Independence and Partition

The success of the nationalist forces in the struggle for hegemony over Indian society was fairly
evident by the end of the War. The 1940’s witnessed a vastly different political scenario. The
War effects on the people was vast and the people were gearing up towards a struggle.

Now, even the unpoliticized areas and apolitical groups had fallen in line with the rest of the
country. The militancy of the politicized sections was evident in the heroic actions of 1942 and
in the fearlessness with which students and others expressed their solidarity.

Added to this was also the changing nature of the British army. The European element in its
armed forces was already hankering for demobilisation-for an opportunity to go home-rather
than staying on indefinitely in India; to many Britons, India no longer appeared as an ideal
place for their civil and military careers;

It was no longer convenient, even possible-in the face of obvious Indian hostility to make use
of India’s economy for furthering Britain’s global trade interests, except by forcibly silencing
all opposition. The extent of force that Britain had to use upon India in its desperate bid for
survival in 1942 was extremely difficult to repeat at the end of the war in 1945.

Financially too India was no more a debtor to Britain for meeting the expenses of her
“governance,” and Britain-on the contrary had become indebted to India to the tune of above
£ 33,000 million.

On the other hand, there was the demoralization of the British officials and the changing
loyalties of Indian officials and loyalists. The Raj to a large extent ran on prestige and the
embodiment of this prestige Indian Civil Service (ICS). When the loyalists began to jump
overboard, when prestige was rocked, when the district officer and secretariat official left the
helm, it became clear that the ship was sinking, and sinking fast.

Britain’s interest in India could now best be safeguarded by treating it as an independent nation,
through informal rather than formal control. The massive Labour victory in the general
elections in July 1945 created a congenial atmosphere for such a political change. They were
known for their sympathies with the nationalist cause and fought for Indian independence. B.N.
Pandey, for example, has argued that the Labour Party, particularly the new Prime Minister
Clement Attlee, the new Secretary of State Lord Pethick-Lawrence and Stafford Cripps, now
the President of the Board of Trade, were long committed to the cause of Indian independence.
Now with decisive majority in the House of Commons the time arrived for them to redeem
their pledge. They had also agreed to grant India freedom by transferring authority from the
British to the Indian hands.

The idea of Pakistan

The major obstacle to an unruffled transfer of power in India was the Hindu-Muslim divide,
which by now had become quite apparent at the negotiating forum. The 1940 Lahore resolution
had elevated the Indian Muslims from the status of a ‘minority’ to that of a ‘nation’ and
subsequent developments projected M.A. Jinnah as their “Sole Spokesman”. Recognition of
this national identity of the Muslims and their right to self-determination, as well as ‘parity’ of
representation with the Hindus at the centre now became the non- negotiable minimum
demands for Jinnah and the Muslim League.

Muslim politics at a national level was now being institutionalised and Jinnah gradually
emerged as its authoritative leader. Jinnah’s idea of Pakistan was to construct a Muslim national
identity transcending class and regional barriers. In addition to its traditional constituency, i.e.,
the landed aristocracy, Muslim politics during this period began to attract support from a cross-
section of Muslim population, particularly from professionals and business groups for whom a
separate state of Pakistan would mean elimination of Hindu competition. The educated middle
class and the Muslim business interests started welcoming the severance of a part of the Indian
sub-continent where they would not suffer from the unequal competition with the long-standing
and overbearing Hindu business houses and professionals.

‘Pakistan’ was also presented as “a peasant utopia” which would bring in liberation for the
Muslim peasantry from the hands of the Hindu zamindars and moneylenders. As a result, by
the mid-1940s, Pakistan as an ideological symbol of Muslim solidarity gained almost universal
acceptance among the Muslim peasants.

The League’s support-base among the Indian Muslims was broadening. This afforded M.A
Jinnah with an opportunity for a bargaining posture vis-à-vis the Congress. He therefore
demanded for an Independent Pakistan comprising of the Muslim majority provinces of Sind,
Punjab, Baluchistan, North West Frontier Provinces, Bengal and Assam).
Stages in the Transfer of Power

Once it was recognized that British rule could not survive on the old basis for long, a graceful
withdrawal from India, to be effected after a settlement had been reached on the modalities of
transfer of power.

Wavell Plan

Wavell had a clear understanding that India would be ungovernable by force, because a policy
of ruthless repression would not be acceptable to the British public. So “some imaginative and
constructive move” needed to be taken immediately, in order “to retain India as a willing
member of the British Commonwealth”.

He, therefore, convened a conference at Shimla to talk about the formation of an entirely Indian
executive council, with the viceroy and commander-in-chief as the only British members. Caste
Hindus and Muslims would have equal representation, while the Scheduled Castes would also
be separately represented; and doors would be open for discussion of a new constitution.

