“If the Muslims are a minority they must be willing to agree to any arrangement which would give them the right to declare what safeguards there should be for themselves, the matter being left for decision to an impartial outsider in cases where a difference of opinion arises. If on the other hand the Muslims were to maintain that they should be dealt with as a separate nation, the contention which The Times has voiced that Britain had ‘undertaken to defend the interests of the minorities’ would become meaningless so far as the Muslims were concerned. She would have no option, then, but to leave it to the Muslims to settle the future with the Hindus and the other communities.”
JANUARY 22, 1940
The communal problem
THE CONGRESS WORKING COMMITTEE IN AUTHORISING GANDHIJI to seek further clarification on certain points contained in the Viceroy’s recent speech in Bombay has shown that it recognises that the Viceroy’s speech offers a foothold from which a settlement might be reached. And it has demonstrated that the great national organisation is as anxious as Gandhiji himself to achieve a settlement if it could be had with honour and that “it is not spoiling for a fight” any more than he is. And we have no doubt that any settlement that satisfies Gandhiji and the Congress will satisfy the predominant bulk of public opinion in the country. Whether it will satisfy Mr. Jinnah and the Muslim League is another question. The correspondence between Gandhiji and Mr. Jinnah published to-day should make it clear beyond a peradventure that no settlement which proceeds on the basic assumption that India is a unity and must remain so can have the approval of Mr. Jinnah or the League. To the disgruntled leaders of sub-communal and sectional groups within the Hindu community, who, in their unreasoning fury against the Congress, were prepared to immolate themselves on the altar of Mr. Jinnah’s intransigence, he has given a resounding slap in the face. Their recent hobnobbing with himself was as he has more frankly than kindly explained “partly a case of ‘adversity bringing strange bedfellows together and partly because common interest may lead Muslims and other minorities to combine.” But, while he is willing to use them for his purposes and give them a leg-up as against the Congress, he is, as he expressly says, under no illusions that this re-alignment, in which many have been tempted to see the germs of a legitimate political opposition, means any such thing. India, he is convinced, is not a nation, nor even though that seems to less subtle mortals like flying in the face of geographical facts – a country. “It is a sub-continent, composed of nationalities, Hindus and Muslims being the two major nations”. And – though he does not say that in so many words – the two like oil and water cannot mix.
As usual, he does not tell us what is the solution that he would himself suggest for the Indian problems on the basis that India is not and can never be one nation. But he wants Gandhiji to find the solution, telling him, “More than anyone else you happen to be the man to-day who commands the confidence of Hindu India and are in a position to deliver the goods on their behalf. But Gandhiji has repeatedly disclaimed any such authority. He does not recognise that religion constitutes a nation, and Mr. Jinnah, instead of proving as he fancies thatGandhiji is guilty of an inconsistency in taking this stand in view of his admission that religion is the mainspring of his activity, only succeeds in convicting himself. “I could not be leading a religious life”, he says he told the late Mr. E. S. Montagu when that statesman visited India, “unless I identified myself with the whole of mankind and that I could not do unless I took part in politics.” He overlooks the obvious fact that any religion that imparts this universality of outlook cannot become the differentia of a particular nation, and the politics of a truly religious man cannot be communal politics.
“I sometimes wonder,” says Mr. Jinnah, “What can be common between practical politics and yourself, between democracy and the dictator of a political organisation of which you are not even a four-anna member.” But what are we to think of the democratic professions of this ‘practical politician who would make the entire future of the country hinge upon the acceptance by the Congress of his organisation as the sole representative of the Muslim community irrespective of the wishes of the community itself? The Congress is invited to do this so that Mr. Jinnah may kill two birds at one stroke, the Congress on the one hand would write itself down for a communal body and the most extravagant attitude that Mr. Jinnah and the League may choose to take up – as in maintaining that the Muslims are a separate nation – would have to be regarded as a demand coming from the united Muslim community. The Congress cannot do what he asks it to do; for, apart from any question of self-respect, to concede the claim of this major ‘nation’ as Mr. Jinnah calls the Muslims would be to open the door to similar claims by all the other ‘minor nations, and that would be the surest way of letting chaos loose. When mankind is realising that unbridled political nationalism has played untold havoc and nations well differentiated by race, tradition and geography and with centuries of separate existence and development behind them are exploring the possibilities of closer union and even a world federation, it would be midsummer madness to balkanise India in order to oblige Mr.Jinnah and his friends.
Nor can Mr. Jinnah’s claims be consistently endorsed by Britain. Even The Times is constrained to admit that “some of his recent utterances have given the impression that the British policy of defending the lawful interests of minorities has encouraged him to think that the members of the Muslim League are entitled to veto any and every constitutional advance simply because they are a minority.” When it is a question of seeking Britain’s support to thwart progress Mr. Jinnah and the League argue that the Muslims are a minority; when it comes to discussing the future with the Congress, they put up the claim that the Muslims are a nation. Now if the Muslims are a minority, they must be willing to agree to any arrangement which would give them the right to declare what safeguards there should be for themselves, the matter being left for decision to an impartial outsider in cases where a difference of opinion arises. If, on the other hand, the Muslims were to maintain that they should be dealt with as a separate nation, the contention which The Times has voiced, that Britain had “undertaken to defend the interests of the minorities would become meaningless so far as the Muslims were concerned. She would have no option, then, but to leave it to the Muslims to settle the future with the Hindus and the other communities. Indeed, for a much more important reason, she can have no truck with Mr. Jinnah and the League so long as they stick to the notion that the Muslims are a nation; for she has always insisted that nothing should be done to jeopardise India’s unity. In his Bombay speech the Viceroy reiterated his conviction that there could be no definitive solution of the Indian problem which did not comprehend the States. How, then, could Britain consistently encourage the claims of those who are vowed to work for the disruption of India”. If her statesmen see the true inwardness of the extravagant demands that Mr. Jinnah and the League are putting up in the name of the Muslims and against the wishes of vast sections of that community, they will realise the futility, if not worse, of insisting that a settlement of the communal problem – in the shape of the Congress coming to an agreement with Mr. Jinnah and the League – must be the condition precedent to a settlement between Britain and India. If they realise this and are genuinely prepared to explore all possible ways of arriving at a solution acceptable to all parties, we have every confidence that the Congress will wholeheartedly help them in this attempt.
Reference:
The First 100
A Selection of Editorials, 1878-1978, THE HINDU, VOLUME I