^

f •

cv*

cQ

* * > <?

L O

CO

P U N J VB T H E H O M E L A N D

OF T H E S I K H S

together with

THE SIKH MEMORANDUM

to

THE SAPRU CONCILIATION COMMITTEE

by

HARNAM SINGH

1945

Price Rs. 2/

\

>

\

I

/

I I

1

FOREWORD The reader will find in the pages of this book a compre­

hensive account of the case of the Sikh community in refer­ence to the political problems that confront India to-day. The besetting complexities of the situation are recognised on all hands. What strikes the Sikhs as most unfortunate is that in almost every attempt at a solution—official or non-official—so far made, their case has not been given the weight it undoubtedly deserves. This book is an attempt to put the Sikh case as clearly as possible in a helpful spirit.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part of the book gives a documented narrative

of the position, rights and claims of the Sikh community in the Punjab—the province of their birth and history. An account of the adjoining States, relevant to such interests, is also included. The author has examined the population figures in the light of the Census Reports and has arrived at intriguing conclusions. His views should provoke a more scientific study of the reality of Muslim claims on the Punjab on the basis of their population strength.

The second part is the text of the Sikh Memorandum submitted to the Sapru Conciliation Committee. It is signed by Sikhs belonging to every school of thought in public, (social and religious life. Never before, it can be freely stated, has there been such unanimity of opinion amongst Sikhs. The Memorandum is signed, as will be seen, by 18 Members' of the Provincial Legislature, by Leaders of Shromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, Shromani Akali Dal, Central Sikh League and Chief Khalsa Diwan.

It will not be out of place to add that it is not numbers alone that shall decide the destiny of the "Homeland of the Sikhs". The Sikhs will, under no circumstances, consent to live in a theocratic Muslim state, whether it is "Pakistan'' or is styled by any other name. They stand, as their his­tory too clearly shows, for a freejmd united India where their rights and privileges are fully secured. "~~

BALDEV SINGH. 1 Bromhead Road,

LAHORE. 15th March, 1945.

J

\

X

!

i

\

\

PREFACE

As a member of the Sapru Conciliation Committee I prepared the Notes that appear in the ensuing pages of this book under the title: "Punjab, The Homeland of the Sikhs," for the exclusive use of the Committee. On the 27th day of February, 1945,1 made over the Notes to Mr. K. Santhanam, Joint Secretary of the Committee, for circulation amongst the Members of the Committee.

«

Mr. K. Santhanam has, however, written me in his letter dated the 6th March, 1945, that, for want of facilities, it would not be possible for him to get them printed before the Committee assembles on the 29th March, 1945, and has asked me to publish the Notes as my own pamphlet and send 50 copies of the pamphlet to him for the use of the Committee.

The Notes, from their very nature, are fragmentary in character and I have not found time to rewrite them for publication in the form of a book.

•

The Sikh Memorandum to the Sapru Conciliation Com­mittee has been included in the book to provide to the reader a comprehensive account of the case of the Sikh community in reference to the political problems that con­front India to-day. The author is not responsible for the proposals contained in the Memorandum and has deliberate­ly refrained from expressing his views about the wisdom or expediency of the proposals.

For a proper appreciation of the Sikh Memorandum, the Conciliat Committee Questionnaire is printed as Appendix "A" to this book

16th March, 1945 6 Lower Mall, LAHORE.

HARNAM SINGH.

I

•

v 1

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

?>

> >

??

1)

> >

> '

> >

>?

J?

?>

"

Part II

III.

IV.

V.

VII

VIII.

IX.

XI.

XII.

Appendix "A"

PART I

Page

Punjab : Geographical Pqsition, Area and Population

i

II. The Punjab and The Princes

Language of the People

The Punjab Peasant

The Sikhs and the Indian Army

• •

VI. The Punjab : Education, Industry and Commerce

X. Pakistan Resolution and After

The Two-Nation Theory

Punjab, the Homeland of Sikhs

• >

• •

1

4

8

10

17

22

Punjab, The Holy Land of the Sikhs 25

The All-India Muslim League Demand 34

Census Operations and the Muslims 37

46

5*

57

63

85

/

\

*

•

f •

PART CHAPTER I

9

PUNJAB GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION, AREA AND POPULATION.

In its strict etymological sense the Punjab, or the " land of the five rivers," is the country enclosed and watered by the Jhelum, the Chenab, the Eavi, the Be as and^the Sutlej ; but the province, -as now constituted, includes also the tableland of Sirhind between the Sutlej and the Jamna to the south of the former river, the .Sindh Sagar Doab or the wedge of country .between the Jhelum and the Indus, and west of the latter river the two tracts which form Dera Ghazi Khan and Isakhel Tahsil of Mianwali District. The province, with its states, has an area of 138,105 square miles, being larger by one-tenth than the British Isles. Of the total area, 39,016 square miles belong to the States and the rest is British territory. The population in 1941 was 28,418,819 in the British Punjab and 5,891,042 in. the Punjab States.

The Isakhel Tehsil of Mianwali District, Dera Ghazi Khan District and the Baloch Trans-Frontier Tract are overwhelmingly Muslim. This area lies across the Indus Biver and is more pro­perly a part of the North-West Frontier Province. Again Bahawal-pur State has a population of 1,341,209 of whom 1,098,814 ;are Muslims. On the North-West the Sutlej separates the Bahawal­pur State from Montgomery and Multan Districts and, after its junction with the Chenab, from Muzaffargarh District. The Indus then divides this State from the District of Dera Ghazi Khan. 'On the south-east the Bahawalpur State is bordered by the Kajputana States of Jaisalmer and Bikaner. The language of the people is Bahawalpuri which is akin to Sindhi spoken in the Pro­vince of Sind. The flora and fauna of the State is the flora and fauna of the Province of Sind.

Excluding the population of Bahawalpur State and that of the Trans-Indus area of the Punjab, the Muslims form about 51 per cent, of the population according to the Census figures of 1941.

2

From the boundary of Delhi to the banks of the Kavi river the population is divided as follows

Muslims . . 5,481,288 Sikhs and other non-Muslims 8,915,537

From the Delhi boundary to the banks of the Jhelum river, excluding the Multan and Jhang districts, the population is divided as under :

Muslims Sikhs and other non-Muslims

10,295,944 12,594,230

The Punjab proper extended to the banks of the Jhelum. excluding Jhang and Multan Districts and the Trans-Jhelum area was added by the conquest of Maharaja Eanjit Singh and retained by the British for administrative convenience.

The Muslim population of the Punjab at the 1931 Census was 14,929,896. Of this population 4,695,957 was divided as under :

sweepers

Beggars Weavers Herdsmen Cobblers Potters Mussallis or converted Carpenters Oilmen Bards Barbers Blacksmiths Washermen Butchers Mirasi

All these tribes depend very largely non-Muslim population of the province.

256,533 612,579 421,347

; 464,218 423,617 412,300 346,948 344,927 244,330 296,104 241,972 162,224 127,198 241,660

for their livelihood on the

* Census of India 1931 : Punjab.

3

" The importance of the Punjab in the history and economics-of the great sub-continent of India is out of all proportion to its-population, its productive capacity or even its size. Through it lies the only practicable highway between the nomad-breeding grounds of Central Asia and the rich and fertile valley of the Ganges with the result that, like Palestine and Belgium, it has been the1

arena of conflict between political systems far greater than itself. Occupying the angle where the Himalayas—which shut in the Indian Peninsula to the north—meet the Suleiman Kange which bounds it on the west—and lying between Hindustan and the passes by which alone access is possible from the great plain of Central Asia, the Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province guard the gateway of that Empire of which they w re the last portion to be won. The inland position of the Province, com­bined with the sandy nature of the soil, gives rise to great extremes of temperature. . . Such a climate breeds a hardy martial race, and the war found the Punjab peasant equally capable of enduring a winter in the muds of Flanders, or a summer amidst the sands of Mesopotamia "

* T he Punjab of Today, by Trevaskis, Vol. I, Page 1.

CHAPTER II

THE PUNJAB AND THE PRINCES *

The three States of Patiala, Jind and Nabha in the Punjab ;are collectively known as the " Phulkian States." They are the most important of the Cis-Sutlej States, having an area of 8,160 square miles and a total population of 2,638,115.

m

The State of Patiala is the largest in area, wealth and popu­lation of the three Phulkian States, and the most populous of all the States in the Province, though second in area to Bahawalpur in the Punjab. It lies mainly in the eastern plains of the Punjab which form part of the great natural division called the Indo-'Gangetic Plain (west) but its territories are somewhat scattered •as, owing to historical causes, it comprises a portion of the Simla Hills and the Narnaul Ilaqa in the extreme south-west on the borders of Jaipur and Alwar States in Rajputana.

The State maintains three Colleges—Mohindra College, Patiala ; Rajindra College, Bhatinda and Victoria Girls' College, Patiala. 'The object of these Colleges is to afford facilities for higher edu­cation to the students of the Patiala State and also to those in the neighbouring districts in the Punjab. The State has an area of 5,942 square miles and a population of 1,936,259.

Jind State has an area of 1,299 square miles and a total popu­lation of 361,812. The State maintains the Ranbir College, Sangrur.

The Nabha State has an population of 340,044.

of 947 square miles and a total

The main area of the Phulkian States is bounded on the north by the district of Ludhiana the east by Ambala and Karnal

the south by Rohtak and Hissar ; and on the west by Ferozep and the State of Faridkot This the ancestral possession I

of the Phulkian Houses. Besides its share in the ancestral possessions of the Phulkian Houses, Patiala holds a considerable .area in the Simla Hills acquired in 1815. In addition to these

4

5 ' v

possessions, these three States hold a fairly compact block of outlying territory in the south-east of the Punjab. This area is. bounded on the north by Hissar; on the east by Rohtak and Gurgaon and on the south and west by Rajputana.

The ruling families of Patiala, Jind and Nabha are descended from Phul from whom are also descended the great feudal but not ruling families of Bhadaur and Malaud, and many others of less importance. Collaterally again, the descendants' of Phul are connected with the rulers of Faridkot State. The history of the origin of the Phulkian States is recorded in The Sikh Religion by Macauliffe, Volume IV, pages 293 to 295 : " Phul was contemporary of Guru Har Rai, the Seventh Sikh Guru. During the stay of Guru Har Rai at Nathana, Kala and his two nephews, Sandali and Phul, sons of Rup Chand, went to visit the Guru. Phul was borne on Kala's shoulders and Sandali held Kala's finger as he walked. When the children arrived in the Guru's presence, Phul put his hand on his belly. The Guru asked why he did so, and Kala told him that Phul could not speak himself and the only way he had of describing the pangs of hunger which he felt was to slap his belly. The Guru took compassion on him and said: " He shall become great, famous and wealthy. The steeds of his descendants shall drink water as far as the Jumna ; they shall have sovereignty for many generations and be honoured in proportion as they serve the Guru." Phul had six sons. The Maharajas of Jind and Nabha are descended from Tilok Singh, the eldest son of Phul, and the Maharaja of Patiala is descended from Ram Singh, the second son of Phul.

The history of the Phulkian States is, therefore, inseparably bound up with the history of Sikh religion and the Sikh struggle-over the abdication of the late His Highness the Maharaj a of Nabha is an instance in point.

As stated above, the ruling family of Faridkot State is colla­terally connected with the ruling families of the Phulkian States. The State has an area of 637 square miles and a total population of 199,283. The State maintains the Brijendra College, Faridkot, for the educational advancement of the people of the State and the neighbouring districts of the British Punjab.

The State of Kapurthala has an area of 645 square miles and a total population of 378,380. The Randhir College, Kapurthala,

/

6

was established in 1907 and is affiliated to the Punjab University up to the B.A. Standard.

The State of Kalsia has an area of 188 square miles and a population of 67,393.

I t would thus appear that the population of Patiala, Jind, Nabha, Faridkot, Kapurthala and Kalsia aggregates to 3,292,794.

The ruling families of these six states profess the Sikh faith.

Sardar Jessa Singh was the founder of the ruling family of Kapurthala State. He had received his training under the famous leader Nawab Kapur Singh and, on the 29th March, 1748, he was placed in supreme command of ail the Sikh forces. He was the •Chief Commander of the Dal Khalsa at the time of any expedition or battle during the period of the evolution of the Sikh Confed­eracies.

The founder of the ruling family of Kalsia State was Sardar Gurbaksh Singh of the Karor Singhia Confederacy which took advantage of the general melee of 1764 in the scramble for territory in the Punjab.

The States in the Punj ab of which the ruling families are Muslims are Bahawalpur, Malerkotla, Dujana, Pataudi and Loharu. As mentioned in the first chapter of this work, Bahawalpur State is, strictly speaking, not a part of the Punjab. The State is separated from the Punjab by natural boundaries, namely, the Sutlej and the Indus, and only one side—a small strip of the territory of the State—adjoins the Fazilka Tehsil of the Ferozepore District. The areas of Dujana, Loharu and Pataudi States are as under :

Dujana . . 91 square miles. Pataudi . . 53 square miles.

• -

Loharu . . 226 square miles. The population of the three States is as under :

Dujana . . 30, 66 Pataudi . . 21,520 Loharu . . 27,892

The total population of Dujana, Pataudi and Loharu States aggregates to 80,078.

The ruler of Malerkotla State professes the Moslem faith. The area of the State is 165 square miles and population 88,109 of

7

whom 33,881 are Moslems. The other States in the Punjab are Hindu States. They have very little political importance and most of them are small Hill States in the Simla Valley. The spoken language in the Sikh States is Standard Punjabi. The spoken language in Bahawalpur is Bahawalpuri and the language of the people in Dujana, Pataudi and Loharu States is a variant of Hindustani. The Hindu States are mostly situate in the hill areas of the Punjab and the people in those States speak PaAan— a dialect

[of the Punjabi. The people of Malerkotla speak Standard Punjabi.

From the above discussion it follows that the Moslem State of Malerkotla and the Sikh States of Patiala, Jind, Nabha, Faridkot, Kapurthala and Kalsia form part of the Punjab and that the other States stand apart and are not a part of the Punjab Proper.

CHAPTER III

LANGUAGE OF THE PEOPLE

Punjabi is the dominant •g of the Punj ab It 18-

spoken with the

over the g part of the half of the province ptio of Ambala. Karnal, Hissar, Rohtak and

Gurgaon districts where the language used is some form of Hindu stani. The page 313 wi

Census Superintendents, 1921, in their port a t a It is now spoken by 15,215,120 persons or nearly

by 606 per mile of the population in the Punjab."

The two well-known dialects of Punjabi are Standard Punjabi and Pahari. The former is spoken in the plains of the Punjab and a portion of the neighbouring Simla Hill States. The latter is spoken chiefly in the Kangra District and in those parts of Sialkot>

Gurdaspur and Chamba, which adjoin the Jammu State.

Kangra district and

The purest form of Standard Punjabi, according to Sir G. A. Grierson, is Manjha or "Punjabi spoken by Jats of the Manjha>

the Sikh tract of the Central Punjab north of the Sutlej.

Rai Bahadur Pandit Hari Kishan Kaul, Superintendent of Census Operations, Punjab, 1911, in his report observes on page 366,. " The comparative strength of the three languages, namely, Punjabi, Urdu and Hindi, is 14,111,215 Punjabi; 494,290 Urdu and 1,778,876 Hindi. Thus eight out of every 10 inhabitants of the Punjab speak Punjabi as a vernacular while the other two-speak Urdu, Hindi and other languages. The Census Operations of 1931 were conducted under the supervision of Khan Ahmad Hassan Khan. He has pointed out at page 272 of his report: " There is no doubt in my mind that many persons returned Urdu or Hindi as their mother tongue in place of Punjabi and thus the figures of Hindustani have been unduly swollen at the expense of Punjabi. > >

8

* •

9

Punjabi is, therefore, the spoken language and the mother-tongue of the Sikhs, the Hindus and the Moslems in the Province and yet communalism has so completely warped the minds of the Hindus and the Moslems that they appear to disown Punjabi in favour of Hindi and Urdu respectively. The adminis­trative work of the Government is conducted in Urdu and written in the Persian script. Urdu has also been enforced as the medium of instruction, even at the primary stage, regardless of the evil consequences which it entails on the mental growth of the children whose mother-tongue is different and, unrelated to their medium of instruction. Again the Unionist Ministry has done everything in its power to thwart the teaching of Punjabi even carried on solely or primarily by private enterprise. Thus not only the Punjabi child must be taught even the rudiments, of the three B/s in an artificial language and alien script, but even the day-to-day administration of justice must be based upon records prepared exclusively or primarily in that language. In this way, the in­tellectual and cultural growth of the Province is being thwarted and stifled by a purblind, reactionary and bigoted caucus.

i

/

CHAPTER IV

THE PUNJAB PEASANT

III fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay. Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade A breath can make them, as a breath has made, But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroyed, can never be supplied.

GOLDSMITH : The Deserted Village.

The Punjab has been described, repeatedly, as the province of " peasant-proprietors." With reference to the conditions pre­vailing in the province, the persons connected with agriculture have been divided into rent-receivers and rent-payers. The rent-payers or the actual cultivators form the bulk of the agricultural population. The cultivating proprietors represent more than three-fifths of this group and have been treated as rent-payers in so far as they cultivate land and, as if it were, pay rent to themselves. The real tenants who cultivate for the proprietors or other tenants with a better status and farmers of land include less than two-fifths the strength of the group. The"" proportional strength of cultivating proprietors, also known as peasant-proprietors, is largest in the Himalayan Division where the small holdings do not admit of large farming and the proprietors can­not live without ploughing their own fields. In the North-West Dry Area the number of tenants is very much high and that of cultivating proprietors proportionately low. This is due partly to the abundance of large landowners in the districts of the Western Punj ab, like the Sardar of Kot Fateh Khan, the

of Pindigheb in Attock District, the Chief of Kalabagh, the Khans of Isa Khel in Mianwali, the Biloch Tumandars, in Dera Ghazi Khan, the Tiwanas of Shahpur and so on ; and partly to the capitalist grants in the canal colonies where, in consequence of the growing prosperity, even the yeomen and peasant-proprietors have

10

11

begun •gely to employ the whole or part of their holdings. The districts of the Eastern and Central Punjab, which are democratic in their tenures, show a high percentage of landowners cultivating their lands.

The statement given in Appendix a n 3? A to the Keport of the Punjab Land Kevenue Committee, 1938, shows that there are about 34 lakhs of revenue-payers. The following figures show the land revenue demand of the province for the three years ending 1936-37 :

Fixed land Fluctuating Assigned land Total land Year Revenue in land revenue revenue in revenue in

1934-35 . . 1935-36 . . 1936-37 . .

lakhs Es. 236 236 236

in lakhs Es. 197 227 218

lakhs Es. 35 36 36

lakhs Es. 468 499 491

The Committee, on further calculations, conclusion that the average incidence of

came land

to the revenue

per head in the Punjab was a little over Es. 14. But this includes large owners as well as small. If we differentiate between the two, we find that roughly 24 lakhs or about 71 per cent, pay Es. 10 or less and over 50 per cent, pay Es. 5 or less. Appendix "A" to the Eeport of the Committee is a statement showing the number of land-revenue-payers of different categories in the province. The figures are as under:

Total Number.

Amount of land revenue

'paid Es.

1 who pay

2

3

4

Land-revenue-payers Es. 5 or less

Land-revenue-payers who pay more than Es, 5 but not exceeding Es. 10

Land-revenue-payers who pay more than Es. 10 but not exceeding Es. 20

Land-revenue-payers who pay more than Es. 20 but not exceeding Es. 50

1,759,260 3,226,440

659,739 4,635,329

491,004 6,828,331

342,198 10,418,610

*

I Total Number

land revenue

5. Land-revenue-payers who pay more than Rs. 50 but not exceeding Rs. 100

6. Land-revenue-payers who pay more than Rs. 100 but not exceeding Rs. 250

7. Land-revenue-payers who pay more than Rs. 250 but not exceeding Rs. 500

•

8. Land-revenue-payers who pay more than Rs. 500 but not exceeding

paid Rs.

