The Untold Story of India's Partition

Jinnah had met the viceroy immediately after Gandhiji on 4 September [1939]. While Gandhiji had offered tears and sympathy, Jinnah offered the viceroy the means to win the war and a clear compact. He pledged 'the loyalty of the Muslim community everywhere'(as if he was the sole representative of the Muslims of India) and then, with reference to the Congress ministries in the provinces, told the viceroy: 'Turn them out at once. Nothing else will bring them to their senses. Their object, though you may not believe it..is nothing less than to destroy both you[the British] and us Muslims. They will never stand by you.'  And then he spelt out his mind: 'Muslim areas should be separated from "Hindu India" and run by Muslims in collaboration with Great Britain.'

Jinnah had spoken so candidly to the viceroy because his lieutenant, Khaliq-uz-Zaman, had met Lord Zetland in London a few months earlier. According to Khaliq-uz-Zaman, when he had conveyed to Zetland the desirability of the creation of autonomous Muslim states in the subcontinent that would remain linked with Britain with defence, the British minister showed enough interest to prolong the talk for an hour and a half! The answer Khaliq-uz-Zaman gave to Zetland, when asked about defence, needs to be quoted because it was bound to make the minister feel that the Muslim League would remain dependent upon, and subservient to, Britain:  'If you want to know (about defence) for the period that you are not in any way connected with the administration of the country, then I beg your Lordship not to put that question to me, for God only knows what will happen to us then.'

. . .[On 5 October 1939]'Jinnah', the viceroy reported, began by 'expressing great gratitude for what I had done to assist[him] in keeping his Party together'. Jinnah was referring to the pressure Linlithgow had applied on Sikander Hayat Khan, the chief minister of the Punjab, to fall in line with Jinnah. Linlithgow's disciplining Sikander Hayat Khan was no small help. Besides being a staunch friend of the British, he was the premier of a province from which 50 per cent of the British Indian Army was recruited and a major figure in Indian politics. . .

After acknowledging Jinnah's thanks, [Linlithgow] told him:
It was clearly unsatisfactory that while one of the two great parties was well organized and well equipped to pursue its objectives and express its aims, that the other equally of great importance should be masked and prevented from securing its full expression by failure to secure an adequate mouthpiece. It was in public interest that the Muslim point of view should be fully and competently expressed.

The viceroy then sought Jinnah's opinion on the Congress Party's demands for a declaration of British objectives in India after the war and on the expansion of the council to accomodate political parties. It was now Jinnah's turn to scratch Linlithgow's back. Neither was necessary, Jinnah replied, and added that he would refuse 'to reach agreement either with the Congress or the government unless the plan of creating a united India was abandoned, and effective protection was given to the Muslim minorities in the Provinces.' Linlithgow, by citing this 'Muslim objection, could now deflect the Congress Party's demands as well as those of the Labour Party critics at home'. . .

[The viceroy saw Jinnah on 4 November 1939] Referring to Jinnah's public rejection of a declaration of British objectives in India after the war, Linlithgow thanked him for the 'very valuable help he had given by standing firm against the Congress claims' and added that he was 'duly grateful'.  In this telegram on his discussions with Zetland, he reported: 'If Jinnah and the Congress had confronted me with a joint demand on this[the British declaration], the strain upon me and upon HMG would indeed have been very great.'

Jinnah after accepting Linlithgow's thanks, made certain remarks that were bound to sound like music to any Britisher at that time and would be lapped up in London. 'He[Jinnah] was extremely doubtful as to the capacity of India and Indians to look after themselves', reported Linlithgow. And added, 'If the British by any chance be beaten in the war and driven out of India, India would break into a hundred pieces in three months and lie open, in addition, to external invasion.'

After offering this bouquet, Jinnah came to the point he had come to make. Referring to the recent debate in the House of Lords, he said: Prominent personages, who were quite likely to be in the [British] Cabinet after the war, had frankly urged that in India[the] majority must rule and the minority must take their medicine... When the opposition at home came into power they would force democratic government on India and anaesthetize the Muslims.

Therefore, what he wanted was an undertaking from HMG that the Muslim community would not be compelled in any future dispensation to accept something it did not want. Linlithgow kept silent on this subject, but promised to forward this view to London for consideration.

Jinnah saw the viceroy again on 12 January 1940 and was advised on the form the British undertaking should take: 'If you say that you would make no new pronouncement or new constitutional departure unless the Muslims approved, he[Jinnah] would be attacked as the arch supporter of Imperialism and for playing our[British] game. Therefore the formulation should be that any pronouncement of a future advance would have to receive the approval of the two communities.'

And then delivered the following broadside against the Congress Party that he knew would be more conducive to clinch his argument than any other on the basis of merit: 'Show Congress that they can get nothing further out of you and once they know that, they will be more likely to come to a settlement and even if they don't, what do you lose?'

It is well to record here that whatever the sentiments of Jinnah on his ability to manipulate the viceroy, the latter was quite sure that he was using the former. 'He[Jinnah] represents a minority and a minority that can only hold its own with our assistance' was how Linlithgow later put it to the secretary of state.

The next day Linlithgow was in Bombay and sent for Jinnah to seek his help in installing a Muslim League Ministry in the North West Frontier Province- the crucial province-from which the Congress Party Government had walked out in October 1939. Jinnah agreed to go to Lahore and make the effort. The collaboration between the British and Jinnah was now growing day by day. Linlithgow then told him that he was under pressure from England not to 'indefinitely postpone normality'; in other words, he should try to bring back a measure of popular participation in government. The Muslim League chief's reply, as reported by the viceroy, was as follows:  'The Hindus were not capable of running a government as we will find for ourselves before we had finished.'

And when Linlithgow drew his attention to an article by John Gunther, the American journalist, on Nehru, that had just appeared in the Life magazine in the United States, and asked him to do something to contradict such pro-Congress propaganda, Jinnah replied that he had no funds to do so, thereby leaving whatever had to be done in this context to his new British partner.