JinnahWyatt2June11

Comment

A conversation primarily about the Interim Government. Jinnah's utter contempt for the Congress and for its legislative majority/constituency is evident to me in (5). This exchange took place after the Muslim League had approved the Cabinet Mission Plan on June 6th.

From The Transfer of Power Vol VII, Eds. Nicholas Mansergh and Penderel Moon, 1977.

489, page 866(full text)

Note by Major Wyatt

Note of Conversation between Major Woodrow Wyatt and Mr. Jinnah, on the morning of Tuesday, 11 June, 1946

1. Mr Jinnah said that he is not prepared to discuss parity with anyone. He had had great opposition in his own party to accepting the Mission's proposal, he did not think that opposition was fully appreciated, nor what he had gone through. The only way he had been able to persuade the Muslim League Council and Working Committee to accept the Statement was by promising them that he would not join the Interim Government unless the Muslim League had parity with the Congress. He was now pledged to that. He could not go back on that. He was not his own master. Whatever I might think of the reasonableness of the claim it was there and fixed.

2. Although he was not prepared to discuss parity he would discuss it with me in order to try and satisfy me. I told him that I disagreed with him and thought that he no longer had a justifiable claim to parity. He had voluntarily suspended the issue of a fully independent sovereign state for Pakistan for ten years so that he could not say that this was a case of two equal nations meeting together to wind up the affairs of the sub-continent. His reply to this was rather thin and he said that he had not given up the idea of Pakistan.

3. He was not prepared to meet Nehru or anyone else from Congress to talk about the Interim Government until Congress had accepted the Mission's proposals. Then any such talk would have to be on basis of parity. The moment that Congress accepted, he would, of course, be willing to meet Nehru and the Viceroy and put before them the names of his nominees with the suggested portfolios.

4. He was very shocked because he got the impression that it was not considered important who the Muslim League nominees were, as though any old people from the Muslim League Working Committee would do. He wanted the best men. This was an important matter. It was a very different type of Executive Council to anything they had had before, and it had a big job before it. He was not going to put in as his nominees people who were popular or well known in the Muslim League if they could not do the job. He had many able men in the civil service and he would put some of those in even though no one had ever heard of them. The problem was to get the right man for the right job. He was quite prepared to talk over the portfolios with Nehru and make adjustments with him so that they could get a workable team which was what was needed.

5. In his view the Congress grievance about parity was not bona fide. It had been suggested by Bhullabhai(sic) Desai in the first place and he had had the approval of Gandhi.

Discussions had always proceeded on the basis of parity. The first Simla Conference only broke down because a Unionist Muslim was nominated for one of the Muslim vacancies. Congress was only trying it on and we should take no notice of them. If we stuck it out they would give in. At the moment they are trying to drive a wedge between the British and the Muslims.

6. He seemed slightly interested in an idea that had been put to him of an inner cabinet of six with parity for Congress and the Muslim League. (Something based on these lines may be the way out).

7. He would not consider anything based on the first Simla Conference formula of parity between caste Hindus and Muslims.

8. He complained that he had made the concession about the Union Government and got nothing in return for it and the Congress were trying to break the whole thing down on every conceivable pretext.

9. Sikhs: He said "I will give you an assurance that as soon as the Interim Government is constituted I will go down and see Master Tara Singh and will give him anything that he asks for within reason. I am going to stand as a candidate in the Punjab for the Section "B" Constituent Assembly. This will be the time for me to say publicly to the Sikhs that on any matter which affects their community the Muslim League will be guided by the majority of the Sikh votes as far as possible. I cannot go further than that and I cannot give them the absolute right of voting on communal issues in the same way as will be done at the Centre."

NOTE[IN ORIGINAL]: I have now heard otherwise from different sources(apart from Mr. Jinnah) that Jinnah did promise the Muslim League Council and Working Committee that he would not go into the Interim Government without parity. I believe that he did really have to deal with a great deal of resentment in his party.