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     The theory of individed India or of two independent States came under discussion in September 1944 during some long meetings between Gandhi and Jinnah: however, the talks reached a dead-point, among futile discussions of legal and constitutional cavils. The fundamental contrast was at the basis of the whole problem: for Jinnah the Muslims of India were a nation, for Gandhi a community.5
 
     The theory of individed India or of two independent States came under discussion in September 1944 during some long meetings between Gandhi and Jinnah: however, the talks reached a dead-point, among futile discussions of legal and constitutional cavils. The fundamental contrast was at the basis of the whole problem: for Jinnah the Muslims of India were a nation, for Gandhi a community.5
 
     On 9th September 1943 Italy signed the armistice: the work of Pietro Quaroni in Kabul had ended suddenly. The Italian Legation remained loyal to the king, who had formed a new government at Brindisi. In April 1944 Pietro Quaroni was appointed Italian Ambassador to Moscow.
 
     On 9th September 1943 Italy signed the armistice: the work of Pietro Quaroni in Kabul had ended suddenly. The Italian Legation remained loyal to the king, who had formed a new government at Brindisi. In April 1944 Pietro Quaroni was appointed Italian Ambassador to Moscow.
NOTES AND REFERENCES
+
 
 +
5 NOTES AND REFERENCES
 +
 
 +
 
 +
1
 +
I Documenti Diplomatici Italiani, Roma, IX serie 1939-1943, vol.VIII,
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1988, pp.536-540.
 +
2 Quoted from Speeches, Writings and Statements of Iqbal, quoted, pp.3-29.
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3
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Ibidem.
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4
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See Appendix III.
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5
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In a letter to Jinnah, dated on 15th September 1944, and published in
 +
“The Hindu” of 29th September, Gandhi wrote: “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”. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi,
 +
quoted, vol.84 (27 January 1944-10 October 1944), pp.381-384.

Revision as of 16:28, 7 June 2018

chapter 8

THE ROLE OF FASCIST DIPLOMACY IN THE CREATION OF PAKISTAN

In the years before the Second World War the Italian diplomat Gino Scarpa had always been working for an entente cordiale between the Italian Government and the Indian nationalists such as Gandhi, Nehru, Bose, and other prominent Hindu figures. The result of his efforts did not produce much for many reasons: in particular Italy was cautious in her support of Indian nationalism because she did not want to break with Britain.

