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Where does the ‘centre of gravity’ of India’s partition lie? Was it the Quit India Movement of 1942–45, and its visible lack of success that so demoralised Congress leaders that they had neither any more wish nor much stamina left to carry on with this fight for India’s unity? Annie Besant, in the early 1920s, in those Home Rule League days, when parting politically from Gandhi, had commented: ‘The success of the non-cooperation movement would lead the Congress into a blind alley from which it would not be possible… to extricate….’ This presciently sharp observation got proven right. Whenever Gandhi stopped his ‘non-cooperation movement’, the Congress high command did not know what to do next, all of them floundered in answering an entirely legitimate query: ‘What do we do now?’; Gandhi had his programmes and issues even outside of the civil disobedience movement and however faddist they might have then appeared, or do so till today, they imparted to his actions a central purpose, a certain direction, a moral unity. However, what of the others? They only followed, and if and when they did initiate action or a programme it was always too limited in its spread and too short in duration. Perhaps all this frequent jail-going had instilled in the Congress ranks, being mostly Hindu, a complacent sense of permanent martyrdom; they assumed that this jail-going ‘sacrifice’ would suffice by itself, and would surely be recognised, as a meritorious act, therefore rewarded by a ‘will’ higher than that of the British Raj. However, through being in jail so frequently the Congress leaders, without realising, were actually avoiding responsibility. Compare their secluded inactivity of jail life between 1942 and 1945 to Jinnah’s consolidation of his leadership during the same period; and this was when Jinnah’s constituency was in comparison minuscule, but in this sphere of Muslim support he soon enough made the League the sole representative, and he became the only authority, the ‘sole spokesman’. Jinnah dented Congress strongholds like the NWFP; but the reverse never happened, not once. Here we have to ask, why not? Why could not the Congress win over any of the Muslim majority provinces? These provinces chose instead to part from India but not ever did they transfer allegiance to the Congress. Why? Was it because the Congress was so recognisably, so beyond dispute Hindu in character? Then why their continuing charade of pretending to represent the Muslims, too.

Excerpted from Page 505-506 of ‘Jinnah: India-Partition Independence’ by Jaswant Singh