Pakistan is coming. Our Muslim friends would like us to greet him in the Islamic style. There comes he, let us humour him lest he should pick up a row with an infidel. On hearing the Sikh demand his face registers a look not of surprise but that of veiled dismay. If we propose to talk to him he would like us to talk direct to his Qaid-i-Azam, Mr. Jinnah, his political spokesman. The leader is requested to be bold enough to face the implications of his own logic. Mr. Jinnah claims that the Muslims are a separate nation conceded that they are in a minority in India, a fact that government organized on democratic lines means government by majority accepted precept; that majority rule means Hindu rule a logical conclusion ; that the only practicable mode of ensuring democracy to the Muslims is to form an independent separate state for them a disputed proposition, We shall not waste Mr. Jinnah’s time nor our own space in raising such objections as nebulosity, economic bankruptcy etc. for many have talked eloquently and written elegantly about these. Nor shall we go into details of putting the principle into practice. These are primarily the concern of the Muslim and not of the objectors. The argument of a strong center whether raised by sentimental Akhandbharti or a theoretical economist does not carry conviction with him. Naturally he cannot be expected to have any tenderness for strengthening the centre whose strength, he hnows, spells his own weakness. But would not you, Sir, be satisfied if your misgivings are set at naught by a proper and thoughtful arrangement of distribution of functions with related powers, between the federal centre and its federating units on lines somewhat similar to those followed in Switzerland or in the U.S. A.? Now, comes the answer ringing more with obduracy than logic.

But what about the Sikhs, please ? Humph! they are asub-nation group. How can they claim the status of a nation? Such a demand on their part is not in keeping with their political status. They can have the assurance from the leader of 90 million Muslims that Muslim India will treat them fairly ; they will be given weightage and representation in legislature and services more than their strength warrants. Their rights will be safeguarded by being incorporated in the constitution itself. And why should not they trust a man who, by George, means what he says. Mark, how Mr. Jinnah repudiates his own logic and speaks a different tongue. We put him a straight question. Are not the Sikhs poles apart from Hindus? Have not they a common past, a distinctly different culture of their own? Do not communities of past culture and religion -cement them into one nation and separate them for other peoples? These questions set him thinking. An honest man, as he is, he makes amends and revises his opinion, In an interview with the representative of the Associated Press of India, held at Lahore on March 21,1946 he said, “ Today? I met the President and the Secretary of the All India Sikh Students’ Federation and had a discussion with them. I made it clear to them that the Sikhs as a nation are entitled to a state of their own. 1am not opposed to it as such: provided they show me where it can be created. I assure the Sikhs that I am ready and willing to do everything I can to bring about a settlement between

  1. The Tribune dated March 22, 1946.

the Sikhs and the Muslims.” Mr. Jinnah may be taken on his words. He may be unbending,. he is certainly not crooked, Yes, where it could be created ?

Sikhs are not ethereal beings. If they ask for a homeland they shall Require a piece of terra-firma. No political architect need be called upon to do surveying in search for a site. It cannot but be Punjab. Mr. Jinnah committed an outrage on the Sikhs when he proclaimed in 1940 that the Land of the Five Rivers was a homeland not of the Sikhs but of the Muslims. The claim is based on poor history. It is an imperialist doctrine to claim a territory on the ground of its occupation by superior numbers. That way lies might not logic, strife not peace. The Muslims, whatever their number, can only be called tenants, occupants; the country belongs to the nation who built it with her very flesh and blood. But how and why? Of this we shall talk in greater details after we have had a meeting with a Hindu gentleman and answered, not his objection, for he has none, but tendered him a piece of advice. In the meantime we shall leave Mr.. Jinnah to stay in his study with a copy of The Punjab—the Homeland of the Sikhs, by Sardar Harnam Singh, Advocate to be acquainted with numerous economic, social, cultural, religious and historical ties that bind the Sikhs to the Punjab as distinguished from the only economic bond that subsists between the Punjab and the Muslim tenants. One remark before we leave the Qaid-i-Azam. His insistence on the Sikhs trusting the Muslims does not square well with his pertinent refusal to trust the Hindus. We precisely long to live together with the Muslims in the same degree as the Muslims long to live with the Hindus. We could think of and long for living together with the Muslims, if by some miracle we could be made utterly oblivious of our past. On our past, rests our present and on it we hope to found our future too. And for what certainly not to acquiesce to Muslim occupancy of the Punjab maturing into ownership.

SANITY VERSUS SENTIMENT

Let us attempt to pierce the bubble of sentiment that our Hindu friends have built round unification of India.

We propose to counsel the Hindu, the member of the other nation being enough to give the country its geographical label. A free counsel is hardly appreciated. But that is exactly what he very badly needs. Objection he has hardly any. It will be difficult to find atypical Hindu. Brahmin would not permit any one to be an enemy of the Hindu nation. Incidentally 1c may be remarked that in all the seven provinces where the Congress was in power in 1937, Cabinet Chiefs were without exception Brahmins, Dr. B, R. Ambedker has been wasting his time and talent if he did not understand this simple proposition about owner- ship. The pride of creating untouchability belongs to the Brahmin. He is the master of what he creates.) The Hindus have been in possession of the untouchables since ages. Possession as the Doctor knows is ten points of law. How can the Hindu be made to dis- claim even those whom he has treated as the social refuse of his own community.

But we were in search of atypical Hindu perhaps in vain. For one thing he is sure to have donned a Gandhicap, Anyway we shall accept a Brahmin with a Gandhi cap on, But then he will feel spiritually defiled by the contact with a person whose ancestry might be tainted with some shudra blood. He must not