THE ASIAN INDEPENDENT UK
Bal Ram Sampla
Geopolitics
On August 11, 1947, Muhammad Ali Jinnah stood before Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly and made a solemn promise. He declared that every citizen of Pakistan, “no matter what his colour or creed,” would be “first, second, and last a citizen of the State, with equal rights, privileges, and obligations.” These were beautiful words. But they were just words, action spoke differently.
While millions fled across newly drawn borders in 1947, one group found themselves trapped. Dalits—the so-called “untouchables” who worked as sweepers, cleaners, and sanitation workers—were told they could not leave Pakistan. The reason was brutally simple: who would clean Pakistan’s toilets if they left?
The Essential Services Trap
Pakistan’s government passed the Essential Services Maintenance Act. This law classified sanitation workers as essential employees. It made it illegal for them to migrate to India.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the architect of India’s Constitution, understood exactly what was happening. He wrote that Pakistan “did not bother much if the Hindus left, but who would do the dirty work of the scavengers, sweepers, the Bhangis and other despised castes if the untouchables left?”
Tens of thousands of Hindu sanitation workers remained trapped in Pakistan years after Partition—according to some accounts, over 35,000 were still there as late as 1952. While some Hindus and Sikhs fled by train and even by air, Dalits who managed to escape travelled mainly on foot, risking their lives at every checkpoint.
Jinnah Cannot Claim Ignorance
Some might argue that Jinnah was too ill or too distant from daily governance to know about this betrayal. This defense collapses under scrutiny.
Jinnah was not a figurehead. He was Pakistan’s supreme authority. As Governor General, he held both the ceremonial powers of head of state and the effective powers of head of government. He dominated his Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, who historians describe as being completely overshadowed by Jinnah. There were no formal limitations on Jinnah’s constitutional powers.
Even while ill, Jinnah exercised this power actively. Within a week of becoming Governor General, he dissolved an elected provincial government of North West Frontier Province. He ordered military operations in Kashmir. His own staff later admitted he believed his Prime Minister was weak, showing he monitored government operations closely.
A man with such total control, who involved himself in everything from provincial politics to military strategy, cannot credibly claim ignorance about a law that trapped tens of thousands of people based on their caste—especially when one of his own cabinet ministers was a Dalit.
The Cynical Wooing of the Dalits
Jinnah and the Muslim League had deliberately cultivated an image as friends of the Dalits.
Sant Brahm Dass, an admirer of Dr. Ambedkar, an incident took place narrated in “Ambedkar: Messiah of the Untouchables.” The Muslim League organized a procession in Meerut and arranged an elephant for Jinnah to ride as a symbol of prestige. But Jinnah refused to ride it himself. Instead, he insisted that an untouchable person ride the elephant, “giving the impression that he is a friend of the untouchables.”
This was pure political theatre. The Muslim League was clearly fooling the Untouchables. They projected an image of equality and friendship, knowing that Dalits faced severe discrimination from upper-caste Hindus. They made Dalits believe that Pakistan would be different.
The Tragedy of Jogendra Nath Mandal
Perhaps the cruellest victim of this deception was Jogendra Nath Mandal. Mandal was a Dalit leader from Bengal who believed in Jinnah’s vision. He thought that Pakistan, as a Muslim-majority state, would be free from the Hindu caste system’s discrimination. He believed Dalits would be treated better in Pakistan than in an upper-caste dominated India.
Jinnah made Mandal Pakistan’s first Minister of Law and Labour. When Jinnah was sworn in as Governor General, he reportedly asked Mandal to preside over the ceremony. It seemed like proof that Jinnah’s promises were real. It appeared that the elephant gesture in Meerut had been genuine.
But Mandal’s hope turned to despair. After Jinnah’s death in September 1948, things deteriorated rapidly, though the Essential Services Act had been passed while Jinnah was still alive and in control. Mandal watched as Dalits were killed by the army, police, and Muslim League activists. He documented hundreds of murders. On October 8, 1950, he resigned in despair and returned to India, a broken man.
Mandal had staked his community’s future on Jinnah’s word. He was wrong to trust him.
What This Tells Us About Jinnah
There are only two possibilities here, and neither reflects well on Jinnah.
Either he knew about the Essential Services Act and approved it, which makes him a hypocrite who spoke of equality while implementing caste-based discrimination. Or he knew about it and chose not to intervene, which makes him complicit in the same discrimination.
There is no third option where Jinnah was unaware. A man who dissolved governments, ordered military operations, and dominated every aspect of Pakistan’s early government cannot claim ignorance about a major policy affecting tens of thousands during Partition—the defining crisis of his new nation.
The most likely truth is the harshest one: Jinnah prioritized Pakistan’s immediate practical needs over the rights and dignity of its most vulnerable people. He needed cities to function. Cities needed sanitation workers. Sanitation workers were Dalits. So Dalits would stay, regardless of what he had promised about equal rights.
