Who is Responsible

for Partition of India

A vivisection and scar that Indians can Never Forget

May
2019
 15 August,1947
• 190 Years of Freedom Struggle gave us Independence. But it came at a huge cost to
India’s Unity.
• The dawn of 15 August, 1947 came with a harsh yet unbearable truth: India was
partitioned.
• Whenever we observe Pakistanis, their culture, their cuisine and their way of life,
the nostalgia of United India strikes us.
• This nostalgia often brings with it certain questions:
• Why was India Partitioned?
• Who is responsible for it?
• Was the partition and the bloodshed that ensued after it unavoidable?
• Why we can’t undo the things of Past?

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 Four Major Reasons of Partition
1. Muslim League and M. A. Jinnah grossly underestimated by Indian National Congress
• 1920s: Gandhi ignored Jinnah and tried to make common cause with the Muslims.
• 1930s: Pt. Nehru falsely claimed that the Muslim masses would rather follow his socialist credo
than a party based on faith.
• 1930s: Jinnah was willing to make a deal, he was ignored (Provincial Elections of 1937)
• 1940s: Muslims were solidly behind Jinnah; He now had no reason to cut a deal at all. In 1946
elections, Muslim League 114 out of 119 Seats reserved for Muslims in Bengal and 54 out of 66
seats reserved in United Provinces.
• While Congress fought 1946 elections on the progressive issues like promising land reforms,
workers’ rights etc., Muslim League’s Sole Agenda was ‘Creation of Pakistan’.
• As Jinnah said during campaigning: ‘Elections are the beginning of the end. If the Muslims
decide to stand for Pakistan in the coming elections half the battle would have been won. If we
fail in the first phase of our war, we shall be finished’.

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 Second Reason
2. Jinnah’s personal political ambitions and his unforgiving nature for the cause of Pakistan.
• Wavell Plan and Series of other plans rejected by Jinnah.
• Direct Action Day of 16 August, 1946.

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 Third Reason
• British Policy of Divide and Rule to consolidate and perpetuate Colonial Rule in India
• Partition of Bengal-1905
• Formation of Muslim League-1906
• Separate Electorates-1909
• Overall Colonial Policy in every sphere of Public Life.
• March 1925, Secretary of State for India wrote to viceroy: ‘I have always placed my
highest and most permanent hopes upon the eternity of the Communal Situation.’

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 Fourth Reason
• Modern Electoral Politics: Encouraged the creation of community vote banks.
• Muslims were increasingly persuaded to think of themselves as, indeed, ‘Muslims’.
• Muslim League rallied to the call of ‘Islam of Danger’, fearing the prospect, in a united
India, of a ‘Brahmin Bania Raj’.

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 Was so Much Violence unavoidable?
• May be or May not be.
• 20 February, 1947: Labour Government announced British withdrawal by June 1948.
• New Viceroy (Lord Mountbatten) which was to finalize the terms of transfer of power
assumed office on 22nd March.
• On 2nd May, one of the staff members of Lord Mountbatten’s executive council went to
London with a plan of Partition to obtain cabinet approval.
• He obtained Cabinet approval, but the plan had to be redrafted several times on his return, so
as to satisfy both Congress and the Muslim League.
• The revised plan was taken by Mountbatten to the British Cabinet.
• On 3 June, 1947 Mountbatten returned to India and the following day he announced the
final withdrawal to be by mid August.
• Only 42 Days in between.

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 Continued……
• The decision to shorten the time frame was taken by Mountbatten himself.
• His Biographer defended him: Partition was inevitable. The longer the period before the
transfer of power, the worse the tension and the greater the threat that violence would
spread.
• However, the indecisiveness of British Administration to crack down effectively on
communal violence is also very much responsible for millions of deaths.
• Punjab Boundary Force was seriously understaffed.
• Sir Evan Jenkins, the Governor of Punjab at that time wrote to Mountbatten: ‘It would be
difficult enough to partition within six weeks a province of 30 Million People which has
been governed as a unit for 98 Years, even if all concerned were friendly and anxious to
make progress’.

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 Continued….
• Too few troops were available to deal with rioters. They were engaged in guarding rulers
who were convinced that British civilians would be attacked as soon as the decision to
leave was made public.
• Punjab Boundary award was also made public only after 15 August even when it was
prepared by Redcliffe on 9 August itself. Here also the instinct of self-preservation
dominated.
• Mountbatten explanation for this delay was strange: ‘The earlier it was published, the
more the British would have to bear responsibility for the disturbances which would
undoubtedly result.’
• ‘The later we postponed publication, the less would the inevitable odium (hate) react
upon the British’.

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