The Gandhi-Jinnah Talks 1944

This handout covers the Rajagopalachari formula and the talks held in Bombay in September 1944 between Gandhi and Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. It belongs to Section 2 of the syllabus, the emergence of Pakistan 1906-47, and is usually examined with the other attempts at a settlement between 1940 and 1947.

Key dates

Date	Event
March 1940	The Muslim League passes the Lahore Resolution, asking for independent states in the Muslim-majority areas of the north-west and north-east
April 1942	The Cripps Mission fails to win the support of either Congress or the League
August 1942	Congress launches the Quit India movement; Gandhi and the other Congress leaders are arrested
May 1944	Gandhi is released from detention because of poor health
July 1944	The Rajagopalachari formula is made public; Gandhi writes to Jinnah asking for a meeting
9 September 1944	The talks begin at Jinnah's house in Bombay
27 September 1944	The talks end without agreement
June 1945	The Simla Conference, the next attempt to break the deadlock

Background: why the talks took place

By 1944 Indian politics had reached a deadlock. Three things explain why Gandhi was now willing to meet Jinnah.

1. The Muslim League had grown stronger. After the Lahore Resolution of 1940 the League had a clear aim. While the Congress leaders were in prison after Quit India, the League was free to organise, win by-elections and build support in the Muslim-majority provinces. Congress could no longer treat it as a small party.
2. Quit India had failed. The movement of 1942 had been put down by the British and had not brought independence. Gandhi came out of detention in May 1944 needing a new way forward.
3. The British wanted Indians to agree first. The British government had said that it would not hand over power until the main parties reached a settlement. With the war turning in favour of the Allies, Gandhi believed that a joint demand by Congress and the League would make it hard for Britain to delay independence.

The Rajagopalachari formula

C. Rajagopalachari was a senior Congress leader from Madras. He was one of the few Congress leaders who thought that Congress should come to terms with the Muslim demand. His proposal, often called the C.R. formula, was made public in July 1944 with Gandhi's approval. Its main points were:

• The Muslim League would support the Congress demand for independence and would join Congress in a provisional government for the period of transition.
• After the war a commission would mark out the districts in the north-west and north-east of India where Muslims were in a clear majority.
• In those districts all the inhabitants, not only the Muslims, would vote on whether or not to separate from India.
• If they voted to separate, the two states would make agreements on shared matters such as defence, communications and trade.
• The terms would apply only if Britain transferred full power to India.

Jinnah did not accept the formula. He said that it offered a "maimed, mutilated and moth-eaten" Pakistan. However, he agreed to meet Gandhi to discuss the matter.

The talks, September 1944

Gandhi wrote to Jinnah in July 1944 and the two men met at Jinnah's house on Malabar Hill in Bombay. They held a series of meetings between 9 and 27 September and also exchanged letters, which were later published. Gandhi based his case on the C.R. formula. Jinnah based his on the Lahore Resolution.

Issue	Gandhi's position	Jinnah's position
Timing	The League should first help Congress to remove the British. Partition could be settled after independence.	Partition must be agreed before the British left. Once Congress held power there would be no reason for it to keep its promise.
Two Nation Theory	The Muslims of India were not a separate nation. Separation would be like a division between members of one family.	Muslims were a nation by any definition and had the right to a homeland of their own.
Territory	Only the Muslim-majority districts could separate, so Punjab and Bengal would be divided.	Pakistan should be made up of six provinces: Punjab, Sindh, the North West Frontier Province, Balochistan, Bengal and Assam.
The vote	All the people living in the areas concerned should vote.	Only Muslims should vote, because it was the Muslim nation that was exercising its right to decide.
Central powers	Defence, foreign affairs and communications should stay under some shared central arrangement.	These powers must belong to the separate states. A shared centre would mean that Pakistan was not truly independent.
Who spoke for whom	Gandhi said that he came as an individual and not as the official representative of Congress.	Jinnah spoke as President of the Muslim League and wanted to deal with someone who could bind Congress.

