PERHAPS, the most critical factor that led to the ‘parting of ways’ between the Congress and the Muslim League was the Congress’ posture in the U.P. ministry in early 1937.
The Congress, of course, held a majority of seats (134 out of 228 seats), but the League had won the largest number of Muslim seats (27). Before the elections, there was “something concordant” between the two parties and “a tact understanding...that a coalition government would be formed,” reports Brecher, Nehru’s semi-official biographer.
Azad, who negotiated the power-showing formula with the UP League leadership (Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman and Nawab Ismail Khan), had agreed to take both of them in the provincial cabinet. But Nehru ruled that on the basis of the League’s strength in the Assembly, “the Muslim Leaguers could not claim more than one seat.” And Gandhi, after having promised Azad to go along with him, later “submitted” to Nehru’s argument. Azad considers this “a most unfortunate development”, adding, “if the League’s offer of cooperation had been accepted, the Muslim League’s party would, for all practical purposes, merge with the Congress. Jawaharlal’s action gave the Muslim League in the U.P. a new lease on life...(for) it was from the U.P. that the League was reorganized. Mr Jinnah took full advantage of the situation and started an offensive which ultimately led to Pakistan.”
Azad’s rather simplistic explanation of the talks having broken down on the number of League nominees to be accommodated in the U.P. cabinet has since been challenged and nailed to the counter. They broke down not because of the number of seats to be offered to the League, but because Azad had refused to include a clause in the proposed agreement that “communal matters such as questions relating to the Communal Award, language, culture, religious observances, etc, will be outside its scope,” asserts Khaliquzzaman, the League’s chief negotiator.
They broke down because of a “series of incredible conditions” for power-sharing, which Brecher describes as “an ultimatum for its (Muslim League’s) self-destruction,” calling for “absorption” instead of “partnership.” But how could the League be expected to disband itself when none of the Congress’ client parties (eg, Jamiat and Ahrars) had refused to merge themselves into the Congress and lose their “independent” identity? And, in the ontext of their refusal, why did the Congress insist upon the League’s complete merger? Because, to Nehru, the Congress President: “The winding up of the Muslim League group in the U.P. and its absorption in the Congress...would have a great effect not only in U.P., but all over India and outside. This would mean a free field for our work without communal troubles.” Here, was a god-sent opportunity for the Congress to absorb the League; then why should it not?
The Congress, of course, did not, but only to be discomfited, ultimately. Its ultimatum to disband the League parties in the assemblies and merge them into the Congress on pain of being denied a share in the government drew forth a quick, bitter rebuff from Jinnah. Despite pro-Congress Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman’s “flirtations” with the Congress, Jinnah exerted his influence with the U.P. League Parliamentary Board, and succeeded in getting the Congress’s ultimatum rejected out of hand at its May 16 meeting at Lucknow. The U.P. was, indeed, a test case for Jinnah, as Azad concludes from hindsight.
This was Jinnah’s first success in his marathon confrontation with the “mighty” Congress, which would continue till the end of the Raj. “While we shall not knock at the Government House”, he asserted, “we shall not also bow before Anand Bhavan,” the Congress’ headquarters at Allahabad. And, it was impossible for Muslims to merge with Hindus because “their culture, language and civilization are different from each other,” he told his pro-Congress audience at Ali Zaheer’s residence in Lucknow, at the height of the U.P. League crisis in July 1937, when several defections from the League were surmised. The Muslims, therefore, “must unite as a nation and...live or die as a nation,” he had exhorted the Muslim League Council earlier, in May.
Soon after the Congress assumed power in the U.P., Jinnah’s stance received a most timely, triumphal validation at the hands of the Bundelkhand voters. To Nehru, the Bundelkhand by-election was “a point of honour” for “every Congressman”, a “test election” with “its consequences ... (being) far-reaching, both from the political point of view and communal” since “a victory for us in this (election) would indeed be a triumph for the Congress and our cause.” He therefore induced Azad, Dr Syed Mahmud (from Bihar) and Abdul Ghaffar Khan (from the NWFP), besides the Jamiat leaders and others, to descend upon Bundelkhand in strength.
Against this background, it was obvious that the League’s success (by 4,700 to 2,000 votes) was considered “a personal triumph for Jinnah”. It gave the League a tremendous psychological boost at a time when the Congress had closed all avenues to power and prestige to its adherents. Above all, it signified the daunting nature of challenge the League would incessantly and incrementally pose to the Congress during the next epoch-making 1937-47 decade.
PERHAPS, the most critical factor that led to the ‘parting of ways’ between the Congress and the Muslim League was the Congress’ posture in the U.P. ministry in early 1937.
