In April 1943, while addressing an open session of the Muslim League in Delhi, Jinnah said that nobody would welcome it more than he if Gandhi was really willing to come to a settlement with the Muslim League: 'If that is Mr. Gandhi's desire, what is there to prevent him from writing direct to me?.... strong as this Government may be in this country, I cannot believe that it would have the daring to stop such a letter if it were sent to me. It would be a very serious thing indeed if such a letter were stopped.... If there is any change of heart ...he has only to drop a few lines to me. Then the Muslim League will not fail.' Gandhi responded from prison expressing a willingness to meet Jinnah. 'There seems to be an "if" about your invitation. Do you say I should write only if I have changed my heart? God alone knows men's hearts. I would like you to take me as I am. Why should not both you and I approach the great question of communal unity as men determined on finding a common solution and work together to make our solution acceptable to all who are concerned with it or interested in it?' The government stopped the letter from reaching Jinnah. The Qaid-i-Azam, who had publicly dared the British to try and stop Gandhi's letter from reaching him, meekly accepted it when an obviously censored letter was given to him by the British. Jinnah reacted by saying that this was not what he had expected to hear from Gandhi. He wanted Gandhi to first accept the Muslim League's demand for a separate country and then write to him. 'This letter of Mr. Gandhi can only be constructed as a move on his part to embroil the Muslim League to come into clash with the British Government solely for the purpose of his release'.
C. Rajagopalachari, a close associate of Gandhi, had opposed the Congress' stand on the Quit India resolution and disagreed with the policy of non-cooperation with the British war effort. Consequently, he had not been arrested by the British in 1942. Rajaji, as he was popularly known, believed that if the Congress and the Muslim League came together, the battle for independence would be won emphatically and in a very short time. He believed that if the Congress agreed to the right of self-determination for the Muslim-majority areas as demanded by the Muslim League, they would join hands with the Congress in demanding India's independence and the British would not be able to refuse.
When the gates of the Aga Khan Palace Prison Camp were briefly thrown open by the British, who feared that as a result of the fast undertaken by Gandhi and the various ailments he was suffering he was close to death, Rajaji availed of the brief respite and put forth a formula he had evolved to bring about a settlement between the Congress and the Muslim League. The formula became popularly known as the 'Rajaji Formula', which envisaged that: (1) the Muslim League should endorse the Indian demand for independence and cooperate with the Congress in the formation of a provisional interim government for the transitional period; (2) the Congress would agree, after the termination of war, to the appointment of a commission to demarcate contiguous districts in north-west and north-east of India, wherein the Muslims were in absolute majority; (3) in the areas thus demarcated a plebiscite of all the inhabitants held on the basis of adult franchise or some equivalent device would decide the issue of separation from India. If the majority decided in favour of forming a sovereign state separate from India, such decision would be given effect to; (4) in the event of separation, mutual agreement would be entered into for safeguarding defence, commerce, communications, and other essential matters; and finally (5) these terms would be binding only in case of transfer by British of full power and responsibility for the governance of India.
Gandhi endorsed the Rajaji Formula. Rajaji then presented the plan to Jinnah who summarily rejected it and described it as offering 'a shadow and husk, maimed, mutilated, and moth-eaten Pakistan'. He insincerely offered to place it for consideration to the Muslim League Council if Rajaji so desired. This was a futile gesture as the Muslim League Council was an ineffectual showpiece body which was totally dominated by Jinnah. After his public comments about the Rajaji Formula, it was a foregone conclusion that it would be rejected by his 'yes men' in the Muslim League Council. Rajaji released the plan to the press with the hope of creating a public opinion which would force Jinnah to accept it. Jinnah reacted in accordance with his true character: 'With it private negotiations end. It is necessary to take the public into confidence now.'