   After Fascism came to power the Italian relations with Britain were cordial: the state visit of king George V and queen Mary to Rome, in May 1923, was a success for the Country and for Mussolini in particular. According to Sir Ronald Graham, the British Ambassador, it had fostered the ties between the two nations which had been generally good in spite of some misunderstandings in the past. 
   Unfortunately this situation did not last for long: the first shocking episode was the bombing of Corfu and the occupation of the island at the end of August 1923, after the murder of the Italian general Enrico Tellini, who was working with an international commission in-charged of the establishing the borders between Greece and Albania. 
   However, the situation cleared up and until the conquest of Abissinia the relations between the two countries became better. The African affair was an unfortunate problem; actually both France and England, who were aware of what was boiling in the pot, gave Mussolini the impression of having free-hand in the affair. Probably this was the truth; in January 1935, in Rome, the French minister of foreign affairs Pierre Laval gave Mussolini a free-hand in East Africa both on  economic and military levels; the same was the British attitude – in December 1925 an agreement had been reached between Mussolini and the then British Foreign minister Sir Austen Chamberlain. At the end of June 1935 the English government changed its attitude after realizing that the public opinion was against any modification of the status quo and in support of the Society of Nations.
   Mussolini went on with the invasion of Abissinia on 3rd October and Italy was declared aggressor by the Society of Nations. 
   After the conquest, Mussolini tried a reapproaching with the British government, who was slow to understand the new situation in Europe: in March 1936 Hitler had militarized the Rhineland, but the Baldwin government refused to help the French to expel the German troops and even to consider sanctions against Germany. This was the last occasion to avoid the future World War Two since at that time Hitler was weak and a Franco-British intervention could have restrained Hitler from further expansion; of course the German success in the Rhineland made the Nazi party more popular. 
   November 1936 was the beginning of the end: Italy, Germany and Japan signed a three-party agreement, which was officially meant to stop the spreading of communism, but actually it was anti-British according to Ciano’s diaries.   
   Let us now concentrate with the role played by Iqbal Shedai and Pietro Quaroni in the Pakistan affair. The two men, who never met each other, worked in an independent manner according to their capacities: Shedai as a patriot devoted to the cause of India, Quaroni as a diplomat placed in Kabul, then as today an important crossroad in the Middle East. 
   Actually Shedai’s work for the creation of Pakistan was important, if not fundamental, from the point of view of the propaganda. He had always been in favour of a separate state for the Indian Muslims: his contrasts with Bose were not only religious, but political also. He had always thought that Britain’s apparently favour towards the Muslims was typical of the British policy: divide et impera. By supporting the Muslims, Britain intended to use them against the Hindu majority, thus continuing their ruling India as long as possible. Hence Britain’s favour towards the Muslims was only apparent; in fact, after the 1857-58 Mutiny, the Indian Muslims had been neglected by the British who considered them with suspicion for the role they had performed during the revolt. Shedai worked on these lines while in Italy: he tried to remind the fascist authorities that all the Muslims would be the scale needle in the future world after the war, and if Italy supported them, they would remember her help for ever. In his reports to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in his broadcasts he always favoured the Muslim cause, even though he did not appear to do so, hiding this idea under a general propaganda in favour of India as a whole. Words such as “If you go on fighting each other, you will be defeated and will remain slaves until the day of judgement” were made to create unity, but actually indicated a temporary unity to expel the British and to settle the internal problem afterwards. Actually Italy was more than Germany in favour of the Indian Muslims: Hitler, who had met Bose only once, on 26th May 1942, on the occasion of Bose’s asking him leave to return to Asia, was against any propaganda in favour of Pakistan because he did not want to give up the support of the radical Hindu nationalists and to create further enmities in India. Renato Prunas, Director General to the Transoceanic Affairs, who had received this news directly from Ribbentrop, informed Quaroni on this German attitude towards the Muslim League and the Pakistan question on 27th May 1943; in a long dispatch on 9th June Quaroni faced with great insight the whole problem:

German policy does not take into consideration the changes occurred in India in the last four years. The action of the Congress directed to unify the India communities irrespective of religious differences through common race and traditions against England has failed[...]. For the Hindu masses the political consequences have been partly neutralized by Gandhi’s “guru” attitude; but among the Muslim masses it has provoked a religious reaction the result of which is Pakistan. [...] In 1939 the Muslim League could be considered a baseless party of capitalists and landlords, a party of leaders without followers, just like the Liberal party and the Hindu Mahasabha. If today the Muslim League has become indisputable a mass party it is due to the idea of Pakistan. If at Berlin they could read any League newspapers, they would not have any doubts about the religious base of Pakistan: still two years ago, if one asked a tribesman who Jinnah and the Muslim League were nobody knew; today everybody knows they are those who are fighting so that the Muslims could live in India according to their religious law. [...] Whether you like it or not, today Pakistan must be considered not a theory to fight against but a fact to be accepted as such.[...] It might perhaps make them [the Muslims] join the Hindus in the struggle against the English domination, provided the Hindus accept the idea of Pakistan. To compel them to fight today for the creation of a majority Hindu state in India under whose law they would be compelled to live is the same thing as to compel the Hungarians to fight in favour of Rumania or the Germans in favour of Czechoslovakia. What I have said is of course referred to the Frontier Province, Baluchistan, Sindh, Punjab and some nearby zones with Muslim majority; for other separate Muslim zones such as Bengal the problem is more complex. [...] It would be convenient for the Germans not to cherish false illusions about the efficacy of their propaganda. Don’t let them think that preaching the Muslims unity can be useful; they have been doing it for three and a half years and the result is a reinforcement of the League. Generally speaking, our propaganda is efficacious only when it is according to the needs of the Indian public opinion. [...] Another point on which at Berlin they should have clear ideas is this: even if a Hindu-Muslim unity takes place, this does not mean that the result is the independence of India or an Indian revolution. Provided a full agreement takes place between Gandhi and Jinnah, the British might say that there remain outside the Hindu Mahasabha, Dr. Ambedkhar [representing the Untouchables], or some princes, in order to say that there is no unanimity among the Indian parties. During his staying in Kabul, Bose told me that the day a foreign army entered India, the country would revolt. I doubt it: what is sure is that, until the English and the Americans maintain their troops and materials, an Indian revolution is out of question. [...] In my view our attitude towards the Indian Muslims should be dictated by our attitude towards the Muslims of the Near East. The Muslim world, in Afghanistan and in India, is seriously worried of the destiny of the Muslims in front of the Anglo-American imperialism and the Jewish policy on one side and the Hindu threat which they suppose linked to the Anglo-American imperialism on the other side. If it is thought that it is useful for our war to play on the religious element of the Arabs, it is necessary to adopt also the same attitude towards the Indian Muslims and their Pakistan by advising the Congress to surrender to their request. It is an impossible task to excite the national religious sentiment of the Arabs against the Anglo-Saxons and the Jews on one side and to advise, on the other side, the Indian Muslims to remain in a Hindu-majority State and to join a non-religious party. There are many people here and in India who compare what we are saying to the Arabs and the Indians: the outcome is that we are non logical and, still worse, that we are not honest. [...] For example, I consider it impolitic the violent and personal attacks to Jinnah made every now and then by the German propaganda: we do not do it and it is good not to do it.1

