Real story behind India-Pakistan partition

By Deepak Parvatiyar

August 14, 2014

68 years of existence, both sharing the common umbilical cord, yet India and Pakistan are anything but friendly nations. Both celebrate their Independence this month.  It was on 14th August 1947 that Pakistan was created. India got its freedom, a day later.

Partition claimed innocent lives from both sides and created scars in people’s minds and hearts. It resulted in mass displacement and millions lost their near and dear ones in unprecedented communal riots and massacres. Since then, the distrust remains between the two neighbouring countries that have fought four wars.

History of India-Pakistan Partition

Going by the history of Partition, can we say the way it was made with undue haste sowed the seeds for all future discord between India and Pakistan? What was the need for the British to divide India in a hurry?

You may also like to read

• Change in Mindsets of Indian Politicians since Independence
• Political History of India after Independence
• Are We Really Independent in India

It may be mentioned that it was on 24th March 1940 that the All India Muslim League had passed the famous Pakistan Resolution in Lahore. Mohammad Ali Jinnah had presided over the Muslim League meeting then and Gandhi was so shocked by the idea that he called Partition ‘vivi-section’, which assumed that India was a living organism and indivisible.

Culmination of the British Policy of Divide and Rule

Before I dwell on the topic, I wish to refer to British author EM Forster’s classic 1924 novel, A Passage to India. The book amply explored the British perspective of the then Indian society. While it presented India as a ‘muddle’ to a British onlooker, it did explore the roots of Hindu-Muslim divide in the country from a British perspective. The book is a good commentary on the British realisation that their strength and tenure in India to a great extent depended on the bitter Hindu-Muslim divide.

Was Partition a necessity? If so then why were the British initially reluctant to concede the demand of the Muslim League? And last but not the least, why the British showed such an undue haste in the transfer of power?

Consider these points:

At a conference called by Lord Wavell, the Viceroy, in Simla on June 25, 1945, Jinnah did contest the Congress’s demand for a united India on grounds that the Congress was not the true representative of the Muslims and it was the Muslim League that represented 90 percent of the Muslims (it is worth pointing out that the great Islamic scholar, politician and educationist Abul Kalam Azad was the Congress President at that time.).

Yet Jinnah did not ask then that the demand for Pakistan should be immediately conceded.

What propelled U-turn in the British Stand?

Wavell told Gandhi that the conference failed because of the unwillingness of the Muslim League to cooperate, except on its own terms. But there is no satisfactory answer till date on what prompted Wavell to abruptly call off the Simla talks and concede his defeat when all the political parties favoured the creation of a united India?

Also, HV Hodson, a British Historian, in his book ‘Divide and Quit’ points out that even Jinnah’s party colleague in the Muslim League Liaquat Ali Khan (who later became the prime minister of Pakistan) favoured a settlement.

On 24th March, 1946, three Cabinet Ministers of England Sir Pethick Lawrence, Sir Stafford Cripps and V. Alexander had arrived with the objective of devising a machinery to draw up the constitution of Independent India and facilitate arrangements for interim Government. This Cabinet Mission too had then recommended an undivided India while turning down the Muslim League’s demand of a separate Pakistan.

In his announcement of 20th February 1947, the then British Prime Minister Lord Clement Attlee too had stated that the British Government would grant full self-government to British India “by June 1948 at the latest”. Yet, in just over three months, on 3rd June 1947, the British government did a complete turnaround. It proposed a plan also known as the ‘Mountbatten Plan’ (named after the last British governor-general of India, Lord Louis Mountbatten), with clear provision for division of British India into the two new and fully sovereign dominions of India and Pakistan!

The Jinnah Factor in Partition

In a 1971 interview to Indian journalist Kuldip Nayar when told that the change of the date of British departure, from 6th June 1948 to 15 August 1947, had heightened tension on both sides and led to the forced transfer of populations and the massacre, Mountbatten replied: “I could not hold the country together. I had to hasten the process.” In the same interview, Mountbatten conceded that he did regret Partition but “I had no choice…”

It is in this light that the crucial role of Jinnah has been examined. H.V. Hodson in his book ‘The Great Divide’ (1969) attributes Partition to “the personality and leadership of one man, Mr. Jinnah”.

Indeed, Jinnah’s greatest success was that he could unite the Muslims of British India who were till then divided by ethnic background, language and sect.

The Gandhi, Nehru Angle in the Partition

Yet for Partition, can we squarely hold just one man, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, responsible? This question assumes significance because there have been many criticisms on the roles of Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi.

Mountbatten, in the said interview, did blame Nehru for the collapse of the Cabinet Mission plan. Nehru had objected to the Cabinet Mission’s formula of dividing the country into three zones – A (all Hindi speaking states in the North and the Congress-ruled states in the South); B (Punjab, Sind, the NWFP and Baluchistan); and C (Bengal and Assam). The Mission had recommended that three ministries – defence, foreign affairs and communications – to be under the central government’s domain, and both the Congress and the Muslim League had accepted the plan.

Jinnah thought this was to deny the Muslims autonomy but was Nehru’s move an outcome of his poor experience with the interim government earlier, when the Muslim League ministers did not cooperate with him? It is still not clear. Mountbatten said: “Once the Agreement on the Cabinet Mission Plan broke down, I had no choice except to work on Partition.”

It is significant that while Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel agreed to Mountbatten’s plan for Partition, Gandhi had walked out of the Governor-General’s room when he heard the word ‘Partition’. He had ‘regretted’ Partition publicly. Even Maulana Azad, who had opposed Partition, too had felt ‘left out’ then.

Yet, Partition of India was inevitable. It happened over the dead bodies of a million of innocent people. It continues to bleed us till now. The question still remains: Was Pakistan necessary? Gandhi, who had at one time vowed that Partition could only be effected over his dead body, remained a helpless witness till he fell victim of a Hindu fanatic’s bullet just about five months after Partition.