Splitting India II

Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed continues his exclusive series for The Friday Times on the partition and its aftermath 

In my article dated 20 September 2012, I had inadvertently given February 1940 as the date for the fall of Singapore. It was February 1942. That mistake, however, does not detract from the fact that the British were determined from the very start of WW II, and especially after the Congress ministries resigned in September 1939, to crush any challenge to their hold over the Indian empire which was a matter of great pride for them and a major supplier of troops for the war. These resignations were a major Congress miscalculation whose damage to their political influence was second only to the even more disastrous Quit India movement they launched in August 1942. These two decisions greatly undermined their ability to influence the course of the freedom struggle as all their cadres were incarcerated from August 1942 to June 1945.

During that absence from the political arena the Muslim League swept the key north-western provinces of Punjab and Sindh and made inroads into NWFP with their message that the creation of Pakistan would bring to an end the tyranny of the caste system and the economic exploitation of the moneylender. Thus the creation of Pakistan appeared to be a rational choice to the Muslims and they expressed it in the 1946 provincial elections when they voted overwhelmingly in favour of Pakistan. The Congress got the general votes including those of Hindus, Christians, Jains and others for a united India and the Sikhs of Punjab voted for the Panthic parties that wanted the Punjab partitioned, if India was partitioned. Such polarization meant that negotiations on the future of India were headed for a deadlock and the failure of the Cabinet Mission Plan of May 1946 confirmed that. Nehru's ill-considered July press conference in Bombay saying that the Congress would 'enter the Constituent Assembly unfettered by agreements and free to meet all situations as they arise' provoked an angry reaction from Jinnah who gave the call for direct action. The violence that broke out in Calcutta in August 1946 followed by more violence in Bihar, Garhmukhteshwar in UP and then Hazara district of KP finally engulfed the Punjab in March 1947.

Under the circumstances, Viceroy Lord Louis Mountbatten's 3 June 1947 Partition Plan to which Nehru, Jinnah, Baldev Singh and others tamely acquiesced was premised on an entirely false assumption: that the transfer of power would be peaceful. The warnings of Punjab's Governor Sir Evan Jenkins did not warrant such complacency at all.

The whole thing was based on a woefully flawed concept: while civil and military officialdom would have the choice to opt either for India or Pakistan the ordinary people would stay put! Mahatma Gandhi alone among all the leaders could sense that rivers of blood would flow and warned about it. On the other hand, Sardar Patel was prepared to let the Sikh leaders have a free hand in driving the Muslims of East Punjab out, though he probably did not realize that they were planning to use it to create, for the first time in history, a compact Sikh majority in some parts of East Punjab. Later, the Khalistan movement, which emerged in the 1980s, came to haunt the Indian state. Equally, since March 1947, local and Punjab-level Muslim League leaders were complicit in the attacks on the Hindus and Sikhs in the western districts. Neither Jinnah nor Liaquat Ali Khan took any steps to warn the Muslims of East Punjab that on 23 June 1947 the Punjab Assembly had voted to partition the province and a grave possibility existed of rioting. It is impossible to believe that they were not in the know of what was happening in the Punjab. On the other hand, the Congress leaders kept telling Lahore's Hindus and Sikhs to stay put as that city would be given to India, even when the Muslims were in a majority of 60 per cent there. All these details, along with extensive interviews with survivors are fully covered in my book, The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2012).

In this regard, let me address a major criticism some readers have made of my argument that the partition of India was not necessarily the best option for Muslims. They have pointed out that the Indian Muslims have remained one of the poorest groups in secular India. Therefore the creation of Pakistan was necessary to save the Muslims from permanent Hindu domination. In principle this is a compelling argument in favour of creating Pakistan, but it needs to be put into perspective.

Mr Jinnah had prepared his brief on a separate Pakistan on the basis of categorical rejection that a Hindu-majority government could ever be fair to the Muslims. When he was asked what would happen to the most vulnerable, deprived and poor sections of Muslims from Muslim-minority provinces if they were left behind in India, he had asserted that one-third of Muslims should not prevent two-thirds of them escaping Hindu domination. It was a typical utilitarian argument deriving from the notion of the greatest good of the greatest number rather than the greatest good of all. However, in August 1947 when some reporters asked him before he left Delhi for Karachi as to what message he wanted to give to the Muslims who would remain behind he said that they should become loyal Indian citizens and he expected the Indian government to treat them fairly. His line of argument had thus changed fundamentally - it acknowledged that a Congress government (upper-caste Hindu dominated) could treat them fairly.

