Originally Added: 25 Nov 2008
Contributed to the Jinnah Archive courtesy of the author.
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Jinnah’s Team: The Top Ten
An enlarged and revised version of the Key Note address presented to the International conference on “Leaders of the Pakistan Movement”, National Institute of Historical & Cultural Research, Islamabad, on 07 April 2008.
By Prof. Sharif al Mujahid
I
Like Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov Lenin (1870-1924), Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948) was essentially a party man, as I have argued in Jinnah: Studies in Interpretation (1981). 1 Lenin’s personality, says Sidney Hook, “was sustained by, and developed within, the party”. 2 So was Jinnah’s, whether he was in the Indian National Congress (f. 1885), the Home Rule League (HRL) (f. 1917), or the All India Muslim League (AIML) (f. 1906). Again, like Lenin, Jinnah “was never far from the centre of any organization of which he was a member”.3 For him, as with Lenin, politics without the party was inconceivable. For him, all problems were problems of politics. “It was impossible to separate politics from economics and the social and educational life of a nation”, he told the Memon Chamber of Commerce on 01 October 1943. “He knew of no nation that had built up its economic, social and educational life without political power and authority vested in the hands of the people.” 4 In tandem, long before Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah (1909-60s) had improvised the Biblical dictum to read “Seek ye the political kingdom and everything shall be added unto you”, 5 sanctifying politics as the Aladdin’s lamp, Jinnah had told his followers at the launch of his marathon election campaign on 12 August 1945, “We shall have time to quarrel among ourselves and we shall have time when these differences have to be settled…. We shall have time for domestic programme and policies, but first get the Government. This is a nation without any territory or any Government.” 6 (italics added). That is, his quintessential message to his followers was: get the political kingdom first.
Finally, for him, once he had entered mass politics in 1937, “politics”, as Lenin told the Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R. C. P. (B) on 7 March 1918, “begin where millions of men and women are; where they are not thousands, but millions, that is where serious politics begin”. 7 No wonder, during the next eleven years he attracted mammoth crowds wherever he went. “Without them [the teeming millions], I or any body else could have achieved anything”, acknowledged Jinnah in his ‘Victory Day’ speech in Delhi on 11 January 1946, summing up the Muslim League’s triumph in the Central Assembly polls. 8
Politics, one needs to remember, was one of Jinnah’s two most precious passions, the other being law that had launched him on a lucrative career, providing him with a financial cushion. That, in turn, placed him above the temptation to make a profession out of politics, or to barter away principles readily to reap immediate political and financial dividends, and enabled him, above all, to pursue the politics of his choice and of his conscience.
As hinted earlier, Jinnah was at the centre, whether he was with the Congress for some seventeen years (1904-20), the HRL for three years (1917-20), or with the Muslim League for over thirty-four years (1913-47). Remember, he was nominated along with Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866-1915), early in May 1905, by the Bombay Presidency Association to be sent on a Congress deputation to England to plead for self-government for India during the impending British elections; 9 in July 1913 he founded the Congress-oriented London Indian Association as a forum for Indian students; in May 1914 he was “the spokesman” of “the Congress-wallas”, as Lord Crewe (1858-1945) put it, for the Congress representation to the Secretary of State on the reform of the India Council; 10 in December 1916 he was considered important enough in the nationalist pantheon for Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949), the nationalist “nightingale”, to dedicate her much acclaimed poem on “India” to him at the Lucknow Congress, and in 1918 for a selection of his speeches and writings (during 1912-17) to be compiled and published along with a pan-portrait by her. 11 The crowning achievement was, however, to come in 1919 when the people of Bombay collected a princely sum of Rs. 65,000/- within a month to raise the Jinnah Peoples’ Hall, in the Congress House Compound in Bombay, and Mrs Annie Besant (1847-1933) came all the way from Madras to declare it open – as a standing tribute to his “remarkable courage” and “dauntless leadership” in finally defeating in December 1918 the move to give the customary farewell to a retiring Governor: Lord Willingdon (1866-1941; Governor 1913-19) in this case, to quote official Indian sources. 12 All this demonstrably attests to the stellar position he occupied in the Congress hierarchy till he walked out of the Nagpur session in December 1920. Indeed, all through the 1910s, his was the “waxing personality” in the Congress, to quote Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964). 13
Jinnah formally joined the Besant’s HRL on 18 June 1917, in protest against her internment. Not only did he bring along “the entire legal profession” into the HRL, but also became its foremost spokesman. He organized “big public meetings” at Shantaram Chawl, in Bombay, every fortnight, popularizing the HRL as never before. He also didn’t flinch from clashing with Lord Willingdon (1866-1941) at the Bombay Provincial War Conference in 1918 on the Home Rule issue. 14
Even before Jinnah had formally joined the AIML on 10 October 1913, he had attended its Council meetings during 1910-12 by special invitation, and he was sent draft resolutions by the AIML Acting Secretary, Wazir Hasan (1874-1947), requesting him to “go through them” and let him “know the result”. 15 Jinnah was also the moving spirit behind the incorporation of the twin ideals of self-government and Hindu-Muslim unity in the League’s plank at its Council meeting on 30-31 December 1913. He was also responsible for the Congress and the League meeting annually at the same time and at the same place from Bombay (1915) to Ahmedabad (1921), and these were the only years when the Congress and the League had acted in unision. In 1916, he was elected President of the AIML Lucknow session, and in that capacity crafted and negotiated the Lucknow Pact (1916) with the Congress, which, besides conceding the long-standing Muslim demand of separate electorates, put forth a united demand for self-government. 16 In 1919 he was elected Permanent President of the AIML, and except for three years (1931-34), when he opted for self exile, he remained at the helm of the League. Once he left the Congress for good in December 1920, he never joined any other party, concentrating solely and all the time on the Muslim League where, at least subconsciously, he could be the party at some future date. And that concentration paid him huge dividends, as we shall presently see. His efforts to build up a national consensus till the All-Parties National Convention at Calcutta late in December 1928, and a Muslim consensus subsequently, resulting in the crafting of his Fourteen Points (1929) are well-known. He was recalled from exile by almost all the groups on Muslim India’s political spectrum in 1934 and was elected President of a united AIML. Three years later, he realized his dream and came to be identified as the Party as well. And that coveted position he retained all through the epochal 1937-47 decade.
Still, Jinnah was not the Muslim League even as Lenin was not the Bolshevik Party, (f. ) or Mahatma (Mohandas Karamchand) Gandhi (1869-1948) the Indian National Congress. But the Bolshevik Party became “the instrument it did because of Lenin” between April and October 1917, 17 and the Congress became an instrument of mass politics from 1919 onwards and got catapulted as the spokesman of Indian nationalism because of Gandhi. 18 Likewise, the Muslim League became both the agent and the index of Muslim resurgence during 1937-47, if only because of Jinnah. The League had existed before Jinnah seriously took up its reorganization in 1936, and it continued to exist in Pakistan after Jinnah had laid down the office, late in1947. But neither before 1937 nor after 1947, the League was what it became during the intervening years under Jinnah’s sole leadership. In 1936, Pandit Nehru had tried to foist his “two forces” dictum on India’s body politic, 19 marginalizing and elbowing out the Muslim League altogether. But within the next few years it had become buoyant, vibrant and mobilized under Jinnah’s supreme leadership, transforming itself into a political juggernaut to a point that it could confront the long entrenched Congress both in the streets and at the hustings. Thus, the League which could barely poll 4% of the popular vote and bag 24% of the Muslim seats in the crucial 1937 provincial elections, secured 75% of the popular vote and won some 86.45% of the Muslim seats during the critical 1945-46 elections. 20 That, for sure, indexes the criticality of Jinnah’s charismatic leadership of the League during that epochal decade. No wonder, he claimed the AIML and himself as the sole authoritative spokesman of Muslim India from 1938 onward and was duly anointed as the Quaid-i-Azam about that time.
But even the Quaid-i-Azam had to work through a party: he had to create and train a second cadre of effective leadership; he had to engage himself with his lieutenants and collaborators on a routine basis; he had to believe in, and routinely follow the exacting logistics of, team work. And team work calls for devolution of not only responsibilities, but of power as well. It calls for confining oneself, albeit being the supreme leader, to certain specific tasks within the general framework of an organization and the cluster of its strategies, and, above all, for non-interference in spheres assigned to the team-mates. This Jinnah followed religiously and routinely. Hence his singular success in creating a formidable political machine, despite what Ayesha Jalal says. 21 In the ultimate analysis, therefore, he had to depend on them for working out his strategies, for implementing his plans and programme, for advancing his mission, for carrying his message to the remotest corner of the subcontinent. “Part of the genius of the Quaid-i-Azam was that … he attracted into his orbit able and devoted people”, says the Aga Khan (1877-1957). 22 “His power was great, yet his greatness was that he used his power to make a team of men, who would carry on the work when he was gone”, says Philip John Noel-Baker (1889-1982), Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (1947-50). 23 The Times (London) also noted that Jinnah knew “that his work would not last unless he taught his people to be independent of his guidance, and more and more he gave over the responsibilities of the government to the band of able men he had collected and trained. He stood in the background to give the people confidence, and to step in decisively when the hour required it.” 24
This, however, was not only while Jinnah presided over the destinies of Pakistan but also while he did over the fortunes of the Muslim League. He created various bodies, with trusted and tested leaders as head, to attend to specific tasks, besides reorganizing and reactivizing the Working Committee, the League Council, and the Provincial Leagues (PMLs). Simultaneously, he devised a viable, hierarchical structure for endowing the AIML with the unity of command, to carry on the routine organizational work, from the Primary Leagues upwards, with these bodies helping to transform the lumpin Muslim proletariat into a critical mass, to endow the Muslim League with a social depth, and mobilize the general populace at the grass root level for the struggle ahead. More important among these bodies were the assembly parties, the Muslim League National Guards (1938), Women’s Sub-Committee (1938), Education [Kamal Yar Jung] Committee (1938) the Pirpur Committee (1938), the Civil Defence Association (1939), the Committee of Action (1943), the Planning Committee (1944) and the Central Parliamentary Board (1945), besides the Provincial Parliamentary Boards, set up by the Provincial Leagues under his instructions. All these bodies were made autonomous and boundary bound, empowered to take decisions on their own. The Provincial Parliamentary Boards, which were set up by the Provincial Leagues in accordance with the AIML Rules and Regulations, were authorized to select candidates for the elections by consensus as far as possible, keeping in view the local context. Only in case of appeals against the Provincial Board’s decisions and in case of serious disputes was the Central Board to intervene and adjudicate. And its decisions were final and irrevocable, with no provision for an appeal against them.
