Writer Mod Date & Time PARTITION: Tape 52 255MODEM 255MODEM Mar 27 12:25 TAPE 52 Side A SHAKEEL AHMED interviewed at his home in Akbari Gate in the old part of Lucknow 27 March 1997 former member of Congress Socialist Party - now aged 72, lives in ancestral haveli in Chavalwali Galli in Akbari gate; jailed during Quit India; part of house used as his office where he advises on labour cases for trade unions and others - introduced me to a man who has just won compensation for wrongful dismissal twenty years after the event; deeply pessimistic about the standard of politics; known to all as Comrade Shakeel Ahmed; grey, full-head of hair, wears simple kurta pyjama 10 - 'my opinon is that ML was never strong in poor M houses; Mr J rep'd the upper m/c of Ms, and feudal, not the M masses' 20 > weakness of ML, part in areas which became Pak 45 - 'my opinion is that ML always rep'd the feudal Ms and rich Ms of the co, not the M masses' 52 - 'after 1937, ML was very active' 73 - [re ML] 'I dont like it; I think that no div's can be based on religion ...' 95 - 'the div's also harm the interests of the Ms of I, cos they lose their bargaining power; if there was no divn, then they have got a v big and sig min of power in this co, and they can do anything ... after that divn the fund't Hindu captured power inside the Cong and also outside the Cong too' 107 - [re partition] 'I think it is absolutely unnatural ... I feel that Ms are suffering in this co as well as in Pak too', and comments re "muhajirs" and sitn in Pak, and Biharis in Bangla 139 - [M and Urdu culture] 'it is more or less going to be liquidated due to that partition, cos an ord H says why are you claiming any right in this co when you've already est'd Pak, you should go Pak ...' 145 - in old Lucknow, Urdu was main lang of area, 'now these g'men are sitting here and they are all Ms, but they cannot write in Urdu' 154 - 'Urdu has got no status, no legal value ... due to econ Ms forced to take Hindi as their language ... and they prefer to write H instead of U' 165 - 'at that time ML orgad v big rallies, and the popular slogans of that time was [in Urdu], "we will est Pak and we will divide this co", and thos and thous marched on the streets ... and the reaction of the comm is also v bad' 177 - 'there were Ms too at that time who were opposing Pak, but they had no mass support ... and Mr J was the champion' 197 - [re Pak] 'the experiment has already failed' AHKTAR JEHAN