After his release Gandhi revived his efforts to bring Jinnah back into the fold of the national movement. On 17 January 1944 he wrote to Jinnah, this time intentionally using their common mother tongue, Gujarati. Jinnah was a Muslim from Kathiawad and on past occasions Gandhi had forced him to speak in Gujarati at public functions. 'Brother Jinnah, there was a time when I was able to induce you to speak in the mother tongue. Today I venture to write to you in the mother tongue. I have already suggested a meeting between you and me in my invitation from jail. I have not yet written to you since my release. Today I feel prompted to do so. Let us meet whenever you wish. Do not regard me as an enemy of Islam or of Indian Muslims. I have always been a servant and friend to you and mankind. Do not disappoint me.' By writing in Gujarati, Gandhi was subtly reminding Jinnah that Hindus and Muslims shared many vernacular languages and regional cultures, which negated one of the reasons put forth by Jinnah and the Muslim League to buttress their demand for Pakistan: that two distinctly separate nations existed in India, one Hindu, the other, Muslim. A theory also advocated by the Hindu Right-wing leader Savarkar. Jinnah replied from the houseboat Queen Elizabeth anchored on the Dal Lake in Srinagar: 'Dear Mr. Gandhi, I will be pleased to receive you at my home in Bombay, on my return from Kashmir some time in the middle of August'.
Pressure was building on both sides for negotiations to start and for the deadlock to be broken. The Muslims, whom Jinnah claimed to represent, and the rest of India led by the Congress, looked expectantly towards Gandhi; they were certain that if anybody could provide a breakthrough, it would be him. But there were vested interests who were working in another direction. The Hindu Mahasabha, weary of a Muslim League-Congress rapprochement, sent its storm troopers to prevent the talks. For a fortnight they picketed Sevagram Ashram, claiming that they would prevent Gandhi from attending the talks in Bombay. They were prepared to go to any extent. Gandhi faced up to their challenge and left for the talks as per his schedule, undeterred by the threats of physical harm and dire consequences issued by the fanatics and their behind-the-scene puppet masters. The group of picketers included Thatte and Nathuram Godse.
A large band of khaksars, a body of militant Muslims, modelled on the infamous Nazi Shulzstaffel 'SS', held parades through the communally sensitive areas of Bombay to create a 'proper' atmosphere for the Gandhi-Jinnah talks. Their aim was to display the might of the Muslim League so that the Congress and the one true leader of the Indian masses did not steamroll Jinnah. This was the amount of faith Jinnah's supporters had in their leader's ability to stand up to Gandhi. But Jinnah was not banking on the support of the group he claimed to lead. His strength was based on his knowledge that the British colonial administration was backing him and would thwart any move made by the Congress and Gandhi to try and convince the British government to overlook the Muslim League's demands.
The atmosphere in Bombay on the eve of the talks was electric. The police was on full alert; many of the streets and roads in the vicinity of Malabar Hill—where the two principal characters were staying—were blocked off. The entire city was placed on red alert. Gandhi took up residence at Birla House, which stands half-way up Malabar Hill towards the Nepeansea Road sea front. Jinnah's home was up ahead at 10, Mount Pleasant Road. Jinnah added his own quirk to the already colourful atmosphere by 'requesting' members of the press to stay away, since these were private talks. He made a concession to film companies and photographers by allowing them to photograph and film Gandhi's arrival and departure.
This was one of the rare occasions when Jinnah referred to Gandhi as Mahatma Gandhi, appealing to him to promulgate a period of political truce saying, 'It has been the universal desire that we should meet. Now that we are going to meet, he
lp us. We are coming to grips. Bury the past.'
The talks began on 9 September 1944, and continued for eighteen days. The eyes of the world were focused on the events taking place in this tiny elite enclave of south Bombay. As per the schedule, Gandhi would leave late afternoon each day with a tiny retinue to walk up a winding road lined by the mansions of the elite officials of the colonial administration and enter the gates of 10, Mount Pleasant Road.