The Forgotten Victims
History often remembers Partition through the stories of Punjabi Hindus and Sikhs, of trains soaked in blood, of mass migrations and communal violence. These stories matter. But in focusing only on them, we forget another group of victims.
An estimated one million Dalits eventually did migrate from East and West Pakistan into India, but many had to wait years, living in fear and uncertainty. Many never made it out at all. While the world watched the broader carnage of Partition, Dalits were being held prisoner by a government that claimed to offer them equality.
Their betrayal was not an accident. It was not a side effect of chaos. It was policy, implemented by a government that needed their labour more than it valued their freedom.
Ambedkar Fought While Nehru Failed
Only one major political leader fought for the trapped Dalits: Dr. B.R. Ambedkar.
After repeated pleas from Ambedkar, Ambedkar finally sent the Mahar Regiment to help evacuate refugees during Partition. The regiment helped in the safe transfer of refugees in the face of violent armed mobs. These were Dalit soldiers rescuing Dalit civilians—a fact that remains largely unknown in mainstream Partition history.
Ambedkar wrote letters to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, demanding attention for the suffering of Dalit migrants. He asked for the evacuation deadline to be extended since millions of Dalits were still trapped in Pakistan by December 1947. He demanded that special officers be appointed to ensure Dalits received fair treatment in refugee camps and land allotments.
Ambedkar discovered that even in India, upper-caste Hindus who controlled the administration in East Punjab discriminated against Dalit refugees when allotting land. Ambedkar asked Nehru to appoint at least 300 Dalits to the Civil Police so they could protect their own people.
But Nehru largely ignored Ambedkar’s pleas.
While Ambedkar fought to save Dalits trapped in Pakistan, Nehru signed the Nehru-Liaquat Pact in April 1950. This agreement was supposed to protect minorities in both countries, but it was worthless. Even Jogendra Nath Mandal, who had believed in Pakistan’s promises, resigned in October 1950, stating that the pact had failed and that Hindus in East Pakistan faced systematic violence, forced conversions, and rape.
Dr. Syama Prasad Mukherjee resigned from Nehru’s cabinet over the same issue, arguing that Nehru had abandoned Hindus and Dalits in East Pakistan. Ambedkar himself eventually resigned from Nehru’s cabinet in September 1951, condemning Nehru’s callousness toward the suffering of “our people” in East Bengal.
Ambedkar had warned before Partition that complete population exchange was necessary—all Muslims to Pakistan, all Hindus and Dalits to India. Nehru and Gandhi rejected this proposal. The result was exactly what Ambedkar predicted: ongoing persecution, forced migration, and the nightmare that Dalits faced in Pakistan.
The Verdict
Muhammad Ali Jinnah spoke beautiful words about equality. His government’s actions told a different story. When principles conflicted with convenience, when promises clashed with practical needs, Jinnah chose to break his promises.
For the Dalits who believed in Pakistan’s founding ideals, who trusted in Jinnah’s August 11 speech, the lesson was bitter. They learned that “equal rights, privileges, and obligations” had an unspoken condition: only when it was convenient for those in power.
History should remember Jinnah not just for what he said, but for what he did. And what he did to the Dalits during Partition was a betrayal that matched the grandness of his promises with the depth of its deception.
The question is not whether Jinnah was a hypocrite. The evidence answers that clearly enough. The question is why we continue to sanitize his legacy instead of confronting this uncomfortable truth: that Pakistan’s founding father promised equality to all, but delivered it only to some, while trapping the most vulnerable in a prison of their own caste.
References
1.https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/08/24/the-long-struggle-of-indias-sanitation-workers/
2.https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/dr-babasaheb-ambedkar-vol-8-pakistan-or-the-partition-of-india/
3.https://theleaflet.in/analysis/do-sanitation-workers-identify-themselves-with-ambedkar-and-gandhi
4.https://swarajyamag.com/featured/bodhi-sattvas-hindutva-part-5
5.https://theprint.in/report/indian-armys-mahar-regiment-home-to-two-army-chiefs-and-a-param-vir-chakra/26313/
6.https://theprint.in/opinion/jogendranath-mandal-bengals-ambedkar-backing-jinnah-historys-footnote/2599364/
7.https://www.asthabharati.org/Dia_Oct%2009/Moh.htm
8.https://www.allaboutambedkaronline.com/post/why-ambedkar-supported-partition-remarks-on-pakistan-or-the-partition-of-india
9. Ambedkar: Messiah of the Untouchables. 1994. by BR Sampla
10.https://historicallyspeakingssc.wordpress.com/2022/11/07/caste-in-freedom-on-post-partition-refugee-rehabilitation-in-delhi/
