To counter the League's main demands, especially the demand for a share of power in the provinces, the Congress leaders presented the panacea of a constituent assembly for all political and communal ills. They would be content if the British government declared that, after the war, it would summon a constituent assembly with members representing separate communal electorates, if desired, and implement its decisions, whether in favour of independence, dominion status "or less than independence or a modified form of it".(54)
The League decided to observe 22 December as the `Deliverance Day' to mark the occasion of the resignation of the Congress ministries.
At the meeting of the Congress Working Committee on 15 to 19 March 1940, Gandhi gave his picture of the proposed constituent assembly: "In the transition period we will lay down no conditions for the British Government. The army will remain and so will their administrative machinery. There will be an agreement with the British Government before and after the Constituent Assembly.... I may not even press for the withdrawal of the army if a minority wants it [in a `free' India].... Mutual goodwill is necessary for the Constituent Assembly to come into being and function efficiently. Without this the British Government may very well use the Princes and the Muslims as counter-weight against us."(55) It is worth noting that G.D. Birla appreciated the usefulness of the constituent assembly as "the most effective machinery for settlement of the communal question".(56)
Subhas Bose observed: "The latest stunt which has been devised to stave off a struggle and which may in time prove to be the greatest fraud perpetrated on the Indian people by their own leaders, is the proposal of a Constituent Assembly under the aegis of an Imperialist Government." He added that "a Constituent Assembly, if it is not a misnomer, can come into existence only after the seizure of power.... Only a Provisional National Government [which takes over power after the liquidation of imperialist rule] can summon a Constituent Assembly for framing a detailed Constitution for India".(57)
Nehru's confidential note on Congress policy written on 20 January 1940 is quite significant. In it he recognized the difficulties of British imperialism in making any "precise announcement of war or peace aims" but felt the need for "a general and somewhat vague declaration", for without a settlement there would be conflict on a big scale. "Even if the British authority is weakened or eliminated, the internal forces of disruption may gain the upper hand and lead to chaos and anarchy. We want to avoid that." Nehru preferred "British authority" to "the internal forces of disruption", "the rabble", and sought a non-violent peaceful settlement with imperialism. He also thought that "the real difficulty will be the communal one". He was afraid that the Muslim League would demand coalition or composite ministries to which he was "entirely opposed".(58)
On the one hand, at the time when he was writing to V.K. Krishna Menon that "no immediate conflict seems to be likely", Nehru used his best declamatory style to exhort people: "The hour of trial is drawing near"; "Be prepared for all eventualities" and so on.(59) On the other hand, he went on deprecating not only anti-war meetings and processions, speeches and writings, but even the shouting of slogans: "Anything, even shouting of slogans, which attempts to create a sense of violence is to be deprecated"; "The shouting of such slogans as samraj ka nash [death of the empire] will not set the country free. The question before us is not how we destroy but how we can construct."(60) It was a balancing trick he was performing -- a performance in which he excelled others. To quote B.B. Misra, "as circumstances developed, we notice that in terms of power politics it was Nehru who won. Surprisingly enough, `riding two horses' produced greater political turnover than sheer decorum and uprightness of conduct." B.N. Pandey has observed that Nehru "attained great speed by riding two horses and even greater heights by standing on two stools. And to his own surprise he never fell. Such delicate balancing came to him naturally, but during this period [1936-42] he performed with greater agility and a greater sense of purpose..."(61) It is the situation that demanded of him this "greater agility". "Speaking for the U.P.", he wrote to Krishna Menon on 8 November 1939, "I can tell you that it is becoming increasingly difficult to hold our organization in check."(62)
The raj refused to declare, as desired by the Congress leaders, that it would convene a so-called constituent assembly after the war. The League too was opposed to the idea: it felt that such an assembly would be dominated by the Congress leadership even if there were separate electorates. After the resignation of the Congress ministries, which the raj accepted as a good riddance, Linlithgow, as V.P. Menon states, discountenanced "any move on the part of the Congress to return to office except on his own terms" and "insisted on a mutual settlement by the Congress and the League of their differences in the provincial field as a sine qua non for the expansion of his Executive Council..."(63) While the raj's policy was one of `nothing doing' except on its own terms, the Congress leadership enjoined people to devote themselves to the `constructive programme'. Gandhi was sure that "if Congressmen solidly support me, we would not require another struggle" to reach the goal.(64) Besides relying on the `constructive programme', Nehru pinned his hopes on the U.S.A.
