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PAKISTAN : ESCAPE FROM DEGRADATION 45
making this provision a part of the statute because they depended upon the good faith of the Hindus. This agreement was broken by a party which had given the Muslims to understand that towards them its attitude would be not only correct but considerate.
In the second place, the Muslims felt that the Congress view was a perversion of the real scope of the convention. They rely upon the text of the clause* in the Instrument of Instructions and argue that the words “member of a minority community” in it can have only one meaning, namely, a person having the confidence of the community. The position taken by the Congress is in direct contradiction with the meaning of this clause and is indeed a covert attempt to break all other parties in the country and to make the Congress the only political party in the country. The demand for signing the Congress pledge can have no other intention. This attempt to establish a totalitarian state may be welcome to the Hindus, but it meant the political death of the Muslims as a free people.
This resentment of the Muslims was considerably aggravated when they found the Governors, on whom the obligation was imposed to see that effect was given to the convention, declining to act. Some Governors declined, because they were helpless by reason of the fact that the Congress was the only majority party which could produce a stable government, that a Congress Government was the only government possible and that there was no alternative to it except suspending the constitution. Other Governors declined, because they became active supporters of the Congress Government and showed their partisanship by praising the Congress or by wearing Khadi which is the official party dress of the Congress. Whatever be the reasons, the Muslims discovered that an important safeguard had failed to save them.
The Congress reply to these accusations by the Muslims is twofold. In the first place, they say that coalition cabinets are
*“In making appointments to his Council of Ministers, our Governor shall use his best endeavours to select his Ministers in the following manner, that is to say, to appoint in consultation with the person who in his judgment is most likely to command a stable majority in the Legislature, those persons (including so far as practicable, members of important minority communities) who will best be in a position collectively to command the confidence of the Legislature. In so acting, he shall bear constantly in mind the need for fostering a sense of joint responsibility among his Ministers.”