T.R.Sareen's New Book on the Making of Pakistan

There were not a few surprises in the new book by my respected friend T.R.Sareen entitled Jinnah, Linlithgow and the Making of Pakistan-A Documentary Study-, Uppal, New Delhi, 2010. The title is quite appropriate, as the book, and the real process of creating Pakistan seventy years ago, evolved around these two personalities, the President of the All-India Muslim League and the British Governor-General and Viceroy.
Shortly after the Second World War broke out, and Jinnah promised his support to the British war effort, Linlithgow gradually began to look at the League as representing the Muslims in India. To Jinnah's demands of 5 November 1939 that the British should look at all the problems of the future Indian constitution de novo, and there should be no declaration or constitution which were not supported by the two major religious communities in India, Linlithgow replied "yes" on 23December. 'The leaders of the Congress were not aware that Jinnah was working in close confidence of the Viceroy and had given an understanding that he had no wish to come to any agreement with the Congress'(p.37).
And finally the British Secretary of State for India spoke in the House of Lords on 18 April 1940 that 'I cannot believe that any Government or Parliament in this country would attempt to impose by force upon, for example, the 80 million Muslim subjects of His Majesty in India a form of Constitution under which they would not live peacefully and contentedly'(p.244).
So far, in my understanding, Linlithgow's 'August Offer' of the same year, written under the direct guidance of Winston Churchill, the new Prime Minister, and handing over a virtual veto on the constitutional question to the Muslims, tended to be viewed as the climax of the triangular British-Congress-League negotiations. But no, the Secretary's Lords speech was the real climax, which was made within a month of the League's Lahore Resolution demanding Pakistan, and as such almost rubber-stamping the Resolution. It is the reason why the 'August Offer' is included in this book not among the documents but as Appendix I.
My greatest surprise, however, was the Appendix II(pp.251-267).
It is the Report of the (League)Foreign Committee on Pakistan Scheme, 23 December 1940. It plans to establish a federal sovereign state in the northwest of India and another in the northeast. So far it is according to the Lahore Resolution. It, however, goes beyond, and sometimes far beyond, it. The Northwest state includes Delhi as part of the Punjab and a part of UP up to Aligarh. The Northeast gives up Bankura and Midnapur Districts of Bengal from the territory of Pakistan, but includes Purnea of Bihar into it. It claims that all the Princely states under the Muslim rulers will be considered to be sovereign, and especially Hyderabad, the largest of them, should form together with the above two the triangular Muslim powers. The plan, moreover, indicates the possibility of federating the neighbouring Princely states, whether under Muslim rulers or otherwise, with Pakistan. Kashmir, Patiala, and even non-adjoining Bikaner and Jaisalmer in the northwest and Coach Behar, Tripura, Manipur and Khasi Hills in the northeast are mentioned in this context. The fact that the League made such an aggressive plan fairly early and kept it to itself would show that they were serious about Pakistan, which was far from a bargaining counter. It was also jealously kept from the Congress, and not even hinted at even during the 18-day long Gandhi-Jinnah talks in 1944. Much of the plan was not realized, but we may conclude that Pakistan was as much a creation of the Pakistan elite as of the British.
At the same time we regret to see that there was no consideration of what would happen to the Muslim minority in the Hindu majority areas and the Hindu minority in the Muslim majority areas. As such it was based on the exclusive interests of the elite classes.