The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 79
79 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN agreeable to the change, there is no reason why the change should be made, and you will take over the portfolio as it is. " And on that occasion I told him that what had upset me was not merely this change that had been proposed behind my back. As soon as I had returned to India, I began to see in the papers, particularly in the Hindu press, a regular campaign against my being - "a mere youngster" - given the most important portfolio and certainly the biggest portfolio in the Government which carried so much patronage, etc. All sorts of charges, communalism and this and the other were preferred against me. I had been a member of the government for four months. Had I shown any tendency towards communalism? I continued the tradition of Sir Fazle Hussain to carry Indianization as far as possible, and the only people, who, it so happened, benefited from that were non-Muslim officers who were promoted. There was not a single Muslim who had benefited under the Indianization policy. That was all right with me. Nobody can charge me with communalism in what I did during those four months. The Hindu press is dead set against me that I should not have these portfolios. If I were to agree to that it would be thought this fellow is only running after office. He does not care whether he is given a proper portfolio or not, whether it is important or unimportant; so long as he gets a seat in the Cabinet and gets a salary and the prestige, nothing else matters to him. That is position I was not prepared to accept, and that is why I wrote to the Secretary of State that he was free to make a fresh choice. He said, "So far as I am concerned, I can assure you that there was nothing in it. Those people, after all, they sit in the Assembly and have to face the criticism. It is true they had asked my assent to this arrangement and I thought they would make sure that it would go through. Anyhow nothing will now be done till after you have joined the Cabinet. " In May the question was brought up again in Cabinet. But now I was a member of the Cabinet, I could argue on an equal basis with my colleagues. The matter was discussed back and forth, and then Sir Philip Chetwood, the Commander-in-Chief, who, as I have already said, had become a very good friend during my first association with him in 1932, said to the Viceroy, "Sir, you have heard the views of your colleagues on this matter, and I propose that you take the whole matter in advisement, reflect over it and come to your decision. Let us here and now agree that all of us will accept whatever you decide.