Indeed, Jinnah scrupulously kept himself away from these bodies, to give them a lesson in the self-learning process and to let the second cadre leadership develop the acumen and the political will to resolve problems and manage internal differences on their own, without involving him in their political wranglings. For strategic reasons as well, Jinnah consistently refused to be drawn into the mire of provincial politics, and stood steadfast by the Central Parliamentary Board’s decisions. Thus, whenever any leader from any province complained to him about certain irregularities or against factionalism within the Provincial League, or requested for party ticket, either at the centre or in the provinces, he would routinely ask him to address the relevant body dealing with the issue at hand. “Now it is really for the Provincial leaders to manage things in their own provinces, and it is very difficult for me… from here [Bombay] to give advice, because I cannot enter into the skein of your local conditions”, he told the much esteemed Maulana Akrum Khan (1868-1968), President, Bengal PML, categorically. 25 In tandem, he counselled M. A. H Ispahani (1902-81), his confidente in Bengal, to approach the Central Board for redressal, and, “better still, try to patch up and pull together,… I shall do all I can, but you people must stand solid and completely united”. 26 When, in October 1945, the two chronically feuding factions in Sind – the Hidayatullah-Khuhro group and G. M. Syed (1904-95) – called for Jinnah’s intervention in the selection of candidates for the provincial polls, he asked them to contact the Central Board. 27 To even Allama Shabbir Ahmad Usmani (1889-1949), the great alim, whose support for the League was so critical during the 1945-46 elections, he regretted that “I cannot interfere in the matter” of selection of candidates, explaining at length that “according to our constitution and Rules not only I have no power but it will be improper on my part to interfere with the working of the tribunals that have been set up by the Muslim League organization and who are vested with power and authority to make selection on behalf of the All India Muslim League in various provinces … [However,] any candidate who is dissatisfied with their decision has a right to appeal to the Central Parliamentary Board whose decision is final….” 28 And all through the electoral process he stood steadfast with the Parliamentary Boards, arguing that they “were being guided by no other consideration but of acting in the best interests of the Muslim community”, and that “nobody, however powerful, could influence their decisions”. 29 Jinnah’s contention that their decisions were final and irrevocable means that he believed in devolution of power.
Yet, the irony of it all is that Jinnah was called and characterized as a fuehrer by the Congress oriented publicists and press. 30 He was even accused of not tolerating any independent opinion or of brooking anyone in his camp gaining stature on his own. Evidence that has mounted since Jinnah’s death points otherwise. Admiral Jefford (1901-80), Pakistan’s first naval chief, “stood up to Jinnah and therefore earned his respect – and got it”, notes Hector Bolitho (1897-1974), Jinnah’s official biographer. 31 So did Nurse Dunham and Ibrahim Habibullah, an Oxford alumnus and socialist, who had the courage to contradict Jinnah to his face and defend Nehru. To which Jinnah’s response was, “Oh, I need men like you. Come and join me” . 32
Jinnah’s mounting concern to create a second cadre leadership became all the more evident even as he got frenetically engaged in putting up the all-India and provincial structures in place. From 1936 onwards, he launched upon the onerous task of picking up, adopting, or creating a credible set of leaders, both at the all India and the provincial levels, which continued till the middle 1940s. The huge Jinnah Papers (Quaid-i-Azam Papers; QAP for short), the Shamsul Hasan Collection and the Rizwan Ahmad Collection attest to his being in touch with an exceedingly vast concourse of persons, all sorts of them, during the 1937-47 decade. That should undoubtedly have facilitated his task and his choice. 33
In any case, the first ones to be picked up were Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan (1895-1951), M. A. H. Ispahani, and the Raja of Mahmudabad (1914-76). And with the years, the process went apace and gathered momentum. Thus, by 1946-47 several hundred “leaders” came to be identified, adopted, won over, picked up, or, as a last resort, “created”, tested assigned to various tasks. All said and done, it was this devoted band of leaders who had shouldered the burden of organizing the League at various levels and mobilizing the masses, who had borne the brunt of the struggle for Pakistan with dedication and carried it to triumphant success, making it unique among the galaxy of freedom movements. They didn’t just stand and wait, although Milton would celebrate the “services” of bystanders as well. Instead, they struggled, and strived and suffered; they wrought for freedom all the time and all the way; they paid a toll, heavy and exacting. All that without remorse, without regret, without heed to consequences. Therein, if at all, lay their singular contribution – a contribution whose imprint is etched on the undulated sands of time.
Leaders, of course, they were – in the generic sense of the term. But of varying substance, of varying consequence, and of varying stature. Now, if I were to name, say, some ten leaders that had contributed the most to the growth and success of the Pakistan Movement, who would they be? Some are, of course, quite obvious and easy to name – leaders such as Liaquat, Bahadur Yar Jung (1905-44), Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy (1893-1963), Allama Usmani, Khwaja Nazimuddin (1894-1964), Abdur Rab Nishtar (1899-1958), Mohammad Khuhro (1901-80), and Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan (1901-80). Leaders who had made the most notable contribution throughout the movement or at a critical stage. The last two names would be that of Nawab Mohammad Ismail Khan (1886-1958) and Nawab Iftikhar Hussain Khan of Mamdot (1906-69).
Interestingly, Mian Mumtaz Mohammad Khan Daulatana (1916-1995), probably the most dynamic and articulate of the AIML Young Turks in the middle 1940s, had named four of the above leaders who, he thought, stood out from the rest. He considered Liaquat, Nawab Ismail Khan, Nishtar and Suhrawardy as the most eminent, with Jinnah being supreme and most outstanding. 34
II
Liaquat Ali Khan
Jinnah had once called Liaquat his “right hand” man and, by implication, his political heir. It also means that except for Jinnah himself, Liaquat stood foremost in the galaxy of Muslim leadership at that forking moment in history. Jinnah had picked up Liaquat, almost literally, when he launched himself upon the AIML’s reorganization: at its Bombay session in April 1936, Jinnah got Liaquat elected as the AIML General Secretary. This office Liaquat held for eleven years – the years that turned out to be the most critical in Muslim India’s history since 1857. He was also the longest serving General Secretary of the AIML, even out-serving the legendary Sir Wazir Hasan. This was, however, only the beginning of his career as an all-India leader. More remarkable: he enjoyed Jinnah’s confidence throughout, despite his being an exceedingly exacting President. This despite Liaquat’s resignation from the U. P. Muslim League Parliamentary Board and later Central Parliamentary Board and contesting the provincial elections early in 1937 as an Independent, 35 despite the “adverse” ripples caused by the Desai-Liaquat proposals or formula, miscalled the “Pact” (1944-45). That formula, as reported by Nawab Sir Muhammad Yamin Khan (1886-1966), at whose Delhi residence it was first discussed on 01 April 1944, was negotiated behind Jinnah’s back, when he lay sick at Matheran, near Bombay. 36 Liaquat’s rivals, therefore, thought that Liaquat’s “lapse” would, for sure, ditch him in Jinnah’s eyes, but it did not. Jinnah had much greater confidence in Liaquat than they thought he did. Even otherwise, as Muhammad Reza Kazimi has so meticulously documented on the basis of primary sources, 37 it was by no means a lapse, and Jinnah found no impropriety on Liaquat’s part in negotiating it with Desai. That’s why Liaquat came out unscathed while Desai was guillotined, despite Gandhi’s initial blessings to Desai’s proposals.
Again, courtesy Jinnah, Liaquat also held some of the highest offices a Muslim could in pre-Partition India. To his credit, however, he did it with singular success and distinction. Listen to what Jinnah said on 26 December 1943, while proposing his re-election as AIML’s General Secretary at the Karachi (1943) League: “He … had worked and served day and night, and none could possibly have an idea of the great burden he had shouldered …. Though a Nawabzada, he was a thorough proletarian and he hoped other Nawabs … would follow his example.” 38 In fact, Liaquat’s deliberate shying away from his patrician background had largely helped him to establish rapport with the masses extensively. And Jinnah’s confidence in him throughout goaded him to serve as a trouble shooter between him and the fractious provincial leadership 39 and keeping him apprised of developments at the provincial level.
In terms of Liaquat’s political acumen, and contribution, five major events call for attention. First, in his Presidential Address at the United Provinces Divisional Muslim League Conference at Meerut on 25-26 March 1939, he propounded partition as the most rational solution to India’s constitutional problem. 40 Coming fast on the heels of the Sind Provincial Muslim League Conference’s resolution of 10 October 1938, this came as a shot in the arm to the partition proponents, especially since, in a more concrete sense, Liaquat represented Central League’s thinking on the issue. Second, in his interview with Sir Stafford Cripps (1889-1952) late in December 1939, he proposed three options – the provincial option (i.e., each province be given the option to join the Indian federation or not), a loose confederation with a limited centre, and outright partition. 41 Remarkably though, these three options constituted the basics of the three major British proposals during the 1940s – the Cripps Plan (1942), the Cabinet Mission Plan (1946) and the Mountbatten Plan (1947). On both these occasions, Liaquat’s ideas and proposals were meant to be trial balloons, if only to test the mood and reaction of the respondents, without, however, committing Jinnah and the AIML to them officially.
