NEHRU-LIAQUAT PACT

1. Background

• Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the founder of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, the predecessor of the Bharatiya Janata Party, died, purportedly of a heart attack, on June 23, 1953.
• At the time, he was in the custody of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, having been arrested for trying to enter the state. 
• Consequently, even today, Mookerjee's death remains shrouded in an air of conspiracy with some in the BJP still clamouring for a probe.
• While the government had declared he had died of a heart attack, many believe that he was silenced for his opposition to Nehru and his position on Article 370, which promised special status to Kashmir.
• Mookerjee had famously said, "EK desh mein do Vidhan, do Pradhan aur Do Nishan Nahi challenge" ( One country cannot have two constitutions, two prime Ministers and two flags) referring to the provisions of Article 370.
• However, despite his antagonism with Nehru and Congress, SP Mookerjee was a part of the first Union Cabinet under the premiership of Nehru himself.

2. Syama Prasad Mookerjee in Nehru Cabinet

• After the bloodshed of the Partition, Nehru was firm on not taking the path to a Hindu Rashtra analogous to a homeland for Muslims that Pakistan came to signify.
• However, as the great liberal politician he was, Nehru was also cognisant of the need for a diversity of voices in the government, to reflect the diversity of opinions and identities in the country.
• Consequently, despite the Congress having an overwhelming majority, Nehru invited two members from outside the party to join his cabinet. These were Dr BR Ambedkar and Syama Prasad Mookerjee.
• Mookerjee, a member of the Hindu Mahasabha, was inducted into the interim government on August 15, 1947, as the Minister for Industry and Supply. He would keep his ministership for just under three years, resigning in April 1950 over the controversial Nehru-Liaquat Pact.
  Unlike previous differences with Nehru during his ministership, Mookerjee and Nehru's differences about Pact proved to be irreconcilable.

3. Nehru-Liaquat Pact

• The Nehru-Liaquat Pact, also known as the Delhi Pact, was a bilateral agreement signed between India and Pakistan to provide a framework for the treatment of minorities in the two countries.
• It was signed by the two country's prime ministers, Jawaharlal Nehru and Liaquat Ali Khan.
• The need for such a pact was felt by minorities in both countries following Partition, which was accompanied by massive communal rioting. 
• Even in 1950, three years after the Partition was announced, some estimates say that over a million Hindus and Muslims migrated to and from East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh), amidst unspoken violence and communal tensions.

• Members of the Minorities shall have equal opportunity with members of the majority community to participate in the public life of their country, to hold political or other office and to serve in their country's civil and armed forces.
• Both Governments declare these rights to be fundamental and undertake to enforce them effectively.
• The Prime Minister of India has drawn attention to the fact that these rights are guaranteed to all minorities in India by its Constitution.
• The Prime Minister of Pakistan has pointed out that a similar provision exists in the Objectives Resolution adopted by the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan.
• Both Governments wish to emphasise that the allegiance and loyalty of the minorities are to the State of which they are citizens and that it is to the Government of their State that they should look for the redress of their grievances.

4. Mukherjee's Criticism of the Pact

• Mookerjee had initially been an advocate for a united India, but as Partition became increasingly inevitable, he shifted his focus towards advocating for a divided Bengal, with West Bengal Specifically meant for Hindu Bengalis. His subsequent politics continued on these lines.
• Thus, when the Delhi Pact was signed, promising minority rights and setting up minority commissions in both India and Pakistan, Mookerjee was incensed. 
• Looking at the huge influx of Hindu refugees from East Pakistan, he felt that the Pact was a betrayal of the logical outcome of the Partition of a Hindu India and a Muslim Pakistan.
• After nearly 1, 000 years Hindus have got a chance to build the edifice of their own free choice.
• In the land of their birth let us not be short-sighted or make any mistake for which posterity may curse us. Bharat's destiny lies in modelling her affairs on the truest concerns of Hinduism.
• He felt that the Pact would essentially leave Hindus in East Bengal at the mercy of the Pakistani state.
• Instead, he argued for a systematic exchange of population and property at the governmental level between East Bengal and the states of Tripura, Assam, West Bengal and Bihar granting the Hindu minority in East Bengal an opportunity to settle in India while pushing the Muslim minorities in India to the East Bengal.

5. Formation of Bharatiya Jan Sangh

• By 1950, Mookerjee had also fallen out with the Hindu Mahasabha an organisation which he found "myopic" in its approach to national problems.
• Thus, after he resigned from his ministership, he turned his focus to starting a new party.
• With the help of the RSS, he founded the Bharatiya Jan Sangh in 1951, a party which contested and won three seats in the 1952 elections.
• While he died before seeing his party rise to prominence, he laid the roots for the dominance of the Bharatiya Janata Party the successor of the Jan Sangh that is seen today.
• Some of the issues that Jan Sangh raised back in the 1950s such as the promotion of a Uniform Civil Code and banning cow slaughter.
• The abrogation of Article 370 which gave Jammu and Kashmir special status was seen as much as the realisation of Mookerjee's biggest dream.