Delhi Pact on Minorities

To resolve the problems of refugees and restore communal peace in the two countries, especially in Bengal (East Pakistan as well as West Bengal), the Indian prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru and the Pakistani prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, signed an agreement on April 8, 1950. The agreement, known as the Delhi Pact on Minorities or Liaquat- Nehru Pact, envisaged the appointment of ministers from minority communities in both Pakistan and India at both central and provincial levels. Under the pact, minority commissions were to be set up, together with the Commissions of Inquiry to look into the probable causes behind the communal riots on both sides of border (in Bengal), and to recommend steps to prevent recurrence of such incidents. Under the pact, India and Pakistan also agreed to include

representatives of the minority community in the cabinets of East Pakistan and West Bengal and decided to depute two central ministers, one from each government, to remain in the affected regions for such period as might be necessary. The pact provided for the creation of an agency entrusted with the task of recovering and rehabilitating ‘abducted’ women (the idea was criticised by many scholars). The idea to encourage refugees to return to their original homes failed, because the two governments failed to restore confidence among the refugees. Further, the properties of the refugees were declared as enemy property [India brought amendments in the Enemy Property Act, 1968 in 2016 also].

The provisions of the Liaquat-Nehru Pact were severely

criticised by Hindu nationalists like Shyama Prasad Mookherjee and K.C. Neogy. Mookherjee resigned from the Nehru cabinet in protest, as he believed that the refugee problem could only be solved through a transfer of population and acquisition of certain territories from Pakistan to rehabilitate the people who came into India.