98,344 6,474,132

* 41,118 5,591,775

6,277 2,213,270

Rs. 1,000 • • 1,825 1,253,547

9. Land-revenue-payers who pay more than Rs. 1,000 but not exceeding Rs. 5,000

10. Land-revenue-payers who pay more than Rs. 5,000 but not exceeding

775 1,368,562

Rs. 10,000 V 23 151,406 11. Land-revenue-payers who pay land

revenue exceeding Rs. 10,000 13 228,639

Sir Edward Maclagan, late Governor of the Punjab, in the Foreword to The Punjab Peasant by Darling writes : " The Punjab peasant is one of the finest and noblest of his kind." On page 136 of this book the author writes : " No colony could have had better material, for Ludhiana, Jullundur and Amritsar represent the flower of Indian agriculture. They are the home of the J at Sikhsy who have been described as ' the most desirable of colonists.' I t would be difficult to say which of the three has produced the best type ; for industry and thrift the Ludhiana Sikh is hard to beat and the Sikh from Amritsar, though he may be spendthrift and violent, is unsurpassed as a cultivator. Grit, skill in farming and a fine physique are the characteristics common to all, and in his new e nvironment the J at Sikh has reached a point of development probably beyond anything else of the kind in India. In less than a generation he has made the wilderness blossom like the rose. It is as if the enerdy

13

of the virgin soil of the Bar had passed into his veins and made him almost a part of the forces of nature which he has conquered." The Sikh Jat has been described in the Imperial Gazetteer of India, Punjab, II, 1908, at page 36 : ". . . . in physique equal to any race in the Province, strong, tall and muscular, with well-shaped limbs, erect carriage and strongly-marked and handsome features. They are good cultivators and make fine soldiers." On page 20 of the same book we find : " The Sikh Jat is a better cultivator and a better fighter than the Hindu or the Mohammadan J at.

Mr. M. W. M. Yeatts, Census Commissioner of India, 1941, at page 11 of his report writes : " The Punjab irrigation is by no means ancient and, when applied, was applied not to a land with a substantial settled population and long local practice, but to a semi-desert. So, as it were, it started from a scratch. The Punjab phenomena show themselves this time in Bikaner where the Sikh has followed the water and produced a 40 per cent, increase. Similarly in Bahawalpur."

Professor Coupland on page 84 of The Future of India says : " The Sikhs form about 15 per cent, of the aggregate population of the province and the states and there is not a single district of the province in which the Sikhs are in a clear majority. But the traditional qualities of the typical Sikh, the sturdy, free-minded peasant-proprietor of the Central Punjab, where he owns most of the best land, his energy and toughness and courage and the great contribution he has long made and is still making to the strength and renown of the Indian army give to his community an im­portance in the Punjab out of all proportions to its numbers."

In 1940-41 the outturn of wheat in British India was 8,091,000 tons and out of this 3,390,000 tons was the outturn of wheat for the British Punjab. The outturn of cotton in 1940-41 for British India was 3,397,000 tons and out of this 1,215,000 tons was the outturn of cotton for the British Punjab. The fact that the Punjab is a surplus province producing more foodstuffs than are required for its own consumption is well known. But nobody has so far cared to understand who produces this surplus food for feeding other provinces. It is interesting to note that only those districts produce surplus foodstuffs where the Sikh farmers till the greater part of the soil. In Muslim-majority districts the quantity of foodstuffs produced is not sufficient for their local requirements and those areas of the Punjab are supplied foodstuffs by the Central districts of the Punjab.

\

H

The Ambala and Jullundur divisions of the Province are sub­stantially non-Muslim. The Central Division of Lahore is mixed. Lahore, Sialkot, Gujranwala and Sheikhupura districts have a Muslim majority in population. But in the two eastern districts of Amritsar and Gurdaspur Muslims are 46.5 per cent, and 50 per cent, of the population. The Eawalpindi and the Multan Divisions of the Punjab are predominantly Muslim in population. The soil of the Rawalpindi Division is barren and rocky and the colony area of Multan Division is partly becoming water-logged and in part is a sandy stretch.

As regards Gujranwala, Sheikhupura and Lahore Districts of the Lahore Division: The Lahore District has an area of 2,595 square miles and a total population of 1,695,375. The city of Lahore has a population of 671,650 according to the Census of 1941. The Muslim population according to the Census of 1941 in Lahore District is 60.6 per cent, of the total of the district, whereas the Sikhs form 18 per cent, of the population of the district. The land revenue of the district is Rs. 1,419,455 as estimated in 1931. The communities pay land revenue in Lahore District as under:

Rs. Sikhs . . 841,921 Muslims . . 483,448 Hindus . . 109,745 Others . . 3,341

The Sikhs, therefore, who form 18 per cent, of the population of the district pay about 60 per cent, of the land revenue of the district and Muslims who form 60.6 per cent, of the population of the district pay about 32 per cent, of the land revenue of the district.

Again the total population of Amritsar District according to the Census of 1941 is 1,413,876. Out of this population the rural population is 994,739. The total land revenue of the district according to the estimates prepared in 1931 is 1,577,131. The land revenue paid by the communities is as under:

Rs. Sikhs . . 1,194,574 Muslims . . 298,163 Hindus . . 82,308 Others . . 2,086

15

The population figures for the various communities in Amritsar District for 1941 are as under :

Muslims . . 460,241 46.37 per cent. Sikhs . . 445,552 44.69 per cent. Hindus . . 66,271 6.66 per cent. Others . . 22,675 2.28 per cent.

In the last District Board elections of the Amritsar District, the Electoral Register bore the names of 99,000 voters. The quali­fications for electors were uniform for all communities. An exami­nation of the register shows that the register bore the names of 56,000 Sikh voters, 33,000 Muslim voters and 10,000 Hindu voters. The figures speak for themselves.

The Muslims in Gurdaspur district pay Rs. 613,193 annually on account of land revenue out of a total of Rs. 1,777,562.

«

The various communities in Tehsil Gujranwala pay land revenue as under:

Rs. Sikhs . . 305,357 Muslims . . 275,659 Hindus . . 193,045 Others . . 2,103

The land revenue figures for Tehsil Sheikhupura are as under :

Rs. Sikhs . . 739,588 Muslims . . 483,241 Hindus . . 91,725 Others . . 13,229

The Muslims pay Rs. 753,077 on account of land revenue in Jaranwala and Lyallpur Tehsils of the Lyallpur District, whereas the Hindus and Sikhs pay Rs. 1,643,645 on account of annual land revenue in the two tehsils. Out of this amount of Rs. 1,643,645, the Hindus pay Rs. 174,151.

The superiority in numbers of the Muslim community is, therefore, more than counter-balanced by other facts. Given hereunder are the figures of annual land revenue paid by the various communities in the Punjab :

L

16

<Z

c

vi

c:

a cZ

3

I

I J O O W M h H C C C O O H C O ^ H i O W i C O O C O O O ^ h O i W C O O O O O

" ' CO r*< CO O l Q C O O ^ t ' ^ O M O ^ H h C O C O O C O l O H O C O C C M O

H H r - i H ^ H W (M CO H <N •s #\ r\ «N

VJ FH CD

^ 2 ^ ^ ™ ™

o

§ r C' CJ 3

1

1 Zf} *

i i

r±4 •i-H

iOOiO^OiCOTPOOCOHHO(NMO^(MI> M > H O ^ X » O M J ^ CO Oi W 00 a 1> W CO GO GO (M rn (N CC O O h h CC h O M O lO

f f t rv «s «s «N c \ #\ #\ r ^ r s # \ ^ ^ ^ ^ * \ # « \ * \ e . # \ # \ #

T*l <N r-H r H C : <N

j l 0 l 0 T ^ O r ^ O ^ t ^ 0 C ( N ^ O G 0 O C 0 t ^ O I > O C 0 ^ O C ^ l C 0 O O ( N I > f - H

• ' ^ H C O X H W l X i O Q L O O ^ O ^ H O H l C O J r f i l N i O H ^ H l O O O O ^ O i O ^ I C D O t - l O C i O O C O O O t - W O G O O ^ ^ G C ^ O C D M C O O b n H

C i Q O ^ O ^ H ^ ^ W Q O O J O X l O C K M H O ^ H W W O l O I X N H l C W C ^ C i O : 1C Q C C W r H r H T*i CO <N <M r H . CO ( N r H O r—i i—1

1 ' 1

O ^ O O N t * W l O C ( M 0 5 H T t H a c O C v | l O l C O i C ^ 0 5 ^ M i i | > 0 0 .QOH(MH'ffO(NHlC^CiOO(MI>OCOhC5G005lOCOCO^hCOHHTfW

i£c: ^ Ci QOOCOCCOCitCOOGOCOCNT|iCOOCC^^^CC(NOCO M I > C O ^ H r - C 0 O Q H T ! ' O C 0 ^ 1 0 ( M a C 0 0 : I C 0 ^ l > C C H H

H> C O ^ Q O C i O C N ^ O C S ^ r ^ r H l C l O W H I > r-< r H CO r-H C O C O O O ^ r H G O r H O C O C O O CM T f l C O l-H'

^ r^i ^ 0<\

OOOCOMCD^^CCOOOCOCO^COOWIOCOCOO^ T t l h O O O W ^ C O M H h W T t i C O O O O O O O O O C O J N O C C CM OS CO 00 XO

# \ • % # \ « \ c\ c\ #\ rs #\ #\ ^\

tf W2 t > O CO

C^ r H Th CO CO

O O ^ O O ^ r H r H O l - ^ C i C f t O l Q C D O T t C O O O O I > G C T t i O T h C O I > C M C O

H C S ^ ^ C O O C i H X ' O ^ Q l O H O O G O l C ^ C C ^ T t < C « } C O t ^ X O l O O W 0 1 > ^

I C ^ ' CO CC O ! > O GO Th CO GO

* ^ r s # \ C \ # v # \ e \ r * » \

^ 1 CO 00 r H CO M O O C CO C

< ^ ^ C l O T } I * •* # \ «S

CO

o H

m

fi

CO

2 o

>

o c3

rH 3

CJ rH

C3

c3 rH

c c3

rH

c

S H

2

C

2

rH

C H JT^ CD Cu ltd II CD CJ

rH

as

rH

H

02 c« C p -* rH r—I

3 C

ce

rH

as rH

rO, 3

rH

rH

PH

g

rH ^ o <3

H*

o . r - ^ w ^ j w > j « .LJ . iJ"i *Z. H CD C3 r H r H ^ w ^ J ^ H H <-j t>j + }

CO

c3

2 d-J

CD i*H GG

O q C O - r J H i O C O I > X C i O ( M f 0 ^ l O C C ' l > X O O H ( M O : ^ l C C O I > O O C i r ^ i ^ P H i ^ r H i - H p H p - H G < l C a C < l G < I G ' l ^ C s l C ^ G s l G ^

CHAPTER V

THE SIKHS AND THE INDIAN ARMY »

Hugh Kennedy Trevaskis, i.c.s., Late Inspector-General of Registration and Director of Land Records, Punjab, in his bookr

The Punjab of To-day, has described the Punjab with its hardy and martial rural population of peasant-proprietors as " the Shield," " the Spear-head " and the " Sword-hand " of India. Says C. H. Payne, late of the Bhopal State Service, in The History of the Sikhs r " The Sikh troops in the service of the Government constitute the flower of the Indian Army. Unhampered by caste prohibitions the Sikh soldier will go anywhere and do anything. Undeterred by privations and obedient to discipline, his courage is such that he never knows when he is beaten."-

Mr. Chowdhury, in ' his articles, " Martial Races of India," published in The Modem Review of July, 1930, September, 1930, January, 1931 and February, 1931, has given the relevant data community-wise in respect of the Indian Army. According to his investigation the composition of the Indian Army so far as the Punjabi Mussalmans and the Sikhs are concerned was as under at different stages :

Percentage Percentage Percentage Percentage in 1914 ml918 in 1919 in 1930

ikhs . . 19.2 17.4 15.4 13.58 Punjabi Mussalmans. 11.1 11.3 12.14 22.6

The relative strength of the Sikhs and the Punjabi Mussalmans-in the Indian Cavalry in 1930 was as under :

Punjabi Mussalmans . . 14.28 per cent. Sikhs * . . 23.81 per cent.

The author of The Punjab of To-day writes : " At the outbreak of the War in 1914 there were serving in the Army about 100,000' Punjabis of whom 87,000 were combatants. During the War

17

18

i

*

no less than 380,000 (of whom 231,000 were combatants) were enlisted, making a total of 480,000 who served. This total includes those recruited from the Punjab States and represents over a third of the contribution of India towards the Forces of the Empire. Of the main population of the Punjab one man in 28 was mobilised ; in the rest of India, one man in 150. The Sikhs, who had been rebellious at the beginning of Sir Michael's regime, supplied no less than 90,000 recruits, their martial ardour being stimulated by the news of the heroic stand of the 19th Sikhs in Gallipoli against an overwhelming Turkish force."*

The figures collected by Mr. Chowdhury are interesting in so far as they disclose a phenomenal rise in the strength of the Punjabi Mussalmans since 1919 and show a substantial reduction of the Sikhs from the first to the third place since 1919. To the intelligent student of history, the reason for this rise and fall is obvious. Trevaskis, in The Punjab of To-day, has given a brief history of the Gurdwara Keform Movement and of the rise in power of the late Mian Sir Fazl-i-Hussain. It is recent history that Mian Sir Fazl-i-Hussain, by clever manoeuvring, succeeded in unnecessarily prolonging the struggle for the Gurdwara Keform and the privations and sufferings of the Sikh Community. In 1922 he introduced in the Punjab Legislative Council a bill for the management and control of the Sikh Gurdwaras. This was opposed by the Hindu and Sikh members of the Punjab Legislative Council en bloc but, notwithstanding the united opposition of the Hindu-Sikh bloc in the Council, the measure was carried in the Council by the combined votes of the Muslims and the official bloc. This created bad blood in the Sikh Community and further embittered the relations between the Sikh Community and the Government. That this was the very purpose of Mian Sir Fazl-i-Hussain would appear from a perusal of The Punjab Politics, by a Punjabee, written some time before his death. In this brochure, Mian Sir Fazl-i-Hussain outlined his policy qua the Hindu and Sikh minorities in the province. He was of the view that the Hindus of the province were a finished race and that the main obstacle in the realisation of Muslim aspirations in the Punjab was the Sikh Community. For this reason the Sikhs were to be degraded and were not to be given any position of vantage in the Province. This was precisely the policy of Mian Sir Fazl-i-Hussain during the time he held office in

* Trevaskis : The Punjab of To-day, Volume I, Page 43.

19

the Punjab Government. No wonder he succeeded in embittering the relations between the Sikh Community and the British Govern­ment, with the result that the Sikh position in the Indian Army was adversely affected.

Again, the war broke out on the 1st day of September, 1939, and on the 3rd day of September, 1939, His Excellency the Governor-General and the Viceroy of India declared that India was a belligerent country. The war-lords realised at the very outset •of this war that the struggle was going to be a grim one and that recruitment must proceed on a scale unprecedented in the history of India. The late Sir Sikander Hyat Khan, Premier of the Punjab, declared that the Punjab would maintain its reputation as the " Sword-hand " of India in this war and he put himself in the work of recruitment. Sir Sikander Hyat Khan, be it remembered, was the official leader of the Unionist Party which was virtually a Muslim Party and claimed to be Unionist in character mainly by reason of the fact that some agriculturist-Hindus of the Ambala Division under the leadership of the late Sir Chhotu Ram also owed allegiance to this party. Sir Sikander Hyat Khan, however, claimed to be the leader of the Punjabis in his new role. The Sikhs smelt communalism in his designs. There was deep mistrust on both sides. Sir Sikander Hyat Khan was pursuing a communal policy in the garb of War Effort and he knew that the Sikh leaders were cognisant of his designs. The result of all this was that the Sikh recruitment in the Indian Army did not proceed at a pace which was expected of the hardy martial Sikh peasantry. The Sikhs, however, realised the communal policy of Sir Sikander Hyat Khan and expressed a determination to maintain their strength in the Army. At this juncture the Khalsa Defence of India League was organised under the patronage of His Highness the Maharaja of Patiala, with the result that, notwithstanding all handicaps, the Sikhs are to-day in the neighbourhood of ten per cent, in the Indian Army according to the latest figures available. Be it known that, in the initial stages of the organisation of the Khalsa Defence of India League, it is learnt on reliable authority, Sir Sikander Hyat Khan carried on a malicious campaign against the League. The League persisted in the work of recruitment and the Sikhs have, in this war, earned undying reputation as soldiers and have won more honours in the Land and Air Forces of the country than any other community in the Punjab and have also been awarded the majority of the Victoria Crosses that have fallen to the share of this province.

I

20

Payne, in The Short History of the Sikhs, recorded: " T h e splendid bravery and fervid patriotism displayed by the Sikhs will always be remembered by the Britishers with admiration and respect." Again, it was Sir Lepel Griffin who said : " I would venture to express my conviction, which is shared by many dis­tinguished Officers of the Indian Army, that the Sikhs, infantry and light cavalry, when well and sufficiently led by English Officers, are equal to any troops in the world and superior to any with whom they are likely to come in contact." The Sikhs are rightly proud that the traditions of the community have, in spite of opposition from interested quarters, been maintained in this war.

Summing up the causes of the success of the Sikhs in the 18th century, Professor Gupta writes : " One cause was the tenacity of purpose and resourcefulness of mind which made the chiefs and troopers of that blood capable of protracted endurance and sustained enterprize in the face of difficulties and discouragements before which other Indians were apt to succumb with the feeling that destiny was against them; the other, that fighting is an art, consisting of quick observation, skill and a combination of unsel­fishness and the habit of trusting one's comrades and leaders, they possessed in a remarkable degree." The brave stand that a handful of Sikhs put up against odds at the Saragarhi Fort is recent history.

Again, according to Professor Hari Earn Gupta : " The genuine Khalsa knew no occupation but war and agriculture and hence, hardened by bold exploit i and inured to climate, they acquired a physique far superior to that of the general run of Indians. Their thoroughbred looks, martial bearing and dignified appearance could elicit praise even from their bitterest foes."

Kazi Noor Mohammed, the author of The Jang Namah, who came in the train of Ahmed Shah Abdali in 1764 to fight against the Sikhs, says : "Do not call the Sikhs ' dogs ' because they are lions and are brave like lions in a battlefield. How can a hero of the battle, who fights like a lion, be a dog ? If you cherish a desire of learning the art of war, come before them in the field. They will show you such wonderful feats of war. 0, swordsman t If you want to learn the modes of fighting, learn from them how to face the foe like a hero and know that their title is Singh, lion, and it is injustice to call them dogs. 0, Youth ! If you are ignorant ' of the Hindi language, I can tell you that the meaning of Singh is lion. In fact they are lions at the time of battle and when in festivities, they surpass Hatim in generosity. When they take hold of the Indian sword in hand, they gallop from Hind up to the

21

country of Sind. Nobody, however strong and wealthy, dared to oppose them. When they fight with a spear, they bring defeat to the army of the enemy. When they hold the spearhead upward, they break to pieces even the Caucasus Mountain. When they bend a bow they set in it the foe-killing arrow. When they pull it up to the ear, the body of the enemy trembles like a cane. If their hatchet strikes a coat of mail, then this coat of mail, itself on the body of the enemy, becomes a shroud. The body of each of them looks like a hillock and, in grandeur, excels fifty men. Bahrain Gor, a Persian hero, killed wild asses and could frighten tigers. If Bahram Gor comes before them, he also would admit their superiority.

