STRENUOUS attempts which are known to have been made by the Cabinet Mission and the Viceroy to argue Congress leaders out of their last-ditch intransigence since early this week, seem now to have failed. On Thursday [June 13] evening, it was generally felt that a dead end had been reached. As many as four Congress leaders, Mr. Gandhi, “Maulana” Azad, Pandit Nehru and Sardar Patel, have been contacted by one or other of the members of the Mission, some more than once, during the last three days, but to no effect. The Congress is adamant.

The last position is that it has given up all its previous high sounding demands but is determined not to yield on two points — both of which it appears to consider essential for the purpose of hurting and weakening the Muslim position…. Congress is heading for a crisis merely to deprive Muslims of the already recognised right of parity with the Hindus — or in other words, League-Congress parity…. Political and Mission circles are ... puzzled as to why Congress should make so much fuss over these comparatively less fundamental issues, after having consented to the continuance of the Viceroy’s veto, to the compulsory grouping of provinces….

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2021