Another point which he sought to make was about socialism. Well, even Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, whose Forward Bloc he did mention in the course of his speech, used to say times without number that in the immediate present our main task was the achievement of the independence of India–a united, free, strong and independent India–and that only after the achievement of this independence our labours and energies should be directed to the socialist reconstruction of a free, united, independent India. Of all people I least expected that Maulana Hasrat Mohani as he is today would bring before this House the plea for socialism. Ivbelieve Maulana Hasrat Mohani is a pillar of the Muslim League today, and it is a historic fact that the Muslim League has demanded and achieved the partition of India on a communal basis a basis which to my mind is the very antithesis of socialism. If Maulana Hasrat Mohani stands before us today and tries to preach socialism to us I would tell him “Physician, heal thyself”. It is not for members of an organisation who are committed to a patently communalistic policy to come before us and advance the plea for a socialist society unless they shed their communalism. It does not lie in the mouth of members of such anorganisation to plead for socialism. We who have been guided by leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru, Sardar Patel and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, do not stand in need of instruction about socialism. If at all anybody stands in need of being taught about socialism, I should say it is the Muslim League which has been for the last so many years preaching avivulently communalist policy and today has achieved a certain measure of success. I for one would plead with Maulana Hasrat Mohani even today to reconsider his own attitude and his own approach to Indian politics. I would ask him “What about the masses in your own Pakistan? Will you call upon your own masses in Pakistan to Join hands with the masses in the Indian Union–in our Hind, in our Bharat Varsha–on a socialist basis, shed your communalist ‘choga’ and policy and let us go forward to build a united, strong, independent. Socialist India in a socialist Federation of one free world?” I do not wish to take any more time of the House. I only wish to reiterate that this amendment is a pointless amendment and that nothing would be gained by the substitution of the world ‘President’ for ‘Governor’. After all we have reserved that term for the head of the Indian Union. There must be some way of discriminating between the head of the Indian Union and that of a province. On these grounds, I oppose the amendment of Maulana Hasrat Mohani.
