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Published 15 Sep, 2014 06:21am

From the past pages of dawn : 1944: Seventy years ago:Jinnah-Gandhi talks

BOMBAY: The resumed Gandhi-Jinnah meeting today [Sept 14] lasted about a hundred minutes. At the end of today’s meeting a joint statement by Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Jinnah announced that from tomorrow onwards they would continue holding the meeting only between 5.30 and 7 in the evening. Mr. Jinnah explained that they had other work to attend to in the mornings in connection with the discussions. In this sentence by Mr. Jinnah was discerned a cheering note by the waiting Pressmen at the Mount Pleasant Road Bungalow.

Does this mean that the stage of discussion of the fundamentals is past and now the two Leaders are discussing details? This conclusion is suggested by another sentence in the evening’s announcement, namely, “we need the mornings to attend to important things in connection with this very work”.

Exactly at 5.30 p.m. Mr. Gandhi’s car drove in and Mr. Gandhi briskly walked into the house, without waiting for Mr. Jinnah to come out to receive him. At 6.15 p.m. as on previous days, Mr. Gandhi’s dinner consisting of a lota of goat’s milk and a plate containing dates arrived.

This evening the two Leaders have completed exactly eleven hours of conversations. (Dawn, Delhi)

Published in Dawn, Economic & Business, Sep 15th, 2014

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