The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 32
32 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN in the conference as representatives of the Congress and not as representatives-at-large of the Muslim community. What these gentlemen who took objection to Dr. Ansari's being invited in that capacity feared was that this would blur the Muslim stand on certain important matters and they were not willing to run that risk. In the end Dr. Ansari was not invited. Those who had opposed Dr. Ansari's being invited had made it plain through public statements that if Congress chose to be represented by 100 delegates, they could send 99 Congress Muslims as members of their delegation, to that they had no objection. But that no Muslim member of the Congress should be invited as a representative of the Muslim community. So the difficulty with what might appear to be a very reasonable request, made very politely by Mr. Gandhi, was that it put the Muslims in a dilemma. After having opposed Dr. Ansari's being invited for them now to go to the Secretary of State with the request that he should be invited would, to say the very least, be very embarrassing. This went on for about half an hour, with Mr. Gandhi insisting that he could not discuss these matters in the absence of Dr. Ansari - he had given him his word - and the Muslims re-iterating that it confronted them with a very embarrassing situation. At this stage I thought perhaps I might venture to participate in the discussion. I was still one of the junior members of the delegation and did not feel that I should put myself forward out of turn, but an idea struck me and I asked Mr. Gandhi's permission to let me put it forward. As he very graciously assented I suggested that we should carry on the discussion, and that if we saw that we were likely to arrive at an agreement, we could then, Mr. Gandhi, as well as ourselves, transmit a request to Dr. Ansari that he should kindly come over and join in the discussion, so that an agreement might be reached. I added, "I would venture to submit respectfully that an invitation from us, that is to say from Mr. Gandhi and ourselves together, would be a matter of greater satisfaction to Dr. Ansari than to be invited by the representative of what Mr. Gandhi has so often described as the Satanic government. " Mr. Gandhi smiled at this and indicated his willingness to proceed with the conversations. The conversations occupied two or three meetings. The upshot was this: Mr. Gandhi said that on what were in those days known as the "Fourteen Points of Mr. Jinnah," and Mr. Jinnah, of course, was participating in the discussions, he was ready to