for
Pakistan were no more than 51.5 per cent of those cast. It should
also be remembered that at that time there was no adult franchise;
voting was restricted. That is why there were only six Lac (0.6
Million) voters in a population of 35 Lac (3.5 Million). The
referendum had in fact been confined only to six districts. The six
tribal agencies adjacent to the province were excluded. Even
excluded were the states of Swat, Dir, Chitral and Amb. All of them
included would have made a population of 70 to 80 Lac (0.7 to 0.8
Million). Less than three Lac (0.3 Million) actually voted.
According to international practice any self-determination of this
kind earns credibility if the votes in favour are two-thirds or
three-quarters of the total.
Thus if the Khudai Khidmatgars were so minded they had the moral and
legal right to raise objection. But since they regarded the exercise
as altogether irrelevant to begin with, they did not bother. Instead
they hoped to calm down sentiments and to disentangle themselves
from all the bitterness unnecessarily generated. Now that their
untold sacrifices were at last bearing fruit and the British were
feeling compelled to transfer power they thought it was time to end
all mutual confrontation and to join hands to reconstruct the
society, to make good the deprivations inflicted by the aline rulers
on the Pukhtoons, and to provide a new life for the generation of
hungry and destitute children.
But, as was expected, with the announcement of the referendum result
the Muslim Leaguers began an outcry that the people had expressed
no-confidence in the government of the provinces and so it should
immediately resign. They chose to ignore the fact that the question
of confidence did not come into it; the vote was on the question of
India or Pakistan, and the provincial government took no part in it
at all one way or the other. Besides, the issue of confidence was
related to the members of the assembly.
The Muslim Leaguers knew that while the prevailing constitution gave
to the Viceroy in Delhi the powers to dismiss a provincial ministry,
under the constitution announced by the British for the future those
powers had exclusively been awarded to the provinces. So the Muslim
Leaguers’ objective was either that the ministry should itself
resign, or, if it did not, the Viceroy should act while he still had
the power. Mr. Jinnah himself broached the subject with the Viceroy.
But Mountbatten replied that the referendum result had nothing to do
with the legitimacy of the provincial ministry, and if the Muslim
League wished the ministry changed they should adopt the
constitutional means to have the assembly vote against it. He added
that he was helpless and that the Leaguers could do what they liked
when power came into their own hands.
THE seeds sown by the British were bearing fruit. The Communal
insanity in the country had reached such a point of mutual mayhem
that, as Mr. Jinnah had said there was no longer a cure save a
surgery. India where Hindus and Muslims had lived in harmony for
centuries and which had also seen centuries of peaceful Muslim rule,
that same India was today being prepared for carving by the
sharpened knives of the British. It looked to us at the time not
just a division of India but a division of the Muslim of the
country.
On June, 2 Lord Mountbatten invited three members each of the
congress and the Muslim League and one of the Sikh communities.
Earlier, Mr. Nehru had pointed out that since Mr. Acharya kriplani
had just assumed the presidentship of the Congress and only he could
speak on behalf of the party, his presence too was necessary at any
presentation of Mountbatten’s plan besides that of himself and Mr.
Vallabhbai Patel. When Mr. Jinnah learnt of this he also asked for
an invitation for a Third member of his party and proposed the name
of Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar.
Mr. Nishtar’s position was a curious one. When the Muslim League had
proposed his name for Minister Ship in the interim government, the
Congress had objected. It asked how he could be a nominee for NWFP
when just then, in 1946; he had lost an election in his home
constituency, Peshawar: how could a person not able to obtain votes
for representation at the provincial level assume that role on the
national scale? It was eventually resolved that the Viceroy would
ask the Khudai Khidmatgar leader khan Abdul Ghaffar khan if he had
any objection. When the matter was referred to Bacha khan he said
that the Sardar was after all a pushtoon and so he wouldn’t object.
To return to the Viceroy’s meeting, he presented the details of his
independence plan to this Congress-Muslim League-Sikh Jirga. The
plan stipulated division of Bengal and Punjab, and referendums in
the district of Assam and in NWFP to ask if the people there wished
to join India or Pakistan.
A boundary commission was set up for the partition of Bengal and
Punjab. It was provided that its decision would be final and neither
party could with hold acceptance. It was also announced that
although June 1948 had been fixed for transfer of power, the effort
would be to make it possible even sooner.
In outlining his plan Mountbatten said that he would not press for
an immediate answer. The parties could call a meeting of their
working committees and then let him know their decision. Mr. Jinnah
pointed out that his working committee did not have the powers to
decide on such a major issue and that he would have to convene a
session of the party’s national council and that would take time.
The congress thought that it was Mr. Jinnah’s practice to delay his
decision until he knew of the congress response and then to react in
the light of this.
Accordingly it asked the viceroy to fix the same time for a reply
from both sides. Mr. Jinnah then agreed to let the viceroy know of
his party’s decision by the same evening.
