The Pittsburgh Press (March 30, 1946)
Background of news –
The Indian puzzle
By Bertram Benedict
Next week, discussions will open in India between the political leaders of all parties in India and the committee sent out by the British Cabinet to try again to work out a solution satisfactory to all sides on India’s political future.
The central one of all the problems presented by India is not so much the rights of the minority as the rights of the majority. Gandhi, Nehru and the other leaders of the Congress Party want the Moslem minority to come along in one united India, trusting the Hindu majority to be fair. Jinnah and his followers in the Moslem League insist on a separate Moslem state. This would include sizable Hindu minorities which would have to trust the Moslem majority to be fair.
The Hindus and the Moslems worked together fairly well for a free India until about eight years ago. In 1919, a limited amount of self-government had been promised for the 11 provinces into which British India is divided. (The 562 Indian states, outside of British India, account for more than 40 percent of the area of India but for less than 25 percent of the population.)
Eight Hindu minorities
Elections for the provincial legislatures under the 1935 act were held in February 1937. The results gave Hindu majorities, then or later, in eight provinces, Moslem majorities in three (Bengal, the Punjab, Sind). But the Hindu ministries thereupon set up in the eight provinces were controlled by the Congress Party, whereas the Moslem ministries in the three provinces did not represent the Moslem League.
These Hindu ministries gave no representation to the Moslem minorities in the eight provinces, and were in no sense coalition affairs. The Congress Party, working through these ministries, reserved for itself all the prerogatives of office.
This policy followed the Congress claim of representing all India.
As a result, the power and prestige of the Moslem League among the Moslems began to increase.
In the meantime, the Congress Party had withdrawn its ministries in the eight provinces which returned Hindu majorities in 1937. The Congress Party was protesting in particular against the British declaration of war for India without the consent of India.
The Pakistan plan
In 1940, the Moslem League brought out its proposal for Pakistan, a separate Moslem state in India. It would take in Sind, Baluchistan, the Punjab, and the Northwest Frontier provinces in the northwest, Bengal and Assam in the northeast.
These two territorial divisions are separated by about 700 miles (the difference between Hindu and Moslem is religious rather than racial).