As I said in my previous article, only three per cent of the Muslims from the Muslim-minority provinces of northern India, mainly the intelligentsia migrated to Pakistan. The RSS, Hindu Mahasabha and many Hindu and Sikh refugees who had lost family and property in what became Pakistan wanted each and every Muslim driven out of India. Mahatma Gandhi's last fast-unto-death was not only to press the Indian government to pay Pakistan Rs 550 million as its rightful share of the colonial treasury, but also to insist that the campaign to expel Muslims should cease. It culminated with his assassination at the hands of Nathu Ram Godse, but it compelled the Indian government to adopt strict measures to prevent attacks on Muslims. I must give full credit to Jawaharlal Nehru that while he was prime minister he tried his best to protect the Muslims.

It is not possible to explain in detail in a media column why Congress governments after Nehru deviated from their protective policy towards Muslims. Suffice it to say that after Mrs Indira Gandhi came to power Nehruvian secularism became less of a matter of principle and more of expediency and electoral calculation. Later Congress governments were led by men of straw and the Babri Mosque attack by BJP goons in December 1992 could take place because the Congress government of Mr Narasimha Rao remained passive. It is only after Mr Manmohan Singh came to power that the sad plight of the Muslim minority was given some attention. The Sachar Committee appointed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2006 submitted a 403-page report which stated that the status of Indian Muslims was somewhere between Hindu OBCs (other backward castes) and the scheduled castes and tribes. No doubt this has happened because discrimination takes place against the Muslims in a systematic manner even though formal (constitutional) secularism does not discriminate between citizens on the basis of their creed or ethnicity.

However, here too we need to consider some complications. The Muslims of northern India have always consisted of two distinct groups: the high-born ashraaf who claim descent from forbears of foreign origin and the vast majority who are converts from the lower rungs of Hindu society. I have seen reports which name Muslim zamindars and taalukdars of northern India who were active in the struggle for Pakistan, but when partition took place they stayed on to retain ownership of their properties. Some of them later sold off their land and other assets and then migrated to Pakistan or to the West. Some devised novel ways of having the best of both words. Nothing compares to the genius of Raja Sahib Mahmudabad, famous as the financier of the Muslim League and one of the closest associates of Mr Jinnah. He left his son and wife in Mahmudabad while he shifted to Pakistan with his daughters. The Indian government had impounded his vast property worth currently Rs 30,0000 million on grounds that it was 'enemy property' since he had migrated to Pakistan. His son contested the case saying that he was the rightful heir as his father had transferred his property to him before he shifted to Pakistan. In 2005 the Indian Supreme Court restored the properties to him. So, the rich and powerful were not hit by the calamity of the partition. Nawabzada Liaqat Ali Khan did lose his estate in eastern Punjab as did Nawab Mamdot but that happened because the Sikhs and Congress joined hands to force the partition of Punjab on the same lines on which the Muslim League had demanded that India should be partitioned - on the basis of contiguous religious majorities in some parts of the subcontinent and its provinces. The same happened to Muslim-majority Bengal.

It is therefore the Muslims from artisanal and landless working backgrounds - Muslim Dalits - who potentially would suffer most from a partitioned India. Historically they were always despised by the ashraaf. I have read both Barelvi and Deobandi texts where the superiority of the ashraaf has been justified on grounds that they alone represent true Islam. Of course there are exceptions especially in Deobandi writings. In this regard I might as well add that traditional Shia social and political theory is even more hierarchical than that of the Sunnis. In Pakistan we practice caste prejudices but pretend that since Islam has no caste there is no caste oppression among us. Moreover, caste-like discrimination and persecution in Pakistan has also taken a sectarian form and our wrath is directed against all those we classify as non-Muslims.

