In the chapter on Politics, talking of the Partition, "I think it is wrong to equate religion with nationality.  A nation has many more attributes than a religion has.  The fact of worshipping in the same place, or believing in the same religious tenets, does not by itself go to create a sense of nationhood. ....  Religion should never be allowed to intrude into public affairs. Public affairs are by definition affairs in which the public as a whole are interested."

Further, "Patriotism should always be territorial and not communal or religious. One loves one's country, one loves one's motherland, and that is the essence of patriotism.  One may love one's religion, but that cannot override the love that one has for the land of one's birth."

"I have always taken the view that the partition was a tragedy and a calamity, and I also hold the view that it was not unavoidable.  Partition has solved no problems; on the contrary it has created more problems and very serious ones too.  I remember once asking Jinnah: "You are fighting for Pakistan mainly in the interest of the Muslim majority states. But what happens to the Muslims in the States particularly like Uttar Pradesh, where they are in a small minority ?"  I will never forget the answer he gave me.  He look at me for a while and said: "They will look after themselves.  I am not interested in their fate" ".

"Of course, we on our side also made many mistakes.  I do not know whether we were in a hurry to take power, or whether we were genuinely convinced that it was impossible to work with the Muslim League in governing a free country.  I do not think Jinnah really expected that the Congress would ever concede Pakistan.  To him it was more of a bargaining counter, and if we had bargained properly, he would have given up the idea of Pakistan and accepted a United India."

"At least as far as Punjab was concerned, it could be said that we presented the province to him on a platter because of our wrong policy. We also did not play our cards well in the NWFP.  There too Jinnah had a formidable opponent in Khan Abdul Ghaffar Kahn, better known as the Frontier Gandhi.  There was also the press interview that Jawaharlal Nehru gave after Jinnah had practically agreed to the proposals of the parliamentary delegation.  In the interview Jawaharlal suggested that the proposals were not binding and conclusive.  After that interview Jinnah backed out of his agreement, and we missed the last chance of settlement."

"I also think that the alliance between Mahatma Gandhi and the Khilafatists considerably accentuated the communal and religious aspects of Indian public life.  Ghandhiji was essentially a religious man, and it is very natural that he should feel that he could bring about unity on the basis of religion.  As I have already stated, as soon as the Khilafat cause disappeared from the picture, the Khilaftaists went back to their original fanatical and religious outlook on life.  It also resulted in a great set-back both for Jinnah and men like him and for the Muslim League, which was working on secular lines."

"To my mind, however, one of the most potent causes which ultimately led to the creation of Pakistan was what happened in Uttar Pradesh.  If Jawaharlal Nehru had agreed to a coalition ministry and not insisted on the representative of the Muslim League signing the Congress pledge, perhaps Pakistan would never have come about.  .... Uttar Pradesh was the cultural home of the Muslims.  Although they were in a minority in that State, if Uttar Pradesh had not gone over to the cause of separation, Pakistan would never have become a reality."

"But all that is past history.  Whatever may be the causes, whatever may be the reasons, whatever may be the mistakes committed on either side, partition did come about and India was divided. I myself think that Jinnah never expected that the Congress would accept Pakistan.  I also think that if we had held out and refused to surrender on the issue of unity, perhaps India today would be a united country."

"As I am writing this, Bangladesh has come into existence.  The emergence of this nation not only means a great victory for democracy and the right of the people to determine their own future, but it is also final and conclusive proof that the evil doctrine of two nations was false and had no relevance either to a rational conception of citizenship or to any enlightened standards of public life."
" .. If dead mean turn in their graves, Jinnah could not but have turned violently in his grave at the events that have taken place.  His dream of a homeland for the Muslims has been shattered and now lies in ruins.  Far from there being a Pakistan which is a home of the Muslims, the home of the Muslims [referring to the fact that there were more Muslims in Bangladesh than in Pakistan] now is Bangladesh which does not believe in religion as the basis of nationhood; and the other home is India which obviously and patently is a secular country."

