THIS is apropos of Dr Mubarak Ali`s article (Dec 22) and H. N. Akhtar`s letter (Dec 29). When on June 3, 1947 the partition of Punjab and Bengal was announced, Huseyn Shaeed Suhrawardy, with Abdul Hashim and other prominent leaders of East Bengal, went to the Quaid - i - Azam, who was in Masoorie then, and discussed the proposal of an independent Bengal and got his permission to contact the Congress about this.

Mr Suhrawardy approached Sarat Bose and S.K.Roy who were favourably inclined, but they met with strong opposition from Hindu Mahasaba as voiced by Shyama Parshad Mukerji.

Also, the Central Congress led by Nehru and Patel vetoed the suggestion. Mountbatten was also in favour of a united Bengal and remained hopeful of its success. He wrote to Governor Burrow that he hoped that Suhrawardy would redouble his efforts to secure the cooperation of the Hindus in order to achieve his objective of an independent Bengal.

While replying to a no - confidence motion moved against him in September 1946, Suhrawardy said “Reference has been made to a statement which I am alleged to have made at Delhi regarding unilaterally declaring independence of Bengal and running a parallel government in case the demand for Pakistan is not accepted.

“Surely I have never conceived that I could declare independence while remaining as chief minister under the 1935 Act.

“I still maintain that Bengal one day shall be an independent and sovereign country.”

These efforts and statements of Suhrawardy are at variance with the resolution that he moved in April 1946 at the Muslim League Parliamentary Party convention in New Delhi.

According to this resolution, the last para of the 1940 Pakistan Resolution, declaring that both Eastern and Western Zones will be sovereign having their own defence, foreign affairs, communication sections, etc., was deleted. Instead of the two zones, the word Pakistan zone was incorporated. The word `states` was changed to `state` and `units` were changed to `provinces`. The word `units` meant both the provinces and the Indian states together with the tribal areas.

With these changes we put in danger our claim on Kashmir which stood for the word `K` in `Pakistan`.

Suhrawardy`s only explanation was that he did it as per the command of the Muslim League high command.

ENGR. ZAHURUDDIN

Peshawar