Preface to the second edition

Suhrawardy’s address at the Conference of 1931 shows that he was feeling the need for a permanent, living political organisation. .The last paragraph of’his address began with the words:

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”Now let us look to ourselves. Unfortunately, although the Mussalmans [in Bengal] outnumber the Hindus, we have no political organisation worth the name. Efforts have been made to establish some and all honour to those who have done so; but it is absolutely essential that we must have a political organisation which can run parallel to the Congress, far-flung, and which can look after the interests of the Mussalmans. We must have an organisation that acts, not merely one that sleeps ; an organisation with active-men, not merely one which depends for its existence •on circulars.” Suhrawardy got a chance to build such an organisation in 1936. At this time a United Muslim Party had been set up to fight the coming elections, of which, according to Ispahani, ” Suhrawardy was the driving force”. This Party merged in the Muslim League, and ultimately Suhrawardy became the Secretary’68 of the Bengal branch of the League. He kept this position for several years and worked fruitfully to give the Muslims of the province a living political organisation.
In his address before the Bengal Muslim Conference, 1932, Suhrawardy had, while emphasising that ”there are two cultural entities existing in India of which there does not seem to be any possible chance of fusion in the near future,” pleaded for HinduMuslim co-operation, but the antagonism which his efforts at the organisation of Bengal Muslims aroused-as also the tempers of some Hindu members of the Bengal Council-may be judged from the remarks made by J.K. Basu regarding Suhrawardy in a Council debate in 1932: ”Take the loathsome reptile away! Stamp upon it and crush its head!”169
Shaheed Suhrawardy’s first association with the provincial government was as Minister of Civil Supplies in Nazim-ud-Din’s cabinet which took office in April 1943. After this, his rise to political power was rapid. A brilliant speaker and a capable organiser, he had great influence with the Calcutta Muslims and as secretary of the Bengal Provincial Muslim League he was able to strengthen his position in the whole province. His way was smoothened by the good sense of Khwaja Nazim-ud-Din, who, instead of competing or intriguing for power in 1946, kept aloof, and in fact left Bengal ”for Delhi to be away from the scene,”170 Other prominent members of Suhrawardy’s cabinet, formed in
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1946, were Khan Bahadur Muhammad AH (of Bogra), and Fazlur Rahman, who were in charge of Finance and Land Revenue, respectively. The Speaker of the Bengal Assembly was Khan Bahadur Nur-ul-Amin, who later became Chief Minister of East Bengal (Pakistan). With the exception of Muhammad Ali of Bogra, these gentlemen left Suhrawardy’s camp in less than a year. Choudhry Khaliquzzaman writes, ”About the third week of March [1947], three Bengal leaders Nurul Amin, Hameed-ulHaq Chaudhri and Fazlur Rahman came to see me in Delhi and informed me that they had decided to move a motion of ’noconfidence’ against Shaheed Suhrawardy, for which they had already secured support of over seventy Muslim members of the Bengal Assembly. I was horrified at this news. . . . Later on Mr. Jinnah asked me to proceed to Bengal at once to settle the matter there.”171 Choudhry Khaliquzzaman, accordingly, left for Calcutta, held a meeting in the Chief Minister’s office, where all concerned were present, and informed the dissident members that owing to the imminence of major constitutional changes, ”the Central League could not agree to allow them to table a ’noconfidence motion’.” The move was dropped for the time being, but later these three leaders were to become important members of Khwaja Nazim-ud-Din’s party, and must have played an important role when Khwaja Sahib and not Suhrawardy was elected leader of the Muslim League Party of East Bengal in August 1947. Under the 3 June Plan which was accepted by the League and the Congress, provision was made for division of Bengal into Muslim and non-Muslim majority areas. Before long it became obvious that Calcutta was likely to go to India and Bengal Muslims would be left with the area which, at the Governors’ Conference convened by Mountbatten, Tyson, who represented the Governor of Bengal, called a ”rural slum”. At this time Suhrawardy, along with a few others, put forward a scheme for ”United Bengal”. It was opposed by the Hindu Mahasabha as well as Nehru and Patel, and was ultimately abandoned. Suhrawardy has, however, been severely criticised by M.A.H. Ispahani172 for sponsoring an idea ”which ran counter to the Muslim League’s notbn of Pakistan” and for falling into ”a clever trap laid by the wily Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha”. Ispahani has refused