However, as Mountbatten reported, Mr. Jinnah called on him at the
middle of the night and reverted to his earlier plea that he was
only a constitutional head of his party and the decision could only
be taken by the Muslim League council. Mountbatten remonstrated in
the strongest terms and said that this time there was no way that
the congress would agree; it demanded a clear answer from the
League. Mr. Jinnah did not relent. But nor did Mountbatten who
declared:
Mr. Jinnah, I do not intend to let you wreck all the work that has
gone into this settlement. Since you will not accept it for the
Muslim League, I will speak for them myself.
(Campbell Johnson. Mission with Mountbatten)
Mountbatten went even further, he said that when all the leaders
would gather the next morning he would announce acceptance of the
plan by the Muslim League, and with that he would look at Mr. Jinnah
and the latter should then nod his head to show agreement.
It is thus clear that the June, 3 partition plan was not in fact
endorsed by either the Muslim League or its leader, but that it was
approved on behalf of the League by the viceroy lord Mountbatten
himself. Whether the authority to do so was conceded to him by the
Muslim League or he had assumed it himself is not known, but the
fact that the he exercised it is a matter of Britain’s own official
records.
With the announcement of the referendum proposal, there was strong
opposition to it in N.W.F.P. If the idea was to the view of the
people that had been demonstrated just a year earlier when the
Khudai Khimatgars had defeated the Muslim League on the basis not
only of the entire population but that of Muslim electorate as well.
What had happen in the space of a year to make a renewed reference
to the people necessary? The central leader ship of the Congress had
also agreed in the light of the stand of the province to oppose
referendum.
Abut that time Mountbatten went to Simla and invited Mr. Jawaharlal
Nehru there. On their way back, the announcement was made that the
referendum would go ahead. Jawaharlal said that he had a detailed
discussion with the NWFP chief minister Dr. Khan Sahib and the
latter had agreed to the idea.
Khudai Khidmatgars’ first objection was that since the Congress and
the Muslim league had both agreed on Partition, and since they
considered themselves bound by the congress decisions (Bacha Khan
himself used to represent Khudai Khidmatgars in the Congress working
Committee), and since the congress had accepted that NWFP had to be
part of Pakistan, then why hold a referendum? The exercise would
only exacerbate the existing communal and political tension and
political tension and create an atmosphere of confrontation.
The fact was that the Muslim League and the British had their own
purpose behind the design. Muslim league was keen to convey the
impression that Pakistan was formed its demand and its demand alone;
and that the Khudai Khidmatgars had opposed Pakistan which was why a
referendum had become necessary. There was in other purpose in
singling out NWFP for a different treatment from other provinces. In
the rest of India only the assembly members of the Muslim majority
provinces were asked to give their vote. Bengal and Punjab
assemblies voted for the partition and thus the provinces were
divided. Sindh assembly was asked to vote for Pakistan. Why not then
NWFP assembly also? The reason was obvious. Here the Khudai
Khidmatgars were in Majority in the assembly. If they for Pakistan
the decision would have been the Khudai Khidmatgars. The Muslim
League was not prepared to concede that credit. Nor were the
British.
Besides the Muslim League also knew that the Khudai Khidmatgars were
apposed to the referendum and would not participate in it. That
guaranteed a decision in favor of Pakistan. But the announcement of
the result the League would have the opportunity to cry from the
house-tops that the policies in the province had taken a complete
turn and that the khudai Khidmatgars ministry should for that reason
resign, and if didn’t the Viceroy should dismiss it and present the
reins of government to the Muslim League.
For their part the Khudai Khidmatgars decided that if the British
were insistent on holding the plebiscite despite the general
acceptance that NWFP would go to Pakistan, then following the same
principle of self-determination the province should also have the
freedom to a third option, of an in dependent Pukhtoonistan.
Mountbatten, however, refused to include this alternative. The
Khudai Khidmatgars then decided that since between the available two
options the decision had already been taken and the referendum was
there fore pointless they would boycott it.
The Britishers’ double standards and the Muslim league leaders’ lack
of principles ought to be noted. When the Muslim league leader in
Bengal, Mr. Hussain shah Suhrawardy proposed that Bengal should stay
united and independent, Mr. Jinnah happily agreed. But when in NWFP
the Khudai Khidmatgars asked for the same option they were termed
anti-Islam and traitors to Pakistan. It is also worth remembering
that in undivided Bengal the ratio of Muslim to non-Muslim was
54:46. There could be a danger there that if the non-Muslim won over
just a few Muslim Legislators the government would pass into the
hands of non-Muslim. In NWFP on the other hand no possibility
existed at all of non-Muslim ever forming a ministry, since Muslim
here constituted 93 per cent of the population. Besides, any
government in an independent Bengal would have always been dependent
on non-Muslim whereas no such situation existed in the frontier.
In the ends, thus, one keeps coming back to the same conclusion that
the British were keen on putting an Islamic halter round the
socialist order in the north and were not prepared to permit any
hurdle, Khudai Khidmatgars’ or whatever, in their way. In fact they
were convinced that unless they removed all the nationalist and anti
imperialist forces from their path would not be able to consummate
their design.
