Quaid’s Shift from Unity Stance to Separation (1)

By Muhammad Yasir Kayani

Maulana Muhammad Ali is reported to have said at the end of his life: "I learnt Islam from Abul Kalam Azad and Iqbal --- one pulls me in one direction, and the other points to the opposite way". Ultimately he gravitated towards the viewpoint of the poet, but the man who did most to give a concrete shape to the political vision of Iqbal was another Muhammad Ali, whose transformation, through a painful process, from being an accredited "Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity" to the most thorough going championship of Muslim separatism completely altered the course of Indian history.

One important role which Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah played in the politics of India was for the achievement of the Hindus and Muslims unity by bringing about some understanding between the Indian National Congress and the All India Muslim League. In fact, for more than two decades Quaid-e-Azam was known for this role than for any other. It will be recalled that Gopal Krishna Gokhale expressed the view that Jinnah had true stuff in him and that freedom from all sectarian prejudices which would make him as the ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity.

Mrs. Sarojini Naidu called him 'An Ambassador of Unity' and wrote that Jinnah stood approved and confirmed by his countrymen not merely as an ambassador but as an embodied symbol of Hindu-Muslim unity. Similarly, Jawahar Lal Nehru wrote in 1936 that Quaid had been largely responsible in the past for bringing the Muslim League close to the Congress.

Few Indians remember that People Jinnah Hall was built to honour the fearless leadership of Bombay's most inspiring ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity. Jinnah continued to work for the unity with the Hindus and until he was convinced early in 1940 that the Hindu leaders were not at all ready for any kind of understanding.

Quaid-e-Azam went to England for law education at the early age of 16 and stayed there for about four years. At that time liberalism was very much in the air in England and Quaid-e-Azam, who frequently visited the British Parliament, showed particular interest in the speeches of liberal leader like W.E. Gladstone and John Morley. Amongst the prominent Indians with whom he developed close relations in the early years of his political career were Surrendranath Banerje, Dadabhai Naoroji and Gokhale. Jinnah described Banerje as his leader. Surely, his association with such liberal leaders could not have generated any communal feelings in him.

Quaid was first elected to Imperial Council from a constituency reserved for the Muslims of Bombay and he first established his reputation as a legislator by piloting the Muslim Wolf Validating Bill. But it should be noted that at that time he was a member of Congress and not of Muslim League.

In fact, as the Agha Khan pointed out, “when in 1906 the Muslim leaders asked the Governor General, Lord Minto, for separate voting registers, Jinnah was the only well-known Muslim who came out in bitter hostility towards all that me and my friends had done and were trying to do".

During the next few years, Quaid’s thinking did not undergo any change, for at the 1910 session of the Congress, he was the "Prime mover" of the resolution deprecating the application or extension of the principle of separate representation to local bodies. Quaid was also a member of the Congress delegation that was to wait upon the Governor General to place before him the Congress viewpoint about separate electorates.

Quaid’s association with the Muslim League began as late as December 1912 but he joined the League in 1913 on the condition that loyalty to the Muslim League and the Muslim interests would in no way and at no time imply even the shadow of disloyalty to the larger national cause to which his life was dedicated, i.e. freedom of India. Owing to his liberal views, Quaid thought that he was ideally suited to bring about unity between the Hindu and the Muslim. He worked to bring about an understanding between the Congress and the League at a conference of Hindu-Muslim leaders at Allahabad in January 1911. He is reported to be present as a sort of "cross bencher" at this conference. Unfortunately, nothing resulted from it. Muslim leaders, however, remained anxious for an understanding between the two communities.

When the partition of Bengal was undone, more and more Muslim leaders began to realise that an understanding with the Hindus was very much in the interest of the Muslims. He also believed that the union of the two communities in India is absolutely necessary for the purpose of India. Therefore, even after Quaid had joined the League in the autumn of 1913, his activities continued on the non-communal lines.

It is necessary to note that his contribution at the League session held in December 1913 was to move a resolution for the reconstitution of the Council of the Secretary of State of India and to intervene in the debate on the resolution for separate representation in the local bodies by urging that the consideration of the resolution should be postponed for a year. The Congress fully understood Quaid's position and in 1914 included him in the delegation which was sent to London to ask for the reconstitution of the Secretary of the State Council.

