Cabinet Commission and Bordoloi's Role
British Government formed a Cabinet Commission in 1946 to discuss the demands for Indian Independence. The members held meetings with Congress and Muslim League in Shimla and Delhi. Their plan included grouping of states into 3 categories for selecting the candidates to form the constitutional body with Assam and Bengal in third group. Gopinath Bordoloi sensed the ominous sign for Assam in the plan as the inclusion would mean the local representative will become minority in comparison to Bengal. That would be devastating for rights of people of Assam.
The Assam Pradesh Congress committee decided to go against the grouping plan. Gopinath Bordoloi told the Indian National Congress working committee, Cabinet committee and Viceroy that the representative of Assam will form the Constitution of Assam themselves and will decide whether to join the group or not among themselves. Subsequently, the Cabinet commission announced that the grouping will be mandatory for every state and they may later withdraw from the group if they want. This further complicated the situation. Bordoloi met the National Congress leaders to discuss it with no result. He then with Assam Congress Committee decided to start mass agitation in Assam. After that only the National Congress working committee advised them to pass a unanimous decision in Assembly. Later, the members of the Assembly suggested a working formula in which ten representative from Assam would form their own constitution without joining any group and would merge with national committee to form the Indian constitution.
Jawaharlal Nehru and Muslim League were ignorant enough to this grim situation and joined hands to implement the grouping plan. Gopinath Bordoloi requested Mohandas Gandhi for suggestion and the later advised him to continue opposing the grouping vehemently.
In 1947, Lord Mountbeten took over as new Viceroy. He held separate meeting with Muslim League, Congress and Mahatma Gandhi. They decided to go for Partition as a permanent solution instead of grouping. India and Pakistan became separate independent countries.
Thus Gopinath Bordoloi played a major role in securing the future of Assam which would have been included in East Pakistan otherwise. Whether any other leader could have shown the light other than him during that crisis period is in doubt.
Read more about this topic: Gopinath Bordoloi
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