But the Shimla Conference broke down because Jinnah was determined on his demand for
parity. He claimed for Muslim League an exclusive right to nominate all the Muslim members
of the cabinet. Congress refused to accept it, for that would amount to an admission that
Congress was a party only of the caste Hindus. Wavell called off the meeting, as a coalition
government without the League would not work.

Cabinet Mission

The Cabinet Mission went out to India in March 1946 to negotiate the setting up of a national
government and to set into motion a machinery for transfer of power. It was not an empty
gesture like the Cripps Mission in 1942 — the Cabinet Mission was prepared for a long stay.
Once the main parties (Congress and Muslim League) emerged victorious from the provincial
elections, the Atlee government sent a high-powered mission of three British cabinet members
(Pethick Lawrence, Stafford Cripps, A.V Alexander) to work out a negotiated plan for a
peaceful transfer of power between the two parties. This was known as the Cabinet Mission.

The Cabinet Mission was convinced that Pakistan was not viable and that the minorities’
autonomy must somehow be safeguarded within the framework of a united India.
The Mission Plan conceived three sections, A — comprising Madras, Bombay, Uttar Pradesh,
Bihar, C.P. and Orissa; B — consisting of Punjab, NWFP and Sind; and C — of Bengal and
Assam — which would meet separately to decide on group constitutions. The Mission offered
the plan of a very loose union of all the Indian territories under a common centre controlling
defence, foreign affairs and communications. After the first general elections a province could
come out of a group. After ten years a province could call for a reconsideration of the group or
union constitution.

Response to the Plan

Congress wanted that a province need not wait till the first elections to leave a group, it should
have the option not to join it in the first place. It had Congress-ruled provinces of Assam and
NWFP (which were in Sections C and B respectively) in mind when it raised this question. The
League wanted provinces to have the right to question the union constitution now, not wait for
ten years. There was obviously a problem in that the Mission Plan was ambivalent on whether
grouping was compulsory or optional. It declared that grouping was optional but sections were
compulsory. This was a contradiction, which rather than removing, the Mission deliberately
quibbled about in the hope of somehow reconciling the irreconcileable.

The Congress and League interpreted the Mission Plan in their own way, both seeing it as a
confirmation of their stand. Thus, Patel maintained that the Mission’s Plan was against
Pakistan, that the League’s veto was gone and that one Constituent Assembly was envisaged.
The League announced its acceptance of the Plan on 6 June in so far as the basis of Pakistan
was implied in the Mission’s plan by virtue of the compulsory grouping.

Formation of an Interim Government

In the meantime, an Interim Government was formed from the newly elected Constituent
Assembly of India and had the task of assisting the transition of British India to independence.
The Interim Government was formed on 2nd September 1946 with Congress members alone
with Nehru as de facto head. A Congress dominated government was sworn in on 2 September
1946 with Jawaharlal Nehru as the prime minister. But it came to a complete impasse when in
late October the League was also persuaded to join.
Wavell quietly brought the League into the Interim Government on 26 October 1946 though it
had not accepted either the short or long term provisions of the Cabinet Mission Plan and had
not given up its policy of Direct Action. The Secretary of State argued that without the League’s
presence in the Government, civil war would have been inevitable. Jinnah had succeeded in
keeping the British in his grip.

Jinnah had realized that it was fatal to leave the administration in Congress hands and had
sought a foothold in the Government to fight for Pakistan. For him, the Interim Government
was the continuation of civil war by other means, which was perpetuated through communal
carnage in the country.

League Ministers questioned actions taken by Congress members, including appointments

made, and refused to attend the informal meetings which Nehru had devised as a means of
arriving at decisions without reference to Wavell. Their disruptionist tactics convinced
Congress leaders of the futility of the Interim Government as an exercise in Congress-League
cooperation. But they held on till 5th February 1947 when nine members of the Interim
Government wrote to the Viceroy demanding that the League members resign. The senior and
venerable Congress leaders were weary and keen to come out of the labyrinth at any cost and
if necessary by buying freedom at the exorbitant price of partitioning the nation, and by putting
their life-long nationalist dreams at an auction.

Arrival of Mountbatten

This developing crisis was temporarily defused by the statement made by Attlee in Parliament
on 20 February, 1947. The date for British withdrawal from India was fixed as 30 June 1948
and the appointment of a new Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, was announced.

Partition of the country was implied in the proviso that if the Constituent Assembly was not
fully representative (i.e. if Muslim majority provinces did not join) power would be transferred
to more than one central Government. But even this was acceptable to the Congress as it meant
that the existing Assembly could go ahead and frame a constitution for the areas represented in
it. It offered a way out of the existing deadlock, in which the League not only refused to join
the Constituent Assembly but demanded that it be dissolved.
Jinnah was more convinced than ever that he only had to bide his time in order to reach his
goal. By March/April 1947, against his explicit wishes, many of the Congress leaders had more
or less reconciled themselves to the idea of conceding Pakistan and accepting freedom with
partition as a preferable option to the continuing communal violence.

