Q. What were the various factors leading up to the Partition of India?

Was
it inevitable?

No other event has influenced contemporary Indian history culture, literature,

and historiography in a manner more profound than the Partition of 1947. The
events that preceded Partition form an interesting study in the interplay of
politics and ideology and the role of individuals like Jinnah. The rapid rise to
power of the Muslim League in the 1940s and the Congress’ acceptance of
Partition, with seeming readiness were some such paradoxes. In this essay, we
shall attempt to examine whether the logic of communalism or the
circumstances and nature of colonial rule made Partition ‘inevitable’.

From a traditional historical perspective, the Partition of India has been seen as
‘inevitable’ in which it is seen as the obvious and eventual culmination of the
‘logic of communalism’ and Muslim separatism. Kenneth Cragy writes that
Partition was the most eloquent and compelling instance of the Islamic sense of
separate identity. HG Wells, who also saw Partition as inevitable, felt that
political fragmentation among sovereign states is inevitable. In this kind of a
view the blame for Partition is placed squarely on the ‘separatist’ tendencies of
the Muslim community. This view can be seen as a part of the conception of the
Muslim community as the ‘alien other’, having ‘cultural unity’. It is necessary to
repudiate the suggestions implying the ‘inevitability’ of Partition on the basis of
Hindu-Muslim feuds that took place before and after the advent of British rule
in India in order to answer the above question. It is undeniable that the first
half of the 19th century witnessed a definite growth of communal forces. This
however does not imply that Partition was inevitable.

The theory of inevitability was born out of the ‘Two-Nation theory’, believed to
have been first articulated by Saiyyid Ahmed Khan, and subscribed to by the
official historians of Pakistan. The ‘Two-Nation’ theory essentially says that the
Indian Muslims were always a distinct, divergent and separate community and
therefore ought to live in a distinct political space. Sir Saiyyid Ahmed Khan, who
founded the Mohammedan Anglo Oriental College, believed that education and
cooperation with the British was vital for the survival of the Muslim
community. Tied to all the movements of Muslim revival was the opposition to
assimilation and submergence in Hindu society. Sir Saiyyid Ahmed Khan was
thus the first to conceive of a separate Muslim homeland. While many
nationalist writings regard Saiyyid Ahmed Khan as the perpetuator of such

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separatist tendencies and one who helped carve out a niche for India’s Muslims
within the spheres of colonial policy and discourse, it needs to be understood
that his politics was essentially elitist. He could not and did not have even
partial mobilization of the subordinate classes and therefore one cannot draw
any definite correlation between his ideas and electoral representation in
Muslim politics. Some people felt that the very nature of Islam called for a
communal Muslim society. Many groups within the Muslim community may
have had ideals of an exclusive identity and rule by an Islamic government, but
this is not an adequate explanation for the actual process of the formation of
Pakistan.

As Mushirul Hasan has rightly pointed out, one needs to examine how these
nebulous, vague and often ambiguous ideas of Muslim nationhood got
translated into political reality. If Partition was not inevitable, the question then
arises – what was the crucial turning point leading to the formation of Pakistan.
Some see the Nehru Report (1928) as the point where there was a parting of
ways. Others point to the failure of coalition ministries in the United Provinces
and Bombay in 1937, while others again assert that the period of Congress rule
from 1937-39 was more significant. Still some others point out that the crucial
issue leading to Partition came as late as the Shimla Conference in 1945 and the
decision of the British government to hold elections before negotiating a
settlement, or even as late as the League’s call for direction.

The idea of a separate state first started to be talked about after the Khilafat and
Non-Cooperation days. The first articulation of a demand for a separate Muslim
state was first done by Mohammad Allama Iqbal in 1930, though the idea of a
separate Muslim state in a new form was elaborated by Rehmat Ali at the time
of the Round Table Conference which was to include Punjab, NWFP, Kashmir,
Sindh, and Baluchistan and coined the name Pakistan. This idea interestingly
did not receive a serious consideration and initially even the League rejected it
as an impracticable idea.

