The passing of the
Resolution on 23rd March by the All India Muslim League at its Lahore session
created a serious situation for the Congress leadership. Mohan Das Karam Chand Gandhi
wrote in Harijan on 6th April 1940, “I admit that the step taken by the Muslim
League at Lahore creates a baffling situation…the Two Nations theory is an
untruth. The vast majority of Muslims of India are converts to Islam or are the
descendants of converts. They did not become a separate nation, as soon as they
converted.” C. Rajagapalachari, a liberal congress leader, who had to resign
from the Congress because of his views, however, realised the necessity for
Hindu-Muslim reconciliation as a pre-requisite for the attainment of
independence. On 23rd April 1942, Rajagapalachari addressed a small gathering
of his old Congress supporters in the Madras legislature and had a resolution
passed for submission to the All India Congress committee, recommending the
acceptance of partition in principle.
On 2nd May 1942, he
mooted his proposal on Pakistan in the AICC at Allahabad, which stated, “…it
has become necessary to choose the lesser evil and acknowledge the Muslim
League’s claim for separation.” The proposal was rejected by 120 to 15 votes.
Rajaji did not give up hope, but kept on negotiating with Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad
All Jinnah during April 1944, when Gandhi and other
Congress leaders were in jail. The correspondence was released to the press on
9th July 1944, and contained what came to be known as the “Rajaji Formula”. It
was intended to form the basis of the talks between Jinnah and
Gandhi for a settlement of the Hindu-Muslim problem. Rajaji declared that he
had already obtained Gandhi’s approval for the formula.
Jinnah placed the formula before the Working
Committee of the Muslim League on 30th July 1944, but personally considered it
unsatisfactory. He told the committee that Mr. Gandhi is offering a “shadow and
a husk, a maimed, mutilated and moth-eaten Pakistan.” Though, in his private
capacity Jinnah expressed his pleasure at Gandhi’s
acceptance at least of “the principle of Pakistan.”
Meanwhile Allama
Inayatullah Khan Mashriqi, leader of the Khaksar Movement also addressed
letters to Jinnah and Gandhi urging them to meet to discuss
the Hindu-Muslim problem. Gandhi took the initiative and wrote to Jinnah,
“Let us meet whenever you wish, do not disappoint me.” The Muslim League
Council meeting at Lahore invested Jinnah with
full powers to negotiate with Gandhi on its behalf Jinnah accepted
the offer and suggested a meeting between the two and offering his residence at
Bombay as venue for discussion.
It is worthwhile
noting that while Jinnah had
full powers to negotiate on behalf of the Muslim League, Gandhi was undertaking
this enterprise on his own behalf without the official sanction of the
Congress. Many members of the Congress expressed disapproval at Gandhi’s move.
The Mahasabha young men shouted anti-Pakistan slogans at Gandhi’s prayer
meeting at Panchgani. The meeting took place between the two leaders at Bombay
from 9th September to 27th September. They met almost daily, and sometimes even
twice in a day. On 27th September, Jinnah announced
the termination of talks after the failure of the two leaders to reach an
agreement saying, “We trust that this is not the final end of our effort.”
While Gandhi commented,”the breakdown is only so- called. It is an adjournment
sine die.” In the course of the seventeen day discussions, they exchanged 24
letters which were later on made public.
The discussion as
well as the correspondence can be divided into three distinct stages. The first
stage when Jinnah asked Gandhi for clarification of various
points in the Rajaji formula. The second stage started when Gandhi, on account
of obvious difficulties, shunted the Rajaji formula, and attempted to apply his
mind to the Lahore Resolution. Eventually Gandhi made some new proposals and
after this the final breakdown took place.
An analysis of the
correspondence dearly shows that the talk failed because Gandhi simply refused
to accept the Lahore Resolution as interpreted by Jinnah.
He did not believe in the two nation theory which was the fundamental basis of
the Muslims’ demand, and totally rejected the Muslims right of self-
determination. On 4th October Jinnah in
a press conference at Bombay said, “In one breath Gandhi agrees to the
principle of division and in the next he makes proposals which go to destroy
the very foundation on which the division is claimed by Muslim India.”
On one hand Gandhi
wanted a League-Congress agreement, and on the other denied the League’s
representative character and authority to speak on behalf of the Mussalmans of
India. In his letter of 25th September 1944, Jinnah summed
up Gandhi’s attitude to the Lahore Resolution, thus “You have already rejected
the basis and fundamental principles of Lahore Resolution: 1) You did not
accept that the Muslims of India are a nation. 2) You do not accept that the
Muslims have an inherent right of self-determination. 3) You do not accept that
they alone are entitled to exercise this right. 4) You do not accept that
Pakistan is composed of two zones, north-west and north-east, comprising six
provinces, namely, Sindh, Baluchistan, the North-West Frontier provinces, the
Punjab, Bengal and Assam subject to territorial adjustments.”
Gandhi wanted that
first the people of India should oust the British with their joint action. When
India was free then by mutual settlement and agreement two separate states
could be created. Jinnah was
not prepared to trust the words of Gandhi or the Congress. He said separation
must come first and then matters of common interest between the two states
would be settled by a treaty.
Lord Wavell
expressed his disappointment at the failure of the talks. He stated that
“Gandhi-Jinnah talks ended on a note of complete
futility. I must say I expected something better. The two great mountains have
met and not even a ridiculous mouse has emerged. This surely must blast
Gandhi’s reputation as a leader. Jinnah had
an easy task, he merely had to keep on telling Gandhi he was talking nonsense,
which was true, and he did so rather rudely, without having to disclose any of
the weakness of his own position, or define his Pakistan in any way. I suppose
it may increase his prestige with his followers.”
The majority of the
Hindus, especially the Mahasabhaits received the news of the breakdown of these
talks with utmost relief and joy, for they were anxious lest their leader
should commit himself to the ‘vivisection of Mother India’. It was the Muslims
who were most bitterly disappointed when the talks failed.
Matlubul Hasan
Saiyid has stated, ‘Gandhi’s circuitous argumentation, shifting from
Rajagopalacharia’s formula to Lahore Resolution of the League and then back
again and then over again to League Resolution, punctuating the discussions by
his own suggestions and those of others whom he did not claim to represent, had
made the breakdown of the these talks inevitable.
Jinnah had called this breakdown unfortunate,
‘Dr. Tara Chand gives the following reason for the break down, ‘A perusal of
the letters exchanged shows that the two parties came very near to one another.
What prevented them from concluding a settlement was not the apparent differences
between their standpoints, but the distrust and fear which, lay behind the
spoken and written word.
Gandhi’s apparent purpose in holding these talks seemed to be to
discredit the Muslim League and to appear before the Muslims as a friend doing
all he could to concede to their demands, while in fact he was merely weaving a
deceptive web of words to fool the public and to impose upon the Lahore
Resolution a meaning quite different to what was intended by the framers of the
resolution.- The failure of these talks, on the other hand, enhanced the
prestige of the Quaid and he was able to consolidate his position as the leader
of the Indian Muslims.
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