Re: "I don't regard myself as an Indian"

In the meeting with the Cabinet Delegation, Maulana Azad noted Jinnah's statement of "I don't regard myself as an Indian".


Transfer of Power, Volume VII, item 46, page 113.

Record of Meeting between Cabinet Delegation, Field Marshal Viscount Wavell and Maulana Azad on Wednesday, 3 April 1946 at 10 AM.

[The Secretary of State asked]  Was it the intention that Muslims in Hindustan should be regarded as aliens.  Dr. Azad said that the position was quite clear.  If Mr. Jinnah insisted on two sovereign States and the two nation theory and claimed the Muslims left in Hindu India as nationals of Pakistan, they would become aliens in Hindustan.   Sir S. Cripps said that as a legal conception this was impossible. Muslims who had been domiciled for generations in Hindustan could not be regarded as citizens of Pakistan.   Dr. Azad said that the position which Mr. Jinnah had adopted was fundamentally untenable because he insisted that the Muslims were a separate nation and had recently said that he was not an Indian.  Unless he gives up this theory it was inescapable that the Muslim in Hindustan should have an alien status.