It was only after 1937 that this idea came into the formal political sphere with
the performance and subsequent resignation of the Congress Muslims in 1939,
the fluid political climate of World War II, the Quit India Movement and the
government’s readiness to modify its strategy towards the Muslims League.
Mushirul Hasan has argued that the creation of Pakistan had more to do with
tangible material considerations and power sharing, than with any ideological
or even instinctive urge to create a separate Islamic state. In this context it is

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also important to analyse the role played by Jinnah and the Muslim League;
whether it was their concerted effort which made the Partition of India
inevitable.

Colonial policy of ‘divide and rule’ forms a background to understanding the

manner in which communal politics developed in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s
ultimately culminating in Partition. Traditionally British policy has been blamed
for creating rifts based on perceived divergent economic and political interests
between the two communities – Hindu and Muslim, which had been historically
and traditionally united. In the census too the British categorized people
according to religion and viewed and treated them as separate from each other.
Mushirul Hasan has seen the introduction of separate electorates in this context
as giving a sense of Muslims being religious-political identity in the colonial
image. Separate electorates are regarded as having reinforced religious
identities in a politico-economic sphere, a process which was essentially in
conception divisive and undermined the secular foundations of Indian
nationalism. In other words the idea of the separateness of Muslims in India
was built into the electoral process of India. Hasan writes that the ideological
contours of the future Pakistan were had been delineated by British opinion
and policy, long before Jinnah and the Muslim League came into prominence

Ayesha Jalal has however criticized this view since these interpretations tend to
be tautological. Under separate electorates Muslims voted for Muslims, if the
elected representatives worked for the interests of their constituents, the
politics of the Muslims became ‘communalized’. She writes that what is
underplayed in this analysis is the extent of provincial dynamic in
representative activity, as envisaged by the Montford Reforms, countered the
process of ‘communalization’ of Muslim politics at the all-India level. By 1937,
the provincial imperative had prevailed over a specifically Muslim community
line within the domain of representative Muslim politics.

The full autonomy of provinces as envisaged by the 1935 Act was a blow to the
Muslims of the minority provinces. It was at around this time that some Muslim
politicians from minority provinces began to turn towards Mohammad Ali
Jinnah. We can now analyze the role of Jinnah, which has been the subject of
much academic controversy. While some historians like Stanley Wolpert and
BR Nanda blame Jinnah for the Partition, revisionists like Ayesha Jalal have
challenged this view. Two of the most popular and even academic
misconceptions about Partition dynamics and ideology have been that the

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Muslim League had always been in favour of Partition in opposition to the
Congress, which stood steadfast for unity. A blow to the conventional view
came with the publication of 30 pages of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad’s book
(which had been sealed for 30 years) in which Azad pointed his finger in a
determined manner at Jawaharlal Nehru’s responsibility for Partition. There is
therefore a clear need to reexamine the traditionally ascribed roles to Nehru
and Jinnah in the process of Partition. We shall try and chronologically discuss
the events which led up to August 1947, and try and analyze them, while
looking at both the conventional and the revisionist perspectives. The question
before us is – did the emergence of Jinnah and the Muslim League as the ‘sole
spokesman’ of the Muslim community, make Partition inevitable or were there
other variables involved.

In the early 20th century, Jinnah had been a moderate who encouraged
secularism and Hindu-Muslim unity. He was in fact one of the two men who
framed the Congress-League Lucknow Pact of 1916 to cooperate on all national
issues. He also became the president of the All India Home Rule League founded
with Annie Besant, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and other prominent Indian
nationalists. He, however moved from the centrestage of politics around 1919-
1920 with the beginning of the Khilafat and Non-Cooperation movement, as he
criticized the mixing of religion and politics. Jinnah had always been in favour of
constitutional reforms. In 1920 he resigned from the Indian National Congress.
He still did not voice his support for separate Muslim negotiations with Britain
over the future of India. From 1924 onwards he formed an in-house party of
moderates that played a bridge between the Congress and the government.
Later he was elected president of the Muslim League but the Muslim League
itself was divided into two factions i.e. the Pro-Congress Jinnah faction and the
pro-British Shafi faction. After a brief retirement from politics, Jinnah returned
in 1934 and took over the leadership of the Muslim League.