According to an Intelligence Branch report, Gandhi expressed concern at that section of Congressmen who indulged in anti-war speeches.(65) As secretary of the Congress, Kripalani issued a circular to all provincial Congress committees warning them of the possibility of a fast by Gandhi if his instructions were not sincerely carried out.(66)
Interminable negotiations continued between the Viceroy on the one hand and Congress and League leaders on the other. They served the purpose of the raj well. They created an atmosphere in which many believed that something would turn up and were lulled into passivity. But the people were not entirely passive. There were numerous anti-war demonstrations and meetings and strikes by the workers in all centres of industry in defence of their interests. As early as November 1939, an Intelligence Bureau document stated: "Left-wing pressure, whether in the Labour and peasant movements or in the Congress itself, continues to gather force."(67) While British imperialism refused to take Congress resolutions and speeches of leaders like Nehru at their face value and held, to Nehru's regret, "that Congress is not serious and does not mean business and is only out to bargain here and there",(68) it armed itself with arbitrary powers and tried systematically to stifle the `left', however divided it was.
From the time the war started the Defence of India Act was ruthlessly applied in Bengal. In addition to the Government of India's ordinances, the Bengal governor promulgated certain ordinances which put a ban on public meetings and rendered open political activity impossible. Repression was going on in all provinces but it was most severe in Bengal and Punjab. When Gandhi was preaching the virtues of not embarrassing the raj and reposing faith in the sincerity of the Viceroy and the Secretary of State, thousands of political workers and working class leaders were arrested -- detained without trial, interned or convicted -- and the press was being gagged. The Congress leadership was playing a complementary role. It was isolating militant political workers and waiting to get them decimated. It had already taken disciplinary action against Subhas and disaffiliated the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee. It was vehemently decrying all anti-imperialist actions as disruptive. Speaking on 16 August 1940, Nehru admonished his audience: "This is not the time for organizing meetings and processions and shouting slogans such as inqilab zindabad [Long live Revolution!]. This is the time for work, hard work -- 24 hours' work, for the country."(69) The programme of work placed before the people by the Congress leadership was what they called the `constructive programme', mainly spinning. The purpose was to emasculate the militant spirit of the people. As Nehru said, "It is with great difficulty that we have been able to restrain our advanced elements."(70)
The Congress leadership found itself between the restive masses and the raj which was prepared to expand the Viceroy's Executive Council and include about two Congress leaders and a Muslim Leaguer in it who would work under the Government of India Act of 1935 provided there was prior Congress-League agreement in the provincial field -- something which the Congress was not willing to discuss.
As one more manoeuvre, the Working Committee drew up a resolution for adoption by the Ramgarh session of the Congress due to meet in March 1940. While announcing the Congress goal as complete independence outside the orbit of imperialism, it declared that the withdrawal of Congress ministries would be followed by a resort to civil disobedience to achieve freedom. This resolution, intended to steal the thunder of the `left', contained the all-important clause -- an escape route -- "as soon as the Congress organization is considered fit enough for the purpose, or in case circumstances so shape themselves as to precipitate a crisis".(71)
Almost immediately after the Working Committee meeting was over, Gandhi declared: "I cannot, will not start mass civil disobedience so long as I am not convinced that there is enough discipline and enough non-violence in Congress ranks.... Let it be clearly understood that I cannot be hustled into precipitating the struggle."(72)
On 8 March 1940, before the Ramgarh Congress, G.D.Birla wrote to Gandhi's secretary: "You know I hate civil disobedience. In the name of non-violence it has encouraged violence." He added that "if this psychology continues, any Government, even our own, would become an impossibility.... Hence my dread at anything that will lead us towards a mass movement.... Hence my horror at any talk of civil disobedience." Birla, who claimed to be a "Gandhiman"(73) added: "The truth perhaps is that none believes in non-violence."(74) Again, on 14 March, he wrote to Mahadev Desai that "in my opinion we are going the wrong way and as the position is very critical, he [Gandhi] should reconsider the position in the light of the views held by some of us". Birla was afraid that "Anti-British feeling is fast gaining ground which must in the end result in violence". Next day he again complained in his letter to Desai:
"We have pitched our demands so high that we have made it impossible for Englishmen to come to an honourable settlement. That is where I complain. There are others even in the Working Committee who feel like myself.... Bapu said to me many times that I should continue to influence him because seemingly I might not succeed but unconsciously he might get influenced."(75)
On his way to Ramgarh, Gandhi, proving Birla's misgiving unfounded, sent Carl Heath, Chairman of the India Conciliation Group in England, a message in which he stated the actual Congress position "shorn of all camouflage". He wrote that the Congress wanted the British government to declare that "not later than the termination of the war" it would convene a constituent assembly of representatives to determine "the mode of the Government of India including Princes' India if possible and without if they won't agree". In the meantime the Viceroy's Council should be constituted with a majority of elected representatives from the Central Assembly and it would be responsible "as far as possible" to the Assembly without the official bloc. If these demands were unacceptable, Gandhi was willing to modify them and "try to give you satisfaction". Responsible Congressmen had a "keen desire to explore every means of conciliation".(76)
The Ramgarh Congress with Abul Kalam Azad as president passed the resolution recommended to it by the Working Committee. Gandhi was given the sole responsibility of launching and leading a struggle at a moment of his choice.
