The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 100
100 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN Mr. Birla observed, "But that is what Bapuji always says. " "Bapuji" means revered father, and meant Mr. Gandhi. I asked, "What do you mean by that?" He said, "Inside the Congress, when there are differences over this formula or that formula, in the end he says, "All right, I shall accept your formula, provided you leave me to interpret it when the time comes. " I was compelled to retort, "You will forgive my saying so, but it does not sound to me to be quite honest, that if one does not agree one should reserve to oneself the right to get what one is aiming at through a specious interpretation. It almost amounts to cheating. " Mr. Birla repeated, "But this is what he always says. " I replied, "In the Congress you cannot help it. You have, in the end, got to accept whatever Gandhi says, either by accepting his phraseology or by leaving the interpretation to him. But that does not apply here. Much later, whenever, for instance, over the Cabinet Mission Plan or over other agreements, a question on interpretation has arisen, I have known that this is one of the favourite devices of the leaders of the Congress Party. They will, if driven to it, accept a certain formula always reserving to themselves the right to interpret it in a different way when the time comes. That is what ultimately wrecked the Cabinet Mission Plan and made Partition inevitable. My association with Brown, the Undersecretary of State for the Board of Trade, was rewarding. We were able to do business in one afternoon, which would have been taken a delegation perhaps a fortnight to settle. Once we had got each other's point of view, he would say, "Now, Zafrulla, perhaps I could persuade my minister to go as far as this, or the Lancashire interests to accept this or the other. Let me try, and we will meet tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. " When we met, knowing how far each of us could go, we were soon able to reach agreement. There were only a few matters on which we needed more than two meetings. When I went back the second time to England in 1938, and made a courtesy call on Colonel Oliver Stanley, he had been a member of the Roundtable Conferences and we used to meet constantly and knew each other well. When I called he started with, "Zafrulla, I have not yet made up my mind whether I will not resign over what happened last time when you were here. " I rejoined, "Well, Oliver, that does not frighten me at all. In the first place, if you had wanted to resign, you would have