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to accept Suhrawardy’s assertion ”that it was with the Quaid’s knowledge and permission that he conducted negotiations with Mr. Sarat Chandra Bose of Bengal” and says that to his knowledge ”this contention is not supported by anything on record anywhere”.173 Ispahani has dwelt on the subject at ’ength but there is no doubt that he did not have access even to the relevant printed material and his version is difficult to endorse. For one thing, the move for the United Bengal was, apparently, not a trap laid by the Hindu Mahasabha or the Congress. Dr Shyamaprasad Mukerjee, the Hindu Mahasabha leader, ”was stoutly opposed to the whole idea of a sovereign Bengal State.”174 In fact, according to Pyarelal, who was Gandhi’s Private Secretary, Shyamaprasad ”had demanded division of Bengal even in an undivided India”115 [italics in the original]. So far as the Congress was concerned, Gandhi was prepared to consider the proposal on certain conditions, but in the middle of 1947 the two persons who counted in the Congress were Pandit Nehru and Sardar Patel. ”Both of them,” according to Gandhi’s letter dated S June

1947, were ”dead against the proposal” ard were of the opinion that it was ”merely a trick for dividing Hindus and Scheduled Caste leaders.”176 Full data on the subject may be available in the Quaid’s papers, but, apparently, he was aware of the discussions and did not object to them. According to Pyarelal, ”Jinnah was prepared to entertain the idea of constituting a sovereign Bengal outside both India and Pakistan, if this would give him in return the whole of the Punjab but not if the Punjab was to be partitioned anyway, as envisaged under Mountbatten’s draft plan, and certainly not if this entitled conceding sovereignty to the Frontier Province.”177 Suhrawardy’s contention about the Quaid being in the picture finds further support from a letter addressed to the Quaid by Sarat Bose in continuation of their earlier conversation on the subject, which appears in The Indian Annual Register, 1947 (Vol. I, p. 112).

Besides, according to the contemporary data which is available in Pyarelal’s book, it appears that a large number of important Muslim leaders of Bengal were associated with Suhrawardy in an exploration of the proposal. His most active collaborator in this move was Abul Hashem, Secretary of Bengal Provincial
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tyfuslim League, and now Director of Islamic Academy, Dacca, but many others were also in the picture. On 11 May, Suhrawardy, accompanied by his Minister for Finance, Muhammad Ali Bogra (later Prime Minister of Pakistan), and Abul Hashem discussed the question with Gandhi.178 On 13 May, Dr Shyamaprasad saw Gandhi and opposed the move. Discussions of Muslim leaders with Sarat Chandra Bose, however, continued. On 23 May Bose reported to Gandhi, ”Last Tuesday evening [20 May] there was a conference at my house which was attended by Suhrawardy, Fazlur Rahman (Minister) [later Education Minister, Pakistan], Muhammad Ali [of Bogra] (Minister), Abul Hashem (Secretary, Bengal Provincial Muslim League, now on leave), Abdul Malek (Member, Bengal Legislative Assembly representing labour) [later Labour Minister in Pakistan]” and some Hindu leaders, when a tentative agreement was drafted.179 This draft agreement or what he calls the ”amended clauses of the draft agreement between Sarat Chander Bose and members of the Muslim League” has been published by Pyarelal. The important provisions are :
(1) Bengal will be a Free State. The Free State of Bengal will decide its relations with the rest of India. The question of joining any Union will be decided by the Legislature of the Free State of Bengal by a two-third majority.
(2) The constitution of the Free State of Bengal will provide for election to the Bengal Legislature on the basis of joint electorate and adult franchise with reservation of seats proportionate to the population amongst Hindus and Muslims. . . .18°
It was left to ”Shaheed and Fazlur Rahman to discuss the terms with Jinnah and his Working Committee.”181
Khwaja Nazim-ud-Din was no longer in Bengal government and his name is not included among those mentioned by Sarat Chandra Bose in his letter to Gandhi, but it appears that, at least till 22 April 1947, he favoured ”an independent sovereign Bengal”. A recent publication, quoting from Indian Annual Register, Part I, 1947, says:
On April 22, 1947, Sir Na/imuddin said, ”It is my considered opinion that an independent sovereign Bengal is in the best interest of its people, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, and I am equally certain that the partition of Bengal is fatal to the Bengalis *s such.1”

