I give you this inner history which nobody knows. I agreed to Partition as a last resort, when we had reached a stage when we could have lost all. We had five or six members in the Government, the Muslim League members. They had already established themselves as members who had come to partitions the country. At that stage we agreed to Partition; we decided that Partition could be agreed upon on the terms that the Punjab should be partitioned–they wanted the whole of it–that Bengal should be partitioned–they wanted Calcutta and the whole of it. Mr. Jinnah did not want a turncated Pakistan, but he had to swallow it. We said that these two provinces should be partitioned. I made a further condition that in two months’ time power should be transferred and an Act should be passed by Parliament in that time, if it was guaranteed that the British Government would not interfere with the question of the Indian States. We said, “we will deal with that question; leave it to us; you take no sides. Let paramountcy be dead; you do not directly or indirectly try to revive it in any manner. You do not interfere. We shall settle our problem. The Princes are ours and we shall deal with them.” On those conditions we agreed to Partition and on those conditions the Bill in Parliament was passed in two months, agreed to by all the three parties. Show me any instance in the history of the British Parliament when such a Bill was passed in two months. But this was done. It gave birth to this Parliament.