It is intriguing how the man who Sarojini Naidu had called the ‘Ambassador of
Hindu-Muslim unity’ eventually came to demand a separate Islamic state.
According to Bipan Chandra, the transformation of Jinnah reflected what he
called the ‘logic of communalism’. Ayesha Jalal sees the change in the demands
of Jinnah as a transformation of political strategy and tactic rather than one of
ideology. She writes that the decade which led up to the Partition should be
seen as a ‘battle between Jinnah and the Congress in which they both openly
stood for what they did not want, said what they did not mean and what they
truly wanted was betrayed in their vital political decisions and actions.

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While doing a comparative analysis of the conventional and revisionist
perspectives on Partition Asim Roy points out that till 1935 there is a broad
convergence in views regarding the significance of events. Till this point of time
the League objective was a negotiated pattern of sharing power with the
Congress, conditional on significant League representation at the Centre. The
agreement between the orthodox and revisionist views also extends to the
recognition of the importance of the provincial elections of 1937. The two views
however diverge with regard to the nature and meanings of this significance.
The Congress scored an overwhelming success with a clear majority in six and
emerging as the single largest party in three of the eleven provinces. The total
rout the League suffered reduced their importance as allies to the Congress, as
was apparent in the post-election attitudes and dealings. The elections of 1937
had shown that in reality while Hindus dominated the Hindu-majority
provinces, the Muslims barely dominated the Muslim-majority provinces.
Jinnah realized that in case of a transfer of power the prospect of a Congress
dominated centre was very much a reality. In such a scenario he realized that
the Muslim interests could hardly be safeguarded. The orthodox view regards
this as the turning point of Jinnah’s personality, ideology and policy when his
earlier secular ideals were discarded in favour of the two-nation theory. The
revisionist view however envisages no real change in Jinnah’s political goals,
only in his strategy and tactics. His aims are regarded to have remained the
same i.e. secure Muslim interests ‘within’ and not in a total separation from
India.

The first formal demand for Pakistan came in 1940 at the Lahore session of the
Muslims League. The Muslim League, without announcing any exact
geographical boundaries formally demanded independent Muslim states in the
north-west and north-east of India. Ayesha Jalal argues that Pakistan could not
have been perceived as the best solution for Indian Muslims scattered as they
were all over the subcontinent. Revisionists do not believe that the Lahore
Resolution was the final commitment to Partition – rather it served as a
‘bargaining counter’. Ayesha Jalal writes that not only was this an explicit revolt
against ‘minoritarianism’, it was also an implicit coup against the dominant
rhetoric which extolled the Congress ‘secular nationalism’ as legitimate and
derogated Muslim differences as illegitimate ‘religious communalism’. Jinnah’s
stance at this point of time seems rather contradictory. The very Party aiming
to represent the Indian Muslims had staked an apparently separatist demand
for independent Muslim states.

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Stanley Wolpert has seen the 1940 Lahore Resolution as Jinnah’s first official
pronouncement for Partition. This is a very representative statement for the
conservative voice. According to this view, Jinnah saw Partition was the only
workable and feasible solution to the communal problem and the 1940
declaration marked the ‘Islamization’ of Jinnah, as well as the communalization
of politics.

This argument however needs to be revised and some of the problems with it
have been highlighted by Ayesha Jalal, who has critiqued the basic orthodox
thesis of the demand for Pakistan. Jalal points out that it should be noted that in
the Lahore Resolution there was no mention of Pakistan. The term Pakistan was
first coined by Rehman Ali, a student at Cambridge. Also, this demand for
Partition defies the communal logic since around 40 million Muslims living in
the Muslim minority provinces were sidelined by this proposition which sought
to form an Islamic state whose contours were defined according to Muslim
majority areas. In fact the Partition was likely to make the position of these 40
million Muslims even more precarious. The interests of the Muslim minority
provinces could definitely not be ignored, especially since it was the leaders of
these very minority provinces who had brought Jinnah back to the centre stage
of politics and the leadership of the Muslim League. Also, not even the interests
of the Muslim majority provinces, as their political future was assured in a
federal structure with provisions for strong provisional government. The
revisionist view therefore makes it clear that that the Lahore Resolution, did
not make Partition an inevitable event.

