Author’s views: The author narrates the episode of Sikandar Hayat Khan pleading for postponement of federation in July 1938 with the Viceroy, and his proposal to dividing India into six or seven regional groups which would include Pakistan as one of them. He also proposed a complicated system of representation so as to prevent Hindu majority in any future legislature. The author avers that the Viceroy had to listen to even such an absurd logic so as not offend the Muslims, as they badly needed them as allies. The British could not afford to have both the communities (Hindu and Muslim) alienated and working against the Raj. The author concludes that the events of 1857 (Sepoy Mutiny) continued to trouble the British psyche for as long as they remained in India.
Comments: Congress was already alienated. The Muslim league was alienated against Congress It was therefore axiomatic that they befriend the Muslims to prolong their rule. The reason was not the shadow of Eighteen Fifty Seven. In 1857 the East India Company had scant support from the British Crown. It could muster only its own Company forces and those of some of the Princely States. By now (1938), the British government was well established, had its own British Indian Army with a vastly improved communication network. It had forces available from nearby colonies as well. By now the British had already fought and won the First World War. It is therefore difficult to digest that the shadow of 1857 would be threatening them even in 1938. They feared more Gandhi’s non-violent struggle and the international opinion for taking drastic punitive measures. To make the Congress weak, they have to befriend, promote and instigate the Muslim League, in which, they succeeded in no small measure. This is evident from the very next paragraph in the same page. Around the second half of 1938, the author says that Jinnah had suggested to the Acting Viceroy that to keep the Central government, the British should protect the Muslims in the Congress Provinces and that the Muslims, in exchange, would protect the British Raj in Delhi. Was not this tacit understanding the reason for the postponement of the realization of the freedom and also the partition? This is further amplified / clarified by the author himself on the very next page. The author narrates the quotes from “ The Viceroy at Bay –Lord Linlithgow in India 1936-1943”. After Linlithgow had a long talk with Jinnah, as a record of this conversation to Lord Zetland, Secretary of State wrote to the effect that Jinnah admitted with some reluctance that it looked very much as though that carving up of the country was the position that was going to emerge. ….the only possible course for the Muslims to take in those circumstances was to continue to abuse the British as loudly as possible …. Behind the scenes they might adopt a more co-operative attitude-
In Pages253 to 256, Khaliqizzaman’s meeting with Col. Muirhead and then with Lord Zetland are narrated in detail. The reader may kindly go through the book . Khaliqizzaman brought it to the knowledge of Lord Zetland, the Secretary of State for India in London in March 1939, what the stand of the Muslim League would be in their next session: “that the British should partition the Muslim areas from the rest of India and proceed with their scheme of federation of Indian Provinces and that the Muslim areas should be independent of the rest. As far as the Princely states they should follow their geographical situation. Jinnah was made aware of the entire conversation by Khaliqizzaman immediately after his arrival in India.
It is amply clear that decision to seek a separate independent state for Muslims was a foregone conclusion for the top leadership of the Muslim League was reiterated as far back as 1939. What is relevant to note is that the League was prepared to leave the Muslims in other Provinces where they were not in majority and those Muslims in the Princely states (who might be geographically separated) to their fate! (Ie. finding themselves the slaves of the majority in the words of Khaliqizzaman). This implies that though they professed to be the one and only agency to speak on behalf of the whole of Muslims in the British India which included the Princely States, they were only concerned about the so called feared slavery of Muslims in Bengal, Punjab, Sind, Assam and North West Frontier Province where Muslims were physically in majority! Even continuation of slavery under British was more acceptable than the feared democracy of free undivided India!
No comments:
Post a Comment