Third, in his talks with Bhulabhai Desai (1877-1946), Leader of the Congress Party in the Central Assembly, in 1944, he proposed parity between Congress and the League in any future set-up at the Centre, and got it incorporated as the core point in the Desai-Liaquat formula This was the first time this cardinal principle which the League had formally demanded in any coalitional set-up in August 1940, but was stoutly rejected, had been finally conceded by the Congress at any level. In perspective, then, this represented a jump leap forward towards the AIML’s recognition as Muslim India’s most authoritative spokesman. And in immediate terms, once lifted beyond the pale of controversy, this key provision became the basis for the quota of seats for Hindus and Muslims/Congress and the League in the subsequent Wavell (1945) and Interim Government (1946) proposals, without raising almost no eye brows. Thus, Liaquat’s contribution assumes a milestone status in getting the principle of parity accepted, the quintessential principle Jinnah had underscored in his claim to a separate-entity status in 1935, to a third-party status in 1937, and to separate Muslim nationhood in 1940.
Fourth, Jinnah had envisaged the League members in the Interim Government “as sentinels who would watch Muslim interests in the day to day administration of Government. [We would like to make sure that] this Government should not be allowed to do anything administratively, by convention or conventions, which would in any way prejudice or militate the problem of the constitution of India… 42 And the person who was deputed to oversee the working of the Interim Government from the League’s standpoint was Liaquat who headed the League bloc. “The only arena where the League could give the Congress an effective opposition [at this juncture] was the Interim Government”, says Ayesha Jalal. 43 And Liaquat gave it all the way from October 1946 to July 1947 – in pricking the Congress’s bubble of treating the Interim Government as a dominion cabinet and Nehru as Prime Minister, in thwarting the Congress strenuous and sustained efforts to throw the League out of the Interim Government during December 1946 to February 1947, and in wrecking the Menon’s proposal, with Congress’s concurrence, in June 1947 to reconstitute the Interim Government, confining the League “to be concerned a far as normal administration was concerned only with the Pakistan areas” 44 Helped by Jinnah, Liaquat throughout took up a constitutional position, to which neither the Congress nor the Viceroy had an answer. Thus, Liaquat, unlike the general impression about his demeanour, was not all that affable and all that malleable when it came to Muslim interests. Hence Kazimi’s assessment:
throughout the term of the Interim Government, the most crucial responsibility had vested in him. He had dealt with every crisis with resource and fortitude, and he made the best of this opportunity to make his most momentous contribution towards the creation of Pakistan. 45
Most of what he did during the Interim Government stint was behind the scenes, but not so the Budget which he prepared and presented as the first Indian Finance Minister on 28 February 1947 and which immediately came to be hailed as “Poor Man’s Budget”. Kazimi’s meticulous documentation shows that, much against the version given currency by Azad 46 and Choudhry Muhammad Ali, 47 he was completely in control of Finance, and the Budget was principally his handiwork. 48 Based on the socialist or egalitarian principles voiced so often or so vigorously by the Congress, it gave relief to the poor and taxed the “dirty rich”, clamping a Business Profit Tax on profits in excess of Rs. 100,000, and yielding Rs. 300 million in the bargain, to meet in part a deficit of Rs. 485 million. Wavell considered the Budget “sound”, but also felt that, “it has obviously got Birla and Big Business with whom P[atel] works closely, very much on the raw, and they are using every means to get it amended”. 49 In any case, the “Budget was an important factor in helping turn the tide of opinion among Congress leaders”, 50 inducing them to conclude that working with the Muslim League as coalition partners was totally impossible, and to accepting partition as the only way out of the festering Indian deadlock, however resoluctantly. The first fitful indication came in the Congress Working Committee’s resolution of 08 March 1947, calling for and commending “a division of the Punjab into two provinces so that the predominantly Muslim part may be separated from the predominantly Hindu part” 51– i.e., barely ten days after the Budget. Sardar Patel was an early convert, 52 and by 14 March “Nehru, one of the staunchest opponents of both the Muslim League and partition, was acknowledging that Pakistan was inevitable”. 53
In Pakistan, the acid test for Liaquat came in September 1948, when he was called upon to don the mantle of leadership, following Jinnah’s death. No one thought Liaquat would fill in the vacuum, but he did – and that superbly. “I am wondering whether the death of Jinner [Jinnah] will prevent you from coming to London”, wrote George Bernard Shaw to Nehru. “If he has no competent successor, you will have to govern the whole of India.” 54 On the other hand, some American circles speculated whether the desire for separate existence among Muslims would survive the catastrophic event. 55 Liaquat belied all these assumptions and proved himself more than a competent successor, as indexed by foreign comments on his assassination. “No man played more successfully the role of Cavour to his leader’s Mazzini”, remarked The Times of India (Bombay), 56 while to The Statesman (Calcutta), “he guided the fortunes of his country which amounted to genius”. 57
In sum, then, Liaquat’s contribution in both Pakistan’s creation and her survival was only next to Jinnah’s. That indicates how perspicacious Jinnah was in designating him as his right hand man and political heir five years earlier.
Nawab Bahadur Yar Jung
During the early 1940s, Bahadur Yar Jung’s pre-eminence in Muslim politics was underscored by the monumental fact that he was the only person in the galaxy of AIML’s second cadre leadership to have been bestowed with a title at the popular level – that of Quaid-i-Millat. (Later, it came to be associated with Liaquat in Pakistan after his assassination, and with M. Mohammad Ismail [1896-1972], President of the Indian Union Muslim League [1948-72], in India.)
By the late 1930s, Bahadur Yar Jung had caught the eye of Jinnah, then feverishly and frenetically engaged in the herculian task of forging unity among disparate Muslim ranks, organizing them on the Muslim League platform and mobilizing them for political action at the grass-root level, and evolving a coherent all-India policy for the entire Muslim India – both in pursuit of making the claim of a pan-Indian Muslim constituency and a ‘third force’ a fait accompli. In view of Jinnah’s inability to speak in Urdu to concourses of vast crowds, he was desperately in search of a leader of impeccable integrity, outstanding ability and impressive fluency in Urdu – one, who could carry the Muslim League’s message to the semiliterate masses in the language they generally spoke but certainly understood. Hence his choice inevitably fell on Bahadur Yar Jung, who subsequently came to be hailed as Lisan-ul-Ummat (“the tongue of the community”). Those of us who have heard him speak would readily testify how appropriate the choice was.
Although Bahadur Yar Jung was a State subject – that of Hyderabad (Deccan) – and as such had no locus standi in the AIML deliberations (which were concerned with British India alone), yet he was always there on hand at the League sessions to explain the AIML’s viewpoint and, since 1940, to elucidate the Pakistan demand. Indeed, his was the voice that had induced millions to swell the League’s ranks. His extensive speaking tours during most of the by-elections to Muslim constituencies between 1938 and 1944 were almost critical. For that matter, he was credited as being the architect of the League’s four victories in the N.W.F.P. by elections in 1943.
In 1939, Bahadur Yar Jung founded the All India States Muslim League, as the League’s counter to the Congress-oriented All India States Peoples Conference (f. 1920s), which became increasingly active in various princely states after 1937 when the federation issue loomed large over the Indo-British deadlock on the central set-up. This was decisively his greatest contribution, since its founding associated for the first time the Indian states’ Muslims with the politics and policies of Muslim India and the Muslim League. That apart, the States Muslim League sought to advance the cause of the State Muslims in various spheres, including their language and culture, besides politics. And from 1940 onwards, its sessions came to be held at the close of the AIML sessions.
By all standards, Bahadur Yar Jung was a spell-binding orator. His sheer presence and exuberant rhetoric could, a la Mark Antony, goad vast concourses of people to follow his line, all the way. 58 Thus, at the Allahabad session (1942) League session, when he appealed for funds, no less than Rs. 125,000 were contributed on the spot. At the next League session at Delhi (1943), he spoke till 4 a.m., and on his appeal, the large contingent of women in the audience gave away all the jewelry they were decked with at the moment. It amounted to some ten lakhs of rupees. Jinnah was, of course, joyously overwhelmed, but nevertheless felt that, in fairness, the jewelry should be returned to their owners. But the problem was: how? For no one knew which one belonged to whom. Earlier, in Lahore (1940), Bahadur Yar Jung alone could have pacified the enraged Khaksars, who were obviously in an extremely agitated mood, to keep peace during the impending League session. His premature death on 25 June 1944 deprived the AIML of its most persuasive speaker. No wonder, his absence was widely felt during the 1945-46 elections.
Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy
Suhrawardy was the most outstanding leader Muslim Bengal had produced during the 1940s. Early in the 1930s, he had incrementally built up his mass popularity and leadership clout at the grass-root level, and this as Secretary, Calcutta Khilafat Committee. In 1936, he became Secretary of the Bengal Provincial Muslim League and tasked himself with mobilizing public opinion in support of the League. He had seconded the Lahore resolution in 1940, and was upgraded to move the main resolution at the League Legislators’ Convention at Delhi, in April 1946. This AIML’s choice to have him move that critical resolution, amending the Lahore resolution, catapulted him to the top echelon of the League High Command. Was it meant to acknowledge his critical role in mobilizing the Muslim masses in Bengal to a point that the League had bagged 113 out of 119 provincial Muslim seats in the 1945-46 elections? Whatever be the cause, the monumental fact was that this was the highest score the League could muster up in any Muslim majority province, and that enabled Suhrawardy to give the League its only stable ministry in 1946. In contrast, the only other League ministry in Sindh was rather shaky and unstable, hostage to some floor-crossing, shifty notables at the instance of the “scheming” anti-League trio – G. M. Syed, Shaikh Abdul Majid (1889-1978) and Pir Ali Muhammad Rashidi (1905-87).