When writing of secularism or the status of minorities in the same chapter on Politics, he says :
"... Every public question must be judged from the point of view of national interest.  It always felt, therefore, that the Muslims, or a large majority of them, were making a great mistake in continuously emphasizing their minority status.  They should join the mainstream of national life.  They should not forget that they are as much Indians as their Hindu fellow citizens; that they have as much right to be proud of India as the Hindus; that they have inherited the same traditions and the same legacy from common ancestors going back to hundreds of years."

"I have always resented the suggestion that because I am a Muslim I am less of an Indian than a Hindu.  To me, Pakistan is as much a foreign country as Turkey or Iran or the United Kingdom or the United States. ... I have, therefore, often strongly disagreed with the government policy of constantly harping upon minorities, minority status and minority rights.  It comes in the way of national unity, and emphasizes the differences between the majority community and the minority.  Of course, it may well serve as a vote-catching device to win Muslim votes, but I do not believe in sacrificing national interests in order to get temporary party benefits such as getting a few more seats in certain constituencies."

"The Congress Government has also often followed what I can only call the old British policy of communalism.  In my view, if it is communalism to pass over and ignore a mean with merit simply because he happens to be a Muslim or a Christian or a Parsi, it is also communalism to appoint a person merely because he happens to be a Muslim or a member of some other minority community.  It is injurious to the interests of the minorities themselves to have posts and offices filled by men who have no merit, merely because they want representation in high offices.  The minorities come to expect that they will get certain posts whether the men deserve to get them or not.  It is much better that they learn to work hard and deserve the post."

"When I am told that there is no minority representation in a particular post, I often ask the question: Is there any deserving person who has been passed over? If so, it is injustice, and we must fight against it.  But if there is no deserving person, then to clamour for a post is really to be communal.  And to yield to the clamour is also to betray a communal spirit.  It amounts to a reproduction of the bad old days and of discredited British policies.  Such policies result in bitterness between majority and minority communities, and lead to a sense of frustration on the part of a member of the majority community, where legitimate claims were overlooked in favour of a less deserving member of a minority community."

On the Uniform Civil Code, he says
"Consider the attitude of the Government to the question of a uniform civil code.  Although the Directive Principles of the Sate enjoin such a code, Government has refused to do anything about it on the plea that the minorities will resent at imposition.  Unless they are agreeable it would not be fair and proper to make the law applicable to them.  I wholly and emphatically disagree with this view.  The Constitution is binding on everyone, majority and minority; and if the Constitution contains a directive, that directive must be accepted and implemented.  Jawaharlal showed great strength and courage in getting the Hindu Reform Bill passed, but he accepted the policy of laissez-faire where the Muslims and other minorities are concerned.  I am horrified to find that in my country, while monogamy has been made the law for the Hindus, Muslims can still indulge in the luxury of polygamy.  It is an insult to womanhood; and Muslim women, I know, resent this discrimination between Muslim women and Hindu women."

On the Muslim League,
"But one grievance about which I felt deeply arose from the indifference shown by the Congress and even Mahatma Gandhi to the Muslim nationalists.  Jinnah and his communalist following seemed all important.  In comparison we counted for nothing.  It was Gandhi who have Jinnah the appellation of Qaid-e-Azam -- one which Jinnah gratefully and proudly accepted.  It was then assumed -- and I do not know what the basis of the assumption was -- that the Muslim masses were behind Jinnah.  I knew the affairs of the Muslim League well and I knew that its membership did not number more than a few hundred, or at most a few thousand.  Its leaders, apart from Jinnah, were reactionary Nawabs and Zamindars whose only interest was to preserve their position and status in public life."
"I have always felt that the real opinion of the Muslim masses was never elicited by any democratic method, before agreement was arrived at regarding the partition of the country, and that the Congress had no right to assume that what Jinnah said and did was acceptable to all his co-religionists. ... Although publicly they praised us, in reality the Congress leaders ignored and neglected Muslim nationalists for all practical purposes."

