Second World War was declared. Two men were sitting in the back seat of a slow moving car. The car was wheeling up to Viceregal Lodge, Simla. Viceroy Linlithgow asked them to meet him.
One of the car occupants was tall, the other short. The former was attired in spotless suit, the latter in loincloth and shawl. They shared no word with each other. They sat as stiffly as possible. If the former coughed now and then, the other kept silent. There was everything unmatching about them, except an unnatural commonness – their thinness. Skin just hung off bones.
The taller man was Mohammed Ali Jinnah, life-president of the All India Muslim League. Earlier he was idealistically liberal. His dream was an Indian self-government. He wanted to pursue the life of a gentleman politician. Now his dream had changed under the persistently persuasive influence of Iqbal (Sa re jahan se achha-famed) and the Cambridge group. He wanted to be the head of disperate Muslim community and demanded a select place for them. No more did he want to live under the Hindu majority. His ambition was still not realized. His handsome earnings from the law bought him a spectacular two-storied house, The yarrows, in Simla.
The shorter man Gandhi made the Indian National Congress get up from a stupor it found itself since its inception in 1885. It took more than three decades for the Congress to hit the streets holding the hands of South-Africa-returned barrister Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Now his voice was hardly heard in the party and his writ did not run. Still he was the tallest leader of the party, though in retirement from the national politics. Viceroy Linlithgow did not give second thought to speak to Gandhi as he blundered just the day before. He took to radio to say that 400 million Indians were behind the British in their battle against Germany without speaking to any single Indian leader beforehand. There was a huge hue and cry. Now Linlithgow was on a placatory mission as he summoned two representatives of Indian political parties to manage the coarse chorus.
Jinnah had had a taste of victory already. Gandhi suggested they both go together to the viceroy. Jinnah had a chuckle. His position was recognized. Gandhi said that he would pick him up on the way. What could be more satisfactory? Jinnah grinned. When Gandhi pulled up his car ( not his to be specific, but the one of his wealthy supporter with whom Gandhi lived at Summer Hill) at the gate of The Yarrows and hinted at Jinnah to get in, Jinnah asked Gandhi that they should move on in his (Jinnah’s) car. Gandhi agreed. Jinnah’s chauffeur drove away his car taking Jinnah and Gandhi at the back. Jinnah allowed himself a smile of contentment. Gandhi was indifferent to the nuanced development. His goal was to project a unified face before the enemy.
On 4th September, 1939, during the fag end of the day, Gandhi had a more than two-hour long meeting with the Viceroy. He committed himself to the emerging voice of the meeting, not his party or the nation in the larger sense.
Jinnah, on the other hand, had a much shorter meeting. His sole objective was to keep the British in good humour to address his ambition. Jinnah did not leave the meeting until he gave his piece of solemn advice to the Viceroy. That was to bring down eight provincial Congress ministries. He asked for some concessions so that he could gain a considerable clout among the Muslims.
The two met again, albeit for the last time, on 5th May 1947, at Jinnah’s house in Delhi. They knew they both had lost the plot badly. The new Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten and Congress leader Jawaharlal Nehru prepared a plan of Partition and that draft of division of India was lying arcanely on a table in London for Cabinet approval.
The plan for division rode roughshod over Gandhi’s wishes of keeping the nation united. Partition was accepted. But the plan did not give Jinnah any joy either. The six provinces he had consistently begged for were turned down bluntly. Jinnah was to preside over a “moth-eaten” territory.
At the meeting table they looked pathetic or bathetic bordering on comic. Not tragic. After thirty years of politics, they were left high and dry by their own colleagues; their aspirations funnily dashed; their dreams comically disfigured, their wishes hilariously crushed.
They put down their empty cups on their clinky dishes after their so-called meeting.