On the first day of the talks, Jinnah was waiting at his doorstep to greet Gandhi; they shook hands and then embraced each other providing a good photo opportunity. At the end of the talks that day Jinnah walked with Gandhi up to his porch, and the warmth he displayed as he saw him off was interpreted by observers as a portent of good tidings. But, as it turned out, the talks were an exercise in futility. Jinnah's only aim, perhaps, had been to try and convert Gandhi to his way of thinking.
They did not meet the following day, it being the twenty-first day of Ramzan. A former colleague of Jinnah wryly commented, 'Why did he not say it was Sunday and he wanted a holiday? Jinnah understands Sunday better than Ramzan.' The talks resumed in the evening of Monday, 11 September. Gandhi carried his dinner in a little box and ate during the talks. Throughout the period of the talks Rajaji was staying with Gandhi, and all the proceedings were reported to him. While talking to him once, Gandhi clarified his purpose in holding the talks '.... I am to prove from his own mouth that the whole of the Pakistan proposition is absurd. I think he does not want to break. On my part I am not going to be in a hurry. But he can't expect me to endorse an undefined Pakistan.'
Rajaji asked: 'Do you think he will give up the claim?'
Gandhiji replied: 'He has to, if there is to be a settlement. He wants a settlement, but what he wants he does not know. I want to show him that your formula is the only thing he can reasonably ask for.'
There was a subdued optimism during the initial few days of the talks. But half-way through, on the occasion of Id, Jinnah went back to his vitriolic attack on the Congress and the Muslims in Congress. After propounding the virtues and progress of the Muslims as a 'nation', Jinnah indulged in a tirade against the 'renegades of the Millat, who are blocking our progress'. From then on, the talks headed in a predictable downhill direction. The talks completely broke down on 27 September. While the two leaders were talking to one another, with a completely closed mind on Jinnah's part and an ever-optimistic one on the part of Gandhi, they also kept up a steady stream of correspondence. Strangely, the correspondence were not affected by the talks and neither did the talks get influenced by the "letters. It was as if two sets of separate human beings were conducting the two simultaneously running events.
Gandhi stated that his life's mission was Hindu-Muslim unity. Therefore he was prepared to accept, if the Muslims so desired, the substance of the Muslim League's demand as put forth in the Lahore resolution, viz., self-determination for the areas where the Muslims were in a majority. But it was obvious that self-determination could not be exercised in the absence of freedom. Therefore, the League and all the other groups comprising India should agree to combine in the first instance to achieve independence by their joint effort. Jinnah responded, This is like putting the cart before the horse'. Gandhi maintained that unless they ousted the third party, they could not live in peace with one another. But he was ever ready to make an effort and that is why he had given his approval to the Rajaji Formula. It embodied the substance of the demand put forth in the Lahore Resolution, and gave it shape. However, Jinnah objected saying that the Rajaji Formula required the Muslim League to endorse the demand for independence on the basis of a united India. Gandhi explained that it was not on the basis of a united India. 'If we come to a settlement... we reach by joint effort independence for India as it stands. India, becomes free, will proceed to demarcation, plebiscite and partition, if the people concerned vote for partition.' Was not that the substance of self-determination?
Jinnah insisted that since the Rajaji Formula conceded in basis the Lahore Resolution, why didn't Gandhi accept the Lahore Resolution? Gandhi explained his difficulty in endorsing that as, 'The Resolution is vague and indefinite. It does not mention "Pakistan", nor does it talk about the "Two-nation" justification for separation. If the basis for the League's Pakistan demand was religious, then was Pan-Islam its ultimate goal since all the Muslims of the world constituted one community? If, on the other hand, Pakistan was to be confined to Indian Muslims alone, would Jinnah explain what it was that distinguished an Indian Muslim from every other Indian, if not his religion? Was he different from a Turk or an Arab?' Jinnah replied saying that pan-Islam was a mere bogey. The word 'Pakistan', he admitted, did not figure in the Lahore Resolution but had now become synonymous with it. 'We maintain and hold that Muslims and Hindus are two major nations by any definition or test of a nation.' Muslims were a separate nation by virtue of their 'distinctive culture and civilisation, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of value and proportion, legal laws and moral codes, customs and calendar, history and tradition', and therefore, 'they were entitled to a separate, sovereign existence in a homeland of their own'.
