Why GM Syed left the Muslim League?

Mohammad Ibrahim Joyo 


The ‘latest plan’ of His Majesty’s Government (which was the paramount power then in the sub-continent) for transfer of power was announced on 21 May 1947, and ran on the following lines:
The work of the (Indian) Constituent Assembly would not be interrupted. But the constitution framed by the Assembly would not apply to the parts of India unwilling to accept it.
In order to ascertain the wishes of the different parts, two methods were proposed, namely, either.
Through the existing Constituent Assembly which could be joined by the representatives of the dissident parts, or
Through separate Constituent Assemblies of the representatives of the dissident parts.
Regarding the provinces the arrangements differed slightly from one dissident province or part of it to another. As for Sindh, its Legislative Assembly was straightway to decide which Constituent Assembly the province would join.
The procedural policy was to be the same as contained in the British cabinet Mission Memorandum of 12 May 1946, according to which-
The Constitutions of the Union and of the ‘groups’ were to contain “a provision whereby any province could, by a majority vote of its Legislative Assembly, call for reconsideration of the terms of the Constitution after an initial period of ten years and at 10- yearly intervals thereafter.”
And also “as soon as the new constitutional arrangements came into operation, it would be open to any province to elect to come out of any ‘group’ in which it was placed. Such a decision was to be taken by the Legislature of the province after the first General Election under the new Constitution.”
Earlier, in March 1942, Lord Privy Seal Sir Stafford Cripps had visited India with authority of the British War Cabinet “to discuss His Majesty’s Government’s Declaration with the leaders of Indian opinion in order to see whether it met with the measure of acceptance vital to its success.” The declaration among other things covered the following ground:
“Immediately upon the secession of hostilities [World War II, 1939-45] steps shall be taken to set up in India as elected body charged with the task of framing a new Constitution for India which His Majesty’s Government undertakes to accept and implement forthwith… The constitution-making body would prepare the constitution for the India Union. But if at the final stage, a province expressed its unwillingness through a vote of the Legislature to accept the constitution, it was free to refuse formulate its constitution which would have the same status, power and functions as the Union of India.”
This option for the provinces of the sub-continent in general was reaffirmed in almost similar words by Lord Wavell, Viceroy of India, on the least two occasions in conferences of leaders at Simla in the years 1944 and 1945.
Lastly, the British Prime Minister, Mr. Attlee, on 20 February 1947, expressed unequivocally “His Majesty’s Government’s wish to take necessary steps to effect transference of power to responsible Indian hands by a date not later than June 1948. But if it should appear that [such a] constitution will not have been worked out before the time mentioned, his Majesty’s Government will have to consider to whom the powers of the Central Government in British India should be handed over on due date—whether as a whole to some form of Central Government for British India, or in some areas to the existing provincial governments or in such other way as may seem most reasonable and in the best interests of the Indian People.”
Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, who, as if to give a lie to Sir Winston Churchil’s claim, literally “presided over the liquidation of British Indian Empire.” Found in necessary, at one stage, to say that “the procedure proposed under the latest plan of His Majesty’s Government for transfer of power through vote initially of the provinces, routed through groups of states deciding constitutions of Central Governments, was in substance offer of dominion status to all concerned, and, with option to secede, was in fact equivalent to Independence.”
A question may now be asked: How could it be that no ‘province’ went in for independence even after all this repeated emphasis on their sovereign right to do so?
Before the question is answered, let a fact be noted that Sindh through its acknowledged leader, G.M. Sayed, did put in a demand for independence. The effort, however, couldn’t succeed. The story, authentically recorded, can be narrated briefly as follows:
“The president of the Sindh Muslim League, G.M. Sayed, tabled a resolution in the Sindh Assembly in 1943, calling for the ‘creation of Pakistan as a union of independent nation states, and accession of Sindh in it’ (Jalal, 1958: 110) … Pakistan was supposed to be a union of ‘sovereign’ and ‘independent’ states as envisaged in the Lahore Resolution of 1940 (Mehtab, 1997:49). According to the Karachi-based English Language newspaper, Sindh observer, G.M. Sayed initially wanted to establish a ‘Sindhi Pakistan’ free from interference by the League High Command, but on becoming deeply disillusioned by the Muslim League in 1946, he informed the visiting (British) Cabinet Mission that he had changed his demand and now wanted ‘and azad (independent) Sindh rather than a Sindhi Pakistan’ (Jalal, 1985:181).”
“… Thus, before the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, there were three options open to the Sindhis: to remain in a congress-dominated centralized India; to join a confederal Pakistan; or outright independence.” (Mehtab. 1997:50)
At this point of time, January 1946, the Committee of Action of the all-India Muslim League-the League High Command contrived to expel G.M. Sayed both from the Central Organisation and from the Sindh league.
The answer to the question as to how the provinces in general, including Sindh, failed to stand up firmly for independence, all the same, needs a fuller treatment.