The orchestration of separate nationhood is not an inevitable advance to state

formation. While the negotiations on national status for Indian Muslims ended
in 1940, the demand for a separate and sovereign state of ‘Pakistan’ remained
open to negotiation as late as the summer of 1946. The claims of Muslims
‘nationhood’ were perfectly compatible with a federal or confederal structure
within India and it should be clarified that such a claim did not automatically
translate into o imply a secessionist demand. Jalal in fact believes that this
argument was in essence a bargaining tool in order to secure and further
Muslim interests in a confederal arrangement. The ambiguous and imprecise
wording of the Resolution, gave Jinnah space to maneuver his stance. The
revisionist view therefore sees the Lahore Resolution of 1940 Resolution as a
‘tactical move’ rather than an outright demand for Pakistan.

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Jinnah eventually resorted to religion due to the diversity of opinion within the
Muslim political voice as well as the lack of organizational capacity of the
League. Religion he realized would have to be used as a unifying and mobilizing
tool within the Muslim community as well. This is one of the primary lacunae
with the revisionist thesis. It focuses only on the ‘high politics’ of the decade
before the Partition and not of its impact on the growth of popular
communalism. While at this stage Jinnah himself may not have seen Partition as
an actual possibility, the idea of an Islamic state caused much excitement and
enthusiasm amongst the ‘Muslim masses’, and this popular force was also a
significant variable which needs to be considered in analyzing Partition.

The idea of ‘Pakistan’ fired popular imagination. Many Urdu poets and writers
endowed the new nation with a historic destiny and projected the Pakistan
‘project’ as a crusade for an Islamic state. The idea of an Islamic state was thus
embedded in popular imagination as a religious crusade in defence of Islam.
Many Muslim groups also began to support the idea for their own vested
interests. The Muslim middle class in particular which felt that it had gotten a
raw deal in terms of jobs in government service, welcomed up the idea of a
Muslim state. Industrialists and merchants too felt that they would benefit from
the lack of Hindu competitors. The war years therefore witnessed a spectacular
jump in the popularity of a ‘Pakistan’ among most Muslims. Yet, it needs to be
reiterated that popular sentiments for an undefined demand of Pakistan still
did not translate into matching political organization working for it.

With regard to mass mobilization and Jinnah’s appeal to the religious

sentiments of the Muslim community, the revisionists are of the opinion that
Jinnah needed Islamic fervour to rally the Muslim masses to achieve his aims.
However there was also a check on this as he could not afford to push it too far
since it could jeopardize his objective of securing the interests of all the
Muslims, which could only have been possible except within a framework of
Indian unity. Moreover Jinnah was also interested in a strong centre to maintain
and ensure the dominant position of the League vis-à-vis the provincial bases of
Muslim power. For Jinnah, the ideal situation lay in one Hindu and one Muslim
federation, making it possible to bring the two into a system of political unity on
a confederal basis. This was of course based on the assumption that just as the
rights of the non-Muslims would be protected in the Muslim states, the Muslims
in Muslim-minority provinces would also be protected.

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The revisionist argument helps us in order to understand better many of
Jinnah’s actions and decisions which the conventional view had failed to do.
This can especially be seen in the academic analysis of the Cripps Mission of
1942 and the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946 which the traditional view has not
explained adequately. His rejection of the former and acceptance of the latter
are ostensibly in opposition to Jinnah’s perceived desire for Partition, as the
traditional school of thought would have us believe.

Ayesha Jalal argues that the Cripps Mission which offered provinces and not
communities the right to opt out of the Indian union nearly exposed the
inconsistencies and incongruities in Jinnah’s stand by offering him what he was
apparently demanding and not what he actually wanted. In 1944
Rajagopalachari offered Jinnah a ‘Pakistan’ carved out of the Muslim majority
districts in Punjab and Bengal. Since this would not help safeguard the rights of
Muslims in minority provinces, Jinnah rejected it as a “maimed, mutilates and
moth-eaten Pakistan”.

The Cabinet Mission Plan on the other hand which had rejected Partition and
did not even mention a Pakistan was accepted by the League. It provided a
weak centre, denied secession, clubbed the Muslim provinces under the League
and set up an interim government and a Constituent Assembly. The Cabinet
Mission Plan was close to what Jinnah’s political vision was. However the
Congress imperatives for the extension of the Centre’s power led to the undoing
of Jinnah’s strategy. Although the Congress approved the Plan initially, within
days of Nehru taking over as President it was declared that the Congress was
‘uncommitted’ to the Plan, stressed that the central government would require
some overall power to intervene in crisis and warned that central power
‘inevitably grows’.