" Besides these arms, when they take up a musket in hand at the time of battle, they come to the field fiercely springing and roaring like lions and immediately split many a beast and make the blood of many others roll in the dust. You may say that this musket was invented in ancient times by these dogs and not by Luqman Hakim (iEsop). Though guns are possessed in large numbers by others, yet nobody knows them better. These bad-tempered people discharge hundreds of bullets on the enemy on the right and left and in front and in the back. If you disbelieve in what I say, enquire from the brave warriors who will tell you more than what I have said and would have nothing but praise for their art of war. The witnesses of my statement are those thirty thousand heroes who fought with them.

, hero ! If their troops take to fight, do not consider it a defeat. It is a trick of their mode of war. May God forbid the repetition of such a fraud. They resort to this deception in order to make the angry enemy grow bold and run in their pursuit. When they find them separated from their main body and away from help and reinforcement, they at once turn back and give them the hardest possible time."*

Such is the testimony of observers who were not in any way favourably disposed towards the Sikhs. Professor Hari Ram Gupta very rightly observes : " The Sikhs won for the Punjab the envied title of the " Soldiers' Land " and who alone can boast of having

- -erected a ' bulwark of defence against foreign aggression,' the tide •of which had run its prosperous course for the preceding 800 years, .and to whom all other peoples of Northern India in general and of the Punjab in particular owe a deep debt of gratitude."

* From History of the Sikhs, 1730—1768, by Professor Hari Rf>m Gupta.

CHAPTER VI

THE PUNJAB

EDUCATION, INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE

It was General Sir John J. E. Gordon who wrote in 1904 r '' The Sikhs are no longer illiterate as they were in older days when they despised the pen and looked on the sword as the one power in the land. Now they see {;hat the pen is sometimes more powerful of the two, and at least that education does not ill become the hand that wields the sword."

The Literary Census of 1881 community-wise was as under : Hindus Muslims Sikhs

1.58 per .95 per

1.36 per The literacy Census in 1941 is as under :

Muslims . . 6.97 per cent. Hindus . . 16.35 per cent. Christians . . 7.76 per cent. Sikhs . . 17.03 per cent.

Given hereunder is a schedule of schools teaching up to the nth standard in the British Punjab :

Hindus . . / 133 Sikhs 67

-

Muslims 47 Christian . . 18

The Punjab University Matriculation Results, 1944, disclosed that the percentage in denominational schools of students who da not belong to the communities maintaining those schools wa3 as under:

Non-Sikhs in Sikh Schools . . 27.8 per Non-Hindus in Hindu Schools . . 14.6 per Non-Muslims in Muslim Schools , . 4.7 per cent

22

23

The reason for this is that the Muslim Schools do not make provision for the teaching of Sanskrit, Hindi or Panjabi whereas in all the Sikh Schools provision is made for the teaching of Persian and Urdu. The denominational colleges in the Punjab community-wise are as under :

Hindu . . 17 Muslim . . 5 Sikh 7 Christian . . 4

As set out in the chapter on the Punjab States, the Patiala State is maintaining three colleges, Jind one, Kapurthala one and the State of Faridkot one. There is one College in the Muslim State of Bahawalpur and another College in the Malerkotla State. The professorial staff in colleges is as under :

Hindus Muslims Sikhs Christian Parsees

795 403 198 172

1 In the Senate of the Punjab University, however, there are

7 Sikhs out of a total of 84. The total number of Sikh students in various institutions in 1941-42 was 155,572.

Again, the spoken language of the Punj abis is Punj abi which has always been accorded a step-motherly treatment both by the University and the Punjab Government, so much so that the teaching of Punjabi has been discouraged by the present Unionist mmistry even in schools maintained and financed by private enter­prise. I t is interesting to note in this connection that in the Provincial Budget for the year 1944-45, a sum of Bs. 30,000 has only been earmarked for the teaching of the scriptural languages. Under the head " Scriptural languages " are grouped Arabic, Hindi and Punjabi. The Education Minister, in his speech on the Education Demand, said that the sum of Bs. 30,000 would be allotted to the teaching of the three languages referred to above in proportion to the communal strength of the various communities in the Punjab. The allotment for the teaching of Panjabi works out at Bs. 6,000 per annum.

As regards industry and commerce, the Census of Factories was taken in 1921 and the result of that Census was an aggregate

\

\

24

of 801 factories, mines, mills and other industrial establishments at work in the Punjab. They employed 61,701 males and 4,755 female workers of whom 31,652 men and 908 women were skilled labourers. Of these 801 factories, 430 were operated by mechanical power, i.e., driven by steam, electricity, gas, oil or water power. The factories in this province have multiplied since 1922. A community-wise record of industrial and commercial concerns is not available in the Punjab but we have in some of the District Gazetteers a schedule of factories in those districts. Such infor­mation as is available goes to show that the industrial and com­mercial concerns in this Province are mainly the result of non-Muslim enterprise. Another aspect of this question has been noticed by Sir John Calvert in his Wealth and Welfare of the Punjab. Says he : " That agriculture is the ultimate source of industry, is emphasized by every official investigation into the problem of industrialisation of this country and of every province in it. Agriculture is and must remain the foundation of the economic life of India. Indian industries cannot flourish without a prosperous Indian agriculture. Agriculture is largely the provider of the raw materials for industry and the Indian agriculturists will offer the main market for the products of Indian industries.' The same writer, summarising the findings of the Indian Industria'l Commission, says : " The present position and future prospects of Indian industries depend to a very large extent on the products of Indian agriculture. We take this opportunity of stating in the most emphatic manner our opinion of the paramount importance of agriculture to this country and of the necessity of doing every­thing to increase its output." We have stated elsewhere the position of the Sikh community qua the agricultural output of the province and that being so, it needs no elaboration to make out -that the Sikh share in the industrial and commercial life of the province is fairly marked. In fact the industrial and commercial life of the province is primarily created and determined by impulses emanating from non-Muslim sources. The non-Muslims own more than eighty per cent, of the urban property and pay more than eighty per cent, of the Income-tax and Urban Property Tax in the Punjab. An overwhelmingly major proportion of the industrial enterprises, factories, mills, banking concerns, insurance companies, film industry and business, shopkeeping, trade and commerce is in non-Muslim hands by virtue of their skill, industry and special aptitude.

/

/

CHAPTER VII

/

PUNJAB, THE HOLY LAND OF THE SIKHS

*' Think of all the Gurdwaras, the Holy places And utter Waheguru* May the Khalsa be lowly in spirit, Exalted in intelligence, A nd make intelligence the instrument of Thy Divine Will j Grant to Thy Sikhs the gift of true discipleship, The gift of discipline, the gift of discrimination, The gift of trusting each other, The gift of faith, And, above all, the greatest gift of all, The gift of Thy Name, May the Khalsa, in all its actions, remember God, And, in remembering God, bring peace and comfort to the whole

world. May Divine protection extend wherever Khalsa resides ; May the supplies and swords of Khalsa be in The ascendant : May the staying places and banners of Khalsa be eternally

blessed J>

From the Sikh Prayer translated by Sardar SIR JOGENDRA SINGH, K T .

The Hindu goes on pilgrimage to Hardwar and Benares in the United Provinces and the Muslim to Mecca and Medina in Arabia. " But the city of Amritsar is the Metropolis of the Sikh Faith. The Sikh Keligion centres round the Golden Temple of Amritsar and its tank. The tank is called " Amritsar ' '=" the tank of nectar or immortality " though others derive the name from Guru Amar Das, the Third Guru of the Sikhs. Guru Arjan built the temple and the foundation grew in religious and political im­portance until, on the retirement of Ahmed Shah from India, in

*Repeat the name of God. 25

I

26

1762, the Temple rose from the ashes in which he had left it and Amritsar became the acknowledged capital of an independent community."* v

The Darbar Sahib, as the Golden Temple is called by the Sikhs, is a square building with a dome-shaped roof, plated with copper 'gilt. The walls throughout are of marble and are adorned with inlaid devices of figures and flowers. Under the dome, shaded by a gorgeous silk canopy, lies the Granth Sahib, the Sacred Book of the Sikhs, from which the attendant Granthis read passages morning and evening. The tank surrounds the temple on all sides and a broad causeway leads across the temple itself to the buildings which cluster round the tank. The most conspicuous of these are the Akal Bungah which contains the temple treasures ; the seven-storied tower known as Baba Atal, erected rather more than a century ago in memory of a son of Guru Hargobind.

Facing the Golden Temple is the throne of authority known as Sri Ahal Takht Sahib. Guru Hargobind laid the foundation of the Takht Akal Bungah in 1607 A.D. and, seated on the Takht Akal Bungah, the Guru told Bhai Budha that henceforth he would wear two swords, " the one of peace and the other of war." The temple is surrounded on all sides by Bungah or " staying-places " referred to in the Sikh Prayer cited above.

A metalled road connects Amritsar with Tarn Taran which is fourteen miles to the north. Tarn Taran is the chief town in the Amritsar Majha or upland tract; but its importance is entirely religious and centres round the sacred tank, dug under the command and direct supervision of Guru Arjun, the Fifth Guru of the Sikhs. The tank is 300 yards square with a marble-paved walk running round it. Maharaja Kan jit Singh greatly revered the temple at Tarn Taran which was built on one side of the sacred tank in 1768. The temple is overlaid with plates of copper gilt and is otherwise richly ornamented. The water of the tank cures leprosy and lepers come to it even from places beyond the Punjab. A fair is cele­brated monthly on the Amavas Day at Tarn Taran, especially in the months of Chet and Bhadon, when large crowds assemble.

Amritsar is the cradle of the Sikh Faith. Lieut.-Colonel Malcolm on page 86 of Sketch of the Sikhs, writes : " During the dark days of Mir Mannu, some performed the pilgrimage in secret and

t

* Imperial Gazette, Punjab, Part II, Page 53.

27

disguise ; but in general, according to a contemporary Mohammadan author, the Sikh horsemen were seen riding at full gallop towards their favourite shrine of devotion. They were often slain in making the attempt and sometimes taken prisoners ; but they used to seek instead of avoiding the crown of martyrdom, and the same authority states that an instance was never known of a Sikh, taken on his way to Amritsar, consenting to abjure his faith."

About thirty miles south-west of the City of Lahore and on the borders of the present civil districts of Gujranwala and Mont­gomery stands the town of Talwandi. Guru Nanak was born in 1469 A.D. in village Talwandi. The village has now lost its old name and is known as Nankana Sahib in m i mory of the Teacher to whom it had the honour of giving birth. When the Sikh religion had gained prominence, there was a temple erected on the spot' where the Guru was born. The temple is known as Janam Asthan, referred to as " Holy of the Holies " of the Sikh Community by Trevaskis in The Punjab of To-day. The temple was rebuilt and enlarged by Sardar Teja Singh at the time when the Sikh arms had attained the greatest power and the Sikh Commonwealth its widest expansion. Within the temple is installed the Granth Sahib, intoned by a professional Granthi. In the town of Nankana Sahib there are other important shrines, sacred to the memory of Baba Nanak. " At Nankana every place with which Nanak had any association," says Macauliffe, " is deemed sacred."

Baba Nanak lived at Kartarpur, a village on the right bank of the Ravi opposite the present town of Dera Baba Nanak in Gur-daspur District. The Guru died at Kartarpur in 1538 A.D. The Sikhs erected a shrine and the Mohammedans a Tomb in his honour on the banks of the Ravi. The town of Dera Baba Nanak contains the handsome Sikh temple called Darbar Sahib to which Sikhs from all parts of the country make pilgrimage. A second temple, known as Tali Sahib, was carried away by an inundation in 1870 but has since been rebuilt. A third temple is Chola Sahib.

The town of Sri Hargobindpur is an important town in the Batala Tehsil of the Gurdaspur District, thirty miles from Gurdaspur town. I t is a place of great sanctity amongst the Sikhs. Says Macauliffe : '' The plan of the city was laid out by Guru Hargobind who cut the first sod himself and summoned masons and labourers from neighbouring villages for the building of the town. I t was subsequently called Sri Hargobindpur in honour of the Guru"

* Imperial Gazetteer of India, Punjab, page 56, Volume I I .

»

28

In the town of Eminabad, Gujranwala District, a Sikh temple, the Rohri Sahib, commemorates the penance of Baba Nanak when he made his bed on a heap of stones. It was at Eminabad that the Guru attacked the citadel of caste exclusiveness and preferred to dine with Lalo, a carpenter, to dining with Malik Bhago, an aristocrat of that place. Says Cunningham in The History of the Sikhs : " I t was reserved for Nanak to perceive the true principles of reform, and to lay those broad foundations which enabled his successsor, Guru Gobind, to fire the minds of his countrymen with a new nationality, and to give practical effect to the doctrine that the lowest is equal with the highest, in race as in creed, in political rights as in religious hopes." %

The town of Sialkot contains the shrine of Baba Nanak. The shrine is known as Baba Di Ber. rt The Darbar Baoli Sahib, a

•

covered well, was erected by a Kajput disciple of Baba Nanak and is held high in religious consideration amongst the Sikhs."*

The story is that Guru Nanak once came to Hassan Abdal. The Mohammadan shrine of Baba Wali Kandhari crowns a preci­pitous hill about one mile east of the town. The Guru asked the incumbent of Baba Wali Kandhari, which then possessed a spring for water, which was refused. As a punishment, the Guru caused the water to spring up at the foot of the hill instead of the top. The rock bears the mark of the Guru's hand, whence its name of Panja Sahib.

There are important Sikh shrines situated within the municipal limits of Lahore. The Shahidgunj, situated close to the railway station, has been the cause of considerable bitterness between the Muslims and the Sikhs of the province in the last decade. The institution is known as the Shahidganj because it was here that, during the regime of Mir Mannu, Governor of Lahore, large numbers of Sikhs were brought in chains and executed. It is further marked by the mausoleum of Bhai Taru Singh, " who was required to cut his hair and to renounce his faith, but Taru Singh would yield neither his conscience nor the symbol of his conviction, and his real or pretended answer is preserved to the present day. The hair, the scalp and the skull, said he, have a mutual connection ; the head of man is linked with life and he was prepared to yield his breath with cheerfulness."f His ribs were broken, wrists were strained, joints grew loose, blood gushed out at many places and

* Imperial Gazetteer, PiiDJab, Par t I I , page 88. •j" Cunningham : History of the Sikhs.

29

several bones cracked. For his again refusing the change of faith, his hair with skin was scraped off his head. Taru Singh's half-dead body was made over to the Hindus who took him to a dharmasala where he passed away after lingering for a few days. His remains were cremated in Shahidganj outside the Delhi Gate.

The Gurdwara Dera Sahib, situated near the Lahore fort, is sacred to the memory of Guru Arjun. Guru Arjun was required by the Emperor Jehangir to alter and rewrite some texts of the Granth Sahib. The Guru replied, " The Granth Sahib has been compiled to confer on man happiness and not misery in this world and in the next. I t is impossible to write it anew and make the omissions and alterations you require." On hearing this, the Guru's enemies concluded that he would yield to no ordinary threats ; so they put fetters on him and began to torture him in various ways. They poured burning sand on him, seated him in red-hot cauldrons and bathed him in boiling water. The Guru bore all this torture with equanimity and never uttered a sigh or a groan. He was given another opportunity to rec nt and comply with the demands of the Emperor. He replied, " Oh fools, I shall never fear this treatment of yours. I t is all according to God's Will; therefore, this torture affordeth me pleasure. " The Guru died in June, 1606, and his body was cremated at the place known as Dera Sahib Gurdwara. Thousands of Sikhs go to the shrine every day, morning and evening.

In the city of Lahore there is another temple called Janam Asthan*, Chuni Mandi, the place where Guru Ram TSs was born. Professor Gupta, in History of the Sikhs, 1739—1768, gives an account of the capture of Lahore by Sardars Gujar Singh, Lehna Singh and Sobha Singh on the 16th May, 1765. Says he : " The troops of the three chiefs, on entering the city, began to plunder. The zemindars of the neighbouring villages also began to sack it. Chaudhri Rupa, Lala Bishan Singh and Maharaj Singh, the grand­sons of Diwan Surat Singh, Mir Nathu Shah, Hafiz Quadir Bakhsh and Mian Mohammad Ashiq and other grandees of the city led a deputation into the fort and, in the course of an interview with Sardars Gujar Singh and Lehna Singh said : " This City is called the Guru's cradle." If you ruin and destroy it, you, too, will derive no profit and advantage." The Sardars accordingly shut all the city gates and issued a proclamation that, whosoever would oppress the subjects, must be punished.

* Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion, Vol. V, Page 93.

\

30

There were three editions of the Granih Sahib made in the days of the Gurus, the first transcribed and dictated by Guru Arjun, the second by Bhai Banno, and the third by Bhai Mani Singh, under the supervision of Guru Gobind Singh. The two first are in existence still, one at Kartarpur in the Jullundur District and the other at Guru Mangat in the Gujrat District of the Punjab. The Gurdwaras at Kartarpur and Mangat are places of great sanctity amongst the Sikhs.

The town of Anandpur in Hoshiarpur District was founded by Guru Tegh Bahadur and it became a stronghold of the Guru Gobind Singh. The baptismal ceremony called Pahul was first initiated at Anandpur in April, 1699 A.D. The Persian historian, Ghulam Mohai-ud-Din, the newswriter of the period, sent the Emperor a copy of the Guru's address to his Sikhs on that occasion. The Guru is reported to have addressed his Sikhs as follows: " Let all embrace one creed and obliterate differences of religion. Let the four Hindu castes, who have different rules for their guidance, abandon them all; adopt the one form of adoration and become brothers. Let no one deem himself superior to another. Let men of the four castes receive my baptism, eat out of one dish and feel no disgust or contempt for one another." The newswriter, when forwarding this proclamation to the Emperor Aurangazeb, submitted his own report: " When the Guru had thus addressed the crowd, several Brahmins and Khatris stood up and said that they accepted the religion of Guru Nanak and of the other Gurus. Others, on the contrary, said that they would never accept any religion which was opposed to the teachings of the Vedas and the Shastras, and that they would not renounce at the bidding of a boy the ancient faith which had descended to them from their ancestors. Thus, though several refused to accept the Guru's religion, about twenty thousand stood up and promised to obey him as they had the fullest faith in his divine mission."* The Guru thereupon adminis­tered baptism to the Panch Ply are or the Five Beloved. When the Guru had administered baptism to the Pive Beloved, he stood up before them with clasped hands and begged them to administer baptism to him. They were astonished at such a proposal, and represented their own unworthiness, and the greatness of the Guru whom they deemed God's Vicar upon earth. They asked why he made such a request and why he stood in a suppliant posture before

* Macauliffe : The Sikh Religion, Volume V, Page 94

31

them. The Guru replied a I am the son of the Immortal God It is by His order I have been born and have established this form of baptism. They who >pt it shall henceforth be known as the Khalsa. The Khalsa is the Guru and the Guru is the Khalsa There is no difference between you and me. As Guru Nanak seated Guru Angad on the throne, so have I made you also a Guru. Therefore, administer the baptismal nectar to me without any hesitatio Accordingly, the Five Sikhs baptised the Guru with the same ceremonies and injunctions that he himself had employed.