On communal riots,
"To my mind, riots are generally started with something being done by the members of one community to which strong exception is taken by members of the other community.  There is soon a fracas, sometimes serious and sometimes insignificant, and the matter would end there and then, if the police were to appear immediately on the scene and arrest the lawbreakers, whichever community they belonged to.  But the police are always late in coming to the scene of trouble.  In the meantime the anti-social elements get their opportunity.  They join in the fray in large numbers, and what would have been a solitary episode becomes a regular riot, and the flames spread all over the city.  Passions are rouse, and these passions are vented in assaults and even murders of innocent members of the other community.  Very often political parties then seek to take advantage of what has happened instead of impartially condemning both sides for breaking the law and committing a breach of the peace.  Thus a solitary incident assumes the proportions of a Hindu-Muslim conflict and is quoted as evidence of basic Hindu-Muslim antagonism."

He has included a seperate chapter on Kashmir and his representation of India's position at the UN in 1964 and 1965.  "The debate in the Council was necessitated by a complaint by brought by Pakistan, to the effect that Kashmir was in open revolt and that India was responsible for bringing about a crisis in the State by her attempt to integrate it with India."  On the 1948 resolution [our position in 1964]:
"The promise given that we would ascertain the wishes of the people through a plebiscite no longer held good for two reasons: first, the promise was conditional upon Pakistan vacating her aggression, which she never did.  Even today a part of Kashmir remains in the occupation of Pakistan.  Secondly, a resolution passed in 1948 cannot be permitted in international law to hold the field indefinitely when conditions under which the resolution was passed had materially changed.  Kashmir had already expressed its clear intention through three general elections, and a plebiscite had no greater sanctity than a general election held through a secret ballot where the whole adult population went to the polls.  Further, a plebiscite on a narrow communal issue was bound to rouse communal frenzy and passion, and to disturb the life of the Sate, which had remained peaceful and undisturbed."
Here he clearly mentions a strategic reason for our stand on Kashmir :
"Politically a new dimension to the problem had been added by the collusion between Pakistan and China against India.  Kashmir was our life-line for the defence of our country against possible Chinese aggression in the north-west, and it would be national suicide on our part to give up that life-line."

"... I dealt with the question of accession.  I repudiated the Pakistan Foreign Minister's charge that India had obtained the signature of the Ruler on the Instrument of Accession at a time when the  people of Jammu and Kashmir had risen in rebellion against the Ruler, and had ousted his authority from the State.  I argued that this was a complete distortion of facts.  It was the tribal raiders and Pakistan nationals, aided and abetted by the Pakistan Government, who carried fire and sword into Kashmir, and compelled the Rule to turn to India in an hour of extreme peril."
In his statement to the UN Security Council, he said,
"Pakistan's perpetual harping on a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir is not an outcome of its faith in democratic principles.  I should have thought thath democracy, like charity, begins at home, and before Pakistan preaches to us how we should ascertain the wishes of the people of a part of our country she should first make at least a beginning in establishing democratic institutions at home.  I need hardly say that since the State's existence it has never sufficiently trusted its own people to permit them to participate in a general and direct election for the creation of legislative and parliamentary bodies."
"To Pakistan everything is communal.  She cannot understand how Hindus and Muslims can live peacefully in Kashmir and have best of relations.  Her philosophy is that in the very nature of things Muslims must Hague the Hindus and the Hindus must hate the Muslims."
" ... The whole burden of the Foreign Minister of Pakistan's song has been that the only thing which poisons relations between Pakistan and India is the Kashmir problem; and, if the Kashmir problem is not solved, relations between the two countries will not improve, and communal troubles will continue.  This, to my mind, is an open threat to the Security Council.  Pakistan is telling you, Mr. President, in strong, strident and threatening notes, that if the Kashmir problem is not settled, there would be bloodshed and war."
"The representative of Pakistan has repeated the slander against India that Kashmir is under India's colonial rule'. Kashmir became part of India not as a result of conquest, nor is it a case of one ruling over another; Kashmir has been part of India since time immemorial, and the people of Kashmir and the rest of India are racially and ethnically the same."
"... The Foreign Minister of Pakistan has taken pride in the way the Government of Pakistan has treated its minorities.  Now, there are various ways of treating minorities, and the one that Pakistan has adopted is perhaps the most effective.  It has driven out all but a few Hindus from West Pakistan, and it is resorting to policies which aim at gradually driving out the Hindus from East Pakistan."
".... This is a war between two ideologies.  Let us face it.  On the one hand, there is a religious State, and on the other a secular State.  This is the conflict; it is not Kashmir.  Kashmir is merely the symptom; it is not the disease."
"... it would be a very serious thing for the Security Council, it would be a very serious thing for international relations, it would be a very serious thing for international peace if Pakistan could get a settlement of the Kashmir problem, could get a plebiscite, at the point of the gun or bayonet.  I call this blackmail.  You invade a country, you spread terror in the country, you bomb civilians, you do everything that is in your power, and then you turn around and say: "I agree to a cease-fire, provided you settle the problem of Kashmir and hold a plebiscite in Kashmir."

