This was a telling statement. In 1940, members of the Congress
were told they had to choose between Hindu Mahasabha membership
and that of the Congress, because membership of a communal organi-
sation was not compatible with Congress membership; apparently, not
all Hindu communalists had decided to leave, because the Congress
could accommodate a Hindu right-wing position as long as it was not
publicly proclaimed. (Consequently, the Hindu Mahasabha’s poor elec-
toral showings could be attributed to its natural supporters still voting
for the Congress.) Nehru himself practically described himself as an
isolated individual tolerated by the Congress because of his popularity and
international reputation. Now, in 1945, it was the communists who were
excluded from the Congress, using the leverage gained from the 1942
divergences that had, in fact, divided opinion in Congress as much as in
the CPI, though neither side was willing to acknowledge this publicly.
Nehru confirmed that the CSP and the Congress right were no longer
willing to have the communists work through the Congress.
Ahmad sought to clarify the communists’ position to Nehru. The CPI
had, at the time of its legalisation, decided not to fight against the tide
of sectarianism, but to ride it and then attempt to divert it – an early
realism that acknowledged the widespread appeal of ‘Pakistan’ as an
undefined utopia in which poor Muslims would find their problems
solved. Accordingly, its position on ‘Pakistan’, published in 1942, mod-
elled itself on Soviet nationalities policy: India was not one nation, or even
two, but many; there were, indeed, several Muslim nationalities – ‘as
soon as we grasp that behind the demand for Pakistan is the justified desire
of the people of Muslim nationalities such as Sindhis, Baluchis, Punjabis
(Muslims), Pathans to build their free national life within the greater unity
of the all-Indian national freedom, we at once see there is a very simple
solution to the communal problem in its new phase.’^25 Once the right of
individual nationalities to their separate existence was recognised, there
would be no reason for an actual separation of provinces or areas from an
Indian union, which could then be a multinational state. (This formu-
lation had allowed the CPI to continue its work on a class basis while
working around the ‘communal problem’: indeed, in Bengal it was able
substantially to strengthen a left wing of the Muslim League that was
through the CPI able to appeal to peasants, and the CPI was able to appeal
to Muslim peasants as peasants.) The CPI further argued that it made no
sense to talk of Pakistan based on provinces separating, either, because124 THE END OF THE RAJ