Nawab Mumtaz Ali Bhutto
Friday, June 22, 2012

The Quaid’s deep conviction in the suitability of the confederal system was put to the test on May 16, 1946, when the Cabinet Mission Plan, in a final effort to keep the country united, proposed a confederal system for an undivided India. A Tripartite Conference took place at Simla between the Mission and representatives of the Congress and Muslim League.



The Mission proposed that a Union of India government should be set up to deal with defence, foreign affairs and communications, while all other subjects and residuary powers should be vested in the groups that constituted the union. There were to be two separate groups, made up of Hindu- and Muslim-majority provinces. This was a compromise formula which was accepted by the Quaid and the Muslim League, although it meant abandoning the demand for an independent Pakistan. It was felt that the proposed confederation would give the Muslims of India all the protections and freedoms they sought without India being divided.



The Muslim League, while accepting the Cabinet Mission Plan, issued a ten-point memorandum of minimum demands on May 22, 1946, which went even further in the direction of decentralisation and more authority to the provinces. “After the constitutions of the Federal Government and the provinces are finally framed by the constitution making body,” it said, “it will be open to any province of the group to decide to opt out of its group, provided that the wishes of the people of that province are ascertained by a referendum to opt out or not.” Here is irrefutable proof of the fact that the Quaid and the Muslim League believed in limited powers for the Centre and maximum authority for the provinces, even to the extent that they could opt out or secede if their people so desired.



It was indeed appropriate in the struggle for liberty from colonialism to honour and respect the will of the people to be free and enjoy sovereign rights over their own lands, which their ethnic and national backgrounds entitled them to. In his concluding remarks in the All-India Muslim League Council meeting held in Bombay in July 1946, the Quaid said: “We have made no mistake. We deliberately accepted the Cabinet Mission’s statement of May 16 and we also accept the interim formula. The Muslim League was bound by higher and greater considerations than the rest of India. We therefore sacrificed our full sovereignty of Pakistan on the altar of securing freedom and independence for all.”



There is no question that the Quaid’s faith in the confederal system was so great that he would have no other arrangement within Pakistan, whether it came into existence as a group of provinces in undivided India or an independent and sovereign country. The shackles of foreign colonialism were not intended to be replaced by homemade ones. “Autonomy and sovereignty” were accepted as the cardinal principles of statecraft. The promise made to the Muslim majority areas of India in return for their joining Pakistan was honest and sincere.



The Indian Union, or Confederation, however, never came about. The Congress did not agree and insisted on federation with greater powers to the centre, including the power to exercise a high degree of control over the provinces. This, of course, was quite contrary to what the Quaid and the Muslim League stood for and totally unacceptable to them. The Cabinet Mission Plan was, therefore, abandoned and a struggle initiated for Pakistan as envisaged by the Pakistan Resolution.



Apart from everything else, there is a lesson to be learnt here: if the confederation of India had been agreed to by the Congress, there would have been no partition. Are we not facing the same situation in Pakistan today? We must carefully consider our options and bear in mind lessons of history before rejecting the via media. A high price has already been paid by not doing so and losing the majority portion of the country. If good sense does not prevail, the consequence could be the breakup of what remains of Pakistan.



The tragedy of Pakistan began with its birth. The complete volte face by the Muslim League to keep its promise of giving the country a confederal structure as contained in the Pakistan Resolution set the stage for a chain of military and civilian dictatorships that have broken up the country and brought what remains of it to the edge of the precipice. The Quaid was confronted with a plethora of problems in setting up a new country, the major among which was the settlement of refugees who left a trail of tragedy and blood on their way to Pakistan. Together with this, his fragile and rapidly failing health left him no time for the vital task of constitution-making. He lived only a short span of 13 months in the country he had created.



While India wasted no time in making a new constitution, a deplorable disposition of recklessness prevailed in Pakistan. The Government of India Act, 1935, as adopted through the Indian Independence Act, 1947, had to be relied upon to impose a tight federal system in which the Centre maintained dictatorial powers. Thus, while India was well on its way to becoming one of the leading democracies of the world, Pakistan made a start on the wrong foot. The promises and provisions of the Pakistan Resolution were disregarded with total indifference to the obvious consequences.



The Government of India Act, 1935, which was a remarkable vehicle of decentralisation and provincial autonomy in a colonial setup, denied the promised “autonomy and sovereignty” to the components of Pakistan. This was bad enough, but it had to be made worse. The hastily and indirectly elected first Constituent Assembly made a series of amendments to the Act which made the Centre even more oppressive to the provinces. On the other hand, it completely failed to provide a new constitution. The first draft presented by the Basic Principles Committee fell far short of giving the provinces anything near the powers they had been promised.



This led to a sense of letdown and raised protest in East Pakistan (while Balochistan had already rebelled within 48 hours of the creation of Pakistan), with the consequence that a second slightly improved draft had to be produced. While East Pakistan and the smaller provinces maintained a hurt silence, this time Punjabi leaders raised objections on the grounds that equal representation between East and West Pakistan proposed by the new draft gave a single province in the East as much representation as four provinces, plus a number of states in the West. It seems unbelievable today that the Punjabi leaders insisted on the treatment of all provinces as equal and since this was not sufficiently provided for, the second draft was, in turn, rejected by them.



(To be concluded)