द इण्डियन स्ट्रगल / भारतीय स्वाधीनता संग्राम (नेताजी सुभाष चन्द्र बोस - ऐतिहासिक विश्लेषण)

THE BAROMETER RISES 179 Congress week had unfortunate consequences. All those who did not have a hand in drafting the Nehru Report now made a dead set against it. Mr. M. A. Jinnah, who a year earlier had advocated a progressive nationalist point of view at the Moslem League Conference in Calcutta, now came forward with his famous 'fourteen points' in order to amend the communal settlement embodied in the Nehru Report. He demanded, among other things, one-third of the elected seats in both Houses of the Indian Legislature for Moslems, reservation of seats for Moslems in Bengal and Punjab on a population basis, vesting of residuary powers in the provinces, etc. This attitude served to make Mr. Jinnah popular with his reactionary co-religionists but undermined the value and importance of the Nehru Report. Following the Moslems, the Sikhs also made extreme demands, while the represen- tatives of the Hindu Mahasabha refused to make any further concessions beyond what had been already embodied in the Nehru Report and they even criticised adversely the conces- sions made by the Nehru Committee to the Moslem demands. It was difficult to get the support of the Moslem League for the Nehru Report, because of the parties within that body, based largely on personal considerations. For instance, the group led by the late Sir Mohammed Shafi took up a non possumus attitude on the communal question and on the political question, advocated co-operation with the Simon Commission. The Nationalist bloc stood for whole-hearted acceptance of the Nehru Report and for complete boycott of the Simon Commission. The group led by Mr. Jinnah had a reactionary attitude on the communal question but advocated the boycott of the Simon Commission. A meeting of the Moslem League was summoned at Delhi in March 1929, to consider the question and there was a clash between the warring sections, so that the meeting ended in pande- monium. In December 1927, when the Madras Congress decided in favour of convening an All-Parties Conference, it appeared as if the decision was a right one. This feeling was confirmed when the Nehru Committee was able to produce a unanimous report and the All-Parties Conference at Lucknow in August