By all standards, Suhrawardy was a brilliant orator and a dynamic leader. He alone could boldly confront the mounting Congress onslaught during 1946-47; he alone could adroitly stand up to the post-Great Calcutta Killing (16-18 August 1946) challenges; above all, he alone could successfully outmanoeuvre the overwhelming resourceful and resolute League opponents all the time – to keep the League ministry afloat and the League banner aloft. Thus exceedingly substantial and significant was his contribution towards the success of the Pakistan movement in Bengal, the major territorial chunk in north-eastern India that was claimed for Pakistan.
Although he lost to Nazimuddin in the July 1946 elections to the parliamentary leadership (and premiership) of East Bengal, he was yet able to recover the lost ground ere long. He became the leader of the Awami Muslim League (f. 1949; renamed Awami League in 1955); cobbled together alongwith Fazlul Haq (1873-1962) the United Front (Jugto Front) (f. 1953) which routed the Muslim League in the April 1954 provincial elections; and later became Prime Minister (1956-57). Besides Liaquat, he was the only other Independence leader to leave an imprint of his personality on Pakistan’s chequered, crisis-laden history.
Allama Shabbir Ahmad Usmani
The most eminent alim who had substantially helped to galvanize the Muslim voters during the 1945-46 elections, the Allama was long associated with Deoband, as student, teacher and Principal. Even so, he parted company with his life-long colleagues – Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madani (1879-1957) and Maulana Ahmad Saeed (1886-1958) in particular – in 1945, on the issue of two-nation theory, the ideological raison d‘etre of the Pakistan demand. Subsequently, Allama Usmani founded the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i-Islam at Calcutta in October 1945, in opposition to the Congress-oriented Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i-Hind (JUH) (f. 1919). During the next few months he helped to organize ulema conferences at Meerut (December 1945), Lahore (January 1946), and Bombay (March 1946), which inspired and activized the religious groups across the subcontinent, and mobilized the ulema and the mashaiqs in Pakistan’s favour, as never before. Because of his long standing in the Deoband hierarchy, indeed in the religious hierarchy of Indian Islam at the moment, he was much in demand during the election campaign. Despite age, he yet travelled extensively for some four months, and issued numerous appeals in the name of Islam, countering effectively the JUH on their turf and terms, and urging Muslims to vote solidly for the League. Thus, not only did he offset the JHU’s pervasive and pursuasive anti-League influence at the grass-root level. More important; he, much more than any other religious leader aligned with the League at the time, had provided the direly needed theological weight in Pakistan’s favour at that juncture. This, for sure, was extremely critical for the semiliterate Muslim masses, till then hostage to the Congressite ulema and the Ahrars who were arrayed against the League and the Pakistan demand in the name of Islam, and branded both of them as downright un-Islamic. Against this background his role in the Frontier Referendum in July 1947 was considered especially decisive, if only because of its overwhelmingly religious oriented electorate. And in Pakistan, the theological weight he provided to the Objectives Resolution, by stolidly owning it up and ruling out theocracy as the cornerstone of Pakistan’s constitutional edifice, helped endow the Resolution with a large measure of acceptance. 59
Khwaja Nazimuddin
A scion of the Dacca Nawab family, Nazimuddin was long associated with the Dacca University A member of the Bengal Legislative Council (1923-37) and of its Executive Council (1934), he founded the United Muslim Party in1936, which later merged with the Bengal Provincial Muslim League, due to Ispahani’s efforts. By instinct, Nazimuddin had always avoided the limelight, but he was able to retain Jinnah’s confidence till the last. He was a member of the AIML Working Committee for ten years (1937-47) and of the Bengal Legislative Assembly for eight years (1937-45). He was Education Minister, Bengal (1929-34), Home Minister (1937-41), and Leader of the Opposition (1941-43) before he became Premier of (united) Bengal (1943-45). He believed in working behind the scene, and in putting his career and ambitions aside when it came to advancing national interest. On the eve of elections in 1945, the parliamentary party was dominated by Nazimuddin, while the Provincial League Council by the more dynamic Suhrawardy. The “feud between” them “is now open and, in all probability, irreconcilable”, reported Abdur Rahman Siddiqi (1887-1953), Editor, Morning News (Calcutta), and Member, AIML Working Committee. 60 Fortunately though, a headlong tussle came to be avoided by Nazimuddin’s altruistic decision to retire and leave “the entire field” to the more ambitious Suhrawardy, while placing “every ounce of his energy to make the collection of funds and the … elections a success”. 61 Thus Nazimuddin’s retirement enabled the Provincial Bengal League to cobble together an agreed panel of candidates to contest the polls. He also restrained his own supporters, frustrated in securing tickets, from staging anything like a revolt, or even standing as Independents. Had Nazimuddin not gone in for this self-effacing posture, the Bengal League would have surely faced the same fate which the Sind League did after G.M. Syed’s revolt in December 1945, for having struck down some of his favourites for the official League seats. Thus, the League, with less than 50% of the seats in the Bengal Assembly, could still set up a stable ministry in Bengal in 1946, while it could not in Sindh because of Syed’s overweening ambitions. Yet another sacrifice Nazimuddin was called upon to make within a year. In his place in the League quota in the Interim Government, Jogandernath Mandal was nominated as the League’s nominee, if only to get even with the Congress on the Nationalist Muslims’ representation and nomination issue.
But, fortuitously, Nazimudin’s notable contributions didn’t go unacknowledged. He was voted Premier, East Bengal, in 1947; subsequently he became Governor-General (1948-51) and, still later, Prime Minister of Pakistan (1951-53), President, Pakistan Muslim League (1951-53), and President, Council Muslim League (1962-64).
Sirdar Abdur Rab Nishtar
Nishtar was in politics since the Khilafat days (1920-22), but it was only during the middle 1940s that he became an all India figure. He came to the Muslim League via the municipal politics and the Congress. He was inducted into the AIML Council in 1936, the AIML Working Committee in 1944, and the Committee of Action in 1946. Above all, he was one of the four League representatives at the (second) Simla (tripartite) Conference in 1946, and the leaders’ conference with the Viceroy on 3 June 1947. His was a life of unremitting service to his people and his country, and he cared little for any office. His inclusion in the Interim Government’s League quota in October 1946 represented the first major bench mark on the road to recognition. Other would, however, follow soon: he was appointed Minister of Communications (1947-49) and Governor of Punjab (1949-51). Still later, he was elected President, Pakistan Muslim League (1956-58), when the offices of the Prime Minister and the President came to be bifurcated upon Mohammad Ali Bogra (1909-63)’s resignation as Prime Minister and President (1955). 62
Mohammad Ayub Khuhro
Of all the leaders of Sindh, Khuhro made a significant contribution in strengthening the Muslim League after Abdullah Haroon’s death on 27 April 1942, and the most critical contribution in salvaging the League’s fortunes and keeping it afloat after G. M. Syed’s dastardly “stab in the back” in December 1945, to borrow Liaquat’s phrase. 63 Not only did Syed hijack the Provincial League; he also misappropriated its name, goodwill, offices, assets and workers, 64 leaving the new official League under Abul Hashim Gazdar (1893-1968) a mere shambles, bereft of organizational structure, denuded of funds and robbed of dedicated workers. On Khuhro’s request, Jinnah bailed out the Sind PML on funds. However, but for Khuhro and, possibly, Abul Hashim Gazdar, the League wouldn’t have been able to confront and counter successfully the Syed Group’s mounting onslaught in the February 1946 provincial elections, nor would have come out triumphant, hands down, in the December 1946 re-elections. Along with some of his colleagues, Khuhro saw to it that Pakistan was not buried in Sind, as R. K. Sidwa, the Sind Congress stalwart, had predicted, prognosticated or promised, in a letter to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (1875-1950), the Iron Man of the Congress. 65 Governor Mudie considered Khuhro the most intelligent and the most able among his council of ministers. As against Ghulam Husain Hidayatullah (1879-1948), Syed and Shaikh Abdul Majid, Khuhro, despite “conspiracies” galore, was more consistent, standing stolidly with the AIML during the critical 1937-47 decade. And in tacit acknowledgement of his services and contribution, Jinnah accepted to be his house-guest in 1946. Hamida Khuhro’s well-researched and competent biography of her father, Mohammad Ayub Khuhro: A Life of Courage in Politics (1998) 66 – albeit the bias a daughter’s account inevitably suffers from – yet superbly delineates in some detail the quantum of Khuhro’s services and the style of his leadership.
Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan
Qayyum Khan, who was Deputy Leader of the Congress Party in the Indian Legislative Assembly (1942-45), joined the Muslim League in the wake of the announcement of the general elections, on 01 September 1945. A mass leader in the true sense of the term, he was considered a “prancing… War horse” by Iskandar Mirza, in one of his letters to Liaquat, on 05 September 1945. 67 No wonder, Qayyum Khan, who was Muslim League Parliamentary leader since March 1946, helped, substantially and significantly, to accelerate the tempo of the burgeoning League movement in the Frontier since the late 1945, and keep the Congress at bay all through the critical 1946-47 period, although a Congress ministry under Dr. Khan Sahib (1882-1958), was entrenched in power in Peshawar. Above all, Qayyum Khan conceived, organized and led the Civil Disobedience Movement for over three months, beginning 20 February 1947. The movement, which saw some 14,000 people gaoled, 68 mobilized the Pathans in Pakistan’s favour, as never before. Imagine the usually timid, burqa-clad and traditionally home-bound Pakhtun women plucking up courage to a point that they organized public processions and demonstrations in defiance of Section 144; faced teargas, lathi charges, beatings, and even gunfire; scaled ladders and climbed up buildings to hoist the League flag at various public places, a la their Lahore compatriots’ four-weeks’ long agitation for civil liberties the previous January and February; and resorted to picketing on 3 April 1947, with some 1,500 participants. This snowballing mobilization process obviously helped significantly and substantially in swinging the Pathan vote in Pakistan’s favour in the all too critical June-July 1947 Referendum. Although continuously assisted by League leaders from other provinces and the Pir of Manki Sharif (1922-60), yet Qayyum Khan was the real hero of the July 1947 Frontier Referendum.
Nawab Mohammad Ismail Khan
The leading U.P. leader surpassing even the self-projecting, larger-than life Chaudhary Khaliquzzaman (1889-1973), Nawab Mohammad Ismail Khan played the pivotal role in keeping the League Assembly members intact within the AIML fold in the July 1937 crisis. On that occasion, the move for the League’s merger with the Congress had gained momentum to a point that it despaired Jinnah beyond measure. Khaliquzzaman, despite what he says in his Pathway to Pakistan (1959), was ambivalent, running with the hare and hunting with the hound, and keeping Jinnah in the dark all the time. 69 The Nawab sahib’s support to Jinnah at this juncture was critical in meeting the Congress challenge, and giving new strength and dimension to the Provincial League – and to the AIML at the all-India level as well. Had the League in the U. P. wound up, as Pandit Nehru had hoped in his letters to Vallabhbhai Pant and Maulana Azad, 70 the AIML couldn’t have stayed in harness as an all-India organization either – to challenge the Congress’s claim to solely represent the entire subcontinent, including the Muslims. Nawab Ismail Khan’s services were always recognized and he was considered an all India leader of impeccable integrity. That’s why he was nominated as Chairman of the AIML Civil Defence Association (1939) and, more importantly, of the Committee of Action (1943). When the names of the League nominees in the Interim Government were announced on 25 October 1946, Daulatana told me, he, then 27, and Begum Almas Daulatana, then 24, called on Jinnah posthaste at Hotel Cecil, in Simla, and protested at scuttling Nawab sahib and Nazimuddin from the League’s quota. At which Jinnah patiently delineated the criteria for his choice. He had to take Liaquat because he was the AIML’s General Secretary and the Deputy Leader of the League Assembly Party at the Centre, one leader each from the Frontier, and the Punjab, one from Bombay to represent Business and Industry, and, finally, Mandal from Bengal, if only to counter the Congress’s nomination of Nationalist Muslims. He couldn’t take Nawab Ismail Khan because he had already taken Liaquat from the U.P., and he had opted for Ghazanfar Ali Khan (1894-1963) because he combined in himself two constituencies – those of the Punjab and the Shiahs. 71 This means that the Nawab sahib’s nomination, as that of Nazimuddin, had been passed over, if only because of the limited number of seats at the League’s disposal. However, the Daulatanas didn’t know, nor had Jinnah told them, that the Nawab sahib had sent a letter to Liaquat two or three days earlier, asking him to inform Jinnah that he was not available for nomination. (Nawab sahib’s refusal, I feel, was a direct sequel to an incident in which Nehru was the “villain”, but this doesn’t come within the purview of the present paper.) However, Daulatana, as most other League leaders, continued to hold Nawab sahib in high esteem till his death in 1958. 72 And it was his samour cap that Jinnah had donned at the Lucknow (1937) League, which later became known as “Jinnah cap”, assuming national status as a League and Pakistan symbol.
Nawab Iftikhar Husain Khan of Mamdot
Mamdot was the President of the Punjab Muslim League and Leader of the League Assembly Party (1942-47). When the AIML asked its members to return British titles, as a sequel to the Direct Action resolution at Bombay on 29 July 1946, Mamdot not only renounced his title but also his huge jagir, worth Rs. 125,000 per annum. 73 A silent, but sincere worker like Nazimuddin, courteous, accommodative, modest and self-effacing , he was all the time engaged in keeping the fractious Punjab team intact and within manageable limits of factionalism. Remember, his team included volatile Young Turks like Daulatana, Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan (1913-2000s) and Mian Iftikharuddin (1907-62), former bureaucrats like Malik Feroz Khan Noon (1893-1970) and Begum Shah Nawaz (1896-1979), and leftists like Danial Latifi, Acting Office Secretary, Punjab PML, who alongwith Daulatana had authored the radical Punjab League manifesto (1945), endowing it with the direly needed progressive streak, in view of the erstwhile Unionist landlords’ stampede into it. Iftikharuddin was President, Punjab Provincial Committee, and Noon and Nawaz, former Unionists, were Viceroy’s Council members before their adherence to the League in later 1945. Iftikharuddin’s switchover had strengthened League’s populist clout while Noon’s and Nawaz’s served notice on their former colleagues to quit the crumbling Unionist citadel while quitting was good and jump onto the League bandwagon.
Under Mamdot’s leadership, the Provincial League, despite tremendous odds and with the entire bureaucracy arrayed against the League, 74 worked exceedingly hard to get a favourable verdict at the provincial polls in March 1946, favourable to a point that only four Muslim members remained outside the League fold in the Punjab Assembly. Mamdot had also successfully led the Civil Disobedience Movement which toppled the Khizar government in February 1947. Above all, he enjoyed Jinnah’s confidence to an extent that he uncharacteristically supported his candidature as against Malik Feroz Khan Noon for the leadership of the West Punjab Muslim League Assembly Party at the time of partition. This was probably one of the three uncharacteristic moves in Jinnah’s political career during the 1940s, the other two being (i) his opposition to the award of a League ticket to Sardar Aurangzeb Khan (1892-1954), as a punishment for bringing the League ministry in the Frontier (1943-45) into disrepute, which, however, proved disastrous to the League’s fortunes in the Frontier, and (ii) his support to Noon’s claim to a League ticket in the Punjab.
III
There are, however, some other leaders who are sure to find an honourable mention in the story of the Pakistan movement, but could not be accommodated in this macro list of stellar-role leaders at that critical juncture. Sir Abdullah Haroon (1872-1942), for one, was surely an early claimant to a top echelon seat, his having played a pioneering role in the enunciation of the two-nation theory and the popularization of the Pakistan idea during 1938-42. The Sind Provincial Muslim League Conference, which he organized in October 1938, was the precursor to the Lahore session, and the Karachi resolution (1938), which he inspired and crafted, provided the rationale for the Lahore resolution (1940). Tragically though, he died rather early, in April 1942, and the movement was denied the full impact of his creative ideas and leadership.
Qazi Mohammad Isa (1914-76), from Quetta, was a confidante of Jinnah and did yeoman service to the Muslim League and the nation. He founded the Baluchistan Muslim League in 1939, extended its influence and popularized its message and mission. Much of his work and contribution, however, lay outside his native province. Often enough, he served as a trouble shooter for Jinnah and the League, and because he was not involved directly with the politics of the various British Indian provinces, he came in handy to be nominated on various committees inquiring into the grievances of one faction against the other (such as in Sindh early in 1945), for adjudicating the claims of the various candidates in the 1946 provincial elections, and for organizing the League in the Frontier in 1943 and preparing it for a series of by elections. Indeed, he was the architect of the League victories in four by elections that year, and in the permutation and combination of various factors that chiefly paved the way for the installation of a League ministry in the NWFP, a singular achievement since that was the only time the League had come to power in that Congress stronghold during the 1937-47 decade. His pivotal role in the Shahi Jirga and Quetta Municipality vote in Pakistan’s favour on 29 June 1947 needs to be researched and documented.
From 1937 onwards, when Raja Amir Ahmad Khan of Mahmudabad, at 23, chaired the Reception Committee at the Lucknow League, he was ascendant in the League politics. He was Treasurer, AIML, for some ten years (1937-47), and President, All India Muslim Students’ Federation for eight years (1938-46). In the ceremonial procession and at the Flag hoisting ceremony at Madras on 11 April 1941, he deputized for Jinnah, as also earlier, in May 1940, as President of the Provincial Conference at Hubli. He also presided over several conferences in places as far afield as Palaghat, Malabar, and Lahore. It looked as if he was being groomed as a successor to Jinnah, but after 1942 his role became rather minimal and marginal – due, in part, to the debilitating influence of his younger brother, the Maharaj Kumar, and his sectarian politics. At the Madras (1941) League’s concluding session on 15 April 1941, Bahadur Yar Jung divulged that the Raja Sahib used to routinely bail out the League financially with his generous donations, 75 and In Quest of Jinnah (2007) reports that he gave Rs. 10,000 and a car during the Jhansi by elections in July 1937. It also reports Jinnah, whom the Raja addressed as “uncle”, having invited some 400 guests for a reception in his honour at Bombay, 76 this providing an index to the Raja’s standing with him. Beyond 1942, however, Mahmudabad figures only twice: (i) for having footed, in part, the hotel bills of the Working Committee members staying at Hotel Cecil, in Simla, during the first Simla Conference in July 1945 since the League refused government hospitality in protest against the Viceroy’s statement on the Simla breakdown, blaming the AIML, albeit indirectly, for its insistence on nominating the full quota of Muslim seats; and (ii) for contesting and winning a seat in the Central Assembly that fall. Despite this, if only because of his amiability, personal charm and instinctive ability to reach out to friends and strangers alike, he continued to be the idol of Muslim youth, not only during the Pakistan movement, but long after. That the Raja was socialist-oriented is, however, a myth, pure and simple. 77
Chaudhary Khaliquzzaman (1889-1973), was in politics since the Khilafat days, with intermittent links with a host of disparate groups on the political spectrum; he was politically astute and exceedingly articulate; above all, he had an in-born flair for politics. His association with the League was especially crucial in the late 1930s when the AIML and Jinnah had taken to the path of confrontation with the Congress, and the U. P., which both Coupland and Robinson rate as the “key” province of Indian politics, 78 became, by chance or otherwise, the launching pad for that marathon stand off, with no holds barred. An all-India leader in his own right since the Nehru Report (1928) which he inexplicably supported, his politics remained roller-coastered till he got firmly and finally entrenched as the Leader of the League Assembly party in the UP, late in 1937, after the summer crisis.
