EXTRACTS FROM LIAQUAT ALI KHAN’S STATEMENT ON April 4, 1940

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09415777229, 094055338

E-mail- [e-mail];[e-mail]

 

 

 

EXTRACTS FROM LIAQUAT ALI KHAN’S STATEMENT ON April 4, 1940

 

 

Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan, Hon. Secretary, All-India Muslim League, in a statement to the Press refers to the article by Gandhiji in the Harijan under the caption, “My Reply to Quaid-e-Azam” and says: Of course a politician who has a dual role, like Mr. Gandhi who is not even a four-anna member of the Congress and yet its virtual dictator, has always a greater advantage over ordinary mortals. He tells us for the first time that “Whatever talks I had with Quaid-e-Azam or any other have been on behalf of the Congress. . . .” Yet in his letter dated the 8th March 1938 addressed to Mr. Jinnah, Mr. Gandhi stated as follows: “You expect me to be able to speak on behalf of the Congress and other Hindus throughout the country. I am afraid I cannot fulfil the test. I cannot represent either the Congress or the Hindus in the sense you mean; but I would exert to the utmost all the moral influence I could have with them in order to secure an honourable settlement.” It is indeed very difficult to know exactly when Mr. Gandhi speaks for himself and when he speaks for the Congress.

Mr. Gandhi goes on to say in his article that the Congress is not a Hindu organization and in support of this he puts forward the following argument. “Can a Hindu organization have a Muslim divine as President?” He would have the world believe that because Maulana Abul Kalam Azad has been elected President of the Congress therefore the true Hindu character of that body has changed. May I point out to Mr. Gandhi that one swallow does not make a summer and the world cannot be so easily fooled? Maulana Azad’s election as President of the Congress at this time is a tactical device to mislead the ignorant and the credulous. And what does the “Muslim divine” himself think about his election? At the time of Maulana Azad’s election to the Presidentship of the Congress he is reported to have said that “he regarded his election as a vote of confidence in the leadership of Mr. Gandhi and the country’s approval of his programme.” Mr. Gandhi goes on to say that “I still maintain that there is no swaraj without Hindu-Muslim unity. I can never be a party to the coercion of Muslims or any other minority. The Constituent Assembly as conceived by me is not intended to coerce anybody. Its sole sanction will be an agreed solution of communal question. If there is no agreement the Constituent Assembly will be automatically dissolved.” Further he goes on to say that “If the vast majority of Indian Muslims feel that they are not one nation with their Hindu and other brethren who will be able to resist them?” There are a few pertinent questions which arise out of the above statement of Mr. Gandhi. Mr. Gandhi has been saying for the last 20 years that there is no swaraj without Hindu-Muslim unity and yet the Hindus and Muslims have never been so far apart from each other as they are today owing to the policy that has been followed by the Congress under the fostering care of Mr. Gandhi having for its sole objective the revival of Hinduism and the imposition of Hindu culture on all and sundry.

Mr. Gandhi’s description of the Constituent Assembly as conceived by him needs a great deal of clarification and explanation. One would like to know if the Congress conception of the Constituent Assembly is the same as his own, as the resolution of the Congress is couched in different language to what Mr. Gandhi states in his article. Mr. Gandhi now says “that if there is no agreement the Constituent Assembly will be automatically dissolved”; but not very long ago he had laid down that in the event of disagreement the matter will be referred to the highest and most impartial tribunal that the world can conceive of. Mr. Gandhi’s statement that “if the vast majority of Indian Muslims feel that they are not one nation with their Hindu and other brethren who will be able to resist them?” is rather interesting. Is he prepared that if the majority of Mussalmans declare in favour of the proposals of the Muslim League as laid down in the resolution passed at the Lahore session he and the Congress will give their whole-hearted support to them? If so, let him and the Congress declare it unequivocally and in the plainest language to that effect. If the object of the Constituent Assembly is only to ascertain whether the Mussalmans are in favour of the resolution of the Muslim League or not then why go to all the trouble of dragging the whole country into a turmoil, as Mr. Gandhi threatens to do by resorting to civil disobedience, to secure a Constituent Assembly from the British Government? We have no doubt in our mind that the resolution passed at the Lahore session has the solid support of an overwhelming majority of Mussalmans.

Nevertheless let Mr. Gandhi and the Congress and the British Government declare unequivocally that if the majority of the Mussalmans express themselves in favour of the Lahore resolution they would agree to the demand contained in it and give effect to it, and the Muslim League, I have no doubt about it, will be prepared to satisfy any reasonable test; and in order to do that a Constituent Assembly is not necessary. May I now most earnestly request Mr. Gandhi to lay down the test which would satisfy him in the first instance and describe the procedure categorically by means of which the Mussalmans could prove to the hilt that the Lahore resolution is the voice of Muslim India from one end of the country to the other? But if Mr. Gandhi wants that we should pull the chestnuts out of the fire for him and the Congress and save their faces by setting up some sort of Constituent Assembly then he is greatly mistaken.