At any rate, when the Muslim intelligentsia left for Pakistan the ulema, whose standard refrain has always been that Muslims should not integrate into mainstream society because that would dilute their Islamic identity, took over the leadership of the poorer sections of Muslim society. Instead of encouraging them to get a modern education they fostered a siege mentality and tried to insulate the Muslims from modernizing social trends. Consequently the level of education among these poor Muslims is very low, even lower than the Dalits, who because of the reservation system, have been helped to get education and jobs. A movement has now started gaining pace among Muslims of artisanal and Dalit backgrounds demanding that they too should be included in the reservation system. It remains to be seen if the Indian government would extend them that 'privilege'. The Sachar Report stopped just short of recommending it; it instead recommended special educational inputs from the government to help the Muslims. I need not overemphasize that the RSS and other Sang Parivar groups are always opposed to Muslims being included in the reservation policy. The attacks on Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 were also masterminded by these groups.

Here, I pose a moral question: are we in Pakistan prepared to help such vulnerable Muslims? All I know is that we have not even accepted the Biharis who sided with Pakistan during the 1971 civil war in the former East Pakistan. Unlike Israel which welcomes all Jews from anywhere in the world to settle in Israel, because it is a state created for the Jewish people, we have no open-door policy for oppressed Indian Muslims. So our moral concern for them is hypocritical. There is a way to bring to an end their agony: let us open our arms and welcome them. Let us declare that the 180 million Indian Muslims are entitled to enter Pakistan and become its citizens because Pakistan was created to protect them from Hindu domination and discrimination. The fact is many won't because I know the secular-minded Muslims find Pakistan a difficult proposition as they are used to a less conformist lifestyle than what exists in contemporary Pakistan. Still millions might want to migrate to Pakistan because they may believe that as an Islamic state it would be fair to them.The Sindhis would assail my solution, saying that they have had bitter experience with an open embrace to the Mohajirs - it resulted in them (Sindhis) effectively being sidelined and marginalized in the towns and cities of Sindh, including Karachi and Hyderabad. On the other hand, the Mohajirs now realize that given their smaller numbers they would in the long run be swept away by the much bigger nationalities of Pakistan. They feel beleaguered and threatened. Consequently, if there is no scope for Indian Muslims to find refuge in Pakistan then we can only hope that enlightened Indian rulers would protect the Indian Muslims just as Mahatma Gandhi wanted and Nehru tried. I see no other option to this sad legacy of a partitioned India.  

Splitting India 1

Dr. Ishtiaq Ahmed in The Friday Times

There are two philosophical standpoints from which one can support or oppose societal events and situations, one absolutist, the other utilitarian. The former stands for a categorical rejection of the principle of partition as a solution to national disputes while the latter has to do with pragmatism with regards to the pros and cons of partitioning territory to solve national disputes.

Let me admit that although partitioning territory to solve disputes between adversarial nationalist movements and parties is not something I am intellectually comfortable with because it validates tribalism rather than human empathy and solidarity for building community, at times it is the only solution which is morally and practically correct. Partitioning former Sudan to let the Black Africans escape genocide at the hands of the putative Arabs of northern Sudan was an appropriate solution; East Timor getting out of the clutches of the Indonesian state has also been the best option. I hope one day the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are liberated from brutal Israeli rule.

There can be no doubt that the idea of separate states for Muslims was born in the viceroy's office

However, I don't think the partition of India and of Bengal and Punjab belong to the category of intractable disputes that could not have been managed through appropriate democratic arrangements. The so-called Hindu-Muslim problem that dominated politics in British India from the twentieth century onwards till it culminated in the biggest forced migration of people in history and one of the most horrific cases of genocide and ethnic cleansing- 14-18 million forced to flee and between 1-2 million killed - left large minorities in both states. The only difference being that in India the Muslim minority could stay put after some three per cent of the Muslims from Muslim-minority areas migrated to Pakistan but Hindus and Sikhs had to leave almost to the last man in Punjab and the settled areas of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Very few could stay behind in the tribal areas and in Balochistan. It was only in interior Sindh that a community of some significance could remain behind. Not surprisingly, such upheaval bequeathed a bloody and bitter legacy of fear and hatred to India and Pakistan. The three wars and the Rann of Kutch and Kargil miniwars and constant tension along the Line of Control drawn in the former Jammu and Kashmir State has meant not only huge, wasteful expenditure on military and defence but also a profoundly vitiating impact on democracy, development and pluralism.