Nawab Siddique Ali Khan (1900-74) was, like Mamdot, a sincere but silent worker –soft-spoken, unassuming and never an aspirant to power and pelf. A member of the Indian Legislative Assembly(1934-47), he was Deputy Chief Whip of the League Assembly Party. He was also at one time (1938) Secretary, C.P. (Central Provinces) Provincial Muslim League, but was, ere long, hounded out of provincial politics by Syed Abdur Rauf Shah (1895- ), the provincial President. He was, however, accommodated as the Salar-i-Ala of the Muslim League National Guards (MLNG) in 1944. All through the 1937-47 decade, the MLNG not only became, as it were, the cynosure of all eyes at the various League sessions, conferences, moots and political rallies, but also contributed a good deal to their success.
Abdul Hashim (1905-74), the unpredictable but extremely energetic and influential leftist General Secretary of the Bengal Provincial Muslim League since 1943, and President, Bardwan League, represented a welcome contrast to the elitist top Provincial League leadership – such as Nazimuddin, Suhrawardy, Maulana Akrum Khan and M. A. H. Ispahani – in dress, demeanour, background and approach. In the early 1940s, when Fazlul Haq (1873-1962), the mover of the Lahore Resolution in 1940, had revolted against the League High command and expelled from the AIML, Abul Hashim came in handy to the Provincial League as an answer to Haq as a mass leader. Indeed, in that genre he excelled all others in the League camp on the all India landscape. Bold, dynamic, articulate, and passionate, he had firm roots among the poor rural masses, who, probably, felt more comfortable with him than with any other leader, but certainly followed him almost to a man. He wrote the Bengal League manifesto for the 1945-46 elections in consultation with his leftist theoretician friends, 79 and despite Suhrawardy’s opposition and its watering down, the manifesto still retained enough of its mass-oriented clout and was comparable to the Punjab League manifesto. (Fortuitously, but quite by chance, the League in the two most populous Muslim provinces had flaunted a populist programme at this critical juncture.) More than anything else, it was Abul Hashim’s organizational skills and untiring drive that had transformed the Bengal League into the most organized provincial body in the majority provinces, despite the home-grown Krishak Proja Party (f. 1927) of the indomitable Fazlul Haq, which had held the predominantly rural Muslim Bengal under its unchallenged sway for most of the 1930s. Abul Hashim was in charge of the elections and his extensive rural constituency across vast swathes of territory in eastern Bengal paid off such huge dividends at the hustings in 1946. By all accounts, Abul Hashim’s loyalty and adhesion helped Suhrawardy, a sort of a Young Turk, to clinch the provincial leadership as against the Old Guard in 1945, paving his way to the premiership of Bengal, early in 1946. Hashim’s son would also have us believe that his staying neutral in the Nazimuddin-Suhrawardy contest for the League Parliamentary Party leadership in East Bengal in July 1946 (and, in tandem, for the premiership of East Bengal) tilted the scales in Nazimuddin’s favour. 80 Later, Hashim was among the founders of the Awami Muslim League (f. 1949) and authored the draft manifesto for it. 81 Still later, he launched the religious-oriented Khilafat-e-Rabbani Party (f. 1953), but was denied an United Front nomination for Dacca East constituency, leaving him to fend for himself. Bereft of financial and organizational resources, he was predictably bound to lose badly. 82
IV
To conclude, then, these were the leading lights, who comprised Jinnah’s team. Of the top ten, two each hailed from Bengal and the Frontier, one each from the Punjab, Sind and the U.P. while three filled in on an all India basis as “technocrats” – that is, Liaquat, Usmani and Bahadur Yar Jung. Of the six “other” leaders, two came from the U. P., one from Sind, Baluchistan and Bengal while one was a “technocrat” on an all-India basis – i.e., Nawab Siddique Ali Khan. Whether by chance or otherwise, this seems a fair distribution. Although the minority provinces served as the vanguard still Jinnah had to depend on the majority provinces’ leadership since Pakistan, if at all, had to be established in those provinces. Hence the electoral verdict in Pakistan’s favour in them was critical, with the Punjab occupying the most sensitive spot. Hence Jinnah’s ringing message: “Punjab Muslims have played magnificent part in conclusively proving that the Punjab is really the cornerstone of Pakistan. Ninety percent fighting against all odds is a splendid achievement on which you, Muslim India and myself should be proud.” 83
In any case, it were these League stalwarts who, comprised Jinnah’s core team. The team that made Pakistan possible within a short span of seven years; that secured her survival in the most treacherous circumstances during the next four years, who, in tandem launched Pakistan on its existential career, falsifying the prognostications of Clement Atlee (1883-1967) 84 and Lord Listwell (1906-97) 85 and shattering the fond hopes of all the top Congress leaders.
Professor Sharif al Mujahid, HEC Distinguished National Professor, is co-editor of UNESCO’s History of Humanity, Vol. VI, and has recently edited In quest of Jinnah (2007), the only oral history on Pakistan’s founding father. Email: smujahid107[@]hotmail.com/ smujahid107[@]yahoo.com)
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Notes
* An enlarged and revised version of the Key Note address presented to the International conference on “Leaders of the Pakistan Movement”, National Institute of Historical & Cultural Research, Islamabad, on 07 April 2008.
[i] Sharif al Mujahid, Quaid-i-Azam Jinnah: Studies in Interpretation (Karachi: Quaid-i-Azam Academy, 1981), pp. 375f.
[ii] Sidney Hook, The Hero in History: A Study in Limitation and Possibility (Boston: Beacon Press, 1956), p. 222.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Khurshid Ahmad Khan Yusufi (ed.), Speeches, Statements & Messages of the Quaid-e-Azam (Lahore: Bazm-i-Iqbal, 1996), II: 1787.
[v] Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana (New York: Nelson, 1957), p. 53.
[vi] Yusufi (ed.), Speeches, Statements & Messages …, III: 2039.
[vii] Political Report of the Central Committee, 07 March 1918 – Lenin’s Collected Works (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1972), XXVII: 85-158; http/Marxist/archive/Lenin/ works/1918/7th cong/0-1 htm.
[viii] The Deccan Times (Madras), 20 January 1946.
[ix] William Wedderburn (1836-1918) and Henry Cotton (1845-1915), on their return to England after attending the Congress session, had stressed the urgency of sending Banerjea, Jinnah, Lajpat Rai and Gokhale as Congress delegates to plead for Indian claims during the impending British elections. Gokhale’s departure was blocked by Sir Pherozeshah Mehta till September 1905, while Jinnah’s nomination by Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856-1920) on the plea that he was much too young to be sent as a Congress delegate. Jinnah was only twenty-eight then. See B. R. Nanda, Gokhale (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 187-88.
[x] Crewe to Hardinge, 14 May 1914, Encl., Hardinge Papers, vol. 120, Cambridge University Library.
[xi] Sarojini Naidu (ed.), Mohamed Ali Jinnah: An Ambassador of Unity (Madras: Ganesh, 1917).
[xii] For details, see Source Material for A History of the Freedom Movement in India (Bombay: Suptd., Govt. Printing, 1958), II: 713-24; for Jinnah’s role, see p. 719-22. For an account of a participant in the Town Hall protest, see Kanji Dwarkadas, Ruttie Jinnah (Bombay: Bhatkal Books, 1963), pp. 13-14. Willingdon was known to be hostile to Indian aspirations: he was also implicated in the controversy on holding the Congress and League sessions simultaneously, leading to the break-up of the Bombay League in 1915. Willingdon had also publicly insulted the HRL at the War Conference in 1918. See Source Material II: 863-88, and D. Tahmankar, Lokmanya Tilak (London: John Murray, 1956), p. 216.
[xiii] Jawaharlal Nehru, An Autobiography (Bombay: Allied Publishers [Private] Ltd., 1962), p. 67.
[xiv] Hugh F. Owen, “Negotiating the Lucknow Pact”, Journal of Asian Studies, XXXI: 3, May 1972, pp. 573-75.
[xv] Wazir Hasan to Jinnah, 26 February 1913, Archives of Freedom Movement [hereafter AFM], University of Karachi Library, vol. 33, p. 37.
[xvi] For an assessment of his role, see Owen, “Negotiating the Lucknow Pat”, pp. 562-87.
[xvii] Hook, The Hero in History, p.209.
[xviii] Cf. “The Congress, as at present constituted, is the creation of Mahatma Gandhi”, asserted the Chairman, Reception Committee, in his Welcome Address at the Tripura (1939) Congress. The Indian Annual Register, January-June 1939 (Calcutta, 1939), p. 324. “The Congress of today is of his making, and he is essentially of it”, acknowledges Jawaharlal Nehru (The Unity of India: Collected Writings 1937-39 [London: Lindsay Drummond, 1941], p. 122). See also Reginald Coupland, Report on the Constitutional Problem of India [hereafter Report] (Madras: Oxford University Press, 1944), II: 90.
