Jinnah by Singh Jaswant

Author:Singh, Jaswant [Singh, Jaswant]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9788129120144
Publisher: Ruba
Published: 2012-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

Desai–Liaquat Pact: A Premature Delivery

It was at this stage, when everything looked so hopeless and bleak, that Bhulabhai Desai, a lawyer and a prominent Congress member of the Assembly made his efforts at finding a solution to the political impasse.

In view of the vastly changed war situation and also of politics in India, Bhulabhai and the Congress party had given up their boycott of the Central Legislature and resumed their seats. Here Bhulabhai came to terms with Liaquat Ali Khan, deputy leader of the Muslim League in the Legislative Assembly, and often defeated the government in the period February/March 1945. It was understood that Bhulabhai and Liaquat Ali had arrived at an agreement, or a plan, the basis of which was that Jinnah and Desai, the leaders of the two opposition parties in the Assembly, should form an interim government at the Centre, within the present constitutional framework and appoint all the members of the Executive Council, all of whom, except the governor-general and the commander-in-chief, should be Indian. Also, that there was to be parity between the Hindus and Muslims in the Executive Council. To quote Motilal Setalvad who knew Bhulabhai Desai very well: 46 ‘Though Gandhi had been released, the members of the Working Committee of the Congress and other leaders had remained in jail. Bhulabhai had, towards the end of 1944 and at the beginning of 1945, held conversations with the viceroy on the possibility of forming an interim government with the consensus of both the Hindus and the Muslims. Evidently, his relations with Liaquat Ali Khan who was a member of the Muslim League group in the Assembly and the right-hand man of Jinnah were very cordial’. Some of these conversations appear to have taken place in January 1945, when proposals for the formation of an interim government were discussed. The first act of the interim government was to be the release of the imprisoned leaders. Bhulabhai, in whom Gandhi had great confidence, consulted Gandhi about these proposals on more than one occasion, visiting him at Wardha, where Gandhi was then living. A draft of the proposals in Bhulabhai’s handwriting was also shown him which Gandhi approved, making some alterations, in his own hand. Eventually, two copies of these proposals, as finalised, were made and signed by Bhulabhai and Liaquat Ali Khan. The contents of the signed documents, which later came to be called the Desai−Liaquat Ali Pact, clearly indicated that Jinnah must have been consulted by Liaquat Ali Khan before agreeing to sign. All kind of rumours, also various accounts of these proposals had begun to appear, from time to time in the Indian press but nothing authoritative was (till then) known to the public.

In June 1945, the members of the Working Committee of the Congress were finally released. Soon thereafter, a storm burst in the Congress camp over this Pact. Bhulabhai was accused of having acted behind Gandhi’s back and betrayed the Congress. These charges were made in public and in press by important

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