Drawing his conclusions on the debates, Shri Chagla says,
"The broad conclusion I drew from these debates in the Security Council was that it was futile for the Security Council to try to interfere in Indo-Pakistan relations.  The nature of these relations must be left to be settled bilaterally between the two countries without any intervention from any outside power.  Undoubtedly, the Council has to play its legitimate role when hostilities have broken out, but the Council should not site on the fence, ignoring admitted or patent facts and refuse to pass judgements and condemns the aggressor, when it sees one.  Failure to take a stand is simply a way of stultifying onself."
 

Writing of Bhutto, then Pakistan's Foreign Minister and representing Pakistan's case at the UN in 1964 and 1965 :
"There probably never has been another case in which a man holding such an important portfolio displayed in his speeches such complete absence of a sense of responsibility as Bhutto did.  He was incapable of sober, dignified speech and could indulge in mob oratory of the worst type. At Security Council meetings he ranted as though he was addressing a crowd in Hyde Park, rather than so august a body as the Security Council.  He had great fluency with the language, and that, unfortunately, led him to be carried away by the flow and exuberance of his own oratory.  His words very often had no relevance to the issue under debate or even to truth or admitted facts.  He could be grossly rude and discourteous if it suited him, and he had no respect for the standards to be observed in a solemn debate affecting the destinies of two vast countries.  He was inconsistent and thoroughly unreliable; and if cornered on any point, he would seek escape by flying off at a tangent to something wholly different or irrelevant. .... Bhutto had no fixed convictions that I could discover except a burning inflexible hatred of India.  In his diplomacy he specialized in creating difficulties for India in her relations with foreign powers."
"... I referred to the statement made by Bhutto before the Security Council that he had lost his patience, and that he was prepared to fight for a thousand years in order to take Kashmir.  Yet today (1972) this same Bhutto wants a durable peace with India, calls the Prime Minister, Mrs Gandhi, his sister although, at the same time he is prepared to vilify her in interviews given to European papers, and wants India to help him consolidate his regime in the country.  Can anyone trust a man who speaks with so many different voices, one voice completely contradicting another ?"
"... The B.B.C. had referred to Bhutto's speech in the Security Council as the greatest speech ever delivered in the United Nations.  I do not know what standards of oratory the B.B.C. accepts.  But if a speech which is flamboyant, vitriolic, threatening, a speech characterised by tricks like the ones adopted in rabble-rousing, and punctuated by cheap dramatics, signified the high water mark of oratory, then, undoubtedly the B.B.C. was right."