[xix] S. Gopal, (ed.), Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1976), 8: 120-21. This statement, dated 10 January 1937, meant to rebut Jinnah’s third-party claim of 04 January 1937, was a rephrasing and reiteration of Nehru’s earlier statement of 18 Sept. 1936.
[xx] For details, see Sharif al Mujahid, “Towards Pakistan”, in Waheed-uz-Zaman & M. Saleem Akhtar, Islam in South Asia (Islamabad: NIHCR, 1993), pp. 448-50, 492-94. See also Sharif al Mujahid, “Review on Jinnah Papers”, Pakistan Perspective (Karachi), vol. II, No. 1, January-June 2006, p. 180.
[xxi] See Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
[xxii] Aga Khan, The Memoirs of Aga Khan: World Enough and Time (London: Cassell Company Ltd., 1954), p. 321. Hafiz Mohammad Ibrahim (1889-1968), a Congress minister in the U. P. during 1937-39, told Shahid Ali Khan of Baghpat that in June 1947 Liaquat invited him and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai (1894-1954), a top Congress leader, to work for Pakistan. Liaquat couldn’t possibly have made the offer without Jinnah’s consent. It was also rumoured that “Jinnah had his eyes set on Rafi Ahmed Kidwai and would not hesitate to have him on board”. Shahid Ali Khan, “Untold Tales of the Raj and the Partition” (Karachi: Ushba Publishing International, forthcoming).
[xxiii] F. H. R. and R. D. Shariff, Quaid-i-Azam Jinnah: His Leadership and Achievements (Dares Salam, 1949), p. 88.
[xxiiv] Editorial, “Mr Jinnah”, The Times, 13 Sept. 1948.
[xxv] Jinnah to Akrum Khan, 27 August 1946, Shamsul Hasan Collection [hereafter SHC], Bengal, IV: 6.
[xxvi] Z. H. Zaidi (ed.), M. A. Jinnah-Ispahani Correspondence (Karachi: Forward Publication Trust, 1976), p. 462.
[xxvii] Hidayatullah, Khuhro, Illahibaksh and Mir Ghulam Ali to Jinnah, tel., 01 Oct. 1945; Sayed to Jinnah, tels., 01 and 02 Oct. 1945, and Jinnah to Sayed, tel., 03 Oct. 1945, Khuhro to Jinnah, 03 Oct. 1945; Hatim Alvi to Jinnah, 03 Oct. 1945; SHC, Sind, VI: 49-67, 69-70. Hidayatullah et al to Liaquat, tel., 01 Oct. 1945; also Sayed to Liaquat, tel., 01 Oct. 1945, AFM/ AMF/File Box [FB], Elections 1945-46: Sind. SHC, Sind, VI: 53-67.
[xxviii] Jinnah to Usmani, 01 Feb. 1946, in Ahmad Saeed (ed.), Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah: A Bunch of Letters (Lahore: Institute of Pakistan Historical Research, 1999), p. 183.
[xxix] Yusufi, Speeches, Statements & Messages …, IV: 2179.
[xxx] For instance, see Joachim Alva, Leaders of India (Bombay: Thacker and Co., 1943), pp. 75-76; The Sinners of Sind (Bombay: Indian National Congress, 1946), p. 9n; and Kumar, “Heil Jinnah!”, Free India (Madras), 25 December 1945.
[xxxi] Sharif al Mujahid (ed.), In Quest of Jinnah (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 34.
[xxxii] Ilahi Baksh, With the Quaid-i-Azam During His Last Days (Karachi: Quaid-i-Azam Academy, 1978), p. 9, and Mujahid, In Quest of Jinnah, p. 28
[xxxiii] The Quaid-i-Azam Papers (QAP) are housed at the National Archives of Pakistan (NAP) (Islamabad), the Shamsul Hasan Collection (SHC) at Sindh Archives (Karachi), and the Rizwan Ahmad Collection at Hamdard University (Karachi), Z. H. Zaidi has thus far edited and published fifteen volumes of Jinnah’s correspondence from the QAP, for the years 1940-48, the Rizwan Ahmed Collection has been published in three volumes by Ansar Zahid Khan, while Khalid Shamsul Hasan has published one volume each on Sind, Punjab and the AIML Planning Committee (1944-47), based on papers in the SHC.
[xxxiv] Interview, Lahore, 25 July 1984.
[xxxv] Liaquat to Jinnah, 11 November 1936 and Jinnah to Liaquat, 18 November 1936. F.335, 334.
[xxxvi] Muhammad Yamin Khan, Nama-i-A‘amal, Khundnawisht: Yadayn aur Taassurat (Lahore: Aina-i-Adab, 1970), pp. 33-34.
[xxxvii] Muhammad Reza Kazimi, Liaquat Ali Khan: His Life and Work (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 116-50. Abul Kalam Azad India Wins Freedom (Calcutta: Orient Longman, 1959). I would like to put on record that while discussing the “Pact” in my Jinnah I had wholly depended on (misled by) the published sources such as Yamin Khan, V. P. Memon, The Transfer of Power in India (Calcutta: Orient Longman’s, 1957), Khalid Bin Sayeed, Pakistan: The Formative Phase (Karachi: Pakistan Publishing House, 1960) and newspaper reports and commentaries, available in the early 1970s, but after Kazimi I stand corrected. See Mujahid, Jinnah, pp. 403-04.
[xxxviii] Yusufi, Speeches, Statements & Messages …, III: 1820
[xxxix] Even top leaders such as Sir Sikander Hayat Khan (1892-1942), the Punjab Premier, and Nawab Muhammad Ismail Khan sent messages to Jinnah through Liaquat, instead of writing direct to him.
[xl] AFM, University of Karachi, vol. 351.
[xli] Liaquat to Jinnah, 11December 1939, QAP, F.335. See also R. J. Moore, Churchill, Cripps and India (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979),
[xlii] Yusufi, Speeches, statements & Messages…, IV: 2457.
[xliii] Jalal, The Sole Spokesman, p. 243.
[xliv] Transfer of Power (London: HMSO), [hereafter TP], XI: 467-468.
[xlv] Kazimi, Liaquat Ali Khan, p. 216.
[xlvi] Azad, India Wins Freedom, p 167.
[xlvii] Choudhary Muhammad Ali, The Emergence of Pakistan (Lahore: Research Society of Pakistan, 1973), p. 84.
[xlviii] Kazimi, Liaquat Ali Khan, p. 221-28.
[xlix] Penderel Moon (ed.), Wavell: The Viceroy’s Journal (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 429.
[l] Roger D. Long, ‘Dear Mr Jinnah’: Selected Correspondence and Speeches of Liaquat Ali Khan, 1937-47 (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 284.
[li] A. M. Zaidi and S. G. Zaidi (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Indian National Congress, volume thirteen: 1946-1950; India Wins Freedom (New Delhi: Indian Institute of Applied Political Research, 1981), pp. 125-41.
[lii] See Patel to Kanji Dwarkadas, 4 March 1947, in Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi – The Last Phase (Ahmedabad: Naujwan Press, 1958), II: 83.
[liii] Roger D. Long, ‘Dear Mr Jinnah’, p. 284. In a conversation Governor of the Punjab, Sir Evan Jenkins; see TP, IX: 953. See also Azad, India Wins Freedom, pp. 186-87.
[liv] Shaw to Nehru, 18 Sept. 1948, Jawaharlal Nehru, A Bunch of Old Letters (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1958),
[lv] Dawn (Karachi), 13 Sept. 1948.
[lvi] 17 Oct. 1951.
[lvii] 17 Oct. 1951.
[lviii] His last address at a League session was at Karachi on 26-27 Dec. 1943. See the Urdu text in Sharif al Mujahid, Ideological Foundations of Pakistan (Islamabad: Shariah Academy, International Islamic University, 1999), pp. 240-48.
[lix] The literature on Usmani is all in Urdu. However, an English rendering of his speech on the Objectives Resolution on 09 March 1945 is available in ibid., pp. 137-46.
[lx] Abdur Rahman Siddiqi to Liaquat, SHC, Bengal, I: 68-71; AFM/042, Bengal PML (1945).
[lxi] Ispahani to Jinnah, 12 Nov. 1945, Zaidi, Jinnah-Ispahani Correspondence, p. 468; Khwaja Ahmed to Jinnah, 09 Dec. 1945, SHC, Bengal I: 73. Numerous complaints were lodged against Suhrawady’s alleged nomination of his favourites, see SHC, Bengal I: 116, II: 1-19.
[lxii] Two versions have come to the author’s notice that give Nishtar a prominent role in the Central set up after Liaquat’s assassination in October 1951. They are by Fazlur Rahman (1905-66), Central Education Minister and a Nazimuddin confideute, and Nawab Siddique Ali Khan (1900-74), Political Secretary to Liaquat. The Cabinet Committee, meeting immediately after Liaquat’s death, proposed Nishtar as Governor-General, according to Rahman, while, according to Nawab sahib, he was offered the Prime Minister’s slot. However, due to the maneuverings of Malik Ghulam Mohammad (1895-1956) and Nawab Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani (1905-81), joined in by Khwaja Shahabuddin (1895-1977), Nazimuddin’s brother, it was finally decided that given the dynamics of the nascent Punjab-Bengal tussle, any arrangement denying Punjab one of the two key offices, would be unacceptable to Pakistan’s most developed province. Hence Ghulam Mohammad was catapulted as Governor-General. At that time, Ghulam Mohammad was staying at A. M. Malik’s residence at Rawalpindi before retirement from the cabinet, and Shahabuddin had been named as ambassador to Egypt, while Nishtar had been nominated to head Finance and as Deputy Prime Minister, headquartered at Rawalpindi. The two most prominent beneficiaries of Liaquat’s assassination and the new set up were Ghulam Mohammad and Shahbuddin, the principal “manipulators” at this juncture. Interviews with Fazlur Rahman, Karachi, January 1961, ‘and with Jamil Nishtar, Nishtar’s son, Karachi, 1974; and Nawab Siddique Ali K, “Qatil ki do golian nay Pakistan ki siyasat ke rukh badal diya”, Nazria Pakistan (Lahore), October 2001, pp. 6-10. As with most Pakistani Independence leaders, Nishtar also awaits a competent biographer, although his papers have long been available at the AFM (Karachi). For the now, however, the only work available in English is Syed Mujawar Hussain Shah, Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar: A Political Biography (Lahore: Qadiria Books, 1958)
[lxiii] Liaquat’s statement, 28 Dec. 1945, AFM/FB, Elections 1945-46: Sind. See also Sind Police Abstract of Intelligence, 1945, para 1605 (29 Dec. 1945), S. 433, National Documentation Centre (Islamabad).
