Jaswant Singh's Book Review Page 192

Book Reference: Page 192 Line 3-9

Author’s Views: The author quotes Agha Khan from part of his personal memoirs (on the Second RTC) as having said that the Congress attitude seemed unrealistic. The Congress held stubbornly to their one-nation theory, which they ( Agha Khan and his likes)  knew to be historically insupportable. They maintained that before the coming of British Raj the various regions of the Indian Subcontinent had never been one country. It was the Raj which created an artificial and temporary unity, and when the Raj went, that unity could not be maintained. The author qualifies that though these were subjective opinion of Agha Khan, he wants to  convey them as they intensely portray the feeling in those times in general and certainly the feel in the Conference and of the Conferees( of the RTC).

Comments: Though the views were of Agha Khan, the emphasis comes from the author and he has not offered any other proof on these views in his book. As the author is emphatic about the feel of the Conferees, does he mean that the feeling was felt by every single Indian and British Member  taking part in the Conference. How is the author so sure  that was certainly the feeling in the Conference itself? How can the demand of  the Muslim League  and its supporters become the feel of the entire Conferees as the author puts it?  Did all the members, other than those of  Muslim League and its sympathisers,  also display the above feel?  Where is the narrative to substantiate his conclusion?

Secondly why India as one nation is historically un-supportable? What was India during the time of Mouryas and Guptas and much later even during the height of Mughal empire? Is the so-called transient unity was the creation of Raj or of Mahatma Gandhi?
Was the transient unity  restricted to only the British Provinces or did include the so called Princely States also? 

Is not India post partition standing united against external aggressions and internal political turmoil? Has it not proved to the world that it continues to follow the path of democracy?

Agha Khan's observation only proves that irrespective of the stand held by the Congress and other parties and in spite of any compromise getting reached, the mind set of the Muslim League was such that India could not remain as one nation.  The seeds for that was sown at the Muslim Conference of 1st January 1929 and later accepted by Muslim League in toto. ( They began to be called "Jinnah's fourteen points".) If that was the mind set nurtured as far back as 1929/1930, where is the argument for blaming any one else for the partition of 1947 in the later years?

It was not Congress attitude during the RTC , but to a large extent Gandhi’s imposition on the Congress to “ let us sort out the problems between us ourselves rather asking a third party (the British) to mediate”,  the fundamental condition of his that was unnerving Agha Khan and his likes.
The reader may  refer to future posts which deal with other aspects of the RTC.