As stated above, the town of Anandpur was founded by Guru Tegh Bahadur as an abode of peace away from the jealousies and turmoils of the world. " The growing influence of the Khalsa was an eyesore to the E-ajput Hill Chiefs, who already resented the revolt of Sikhism against many old Hindu beliefs and traditions. On a slight pretext, they declared war against Guru Gobind Singh. But, finding themselves unable to dislodge him from his strong­hold, they called in the aid of the emperor Aurangzeb. The emperor was simply glad to respond to this request as he considered the Khalsa a formidable menace to his empire and a great obstacle in the way of the realisation of his dream of proselytising the whole of India. The voluntary and cheerful sacrifice of his life by Guru Tegh Bahadur at Delhi for the religious liberty of the Hindus broke the apathy of the Hindus and challenged them to suffer for them­selves. The effect of this the emperor could not neglect. The

diplomacy what they had failed to achieve by force.

combined forces of the emperor and the Hill Rajas could not sub­jugate Anandpur and, as the siege became protracted, they tried to win| The envoys of the emperor and the Hill Chiefs brought to the Guru solemn assurances of safe passage out of the city should he agree to evacuate the fort. The imperial envoy brought a volume of the Holy Qur-an to swear on and an autograph letter containing the words : " I have sworn on the Holy Qur-an not to harm thee. If I do, may I not find a place in God's Court Hereafter." The Brahmin Ambassador came with a small effigy of a cow on which to swear on behalf of the Hindu Rajas. The Guru, however, treated these assurances as untrue and a mere snare to entrap him. The followers of the Guru and even his mother urged him to accept the offer as sincere. For their benefit the Guru, one night, after inform­ing the besiegers, sent out a convoy of bullocks laden with bagfuls of broken shoe-heels, tatters and dung. The besiegers, in spite

*Macauliffe : The Sikh Religion, Volume V, Page 96

32

of their pledge of safe passage, fell upon them, firmly imagining that it carried the Guru's treasure. They were soon disillusioned. The bad faith of the besiegers was thus proved. But they were audacious enough to repeat their first offer and to explain away the convoy incident. This time the Guru refused to listen to them and he took from the envoys the documents they had brought. The privations of the long siege became almost unendurable for human patience and many Sikhs .began to falter in their deter­mination. Some even went to the extent of writing a disclaimer, renouncing their allegiance to the Guru. He gave free permission to depart to all those who wanted to leave. Eventually he was left with only forty Sikhs and his family. So, one night, he dispersed the company in small batches and himself followed with a few companions. The imperial troops were disappointed to learn that the Guru had escaped unscathed. Throwing all their pledges to the wind, they went in hot pursuit of him. At the small village of Chamkaur, the Guru and his forty companions were again surrounded by the royal army. Here it was that the handful of forty Sikhs, under the eye of the Guru, put up a fight against innumerable odds, the like of which has seldom been witnessed in history. It was here again that the two elder sons of the Guru, Baba A jit Singh and Baba Jhujar Singh, aged eighteen and fourteen years respectively, were cheerfully allowed by their great father to go out and to lay down their lives for the sake of their faith. These young boys died fighting against the seasoned soldiers of the emperor while their father watched from behind the wall and thanked God that he was able to sacrifice their dearest for the truth. It may be mentioned here that the two younger sons of the Guru, Baba Fateh Singh and Baba Zorawar Singh, aged nine and seven years, respectively, had departed from Anandpur with their grandmother, Mata Gujri. They were betrayed by a Brahmin servant to the Mohammedan Governor of Sirhind. The Governor tried his best to tempt the two children in all possible ways to renounce their faith and accept Islam, but they courageously with­stood all temptations. The Governor resorted to threats but the hearts of the little heroes were impregnable to fear. What happened to them in the end forms one of the most painful chapters in Sikh history. Both the brothers were bricked up alive in the founda­tions of a wall with the name of God on their lips up to the last moment. Mata Gujri, on hearing of the tragic end of her grand­children, swooned and died.

33 To come back to Chamkaur: the faithful Sikhs of the Guru

came out one by one and performed prodigious deeds of valour,, the memory of which is an eternal source of pride and inspiration to the Sikhs. This heroic band kept up the fighfc till nightfall when only five Sikhs were left, who then urged the Guru to with­draw, for he had still to do much to advance Guru Nanak's faith. The Guru acceded to their request but, before leaving, he awakened the enemy with a shout: " Here goes the Guru / " so that they might not say that he had slunk away like a coward.* The-sacred shrines at Anandpur, Chamkaur and Sirhind commemorate-the incidents described above.

The sacred shrines situate within the municipal limits of Muktsar, District Ferozepore, commemorate a battle fought in. 1705-06, by Guru Gobind Singh against pursuing imperial forces. There is a large tank in which pilgrims bathe, begun by Maharaja. Ranjit Singh and continued and completed by the Chiefs of Patiala, Jind, Nabha and Faridkot.

There are over 700 shrines hallowed by the touch of the feet of the Sikh Gurus in the Punjab. Endowments worth millions are-attached to these shrines and they are visited by Sikhs, wheresoever they may be, on important festive occasions.

I t is not possible to give an account of all the important historic shrines within the compass of these notes prepared by me for the Committee. The history of the Gurdwara Reform Movement in the second decade of the 20th Century centres round the shrines sacred to the memory of the Ten Gurus, especially those at Nankana Sahib, Amritsar and Tarn Taran, Panja Sahib and Anandpur Sahib. We may say with the poet that a Sikh,, wherever lie goes, whatever realms he sees, his heart, untraveiled, turns to the Land of the Five Rivers, which is the cradle of his. faith and the nursery of the chivalry of the followers of the Ten Gurus. The Punjab is not only the Homeland of the Sikhs but a Holy Land of the Sikhs. The All-India Akali Conference held at Atari, Lahore District, on the 12th February, 1940, passed a resolution viewing with deep concern the growing endeavours of certain Muslims to convert the Punjab into a part of Pakistan and " decided to resist such a demand by all possible means." The Conference stressed that the Sikhs would not tolerate for a single day the Communal Raj of the Muslims in the Punjab which was not only their " Homeland but also their Holy Land."

*From Introduction to Translation of Zafavnama, by S. Harnam Singh.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ALL-INDIA MUSLIM LEAGUE DEMAND

The 27th Session of the All-India Muslim League met at Lahore on 22nd March, 1940, and on subsequent days. Mr. M. A. Jinnah, in his Presidential Address, declared: " That democracy was unsuited to India and that the Muslims are a nation according to any definition of ' nation ' and they must have their homeland, their territory and their state." The Conference accepted Mr. M. A. Jinnah's lead, and, on the following day, adopted the following resolution :

\

1. " While approving and endorsing the action taken by the Council and the Working Committee of the All-India Muslim League as indicated in their resolutions dated;27th August, 17th and 18th September and 22nd October, 1939, and 3rd February, 1940, on the Constitutional Issue, /emphatically reiterates that the Scheme of Federation embodied in the Government of India Act, 1935, is totally unsuited to and unworkable in the peculiar conditions of this country and is alto­gether unacceptable to Muslim India.

this Session of the All-India Muslim League

2 a It further records its emphatic view that, while the declaration dated the 18th October, 1939, made by the Viceroy on behalf of His Majesty's Government, is reassuring in so far as it declares that the policy and plan on which the Government of India Act, 1935, is based, will be reconsidered in consultation with the various parties, interests and communities in India, Muslim India will not be satisfied unless the whole constitutional plan is Teconsidered de novo and that no revised plan would be acceptable to the Muslims unless it is framed with their approval and consent.

" Resolved that it is the considered view of this Session of 3. the All-India Muslim League that no constitutional plan would be workable in this country or acceptable to the Muslims unless it is 'designed on the following basic principles, viz., that geographically

34

\

\

N

35 /

contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be so constituted with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority, as in the north-western and eastern zones of India, should be .grouped to constitute 'Independent States ' in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.

4. " That adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards should be specifically provided in the constitution for minorities in these Units and in these regions for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights and interests in consultation with them ; and in other parts of India, where the Muslims are in a minority, adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards shall be specifically provided in the •constitution for them and other minorities for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights and interests in consultation with them.

5. " This Session further authorises the Working Committee to frame a scheme of constitution in accordance with these basic principles, providing for the assumption finally by the respective regions of all powers, such as defence, external affairs, communi­cations, customs and such other matters as may be necessary.

The 28th Session of the All-India Muslim League met at Madras on 15th April, 1941, and in that Session of the League Clause (a) of the Articles of the Creed in the League Constitution was amended t;o read as under :

1. The establishment of completely Independent States formed by demarcating geographically contiguous units into regions which shall be so constituted with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority, as in the north-western and eastern zones of India, shall be so grouped together to constitute Independent States as Muslim Free National Homelands in wThich the constitutent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.

2. " That adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards shall be specifically provided in the constitution for minorities in the abovementioned units and regions for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights and interests in consultation with them.

" #

*India,s Problem of Her Future Constitution, Pages 16 and 17

*

V 36

3. " That in other parts of * India, where the Muslims are in a minority, adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards shall be specifically provided in the constitution for them and other minorities for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights and interests in con­sultation with them."*

In the Foreword of Nationalism in Conflict in India, Mr. M. A. Jinnah, on the 24th of December, 1942, affirmed : " Fortunately the Muslim Homelands are in the North-Western and Eastern Sub-Continent where they are in a solid majority with a population of nearly 70 millions and they desire that these parts should be separated from the rest of India and constituted into independent sovereign states." Again, on the 18th March, 1944, Mr. M. A. Jinnah, in his Address to the Punjab Muslim Students' Federation, declared : " Without fear of being taunted I say the plain truth is that we want to rule our homelands and we shall rule." That this was his stand in his talks with Mahatma Gandhi in September, 1944, appears from the letter of Mahatma Gandhi dated 15th September, 1944, wherein he wrote to Mr. M. A. Jinnah : " I n the course of our discussion you have passionately pleaded that India contains two nations, Hindus and Muslims, and that the latter have their homelands in India as the former have theirs."f

The Muslim League Demand, therefore, proceeds upon the assumptions that the Muslims are numercially in a majority in the North-Western and Eastern zones of India and that the North-Western and Eastern zones of India are Muslim homelands. We propose to examine these assumptions in what follows.

*Indian Year Booh, 1941-42, page 922 fGandhi-Jinnah Talks, page 12.

i

CHAPTER IX

CENSUS OPEKATIONS AND THE MUSLIMS 4

The first census of the province was taken, on the night between the 31st December, 1854, and 1st January, 1855, for British terri­tory only, on administrative grounds. The population of the British Punjab was again enumerated on 10th January, 1868, under the orders of the Financial Commissioner. Again census was taken in 1881 for the Punjab, including Punjab States, when for the first time, the operations were carried out on a scientific basis with due attention to detail and a mass of information was collected on various subjects connected with the growth of population, its intellectual development and its religious and racial distribution. Ever since 1881, census operations have been undertaken regularly every ten years.

The dates of the other census operations are as under: 26th February, 1891. 1st March, 1901. 10th March 1911. 18th March, 1921. 26th February, 1931. 1st March, 1941.

The analysis of the Muslim League position set out in the preceding chapter discloses that the Muslim League claims the Punjab to be the " Homeland of the Muslims " on the mere strength of Muslim numerical superiority in the population of the Punjab as evidenced by the census reports. The non-Muslims in the Punjab, however, challenge the correctness of the census figures and they contend that the Muslims do not form the majority of the population in the Punjab.

Sir Colin Garbett, who joined the Indian Civil Service in 1905 •and, except for an interval of seven years during the tVar of 1914-18 and its aftermath, served in the Punjab till the close of 1941 in Friend of Friend, at page 221, writes : " Again, with a considerable strain on language, the leader of the Muslim League insists that Muslims constitute a 'Nation' and are something apart from the

37

38

rest. Some thought, some conviction has stirred him ; though his expression of it seems unfortunate. But whether the expression is accurate or not, this much is apparent and important that, speaking in the name of ninety millions, he denies identity with the remaining three hundred millions. i

Not that these figures can be taken as exact, for none who* saw the last census at work could trust its results."

Mr. M. W. M. Yeatts, C.I.E., I.C.S., Census Commissioner, India., at page 9 of this Eeport, says : " 1940-41 saw also the political influences on the census." At page 23 of his report we find : " The* increase is by no means uniform, although a greater figure than for the previous decades is practically universal. Rates are noticeably larger in the north than in the south and have tivo distinct peaks in the extreme west and north-west and in the east. In fact, we have in the Punjab and Eastern Bengal two swarming areas." A priori', therefore, there is good ground for doubting that the census^ figures possess the accuracy which is claimed for them.

In the Punjab, including the States, the Muslims have been returned as under in the various census operations :

1881 1891 1901 1911 1921 1931 1941

47.58 per 47.39 per 49.61 per 51.07 per 51.05 per 52.04 per 53.22 per

For want of sufficient detail it has not been possible to obtain correct figures of the first two censuses which were taken cursorily. The population of the Punjab in 1901 was 24,367,113 and in 1911 the population of the Punjab was 23,791,841. The first decade of the 20th Century, therefore, showed a distinct decline in the population of the province, but, during the decade, the percentage of the Muslim population rose from 49.61 per cent, to 51.07 per cent. The Superintendent of Census Operations, 1911, at page 97 of his. Report, gives an explanation of this rise in the Muslim percentage : " The members of the depressed classes, i.e., Chuhras, Sansis, etc. who did not profess to belong to Islam or Christianity, were returned as Hindus in the three previous censuses and similar instructions were issued in the recent census. Nevertheless, a number of Sansis and Chuhras residing in Mohammadan villages

39

were returned as Mohammadans and some Chuhras living in Sikh villages were d as S kh Fuller details are g at page 100 of the same report. The census figures of 1911, as com­pared with the census figures of 1901, show that in the 1911 Census operations the Hindus lost 158,806 Chuhras and 179,103 Chamars. The Musallies* in the province numbered 57,410 in 1901 and this figure rose to 309,568 in 1911. The abnormal rise of 252,158,'i.e.. about 439 per cent., in the number of Musallies, says the Census-Superintendent, " would indicate that in some places Chuhras have been returned as Musallies at the recent census." The Census-Superintendent estimates the conversion of Hindus to Islam during 1901 11 40,000 and states that, out of this figure, 25,000 have been Chuhras and Chamars.

The Superintendents of Census operations, Punjab, 1921, were Mr. Middleton, i.c.s. and Mr. S. M. Jacob, i.c.s. On page 104,. Part I of their report, we find : < ( In the Punjab I have found gross errors in price statistics, in the revenue records and even in the recorded areas of crops which are reputed to be as accurate as any in the world, and in the estimates of the yields on which the final outturn of the crops is computed. Vital statistics, too, are known to be very unreliable." A am, on pa e 106 of the report,. the Census Superintendent observes : " Evidence as to the un­reliability of the census of the number of inhabitants per building carried out in Lahore, Amritsar, Rawalpindi and Jullundur, though,, of course, the accuracy to be expected is much less than that of the-census proper, is afforded by the statistics themselves. Thus, by adding up the number of buildings with the specified number of inhabitants per building it is found that, in the case of Wards 1—6 of the Lahore city, there must be no less than 1,17,140 inhabitants as against 92,533 enumerated in the census. The difference of over 24,000 cannot be accounted for except by the inaccuracy of one or other of the enumerations. In the case of Ward 3 of Rawalpindi the discrepancy is even more marked."

As regards the Census operations of 1931 Khan Sahib Ahmad Hassan Khan, Superintendent of Census operations, Punjab, observe* on page 79 of his report: " Under the circumstances it is not surprising that, while some people complained of omissions in enume­ration, some asserted a swelling of figures of the community other than their own by means of bogus entries. It has to be remembered

* A Chuhra or a Chamar convert to Islam is called a Musalli.

• *

*

40

that , in the course of operations of such magnitude as the census, some omissions are bound to occur. But as remarked by most •district officers in their reports, there was a general tendency on the part of the various communities to have each an every member •of theirs enumerated. While in rural areas the work of

It is, therefore, not surprising that the enumeration work ©

\

preliminary enumeration was done by the patwaries who, under the supervision of their superior officers, almost invariably dis­charged their duties faithfully ; in most of the towns this work was •entrusted to the enumerators who belonged to various categories, such as clerks, teachers, students, municipal employees, businessmen, etc J in the towns was not characterised by the same amount of care­fulness and accuracy as in villages. Another factor came into play on the present occasion and deprived the census operations of the calm atmosphere which is essential to the obtaining of correct figures. The new Constitution for India was to be framed at no •distant date and value attached to the communal figures brought •out by the census was greater than ever. Consequently, the at­mosphere was surcharged with propaganda carried on through various agencies and attempts were made in some places by •enumerators to swell the figures of their communities by means of bogus entries or to curtail the strength of rival community by scoring out persons who were actually present on the final census night. There were also some cases in which the residents of houses .returned bogus names with the same motives. This mostly took place in certain urban areas, the worst offender in this respect being Amritsar. . . In Lahore several cases came to notice in which vsdiole families were left unenumerated." At page 81 of his report the Census Superintendent observes: " The number of recorded houses during the preliminary enumeration was 8,167,739 and on the final census night 5,946,652 houses were found occupied."

In the city of Amritsar, according to the census report of 1931, the Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs were returned as under:

Muslims Hindus Sikhs

• %

• •

132,361 96,975 31,855

Subsequent to the census operations of 1931 electoral register •community-wise were prepared for lative Assembly. The Amritsar City Electoral Reg

the Punjab Le

Muslim community bore 21,223 Electoral Reg

for the The Amritsar City Hindu

recorded 23,050 voters. The Amritsar City

41

Sikh Electoral Register showed 9,885 voters. The percentage of the voters of various communities to their population works out as under:

Muslims . . 15 per cent. Hindus . . 23.8 per cent. Sikhs . . 30 per cent.

The figures for the Sikhs, recorded in the Census operations of 1931, are obviously wrong. The Sikh population in 1931 must have been more than 31,855 because, normally speaking, it is not .possible to have 30 per cent, of the population of a community on the Electroral Register where the names of persons with specific age, property and educational qualifications can alone be included.

All this shows that the census figures of 1931 are not reliable. Mr. M. W. M. Yeatts, Census Commissioner for India, 1941, in his report further points out: " The 1931 census coincided "with a civil disobedience movement which occasioned a good deal of localised trouble . . . At that time Mr. Gandhi's Civil Dis­obedience Campaign was in full swing and all over North India, the census, as a governmental activity, incurred hostility as such." The Hindus and the Sikhs of the Punjab boycotted the census of 1931 to their own detriment.

The last census was taken in March, 1941. The All-India Muslim League, on 23rd March, 1940, supplied to the Muslim masses the ideology of Muslim Homelands in the north-western and eastern zones of India with the result that, in the Punjab and Eastern Bengal,' doubtful and suspect figures have been returned. The Census Commissioner of 1941, on page 9 of his report, says : " 1940-41 saw also political influences on the census but in the opposite direction; since whereas the difficulty in 1931 had been to defeat a boycott, the difficulty in 1941 was to defeat an excess of zeal." He continues and states tha t : " Where, therefore, the language controversy entered, the census returns were worthless. . . . The language and script questions have not been tabu­lated and I make now a recommendation to the Government of India that they be not tabulated even if the suspended operations are resumed." At page 10 of the report we find : " Over the greater part of the country and in the entire rural areas the citizens responded and only in localised urban areas in the north were definite corruptions observed." India proper has added another 50 millions to its population in 10 years between 1931 and 1941.