For bringing about Hindu-Muslim unity, he found this opportunity late in 1915, when it became known that the Congress would hold its annual session at Bombay in December. Quaid then played a leading role in persuading the League leaders to hold the annual session of the League also at Bombay at the same time. The League leaders agreed and largely at the initiative of Jinnah, a special effort was made to create an atmosphere of cordiality between the two communities by inviting several prominent Congress leaders to the League session.

Quaid's most valuable contribution to this session was his resolution that a committee be formed to finalise a scheme for reforms and that the said committee is authorised to confer with political and other organisations on committee if any, appointed by such organisations as they deemed fit. The resolution was approved by the session and the Congress reciprocated by naming a committee to confer with the League's committee.

In December 1916 the Muslim League and the Congress held their annual sessions simultaneously at Lucknow and approved of the joint scheme prepared by their committees which later became famous as “Lucknow Pact”. In Indian dismal constitutional history, it represents the only period when Hindus and Muslims came to agreed conclusions about their future.

Though the poet was not satisfied with the Muslim viewpoint yet Quaid felt satisfied with it because it had brought about the understanding for which he had been so anxious. Had his efforts to deal directly with Montagu not been sabotaged by the government of India and its Black Rowlatt Acts, the years of tragedy that were to ensure in the wake of the war need not have derailed the process of responsible transfer of power set so patiently in motion by Britain's two greatest liberal secretaries of state John Morley and Edwin Montagu.

In March 1919, Quaid resigned from the Imperial Legislative Council as a protest against the passing of Rowlatt Act. He, however, was not in sympathy with the methods advocated by Mahatma Gandhi to deal with the new situation and had his first public difference with him over the change of the constitution of the Home Rule League. He resigned from the League now renamed Swaraj Sabha.

Quaid was a member of the Congress and he had been working for Hindu-Muslim unity. But this dual membership ended in December 1920. On the occasion of its special session at Nagpur the Congress adopted a new creed which permitted the use of unconstitutional means and decided to resort to non-violent, non-cooperative for the attainment of self-rule.

He was not opposed to agitation or even putting more pressure on the government, but disturbed the destructive methods which did not take account of human nature and which might slip out of control at any time.

He was convinced and did not hesitate to tell Gandhi directly that your way is the wrong way: mine is the right way---The constitutional way is the right way. He warned them openly of the futility of their battle plan, told them honestly of the havoc he correctly anticipated would be unleashed by and against the suddenly politicised masses. But this voice of practical statesmanship was no heeded and Jinnah walked away not only out of the Congress session but from the Congress party as well. Safely removed from the fray, he watched as violence and stupidity stirred up dark clouds of public rage and official repression.

He however, continued his efforts to achieve some understanding between the Hindu and Muslim leaders. Early in 1922, he played a leading role in convening all parties' conference which asked for a roundtable meeting between the government and the Congress on Khilafat, self government and other issues. The revival of Hindu Mahasaba, however, forced him to make the League more active so that it could become a representative body of the Muslims. But his passion for Hindu-Muslim unity did not subside.

Speaking at the annual session of the League in May 1924, Jinnah repeated his usual argument, "---- we must not forget that one essential requisite condition to achieve Swaraj is political unity between the Hindus and the Mohamedans; for the advent of foreign rule and its continuance in India, is primarily due to the fact that the people of India, particularly the Hindus and Mohamedans are not united and do not sufficiently trust each other. I am almost inclined to say that India will get Dominion Responsible Government the day the Hindus and Mohammadans are united. Sawaraj is an almost interchangeable term with Hindu-Muslim unity.”

In December 1924, at the Bombay session of the League, Quaid and other Muslim leaders tried to recreate the atmosphere of 1915. Prominent Hindu leaders were invited to this session. But the Hindu leaders did not make any move to win the confidence of the Muslims and in 1926, Quaid had to complain that the Congress position with regard to the Muslim demands was far from reassuring.

Even so, at the League session held in December, he moved a resolution which inter alia, provided for the appointment of a committee to formulate a scheme, so far as possible, in consultation with a committee or committees that may be appointed by other political organisations for the submission to the Royal Commission when it is appointed. In moving this resolution, he said:

"We desire nothing but justice and fairness and I assure you that if we, the two communities, can settle our differences, it will be more than half the battle for responsible government won.”