The Khudai Khidmatgar leaders were, however, convinced that the
abrasiveness of the Muslim League leadership would mend once
Pakistan was made. Otherwise they would have had no problem charting
out a course for themselves. In fact there was simple course
available to them as I had then myself pointed out. If the Khudai
Khidmatgars were determined on Pukhtoonistan and the British
remained opposed to it, the constituent assembly, with an over
whelming majority of congress, could have been asked to pass a
resolution that if NWFP voted to join India, India, would then grant
it complete independence and guarantee safeguard of that
independence too. The people of NWFP could then have been told that
if they wanted independent Pukhtoonistan they should vote to join
India. But it seems to me that the Muslim League’s appearances of
decency, humanity, Islamic spiritedness and our own considerateness
deceived us all.
A Muslim League friend of mine visited me at the time. He said
gleefully: “see how we have cornered you. You have got left out here
and India is on the other side. Punjab lies in between. Even in the
referendum you cannot now say you want to join India.” I laughed and
said: “That is just like you Muslim Leaguers. Cutting up countries
and parceling them suits you and your British masters. We believe in
construction not destruction. Don’t forget that you have made a
country that is split 1,500 miles apart, and in between lies what
you consider a heretical enemy-land.
If we were like you – why, our borders with India are not even miles
away, and next to us are Punjabi Muslim brothers.”
Anyway, the government of India started preparing for referendum.
Olaf Carore was replaced by Sir Robb Lokhart as the NWFP governor
and the vote was held under his supervision. Although the Khudai
Khidmatgars had announced boycott of the exercise and its result had
been a foregone conclusion, yet the Muslim Leaguers made
extraordinary efforts. They brought their leaders from all corners
of the country including students from the Aligarh University, who
all fanned out in the province to incite hatred against the
Pukhtoons.
For all that, on the polling day they resorted to such rigging that
it is hard to find a parallel. Ballot boxes were freely stuffed and
even the votes of Khudai Khidmatgar leaders were cast. Let me cite
two instances, one told to me by Sikandar Mirza himself who was
former deputy commissioner in Hazara. Touring the polling booths he
reached the one at the gullies. The staff proudly told him: “This is
mountainous area. We have just 200 voters on the list here. But,
Sir, we have already polled 210.”
Another instance is even more interesting. When several years later
as a result of the 1970 election the National Awami Party formed the
government in NWFP and several Muslim Leaguers came and joined us,
one of the Muslim League ladies told me that she had herself cast 51
votes in the referendum. I told her: When casting your own vote you
must have identified yourself as the wife of your own husband. But
what about the other 50? You must have sworn to the polling officer
that you are the wife 50 others. What happens then to you wedding
vows to your own husband? And to those of the others you named? What
if even one of those others had accosted you and said you had
yourself owned him as your husband?”
However, despite all the rigging by the British and the Muslim
officers of the government, the result was as follows:-
Number of votes 5,72,799
Polled votes (51%) 2,92,118
For Pakistan (51.5%) 2,89,244
For India 2,874
Thus despite all the fair and unfair effort the votes claimed for
Pakistan were no more than 51.5 per cent of those cast. It should
also be remembered that at that time there was no adult franchise;
voting was restricted. That is why there were only six Lac (0.6
Million) voters in a population of 35 Lac (3.5 Million). The
referendum had in fact been confined only to six districts. The six
tribal agencies adjacent to the province were excluded. Even
excluded were the states of Swat, Dir, Chitral and Amb. All of them
included would have made a population of 70 to 80 Lac (0.7 to 0.8
Million). Less than three Lac (0.3 Million) actually voted.
According to international practice any self-determination of this
kind earns credibility if the votes in favour are two-thirds or
three-quarters of the total.
Thus if the Khudai Khidmatgars were so minded they had the moral and
legal right to raise objection. But since they regarded the exercise
as altogether irrelevant to begin with, they did not bother. Instead
they hoped to calm down sentiments and to disentangle themselves
from all the bitterness unnecessarily generated. Now that their
untold sacrifices were at last bearing fruit and the British were
feeling compelled to transfer power they thought it was time to end
all mutual confrontation and to join hands to reconstruct the
society, to make good the deprivations inflicted by the aline rulers
on the Pukhtoons, and to provide a new life for the generation of
hungry and destitute children.
But, as was expected, with the announcement of the referendum result
the Muslim Leaguers began an outcry that the people had expressed
no-confidence in the government of the provinces and so it should
immediately resign. They chose to ignore the fact that the question
of confidence did not come into it; the vote was on the question of
India or Pakistan, and the provincial government took no part in it
at all one way or the other. Besides, the issue of confidence was
related to the members of the assembly.
The Muslim Leaguers knew that while the prevailing constitution gave
to the Viceroy in Delhi the powers to dismiss a provincial ministry,
under the constitution announced by the British for the future those
powers had exclusively been awarded to the provinces. So the Muslim
Leaguers’ objective was either that the ministry should itself
resign, or, if it did not, the Viceroy should act while he still had
the power. Mr. Jinnah himself broached the subject with the Viceroy.
But Mountbatten replied that the referendum result had nothing to do
with the legitimacy of the provincial ministry, and if the Muslim
League wished the ministry changed they should adopt the
constitutional means to have the assembly vote against it. He added
that he was helpless and that the Leaguers could do what they liked
when power came into their own hands.
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