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In his introduction to Volume III,
Zaidi criticises Jinnah for his ineptitude in handling the
Kashmir, and Hyderabad issues. On the other hand, he emphasises
that Vallabhbhai Patel had started hobnobbing with Maharaja Hari
Singh as early as July 31, 1947. Patel’s object was to win the
Maharaja’s confidence and induce him to throw in his lot with
the Indian Union. There are quite a number of letters in the
volumes addressed by Mrs K.R. Rallia Ram, a resident of Lahore,
to Jinnah informing him of the vehement propaganda by the
Congress leaders against him and the Muslim League. It appears
that she was Jinnah’s trusted informer and friend.
These volumes
contain correspondence on the contentious issue of Hyderabad’s
accession to India or Pakistan. The Nizam of Hyderabad was
determined to keep his state independent of both India and
Pakistan. The Nizam’s correspondence shows his intimacy with
Jinnah. He looked on Jinnah as his political mentor to guide him
in his hour of trial to achieve his goal of independence. The
Nizam was keeping Jinnah fully informed about the political
development in his state. The Nizam appointed a brilliant
British lawyer, Sir Walter Munkton, to prepare his case for
keeping Hyderabad’s independence. Zaidi has drawn mostly the
material on Hyderabad from Mansergh’s Transfer of Powers volumes,
regrettably missing Sir Walter Munckton’s private papers
deposited in the Bodlein, Oxford.
The Nawab of
Bhopal, Hamidullah, too had great admiration for Jinnah, and he
wanted his state to accede to Pakistan but Jinnah discouraged
him knowing Bhopal’s geographical position was not conducive
to its alliance with Pakistan against India. Other states such
as Alwar and Indore too were anxious to follow Bhopal but in
vain. The volumes throw light on the political situation in the
North Western Frontier Province. Dr Khan Sahib boycotted the
referendum imposed by the June 3rd Mountbatten Plan. The
Frontier Gandhi, Abdul Ghaffar Khan was determined to fight for
Pathanistan. The Afghan government set its covetous eyes on the
North-West Frontier province, and claimed a legal right of its
possession, but the British government responded to it on the
basis of the Anglo-Afghan treaty of 1921 by which the Afghans
had abjured their right over the territory.
There is
sufficient evidence to support the view that the Muslim League
agitation against the Congress government in the NWFP was
popular in which the Muslim women played a highly significant
role, and in this connection Begum Shanawaz, Begum Fatima and
Begum Tassadaq Hussain deserve a special mention.
The volumes
contain a large number of congratulatory letter addressed to
Jinnah on his spectacular success in achieving Pakistan despite
the heavy odds weighed against him. In his letter of July 11,
1947 Jinnah’s brother Ahmedadi reminded him of his telling
(their) father that an astrologer had predicted that ‘you
would be one day the uncrowned king of India’!
It is evident
from the volumes that the British government had wanted a common
Governor-General for both India and Pakistan, and thought
Mountbatten the right man for the job to transfer power smoothly
to both the Dominions. Rejecting the proposal Jinnah suggested a
super arbitrator over the two Governor-General. He wanted to be
the Governor-General of Pakistan himself—from the date of the
transfer of power. In this connection Mountbatten held several
meetings with him and tried to persuade, cajole and even
threaten him to accept his proposal for a common
Governor-General but Jinnah was obdurate. Mountbatten suggested
to Jinnah that he become Prime Minister of Pakistan on the
ground that such a position would give him real authority
whereas the office of the Governor-General had no such
authority. However, Jinnah would have nothing of it, and
retorted: ‘I will give advice but others will follow’. In
disgust and anger Mountbatten wrote in his letter to the
Secretary of State: ‘He (Jinnah) is suffering from megalomania
in its worst form! Jinnah on the other hand, ‘was prepared to
lose assets worth crores rather than give up the
Governor-Generalship of a new state.
Mountbatten
felt humiliated at Jinnah’s rejection of his proposal, and
found himself in a real quandary. He felt reluctant in accepting
Nehru’s offer a taking up the Governor-Generalship of India.
His wife Edwina wrote a letter to his pleading not to let India
down. The matter went up to the India and Burma Committee in
England headed by the British Prime Minister, Lord Attlee.
Mountbatten sent Lord Ismay, his Chief of Staff, to consult the
British authorities on the matter. Eventually Mountbatten was
urged to step in as the Governor-General of India to resolve
Indo-Pak disputes and to protect British interest in India.
Volume IV of
the series is slim and contains little material of historical
value. Leaving Delhi with his sister Fatima on August 7, Jinnah
arrived in Karachi to take in his hand the destiny of Pakistan.
Whatever one may say, the fact is that Jinnah succeeded in
carving out a new state for the Muslims, and in the sense he was
victorious. He sold his house, 10, Aurangzeb Road, New Delhi to
J. Dalmia, for Rs 3 lakh and was desperately keen on selling his
residence on the Malabar Hills, Bombay for Rs 20 lakh.
On August 11,
1947 Jinnah delivered a speech in the Pakistan Constituent
Assembly. It has been widely commented on by historians for his
firm commitment to secularism. He had declared that in course of
time Hindus and Muslims would not think in terms of their
religious affiliations, and work for the highest ideals of
democracy in Pakistan. I think that Jinnah’s was purely a
political speech designed to appease the Hindu minorities in
Pakistan in order to protect the Muslims from the growing threat
of communal violence in India.
The value of these volumes
cannot be denied as they contain at least some material from the
Pakistan archives. Much of the correspondence in these volumes
is drawn from the Mansergh volumes and the British records
already published. The editing and annotations are of poor
quality, and at times one feels exasperated for not knowing the
actual source of a document from which the material is drawn.
The reason perhaps for this lapse is that Dr Zaidi is basically
an archivist and a compiler, and not by any means a trained
historian of standing.
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THE
National Academy of Pakistan had published Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s
papers in two volumes edited by Dr Z.H. Zaidi in 1993 and 2000
which deal with some of the critical issues relating to the
Partition of India. Dr Zaidi, a protege of Professor C.H.
Philips had his training as a researcher in the School of
Oriental and African Studies, London. Dr Philips had
undertaken the task of editing the source-material relating to
the political developments in modern Indian history, though as
a historian his own contribution in the field of history was
paltry with the sole exception of his work, a Ph.D thesis on
the early period of the East India Company in India. Dr Zaidi’s
earlier two volumes of Jinnah’s papers covered the period
from February 20 to June 30, 1947.
