The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 150
134 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN India on the political plane, and to push forward more rapidly toward independence. During the fall of 1940, Sir Jeremy Raisman, who was then Finance Minister, found himself under the necessity of presenting a Supplementary Budget. In the general debate on the Supplementary Budget, the Congress’s attitude was one of extreme opposition, to the then form of government. To my mind - I was then in the Cabinet and was Leader of the House - that was an indication that the political leadership in India was beginning to hope that Great Britain would emerge victorious from the struggle and, in consequence, they resumed the political struggle. But, by and large, nothing was done by any political party or group to obstruct the war effort. There was a certain amount of underground terrorism going on, and later there were disturbances in Bihar, which was very unfortunate, but looking back over the whole period of the war one would say that the attitude of the main political parties - the Congress and the Muslim League - was on the whole co-operative. At least it was at no time seriously obstructive. Such political activity as was carried on was kept within legitimate bounds. On the other hand, there was the consideration that if all political activity was laid aside, the political objective might receive a setback. They wanted to keep the idea in the forefront, that India was doing all it could to help win the war and that India's emergence into a free independent country, in association with Britain - at that time, everybody's objective was that India should become a dominion, as it actually did become in 1947 - should not be subject to any delay once victory was won. From then onwards, the main difficulty in the way was not the attitude of the British Government, but the deadlock between the two parties: How was the communal problem to be resolved? Everybody recognized that until there was some agreement on that it would be difficult for the British to put into effect a constitution that would set up India as a dominion. I, myself, speaking as Leader of the House as early as the fall of 1940 in the debate on the Supplementary Budget, had announced quite clearly that we were all agreed that India should be independent as soon as possible. The only obstacle was to find a basis of settlement between the parties.