any exclusive linkage between religion and nation.^9 This refl ected the
prevailing view of the INC regarding the demands of the Muslim League
for Pakistan. Of course, even as Asaf Ali was rejecting a religious basis
for statehood as “untenable,” the subcontinent was being partitioned
along those very same lines!
As advised by Nehru, Asaf Ali supported the Arab proposal that called
for “termination of the Mandate and proclamation of the in de pen dence
of Palestine” as the agenda of the proposed UN committee. Overruling
suggestions from New Delhi to let the sponsors “make out a case,” he
argued vehemently in favor of the Arab proposal.^10 Both the General
Committee^11 and the UN General Assembly^12 felt that the Arab pro-
posal was incompati ble with the original British request that led to the
Special Session and rejected the suggestion. Asaf Ali, however, succeeded
in inviting the Arab Higher Committee, headed by the mufti of Jerusa-
lem, to testify before the General Committee.^13 Ali felt that if the views of
the representatives of the people of Palestine, whether Arab or Jews, were
not heeded by the United Nations, then “we shall certainly be prejudicing
the entire case.”^14
Asaf Ali supported the Arab countries in rejecting any connection be-
tween the Palestine question and the displaced- person (DP) camps in
Eu rope. It should be remembered that the opposition to such a linkage
remained a constant theme in India’s interventions, both in the Special
Session and in subsequent UN deliberations. For example, speaking be-
fore the General Assembly shortly after the UNSCOP report was submit-
ted, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, the leader of the Indian delegation, main-
tained that the problem of the displaced Jews in Eu rope was
not the concern of this Committee [the UNSCOP] and should not
therefore be mixed up with the issue of Palestine.... In fact a great
deal of the uneasiness that exists today in the minds of the Arab
population in Palestine and in other Arab countries is due to the fact
that vigorous attempts have been and are still being made to view the
Palestine question as mainly one of fi nding a home for the large
number of displaced Jews. It is a clear duty of this Committee to say
unequivocally that while the United Nations have a very grave re-
sponsibility in regard to the displaced persons of Central Eu rope, the
Committee feels most strongly that this should not be mixed up with
the question of the future government of Palestine.^1588 the partition of palestine