According to Intelligence documents, the seemingly anti-imperialist resolution was adopted because of the "leftist pressure [which] was on the increase and it was no longer possible to ignore the accusation that Congress was out for a compromise and shirking direct action".(77) While assuring the Right that there was no risk of confrontation with the raj, Ramgarh sought to disarm the `Left', sections of which like the CSP were led to believe that the Congress leadership would give the call for struggle.
To remove all misgivings of the raj and big bourgeois patrons, Gandhi made it abundantly clear at the meetings of the Working Committee and the Subjects Committee and at the open session of the Congress that the time was not propitious for launching civil disobedience. At the Subjects Committee meeting he was emphatic that
"I do not see at the present moment conditions propitious for an immediate launching of the campaign.... Well, then, I want to repeat what I have said times without number that, if you will be soldiers in my army, understand that there is no room for democracy in that organization...as there is none in our various organizations, A.I.S.A., A.I.V.I.A. and so on. In any army, the General's word is law, and his conditions cannot be relaxed.... Compromise is part and parcel of my nature. I will go to the Viceroy fifty times, if I feel like it.... The basis of my fight is love for the opponent."
Addressing the open session, he said:
"I feel you are not prepared.... Your General finds that you are not ready, that you are not real soldiers.... I know that with such as you I can only have defeat.... I have never acknowledged defeat throughout all these years in any of my struggles [sic!].... Do not, therefore, concentrate on showing the misdeed of the Government, for we have to convert and befriend those who run it."(78)
Nehru was complementing Gandhi's role. He stated at the open session of the Congress:
"Misguided enthusiasm of a few people to go head-on for any objective has often caused disruption in fighting forces. Such enthusiasts are counter-revolutionaries and rebels."(79)
Among the targets of Nehru's attack were Subhas Bose and his associates like Sahajanand Saraswati who held a spectacular Anti-Compromise Conference at Ramgarh simultaneously with the Congress session. The Conference was convened by the Forward Bloc and the Kisan Sabha. With the outbreak of the war Subhas started a campaign for active opposition to war efforts. In the course of his presidential address to the conference, he strongly criticized the inconsistencies between Congress resolutions and statements and statements by Gandhi and other leaders and gave a call for an uncompromising fight against imperialism. The Conference decided immediately to launch a struggle against India's forced participation in the war and for independence. Subhas wanted the Gandhian leadership to lead the national struggle for freedom but gave up hopes of it and held that it should be launched even without it or in spite of it. The CSP was of the view that no national struggle could be started without the Gandhian leadership and was critical of any attack on it. The CPI shared the view that the national struggle could be launched only by the Gandhian leadership but held that their task was to build pressure from below to force the hands of the leadership. And soon after the outbreak of the war M.N. Roy's group described the war as an anti-fascist war and rallied behind the British raj.
As noted before, in Bengal and Punjab, where the Forward Bloc was better organized than elsewhere, severe repression had started since the beginning of the war. Gradually, other provinces also became victims of repression.
The movement that was launched after the Anti-Compromise Conference had not only to face ruthless repression by the raj but also to contend against the Congress leadership, the CSP and the CPI, and failed to create any considerable impact. Subhas was arrested early in July 1940.