In the popular realm the Congress seemed to stand for unity as opposed to the
League, which supposedly stood for partition. This idea needs to be
reexamined. Congress commitment to freedom conditional to a unified
subcontinent was a significant part of their ideology. They conveniently
sidestepped the “Muslim problem” by taking a line that freedom should precede
and not follow the resolution of the communal problem. Ultimately the vital and
most crucial and determining factor in the Partition was the nature of the
central government. Confronted with a choice between ‘unity’ and a ‘strong
centre’ Congress was beginning to favour the unity even if it came at the cost of
strong central control. This commitment also came from the vision of

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Congressmen like Nehru, who had been influenced by the Socialist model who
realized the importance of a strong centre for economic modernization through
centralized planning.

Many believed that it was actually Lord Mountbatten who had eventually
brought Nehru round to Partition, Asim Roy points out that in fact it might just
have been the other way round. It appears that the Congress while presenting a
façade of the ideal of unity was in fact aiming for a situation in which Jinnah
would be forced to take his Pakistan and leave the political scene for good. The
Congress realizing the contradictions in Jinnah’s strategy, ‘called Jinnah’s bluff’
after the Cabinet Mission left. Jinnah by accepting something less that Pakistan
had lost his bargaining counter.

It was at this point of time that the political situation and context was
undergoing rapid change. Inter-communal relations were starting to
deteriorate in many parts of the country. The accompanying violence was
narrowing the options of those negotiating at the Centre even further.
Moreover, the return of the Labour government to power in Britain, with its
commitment to decolonization also meant that new imperatives were at work.
Not only did the British decide to withdraw in a short specified period, but they
were keen on leaving behind a strong centralized government which would
safeguard British economic interests in the region. The British and the Congress
discovered their common interests in an India with a strong centre and this
they achieved this by using Jinnah’s demand for Pakistan. Jinnah’s ostensible
demand was conceded while his real objective was ignored. By 1947 Jinnah was
left with no choice but to go along with the creation of a Pakistan shorn of
eastern Punjab and western Bengal, model which had been proposed to him
time and again, and which he had rejected.

Asim Roy raises some questions about the revisionist thesis, as presented by
Ayesha Jalal. He has questioned the soundness of Jinnah’s political strategy,
given his ultimate goal of maximizing Muslim interests within a confederal
structure. There is also at the same time a need to question the rationale of the
Lahore resolution. The Pakistan idea, however nebulous it may have been
appealed somehow to popular Muslim sentiments and eventually as some
believe contributed to the growth of communal sentiments as well. Asim Roy
however has also questioned the fact that if Partition was never an option for
Jinnah, then how would the Congress and the British have been able to force
this decision on eighty million Muslims in the subcontinent.

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 We can therefore surmise that Partition was not an ‘inevitable’ culmination of
Muslim separatism, the ‘communal logic’ or even colonial policy. Partition
should be understood in its specific contexts and not as a logical culmination to
divisions dating pre-colonial times. The creation of Pakistan far from being the
logical conclusion of the ‘two-nation theory’ was in fact its most decisive
political abortion. Pakistan in the ultimate analysis was not embedded in the
historical logic of the two-nation theory. The Partition arose from a complex
interaction of changing communal policy, communal question and the demands
and strategies of the Congress and the League. The Partition of India in 1947
also needs to be seen in the context of the relationship between ‘high politics’
and popular sentiments. The Partition of India arose out of the specific
conditions of the post-war period, growing communal tensions and the nature
of political strategy of the League and the Congress.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
 Jalal and Bose – Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political
economy
 Sumit Sarkar – Modern India
 Bipan Chandra – India’ Struggle for Independence
 Mushirul Hasan (ed.) – India’s Partition, Process, Strategy and
Mobilization
 Mushirul Hasan – Legacy of a Divided Nation: India’s Muslims Since
Independence
 Ayesha Jalal – The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and
the Demand for Pakistan.
 Anita Inder Singh – The Origins of the Partition of India, 1936-1947.

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