With reference to Digvijay Singh’s statement on partition of India (January 28), HM Seervai, former Advocate-General of Maharashtra and believed to be India’s topmost authority on constitutional law, states in his famous book Partition of India – Legend and Reality that “It was a strange irony that Jinnah who was a staunch nationalist and Congress leader from 1906 to 1920, when he was applauded as the ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity by Sarojini Naidu and various Hindu leaders with his monumental Lucknow Pact of 1921 turns, by force of circumstances, into a communalist by the fag end of 1940, particularly due to unhelpful attitude of the 1937 provisional elections. Even then he stood for a united India. He wanted parity and not partition”.
It is unfortunate that in discussing the problem of partition, even after such a long gap we have not been able to clear many cobwebs. It is, indeed, found that much before Jinnah advocated partition of India, Lala Lajpat Rai had, in a series of 13 articles in The Tribune (Nov 26-Dec 17, 1924) pleaded for the division of Punjab and Bengal on communal lines.
Ruby Naushad
Bangalore, Karnataka