This was the situation in which Mountbatten came to India as Viceroy.

He was the last Viceroy and charged with the task of winding up the Raj by 30th June 1948.

Mountbatten had a clear cut directive from His Majesty’s Government, he was directed to
explore the options of unity and division till October, 1947 after which he was to advise His
Majesty’s Government on the form transfer of power should take.

Jinnah was obdurate that the Muslims would settle for nothing less than a sovereign state.
Mountbatten found himself unable to move Jinnah from this stand: ‘He gave the impression
that he was not listening. He was impossible to argue with . . . He was, whatever was said,
intent on his Pakistan.’

The British preference for a united Indian subcontinent that would be a strong ally in
Commonwealth defence was modified to two dominions, both of which would be Britain’s
allies and together serve the purpose a united India was expected to do.

Plan Balkan

Mountbatten realised on his very arrival that it was virtually impossible to hand over power to
a united India. In the middle of April he produced what is known as ‘Plan Balkan’. It proposed
the partition of Punjab and Bengal and handing over power to the provinces and sub-provinces,
which would be free to join one or more of group Constituent Assemblies on the basis of self-
determination, while the Interim Government would remain until June 1948. Demission of
power to the provinces and the absence of a strong centre would certainly lead to Balkanisation
of India.

It is therefore not surprising that Nehru rejected these proposals on the ground that “they would
encourage disruptive tendencies everywhere and chaos and weakness”. Jinnah cast them aside
too, as he was not yet prepared to accept the partition of Punjab and Bengal which would give
him only a “truncated or mutilated, moth-eaten Pakistan”.
Mountbatten Plan

Therefore he came up with another plan, The Mountbatten Plan, as the 3rd June, 1947 Plan
came to be known, sought to effect an early transfer of power on the basis of Dominion Status
to two successor states, India and Pakistan. Congress was willing to accept Dominion Status
for a while because it felt it must assume full power immediately and meet boldly the explosive
situation in the country.

The plan provided for the partition of Bengal and Punjab; the Hindu majority provinces which
had already accepted the existing Constituent Assembly would be given no choice; while the
Muslim majority provinces, i.e., Bengal, Punjab, Sind, North-West Frontier Province and
Baluchistan would decide whether to join the existing or a new and separate Constituent
Assembly for Pakistan; this was to be decided by the provincial assemblies; there would be a
referendum in the North-West Frontier Provinces, and in case of Baluchistan, the Quetta
municipality and the tribal representatives would be consulted. Nehru, Jinnah and Sardar
Baldev Singh on behalf of the Sikhs endorsed the plan the following day and thus began the
fast march to transfer of power.

The Bengal Assembly on 20 June and the Punjab Assembly on 23 June decided in favour of
partition: west Punjab and east Bengal would go to Pakistan and the rest would remain in India.
Shortly following this, Sind, Baluchistan and then the North-West Frontier Province opted to
join Pakistan.

Mountbatten’s next task was to appoint two Boundary Commissions—one for Bengal and one
for Punjab—both under Sir Cyril Radcliffe, to delineate the international frontiers within a
strict time frame of not more than six weeks.

The India Independence Act was ratified by the Crown on 18 July and was implemented on
14/15 August 1947. Power was handed over through meticulously planned rituals and
ceremonies, some of which, as Jim Masselos comments, reflected the British attitude of giving
up the empire, and the Indian assumption of sovereignty. Pakistan became independent on 14
August, when in a brief ceremony at Karachi, the newly designated capital, Mountbatten
handed over power by reading a King’s message, and Jinnah took over as the first governor
general of the Dominion of Pakistan.
That night the Indian Constituent Assembly met in a special session, where at the stroke of
midnight Nehru delivered his now famous “Tryst with Destiny” speech. When the rest of the
world was fast asleep, as he put it in his exemplary flamboyant style, India awoke to life and
freedom. The next day he was sworn in as free India’s first prime minister and the country
plunged into celebrations.

But there were many who were not in a mood to celebrate. To register his opposition to
partition, Gandhi decided not to participate in any celebration and spent the day in fasting and
prayer. The nationalist Muslims felt betrayed too, as Maulana Azad’s book India Wins
Freedom (1957) revealed that he was not in a celebratory mood either. Also unhappy were the
Hindu nationalists like Veer Savarkar, who had once campaigned for Akhand Hindustan
(undivided India).

But the feeling of uncertainty was most dominant in the minds of the minorities, particularly
in Punjab and Bengal, where they suddenly found themselves entrapped in an alien land or
indeed in an enemy territory.