Each of his statements was contrary to the facts, or at best half-truths. Urdu, the culture, art and architecture of the Muslims were all products of synthesis. Muslims in East Bengal understood and spoke only Bengali, Jinnah himself spoke Gujarati; in the south, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam were the languages of both the Hindus and the Muslims. In the villages of Bihar it was impossible to distinguish a Hindu woman from a Muslim woman by their dress, and their customs bore a distinct similarity. There were many instances of Hindus retaining their surnames even after conversion like Pandit, Roy, Chowdhury, Mazumdar and vice versa.
Jinnah recommended that, to enlighten himself, Gandhi should read a few books written by Muslim League ideologues. After studying them Gandhi concluded: 'They contain half truths and unwarranted conclusions and inferences.'
Finally Gandhi asked how an independent state as envisaged by Jinnah would materially and otherwise be benefitted by being split up and whether independent states would not become a menace to themselves and the rest of India. Jinnah replied that this was the only solution for the problem and the price India would have to pay for its independence.
'The more our arguments progress, the more alarming your picture appears to me,' Gandhi wrote to Jinnah on 15 September, 'as I ... imagine the working of the Lahore Resolution in practice, I see nothing but ruin for the whole of India.' After this, the correspondence entered a phase of acrimony. At one stage Jinnah again questioned Gandhi's claim of representing the aspirations of all the downtrodden of India and reiterated that he accept the Lahore Resolution. Gandhi insisted that if at all there was to be a separation it should follow the model of a break-up in a family between two brothers who, although separated, continued to remain part of a larger family. Gandhi said he would accept the division of the country if, after independence, the majority of the adult population residing in the regions that were to be divided, voted for the division. In this case the two separated parts would still have certain common and shared responsibilities and policies in the field of defence, foreign affairs, internal communications, customs, and similar functions and terms of safeguarding the minorities in both the regions.
But Jinnah refused to have a separation on the basis of a plebiscite in which all the inhabitants of the region affected by the division would participate. He wanted it to be a solely Muslim decision, 'We claim the right of self-determination as a nation.... You are labouring under the wrong idea that "self-determination" means only that of a "territorial unit".... Ours is a case of division and carving out two independent sovereign States by way of settlement between two major nations, Hindus and Muslims, and not of severance or secession from an existing union, which is non est in India.' Gandhi replied on 15 September, 'I find no parallel in history for a body of converts and their descendants claiming to be a nation apart from the
parent stock. If India was one nation before the advent of Islam, it must remain one in spite of the change of faith of a very large body of her children.... You seem to have introduced a new set of nationhood. If I accept it, I would have to subscribe to many more claims and face an insoluble problem.'
Gandhi's letter of 22 September said: 'We seem to be moving around in circles'. In a note written on the 23rd, he wrote: 'Last evening's talk has left a bad taste in the mouth'. After repeatedly trying to make Jinnah see his viewpoint, Gandhi realised he was getting nowhere and suggested that Jinnah let him address the Muslim League Council and see if he could convince them to accept his proposal. 'If they reject it call an open session of the League and allow me to address the session.' As a last resort he suggested that the issue be referred for arbitration. Jinnah rejected all these proposals. On 27 September, addressing a well-attended prayer meeting, Gandhi declared that the talks had failed to reach a satisfactory or mutually acceptable conclusion, and neither of the parties had been able to convince the other. Although he had failed to achieve the result he had hoped for, Gandhi said, his was no sense of disappointment or despondency; he had tried his best to go as far as he could to meet Jinnah's viewpoint for the common good of all.
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