The Rediscovery of India by Desai Meghnad

Author:Desai, Meghnad [Desai, Meghnad]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: GAPPAA.ORG
Published: 2015-03-07T18:30:00+00:00

PASSAGE TO PAKISTAN

Gandhi came out of jail in May 1944. He had been weakened by the latest of his fasts, and the death of his beloved wife had been a blow. The rest of the Congress Working Committee was still in jail. But after recuperating in Bombay by the Juhu seaside, Gandhi initiated a dialogue with Jinnah. He took this initiative on his own, without consulting anyone else. Rajagopalachari (whose daughter Lakshmi had married Gandhi’s son Devdas) had moved a resolution, in the Madras Congress legislature party and in the assembly itself after the collapse of the Cripps Mission in 1942, that Jinnah’s demands be accommodated by the Congress. Azad had admonished him and Rajagopalachari had resigned from the Congress Working Committee. Rajaji, as he was known since the North Indians could not get their tongues around his polysyllabic South Indian name, was a pragmatic Right-wing politician and lawyer like most of the Congress leadership (Azad excepted). It is possible that his idea appealed to Gandhi while he thought about these matters in prison.

The offer of a dialogue was compounded with Gandhi choosing to address Jinnah by the title Jinnah’s followers had given him—Quaid-e Azam (‘great leader’ in Urdu). Azad was most annoyed when he heard of Gandhi’s offer. He called the invitation to Jinnah ‘a great political blunder’, and blamed ‘a foolish but well intentioned woman called Amtus Salam [one of the women who devoted themselves to Gandhi]’ for advising him to use that title. ‘When Indian Muslims saw that Gandhiji also addressed Jinnah as Qaid-e-Azam, they felt that he must really be so … I told my colleagues that Gandhiji was making a great mistake … Jinnah exploited the situation fully and built up his own position …’37 (There is just a faint touch of envy in Azad’s account here. Jinnah’s title was one Azad may have coveted for himself from Indian Muslims.)

Along with Hindu Mahasabha leader, Veer Savarkar and Dalit leader, B.R. Ambedkar, Jinnah was another person over whom Gandhi’s usually effective tactics and charm had no power. Gandhi tried to get under Jinnah’s exterior persona by offering to talk in Gujarati, their common language. The shrewd lawyer that Jinnah was, he saw the trap and refused. His Gujarati lacked the subtlety which Gandhi’s had. Gandhi wanted to extract Jinnah’s demands so that he (Gandhi) could concede them. But Jinnah’s entire approach had been that a guarantee by anyone in the Congress, including Gandhi, was worthless, since after independence it would be the Hindu majority which would have the decisive power. A guarantee given by Gandhi also had the problem that it could be rescinded if the ‘inner voice’ so decreed. After all, neither in Chauri Chaura, nor in the Mahadev Desai episode, was there any consultation with associates when Gandhi changed his mind. Jinnah knew his Gandhi well. He wanted the British to deliver his demands before they departed. Only the British Parliament could give what he wanted.

Jinnah was not alone in this. Muslim politicians who

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