The elites of the British ‘provinces’ in India, because of the ‘empire’-wide nature of British administration in the sub-continent, had to get organized on sub-continental basis. Once the Imperial power came up with its chess-board of ‘politics of divide-and-rule’, the players of the game—the Imperial masters, the native princes and the elites of the ‘provinces’—settled in for their chequered roles. The sub-continental organizations of the elites of the provinces, under the given rules of the game, had to function on democratically deformed and divided platforms—the Congress euphemistically calling itself ‘national’ and the league similarly calling itself “Muslim’—had to go on the spree, each seeking an ‘empire’ of its specific choosing, in the subcontinent. The ‘provinces’ as homelands of old-and-ongoing nations in India, didn’t matter with them. Both the organizations claimed their respective all India representative status on mere 4 to 6 percent affirmative vote on franchise restricted to only 12 to 13 percent adults, split politically under ‘separate electorates’. The elites of the ‘provinces’, backed up by these crazy organizations, felt much puffed up and comfortable under the umbrella of the British administration fear-full, however, of the latent and suppressed force of masses, they preferred all the same an under the table, most docile, quit and peaceable transfer of power into their eager hands from their out-going benefactors. On the advice of the congress leader, the oxfordian democrat-cum-socialist Pandit Nehru, backed by Mr. Jinnah, the other lionised one of the other party, Lord Mountbatten, the authorized liquidator of the war-exhausted British colonial administration, readily and gleefully withdrew the right of princely states and provinces to declare themselves independent after the transfer of power to India. “They had to join either India of Pakistan.” (Jalal, 1985:285). ‘In the broader interests of the defence requirements of the British common-wealth, the British perceived the mushrooming of several states in South Asia as a worse option than the division of India into too states’ (Jalal, 1985:254). ‘The port city of Karachi [for example] being a vital link in the common-wealth strategic network, stretching from Suez to Australia, Britain did not want to allow it to slip into the hands of a radical and mercurial figure like G.M. Sayed’ (Mehtab, 1997:50)
In case of the Muslim majority provinces in particular, the additional answer to the question is two-fold. Firstly, the Muslim majorities each in its homeland commanded absolute majority for rule within its territory—Punjab, NWFP, Baluchistan, Sindh and East Bengal: and secondly, the looked forward, specially the weaker members of the group, to enjoyment of constitutionally guaranteed sovereignty and autonomy in terms of their pact they knew and relied upon as the Pakistan Resolution of 1940. It should now, of course, be the matter of bitter regret for them, or perhaps even of an expectant joy. That where as in India of the Congress which stood for strictly unitary raj, the provinces called “states” there, are enjoying fuller autonomy in political, economic and cultural terms, they in Pakistan which dangled to them the carrot of sovereignty and autonomy, continue being styled ‘provinces’ and suffering un-ending periodic squeezes of totalitarian centralization as the federating parts.
The Indian sub-continent received its independence in 1947, seemingly easily and, as claimed in some circles, ‘peace-ably’. Nonetheless, the lands and the peoples involved went through a pogrom and bloodshed, costing innumerable innocent lives and unprecedented displacement of populace with disastrous social and cultural consequences. The all-India Muslim League demanded separate state (s) accusing their British patrons of colluding with the Congress to turn free India into a Hindu raj. “Blood-shed and civil war must be avoided if possible, but now there is no more room left… if you want war, we accept it.”- (David Milsted, 1996:100)- this was one of the last expression of rancor and rage on the part of the League. Inspite of it all, the message of congratulation of Pakistan from His Majesty King George VI on 15 August 1947 was: “In thus achieving your independence by agreement you have set an example to the freedom-loving peoples throughout the world.” (David Milsted, 1996:102) How unfeeling, indeed, can be the obtuseness of language.
EQUALITY OF MAN, AND 
EQUALITY OF NATIONS.
It was in that same year, 1947, that Jean-Paul Sartre, in his famous work “Existentialism is Humanism” came up with his blunt expression: “Man is condemned to be free”! (David Milsted, 1996: 98)
“Before 1947, other than a few Gujrati-speaking Parsees (Zorasterians) living in Karachi, virtually all the inhabitants (in Sindh) were Sindhis, whether Muslim or Hindu. At the time of Pakistan’s creation, 75 percent were Hindus (Pithawalla, 1951:7). In that Sindhi was the medium of communication for daily life and the official language of the provinces it was common to Muslims and Hindus alike. The eighteenth century mystical and non-sectarian poetry of Shah Latif of Bhit had in fact made it a sacred language for both religions. With Latif’s verses containing messages of patriotism, equality of man and universal brotherhood, pre-Pakistan Sindh was thus culturally and ethnically a homogeneous province of India.” (Mehtab Ali, 1997:46). Sindh was a free home-land of the Sindhi people also when it lost its independence to the British arms in 1843.
Yes, indeed, >Man is condemned to be free.” So also are the nations destined and privileged to be free. But man can defend freedom and enjoy freedom only to the extent of recognition and acceptance of state of equality of man in society. And nations can own freedom and defend it to the extent of recognition of equality of nations in the world around. Inspite of everything, the hard fact is that Sindh and Sindhi people in Pakistan have yet to abide their day for freedom. It is time Pakistan is turned from being a prison-house of nations into a free haven of sisterly equal nations—sovereign and autonomous—as it was promised and projected to be. To that end all patriots of Sindh—men, women and children—would only be doing their duty if they pledge their all to the last breath of their live.

Hyderabad Sindh


Selected Bibliography
Jalal, Aysha (1985), “The sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan” Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Mehtab Ali Shah (1997), “The Foreign Policy of Pakistan: Ethnic Impacts on Diplomcay”, I.B. Tauris & Co.Ltd. London, New York.
David Milsted (1996), “Chronicle of the 20th Century in Quotations”, Guinness Publishing, 33 London Road, Enfield, Middlesex, EN 26 D.