Why the talks failed

1. They disagreed on the Two Nation Theory. This was the root of the problem. Gandhi could not accept that Muslims were a separate nation, so he could offer only a limited separation by districts. For Jinnah the Two Nation Theory was the basis of the whole demand for Pakistan, and he could not give it up.
2. They disagreed on the order of events. Gandhi wanted independence first and a decision on partition afterwards. Jinnah did not trust Congress to allow partition once it was in power, especially after the experience of Congress rule in the provinces in 1937-39. He wanted the matter settled while the British were still present.
3. Gandhi's offer fell short of a sovereign state. A Pakistan made only of Muslim-majority districts, decided by a vote of all inhabitants and tied to India in defence and foreign affairs, was much less than the Lahore Resolution asked for. Jinnah judged that it was not real independence.
4. Gandhi had no authority to make a binding agreement. Most Congress leaders were still in prison and Gandhi said that he spoke only for himself. Jinnah therefore doubted whether any promise made in the talks would be honoured by Congress.

How important were the talks?

Reasons to see them as important

• Gandhi came to Jinnah's house and negotiated with him as an equal. This showed that the Muslim League was now one of the two main forces in Indian politics and raised Jinnah's standing among Muslims.
• For the first time the leading figure in Congress discussed the separation of Muslim-majority areas as a possibility. Before 1944 Congress had refused to consider the idea at all.
• Jinnah did not give way on any main point. This strengthened Muslim confidence in the League before the Simla Conference and the elections of 1945-46.
• The published letters set out the Two Nation Theory and the case for Pakistan clearly, and made the difference between the two sides plain to the British.

Reasons to see them as limited

• No agreement was reached. Congress and the League remained as far apart as before.
• The failure showed that the two parties could not settle the future of India by themselves, which made a peaceful agreed solution less likely.
• Gandhi's offer was criticised by the Hindu Mahasabha and by many Sikhs, so it did not have wide support even on his own side.
• Other events did more to bring Pakistan about, in particular the League's success in the 1945-46 elections and the failure of the Cabinet Mission Plan.

Judgement

The talks did not solve anything directly, so they cannot be called a success. Their importance lies in what they showed. Gandhi's decision to negotiate with Jinnah confirmed that the League spoke for a large part of Muslim India, and the idea of partition entered serious discussion for the first time. The talks were a step in the rise of the League, but the election results of 1945-46 were needed to prove its claim.

Key terms and people

• C. Rajagopalachari: Congress leader from Madras who drew up the formula of 1944.
• C.R. formula: the proposal that Muslim-majority districts could vote on separation after independence.
• Plebiscite: a direct vote by the people on a single question.
• Two Nation Theory: the belief that the Muslims and Hindus of India were two separate nations.
• Lahore Resolution: the League's demand of March 1940 for independent states in the Muslim-majority areas.
• Quit India: the Congress movement of August 1942 that led to the arrest of its leaders.
• Hindu Mahasabha: a Hindu nationalist party that opposed any division of India.

Exam practice

1. Describe the Rajagopalachari formula of 1944. [4]
2. Why did the Gandhi-Jinnah Talks of 1944 fail? [7]
3. "The Gandhi-Jinnah Talks were the most important step towards the creation of Pakistan between 1940 and 1945." How far do you agree? Explain your answer. [14]

Outline answers

1. Drawn up by C. Rajagopalachari of Congress and made public in July 1944. The League would support independence and join a provisional government. After the war a commission would mark out the Muslim-majority districts in the north-west and north-east. All inhabitants there would vote on separation. If they separated, defence, communications and trade would be handled by agreement.

2. Three explained reasons: (i) Gandhi rejected the Two Nation Theory, which was the basis of Jinnah's demand, so they had no common starting point; (ii) Gandhi wanted independence first and partition later, while Jinnah did not trust Congress to keep its word once the British had gone; (iii) Gandhi spoke as an individual and offered only districts linked to a common centre, so Jinnah doubted both the authority and the value of the offer.

3. Agree: Gandhi treated Jinnah as an equal; Congress discussed separation for the first time; Jinnah's firmness raised the League's standing. Other steps: the Lahore Resolution 1940 gave the League its aim; the Cripps Mission 1942 accepted that provinces might opt out of a future union; the League's growth during Quit India; the Simla Conference 1945 showed that no settlement was possible without the League. Judgement: the Lahore Resolution was more important because it set the goal that Jinnah defended in 1944; the talks confirmed the League's position but did not create it.