Dear Mr Jinnah,
The Working Committee has given all the attention it was possible for it to give to the resolutions of the Council of the Muslim League which you were good enough to enclose with your letter of the 6th June 1938. The first
resolution of the League Council defines the status of the League. If it means that before we proceed to set up a machinery for considering the terms of settlement of the communal question, the Congress should recognise the status as defined in that resolution, there is an obvious difficulty. Though the resolution does not use the adjective “only” the language of the resolution means that the adjective is understood. Already the Working Committee has received warnings against recognising the exclusive status of the League. There are Muslim organisations which have been functioning independently of the Muslim League. Some of them are staunch supporters of the Congress. Moreover, there are individual Muslims who are Congressmen, some of whom exercise no inconsiderable influence in the country. Then there is the Frontier Province which is overwhelmingly Muslim and is solidly with the Congress. You will see that in the face of these known facts, it is not only impossible but improper for the Congress to make the admission, which the first resolution of the League Council apparently desires the Congress to make. It is suggested that status of organisations does not accrue to them by any defining of it. It comes through the service to which a particular organisation has dedicated itself. The Working Committee, therefore, hopes that the League Council will not ask the Congress to do the impossible. Is it not enough that the Congress is not only willing but eager to establish the friendliest relations with the League and come to an honourable understanding over the much-vexed Hindu-Muslim question? At this stage it may perhaps be as well to state the Congress claim. Though it is admitted that the largest number of persons to be found on the numerous Congress registers are Hindus, the Congress has a fairly large number of Muslims and members of other communities professing different faiths. It has been an unbroken tradition with the Congress to represent all communities, all races and all classes to whom India is their home. From its inception it has often had distinguished Muslims as presidents and as general secretaries who enjoyed the confidence of the Congress and of the country. The Congress tradition is that although a Congressman does not cease to belong to faith in which he is born and brought up, no one comes to the Congress by virtue of his faith. He is in-and-out of the Congress by virtue of his endorsement of the political principles and policy of the Congress. The Congress, therefore, is in no sense a communal organisation. In fact, it has always fought the
communal spirit because it is detrimental to the growth of pure and undefiled nationalism.
But whilst the Congress makes this claim, and has sought, with more or less success, to live up to the claim, the Working Committee would he glad if your Council would come to an understanding with the Congress in order that we might achieve national solidarity and whole-heartedly work for realising our common destiny.
As to the second resolution of the Council, I am afraid that it is not possible for Working Committee to conform to the desire expressed therein.
The third resolution, the Working Committee is unable to understand. So far as the Working Committee is concerned, the Muslim League is a purely communal organisation, in the sense that it seems to serve Muslim interests only and its membership too is open only to Muslims. The Working: Committee also has all along understood that so far as the League is concerned, it desires rightly, a settlement with the Congress on the Hindu- Muslim question and not on questions affecting all minorities. So far as the Congress is concerned, if the other minorities have a grievance against the Congress, it is always ready to deal with them, as it is its bounden duty to do so, being by its very constitution representative of All India without distinction of caste or creed.
In view of the foregoing I hope that it will be possible for us to take up the next stage in our negotiations for reaching a settlement.
It is suggested that as the previous correspondence has already been published, it would be wise to take the public into confidence and publish the subsequent correspondence between us. If you are agreeable, these documents will be immediately released for publication.
Yours sincerely,
SC Bose