Sin,—Ignoring the sarcasm (in which I do not propose to
emulate him), may I answer Mr. 0. S. Edwardes? As he points out, I am aware of the administrative advantages of the Partition of Bengal. India's political framework is utterly ramshackle, and in the inevitable reconstruction it ought to be possible to find some way of disentangling Bengal's two jostling communities, while preserving the Bengali people's sense of nationality and national unity.
But neither such a conceivable arrangement, nor the old Partition, is what Mr. Jinnah asks—which is not an administrative unit (canton or sub-province), but an integrated and powerful Moslem State, set up without consultation of any but Moslems. Recent cables from India represent him as demanding that this Pakistan includes also whatever non-Moslem areas complete it " economically." Does this mean Calcutta and the Hugli waterway? Mr. Edwardes cites, as if it affected my argu- ment, as supporters of Pakistan Dr. Ambedkar (of Bombay) and Mr. Panikkar (whom he calls a Brahmin—he is a Nain) of Travancore. They have as much right to dispose of the future of the people of Bengal as I should have to dispose of that of the Athenians—they are every bit as remote from them, territorially and spiritually. His third witness, Iqbal, when I stated (in The Observer twelve years ago) that he was in favour of Pakistan assured me emphatically that he was not.
But all this is beside my original letter, which Mr. Edwardes must think he answered, otherwise why did he write? How can I state clearly what is now matter of common knowledge? What is now the usual impression, not only here but in other countries? Surely it is this: that India has been promised independence (with or without a capital letter) if only "Hindu-Moslem unity " is achieved: that this depends on two men who belong to the Bombay side of India agreeing about the future of two nations to which neither of them belongs: and that until they agree on this nothing whatever can be done politically for a country of nearly 40o millions. I maintain that the people of the Punjab and Bengal have some rights and that it is not statesmanship to simplify everything to the eternal Gandhi-Jinnah argument. And, of course, no arrangement these two come to about Bengal can stand, unless the people of Bengal
Oxford.
Previous page
