The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 177
161 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN India for so many years, finally took the decision to support Pakistan. Would you care to say a word on that ? Khan : I was not directly in politics between 1941, when I took my seat on the bench of the Federal Court of Delhi, and the 10th of June, 1947, when I resigned from the Court. But, of course, my interest in all these matters was still very keen, and in my early years on the Court, as this record will show, I went on urging upon the Viceroy indianization of the Cabinet and practical progress towards independence. I was not only sympathetic towards what the Muslim leaders wanted to safeguard, but was most keen that we should fully safeguard our future position. Till the summer of 1946, however, I had not made up my mind finally that Pakistan was the only or the most feasible solution of that problem. In the summer of 1946, when the Cabinet Mission succeeded in obtaining the agreement of the Muslim League and the India National Congress on their plan, I breathed a sigh of relief. I was conscious of the undoubted advantages which would accrue to the whole country and, of course, also to the Muslims as a section of the population, from the political and economic unity of India. Now that a plan had been accepted which Muslim leaders thought would give them a fair chance of cooperating in building up the country and would safeguard their faith, culture and special interests and which they were willing to try for ten years and then make their final decision, I thought this was a good way out of the difficulty. As a matter of fact, I greatly admired Mr. Jinnah's strategy that having pushed the matter as far as it was possible for it to go, he was willing to try an alternative which seemed to him feasible and practicable. Then that plan was wrecked - I am afraid quite deliberately - by Mr. Nehru, who had, shortly after the plan was accepted by both sides, become President of the Congress, and as President made authoritative statements which were utterly inconsistent with the clear wording of the Cabinet Mission's Plan. Thereupon, I became convinced that no kind of agreement which might be entered into would be faithfully kept by the Congress or the leaders of the majority community and that, it was too great a risk to accept anything which could not be enforced if they were not willing to carry it through. Finally, when in the December of that year even Mr. Attlee's attempts to put the pieces of the Cabinet Mission's Plan together failed - he had sent for Mr. Jinnah and Mr. Nehru, to London, and he tried his