The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 67
67 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN kindly, they were willing to discuss these things with me, which showed they had confidence in me. In that way the trip proved very much worthwhile. One day, in July, when I was with Sir Samuel Hoare at the India Office, he asked me, "Well, now, Zafrulla, what is your program?" and I said, "Sir Samuel, I understand that during the recess you are going to Switzerland to do some skating, and I also intend to go on a trip - I had Scandanavia in mind - but I shall come back and plan to continue what I am doing as the Joint Select Committee will be sitting through October and part of November, and then I shall go back to India. " He said, "Well, that is interesting, but that was not the point of my question. You have been for four months a member of the Viceroy's Executive Council, would you care to go back to public life in that capacity? As you know, Sir Fazle Hussain is vacating office in April next year, and the Viceroy is here and he and I have had word together, and both of us will be very happy if you will agree to go on the Viceroy's Council. " I said, "Sir, I am free to confess to you quite frankly that at my age and with my standing I consider it a great compliment to be invited to take a seat on the Viceroy's Council, but there are two or three considerations which I wish you to take into account before you make up your mind. " "What are they?" "In the first place, since the Council began to have Indian members there have been four Muslim members of Council. The first one was Sir Ali Imam from Behar; the second was Sir Muhammed Shafi from the Punjab; the third was Sir Muhammed Habibullah from Madras; and the fourth is Sir Fazle Hussain, again from the Punjab. Thus Punjab has had two terms, and Behar and Madras, which are minority provinces have had a term each, but Bengal which is a majority province and the United Provinces, which though a minority Province from our point of view has many eminent and prominent Muslims, and also Bombay have not had a look in. The Muslims there might expect that this time the choice should fall upon one of them. " He said, "Well, it is good of you to put it that way, but your work has been on behalf of the Muslims of India and it has been mostly in London, so that in a sense you are the representative of the Muslims of the whole of India. We do not think it open to objection that somebody from the Punjab should succeed somebody from the Punjab. "