   Without saying it openly, Quaroni was in favour of the policy of the Indian Muslims to have a territory of their own: the problem of an India divided or united was not faced at that time. Actually, Allama Iqbal himself had not clarified his request supported at Allahabad on 29th December 1930. We do not know whether he visualised an independent and sovereign State or a State within an Indian Federation. Before speaking of a separate territory for the Muslims, Iqbal clarified two essential points: one, “if the principle that the Indian Muslim is entitled to full and free development on the lines of his own culture and tradition in his own Indian home-lands is recognised as the basis of a permanent communal settlement, he will be ready to stake his all for the freedom of India”; two, “The units of Indian society are not territorial as in European countries. India is a continent of human groups belonging to different races, speaking different languages and professing different religions. Their behaviour is not at all determined by a common race-consciouness. Even the Hindus do not form a homogeneous group. The principle of European democracy cannot be applied to India without recognising the fact of communal groups”. In view of these two points, he said that “the Muslim demand for the creation of a Muslim India within India is, therefore, perfectly justified” and went on specifying his demand:

I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India. [...] The idea need not alarm the Hindus or the British. India is the greatest Muslim country in the world. The life of Islam as a cultural force in this country very largely depends on its centralisation in a specific territory.2

   The last two sentences were and are generally omitted when quoting Iqbal’s statements; and yet these words, whih were passed over at that time, are important in understanding Iqbal’s mind and thought. Probably the Hindus’ and the British’s fears were originated by the word “State” for the western region of India; but it was necessary because a number of provinces were to be welded into one. 
   Iqbal’s Presidential Address was extremely important because he dealt with the problem in details. He was not concerned with partition, which was in 1930 an idea beyond the imagination; he thought in terms of federation and federal states, i. e. of a Muslim India within India. In fact, in the same chapter, he clarified the importance of a unitary block in north-western India:

This centralisation of the most living portion of the Muslims of India, whose military and police service has, notwithstanding unfair treatment from the British, made the British rule possible in this country, will eventually solve the problem of India as well as of Asia. It will intensify their sense of responsibility and deepen their patriotic feeling. Thus, possessing full opportunity of development within the body politic of India, the North-West Indian Muslims will prove the best defenders of India against a foreign invasion, be that invasion th one of ideas or of bayonets. The Punjab with 56 per cent Muslim population supplies 54 per cent of the total combatant troops in the Indian Army, and if the 19,000 Gurkhas recruited from the independent State of Nepal are excluded, the Punjab contingent amounts to 62 per cent of the whole Indian Army. This percentage does not take into account nearly 6,000 combatants supplied to the Indian Army by the North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan.3