* ,

42

In other words, the mere decade increment is greater than the entire population of any European country except Germany or Eussia. As set out heretofore, Mr. Yeatts says : " The increase is by no means uniform. Although a greater figure than for the previous decades is practically universal, rates are noticeably larger in the north than in the south and we have two distinct peaks in the extreme west and north-west and in the east. In fact, we have in the Punjab and Eastern Bengal two swarming areas." At page 30 of the report Mr. Yeatts again observes : " The politics of a country are its purpose but administration is its expression. Every political development, therefore, will, in its time, produce this administrative expression though the appearance may be long delayed. The difficulties of the 194-1 census represent such an appearance. It was inevitable that sooner or later an exaggerated and pathological interest would come to attend on the production of the figures which a communal segregation expresses. And when you have a pathological interest in the production of figures, you have introduced into them a weakness which will remove all value unless suitable remedy is applied. . . . I f the circumstances of to-day continue, and if a community record is desired and if the general attitude of the citizens has not developed towards a deeper Understanding of their own role then it is doubtful whether ten years hence it will be possible, at any rate in certain areas, to take a community record at all."

The population of Bengal in the Census of 1891 was 39,097,033 and in 1931 it rose to 50,115,548. The increase in population during forty years aggregates to 11,018,525. In the last census the population of Bengal has been returned as 60,306,525. The increase during 1931-41 is 10,190,977 which is almost equal to the increase in the population of Bengal during the preceding forty years.

In the 1941 census the population of the Punjab was returned as 28,418,819. The increase in 1931—41 decade was 4,837,955. The increase during 1891—1931 was 4,928,250. No doubt ten years hence it will not be possible in the Punjab and Eastern Bengal to take a community record at all.

The percentage of population variation between .1921—31 and 1931-41 for the divisions of Dacca and Chittagong are :

1921-31 1931-41 Dacca Division . . +8.7 +22.7 Chittagong Division . . +13.3 +26.3

43 t

In the Dacca and Chittagong Divisions the increase in popu­lation during 1931—41 aggregates to 4,373,190. From the figures set out in the Census Keport of 1941 we find that the decennial increase in the total population of Bengal during the past forty years has been 2,754,631. The phenomenal rise in the population of the Dacca and Chittagong Divisions in 1931—41 is inexplicable except that in Eastern Bengal suspect figures have been returned.

The percentage of population variation between 1921—31 and 1931—41 in the Punjab is :

1921—31 1931—41 + 13.9 +20.5

The population in the city of Amritsar community-wise in the Census of 1941 is as under :

Muslims . . 184,696 Hindus . . 143,286 Sikhs . . 58,610

i

The population of Amritsar was again enumerated for rationing purposes in 1944. The rationing enumeration for various commu­nities is as under:

Muslims . . 177,563 Hindus . . 143,471 Sikhs . . 63,236

The Sikhs in the rationing enumeration are 4,626 more than shown in the census of 1941 whereas the Muslims are 7,133 less than they were returned in the census of 1941. The figures for the Hindu community have remained constant.

Again it will be well to remember in this connection that ordinarily the figures for the Sikh community m the Census of 1941 ought to have been more as compared with the rationing enumeration for the obvious reason that thousands of pilgrims all over the country visit the Golden Temple and other Sikh historic shrines at Amritsar daily and they must have been included in the census enumeration of 1941 although none of them can be included in the rationing enumeration.

*

The report of Mr. Yeatts makes out that the figures of the various communities in the Punjab and Eastern Bengal are not reliable. In the Punjab the Census operations were conducted with the Unionist Ministry in power and under the direct super­vision of Khan Bahadur Sh. Fazal Ilahi, Superintendent of Census operations, Punjab, The enumerators and the office staff of the

44:

Superintendent, Census Operations, Punjab, were predominantly Muslim. To take one example : In the District of Gujrat (Punjab), 3,157 enumerators were employed. The number of enumerators community-wise in the District of Gujrat was as under:

Muslims . • 2,485 Hindus . . 480 Sikhs . . 179 Christians . . 3

During the progress of the Census operations several complaints were made to the officers-in-charge, Census operations, in the different parts of the country, and a number of enumerators con­fessed their guilt. The Assistant Secretary, Shromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, Amritsar, in his letter dated the 3rd March, 1941, brought to the notice of the Officer-in-Charge, Census Operations, Amritsar, several cases in which the Sikhs had not been recorded as Sikhs in the census returns. In some of those cases the mistake was rectified and the supervisors initialled those slips. In almost all the Mohammadan Ilaqas it was complained that ready-made lists of the occupants of the houses were supplied to the enumerators who did not go to the spot to verify their correctness. The census sub-committee of the S. G. P. C , on the 19th March, 1941, recorded a resolution in which the grievances of the- Sikhs against the enumerators were set out in extenso.

I t is abundantly clear that the Census figures for the various communities do not afford any reliable data. Mr. M. W. M. Yeatts observes: " A census or any other determination must be un­affected by preconceptions or bias if its results are to be acceptable and useful. If, for example, in an income inquiry there is a suspicion that the furnishers of the basic information have allowed bias to affect the actual returns, the result, inevitable and salutary, is that the enquiry is regarded as worthless and its results are used only by biassed publicists and command no general authority or acceptance. Possibly it takes a certain quality of education and temperament to understand such a principle in matters in which personal interest is heavily involved but it is one of the pre-conditions of a functioning democracy. Emotion and passion have their place and it is the man who feels deeply who achieves the greatest results. But in political or any other arguments the use of doubtful or suspect figures is like entering into a fight with a cracked lathi ; we can deliver no thorough blow

>

45

with it. A properly-educated mind can make the distinct between the collection of information and but if that applied as a test then I am afraid that certain elements in India have some way to go before they can be classed as educated."

In conclusion it will not be out of place to mention that, as set out above, the various censuses were taken in the months of December, January, February and March. The census reports bring out that during those months Powindahs, Balochis, Pathans and Kashmiries in lakhs migrate from Baluchistan, Tribal areas and Gilgit to the Punjab and they are included among the Muslim population of the province.

This being so, it stands to reason that, before we can accept the claim of the Muslims that they are more numerous in the Punjab than the other communities put together, a reliable data of the census figures will have to be prepared by the Government of India. The contention of the non-Muslims in the Punjab that the Muslims do not in fact form the majority of the population of the Punjab receives full support from the reports of the various Census Super­intendents. The non-Muslims in the Punjab maintain that if the Census operations in the Punjab were conducted under the super­vision of an impartial board of supervisors, the results would show that the Muslim claim that they form the maj ority of the popu­lation of the Punjab would not be found to be sustainable. Till such census is taken in the Punjab, the Muslim claim that they form the majority of the population in the province will at best be considered to be a doubtful claim.

vJ

CHAPTER X

PAKISTAN RESOLUTION AND AFTER

The All-India Muslim resolved:

League in their Pakistan Resolution (t It is the considered view of the session of the All-

India Muslim League that no constitutional plan would be workable in this country or acceptable to the Muslims unless based on the principle that geographically contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be so constituted with such territorial adjustments as may be necessary ; that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a maj ority, as in the north-western and eastern zones of India, should be grouped to constitute independent states in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign. j)

Dr. Shaukat Ullah Ansari in Pakistan—The Problem of India, observes : " The important shrines of the Sikhs are in the Central Punjab and if this area was to be excluded it would mean the exclusion also of the Muslim intelligentsia which incidentally is concentrated in this area, and the best soil in the entire Indus region because, after their exclusion, a federation of the remaining Muslim tracts will be a federation of the sandy tracts of the Bahawal-pur and Khairpur States, the barren and rocky soil of the Rawalpindi Division, the sandy stretch and colony areas of the Multan Division, which, are already becoming water-logged, the poor soils of the N. W. F. P. and the sand-dunes of Baluchistan and Sind."

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar writes in Thoughts on Pakistan : a If the Muslims want Pakistan to be a national Muslim State, then they are claiming the right of political sovereignty over the territory included in it. This they are entitled to. But the question is : Should they be allowed to retain within the boundaries of these

< Muslim States non-Muslim minorities as their subjects with a view to impose upon them the nationality of these Muslim States ?

' ' No doubt, such a right is accepted to be an accompaniment of political sovereignty. But it is equally true that in all mixed

46

•

47 *

states this right has become a source of mischief in modern times. To ignore the possibilities of such mischief in the creation of Pakistan and the Eastern Muslim State will be to omit to read the bloody pages of recent history on which have been recorded the atrocities, murders, plunders and arsons committed by the Turks, Greeks, Bulgars and the Czechs against their minorities. I t is not possible to take away this right, from a state of imposing its nationality upon its subjects because it is incidental to political sovereignty. But it is possible not to provide any opportunity for the exercise •of such a right. This can be done by allowing the Muslims to have National Muslim States but to make such states strictly homogeu ous, strictly ethnic states. Under no circumstances can they be allowed to carve out mixed states, composed of Muslims opposed to Hindus, with the former superior in numbers to the latter."

The author of the Tragedy of Jinnah observes : " Pakistanists should not bank upon Calcutta and Eastern Punjab. They are bound to be part of the so-called Hindu India, because they are preponderatingly Hindu. No amount of coercion can keep them in Pakistan. The Bengal Hindu is a hard nut to crack. He •gave enough proof of his mettle in the partition of Bengal agitation. So is the Punjab Sikh. All methods of intimidation and persuasion

. failed to make him yield to the Muslims a few yards of land in Lahore. The Shahidgunj affair should be a stern lesson to all those who think of including the Eastern Punjab in the Pakistan."

Professor Coupland, in the Future of India, observes : " Mr. Jinnah, of course, has been well aware from the outset of his camapign that, of the many problems raised by partition, the Sikh problem is one of the most thorny, and a few days after the passing of the Lahore Resolution, he made a public statement on it, ex­pressing his respect for the Sikh Community and his conviction that it had nothing to fear from Pakistan.

' I am sure they would be much better off in the north-west Muslim zone than they can ever possibly be in a United India or under one Central Government, for under one Central Government their voice wTould be negligible. The Punjab, in any case, would be an autonomous sovereign unit. And, after all, they have to live in the Punjab. I t is obvious that, whereas in a United India they would be mere nobodies, in the Muslim Homeland the Sikhs would

/ always occupy an honoured place and would play an effective and influential role.' .

\

4.8

But the Sikhs are more concerned with their position in North-West India than in India as a whole, and it is the prospect of a Musi m, not of a Hindu Kaj, that alarms them. Their reaction to Pakistan, as conceived by the Muslim League, is the exact counterpart of the Muslim reaction to a union of India as conceived by the Congress. Just as the Muslims, remembering the Moghul Empire, refuse to be subjected to a permanent Hindu majority of an all-India Centre, so the Sikhs, remembering that, only a century ago, they ruled the Punjab, refuse to become a permanent minority in Pakistan. Thus, when Sir Stafford Cripps submitted the British* Government's proposals in 1942 to the various party leaders, the-Sikh All-Parties Committee was the first to reject them on the ground that the option of non-adherence to an all-India constitution was to be exercised by majorities in the Provinces. ' Our position in the Punjab" they declared, * has been finally liquidated. . . . Why should not the population of any area be given the right to record its verdict and to form an autonomous unit ? . . . . We shall resist by all possible means the separation of the Punjab from an all-India union."

El Hamza, in Pakistan—A Nation, observes : " Sikhism is> a compromise between Hinduism and Islam. Guru Nanak, t h e ' great Punjabi pacifist, first preached the Sikh religion and won adherents in the area around Amritsar. To-day Sikhs are found all over Pakistan and as Professor Lyde points out, give a distinctive* tone to the country. By the census returns of 1931 there are four million three hundred and thirty-six thousand Sikhs living in India-More than ninety-five per cent, of the total Indian Sikh population lies within Pakistan.

Taking India as a whole the Sikhs form less than 1.3 per cent., of its total population. Evidently so smal] a minority can exercise no appreciable influence on the cultural and political development, of the great sub-continent. It is most unlikely that in a closely-federated India the Sikhs will be able to preserve their cultural and religious identity against the pressure of overwhelming numbers..

However, in the event of Pakistan becoming independent, Sikhs will be in a different position. They will be an influential minority of landholders constituting about nine per cent, of the population. National self-determination for Pakistan will mean national self-determination for the Sikhs and there will be no further danger of their being swamped by overwhelming millions of alien rice-eaters. An independent Pakistan will not only be

49

one of the greatest Muslim Powers, she will also be the only Sikb Power in the world ; and it is for this reason that the Pakistani Muslims look to their Sikh brethren for co-operation in their efforts for liberation of the Fatherland."*

Professor Sir Hassan Suhrawardy, writing on the Indian crisis,, says : " The difficulty in implementing the scheme of Pakistan in the North-West Block lies in objections recorded at Delhi in March, 1942, to the Cripps Proposals by the spokesmen of the Sikh com­munity. It numbers in all 5.7 millions. The total population of the Punjab is 28J millions, comprising 16J million Muslims and three million Sikhs. It may be pointed out that most of the Sikhs, of the Punjab live in the area south-east of a line following the Sutlej River up to Ferozepore, and from there the railway line passing by Amritsar and Gurdaspur to the River Ravi.

' ' The Sikhs are a virile race with a fine spiritual background. They have played a gallant part in many wars, and it is expected that they will show the characteristic clear thinking and broad-mindedness of brave people. The original spiritual Revivalist Movement of Gum Nanak has unfortunately assumed a political character in later years, and it is one of the tragedies of history that there has been antagonism between the Muslims and the Sikhs-. when there is so much common in their spiritual background and faith. It is for the leaders on both sides to find the compromises and concessions which will enable them to successfully work the scheme. It seems to me a concession to the combined Sikhs and

/ Hindus of a fifty-fifty representation with the Muslims of the Punj ab-would be a good gesture.

' ' In any case, if, after careful consideration, the Sikh Community are not satisfied that, with the constitution of the North-West Dominion under the Pakistan Scheme, their present influential position in the Punjab and the whole of India will be much im­proved, they could form an enclave to include the maj ority of the Sikh population and, by treaty rights, safeguard the interests of the majority living outside the enclave."

There is a wealth of literature on the Muslim League Resolution and various publicists have given their own viewpoints on the point involved. Sir Stafford Cripps, on his return from India to England,

*The population figures given by Hamza proceed upon the Census of 1931.

50

•speaking on the rejection of His Majesty's proposals in the House of Commons, said :

*

" The more dispersed but still an important minority of the Depressed Classes desired specific protection against adverse effects of the caste system while the Sikhs, that brave fighting race (cheers) who have done and are doing so much to help Britain in the defence of India, desire some form of protection against the majority rule by another community."

Mr. Amery, in winding up the debate, stated : "On the other hand, the particular method which we suggest

for arriving at a constitutional settlement, more parti­cularly on the present provincial basis, both for settling up a constitution-making assembly and for non-accession is not meeting with sufficient support for us to press it further. It may be that alternative methods might arise which might form a better basis for the definition

I of boundaries and might give representation for smaller elements such as Sikhs whose natural aspirations we

v appreciate."

This was the reaction of His Majesty's Government to the Tejection by the Sikhs of the Cripps' Proposals. The Sikh All-Parties Committee, in a representation to Sir Stafford Cripps, had •declared that the proposals were unacceptable to them because:

" Instead of maintaining and strengthening the integrity of India, specific provision has been made for separation of provinces and the constitution of Pakistan and the cause of the Sikh Community has been lamentably be­trayed. Ever since the British advent our community has fought for England in every battlefield of the Empire, and this is our reward—that our position in the Punjab, which England promised to hold in trust and in which we occupied a predominant position—has been finally liquidated.

Why should a province that fails to secure three-fifths majority •of its legislature in which a religious community enjoys statutory majority be allowed to hold a plebiscite and given the benefit of a bare majority ? In fairness, this right should have been conceded to][communities who are in permanent minority in the legislature.

'

51

Further, why could not the population of any area opposed t o separation be given the right to record its verdict and to form an autonomous unit ? We are sure vou know that the Punjab proper extended up to the banks of the Jhelum excluding Jha&g ;and Multan Districts, and the trans-Jhelum area was added by the conquest of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and retained by the British for administrative convenience. I t would be altogether unjust to allow extraneous trans-Jhelum population which only accidentally •came into the Province to dominate the future of the Punjab proper.

We give below the figures which abundantly prove our con­tention.- From the boundary of Delhi to the banks of the Ravi 'river the population is divided as follows:

Muslims 45,05,000 Sikhs and other non-Muslims . . 76,46,000

From the Delhi Boundary to the banks of the Jhelum river -excluding Multan and Jhang districts :

Muslims . . . . . . 82,88,000 Sikhs and other non-Muslims . . 93,48,000*

To this may be added the population of the Sikh States of Patiala, Nabha, Jind, Kapurthala and Faridkot, which is about "2,600,000. Of this the Muslims constitute barely 20 per cent, and this reduces the ratio of the Muslim population still further.

We do not wish to labour the point any more. • We have lost iall hope of receiving any consideration. We shall resist, however, by all possible means, separation of the Punjab from the All-India Union. We shall never permit our Motherland to be at the mercy sof those who disown it."

'Admittedly, the Pakistan resolution needs clarification in several respects. Dr. Shaukat Ullah Ansari in Pakistan—The Problem of India, observes : " Before the demand for Pakistan .can be accepted or supported by the future Pakistanists, they have a perfect right to knowi what Mr. Jinnah consistently refuses to tell them, viz.,, what Pakistan has in store for them. Geographi-

what will Pakistan consist of ? Will Ambala Division be excluded ? Will Sikh areas be retained ?. . . Will Pakistan be democratic, autocratic, socialistic, feudal or fascist ? Will it be riddled with native States, or would those states be liquidated ?

r

*The population figures in this memorandum proceed upon the Census of 1931. i ' . - . ' : .

v • • • • • .

\

52

/

What will be the rights of a citizen of Pakistan ? What will be the duties of a citizen of Pakistan ? Will Pakistan be theocratic oi temporal %

5J

Mr. M. A. Jinnah has, however, consistently defied the clari­f ica t ion of the Pakistan ^Resolution. In 1944 during the talks at

/ Lahore between the Unionist Party and the Muslim League over the formation of a Muslim League Ministry in the Punjab, Sardar Baldev Singh, Development Minister, Punjab, had a lengthy talk with Mr. Jinnah over the Pakistan issue. The substance of this talk with Mr. Jinnah may be summarised as follows :

Mr. Jinnah's main concern at the time was to seek the co-operation of the Sikhs with the Muslim League in and outside the Legislative Assembly. Obviously his sole object at the moment was to break up the Unionist Party. He knew that if he could secure the co-operation of the Sikh Block, his purpose could be-achieved.

The attitude of the Development Minister was that the Sikhs did not consider the Muslim League as an untouchable body and would be prepared to co-operate with it provided their co-operation did not imply an acceptance of the Pakistan Scheme.

It was made clear to Mr. Jinnah that co-operation with the League was not possible so long as the Pakistan Scheme remained the creed of the Muslim League or, in the alternative,. the Pakistan Scheme of the League should be explained clearly and unequivocally in order that the position of the minorities, particularly the Sikhs, might be clear to all concerned, before any proposal for co-operation with the League could be considered.

Sardar Baldev Singh put it to Mr. Jinnah as frankly and plainly as possible that the Sikhs would, under no circumstances, consent to form a part of his Pakistan State and that the Sikhs as a body were wholly opposed to any scheme of partition of India. He further held that the Scheme of partition was not only detri­mental to the interests of the Sikhs but to those of the Muslim© and certainly to the interests of India as a whole.

Mr. Jinnah was meticulously careful not to define the Pakistan-Scheme. The impression left on the mind of Sardar Baldev Singh

* Why Cripps Failed, Pages 91-92.

53

-was that Mr. Jinnah was himself unable or unwilling to clarify Iris own scheme and, for obvious reasons, he wished to shift the responsibility on to the Sikhs by requiring them to state the safe-

\ guards that the Sikhs would want.