At the Working Committee meeting in April Gandhi pointed out why no struggle could be launched. There was, he complained, neither honesty nor discipline nor faith in the `constructive programme' among Congressmen. He was also afraid that a struggle might lead to a communal clash because of the attitude of the Muslim League and the Khaksars. Rajendra Prasad and some others believed that "civil disobedience would mean civil war". Rajagopalachari held that there was "no atmosphere for a fight" and wanted the Congress to "retrace its steps" if "it had gone too fast". Nehru did not want to precipitate any action, but as there was "goading" by the government he was in favour of struggle. Several others like Patel and Abul Kalam Azad felt "something must be done" to avoid "demoralization in Congress ranks". The C.S.P. leader, Achyut Patwardhan, "thought that if the fight did not begin the Congress would lose its hold even on the Hindus". Asaf Ali said that "The majority of the Muslims were with the League" and wanted to wait for "a more favourable opportunity to start a movement of C.D.". While Gandhi and several others were opposed to any kind of action, a few others including Nehru wanted some action for fear that the Congress would otherwise lose its credibility.(80) Sham anti-imperialism had reached a blind alley.
In the meantime the communal problem was getting worse and worse. In a letter of 16 October 1939 to the Secretary of State for India, Linlithgow confessed that he "had not possibly fully realized till now how greatly the gap between Hindu and Muslim has widened since April 1937, or the extent to which experiences...since then have undermined altogether belief in the possibility of common and united action...."(81) Reginald Coupland held that the chief reason for the deterioration in the political situation by 1940 was the Congress's "purpose to take over the heritage of the British Raj".(82) Far from trying to bridge the gap that was widening between the two major communities of India, the Congress leaders did not deviate from their objective of becoming the sole heir to the British raj. Any suggestion, advice or approach from prominent Congressmen or Muslim leaders for bringing about an understanding was spurned by them.
In March 1940, soon after the Ramgarh Congress, the annual session of the Muslim League was held at Lahore. In his presidential address Jinnah claimed that "the Muslims are a nation...and they must have their homelands, their territory and their State". On 24 March the League adopted a resolution which demanded that "the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in the north-western and eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute `Independent States', in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign".(83) This resolution came to be known as the Pakistan resolution.
As noted earlier, only a few years before, Muslim leaders had dismissed Rehmat Ali's Pakistan scheme as "chimerical" and at the Sind League Conference in October 1938 the demand for the division of India was dropped at Jinnah's insistence. Only two months before the League Conference at Lahore, Jinnah had been in favour of a constitution which recognized that there were "in India two nations who both must share the governance of their common motherland".(84)
It seems that when the political representatives of the big Muslim compradors, who had sought for a long time provincial autonomy in an undivided India (for reasons discussed in Chapter Two), lost hope of obtaining it, they raised the demand for India's partition on communal lines.
It also appears that the demand was at first intended as a bargaining counter.(85) According to Penderel Moon, a high-ranking I.C.S. officer, then serving in Punjab, Jinnah told one or two persons in Lahore privately that the Lahore resolution was a "tactical move", designed to force concessions from the unwilling hands of the Congress leadership.(86) Until his death in December 1942, Sir Sikander Hyat Khan, the Punjab premier, who lent powerful support to the League's resolution at Lahore, insisted that "the Lahore resolution was only a bargaining point for the League".(87)
It seems that the League raised the banner of pan-Indian Muslim `nationalism' to confront the Congress banner of pan-Indian `nationalism'. Both `nationalisms' were equally spurious, designed to serve the interests respectively of the Muslim and the Hindu big bourgeoisie and to trample underfoot the different nationalities. Sikander Hyat Khan was opposed both to the idea of "an all-powerful centre" which would enable "a communal oligarchy" to "undermine or altogether nullify the automomy and freedom of the provinces" as well as to the division of India on communal lines. He insisted on the preservation of the integrity of Punjab.(88) So did Fazlul Huq, the mover of the Lahore resolution, insist to the end on the preservation of the integrity of Bengal. He too did not believe in the `two-nation theory'. (More of it later.) It is doubtful whether Jinnah himself believed in the `two nation theory'. Replying to a representative of the News Chronicle (London) at the end of February 1944, Jinnah said:
"Does any man with the smallest glimmer of commonsense believe that so great a country with the twenty different nations and its twenty languages can ever be bound up and consolidated into one compact and enduring empire?"(89)
In 1947 Jinnah told Mountbatten that Bengal as well as Punjab "had national characteristics in common: common history, common ways of life..."(90)
