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320 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
And he did not thus hesitate to arraign mischief makers in the sternest possible language that could only emanate from an earnest nationalist. In his capacity as the President of the session of the League held in Lahore on 24th May 1924 he said* :—
“If we wish to be free people, let us unite, but if we wish to continue slaves of Bureaucracy, let us fight among ourselves and gratify petty vanity over petty matters, Englishmen being our arbiters.”
In the two All-Parties Conferences, one held in 1925 and the other in 1928, Mr. Jinnah was prepared to settle the HinduMuslim question on the basis of joint electorates. In 1927 he openly said † from the League platform:—
“I am not wedded to separate electorates, although I must say that the overwhelming majority of the Musalmans firmly and honestly believe that it is the only method by which they can be sure.”
In 1928, Mr. Jinnah joined the Congress in the boycott of the Simon Commission. He did so even though the Hindus and Muslims had failed to come to a settlement and he did so at the cost of splitting the League into two.
Even when the ship of the Round Table Conference was about to break on the communal rock, Mr. Jinnah resented being named as a communalist who was responsible for the result and said that he preferred an agreed solution of the communal problem to the arbitration of the British Government. Addressing‡ the U. P. Muslim Conference held at Allahabad on 8th August 1931 Mr. Jinnah said :—
“The first thing that I wish to tell you is that it is now absolutely essential and vital that Muslims should stand united. For Heaven’s sake close all your ranks and files and stop this internecine war. I urged this most vehemently and I pleaded to the best of my ability before Dr. Ansari, Mr. T. A. K. Sherwani, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Dr. Syed Mahmud. I hope that before I leave the shores of India I shall hear the good news that whatever may be our differences; whatever may be our convictions between ourselves, this is not the moment to quarrel between ourselves.
“Another thing I want to tell you is this. There is a certain section of the press, there is a certain section of the Hindus, who constantly misrepresent me in various ways. I was only reading the speech of
- See the Indian Quarterly Review, 1924, Vo. 1, p. 658.
† The Indian Quarterly Register, 1927, Vol. I, p. 37.
‡ The Indian Annual Register, 1931, Vol. II, pp. 230-231.