The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 11
11 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN Mission Plan, which had been developed during the summer of 1946, and on which eventually agreement had been reached between the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League. It had to be abandoned because of the differences that arose in regard to it which could not be reconciled. In the early summer of 1946, Prime Minister Attlee had sent three of his Cabinet colleagues: Lord Pethick Lawrence, who was then Secretary of State for India; Mr. Alexander, who was First Lord of the Admiralty; and Sir Stafford Cripps, who, I believe, was then either Lord President of the Council or Lord Privy Seal, to India to make an effort to bring about a settlement between the Congress and the League on the basis of which Indian independence could be worked out. They worked hard and eventually produced a plan on which agreement was reached. Briefly, the plan was that India should be divided into three autonomous zones: the A Zone to be the whole of the northwest, that is to say, including what is now West Pakistan plus the rest of the Punjab; the Zone B, the whole of the northeast, including what is now East Pakistan plus the whole of Assam and the rest of Bengal. These areas had a majority of Muslims, and the remaining, the bulk of the subcontinent, would constitute the C Zone. A, B and C would start off as a federation, with the Central Government in charge of defence, foreign affairs, communications, i. e. , railways, telegraph, post office, telephones; finance for these purposes, currency, and connected subjects; the remaining subjects to be with the A, B and C Zones whose governments would be autonomous, subject to a certain degree of control in a state of emergency or to prevent a breakdown. This was to be experimental for ten years. At the end of the ten years, A or B or both, if they were dissatisfied with the arrangement, could legislate themselves out of the federation and become independent. Assam, which was a separate administrative province, was included in B but, taken by itself, it had not a Muslim majority in its population, though as part of Zone B, it would become part of a Muslim majority Zone. On the principle on which A and B were given the right of legislating themselves out of the federation later, the scheme provided that Assam, at the end of ten years, if it had found that B had chosen to go out of the federation, could legislate itself out of B if it wanted to go with C, that is to say with the rest of India.