I t may be said that, although he seemed never to be clear in his own mind on the point, it appeared as if he would, as a last resort, even consent to a division of the Punjab. Why he was not more precise on this point was because of his knowledge that if he were at any time to make such a suggestion publicly, he would be

I disowned and repudiated by the Punjab Mussalmans themselves. The fact is now too well known'to need elaboration.

Sardar Baldev Singh further noticed that the attitude of Mr. Jinnah, who bullied his opponents, particularly the Congress and Hindus, was always one of extreme courtesy towards the Sikhs. This was because he knew that Sikhs alone were the biggest obstacle in his way and he knew that he could not carry through his Pakistan Scheme without placating the Sikhs.

To return to the main point: the Pakistan Resolution, s asserting that Muslim regions must constitute Independent State

authorised the Working Committee of the League to frame a scheme of constitution in accordance with the basic principles of the Reso­lution. The . Constitution Committee appointed by the Foreign Committee of the All-India Muslim League formed as the basis of its consideration the Pakistan Resolution adopted by the All-India Muslim League and, on the 23rd December, 1940, Haji Sir Abdullah Haroon, Chairman of the Committee, submitted the Report of the Committee to the President, All-India Muslim League. Report of the

The Commitee is an important document and makes it

clear that the Lahore Resolution necessarily calls for an All-India Constitution. Mr. M. A. Jinnah, on 15th March, 1941, however, wrote to Dr. S.'A. Latif, one of the members of the Committee, that the Muslim League did not recognise

*The Pakistan Issue, Page 100.

CHAPTER XI I

THE TWO-NATION THEORY

Comrade Stalin in his Note, Marxism and the National Question,, written at the beginning of 1913 in Vienna, said : " A nation is a historically evolved, stable community of language, territory, economic life and psychological make-up manifested in a community of culture."

Mahatma Gandhi, in his letter dated 15th September, 1944 wrot Mr. M. A. Jinnah i You must admit that the itself makes no reference to the two-nation theory. In the of our discussions, you have passionately pleaded that India cc

Hindus and Mushm and that the latter have-their homelands in India as the former have their

i . The more our argument progresses, the more alarming your picture appears to me. It would be alluring if it were true. But my fear is growing that it is wholly unreal. I find no parallel in history for a body of converts and their descendants claiming to be-a nation apart from the parent stock. If India was one nation before the advent of Islam, it must remain one in spite of the change of faith of a very large body of her children.

" You do not claim to be a separate nation by right of conquest but by reason of acceptance of Islam. Will the two nations become one if the whole of India accepted Islam ? Will Bengalis, Oriyas, Andhras, Tamillians, Maharashtrians, Gujratis, etc., cease to have-their special characteristics if all of them became converts to Islam ?""

The same objection has been mentioned by Professor Coupland at page 105 of The Future of India. He says : " There is another point on which the ideology of partition seems out Of date. The nationalism it preaches is based on religion. It is because they are Muslims that the Muslims of India are entitled to political in­dependence. It is because they are Muslims that the trend of their future international associations should be turned away from India and towards the Middle East." •

54

55

Doctor Sheikh Sir Mohammad Iqbal, in his lecture on the Muslim Community is reported to have said : " The essential differ-

between the Muslim community and other communities of the world consists in our peculiar conception of nationality. It the unity of language or country or the identity of economic that constitutes the basic principle of our nationality. It is because we all believe in a certain view of the universe, and participate in the same historical tradition that we are members of the society founded by the Prophet of Arabia. Islam abhors all material limitations and bases its nationality on a purely abstract idea objectified in a potentially expansive group of concrete personalities. It is not dependent for its life-principle on the character and genius of a particular people ; in its essence it is non-temporal, non-spatial."*

The Muslims in India, therefore, constitute a nation not accord ing to any definition or test of a nation but according to their peculiar conception of nationality. And according to that con­ception the people of India cannot be regarded as one nation but, as observed by El Hamza,v in Pakistan—a Nation, must be considered as belonging to several nations. Mahatma Gandhi, therefore, very rightly said : " You seem to have introduced a new test of nationhood and if I accept it, I would have to sub­scribe to many more claims and face an insoluble problem."

This aspect of Islam has also been noticed by Andre Servier in Islam and The Psychology of the Musalman. On page 2 of the book we find : " Islam is not only a religious doctrine that includes neither sceptics nor renegades, it is a country; and if the religious nationalism, with which all Musalman brains are impregnated, has not as yet succeeded in threatening humanity with serious danger, it is because the various people, made one by virtue of this bond, have fallen into such a state of decrepitude and decadence that it is impossible for them to struggle against the material forces placed by science and progress at the disposal of Western Civilization."

The theoretical disputation as to whether the Indian Moslems are or are not a nation is a waste of time. For, as observed by Professor Coupland, it cannot be maintained that a nation must be embodied in an independent state, that it cannot otherwise realise its nationhood. To argue so is to revert to the outworn philosophy of early nineteenth-century Europe and to ignore the doctrine of multi-national state first preached in Acton's famous essay as long

Census of India, 1911, Punjab, Part I, Page 162.

56

ago as 1862. And it is to contradict the facts of history. The Scots are undeniably a nation, so are the Welsh. The Swedes and the Norwegians did not recover their nationhood when they dissolved their union: they had never lost it. The Germans, French and

' Italian, Swiss, or the French-Canadians may be described as nation­alities rather than as nations in the full sense of the word, but they possess a national tradition, a national way of life, and they adhere to it, as firmly as any independent national, within their multi­national states.*

" The co-existence of several nations under the same state," said Lord Acton, " i s a test as well as the best security for its freedom. A state may, in course of time, produce a nation but that nationality should constitute a state is contrary to the nature of modern civilization." Even the " Punjabi," in his Scheme of the Confederacy of India, admits that the idea of a bi-national confederation is not impracticable. The Muslim League emphasis on the Two-nation Theory proceeds upon the theory of Nationality of John Stuart Mill that " the boundaries of the state should coincide in the main with those of nationalities." The argument is untenable, for, in the first place, Mill did not contemplate purely " religious nationalities " and, in the second place, it is axiomatic to-day that nationhood does not necessarily coincide with statehood. The authors of The Communal Triangle very pertinently observe : " Small-nation states cannot exist as independent units any more in the world. The future unit will be a Federation of Free Nations. As the French Kepublic lay dying, the British Govern­ment, compelled by the peril of the hour, made their re­markable proposal for a union with France. As ever with England, it was too late, but it demonstrated in a flash how the old ideas of independent countries had become obsolete."f

^r

^Professor Coupland : The Future of India, page 111. ^Mehta Patwardhan : The Communal Triangle, Page 150.

X CHAPTER XI I

PUNJAB, THE HOMELAND OF THE SIKHS

The Creed of the All-India Muslim League recognises the dis­tinction between National Home and National State for the League stands for the establishment of Independent Muslim States in Muslim Homelands.

The All-India Muslim League raised the cry of " Pakistan " in , 1940, the basis of which was that the Muslims were not a communal

minority in India but a nation and that they have their homelands in the north-western and eastern zones of India. The publicists who have written on the Muslim League Eesolution referred to above have failed to investigate into the question whether there was any foundation for the assumption. It is curious that Professor Coupland has fallen into the same error and failed to examine the point. On page 78 of his book, The Future of India, Professor Coupland observes : " The North-West Muslim Homeland is overwhelmingly agrarian.

•

The history of Palestine is an instance in point. On the 2nd of November, 1917, the Balfour Declaration with respect to Palestine was made, which contained the following statement: " His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish People, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by the Jews in any other country]

The French Government expressed its approval of this scheme on February 14, 1918. This declaration had to be taken into con­sideration when the Peace Conference met. Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations established a mandate system,

J>

55

the guiding principle of which was that the well-being and develop­ment of the inhabitants of certain ex -enemy colonies and territories

57

58

it

should be a sacred tru^t for civilization under the tutelage of a mandatory on behalf of the League until such time as the native peoples were read}^ for independence. On the 24th July, 1922, the Council of the League of Nations issued a Mandate which entrusted to Great Britain, as Mandatory, the administration of the territory of Palestine. The preamble of this Mandate laid down ;

Whereas the principal allied Powers have agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declara­tion originally made on November 2, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty and adopted by the said Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish People, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by the Jews in any other country, and

Whereas recognition has hereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish People with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their National Home in the Country. . . .

We find in Information Note No. 1, published by the Royal Institute of International Affairs on the Middle East, that the movement for the settlement of the Jewish People in Palestine was inspired by a mixture of nationalist and religious feelings. The League of Nations, as set out above, recognised the historic connec-

< i

5>

tion of the Jewish People with Palestine and approved of the Balfour Declaration of 2nd November, 1917. The population of Palestine in 1922 was 757,182, of whom 590,890 were Muslims, 83,794 Jews and 73,024 Christians, the remainder being Druzes, Samaritans, Bahais, Sikhs, Hindus and Metawilehs. The population as at 30th September, 1942, was officially estimated at 1,613,376, out of which 992,063 were Moslems, 481,706 Jews, 126,501 Christians and 13,106 " others." The growth since the 1922 Census in the Moslem popu­lation of 402,886 is mainly due to natural increase ; that of the Jewish population, namely, 397,916 during the same period, is mainly due to immigration.

The Democratic Party, of United States of America supporting in the last Presidential Election declared that they stood for the establishment of the Jewish National Home in Palestine and the Annual Conference of the Zionist Organisation of Great Britain and Ireland on 28th January, 1945, passed a resolution calling for the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish State or Commonwealth integrated into the new World Order. The Jewish

r

59

claim, it would appear, proceeds upon the basis that Palestine as the " Promised Land " and the " Holy Land " of the Jewry.

To come back to the Punjab : Of the six million Sikhs in all India, 3.8 million are domiciled in the Punjab and 1.4 million in the Punjab States. The Sikh population according to the Census of 1941 is 5,691,447. Out of this population 3,757,401 is in British Punjab and 134,665 in Punjab States.

It was the author of the Punjab Peasant who said : " We now enter the heart of the Punjab, the tract running from the Jhelum in the North to a little beyond the Sutlej in the South. Embracing seven districts with a population of six million it contains all that is most characteristic of the Province. It is the cradle of the Sikhs, and one hundred years ago was the mainstay

• of Ranjit Singh and his power." Sir Colin Garbett likewise observes : " The Sikhs number only 13 per cent, of the Punjab's population. Theirs was the rule before the British came, and their wealth, and corresponding contribution to the revenues of the province, and their military services to India and the Empire far exceed their

\ numerical proportion." Mr. Robert Needham Cust, i.c.s., Secretary to the Royal

Asiatic Society, wrote in 1859 : " The life of Nanak is so connected with the province that we must briefly detail it. There he was born and there he died. There he founded his school, there dwell his descendants and followers and the very name by which they •distinguish their nationality is that of being ' Sikhs ' or disciples. The proper name by which the country ought to be known is Sikh Land."

The cultural history of India affords an interesting reading: " The first cradle, of civilisation of India lay in the valley of the 4 Five Rivers ' from which the name of the Punjab is derived. The culture of the Indus Valley in the Vedic and the Upnishdic age presents the spectacle of sacrificial ceremonies with assemblies of learned scholars for philosophical and religious discussions, the worship of the Nature Gods and speculations on the nature of the soul, etc. In contrast with the Vedic culture there developed the culture of the Sikhs in the same valley four thousand years later. Guru Nanak and his followers gave birth to the Sikh religion and the Khalsa cult of the Akalis, which while continuing the monotheistic element and the spiritual devotion of the Vedic times introduced certain new elements of physical training and military

60

*

discipline and moral spirit."* " The Sikh Beligion," says Macauliffe, " prohibits idolatry, hypocrisy, caste exclusiveness, the concremation of widows, the immurement of women, the use of wine and other intoxicants, tobacco smoking, infanticide and slander."

Mr. Max Arthur Macauliffe, in his Introduction to The Sikh Religion writes : " I n the Sikh Gurus the East shook off the torpor of ages, and unburdened itself of the heavy weight of ultra-conservatism which had paralysed the genius and intelligence of its-people. Only those who know India by actual experience can adequately appreciate the difficulties the Gurus encountered in their efforts to reform and awaken the sleeping nation."

Mr. Eobert Needham Oust in his article referred to above says : " By a mere chance, by the fancy of a great man, by a fatality of circumstances the writer found himself after a lapse of seven years again among a people, whom he loved so well and in a position to study the character of the residents and visit the great cities of the rich tract which lies between the rivers Chenab and Bias, the original Sikh land, the cradle of the faith and the nursery of the chivalry of the followers of the Gurus. The Sikhs are not an effete race with only the faint traditions of the actions of their remote ancestors within the memory of man. They had a living faith, a vivid nationality, and an independent kingdom. Fortune was against them, for they came in collision with a race not more brave but more perfectly furnished with the appliances of war; but they submitted neither abjectly nor without a struggle. Within these confines was born one of those gifted spirits who are destined to teach millions a mode of groping after God, if happily they may find Him—-a man to whom the great art of welding the hearts of men and of developing a huge idea was conceded. *He stood on the confines of a new dispensation and reorganised his position. He mounted a high tower in his mind and looked on the spiritual state of his countrymen and beheld one half sunk in sloth and degra­dation of a ceremonial worship and the other half possessed indeed by a great spiritual truth, but blinded by fanaticism and false zeal. The name of this man was Nanak. Humble was his position, butter and honey were his words. . i . . He sought to bring the world into subjection by the influence of his mild words. And

* Training in Leadership and Citizenship for Ycung India by Mr. S. C. Roy, Paae 120.

61

one hundred years later when the second Prophet appeared there arose among the people of the country a wondrous yearning for political liberty. This led hundreds to abandon the plough and to take to the road which in those days led them to palaces instead of prisons."*

This was in 1859. Such is the testimony of impartial observers who were so intimately connected with the life of this Province. For the first time the world was told on 23rd March 1940 that the Punjab was the homeland of a people who have neither home nor land in the ' Punjab.'

/

J

*From the Research Papers of Doctor Tarlochan Singh

PART II MEMORANDUM FOR THE CONCILIATION COMMITTEE

A—INTRODUCTORY

The position of the Sikhs in India is so unique that it is im­possible to find even a distant parallel to it. They are six million in population, out of whom over four million live in British India, and thus, on a population basis, they constitute the third largest community in British India, the other two being Hindus and Muslims. But their political, historic and economic importance is out of all proportion to their numbers.

2. The rise of Sikhism was coeval with the emergence of the Moghal power in India in the fifteenth century, till by the end of the seventeenth century, after having tried all peaceful and legiti­mate means of persuading the aggressive Muslim conquerors to let them and the Hindus live a life consistent with their self-respect and dignity, they constituted themselves into a military and militant organisation called the Khalsa. Throughout the eighteenth century, they faced a relentless war of extermination and faced it so well and heroically that it is impossible to find a comparison in the whole history of mankind, where a weak and oppressed people resolutely stood in dignified protest against the greatest Empire of the times, and carried the torch of resistance and revolution from generation to generation till, by their matchless sacrifices and super-human determination, they emerged as the foremost political power in Northern India. The Empire they built was destroyed by the diplomacy of the British aided by the fatality of circum­stances, in the middle of the nineteenth century, but even their worst enemies will not assert that the Sikhs surrendered abjectly to the British, or laid down arms without a struggle.

3. Since the annexation of the Punjab with British India, the Sikhs have played a most noteworthy part in the making of the Punjab of to-day, and have made contributions towards the defence of India, and towards its economic and political life, which are out of all relationship with their small numerical strength,

63

64

but which are in keeping with their historic role in the political and cultural life of India.

4. The Sikhs are admittedly the best agriculturists and colonists in India, and on account of their efforts in this direction, they are known as the makers and sustainers of the agricultural Punjab. No other community can even remotely compare with the Sikhs as the creators of the food reserves of the Punjab, and therefore of the whole of India. It is significant that only those

' districts and regions of the Punjab, which are mainly cultivated by the Sikh farmers, are the surplus food districts, and they are, therefore, primarily entitled to the credit of having helped the whole of India out of the recent food crisis.

I

5. In the matter of the defence of the country, the services which the Sikhs have rendered are even more remarkable. The intelligent student of history knows that the credit of having effectively closed the North-West mountain passes through which hordes of foreign invaders have come to India to disturb its cultural and political life, for thousands of years, goes to the Sikhs. They are rightly described as " the backbone and flower of the Indian %

Army." Although the Sikhs are less than two per cent, of the population of India, their strength in the Defence Forces was over thirty per cent, in the second half of the nineteenth century and, during the last war, it was about fifteen per cent. Even during this war, in spite of the fact that the Indian Defence Forces hava been increased to 25 lacs, which is more than 12 times its previous strength, the Sikhs are in the neighbourhood of 10 per cent. in the Defence Forces. The quality of a Sikh as a soldier and a fighter does not need elaboration.

6. The Sikhs maintain that the Punjab is and must ' remain inalienably the homeland and the holy*land of the Sikhs. The facts and figures on this point are so clear and overwhelming that nothing but sheer audacity can account for any claim to the contrary, including the facetious claim that the Punjab is a Muslim province, or that it comprises one of the homelands of the Muslims.

J The Sikhs have more than seven hundred historic Gurdwaras in the Punjab with rich endowments, and undying memories of their Gurus, saints and martyrs attached to them. The Sikhs have set up and are financing over 4Q0 educational institutions, colleges, schools, girls' seminaries and technical establishments, thus making a contribution towards the educational progress of the Province

*

> /

65

out of all proportion to their numerical strength and far in excess of any such contribution made by other communities, particularly the Muslims. The policy of, and the atmosphere prevailing in, these institutions, is more liberal and non-communal than that provided in any similar institution run by other communities.

7. The maj or heads of the Provincial Beceipts are land revenue, excise, stamps and water rates, which in themselves con­stitute seventy-six per cent, of the total revenues. Of these, it can be safely asserted that the Sikhs contribute more than forty per cent. One has only to refer to the difficulties experienced in the early colonisation days and see how the Colonisation Officers are full of praises for the Sikh colonists. By sheer dint of their hard work, the Sikhs have not only made barren and waste lands fertile but also have created an insatiable desire amongst the Punjabis for canal-irrigated land which has incidentally raised the price of land. The Sikhs own the best and most fertile lands of the Province, the fertility of which is not so much the result of accident as the result of sustained labours of the Sikh cultivators themselves.

*

8. In view of these considerations it is difficult to appreciate the Muslim claim that the Punjab is a Muslim province, particularly so when the non-Muslims own more than eighty per cent, of the urban property and pay more than eighty per cent, of Income-tax and Urban Property Tax in the Punjab. An overwhelmingly major proportion of the industrial enterprises, factories, mills, the insurance companies, film industry and business, shop-keeping, trade and commerce is in non-Muslim hands, not so much again by accident but by virtue of their skill, industry and special aptitude. The cultural life of the province is primarily created and determined by impulses emanating from non-Muslim sources.

9. Even the superior numerical strength claimed by the Muslims is based on facts and figures the authenticity of which cannot be seriously relied upon by any detached student. The circumstances and the atmosphere under which the various Census Operations have been conducted in the Punjab, indicate that the communal figures returned at the various censuses are at best doubtful figures and that being so it is impossible to describe the Communal Award by which the British Government have foisted the statutory Muslim communal majority over the heads of the Hindus and the Sikhs in the Punjab, except as a piece of arbitrary high-handedness.