In March 1927, Quaid made a new move for bringing about an understanding between the Hindus and the Muslims. He then persuaded a number of Muslim leaders to be flexible on the issue of separate electorates. Meeting at Delhi, the Muslim leaders agreed to a formula which provided for joint electorates on certain conditions. This formula looked so reasonable to the Congress leaders that All India Congress Committee which met in May, approved it and later in the year the plenary session of the Congress ratified it.

Quaid's efforts for Hindu-Muslim unity had not received the response which they deserved but he preserved. Soon the appointment of the Simon Commission provided him an opportunity for making another bid for the success of his mission. He joined hands with Congress in boycotting the commission and tolerated a complete split within the Muslim League to be able to follow a common policy with the Indian National Congress.

But the constitution framed by the committee appointed by the non co-operating parties (known as the Nehru Report) was not satisfactory from Quaid's viewpoint. In a bid to make the report acceptable to the Muslims, Jinnah proposed certain amendments to it at the Convention of the parties which were held at Calcutta in December 1928.

Source: Quaid's Shift from Unity Stance to Separation (1)

Quaid’s Shift from Unity Stance to Separation (2)

By By Muhammad Yasir Kayani

The convention rejected Quaid-e-Azam's amendments. Indeed one Hindu leader even said that he represented nobody. Quaid understood that his last self-imposed mission of Hindu-Muslim unity had been a complete failure. Disillusioned with the narrow communal approach of the Hindu leadership to the constitutional question, Quaid assessed the situation as "parting of the ways" and so it proved to be.

This marked a major point of departure in Jinnah's life, an even sharper veering off from the road of Congress and all it represented than Nagpur had been eight years earlier. He had delivered his Swan song to Indian Nationalism. The dream stirred by Dadabhai's ringing voice in Westminister's commons, nurtured by Morley and Pheroz Shah, enriched by Gokhale and Montagu, all those long last liberal giants were dead. Nor would the ocean now dividing him from Congress ever be bridged. A few months later, Quaid formulated his Fourteen Points in which he lucidly summed up the Muslim demands. These were neither the voice of despair nor a challenge but nevertheless the first inkling we have of Quaid’s ultimate decision that if he could not unite Hindus and Muslims, he would not at least unite Muslims and if necessary unite them against Hindus.

At the first Round Table Conference held in London in the winter of 1930-31, Quaid clearly explained what he wanted self-government for India and security for the minorities. But the Indian delegates could not reach to any understanding either at this conference or at the second conference which was held in late 1931. In the result, the communal issue had ultimately to be decided by the Prime Minister who gave his award in 1932.

Sickened by the Hindu sentiment, the Hindu mind, the Hindu attitude on the one hand and the Muslim leaders who were either the flunkeys of the British Government or the camp followers of the Congress on the other, he decided to settle down in England and practise law before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

After the constitutional proposals had been published in the form of a White Paper and almost all Indian leaders had found them most unsatisfactory, Quaid again pleaded for unity. Speaking at the Council of the League in April 1934, he said:

“India looks forward to a real, solid, united front. Can we even at this eleventh hour bury the hatchet, and forget the past in the presence of imminent danger and close our ranks to get sufficient strength to resist what is being hatched, at Downing Street and in Delhi.”

It is up to the leaders to put their hands together and nothing will give me greater happiness than to bring about complete cooperation and friendship between Hindus and Muslims. But the Congress and the League could not agree on any modifications that could be suggested to the constitutional proposals.

It was during Quaid's stay in England that he met Allama Iqbal during the Round Table Conference session. In due course, the poet philosopher came to exercise a decisive influence on the thinking of the statesman and converted him to the idea of Muslim homeland in the Subcontinent. His views "Jinnah later acknowledged, were substantively in consonance with my own and had finally led me to the same conclusions as a result of careful examination and study of the constitutional problems facing India".

Elections to the Central and Provisional Assemblies were held in the winter of 1936-37 under the 1935 Act. At the time of election campaign, it seemed almost certain that the Congress and the League were going to cooperate in working the Act. The election manifestoes of the two parties were similar. But on the eve of elections, Nehru remarked that there were only two parties in the country -- The British Government and the Indian Congress. Quaid was amazed at this statement and immediately replied: "There is a third party, namely, The Muslims".

