Arguments Over Congress Muslim

Documents included

• Gandhi to Viceroy Wavell, 12 June 1946(full text).

• Meeting of Cabinet Delegation and Viscount Wavell with Representatives of the Congress Party on 23 June 1946 (full text)

• Viceroy Wavell to Mr. Jinnah 4 October 1946 (excerpt)

From 'The Transfer of Power 1942-7' Volumes VII The Cabinet Mission 23 March-29 June 1946, Eds, Nicholas Mansergh and Penderel Moon, 1977.

Comment:

This is one of the many references indicating Jinnah's unwillingness to deal with Maulana Azad.

Mr. Gandhi to Viceroy Wavell, 12 June 1946, 499 page 877 (full text)

NEW DELHI, 12 Jun 1946

From you, almost straightaway, I went to the Working Committee which, owing to his illness, was held at Maulana Saheb's quarters. I gave them the gist of our conversation, told them that I gladly endorsed your suggestion about the parties meeting to fix up names subject to the provisio that no party should talk of parity, you should invite them simply to submit to you a joint list of the Cabinet of the Provisional Interim Government which you would approve or, if you did not, you would invite them simply to submit a revised list bearing in mind your amendments, that the list should represent a Coalition Government composed of persons of proven ability and incorruptibility.

I suggested too that in the place of parity there should be active enforcement of the long-term provision in your joint statement that in all major communal issues there should be communal voting to decide them. I suggested also that in the event of absence of agreement between the parties in spite of all effort, you should examine the merits of the respective lists of the two parties and accept either the one or the other(not an amalgam) and announce the names of the Interim Government but that before that final step was taken you should closet youselves until a joint list was prepared. I told the Working Committee that you had seemed to endorse my suggestions.

I told them further that, so far as I knew, it was a point of honour with Congressmen that there could be no joint consultation in which Maulana Saheb was not associated with the talks. You said it was a sore point with Qaid-e-Azam Jinnah and I replied that the soreness was wholly unwarranted and that the Congress could not be expected to sacrifice its faithful servant of twenty-five years' standing whose self-sacrifice and devotion to the national cause had never been in question. But I told you that your great experience and ability to handle delicate matters would show you the way out of the difficulty.

Finally, I told the Committee that I drew your attention to the fact that the European vote which was being talked of was unthinkable, in connection with the Constituent Assembly and nothing but a public declaration by the European residents of India or one by you on their behalf could make possible the formation of the Constituent Assembly. I gathered from you that the question was already engaging your attention and that it should be satisfactorily solved.

Probably you have already moved in the matter of the joint talk. Nevertheless, I thought I owed it to you and the Working Committee to put on record what I had reported about our talks. If I have in any way misunderstood you, will you please correct me?

I may say that the Working Committee had its draft letter ready but at my suggestion it postponed consideration of it pending the final result of your effort adumbrated in this letter. The draft letter takes the same view that I placed before you yesterday on parity and the European vote and their election as members of the contemplated Constituent Assembly.

I close with the hope that your effort will bear the fruit to which all are looking forward.

Comment:

The British and Congress argue over Congress's insistence that Jinnah must have no veto on a Congress Muslim member in its own quota of Cabinet positions. This exchange pretty comprehensively reveals the respective points of view of the British and Congress on the subject but is only one of their many arguments on the same. It also presages the future difficulties of the Interim Government.

592 page 1012-1018 (full text)

Record of Meeting of Cabinet Delegation and Field Marshal Viscount Wavell with Representatives of the Congress Party on Sunday, 23 June 1946 at 2 pm

The Congress were represented by Maulana Azad, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr. Rajendra Prasad and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

The Secretary of State in an opening statement said that before the Congress reached final decisions, the Delegation were anxious to be sure that there was no misunderstanding of their position. They quite appreciated the importance which Congress attached to the recognition of their national character, but they did hope that in this particular instance Congress would see their way not to make a demand for the inclusion of a Muslim among the Congress representatives in the Interim Government, though without in any way creating a precedent or approving a principle.

The Delegation wished to make it quite clear that they had not given any assurance to Mr. Jinnah or the Muslim League that they accepted the view, which Mr. Jinnah had advanced, that the Muslim League represents all Muslim political opinion and that no other party except the Muslim League has any right to nominate a Muslim for a political post.

It had been made clear to Mr. Jinnah that the Delegation did not accept this point of view. For the purpose, however, of forming this particular Coalition Government the Delegation had taken into account all the arguments that had been advanced to them by both parties up to the date on which they made their statement of the 16th June. In light of those arguments they had produced a list of persons whom they thought most likely to form the basis of a sound Coalition which would be acceptable to both parties.