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad warned that a partitioned India would mean a partitioned Muslim community, engender Hindu nationalism and create a Pakistan of sectarian conflicts that would become easy bait for the West

The Muslim League's demand for the partition of India was initiated by Viceroy Linlithgow in March 1940 when he instructed Sir Muhammad Zafrulla to convey to the League leadership that the government wanted them to demand separate states. The colonial government was hoping to checkmate the Indian National Congress's ambition to force a British withdrawal from India while WW II was raging and the British had suffered their first defeat in more than 200 years at the hands of an Asian power -the Japanese, who forced a humiliating surrender in Singapore in February 1940. It is not important who is the real author of the two-nation theory but there can be no doubt that the idea of separate states for Muslims was born in the viceroy's office. Let me say that the British were not at all thinking of partitioning India at that time nor was the Muslim League confident that such an idea could be realized without major upheavals taking place.

In these series of articles I am not going to present my version of how India and the two Muslim-majority provinces were partitioned or why. I am going to present some arguments to suggest that it was not necessarily the best solution for anyone, especially the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. In this regard I must invoke Maulana Abul Kalam Azad's forebodings that a partitioned India would mean a partitioned Muslim community and it would help Hindu nationalism in India while creating a Pakistan that would get embroiled in sectarian conflicts and become easy bait to the West. The Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind had a similar standpoint. Consequently, important sections of the Muslim population of India had reservations against the partition, though by 1945 a large majority had begun to support the idea of Pakistan.

Let me list my objections and reservations on the three partitions:

	Viceroy Linlithgow first came up with the idea of a separate Muslim state

The so-called Hindu-Muslim problem was not really solved by the partition: it simply converted it into an India-Pakistan confrontation with wars that resulted in disastrous consequences for democracy, development and pluralism. In India, it created a discourse of Muslim betrayal during the freedom struggle, which was then held against the Muslims who remained in India (nearly as many as were in West Pakistan, now Pakistan). In Pakistan, it generated the intractable controversy about who is a Muslim. As we know each attempt to define a Muslim has meant more people being excluded from that category on the basis of them holding beliefs contrary to the beliefs of a particular sect or sub-sect. In both cases it gave impetus to majoritarian nationalism, which has since then preyed on the minorities as unwanted, fifth columnists. Indian Muslims are routinely demonized in RSS, Shiv Sena and other members of the Sangh Pariwar of Hindu extremists while in Pakistan we have effectively been making life difficult for the miniscule Hindu minority. There is, however, a fundamental difference. The Indian constitution and legal system do not discriminate between religious groups when it comes to their political rights. In Pakistan they do.

The creation of Pakistan began to be presented as a way of ending Hindu domination

The demographic structure of pre-partition India was such that no group had absolute majority. The rough percentage was 7: 4 Muslims (200 million Hindus 90 million Muslims). Now, the Hindu group was stratified into at least three caste compartments: the three upper castes of Brahmins, Kshytrias and Vaishyas (15-20 percent), and the other backward classes or castes (some 50 per cent at least), comprising various farming and other communities, quite powerful locally in different parts of India, and the so called scheduled castes and tribes (22.5 per cent).

Among the three Hindu caste compartments there were some shared religious and cultural features but also demarcations, so all Hindus somehow as one body oppressing all Muslims was very unlikely. On the contrary, it meant that Hindus needed to continue reforming and modernizing towards greater equality. The Muslims were at least 25 per cent of the population, dispersed everywhere and concentrated in two very significant geo-strategic zones of north-eastern and north-western India. The Muslims were not a compact group either. Differences of sect and ethnicity existed even among them. Then there were millions of Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and so on. Additionally, there were regional leaders and parties. All this prepared India for a grand experiment in pluralist democracy where it would have been in the best interest of the groups and sub-groups to work together in power sharing and sharing of resources.

