By Mahmud Ali
The Quaid at home, 10 Aurangzeb Road, New Delhi |
The moment I read about it in the newspapers on 4 June, 1947 I felt shocked and dismayed in my prison cell: I thought within my self, “O God! Quaid-i-Azam’s assertion has also failed to come true!” My faith in the Quaid-i-Azam was such that I never imagined that his affirmation would not fructify.
I functioned as Secretary Assam Provincial Muslim League during 1945-47.
In April, 1946 after the Muslim Legislators’ Convention at the Anglo-Arablic College compound had concluded its deliberations, some of us who attended the convention from Bengal and Assam had stayed on at New Delhi for a few days more. Amongst them, besides myself, Moulana Mohammad Akram Khan, President of then Bengal Provincial Muslim League and Mr. Moyeen Uddin Ahmad Choudhry, a member of the Assam Provincial Assembly, were there for rest and sight-seeing. The Legislators’ Convention concluded on 9 April and we continued to stay there for the next couple of days.
One morning as I turned pages of the Daily Dawn I came across a news report that Husseyn Shahid Suhrawardy and Sarat Chandra Bose, brother of the great revolutionary Subhas Chandra Bose had prepared a plan to make a greater Bengal State separate from both Pakistan and Hindustan and that they had the Quaid-i-Azam’s blessing.