FREEDOM MOVEMENT
K.K. Khullar on Gandhi and the Partition
Why did Gandhi fail to prevent the partition of India?
That Jinnah wanted the partition of India is too well known but what is too often ignored is that in early1947 or even a little before, the Indian National Congress also wanted it. Before meeting Lord Mountbatten on March 31, 1947 he told Maulana Azad: "If the Congress wishes to accept partition it will be over my dead body. So long as I am alive, I will never agree to the partition of India. Nor will I, if I can help it, allow Congress to accept it". The question which arises is why did Gandhi not undertake a fast-unto-death, a Satyagraha or a Padyatra to mobilise public opinion and stop the process of partition for he was still the tallest man in the country. Yet the country was divided and India witnessed one of the worst communal bloodbaths in recent history.
The first time Gandhi learnt about the Congress proposal of partition was through a newspaper when he was touring the riot-affected areas of Bihar in March1947. The newspaper referred to the Congress Resolution demanding the partition of Punjab. In the words of Pyarelal (Mahatma Gandhi) - The Last Phase), "It was asif the abyss had suddenly opened under his feet. He has not been consulted or even forewarned. Such a thing would have been inconceivable in the olden days. Even when he was ranging over the length and breadth of India they did not fail to consult him before taking any vital decision". Gandhi must have felt like a father who is suddenly faced with the decision of his indulgent sons to divide the ancestral house. But it was not division of a house, nor of Punjab or Bengal. It was the division of a heart. Gandhi's pain must have been incalculable.
On March 20, 1947, Gandhi wrote two letters from Bihar, one to Jawaharlal Nehru asking for reasons behind the Congress Working Committee's Resolution and the other to Sardar Patel "to try to explain to me your Punjab resolution if you can. I cannot understand it". Sardar Patel replied on the 24th March. Nehru's reply is dated March 25, 1947.
"It is difficult to explain to you the resolution about Punjab. It was adopted after the deepest deliberations nothing has been done in a hurry or without full thought. That you had expressed your views against it. We learnt only from the papers. But you are, of course, entitled to say what you feel right".
In his reply Jawaharlal Nehru stated: "I feel convinced and so did most of the members of the Working Committee that we must press for the immediate division so that the reality might be brought into the picture. Indeed this is the only answer to partition as demanded by Jinnah. I found people in Punjab agreeable to this proposal except Muslims as a rule".
Suddenly he received a letter dated March 22 from the new Viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten requesting for a meeting with him. He actually left Patna for Delhi by train on March 30. He met the Viceroy on March 31.Since it was courtesy call, the real meeting took place on April 1, 1947.
The Viceroy told Gandhi that the British Government had decided to transfer power only as a result of its non-violent struggle. Gandhi was deeply impressed with the sincerity and candidness of the Viceroy. Towards the end of the meeting when the Viceroy referred to the current political deadlock in India, Gandhi gave him the plan he had worked as a possible solution. The crux of his proposal was that Jinnah be invited to form a Cabinet of his choice at the Centre and present his plan of Pakistan even before the transfer of power. It will not matter even if all the members of Jinnah are Muslims. However since it will be a Muslim League Government there shall no National Guards or any other form of private army. If Jinnah accepted the offer the Congress would co-operate wholeheartedly so that all measures which Jinnah Cabinet undertake would be in the interest of Indian people as a whole. Peace will be maintained at all costs. The sole referee to what is or what is not in the interest of India will be Lord Mountbatten, not as a Viceroy but in his personal capacity. If Mr. Jinnah does not accept the offer, the same offer would be made to the Congress. The Viceroy was completely taken by surprise but said he found the Gandhi Plan "attractive" and suggested that Gandhi should discuss this with Lord Is may, his Chief of Staff. The Gandhi Plan to save India's unity was not accepted by two of Gandhi's move trusted lieutenants.
According to Dr. R.C. Majumdar in his book "The Struggle for Freedom" (Bhartiya Vidya Bhawan, 1969): So far as Patel was concerned, his experience of working with the League Members in the Executive Council had convinced him that the Pakistan mentality was so strong among the Muslims that it was impossible to work with the Muslim League. At last the naked truth dawned upon him and he said that "whether we liked it or not, there were two nations in India. He was now convinced that Muslims and Hindus could not be united into one nation There was no alternative except to recognise this fact".
After having received replies from Pandit Nehru and Sardar Patel, both in the negative, Gandhi took his plan to the Congress Working Committee. It was the 10th of April, a very hot day made hotter by the heated discussions. To quote Pyarelal: "Gandhi strove with the Congress Working Committee for the acceptance of the plan he had outlined to the Viceroy. The weather was gruelling, tempers ran high, there were heated discussions, confused counsels, frayed nerves. Gandhiji and Badshah Khan were strongly opposed to any partition under the British aegis. To Gandhiji's mind, for the Congress to ask for partition of the Punjab and Bengal by the British sounded like a counsel of despair. He was opposed to the whole logic of partition. Partition would solve none of their difficulties. On the contrary it would accentuate those that were already there and create fresh ones. But he could not convince them nor they him". In other words the Congress Working Committee rejected his plan unceremoniously. Only Badshah Khan stood by him.