The Secretary of State thought that the Congress representatives were entitled to know that the Delegation were not asking them to forgo their principles or abandon their status as a national party, but nevertheless they did hope that the Congress would not press this claim in this particular instance. He thought that if the Congress did so they would thereby jeopardise the whole future of India.

Maulana Azad said that the particular matter the Secretary of State referred to was one of the other important matters which have now come up. The whole thing, however, had to be seen together. This matter of the appointment of a Nationalist Muslim was one on which the Congress had expressed themselves clearly throughout. It was not a temporary matter but one which dealt with the whole conception of the future. Any weakening on the Congress party's conception of a strong India by any interim parity would create conditions which would not only make administrative difficulties but would formulate conditions in certain matters which they could not get rid of in the future, and there was no immediate gain to be obtained which would be adequate to set against that.

It was stated in answer to certain objections the Congress had raised that Congress had no right to interfere with Muslim League selections, yet now exactly the same thing has been done about selections which the Congress might make. So the Muslim League could interfere with the Congress selections whilst the Congress were told that they cannot interfere with the Muslim League selections, although the Muslim League are not a political party in the full sense of the word. That is to say, they are definitely a limited communal party. The Congress protested against parity but this was something more than that. It was just a veto on future work of a kind which made honourable coalition or co-operation quite impossible.

The Secretary of State said that no objection had been raised when the Congress had wished to substitute Mr. Sarat Bose for Mr. Mahatab, and there was no question of the Muslim League being asked to agree to that. But the change they now wanted to make was something which altered the basis of the Delegation's proposals and was likely, in the Delegation's opinion, to prevent the formation of a Coalition Government.

Pandit Nehru said that the Delegation appeared to start with the presumption that progress could only be made with the co-operation of the Muslim League. The Congress disagreed with that view. They thought that under what was proposed the Muslim League would secure a vantage point from which they could veto anything that really mattered and bring the whole Government to a state of frustration.

The Secretary of State said that he was present when Maulana Azad and Pandit Nehru had themselves suggested that there should be a communal majority for important communal decisions. He certainly understood them to go as far, if not farther, in agreeing to that as the Delegation had gone. Pandit Nehru said that their agreement was linked with the proposal that the Interim Government should be responsible to the Legislative Assembly. Now it was linked to parity. He was unable to see how a Government on this basis could function.

Sir Stafford Cripps suggested that it was in practice a principle in all coalitions that in fact you must get the consent of both major parties to all major matters which were decided. If not, the coalition broke down. Pandit Nehru said that this was different. Where there was a communal basis, every day there would be obstruction on communal grounds.

His Excellency the Viceroy said that he would like to be sure there was no misunderstanding on this point. He had discussed it three times with the Congress representatives. On the first occasion he had explained that he did not see how the Government could be responsible to the Legislature. He had understood then that the Congress were prepared to agree to the communal majority provision. On the second occasion the Congress representatives had, as he understood it, accepted the proposition in connection with a Council of 15. On the third occasion he understood them to agree that in fact no major matter could be passed without the assent of the two major parties. He thought it was a great exaggeration to say this provision would be used every day. Of the issues that had come before his Council in recent months he could hardly think of any which in fact raised a major communal issue. He thought that the Congress were assuming too readily that the other party were going to behave unreasonably. If everyone behaved unreasonably the coalition would break up, and something else would have to be tried. It seemed to him that it was well worth trying a Coalition Government and seeing how it worked.

Sir Stafford Cripps said that the fact that Congress Muslims were included in Provincial Governments of itself demonstrated the national character of Congress, and the fact that a Congress Muslim was not included at the Centre would not therefore destroy that conception. Pandit Nehru said that as far as the Muslim League was concerned a Nationalist Muslim was regarded as a outcast.

Maulana Azad said that at the 1945 Conference at Simla Jinnah had agreed that the Congress could appoint who it liked provided that it did not touch upon his quota. Now he was making a further demand that no Muslim should be included even among the Congress quota, without his approval.

Sardar Patel said that Congress Muslims would say that they had better leave the Congress, if because of their membership of it, they were excluded from political positions. Sir Stafford Cripps said that the Delegation were not suggesting that Congress Muslims should be so excluded, but merely asking whether under the peculiar circumstances the Congress could not refrain from pressing for the inclusion of a Congress Muslim in the Interim Government.

Sardar Patel said that, put shortly, this meant that the proposed Coalition Government could not be formed because Jinnah objected to the appointment of a Congress Muslim. If this was to prevail, then Jinnah still had a veto in spite of what the Prime Minister had said before the Mission came out.

His Excellency the Viceroy said that Mr Jinnah had constantly complained to him that the Delegation had made too many concessions to Congress. It was a mistake to think that the Delegation had yielded to Mr Jinnah on all points. But on occasions of this sort, the stronger party was in a position to make a concession, and it might very well pay them to do so.