Once the best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity, Jinnah was now an inveterate separatist. He said in his presidential address to the Lucknow meeting in 1937 that the Congress governments "were pursuing a policy which is exclusively Hindu" and that "the Muslims cannot expect any justice or fair play at their hands". He declared: "The present leadership of the Congress, especially during the last 10 years, has been responsible for alienating the Mussalmans of India."
A year later, he appointed an inquiry committee to report on the omissions and commissions of the Congress governmentsthe Hindu Raj, as he used to say. What came to be known as the Pirpur Report (since the chairman of the committee was Raja Sayed Mohammed Mehdi of Pirpur) said that the Congress failed "in spite of its oft-repeated resolution of guaranteeing religious and cultural liberty to the various communities because its actions are not in conformity with its words". A Muslim League committee from Bihar, in the Shareef Report, gave an account of "atrocities perpetrated by Hindus at various places in Bihar". No doubt these reports were exaggerated but they did reflect the mood of the Hindus at the time. After centuries of subjugation, first by Muslims and then by the British, they felt emancipated though they were enjoying only limited self-rule.
Maulana Azad of the Congress, in his book India Wins Freedom, criticised the Pirpur Report: "Stories of atrocities circulated by the Muslim League were pure invention but two things happened at that time which left a bad impression about the attitude of the Provincial Congress Committees." The Maulana mentions how Nariman, leader of the Congress in Bombay, was denied the states premiership because he was a Parsi. The position was given to a Hindu, B.G. Khar. Similarly, Dr Syed Mahmud should have been Bihars first Congress chief minister. But Sri Krishna Sinha, a Hindu, was asked to head the government.
Jinnah used the Pirpur and Shareef Reports to highlight the differences between the Hindus and the Muslims and made it appear as if the Congress governments were wreaking vengeance on a "helpless Muslim minority". When Congress legislators began resigning in October 39 to protest against Britains declaration of war in Indias name without consulting them, Jinnah celebrated it as a "day of deliverance and thanksgiving". To the surprise of the Congress, many non-Muslims, including Hindus, joined in the demonstration.