Contrary to a widely held view that Muslims everywhere lagged behind Hindus and Sikhs in employment, the fact is that the Muslims (especially Punjabis and Pathans) constituted some 36-40 per cent of the British Indian Army. In the Muslim minority province of UP more than 50 per cent of the police were Muslims as compared to the 17 per cent of their population strength. In both Bengal and Punjab, which had Muslim majorities the police were Muslim in far greater numbers than their proportion of the population. Thus for example in the Punjab 73 per cent of police was Muslim as against only 57.1 per cent of their population strength. The British always employed minorities in the police and military, for obvious reasons. In other branches of the administration the Muslim percentage was increasing though Hindus and Sikhs were ahead of them. Sir Fazl-e-Hussain had introduced quotas for Muslims in some important educational institutions and that had helped the steady increase in percentage of educated Muslims .



Muslims who went to school and sought employment had a fair opportunity to find one. The problem was that the negative Muslim state of mind induced in the aftermath of the 1857 uprising which brought to an end even symbolic Muslim suzerainty over India, and the propaganda of the ulema that Western education would mean Muslims converting to Christianity prevented the Muslims from taking to education whole-heartedly. The British brought with them a new economic order based on banking, investments, stock exchange - all considered inappropriate in dogmatic Islamic terms. The Hindus and Sikhs made use of the new opportunities and moved ahead. I know many Muslim families of Lahore whose elders educated themselves and were as successful as Hindus and Sikhs in acquiring property and were part of the elite.

No doubt commercialization of agriculture resulted in the Muslim peasantry getting trapped in debts to moneylenders. The alternative was the landlord who extracted more out of the peasants through unpaid services on his lands and in his household and the Muslim peasants preferred to go to the Hindu karar or moneylender who was a local person who offered loans on quite reasonable terms. Some moneylenders were extortionists but not all. In any case, the debt burden was a problem in the Punjab and Sir Chhotu Ram, the leader of the Punjab Unionist Party introduced legislation in 1937 which cancelled past debts. However, that did not mean the needs of the peasants for capital also came to an end. Money-lending continued through Muslim front men but as an institution it was certainly greatly weakened and modern banks began to be established in the Punjab.

When the focus of the Muslim separatist movement shifted from northern India, (where the Muslim landed elite was its main protagonist) to the Muslim-majority provinces of north-western India in 1940, the creation of Pakistan began to be presented as a way of ending Hindu domination, at least in areas where Muslims were in a majority - i.e. the north-western and north-eastern zones of the subcontinent. The partition riots resulted in Hindus and Sikhs being expelled from the Muslim majority provinces of north-western India and thus a lot of businesses and property came into the hands of Muslims. It also meant that Muslims found space to make upward mobility which was obstructed while these non-Muslims were based there.

I sometimes wonder if those who consider this as a legitimate solution to Muslim poverty ever think of how it would affect Muslims and other immigrants in the West if anti-immigration parties succeed in expelling immigrants on grounds of property and jobs that ought to be made available to the indigenous white population to solve the problem of unemployment. I am sure no Muslim in Europe who has worked hard and made progress would consider it a fair and legitimate way of bringing relief to unemployed Europeans. Some people argue that the Pakistan movement was a class struggle between Hindu and Sikh haves and Muslim have-nots. This is at best vulgar Marxism. The landlord class was the mainstay of the Muslim League and to believe they were allies in a liberation struggle to establish a fairer society is sheer lunacy.

One thing more, let's suppose that the partitions of Punjab and Bengal had not taken place even if India had been partitioned. That would have meant the Hindus and Sikhs retaining their properties in Pakistan. How would that have solved the problem of Muslim economic backwardness in one go except by confiscating the properties of non-Muslims. The other way would be to help Muslims get interested in education despite their reservations. That was already happening in undivided India in the Muslim-majority provinces and would have continued had India remained united. India was never ever conceived as a unitary state. It was going to be a federation. Thus the partition of these two provinces only helped a quicker change of property ownership from Hindu-Sikh to Muslim hands by driving the Hindus and Sikhs out.