Shortly after the elections, the results were known. Quaid once again offered to cooperate with the Congress by saying: "We are free and ready to cooperate with any group or party if the basic principles are determined by common consent." In March 1937, when the Congress decided to accept office, Quaid strongly urged for the Congress-League cooperation. But the Congress refused to form coalition government with the League and laid down such terms for cooperation which amounted to the absorption of the Muslim League into Congress.

The Congress found the intoxication of power a bit too exhilarating. Its ministries adopted measures which the Muslims found offensive from the point of view of their religion and culture. For instance, the idolatrous Bande Matram song was sung before the Assembly proceedings began. In the United Provinces, special efforts were made to popularise Hindi at the expanse of Urdu.

The Muslims also resented the decisions of the Congress Government to hoist the Congress flag on public buildings. It was in March 1937 that Dr. Allama Iqbal had written to Quaid: "From the Muslim point of view the cultural problem is of much greater consequence to most Indian Muslims. At any rate it is not less important than the economic problem". But it seems that it was the Congress rule in the provinces more than anything else which convinced Quaid that the Muslims had special interests of their own and these must be safeguarded.

These developments were reviewed by Quaid at the Lucknow Session of the League which was held in October 1937. Quaid then laid special stress on the need to strengthen the League. This was necessary, he said, for reaching a settlement with the Congress. He also emphasised that for all practical purposes, the Congress was a Hindu party and it could not look after the special interests of the Muslims. "On the very threshold of what little power and responsibility is given, the majority community has clearly shown their hand: That Hindustan is for Hindus."

But Quaid's sole purpose in having a powerful League was to suggest to the Congress leaders that they should settle the Hindu-Muslim problem on some reasonable term. Accordingly, in November 1937, he appealed to the Congress leadership to settle 'with the League the various issues which then confronted to India. Quaid also regretted Gandhi's interpretation of his Lucknow speech as" a declaration of war" which he had made purely in self defence. He assured Gandhi that he was still working for a Hindu-Muslim settlement. Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Gandhi exchanged several letters.

Quaid also negotiated with Nehru and later with the new Congress President, Subhas Chandra Bose, but no settlement could be reached because the Congress leaders were not ready to accept the Muslim viewpoint that Muslims had special interest and that League could be regarded as the spokesman of the Muslims. But Quaid did not give up his efforts to bring about an understanding between the Congress and the League. In January 1934, when he visited Allahabad, he appealed to the Congress leaders to cooperate with the League and settle the Hindu-Muslim problem so that India could advance politically.

Later in September, in a speech at dinner of old boys of Osmania University, he said, “---Within the honest meaning of the term, I still remain a nationalist. I have always believed in a Hindu-Muslim pact. But such a pact can be an honourable one and not a pact which will mean the destruction of one and the survival of the other".

By the end of 1939, Quaid-e-Azam appears to have finally made up his mind to put forward the demand for an independent and sovereign Muslim state. The experience of the tyranny, oppression and injustice of the Congress rule during the last two-and-a-half years, the highly favourable response to the call for the observance of the "Day of Deliverance" on the exit of Congress ministries and the success of the League candidates at the by-elections reflecting the immensely growing popularity of the Muslim League, convinced him that Muslim India was ready to support this demand without stint.

In March 1940, he finally made up his mind to demand the division of the Subcontinent and the establishment of an independent Muslim state. Quaid's Lahore address lowered the final curtain on any prospects for a single united independent India. Those who understand him enough to know that once his mind was made up, he never reverted to any earlier position realised, how momentous a pronouncement their Quaid-i-Azam had just made.

There was no turning back. The ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity had totally transformed himself into Pakistan's great leader. The ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity had ceased to think in terms of composing differences. He had taken the view that these differences should be recognised as hard facts and the Hindus and Muslims settle down their respective homelands to construct their politics on lines best suited to their own genius and traditions.

What made Quaid decide to abandon hope of reconciliation with the Congress? No single incident perhaps but the cumulative weight of countless petty insults slights and disagreements added to the pressure of time and age.

Congress insults stupidity, genuine and imagined anti-Muslim feelings, fears, shattered dreams, passions turned to ashes, pride---all contributed to the change in Quaid.

Source: Quaid's Shift from Unity Stance to Separation (2)

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