"We want peace. But if war is forced upon us, we accept it." With this telling couplet from the immoral Firdausi did the Quaid closehis memorable speech to the Muslim League Council meeting in Bombay on July 29,1946. And, to be sure, this couplet represented the bitter Muslim mood at the British acquiescence at the Congress's distortion of the Cabinet Mission plan (1946).Muslim bitterness at Congress "duplicity" and British "perfidy" led to revoke of their earlier decision to accept the Plan, revert to their original demand and reaffirm their faith in a sovereign, independent Pakistan. Earlier that evening, the League Council had taken a bold decision: it said good-bye to constitutionalism and sanctioned Direct Action for the first time in all its annals, and this to wrest Pakistan. "...Now the time has come" so ran the League resolution, "for the Muslim nation to resort to Direct Action, to achieve Pakistan, to assert their just rights, to vindicate their honour and get rid of the British slavery and contemplated future caste-Hindu domination."