66

THE CONSTITUTION ACT OF 1935

10. This Constitution Act gives to the Sikhs thirty-three-seats in a House of one hundred and seventy-five in the Punjab, three seats in a House of fifty in the N. W. F. P., six seats in a House of two hundred and fifty in therFederal Legislative Assembly, if and when it comes into being, and four seats in the Council of State in a House of one hundred and fifty. Thus this Act has reduced the Sikhs into complete ineffectiveness in all spheres of the political life of the country. No seat has been reserved for the-Sikhs in the legislatures of the U. P. and Sind where they constitute important minorities or in other Provinces where they have con­siderable economic interests. This treatment, meted out. to the Sikhs by the British Government, cannot be justified either in view of the actual and potential importance of the Sikh community in the Punjab Province and India as a whole, or even in view of the considerations and principles which this Government has applied to the Muslim minorities in the Provinces as well as at the Centre. The Muslims form about thirteen per cent, of the population in the

\ U. P. as the Sikhs in the Punjab. But the Muslims have been given thirty per cent, of the seats in the United Provinces Assembly, whereas the Sikhs have been given only nineteen per cent, seats in the Punjab Provincial Assembly. Similarly, the Sikhs in the N. W. F. P., though small numerically, have historical and cultural claims on the Province.. They were the rulers of this province till recently and it is the Sikhs who have protected and preserved its integrity as a part of India. Again it is the Sikhs who have rescued and preserved whatever is left in the Province of its ancient and indigenous non-Muslim religious and cultural life. The Sikhs, therefore, are entitled to be treated on a much more liberal scale than they have been under the present Constitution. During the last ten years, minority representation in the Provincial Cabinet

. of the N. W. F. P. has been exclusively monopolised by the Hindus ) to the complete exclusion of the Sikhs.

In the United Provinces, the population of the Sikhs, officially calculated, is about two-and-a-half lakhs though the actual numerical strength of the Sikhs is at least the double of

• this figure. Indian Christians and Anglo-Indians in the province J number a lakh and a half. The latter have been given three seats

in the Provincial House while the Sikhs have been completely ignored, although the Sikhs, besides their numerical strength, hold

'

67

an economic position in the Province which entitles them to a weightage on principles which have been made applicable in the case of the Indian Christians and Anglo-Indians. The Sikhs are Taluhadars, landlords and mill-owners in the Province, and own and direct a considerable portion of the trade and business of the Province. They also h old a number of historic Gurdwaras in the Province, and in the past, particularly in the eighteenth century have played an important part in the political life of this region.

In Bengal, Anglo-Indians have been granted four seatsin the Provincial Legislature with a numerical strength of X 1 V 7 Y 1 1 J . V J L U J X Jk-A V^ W-1. *_/JLW V ^€-J- \ ^ T f -*. v/-*_*- wv — v ~ — ^ ^

thirty thousand while the Sikhs have not been given even a sing though they number over sixteen thousand In Sind, the census figures show that the Sikhs are over-

thirty-one thousand strong though, as a matter of fact, they number in lakhs. A large majority of the.non-Muslim population of Sind is Sikh in religious profession and outlook. Anyhow, they are a. growing minority and they own a considerable amount of a cultural and urban property in the province. It is unfair to deny them any representation whatever in the Provincial House.

The treatment meted out to the Sikhs in respect of allocation of seats in the Council of State is also demonstrably unjust in so-far as only four seats out of a hundred and fifty have been given to them. Similarly, only six seats have been allocated to them in the Federal Assembly. In the Minority Pact, arrived at in London at the time of the Bound Table Conference to which Pact the Sikhs-were not a party, five per cent seats were allocated to the Sikhs in the Federal Legislature. In the Allahabad Unity Conference in 1932, it was unanimously decided to give fourteen seats to the Sikhs in the Federal House out of a total number of three hundred but the British Government, for reasons best known to them, have-failed to recognise the Sikh claim. There is no justification for discrimination between the Sikhs, the Europeans, the Anglo-Indians and the Indian Christians in the matter of allocation of seats in the Council of State and in the Federal Assembly.

WOKKING OF PKOVINCIAL AUTONOMY IN THE

PUNJAB AND THE

11. The Communal Award transferred all power into the hands of a Muslim majority, calling itself by the name of n Unionists

68

During the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms, there were three 0 ~ ~ ~ ^ ~ ^ ^ b

Indian Executive Councillors or Ministers in the Punjab out of whom one was a Sikh. Moreover, all these three Ministers were equal in status and authority. In 1926 one more Muslim was added to the Cabinet and, up till 1937/the Sikhs retained twenty-five per cent, representation in the Provincial Cabinet. The first effect of the Provincial Autonomy of 1937 was that the share of

1 the Sikhs in the Executive Government of the Province was reduced to one-sixth. That in effectiveness, this one-sixth share was reduced to microscopic proportions will be clear from what follows. Although the electorate was communal with reservation of seats for the majority community, in the formation of the Cabinet, the British method of Government by the majority was enforced in its entirety, with the result that the leader of the statutory Muslim majority .group automatically became the Leader of the House. As if this ivas not enough, he was given the power to get Ministers appointed and dismissed not only of his own community but also of those taken from the minority communities, the Hindus and the Sikhs. Even this did not satisfy the ever-expanding Muslim desire for complete domination of the Province and, with the support of the British bureaucracy, the Rules of Business of the Cabinet were so framed that no decision could be taken without the consultation and •consent of the Premier with the result that in each and every case the Premier has the last word. Thus he became, in theory, as well as in practice—as the experience of the non-Muslim Ministers l a s confirmed—the undisputed Fiihrer in the Provincial Administra­tion, particularly, in matters which did' not affect the rights and privileges of either the British Civil Servants or the Imperial in­terests. Thus Provincial Autonomy has reduced the Sikhs and the Hindus in the province to a state of political subjugation and help­lessness. The communal rule has perpetrated* indignities on the Hindus and the Sikhs of the Province and has exasperated them "to the point of a revolutionary protest. The conditions created by the war furnish the sole explanation for the apparent calm with which the Hindus and the Sikhs have submitted to this tyranny. During the recent Unionist Party and Muslim League differences in the Province, the Premier has added yet anoth-er Muslim Minister to the Cabinet, thus reducing the formal strength of Sikhs in the 'Cabinet from one-sixth to one-seventh.

/ 12. The Muslim hold on the executive and administrative 1 ife of the province has been further tightened during this Autonomy

69

Kegime by making all the key posts, that fell vacant or were vacated, a monopoly of the Muslims. Now almost all the key positions in the various departments of the Provincial Administra­tion are held either by Europeans or by Muslims, a few still remain­ing in the hands of the Hindus. The Sikhs have been designedly excluded from effective participation in the administrative machinery.

& The Sikh personnel in the Government Services in the pro^ less than ten per cent, although, by a paper convention, it has been fixed at twenty per cent, and no serious attempt is being made or has been made to redress this glaring injustice to the Sikhs The position of the Sikhs, in the Servicer under the local bodies and other semi-Governmental institutions, such as the University of the Punjab, is even worse. No wonder this has resulted in a general and unabated maltreatment of the Sikhs at the hands of the administration in all spheres of administrative activity.

The Sikh& have established, it is repeated, a disproportionately large number of educational institutions in the Province, following a policy of liberality in these institutions which may be looked for in vain in the institutions of the other communities. The Unionists, however, have done everything in their power to thwart the work of these institutions by reducing the Government grants-in-aid in some, and by refusing to recognize others for the purpose of such grants-in-aid. In spite of the great contributions which the Sikhs have made towards the educational life of the Province, they have been given no voice in the Punjab University and the Education Department, there being only 7 Sikh Fellows out of a total of 85 in the Punjab University Senate.

Again, Punjabi is admittedly the spoken language and the mother-tongue of the Sikhs, Hindus and the Muslims in the Province, and yet so deeply* has communalism permeated into the fibre of the Muslims and, in this respect, also of the Hindus, that both these communities have formally disowned their mother-tongue, Muslims in favour of Urdu and the Hindus in favour of Hindi. The administrative work of the Government is conducted in Urdu and written in the Persian script. Urdu has also been enforced as the medium of instruction even at the primary stage, irrespective of the evil consequences which it entails on the mental growth of the children whose mother-tongue is different and unrelated to their medium of instruction. The Unionist Ministry has done everything in its power to thwart the teaching of Punjabi, even carried on solely or primarily by private enterprise. Thus, not

70

only the Punj abi child must be taught even the rudiments of the three R's in an artificial language and alien script, but even the day-to-day administration of the Province, including the dispen­sation of justice, must be based on records prepared exclusively or primarily in that language. In this way, the intellectual and

/ cultural growth of the Province is being thwarted and stifled.

The Unionists have done everything in their power to degrade and demoralise the Sikhs by interfering in the practice of their religion arbitrarily, and merely with a view to make them feel tha t they are a subject and subjugated people in their own home­land. The Sikhs slaughter animals for the purpose of meat in a manner which is practised throughout the civilised world, i.e., the method of killing the animal with one stroke, called jhatka. The Muslims, on the other hand, .prepare meat by the halal method. This consists in slowly cutting the lower portion of the neck of the

k animal. The Muslims take the most violent exception to the slaughtering of an animal in any other method except their own, and by executive acts have stopped the preparation and use of

\ jhatka in Government and semi-Government institutions. I t will be well to remember in this connection that a Sikh who takes meat prepared by the halal method commits an act of apostasy.* '

13. The whole Governmental machinery, under the Muslim majority rule, is biassed in favour of the Muslims and against the non-Muslims. For instance, primary education in the province is under the charge of the local bodies, such as district boards and municipalities, and the Provincial Government makes grants to these local bodies on the basis of the expenditure which they thus incur. The western districts of the Punjab, which are predomi­nantly inhabited by the Muslims, generally receive a higher percentage of grants-in-aid than the central districts. Again, in the western districts, no fees are charged from the scholars of agricultural classes, while no such exemption is granted to similar scholars in the central districts.

The concessions and facilities, usually given for the purpose of education and franchise to the scheduled castes, are not given to those members of the scheduled castes who embrace or have embraced Sikhism.

14. A planned and sustained policy of discriminating against, and brow-beating, the Sikh officials in the Government services has become an undfsguised feature of the autonomy regime in the

i

* Macauliffe : The Sikh Religion, VoJ. V, page 96.

71

Punjab. Every Sikh officer must feel that he belongs to a •community which is a subject and subjugated community under the Muslims, and all Sikh Officers, particularly those in the •executive departments, must be humiliated and crushed so that they may never aspire to afford any protection to Sikhs or Hindus in the day-to-day administration. The Sikh community or the Sikh Minister in the Cabinet is unable to afford any protection whatever to such officers who are thus being constantly maltreated •and oppressed. The statutory safeguards for the services provided in the Government of India Act, 1935, making the Governor the -custodian of the rights and privileges of the Public Service^, in practice, have failed to give any protection to the Hindu and Sikh Officers.

15. All this has resulted in a deterioration in the status and integrity of the public services, thus creating a state of affairs in which the elementary rights of neither the non-Muslim public nor the public services are safe. There are instances in which com­munal murders have been committed and the offenders have been saved from the natural and legal consequences of their acts by executive interference in the most arbitrary manner.

GRIEVANCES IN PROVINCES OTHER THAN THE PUNJAB

m

16. What the Sikhs have suffered in the Punjab has been the result of a deliberate and designed anti-Sikh policy with a view ultimately to eliminate the Sikh community from an effective voice in the life of the province. In provinces other than the Punjab, the Sikhs have suffered from various handicaps owing to the emergence of uncontrolled provincialism in some cases and owing to the lack of an effective voice of protest on the part of the Sikhs in other cases*.

The Province of Bombay is the only province in India in which the Sikhs are forbidden to keep and wear kirpans* over a certain length. Even the Congress Ministry could not see its way to re­dressing this serious religious grievance of the Sikhs.

In the Central Provinces and Berar, the Congress Government placed an arbitrary ban on the carrying on of business in the province by contractors who did not " originally " belong to that Province. This was done obviously to disqualify the Sikhs from pursuing their lawful avocations in that province, as a large number of contractors were Sikhs.

* Kir pan means sword. Vide Maoauliffe : The Sikh Religion, Vol. V, Page 95 and 5 Lahore 308 D. B.

72

/

In the Province of Assam, over four thousand Sikhs live from times immemorial. They speak Assamese and observe the customs and manners of the Assamese. They and their forebears, were born and brought up in Assam and are, therefore, as good Assamese as anybody could be. With the inauguration of Pro­vincial Autonomy, any Sikh who applied for entry into the public; service in the province was required to prove that he was not a Punjabi and, in practice, before such proof was forthcoming, the job went to a non-Sikh Assamese.

The Sikhs have built up a successful bus-service business in Calcutta and, more than once, attempts during the past years have been made to oust them from their lawful avocations.

In the Province of U. P. both the interim and the Congress Ministries discouraged the spread of Sikhism in the Province by state action, particularly by denying scholarships and other faci­lities to children belonging to the scheduled castes, whose parents embraced Sikhism. The Governor's regime has now righted this wrong.

In the Province of Sind, more than once, attempts have been made to debar the Punjabi Sikhs by legislative action from acquir­ing landed property iii the province.

In the N. W. F. P., no grant was at all made either to a Sikh or Hindu educational institution and the notorious circular dated the 11th October, 1937, laid down that no institution would be given educational grant unless it adopted Urdu as the medium of instruction, although the mother-tongue of the Hindus and the Sikhs and many Muslims in the province is Punjabi. This ministry also passed Hue Marketing Act which gave only twelve per cent, representation to the traders on the Marketing Committees which, in practice, meant less than twelve per cent, representation to the Hindus and the Sikhs and eighty-eight per cent, to the Muslims, notwithstanding that most of the traders in the province are non-Muslims. In the appoint­ment of Extra Assistant Commissioners and Tahsildars, Sikhs and Hindus were scrupulously ignored and it was admitted on the floor of the Assembly that the share of the Sikhs and Hindus in the pub­lic services was reduced from twenty-five to seven per cent, in education and fourteen per cent, in other branches of the adminis­tration. In the state educational institutions in the province, text-books prepared by the Jamiat-ul-Ulema were introduced.

73

To eliminate the representation of the Sikhs and the Hindus in the local bodies completely, the nominated element was altogether, abolished without providing any representation for them. Arbitrary restrictions on access to and worship in the Gurdwaras sacred to the memory of Guru Nanak in Peshawar were imposed.

GRIEVANCES AT THE CENTRE

17. Prior to the Gurdwara Reform Movement of 1919—25 the Sikh representation in the Indian Army was twenty per cent, but, thanks to the clever manoeuvring of Mian Sir Fazl-i-Hussain, the Gurdwara Reform Movement became a protracted affair and the Sikh appeared to the Britisher a rebel. The result was that the Sikh representation in the Army was cut down substantially. In the recruitment to the non-military central Indian services, the Sikhs received no better treatment. In the 1934 Service Award the Sikhs were lumped with the Anglo-Indians, Indian Christians and Parsees for whom eight and one-third per cent, share was reserved. This was perhaps deliberately designed to affect the Sikhs adversely in the central services, for the Sikhs could not be expected to compete favourably with the advanced communities like Anglo-Indians, Indian Christians and Parsees while the Hindus and Muslims were permitted to compete only with their own co-religionists. This has resulted in a very meagre repre­sentation of the Sikhs in these important services. Under the Central Government, in the Secretariat, Federal Public Service Commission, the Federal Court, the Income-tax Tribunal, in the Railway Board and many other boards and committees appointed

' f from time to time the Sikhs find no place. This has adversely affected the Sikh position in the administrative life of the country. When the Railway Department was under a Muslim Executive Councillor, he forbade the sale of jhatka meat on railway platforms. The Postal Department, even^in the Punjab, discourages by all possible means the use of the Punjabi language and Gurmukhi script, and the All India Radio even at the Lahore Station treats

I the Punjabi language with contempt.

B—CONCILIATION COMMITTEE QUESTIONNAIRE

18. In addition to the other fundamental rights which may be incorporated in any future constitution of India, the following fundamental rights should be incorporated in the constitution with the specific aim of affording protection to and preservation of certain inalienable rights of the Sikh community :—

74

PART I—FUNDAMENTAL EIGHTS

(i) Free profession and practice of religious faith is guaranteed in India. Untouchability in any shape or form shall be deemed repugnant to the fundamental policy of the State.

(ii) The preparation and use of jhatha meat shall be freely allowed and that jhatha meat shall be treated on par with Jialal meat.

(Hi) No law shall be enacted and no executive order given to restrict in any manner or to any extent whatever, the manufacture, sale, the keeping and the wearing of kirpans by the Sikhs.

(iv) The State shall recognise the inalienable right of the Sikh community as such to the ultimate ownership, direction and control of all Sikh Gurdwaras, shrines and religious endowments "and the control and management of such institutions shall vest in the Sikh community in accordance with its declared will as expressed from time to time, collectively or regionally.

(v) The State shall protect the maintenance intact of all Gurdwaras, shrines, religious institutions and the endowments attached to them as a fundamental right of the Sikh community as a whole, and none of the endowments or properties attached to these instituftions shall be resumed or acquired by state action and the State shall not create, by financial assistance, or otherwise, any endowments or institutions out of taxes and proceeds not specifically and exclusively collected from the members of the religious*' community for the benefit of which such new endowments, etc., are sought to be created. Vice versa, no person may be com­pelled to pay taxes the proceeds of which are to be appropriated in payment of purely religious expenses of any religious community or endowments of which he himself is not a member.

(vi) The right to employ the mother-tongue for social and cultural intercourse and for the conduct of the ad-ministrative business in the region in which it is dominantly spoken shall be the primary right constitutionally guaranteed.

*

75

it) The right to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of meetings, freedom of street processions and demonstrations, freedom of press and propaganda must be guaranteed as a fundamental right.

(viii) Liberty to establish and change one's place of dwelling is guaranteed in India. No person may be deprived of this right save by the courts. Restrictions may also be placed upon this right by other authorities for reasons of public health, in such cases and in such manner as may be prescribed by law.

{ix) Freedom to choose one's occupation as well as to originate enterprises or industries of an agricultural, commercial, industrial or other nature in all parts of India is guaranteed irrespective of the province of one's domicil.

c) That the public officials may not be provisionally re­moved from office or permanently retired or transferred to any other post with a lower salary save in accordance with and in a manner determined by law and that every penalty inflicted on a public servant must be subject to appeal and the possibility of revision by an authority different from, unconnected with and in­dependent of, the punishing authority. Unfavourable entries may not be made in the personal files of public servants unless those public servants have been given the opportunity to reply to them and public servants must be given the right to examine their personal files.

xi) The State shall not adopt or encourage any measure or policy*designed or calculated to further the imposition of any allied, artificial or alien language on any people other than the language which is demonstrably their mother-tongue and except as a secondary and sub­sidiary language.

(xii) All communities shall have a right to establish and maintain educational, charitable, religious and other institutions with full liberty to impart instruction in their own mother-tongue. Such institutions shall receive grants-in-aid from the State on a uniform basis. The existing grants-in-aid to denominational institutions shall not be reduced.

76

\

(xiii) The State shall make adequate arrangements in all educational institutions, maintained by the State and local bodies for the instruction of minorities through the medium of their mother-tongue and their special script, if any.

(xiv) The Constitution shall guarantee the Punjabi to be the court and the official language of the Punjab with option to the various communities to use Urdu or Gurmukhi script.

(xv) The Constitution shall provide that no bill, motion or resolution shall be introduced in the Legislature which is opposed by three-fourth members of Hindus or the Muslims or the Sikhs or any other minority in that Legislature. Provided further that in the passing of any bill, motion or resolution affecting exclusively a single community, members of other communities-shall not have a right of vote.

20. The fundamental rights which are incorporated in the Constitution should be enforceable by a court of law and any person or group of persons may lodge a suit against the State for such enforcement. And such of those rights whicn are not justiciable can only be enforced by effective political power and by providing special machinery such as the Minorities Commission referred to> hereunder.