   As we can see, the word “Pakistan” was not put forward because it did not exist in 1930: the name was coined in 1932 or 1933 by a group of Indian Muslim students, at Cambridge University, under the guidance of Chaudhri Rahmat ‘Ali who circulated a four-page leaflet advocating for Pakistan, a word with a double meaning. From a political point of view it was an acrostic made with letters of the territories to be included, namely P for Punjab, A for the area of the Afghan North-West Frontier, K for Kashmir [which was a Muslim majority native State], S for Sind, and TAN from the last letters of Baluchistan; from a literal point of view it meant “The Land of the Pure”, i. e.  Pak i-stan (stan = land, and pak = pure). 
   It was this the name used by Shedai in his long report to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in early 1942, under the heading “Che cosa è il Pakistan?” [What is Pakistan?].4 However, Shedai who was a very clever and intelligent agit-prop did not use this word in his propaganda: he spoke mainly in favour of India’s independence, paying his tribute equally to the members of the National Congress and the Muslim League, to Gandhi, Nehru, Bose, Azad, Jinnah and Liyaqat ‘Ali Khan. He acted in this way because he did not want to alarm his Italian allies and upset his countrymen, since many Muslims were in favour of the Congress such as the “Red Shirts” of Khan ‘Abd ul-Ghaffar Khan: the Afghan borderland was a critical area which was a field of great importance for the Waziris, the Faqir of Ypi, the Italian Legation in Kabul, and in a certain way for the Germans, too. Another particular topic of Shedai’s radio propaganda was his criticism of the Indian social system of casts; his leitmotiv was: “We preach only India’s freedom, we want the freedom of our Country, we consider Jinnah as the leader of one hundred million Muslims. We consider, and will always consider Gandhi and Jinnah as friends. Only then will India be near her freedom. Until the Hindus do not consider as brothers the one hundred million Muslims, the dream of our freeedom is only a dream. How is it possible to have fraternity if untouchability is not removed?” This was more or less the attitude of radio Himalaya, which tried to explain that Pakistan was not the creation of the Muslims or of the British, but of the Hindus themselves, who oppressed their Muslim brothers, thus pushing them towards the creation of an independent state of their own; it was indeed a clever way to present the Muslim instances.
   Quaroni’s ideas were in agreement with Shedai’s, but for a different consideration. He thought that both the German and the Japanese propagandas in favour of Bose’s program was wrong, because “it gave the Muslims the impression that we are in favour of what they do not want, that is the creation of an India in which they are a minority”; in conclusion Quaroni advised his Ministry not to do anything which supported this “impression” and above all not to speak against Jinnah’s program, as the German allies were doing. 
   The theory of individed India or of two independent States came under discussion in September 1944 during some long meetings between Gandhi and Jinnah: however, the talks reached a dead-point, among futile discussions of legal and constitutional cavils. The fundamental contrast was at the basis of the whole problem: for Jinnah the Muslims of India were a nation, for Gandhi a community.5
   On 9th September 1943 Italy signed the armistice: the work of Pietro Quaroni in Kabul had ended suddenly. The Italian Legation remained loyal to the king, who had formed a new government at Brindisi. In April 1944 Pietro Quaroni was appointed Italian Ambassador to Moscow.

5 NOTES AND REFERENCES


1 I Documenti Diplomatici Italiani, Roma, IX serie 1939-1943, vol.VIII, 1988, pp.536-540. 2 Quoted from Speeches, Writings and Statements of Iqbal, quoted, pp.3-29. 3 Ibidem. 4 See Appendix III. 5 In a letter to Jinnah, dated on 15th September 1944, and published in “The Hindu” of 29th September, Gandhi wrote: “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”. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, quoted, vol.84 (27 January 1944-10 October 1944), pp.381-384.