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As has been stated earlier, all the relevant data-e.g. what is contained in the Quaid’s papers-is not yet available, and any account of events can, at this stage, be only tentative. If in these circumstances, the present writer may venture a suggestion, it would be for a fuller exploration of the role of the Governor and European commercial community of Calcutta with regard to the proposal for an undivided Bengal. At this time, Lt.-General Sir Francis Tuker was G.O.C. Eastern Command and was stationed at Calcutta. Writing about the proposed division of Bengal and the Punjab, he says: ”In Bengal we hoped that an arrangement could be reached whereby both Muslims and Hindus would be able to use freely the port of Calcutta.”183 In this sentence he is obviously referring to the efforts which were made to make the port of Calcutta available to East Bengal and to which Hugh Tinker has also referred in his book Experiment with Freedom. Tinker, giving examples of the way iu which Sardar Patel was taking major decisions without reference to his colleagues, says :
As one example : it was virtually certain that Calcutta would fall in Hindustan, but most of the hinterland would go to Pakistan. It was suggested that if Pakistan had access to Calcutta’s facilities, concessions might be extracted in exchange, which would lessen the barriers of partition. An emissary was sent to Patel, to propose that Calcutta should be placed under joint control for six months. With notable economy of words, the Sardar dismissed the project: ”Not even for six hours.”184
Tinker has not given the name of the ”emissary” who was sent to Patel and it is not clear from the passive construction of his crucial sentence-”It was suggested”-as to who exactly made the suggestion. General Tuker uses the expression ”We,” while expressing the hope about the Calcutta port being available to East Bengal. Taking the two references-especially Tuker’s ”We”-together it does not appear unreasonable to infer that these inquiries and suggestions were, most probably, made by the leaders of the European (commercial) community, which was not only important in business but also held a key position in the Bengal legislature, having received a heavy weightage. Even if the inquiries and suggestions were not directly made by the European representatives or officers, at least the suggestion may well have been made (to the Indian politicians) from that quarter. It is
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known that the powerful European commercial community of Calcutta was vitally interested in keeping Bengal undivided. Their major interest was JUTE, which was grown in East Bengal but was processed in and shipped from West Bengal. It seems, therefore, fair to infer that the proposal for an undivided Bengal may well have been suggested by the European representatives with the blessings of the Governor. It is relevant to note that General Tuker explicitly writes about the proposal for an undivided Bengal: ”The Governor of Bengal also smiled upon the project.”185 This official support would also explain why all prominent Muslim leaders, including Sir Nazim-ud-Din, at one stage at least, favoured the project of undivided Bengal.
The discussions regarding undivided Bengal did not lead anywhere. Suhrawardy and the local Muslim League leaders did not agree to a ”stipulation”186 made by Gandhi. Assam also ”took fright”187 and the Assam Provincial Congress Committee strongly objected to the proposal. The move was formally disowned by the Bengal Provincial Muslim League and the Congress on 28 May, and was killed by the 3 June Plan, but apparently Sarat Bose was still hoping to get the Quaid’s blessing and wrote to him on 9 June adding that the request he was making was ”in accordance with the views expressed by you [Quaid] when we met.”1^
As stated earlier, information on the negotiations regarding United Bengal is not yet complete, but from the above it seems fair to infer that there is enough ”on record” to show that not only was the Quaid-i-Azam in the picture about the negotiations, but that many other leaders,- like Fazlur Rahman (later Education Minister, Government of Pakistan) actively participated in them. In fact, Maulana Raghib Ahsan has stated in a pamphlet that ”Mr. Fazlur Rahman was the first to sign the Statement in support of the Draft Agreement of Undivided Bengal Scheme” and that ”21 members of the Working Committee of the Bengal League out of 27 had supported the Plan”.18?
Ispahani has added much to our knowledge regarding the Pre-Partition situation in Bengal, but his account of another ePisode concerning Suhrawardy needs to be supplemented. He had, at least, one serious grievance against Suhrawardy (we shall
til

