The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 44
44 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN award. "Oh," he said, "Yes, yes. Well, now, my dears, as you know, this is a very troublesome business, and I think we would better start with an understanding, if we are to get through this evening's business within reasonable time, and that is that we should agree that unless the Secretary of State should have given some very good reason for any change that he proposes, we shall adhere to our original recommendations. Is that all right?" It was all right, and we proceeded. I might say here that later when I went to the third Roundtable Conference in England, I learned that it was not the Secretary of State who had proposed the modifications: the modifications had been proposed at the insistence of the Prime Minister, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald. I had been surprised that Sir Samuel Hoare, a good friend who understood the Muslim case very well should have made these suggestions. The suggestions were that in the Provinces in which the Muslims were in a minority, the Muslim representation may be increased by one seat here and two seats there, which would be of no benefit to the Muslims because they would still remain a minority. In the two major provinces, i. e. , the Punjab and Bengal where the Muslims were a majority in the population, it was proposed that Muslim representation should be reduced by two or three seats. The result would be that in the Punjab we would lose our majority of one or two seats that the Government of India had recommended and in Bengal we would go even below 48 percent that had been recommended. After getting agreement on principle the Viceroy asked, "Well, now, what does he propose with regard to Madras?" In Madras the Secretary of State had proposed two extra seats for the Muslims, but no reason had been given for the change. The Viceroy asked me, "Do you want these two extra seats for the Muslims in Madras?" I said I did not want these extra seats, provided, no reduction was made in the number of our seats elsewhere. We all agreed on that. Of the four women's seats in Madras, one was proposed to be earmarked for Muslim women. We all agreed on that. The Viceroy then took up the case of each Muslim minority Province where any extra seat or seats were proposed for the Muslims and obtained from me an intimation that I did not want the extra seat or seats. Thus by the time we got to Bengal and the Punjab the Council was committed to the position that the Muslims would not have any