The Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata) | Opinion | The prophet of doom
- Writing on the wall - Ashok V. Desai
- In April 1946, the Cabinet Mission was holding consultations with Indian leaders about the possible shape of independence. Jinnah was insistent on Partition; Gandhi wanted to pay any price to prevent Partition, but the other Congress leaders, who would have to run the government, balked at the price Jinnah was asking for staying within India. At that time, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad gave an interview to an Urdu magazine of (then Indian) Lahore, Chattan. It was soon overtaken by events and forgotten. But it is remarkable for its prescience. When asked whether he did not think Pakistan had become inevitable, Azad replied that the creation of Pakistan would solve no problem. The cherished goal of a Muslim was to spread Islam; if Muslims had from the outset divided the world between Muslim and non-Muslim territories, Islam would never have spread. If Muslim politicians had not used offensive language, if they had not collaborated with the British to widen the breach between Hindus and Muslims, the number of Muslims would have grown more.
- The interviewer said that in Pakistan, Muslims would be able to keep their communal identity intact and be good Muslim citizens. Azad said that they had been able to do so under British rule: why should they fear they would not be able to do so in a democratic India in which they would have a voice? India’s border states (Bengal, Punjab, Sind, the North-Western Frontier Province, Baluchistan) had Muslim majorities and shared borders with Muslim countries; there was no way Muslims could be eliminated. Jinnah himself was an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity. Till 1937 he had opposed Partition. Then the Congress formed governments in seven states and excluded the Muslim League. In 1940, Jinnah adopted the demand for Pakistan in an effort to check Muslim political decline.