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deal with it later), but he says that notwithstanding this he tried to help him after the Partition. He states that in August 1947 at a dinner given by Sir Ghulam Husain Hidayatullah at Karachi, Suhrawardy took Ispahani aside and complained that after all his ”years of service to the Muslims he was now out of ever>- thing and had to look for some sort of employment to keep himself active.”190 A day or two later Ispahani spoke to the Quaid, who, after thinking for a while, offered to send Suhrawardy out as his ”Personal Representative to the Muslim and Middle Eastern countries to explain Pakistan”. Ispahani suggested that Suhrawardy’s services ”should be utilised in the country” and thought that with Khwaja Nazim-ud-Din’s consent it should be possible to include him as one of Bengal’s representatives in the Central Cabinet. The Quaid’s reply-according to Ispahaniwas ”that it would not be possible right away but that after the dust of controversy and rivalry had settled down, which would take at least six months, he would be able to include Suhrawardy in his Cabinet”. When Ispahani conveyed this to Suhrawardy in Calcutta in the third week of August, the latter insisted that ”unless he was appointed Minister first, he would not leave the country on any mission”. Ispahani ”beseeched him not to be petty, to rise above self in the wider interest of the new nation’’ and to ”accept without condition the Quaid’s offer”. Suhrawardy ”point-blank refused” and added, ”I have decided not to forsake my brother Muslims in Calcutta and to share their fate whatever it may be.”191 Ispahani suggested that Suhrawardy should take ”one or two days to think over the matter” but his reply was categorical: ”I have made up my mind,” and he refused to consider Ispahani’s suggestion and warning. When the matter was conveyed to the Quaid sometime later, he shook his head and said, ”That is finished. I am not prepared to accept terms and conditions from Suhrawardy.”
There is no reason to doubt Ispahani’s account of his conversations with Suhrawardy and the Quaid, but it is relevant to point out that not six months later but almost within a month, an important place in the Central cabinet was offered to Suhrawardy. Chaudhri Muhammad Ali sa\s in his Emergence of Pakistan, ”In September 1947, as the refugee problem grew to immense pro-
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portions the Ministry of Refugees and Rehabilitation was formed. H.S. Suhrawardy, former Chief Minister of Bengal, was offered the portfolio but he declined it.””>2 As Chaudhri Mohammad Ali was Secretary-General to the Government of Pakistan at that time, his statement on the subject may be taken’-as authoritative. The fact is of some importance, as it is hardly likely that the Quaid would have offered Suhrawardy a seat in the Central Cabinet, if three months earlier he had been carrying on negotiations regarding united, sovereign Bengal without the Quaid’s knowledge and acquiscence.
Hassan Ispahani felt, at least, one serious grievance against the former Chief Minister of Bengal-relating to mayoralty of Calcutta, for the year commencing 1 April 1946. He was a former Deputy Mayor and, according to his own account, had been nominated by the Muslim League Party in Calcutta Corporation, for mayoralty. After Ispahani had left Calcutta for Delhi to attend some important meeting of the Working Committee of AllIndia Muslim League, he complains that Suhrawardy called a meeting of the (Muslim) Councillors of the Corporation and had the earlier decision reversed, in the words of Ispahani, ”in favour of an unknown schoolmaster of Zakariya Street, called [sic] Mohammad Osman, a Bihari by origin.”193 Ispahani was ”distressed” but he says that he accepted the new decision engineered by Suhrawardy ”for reasons of his own leadership” without ”argument or rancour”. Next year Suhrawardy suffered a similar fate. After his eventful tenure as Chief Minister of Bengal he was passed over in favour of Khwaja Nazim-ud-Din for the leadership of Muslim League Party in the Muslim majority area of Bengal. Originally Khwaja Nazim-ud-Din had headed the Cabinet of which Suhrawardy was a member and had later occupied an important position as deputy leader of the Muslim League Party in the Central Legislature. Prima facie there was nothing so surprising in his return to leadership, especially in East Bengal with which he and his family had much closer contacts than Suhrawardy. This change of leadership has, however, been a case of misunderstanding in East Pakistan and the subject needs a somewhat adequate treatment. A.S.M. Abdur Rab in his biography of Fazl-ul-Haq says about Khwaja Nazim-ud-Din: ”When

