THE TRANSFER OF POWER 461
minorities. A year ago His Majesty’s Government said that they will not allow Pakistan because that is Balkanization of India. Today they are prepared to allow the partition of India. How the Government of a Great Empire lose all sense of principle ? The only explanation is that His Majesty’s Government has, as a result of the course of the war, become panic-striken. The proposals are the result of loss of nerve. How great is the panic that has overtaken His Majesty’s Government can be easily seen if one compared the demands made by the Congress and the Muslim League and the concessions made to them by these proposals. The Congress, while it demanded that the constitution should be framed by a Constituent Assembly, did not demand that the question of safeguards for the minorities should be decided by the Constituent Assembly by a mere majority vote. On the other hand when the Viceroy announced that the British Government will not be a party to the coercion of the minorities involved in the demand by the Congress, the Working Committee of the Congress at its meeting at Wardha held on August 22, 1940 passed the following resolution :—
“The committee regrets that although the Congress has never thought in terms of coercing any minority, much less of asking the British Government to do so, the demand for a settlement of a constitution though through a Constituent Assembly of duly elected representatives has been misrepresented as coercion and the issue of minorities has been made into an insuperable barrier to Indians progress.” The Working Committee added :—“The Congress had proposed that minority rights should be amply protected by agreement with the elected representatives of the minorities concerned.”
This shows that even the Congress did not demand that the
decision of minority rights should be included in the purview
of the Constituent Assembly. His Majesty’s Government has
not only given the Congress what it did not ask for but has
given them the additional right to decide this minority rights
issue by a bare majority vote. With regard to the question of
Pakistan, the same attitude is noticeable. The Muslim League
did not demand that Pakistan must be conceded immediately.
All that the Muslim League had asked for was that at the
next revision of the constitution the Musalmans should not
be prevented from raising the question of Pakistan. The
present proposals have gone a step beyond and distinctly
given to the Muslim League the right to create Pakistan.