Nehru called "the Pakistan scheme" "a foolish scheme which will not even last twenty-four hours"(91) and gave a call to the Congress to fight out this "mad scheme". But almost immediately after the Lahore resolution was adopted, Gandhi wrote:
"The Muslims must have the same right of self-determination that the rest of India has. We are at present a joint family. Any member may claim a division."(92)
It is worth noting that Gandhi recognized the right of self-determination, including the right of separation, of a religious community which lived intermingled with other religious communities throughout India but not that of the different Indian nationalities like the Tamils, Telugus, Bengalis and Punjabis. While acknowledging the right of self-determination of the Muslims, Gandhi rejected `the two nation theory'. One may remember that it is Gandhi who described the Hindus and the Muslims as "two races" in the twenties.(93)
Again at the Working Committee meeting in April 1940, Gandhi "was not prepared to say that the League did not represent the Muslim mind. If the Muslims want separation, he will not oppose."(94)
In April 1940 an English friend wrote to Gandhi that the Muslims seemed likely to agree to "something a good deal less than `Pakistan'". He was afraid, "the longer the time that elapses without any compromise solution being reached, the stronger and more insistent will be the cry for `Pakistan', so that in the end civil war or partition will be the only alternatives". Others also felt that if "the vision of united India is to become a reality", the Congress should allay the "apprehensions" that it "has raised in the minds of many Muslims".(95)
Birla, who had been pressing Gandhi since at least January 1938 for partition of India on communal lines, wrote to Thakurdas in December 1940: "I argued with him [Gandhi] that we could not object to separation in case Muslims really wanted it."(96) Thakurdas had a discussion with the League's general secretary, Liaquat Ali Khan and wrote to Birla that he had "gathered from my talk...that it was not a question so much of pressing Pakistan...as to ensuring that the Mohammedans will get freedom from what the Muslims call `jabarjasti' [`jabarjasti'?] of the Hindus ....the position is mendable provided the Congress is prepared to bend".(97)
When on 2 January 1941, Thakurdas saw Jinnah, Jinnah "said that if talks were started without reservation, he felt sure that a suitable solution of this impasse, of which the British Government appear to him even to be taking advantage, will be found". He wanted that negotiations should be held between Gandhi (or some other leader) and himself as representatives respectively of the Hindus and the Muslims.(98) Perhaps this condition would have been relaxed if Gandhi offered some suitable formula which he was so good at devising in inconvenient situations.
But the Congress leaders refused to bend. They would not have any discussion on the issue. Gandhi's stand on the `Pakistan' question differed from time to time. He would often assert that any solution reached under the threat of Pakistan would be an unjust solution and "worse than no solution" and was "entirely for waiting till the menace is gone".(99)
Any talk of reaching an understanding with the League upset Nehru. On 4 September 1941 he noted in his prison diary:
"Iftikhar(100)-- disillusioned Iftikhar -- seeing no light except in a compromise with the Muslim League -- which of course enrages me and I shout at him till I am hoarse. Of course Iftikhar and his close colleagues have been thinking along these lines for the last three years or so, and all my previous shouting has had no effect whatever on them, except to quieten them for a while in my presence."(101)
So the door to negotiations with the League (however keen the Congress leaders might be on negotiations with the imperial masters) for something less than Pakistan, was shut by them. While they preferred to wait "till the menace is gone", it continued to grow and assume threatening proportions. Though Linlithgow had wired to London towards the end of May 1940 that to counter the "preposterous claim" of the Congress, Jinnah had "put forward just as extreme a claim", he soon felt that the Pakistan demand was sinking into the minds of "rank and file Moslems".(102) Within a short time the demand for separate Muslim states captured the imagination of the Muslim masses.
No doubt, the Congress leaders wanted an undivided India. But if the alternatives were a compromise with the Muslim leaders which would give the latter a share of power in a united India and a divided India minus Muslim-majority areas but with a strong centre controlled by them, they preferred the latter. So compromise with the League was ruled out.
In 1941 communal riots broke out in Ahmedabad, Bombay, Dhaka and Bihar. Gandhi asked those who wanted to organize violent resistance, like K.M. Munshi, Bhulabhai Desai and Bhulabhai's son Dhirubhai, who was then president of the Bombay PCC, to withdraw from the Congress and organize like-minded persons. He "made it absolutely clear that violent resistance becomes the duty of those who have no faith in non-violence".(103) (This principle, of course, did not hold good when British imperialism was to be resisted.) He assured Munshi, who wanted to organize Hindus to offer violent resistance against Muslims, that their personal relations would remain as warm as before.(104) In a letter to Gandhi Munshi wrote: "Fanatic Muslims consider you to be the source of all evil and me only a little serpent."(105)