20

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the election of a new leader of the League Parliamentary Party was necessary due to partition, he put forward his candidature and was actively backed by League High Command. Mighty Suhrawardy who laid the foundation of Pakistan by his overwhelming victory/in the polls of 1946 was defeated.”194 He has made some serious allegations against the new governments of East Bengal and Pakistan, including their alleged failure to press for retention of Calcutta in Pakistan. He has even attributed partisan motives for this alleged failure. He says, ”Why did the new Government of Pakistan and East Bengal give up claims to one of the greatest cities of the world? The mystery is not far to seek. If Calcutta would have been divided and a part assigned to Pakistan, the demand to set up the capital of Pakistan there would probably have been raised. The Muslims of Bengal would have had the upper hand in the affairs of Pakistan.”195 Abdur Rab’s insinuations have no basis in fact. All the details of the relevant negotiations are not available but there are ample indications to show that the case for Calcutta was pressed as strongly as possible. This was done from the very beginning. Hugh Tinker, who has had access to some unpublished material, says that while giving his exposition of Pakistan demand to the Cabinet Mission, Jinnah pointed out that there could be ”some territorial adjustments” in case of Muslim provinces, but ”not over Calcutta, as necessary to Pakistan as the heart is to a man” [italics ours].196 Abdur Rab thinks that the future of Calcutta depended upon the arguments before the Boundary Commission. There is no reason to believe that the case for the city which the Quaid considered ”as necessary to Pakistan as the heart is to a man” was not fully pressed before the Commission, but the position was that Mountbatten had already entered into ”a secret agreement” with the Congress regarding the assignment of Calcutta to India. This was revealed by Patel in a speech made by him in Calcutta on

15 January 1950, when he said, ”We made a condition that we could only agree to partition if we did not lose Calcutta.”197 This finds support in the statement of Lord Ismay who specifies in his Memoirs that under the original proposals, which he took to London on 2 May,198 India was to get ”Western Bengal (which -was to include Calcutta).”199

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Abdur Rab refers to the possibility of Calcutta being divided and shared by India and Pakistan. When it appeared ”virtually certain” that Calcutta would go to India, an attempt to secure some sort of joint control was made. ”It was suggested that if Pakistan had access to Calcutta’s facilities, concessions might be extracted in exchange, which would lessen the barriers of partition.” An emissary was sent to Patel to propose the arrangements for six months. His reply was, ”Not even for six hours.”2oo Considering that he already had a commitment in his favour, this answer was not suprising !
From the information revealed by Patel and Ismay, it is clear that the future of Calcutta had been decided-unfairly and behind the back of the League leaders-even before the appointment of the Boundary Commission and the insinuations made by Abdur Rab are completely baseless. With regard to replacement of Suhrawardy by Nazim-ud-Din also, his remarks are unwarranted. The latter’s candidature was not ”actively backed by the League High Command”. The Quaid-i-Azam let the League members of East Bengal ”exercise their democratic right to electing their leader”. In fact, he issued a public statement on 28 July 1947 ’disowning anybody who may be using his name in support of an individual for election as leader of Assembly Party in Bengal or the Punjab201 (a similar statement was issued regarding Sind202 three days later). In Bengal Khwaja Nazim-ud-Din was elected as he had distinct advantages in the new situation. ”Calcutta, which had been Suhrawardy’s stronghold, had gone to India. Khwaja Nazimuddin came from Dacca and had a greater following among the members of the provincial assembly in East Bengal.” There were some other factors also. For one thing the support of Maulana Akram Khan (and other religious-minded members) greatly contributed to Khwaja Nazim-ud-Dm’s success. Another important factor was the fact that the efficient and all-powerful Ispahani family made all its resources available for defeating Suhrawardy. The accession of seventeen votes from Sylhet also helped Nazim-ud-Din. To these factors may be added Suhrawardy’s own handicaps. He was a singularly brilliant individual able and courageous, and had rendered signal services to the cause of Pakistan, but he had some damaging ”blind spots”. Amongst other

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things, he could be exceedingly tactless and treated even the members of his cabinet with scant courtesy. We have already quoted Choudhry Khaliquzzaman to show how during March

1947, Suhrawardy’s colleagues like Fazlur Rahman and Hamidul-Haq Chaudhry, wanted to break away from Suhrawardy. The Quaid-i-Azam averted this crisis by sending Khaliquzzaman to effect a patch-up at Calcutta, but even then the dissenters claimed the ”support of over 70 Muslim members”. When the East Bengal Assembly Party came into existence, the position of this group became decisive and they carried out their plans without any difficulty.