ABSTRACT
On 27 July 1947, just two weeks before partition, Sardar Sardul Singh Caveeshar, a prominent Punjabi politician and President of the All India Forward Bloc, put forth a remarkable proposal at a press conference in Lahore.1 He suggested that Calcutta, Delhi, Karachi and Lahore be constituted as independent city-states. In his view ‘the population or influence of Hindus and Muslims in these four cities is very near each other’. Why could these four most important cities of the Indian subcontinent not be ruled by governors elected on the basis of free adult franchise with the principle of alternative representation to Hindu and Muslim communities? He asked the Muslim League and the Congress leaders why it was not possible to ‘have the capital of Hindustan and Pakistan in Delhi, and of East and West Bengal in Calcutta, and of East and West Punjab in Lahore’. ‘This shall save a tremendous amount of money’, he reasoned, ‘which poor Indians shall have to spend on the luxury of new capitals’.2
