In the spring of 1944 Jinnah went to Lahore and pressed Malik Khizar Hayat Khan, the Unionist Premier of the Punjab, to call his government a Muslim League Coalition Ministry. Khizar refused and was expelled from the League soon afterward. Sardar Baldev Singh, a Sikh leader, had joined the Punjab ministry in 1942 under a pact with Khizar's predecessor, Sir Sikandar Hyat Khan, and served as Development Minister. He gave this statement to the press as the crisis came to a head.
The text is a newspaper report, as reprinted in the Indian Annual Register. It opens in the third person, slips into Baldev Singh's own words partway through the first paragraph, and includes a crosshead added by the paper. Baldev Singh argues that destroying the Unionist Party would break the pacts the Sikhs had made with Sikandar and the League. He says Jinnah has never explained what Pakistan would mean, and he defends the Sikhs' claim to self-determination within a united India, rejecting any attempt to "dub us as sub-nationals." He warns that communal bitterness in the province would damage the war effort.
[p. 226] "To divide the people of this province by aggravating communal bitterness at this time, would be a positive danger to all concerned", says Sardar Baldev Singh, [p. 227] Development Minister, Punjab in the course of a statement to the Press commenting on the Ministerial developments in the Punjab.
Sardar Baldev Singh says that on its surface the controversy raised by Mr. Jinnah related to the Unionist Party, which, according to him, did not exist in fact. He demanded, instead, a formal recognition of a change in party alignments in the Punjab Legislature with the implied sequel that the Ministry would be a League Coalition Ministry. This meant that we were in effect to commit ourselves to a vague Pakistan scheme. I am not a member of the Unionist Party. But it is impossible to ignore the consequence if, as Mr. Jinnah holds, the Unionist Party were dissolved. My reason is simple. It was in earnest of a desire I shared with the late Sir Sikandar Hyat Khan that I entered into a pact with him primarily for removing the besetting curse of inter-communal bitterness in the Punjab. This pact was signed by me with the late Premier as the leader of the Unionist Party, a non-communal organisation. Sir Sikandar always maintained that the Party of which he was the Leader and the Government of which he was the head were both non-communal in outlook and character. Attempts were made during his life time within and without the province to assign a communal—Muslim League—character to his Ministry. Sir Sikandar resolutely resisted these attempts. His successor, our present Premier, has maintained the status quo. After attending a session of the All-India Muslim League in Delhi in March last year, he conveyed to me and to his other colleagues in the Ministry an assurance that Mr. Jinnah adhered unequivocally to the Sikandar-Jinnah Pact and would honour its commitment so far as the Punjab was concerned. The statement of the Premier was made with the full blessings of Mr. Jinnah and was received with applause by the Council of the All-India Muslim League.
"It is admitted that, as a direct result of my pact aforesaid with the Punjab Premier, a number of misunderstandings between the Muslims and the Sikhs were removed. The communal atmosphere in the Punjab improved materially. Not all had been done. Admittedly many grievances remained unresolved. The sine qua non of continued improvement, however, was a determined effort to maintain the improvement noticed in inter-communal relationship. This in its turn implied an honest and straightforward respect for mutually agreed understandings and pacts.
I must say that Mr. Jinnah's present activities in Lahore, his attack on the Unionist Party and his insistence on the Punjab Ministry being recognised as the Muslim League Coalition Ministry have caused wide-spread alarm in the province. In the first place, the attempt to destroy the Unionist Party apart from anything else, amounts also to a unilateral repudiation of the pacts arrived at by Mr. Jinnah and the League with the Unionists and by the Unionist Party with me. If the leaders of the Muslim League encourage Muslims who are a majority in the Unionist Party to treat their plighted word so lightly, the Sikhs will greatly hesitate to rely on any future promises made by them. I ask Mr. Jinnah and the Muslim members of the Ministerial type in all sincerity to take due note of this and to avoid sowing seeds of suspicion.
"Secondly, it is no more a secret that the acts of indiscipline by a few members of the Unionist Party are the result of internal intrigue by interested persons. Whatever their own designs, I have no hesitation in saying that an encouragement of such acts for communal domination would destroy for all time confidence in the integrity and working of political parties. Differences in opinion are no new phenomenon. But to achieve the object of such differences by internal surreptitious intrigues is against all canons of public conduct.
SIKHS' FAITH IN UNITY OF INDIA
"I would say here that as an earnest of our desire to live peacefully with our Muslim brethren, I with the concurrence of my friends in the community made every effort to come to terms with Mr. Jinnah. I repeatedly and pointedly asked him for a clarification of the Pakistan scheme. There was no response. I must here make it clear that it is not offices, posts or even exclusive communal advantages that we seek. The right of self-determination is now an admitted principle recognised all the world over. The Sikhs hold that this right of self-determination can and should be exercised to the fullest extent without violating India's integrity and unity by Muslims and in the same measure by non-Muslims. Mr. Jinnah has so far shown no inclination to accept this clear principle. Nor does he explain what his own scheme of Pakistan is. We have at one time been assigned the status of a subnationality and at another offered lavish promises of generous privileges. The time has come to end this purposeless manoeuvring. But why this drift into fratricidal disruption?
[p. 228] "Sikh history is my witness that we stand for justice and equality. To treat us with condescension or dub us as sub-nationals is to expect us the denial of our proud lineage. No Sikh may fall so low, whatever his preferences. We have lived in peace as equal neighbours, with our sister communities. We are resolved to stand by and will, if necessary, die with those who keep their troth in pursuit after our common aspirations. The Sikhs have never faltered. They shall not do so now.
"Finally I cannot help observing that as a direct result of the recent aggressive turn in the attitude of a few Muslims, the general communal atmosphere in the Punjab has already had a severe setback. Doubts in the sanctity of pacts and weakening of confidence in the operations of political groups must, in the nature of things, create serious communal misgivings. I do not suggest that the Muslim League is conscious of it but if aggressive communalism were to spread in the countryside, its repercussions on our war effort are bound to be grave and no comparable calamity could befall us at this time.
"To divide the people of this province by aggravating communal bitterness at this time would be a positive danger to all concerned."
The Indian Annual Register, January–June 1944, vol. I, ed. Nripendra Nath Mitra (Calcutta: Annual Register Office), pp. 226–228.