On April 11, 1947, Gandhi wrote to the Viceroy about his failure and request for the withdrawal of his plan. "I had several short talks with Pandit Nehru and an hour’s talk with him alone", he wrote to Lord Mountbatten, "and then with several members of the Working Committee last night about the formula I had sketched before you and which I filled in for them with all the implications. I am sorry to say that I failed to carry any of them with me except Badshah Khan. Thus I have to ask you to omit me from your consideration. In the circumstances mentioned above, subject to your consent, I propose, if possible, to leave tomorrow for Patna". On April 12 he left for Patna by train.
The stage was set for partition. The Congress and the Muslim League and the Viceroy were all agreeable For Gandhi it was a tragedy, not because that his plan failed but because it was not even tried.
On May 2, 1947, Mountbatten sent his Plan to London with Lord Is may and George A bell. On May 10he got back his Plan approved by the British Cabinet with certain modifications. In the meantime the communal riots in the country had taken the worst shape but Lord Mountbatten made absolutely no effort to crush the riots as he had promised Maulana Azad. "Once partition is accepted in principle, I shall issue orders to see that there are no communal disturbances anywhere in the country. I will order the army and the Air Force to act and I will use tanks and aeroplanes to suppress anybody who wants to create trouble". History, however, tells us a different story
Gandhi returned from Patna on May 1, 1947 and met the Viceroy. According to N.K. Bose quoted by Dr. R.C. Majumdar (The Last Days of British Rule: Struggle for Freedom: Bhartiya Vidya Bhawan, 1969): "Two days after his interview with Mountbatten (On May 4, 1947) Gandhi told N.K. Bose: "Mountbatten had the cheek to tell me, "Mr. Gandhi, today the Congress is with me and no longer with you". Bose asked: "What did you say in reply"? Gandhi answered: "I retorted, but India is still with me". (N.K. Bose: Studies in Gandhism, p. 284).On May 18, 1947 the Viceroy left for London having been invited by the Prime Minister to discuss the Plan of Partition with him. He was accompanied by V.P. Menon. After detailed discussions with the Prime Minister and others including Mr. Churchill, the Leader of Opposition, the Viceroy returned to India on May 31. On June 2, 1947he held a meeting in which seven Indian leaders participated: Nehru, Patel and Kripalani on behalf of the Congress, Jinnah, Liaqat Ali and Abdul Rab Nashtar on behalf of Muslim League and Baldev Singh on behalf of Sikhs. The Plan of Partition was explained to them. It was also broadcasted on the All India Radio. The leaders’ were requested to get the Plan considered by their respective parties and convey him their decision by midnight.
Immediately after the meeting he met Gandhi. The Viceroy gave Gandhi a resume of the events which led to the agreement between various parties regarding his Plan of Partition. At the end he requested him to accept the Plan. At long last Gandhi was persuaded and he too accepted the Partition Plan. To quote Dr. R.C. Majumdar again: "Soon after the interview with the leaders was over, the Viceroy saw Gandhi and recounted to him the various steps leading to the final agreement. Ultimately Gandhi was persuaded to accept the Plan as the best that could be had in the circumstances. It being his day of silence Gandhi did not say anything but wrote a friendly note". That crucial 'friendly note' changed the course of history.
It would thus be observed from the above chronological account that up to May 4, 1947 Gandhi is steadfast in his total boycott of the partition proposal. But when he met the Viceroy again on June 2, 1947 he was persuaded to change his earlier opinion and accept the Partition Plan. Between these two meetings there is a time gap of only 29 days. What had happened during this period that a staunch upholder of a united India accepted the division of the country which was formerly an anathema to him. Here is a rich field for further search, a case for historical inquiry and investigation. In a true Gandhian spirit the truth must prevail. Gandhi himself preferred truth to consistency. According to Maulana Azad, a great change came in Gandhi after meeting Mountbatten. He "no longer spoke so vehemently against it (partition) and began to repeat the arguments which Sardar Patel had already used". Dr: Rajendra Prasad, however, felt that when Gandhi 'realised that those who were entrusted with the responsibility of administration found that it was not possible to carry on and that there must be either partition or open war with the league, he decided to keep quiet and not to oppose partition in anyway". Pyarelal's analysis is different. "Gandhiji had vehemently opposed till the very last moment the Partition Plan while the issue was in the balance. Once the decision was taken and both the Congress and the League had given their signatures to it, it had ceased to be a live issue with him in the political sense". According to B.R. Nanda (Jawaharlal Nehru: Rebel and Statesman
1995), "Congress acceptance of partition was not such a sudden development as it may have seemed at that time. It was the culmination of a process which had begun immediately after the passage of Pakistan resolution by the Lahore session of the All-India Muslim League". All these arguments are weak, psychologically and untenable historically, particularly when it is remembered, that even in 1947 with one call of Gandhi the whole country would have rallied round him.
