The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 12
12 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN Shortly after the plan was announced and everybody had breathed a sigh of relief that an agreement had been reached which would preserve the political unity of India, while safeguarding the Muslim position, Mr. Nehru, who, in the meantime, had been elected President of the Congress, made a public announcement and re-iterated it, putting his own interpretation on certain paragraphs of the plan including those relating to Assam. He contended that the paragraphs relating to Assam in the plan gave Assam not only a choice at the end of the years to legislate itself out of Zone B in case Zone B was to legislate itself out of the federation, but that here and now, at the very start, Assam had that choice and could exercise it. That tore up the whole plan. Lord Wovell, who was then Viceroy, made an effort with Messrs. Gandhi and Nehru, to restore the plan, but could not make any headway. Later Mr. Attlee sent for both Mr. Jinnah and Mr. Nehru to London and they went over, I believe, towards the end of 1946. Conversations were held but the differences could not be resolved. Now events were moving so fast that the British Government felt that a solution of the Indian political and constitutional problem should be reached, announced and put into effect at an early date. So on the 20th of February, Mr. Attlee announced the scheme of Partition. Again, briefly, it was proposed that His Majesty's Government would transfer authority in India into the hands of the Provincial Governments, and that the Legislatures in the Punjab and Bengal would decide whether each would remain one administrative unit, as it then was, or whether it would insist upon partition in terms of contiguous majority areas of Muslims and non-Muslims. At that time there was, I believe, a Muslim League, or, at least a majority Muslim Government in power in Bengal, but the Khizr Hayat Government was in power in the Punjab, and it was neither a Muslim League Government, nor even a government with a Muslim majority in the Legislature. I felt worried as I studied Mr. Attlee's announcement and I spent the whole day considering in my mind what was likely to happen. I was then a judge of the Federal Court of India, but as a Muslim I was concerned with the likely developments. Before I became a judge, I had been a Member of the Central Government for a number of years and I apprehended that in the Punjab the position was going to be very difficult. Khizr Hayat and Mr. Jinnah already had a trial of strength and Mr. Jinnah