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It is
worthwhile for those interested in India's
constitutional question in
the pre-independence era to read for themselves primary sources
on the
Cabinet Mission Plan and related materials.
I have typed out
full text and excerpts of discussions, letters,
statements and speeches of the primary actors of that period-
Congress, Muslim League and the British, and uploaded
these to this website to make them accessible to a larger
audience..
The main
sources I have drawn from are
1. 'The Transfer of
Power
1942-7' Ed.
Nicholas Mansergh, E.W.Lumby and Penderel Moon.
2.
'Speeches and Documents on
the Indian Constitution 1921-47'. Selected by Sir Maurice Gwyer and A.
Appadorai, 1957
3. 'Speeches, 'Statements
and Messages of the
Quaid-e-Azam', Ed.Khurshid Yusufi, Bazm-i-Iqbal, Lahore.
My own thesis is that the
Congress Party had to accept Partition of India as the best of only
two bad choices offered by the Plan- a truncated sovereign
Pakistan
right then or a larger sovereign Pakistan after the British left, whose
boundaries would pass through the outskirts of Delhi.
This
is borne out
by
the British and Jinnah's insistence that Congress accept those
provisions of the Cabinet Mission Plan which specified the compulsory
grouping of provinces into separate sections and those which
specified that the proposed Indian Union have not
one but two or more separate Constitution making bodies for all
subjects except only three Union subjects defence, foreign affairs and
communications.
These provisions
meant that under the Cabinet Mission Plan, the Pakistan sections B
and C would for all practical purposes constitute an independent
state, with Hindustan/section A
unable to prevent its secession at any point of time. The
only way for Congress to prevent such a larger sovereign Pakistan from
coming into being was to stress that grouping of provinces should not
be compulsory. When that position was not accepted by the British or
Jinnah, the Congress settled for the lesser evil, the smaller truncated
Pakistan.
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