Jinnah and the Parity Theory

By Anil Nauriya

The Bhulabhai-Liaquat Pact of 1945 is now a mere episode in the various negotiations between the Congress and the Muslim League before 1947. However, it acquires some
importance in relation to the ‘parity theory’ advanced by later writers, most notably Ayesha Jalal and H M Seervai. The parity theory maintains that Jinnah’s object was not
partition but ‘parity’. [ In the historical literature, the term ‘parity’ has been presented sometimes as meaning parity between the Congress and the League, at other times to mean
parity between Muslims and the so-called ‘caste Hindus’ and on still another occasion as meaning parity between Muslim-majority provinces and other provinces.] Though the
parity argument is usually made in relation to the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946 and also in relation to the the nineteen forties generally, the implications of the events of 1945 are
often overlooked in this context.
More than a decade ago I had argued that if the Jalal-Seervai thesis was correct, Jinnah should, in 1945 not have rejected some possibilities for parity which had then emerged.
[See Anil Nauriya, Some Portrayals of Jinnah : A Critique in D. L. Sheth and Gurpreet Mahajan (ed), Minority Identities and Nation-State, Oxford University Press,1999, pp. 73-
112] One of these possibilities was the Bhulabhai-Liaquat Pact of 1945. There were also others, such as the Conference called by the Viceroy Wavell at Shimla in June 1945 and
Sapru Committee Report which entered the public discourse at about the same time (the interim report became available in May 1945 and the final report in December 1945).

If Jinnah wanted parity rather than partition, why did he reject the Bhulabhai Desai-Liaquat Pact of 1945 and the Sapru Committee proposals which were based on parity? The
question does not appear to have occurred to Jalal or Seervai. The background to the Bhulabhai-Liaquat Pact was this. In early 1945, when most Congressmen were still in jail,
negotiations took place between Bhulabhai Desai, leader of the Congress in the Central Assembly and Liaquat Ali Khan, his League counterpart, resulting in an agreement between
the two. The agreement envisaged the Congress and the League joining hands in parliamentary work and parity between them. An interim government was to have been formed at
the Centre, subject to the Governor-General agreeing to this arrangement. In the interim government there was to be an equal number of persons nominated by the Congress and
the League. There would also be representatives of other categories. The government would function within the framework of the Government of India Act, 1935 and the Working
Committee would be released from prison. The agreement was signed on January 11, 1945. On January 22, 1945, Jinnah stated in a press interview at Bombay : “My attention has
been drawn to reports in a section of the Press that an agreement has been arrived at between Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan on behalf of the Muslim League and Mr Bhulabhai
Desai on behalf of the Congress with the consent of Mr Gandhi and myself. I know nothing about this. There is absolutely no foundation for connecting my name with the talks
which may have taken place between Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan and Mr Bhulabhai Desai”. (Indian Annual Register, 1945, Vol 1, p. 33) On February 4, 1945, Liaquat Ali
Khan also made the supporting statement that : “There is no truth in the report appearing in a certain section of the Press that an agreement or a settlement has been reached
between me and Mr Bhulabhai Desai”. ( Indian Annual Register, 1945, Vol 1, p. 38). Thus the Desai-Liaquat Pact was stillborn.

If Jinnah’s object was parity rather than partition, why did he and Liaquat disown this pact? The matter is not dealt with by Jalal who in recent years has expounded the parity
theory in her work The Sole Spokesman (1985); neither does Seervai deal with it correctly as he presents an inexact account of the Desai-Liaquat pact. (See Seervai, Constitutional
Law of India, Vol 1, 4th edn, 1991, p. 20)
Seervai does not mention that Jinnah disowned this pact within 11 days of it being entered into and that Liaquat also similarly did so within 25 days. Instead Seervai refers to an
account by M C Setalvad of a Congress Working Committee meeting held in the summer of 1945, long after the Bhulabhai-Liaquat pact had already been disowned by Jinnah and
Liaquat. Setalvad, in his account of the Working Committee meeting had said that at the meeting Gandhi did not speak in support of Bhulabhai. The Working Committee meeting
was not concerned with the implementation of the already-dead pact, but some Working Committee members had wanted to know why Bhulabhai had entered into the pact.
Seervai used this account by Setalvad of the Working Committee meeting held long after the pact was dead, to suggest by erroneous implication that Gandhi was responsible for
the repudiation of the pact, ignoring the fact that the pact had already been disowned by Jinnah. Incidentally, Jaswant Singh in his recent book on Jinnah repeats in tenor and
substance Seervai’s account of the Bhulabhai –Liaquat Pact, not being aware that the pact was actually disowned within days by Jinnah and Liaquat.

A second possibility for parity arose with the Shimla conference called by Wavell in June 1945 In his broadcast announcing the conference, Wavell declared at the very outset
that there would be parity between the Congress and the League. The Congress did not decline to participate despite this. But the conference failed because Jinnah wanted more
than parity. He wanted a veto on the Muslims that might be nominated by the Congress to the Executive Council even within its own quota. [This demand was repeated by Jinnah
a year later even in the context of the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946] Such a demand was not just for parity but for parity plus.
V P Menon recalled that in his speech at the 1945 Conference Jinnah declared that the League “could not in any circumstances agree to a constitution on any basis other than that
of Pakistan”. ( Menon, Transfer of Power, 1957, pp. 197-8)

A third parity discourse arose with the (non-official ) Sapru Committee which considered the Constitutional possibilities with its interim and final reports in May and December
1945. Gandhi had written to Sapru on May 14, 1945 approving the Committee’s approach on the communal question. (CWMG, Suppl. Vol IV, p. 202). The Sapru Committee’s
final report, which became available in December 1945, envisaged parity between Muslims and the non-scheduled caste Hindus in the constitution-making body. Seervai admitted
that the report was not accepted by the League because of its rejection of Pakistan; but he did not notice that this was inconsistent with the “parity-rather-than-partition” theory.
(Seervai, op. cit., p. 21)

In conclusion, therefore, the parity theorists appear to have no adequate explanation of why, if Jinnah wanted parity rather than partition, he rejected all the three ideas,
possibilities and arrangements for parity which presented themselves in 1945.