21. With regard to the steps which are necessary to secure an adequate share and equal opportunities in the legislatures,, executive governments and the services, etc., the demands of the Sikhs, in so far as the Punjab is concerned, are : That no single community should enjoy an absolute majority in the Legislature-The allocation of seats should be forty per cent. Muslims, thirty per cent. Sikhs and thirty per cent, other non-Muslims. This proportion must also be reflected in the composition of the executive government as well as the services and this must be guaranteed by Statute. The minister for Law and Order should always belong: to a minority community.

22. An independent Minorities Commission, to deal with such rights and matters as are not enforceable by a court of lawr

is extremely desirable. This commission may be appointed by election through specially set-up electoral colleges, the qualifications-prescribed for candidates for election to be fixed on a fairly high

f

77

standard with a view to ensure the return of suitable persons with approved ability and integrity. All the recognised communities shall have equal representation on this commission. .

23. With regard to the advancement of backward classes such as the scheduled castes, aboriginal tribes, the Mazhbi Sikhs and the Ramdasia Sikhs we suggest that these classes should be provided with special educational facilities and also facilities to enter public services with the proviso that such facilities shall also be available to any of the members of these castes or tribes who have embraced Sikhism.

PART II

24. The position of the Sikhs viz-a-vis the Muslim League demand for Pakistan is well known. They are irrevocably opposed to any partition of India on a communal basis. Their opposition is based on considerations which are also well known : some of them being that the demand is unnatural, reactionary, and is in opposition to the best political and economic interests of the country as a whole as well as of the portions and regions sought to be partitioned off; that it militates against the lessons of history and requirements of geography and that it signs the death-warrant of the future of the Sikh Community as a whole. That the spurious grounds which are being advanced for justification of this claim are in themselves untenable is apparent from the observations that have already been made. We may briefly add that the Pakistan offers no solution of the Communal tangle which is bound to be aggravated in divided India. The claim proceeds upon the

f assumption that the Punj ab is a homeland of the Muslims which is a wholly untenable claim. The demand for Pakistan does not take any account o/the existence of the Sikh States of Patiala, Jind, Nabha, Kapurthala, Faridkot and Kalsia which are predominantly non-Muslim in population. They are surrounded on all sides by the districts of the British Punjab. Needless to mention that the States have an inseparable connection with the Sikhs in British Punjab.

25. The " C. K. Formula " is open to all the objections which have been raised by the Sikhs against Pakistan. As a matter of fact, this formula contemplates a worse fate for the Sikhs than the Pakistan demand ; for, in the latter case, they can at least look forward with satisfaction to the probability of being persecuted,

!

-

•

78

A and dying together, while in the former case, a small compact I community is divided into almost two equal parts, each going into-two independent sovereign states.

26. We have been asked as to whether we have any views to express in case the Pakistan scheme is imposed on us by an authority whose power we cannot hope to challenge successfully and which may be the British Government, or the agreed will

A of the Hindus and Muslims of India. In that case, we would insist on the creation of a separate Sikh State which should include the substantial majority 'of the SiklT population and their important sacred shrines and historic Gurdwaras and places with provision for the transfer and exchange of population and property.

PART III

27. We cannot conceive of an independent and strong India capable of holding its own in the international world which does not include the Indian States. The state subjects should enjoy the same rights and privileges as may be enjoyed by British-Indian subjects.

PART IV

28. We are in favour of a very strong Centre for in the strength of the Centre lies the strength of the constituent parts of the All-India Union. This strength of the Centre, however, must be consistent with the fullest opportunity to the constituent parts and regions to develop their own economic and cultural resources, and to manage their local affairs in their own way. The list of subjects, therefore, for the Centre as well as for the constituent units should be exhaustively scheduled with the above-mentioned principle in view. As regards the residuary powers, we are not in a position to give any definite opinion until the final picture of the Indian Constitution is before us.

29. We are opposed to the Cripps' Proposals—particularly j to the provision of the Liberty Clause in respect of provinces or

states not acceding to an All-India Union. Our objections to the Cripps' Proposals were clearly stated in our Memorandum sub­mitted to Sir Stafford Cripps. These proposals took no account of the Sikhs either in the matter of separation of the Punjab from an All-India Union ' or in the constituent Assembly to be set up for framing the new Constitution.

79

We frankly expressed our disappointment to Sir Stafford Cripps. We believe our frankness left some impression on him as is evident from his speech as well as that of Mr. Amery after the return of Sir Stafford to England. For the benefit of the Committee, we may quote from those speeches.

Sir Stafford Cripps speaking in the House of Commons on the rejection of his proposals, said :

te The more dispersed but still an important minority of the Depressed Classes desired specific protection against adverse effects of the caste system while the Sikhs, that brave fighting race (cheers) who have done and are doing so much to help Britain in the defence of India, desire some form of 'protection, against the majority rule by another community. "

Mr. Amery, in winding up the debate, stated :

a On the other hand, the particular method which we suggest for arriving at a constitutional settlement, more parti­cularly on the present provincial basis, both for setting up a constitution-making assembly and for non-accession, is not meeting with sufficient support for us to press it further. It ma,y be that alternative methods might arise which might form a better basis for the definition of boundaries and might give representation for smaller elements such as Sikhs whose natural aspirations we appreciate."

(6) We are opposed to granting liberty to units for non-acceding to the Union but, in case it is accepted by others, this power should be exercised by sfti absolute majority of sixty-five per cent.

(c) We do not agree to the recognition of the right of cessation from the All-India Union once it has been formed.

30. We are in favour of the principle of the re-alignment of the provincial boundaries to ensure self-expression and cultural autonomy to the various elements in India's national life but, so far as the Punjab is concerned, in any fresh alignment, it must be ensured that a substantial majority of the Sikh population remains, compact in one unit and that all the important historic Sikh Gurdwaras, shrines and places are included in that unit.

80

PART V

31. (a) The Parliamentary System of majority rule has not proved successful in the provinces. It has fostered intrigues, corruption and inefficiency. The minorities have suffered greatly. We think that an irremovable executive, both at the Centre and in the provinces, of a composite nature, on which the important minorities are adequately represented, would be more suitable than the present method. We would prefer the adoption of the Swiss model with suitable modifications.

(b) All important communities should be represented on the Central and Provincial Executives. The method of representation should be election by the members of the various communities.

In regard to the representation of the Sikhs, we wish to say that a Sikh should always find a place in the Central Executive. In the Punjab, the Sikhs should have a minimum of one-third share / as was the case from 1921 to 1926 in the Executive on the ground of their special importance, already explained.

i

In the N. W. F. P., one seat should be given to a Sikh in the Provincial Cabinet.

(a) We favour an extension of the franchise and would like to have adult suffrage introduced provided competent administrative machinery can be set up to ensure free voting. Failing this we recommend that the franchise qualifications which apply to the Scheduled Castes at present should apply to all.

•

(6) For the present, electorates will have to remain separate for different communities. *

(c) We favour the direct method of election to the Lower House and indirect to the Upper Houses.

p

(d) In the Punjab Assembly Sikhs should have thirty per cent, of the total number of seats and the Muslims should have forty per cent, and the other minorities including Hindus thirty per cent. I t will be seen that by this arrangement the Muslims still remain a majority group although they will not be in absolute majority against all other communities combined. The Muslims can have no objection to the proposed allocation of seats, especially when they object to the Hindu domination at the Centre. In case the

81

IMuslims agree to this proposal in the Punjab they shall have made a good case for the abolition of the Hindu majority at the 'Centre. The Sikhs demand seven per cent, of the total seats in the Central Legislature. |

In the N. W. F. P. the Sikh seats should be equal to the Hindu seats with a minimum of 10 per cent, as the Sikhs have played and are playing an important role in the life of the province. The great Generals of the Sikhs Sardar HARI SINGH NALWA and AKALI PHOOLA SINGH, died fighting in this province while defending the gates of this country. The Sikhs have got their sacred Gurdwaras in this land. The Community, therefore, deserves special con­sideration.

In the United Provinces the Sikhs should be recognised as a separate community and should get at least one seat in the Council and five seats in the Provincial Assembly with its present strength. Further they should be given concessions and facilities similar to those given to the Backward Classes. Similarly, in Assam, Bengal, Bombay, Bihar and C. P., each, Sikhs should have at least one seat reserved for them. In Sind at least two seats should be allotted to them.

No amendment of the Constitution, once enforced, should be made without sixty per cent, votes of the members of the important communities in each Legislature for the amendment. For this purpose and for all other purposes, the Sikhs shall be treated as an

"important community.

PART VI

The Constitution-making body proposed in the Cripps' Scheme • appears to be the proper machinery for framing a new Constitution, provided it is laid down that the Sikhs and other important minorities shall have representation with higher weightage m this body than they have in the Legislature.

PART VII

We think that, pending the enforcement of the new Consti­tution, the Federal Part of the Government of India Act should be put into operation with certain modifications to satiety the natural aspirations of Indians. The Executive Council should be completely Indianised. The selection may be made by the

•

82

Governor-General at the recommendation of the popular Parties; and the Executive Council may remain responsible to the Crown for the time being but the convention may be established, as was done-in the provinces, that the Governor-General would normally accept the advice of his Councillors. The conduct and operation of the war should continue tc*be the responsibility of the Commander-in-Chief but all other matters under the purview of the Government of India should be entrusted to the Executive Council and the-individual members.

PART VIII

In the event of failure to reach agreement on the part of" different communities, His Majesty's Government should take the-initiative and, notwithstanding the opposition of the Muslim League,, settle the question according to the agreement of the principal elements in the Indian life including Muslims outside the League.

India cannot remain in a state of tutelage when all the countries are fighting for freedom. The deadlock in India is a challenge to the ideals and principles of the United Nations and it is not only the responsibility of the British Government but of all the United Nations that a satisfactory solution of the Indian problem be found.

ARMY

The question of the army is not included in the Questionnaire, but the Sikhs attach great importance to it. They have intimate connections with the Indian Army, so much so that army service is their first choice. Their ideology, their history and their tradi­tion make them fine soldiers. •

Their strength in the army was nearly nineteen per cent, up to 1920-21. It was deliberately. reduced during the Akali Move­ment. During the last and the present World Wars, when the doors of the army were thrown wide open to members of all communities and classes alike, the Sikhs have maintained their strength in the Defence Forces of the country. Sikh soldiers have won several awards for bravery and courage shown on the battle­fields. They wish to maintain their connection with the Defence Forces of India at least to the extent of their contribution during the last World War. The Sikhs attach great importance to this

i

83

question and no solution of the constitutional problem will satisfy them unless their share in the Armed Forces is defined to the extent, mentioned above. The religious discipline which the Sikh soldiers have to observe should continue to be enforced and the same should also apply to the Sikh Officers in the Indian Army.

SERVICES

In the Central Services and those recruited on an all-India basis, the share of the Sikhs should be defined. By the Award of 1934, the share of the smaller minorities is fixed at eight andj one-third per cent. The Sikhs do not get their legitimate share \ out of this portion. I t is only just and equitable that this eight and one-third per cent, should be split up between these minorities-according to their population and importance and the Sikh share should in no case be less than five per cent, of the services.

*

In the Punjab, the share of the Sikhs should be fixed at. twenty-five per cent., in the N. W. F. P., ten per cent, and an acfequate share in Sind, U.P., Baluchistan and Delhi. Even if future recruitment is made at this percentage : it will take several years before the Sikhs will be able to attain their full share in the Punjab.

In the High Court at Lahore the Sikh share should be fixed at the same percentage as for other Provincial Services.

Besides, the Sikhs should be represented on the Federal Service-Commission and other Recruitment Boards, Committees, Railway-Board, Income-tax Tribunal, Federal Court and other important, bodies in a suitable manner. They have been altogether ignored in the past in these matters and have suffered considerably.

•

LOCAL BODIES

A formula should be devised for the adequate representation of the minorities in the local bodies and for their share in the Services under those bodies.

SIKH UNIVERSITY

The Sikhs are anxious to establish a University of their own at Amritsar on the lines of Aligarh and Benares Universit es. The* Punjab has at present only one University at Lahore. Even on educational grounds there * is need for another University. The

84

Sikhs demand that Government should encourage them by the grant of a Charter and financial assistance to realise their natural aspirations in this respect.

The following have signed the Memorandum • 1. Master Tara Singh, Amritsar. 2. Sardar Sampuran Singh, M.L.A., Lahore. 3. Giani Kartar Singh, M.L.A., Lyallpur. 4. Sardar Surjit Singh Majithia, Amritsar. 5. Rai Bahadur Sardar Basakha Singh, New Delhi. 6. Sardar Bahadur Sardar Jodh Singh, Principal, Khalsa

College, Amritsar. 7. S. Kartar Singh Campbellpuri, Advocate, Lahore. 8. Sardar Lai Singh, M.L.A., Ludhiana. 9. Sardar Swaran Singh, Advocate, Jullundur.

10. Sardar Modhindar Singh Sidhwan, Ludhiana. 11. Sardar Bahadur S. Boota Singh, Sheikhupura. 12. Sardar Harcharan Singh Bajwa, Sialkot. 13. Master Sujan Singh, Sarhali, Amritsar. 14. Sardar Santokh Singh, M.L.A., Amritsar. 15. Sardar Bahadur Sardar Ujjal Singh, M.L.A., Lahore. 16. Sardar Jogindar Singh Mann, M.L.A., Sheikhupura. 17. Sardar Pritam Singh Siddhu, M.L.A., Ferozepore. 18. Sardar Balwant Singh, M.L.A., Sialkot. 19. Sardar Sodhi Harnam Singh, M.L.A., Ferozepore. "20. Captain Sardar Naunihal Singh Mann, M.L.A.,

Sheikhupura 21. Sardar Gurbachan Sinsh, M.L.A., Jullundur. 22. Sardar Sher Singh, M.L.A., Montgomery 23. Sardar Ajit Singh, M.L.A., Multa 24. Sardar Prem Singh, M.L.A., Gujrat. 25. Sardar Jagjit Singh Mann, M.L.A., Sheikhupura. 26. Sardar Indar Singh, M.L.A., Gurdaspore. 27. Sardar Sahib Sardar Tara Singh, M.L.A., Ferozep 28. Sardar Ishar Singh Majhail, Amritsar. 29. Tika Fateh Jhang Singh, M.L.A., Hissar 30. Dr. Randhir Singh, Lahore.

\

/

APPENDIX "A"

The Conciliation Committee Questionnaire

ADOPTED AT THE MEETING OF THE COMMITTEE,. AT DELHI, ON 29TH, 30TH AND 31ST DECEMBER,

1944

PART I

1. What are the fundamental rights which should be incor­porated in any future constitution of India ? What machinery would you suggest for the enforcement of such of those rights as are not justiciable (enforceable by a court of law) ?

2. (a) What steps are, in your opinion, necessary to secure an adequate share and equal opportunities in legislatures, executive governments and the services for Hindus, Muslims, Scheduled Castes, Indian Christians, Sikhs, Anglo-Indians, Parsis and other-important sections of the population ?

(6) Would you recommend in the case of minorities the estab­lishment of (i) minorities' standing committees of legislatures, or (ii) independent minorities' commissions to deal with those rights, which are not enforceable by a court of law % If so, indicate their composition, powers and procedure and their relations to the legislatures and executive governments.

\ •

3. Have you any suggestions to make for the adequate and early advancement* of the Scheduled Castes, aboriginal tribes and those who are classified as backward classes in the Government of India Act, 1935, with a view to enabling them to enjoy equal opportunities in the social, educational and economic spheres of" national life % \

PART II

1. (a) What are your views regarding the claim of the Muslim League, as expounded by Mr. Jmnah in his letter to Mahatma Gandhi dated September 25, 1944, for the establishment of an independent Pakistan state " composed of two zones, north-west.

85

\

V

86

•and north-east, comprising six provinces, namely, Sind, Baluchistan, the North-West Frontier Province, the Punjab, Bengal and Assam, .subject to territorial adjustments that may be agreed upon, as indicated in the Lahore Resolution " ?

(b) If you are agreeable to the establishment of such an inde­pendent state, (i) on what principles should its territorial adjust­ments and boundaries be determined and (ii) what machinery would you suggest for such determination ?

Do you consider that a plebiscite should be taken to decide whether an independent state of Pakistan should be established, and if so (i) should it be taken in the province?, mentioned above as they exist at present or after territorial adjustments ? (ii) What -should be the electorate, method and machinery of such a plebisicite ?

2. In case there are to be two independent states in India, do you consider it necessary to make arrangements and devise machinery for the administration of defence, foreign affairs and like matters of common interest, and if so, indicate the nature of the requisite arrangements and machinery.

3. In case you do not agree to the Muslim League claim for Pakistan, what alternative scheme would you suggest ?

• PART III

1. What are your views on the question of the inclusion of Indian States in an all-India union ?

PART IV •

2. If you favour the establishment of a single union for all India, (a) on what lines should the functions of Government be divided between the centre and the units ? (b) Should the residuary powers vest in the centre or in the units ?

2. (a) Should a province of British India or an Indian State be given, as contemplated in the Cripps offer, the liberty of not acceding to the new constitution of an all-India union ?

(b) Should the exercise of this liberty be subject to the result of a plebiscite, and in that case, what should be the electorate, method and machinery for the plebiscite ?

87 /

If your answer to (a) is in the affirmative, at what stage and under what conditions should this liberty be allowed to be exercised ?

3. After an all-India union is established, should the units of the union be given the right of secession from it and, if so, on what conditions ?

4. Would you favour the realignment of the boundaries of the units in order to ensure, as far as possible, self-expression and cultural autonomy to different communities %

PART V

1. (a) What should be the nature and type of the provincial and central executives ? Should it be parliamentary or non-parliamentery, removable or irremovable ?

(b) Do you think it necessary to secure representation of different communities in the provincial and the central executives, and, if so, how would you achieve this end ?

2. What provisions would you suggest in relation to the •composition of the central and provincial legislatures which would provide adequate representation for different communities and interests ? Indicate your views regarding (a) franchize, (b)

(d) method of election (direct or indirect), and (e) allocation of seats.

3. What provisions would you suggest for making amend­ments in the future constitution ?

PART VI

1. What constituent machinery (with details of composition, powers and procedure) would you suggest for (a) framing and enacting the new constitution ; and for (b) the transfer of power to the authorities established under the new constitution ?

PART VII

1. Until such time as the new constitution comes into force, what changes would you suggest in the character, composition and working of the Executive Council of the Governor-General, either by suitable legislation or by the adoption, wherever necessary of suitable conventions ? (In this connection, attention is drawn to clause (e) of the Cripps proposals, reproduced below

\

88

PART VIII

1. In the event of failure to agree on the part of different communities, would you suggest that His Majesty's Government should frame and enact a constitution for India, or what other course would you suggest ?

THE FOLLOWING IS CL. E OF THE CRIPPS PROPOSALS

a (e) During the critical period which now faces India and until the new Constitution can be framed, His Majesty's Govern-ment must inevitably bear the responsibility for and retain the control and direction of the defence of India as part of their world-war effort but the task of organizing to the full the military, moral and material resources of India must be the responsibility of Government of India with the co-operation of the peoples of India. His Majesty's Government desire and invite the immediate and effective participation of the leaders of the principal sections of the Indian people in the counsels of their country, of the Common­wealth and of the United Nations. Thus they will be enabled to-give their active and constructive help in the discharge of a task which is vital and essential for the future freedom of India."

K. SANTHANAM, Joint Secretary

Published at The Civil and Military Gazette Mall, Lahore, by E. G. Tilt, General Manage]

•

/

\

>

M

p»