[lxiv] See Khuhro to Jinnah, 5 Jan. 1945, QAP, F-365: 109-110. See also Khuhro to Jinnah, 26 Dec. 1945 and 04 Jan. 1946, SHC, Sind VII: 27 and QAP, F. 365:109-10; Haroon to Liaquat, 23 April 1946, AFM/386. Sind PML, IX, (1946-47). Earlier, Sayed had been accused of not rendering the ‘accounts… publicly’, after having collected ‘several thousands of rupees… in League’s name’ and of maintaining the accounts ‘in an objectionable manner’ (Mir Ghulamali Talpur to Sayed, 17 Aug. 1945, AFM/FB, Elections 1945-46: Sind). Also, Sayed sat on the AIML’s request to remit Rs. 11,000 on account of the gate receipts (by the sale of visitors’ tickets) at the Karachi League session (1943) he had pledged earlier as President PML, despite several reminders. Finally, during his visit to Karachi in Oct. 1945, Jinnah could extract only Rs. 5,000. Sayed’s Note (countersigned by Haroon, General Secretary, PML), dated 22 Dec. 1943; Liaquat to Sayed, 26 March 1944; Haroon to Sayed, 08 Nov. and 13 Dec. 1944; K. H. Khurshid to Shamsul Hasan, 18 Oct. 1945, AFM/258, Annual session at Karachi, III (1943-45).
[lxv] Patel, on his part, felt that “With the consolidation of our forces, the question of defeating the League will be much easier”. Sidwa to Patel, 4 January 1946 and Patel to Sidwa, 08 Jan. 1946, Durga Das (ed.), Sardar Patel’s Correspondence (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1972), II: 318-19.
[lxvi] Lahore: Ferozsons, 1998.
[lxvii] Iskander Mirza to Liaquat, 03 Sept. 1945, AFM/FB, Elections 1945-46: NWFP.
[lxviii] The Pakistan Times, Lahore, 16 April 1947.
[lxix] On Khaliquzzaman’s flirtations with the Congress, see Uma Kaura, Muslims and Indian Nationalism: The Emergence of the Demand for India’s Partition 1928-40 (Columbia: South Asia Books, 1977), pp. 113-16. Syed Muhammad Husain (20 April 1937) and Sir Mahomed Yakub severely criticized Khaliquzzaman for throwing overboard the League’s policy of consolidating the Muslims, and for deciding upon participation in the All India Convention of Congress Legislators (19 March 1937). Jinnah, alarmed at keeping him “entirely in the dark”, issued a statement on 26 April, saying, “I am sure that the Muslims of the United Provinces will not betray the Mussalmans of India… I only trust he [Khaliquzzaman] will not enter into any commitments which may be repudiated not only by the Muslims of his province but [also] by the Muslims of India. This method of dealing with individuals or groups can only result in isolating and dividing the Muslims, group by group or province by province, and destroying the united front.” (Star of India [Calcutta], 22 April 1937, p. 7; 3 May 1937, p. 5; 27 April 1937, p. 5). Khaliquzzaman approached Nawab Ismail Khan with the offer of a ministership, but he refused to violate the party’s mandate. Interview with Mr. I. A. Khan, Nawab Ismail Khan’s son, Karachi, Dec. 1981. See also Haig to Linlithgow, 23 April 1937, Haig Collection, Mss Eur f. 115/ Vol. 17A.
[lxx] See Nehru to Prasad, 21 July 1937, S. Gopal (ed.), Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1976), 8: 169.
[lxxi] Interview with Daulatana, Lahore, 25 July 1984.
[lxxii] Daulatana agreed to spare Nishtar as Governor in September-October 1951, when Liaquat proposed Nawab Muhammad Ismail Khan’s name in his place. Nishtar was due to be appointed Finance Minister in place of Ghulam Mohammad and Deputy Prime Minister. Liaquat conferred with the Nawab sahib during his visit to Pakistan in September 1951, and he left for Meerat on 01 October, to wind up his affairs at Mustafa Castle, and return in two to three weeks. But Liaquat’s assassination on 16 October aborted his plans and the Nawab sahib’s return.
[lxxiii] Mamdot was Jinnah’s confidente in the Punjab, even as Ispahani in Bengal, Nishtar in the Frontier, and Habib Ibrahim Rahimtoola (1912-91) in Bombay Mamdot had held the PML presidentship since 1942, had put up “a bold stand”, despite being a Jagirdar, and had incurred “a great financial loss, to the extent of twenty to twenty-five lakh if not more”, because he “could not attend to the affairs” of his estate, which was “ mismanaged” in his absence. He also offered to resign one of or both his offices, but Jinnah advised him not to. Since after the elections, he and Daulatana were pitted against Noon and Sardar Shaukat Khan (1913-2005). Mamdot to Jinnah, 31 Oct. 1946, QAP, F-372/20-21; Z. H. Zaidi (ed.) Jinnah Papers (Islamabad: Quaid-i-Azam Papers Wing, 2006), Second Series, XIV: 253-54.
[lxxiv] Interview with Daulatana, Lahore, 25 July 1984. Daniyal Latifi stressed the imperative need for ensuring the “complete neutrality of the state apparatus”. Latifi to Jinnah, 28 Aug. 1945, QAP, F-830: 86-87. Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 25 Dec. 1945, TP, VI: 683.
[lxxv][lxxv] The author was present at the session.
[lxxvi] Mujahid, In Quest of Jinnah, pp. 47, 15. According to A. B. (Sonny) Habibullah, Jinnah “discarded Mahmudabad for saying, ‘My leader must not be the ablest politician, but the man who is closest to God’”. Ibid., p. 46.
[lxxvii] At a dinner at his bungalow in Clifton, Karachi, in 1963, Mahmudabad introduced his brother to me as “Maharaj Kumar”. A person so obsessed with class consciousness sixteen years after the native fiefdoms and kingdoms in India had been wiped out could by no means be a socialist or socialism inspired. Nor was the Raja so unenamoured of pomp and power as his admirers present him to be. He was in Hyderabad (Sind) on 14 August 1947, and yet, despite suggestions, he wouldn’t go to Karachi to attend the inauguration of Pakistan ceremonies because he had not been formally invited! This could as well have been by chance or faulted logistics.
[lxxviii] R. Coupland, Report, II: 15, Francis Robinson, Separatism Among Indian Muslims: The Politics of the United Provinces, 1860-1923) (London, Cambridge University Press, 1974), pp. 126, 354.
[lxxix] Badruddin Umar, The Emergence of Bangladesh: Class Struggles in East Pakistan (Karachi: Oxford university Press, 2003), pp. 258-59, 110.
[lxxx] Ibid., p. 265.
[lxxxi] Ibid., p. 110.
[lxxxii] Ibid., p. 264. Suhrawardy was responsible for denying Hashim the United Front nomination. This in order to get even with Hashim for having denied him his support in the July 1947 Suhrawardy-Nazimuddin contest. This Hashim’s posture, in turn, stemmed from an urge to mollify himself for the hurt Suhrawardy had caused him when, instead of supporting him (Hashim) for the Bengal League presidentship in January 1947, he indirectly gave his support to Fazlul Haq”. And Hashim continued to be bitter throughout the rest of his life. For instance, in a meeting with the present author at the Islamic Academy at Dacca in June 1961, Hashim conceded that Suhrawardy combined in his person the beauty, the grace and the sterling qualities of the two most outstanding Hindu goddesses, Saraswati and Lakshmi, but at the same time he was promiscuous, to paraphrase him. This means that squabbling was a routine item on the personal agendas of Bengali politicians, even as it was of their West Pakistani counterparts, and that “forget and forgive” was a phrase unknown to them. No wonder, politicians of both the wings came to such grief and to such sticking ends not only in the early decades, but to this day. See also ibid., pp. 264-65.
[lxxxiii] Yusufi, Speeches, Statements & Messages, IV: 2202-03.
[lxxxiv] Cf. “for myself, I earnestly hope that this severance may not endure, and that the new two Dominions…, in course of time, come together again to form one great member state of the British Commonwealth of Nations”, said Prime Minister Atlee, while moving the Indian Indepdence Bill in the House of commons on 10 July 1947, Parliamentary Debates, fifth series, vol. 419, pp. 2444-45.
[lxxxv] Cf. “It is to be greatly hoped that, when the disadvantages of separation have become apparent in the light of experience, the two Dominions will freely decide to unite in a single Indian Dominion…” – Lord Listewell, the last Secretary of State for India, speech on the Indian Independence Bill, in the House of Lords on 16 July 1947, in Sir Maurice Gwyer and A. Appadarai, Speeches and Documents on the Indian Consitution, 1921-47 (London: Oxford University Press, 1957), II: 686-87.
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