The fact is that the Hindus and Sikhs took to western education and adjusted to the modern capitalism economy with ease and thus progressed economically. They worked hard and acquired wealth. They did not steal it from Muslims who were negatively inclined towards modern education as well as modern business and commerce. The moneylender developed in the context of the new economy of commercial crops and since Muslims were not willing to move into it, the Hindus and Sikhs did. Sir Chhotu Ram's reforms of 1937 to a large extent weakened the moneylenders and with modern banking their relevance decreased even more. So, efforts were underway to rectify such lopsided economic relations. On the other hand, research shows that the landlords (mostly Muslims) used to lend capital informally to the peasants and exploit them even more completely by making them work for them on their lands and making their womenfolk serve in the household. The landlord, the true parasite never got identified as an exploiter the same way as the moneylender. 

Splitting India VIII

Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed in The Friday Times concludes his series on the partition of India, Punjab and Bengal 

My point of departure in this series has been that the partition of India was not necessarily the best option for solving the so-called Hindu-Muslim problem. A secular-democratic state based on universal adult franchise and regional autonomy would have served well to integrate the different peoples and communities constituting the Indian ethno-cultural mosaic into a grand nation. The Muslims would have had as much a stake in it as any other religious community. Permanent Hindu domination through the Congress Party or “Islam being in danger” was not possible if one keeps in mind the demographic composition of the population of the subcontinent and the fact that the Muslims were concentrated in two strategic regions – the north-west and north-east of India. Even when the Muslim presence in India has gone down by two-third the 180 million who remain in India are too important a group for an electoral democracy to ignore. Only once did the BJP come to power with a massive mandate on patently anti-Muslim propaganda. That was in 1998 but Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee quickly realized that such a campaign cannot be repeated without India being plunged into anarchy and chaos with terrorism and civil war emanating as a result.

Number plates of many cars in Pakistan now bear the name “Al Bakistan”

The Muslims were, however, economically not at par with Hindus and Sikhs during the colonial period and that was the strongest reason for creating a separate Pakistan. I have explained in my earlier articles how and why it happened that the Muslims lagged behind others and there is no point repeating the explanation here again. Suffice it to say that many contemporary Muslims have a serious problem adjusting and working within the modern economy and democracy that exists universally. Even now when colonialism (at least not in the literal sense) and all other excuses are no longer applicable no Muslim nation has excelled as an economic power or as a democracy. Islamic banks and Islamic economy are not very different from what banking generally is all about, and Turkey which Ataturk saved from medievalism is slowly being encroached upon by the Islamists – at the moment only in small ways but we know how small, apparently harmless things suddenly become a major force, converting from a nuisance to a menace and then finally a scourge.

Sealing the deal

There is no doubt in my mind that Mr Jinnah never wanted to create an Islamic state based on either the Iranian or Saudi model. However, I believe once the decision to use Islam to rouse mass passion was taken and the ulema given a free hand to propagate their vision of an Islamic state in which Sharia laws would reign supreme, and through this the foundations of a confessional Muslim state laid. I have given ample proof of it in a long chapter, ‘Punjab Elections and Coalition Government, 1945-46’ in my book, The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2012: 73-106). The ulema and pirs told the Muslims that if they did not vote for the Muslim League their nikah (marriage) would become null and void and they would be refused an Islamic burial. They also told the Hindus and Sikhs that in such a state they would have to come to the mosque with their disputes and Islamic law would apply. It proved to be a spectacularly successful mobilizing ideology and campaign, but once Pakistan had been achieved a utopian vision laced with Islamic symbolism, values and aspirations were part of the collective consciousness of Pakistani Muslims. Once you create a particular mindset it assumes a life of its own. It may hibernate and remain dormant but comes back to life whenever conditions are ripe. Its latest manifestation is that number plates of many cars in Pakistan now bear the name “Al Bakistan”, which upon enquiry I found to my complete shock is because in Arabic there is no ‘p’ sound and the closest to it is the ‘b’ sound: hence we are now in transit from Pakistan to Al-Bakistan. These decorative changes are actually symptomatic of a deep identity crisis. Much worse are the target killings which go on and life in Peshawar and Karachi has been made expendable as Christians, Shias, Ahmadis and from time to time Barelvis are brutally killed.

The late General Zia was an avid watcher of Indian films

Nations have to make a complete about turn if they want to rid themselves of such characteristics. Nazism, fascism and Japanese militarism went away only after overwhelming defeat was inflicted upon them. On the other hand, South Africa could make the transition because the leadership of the white minority realized that it had no future in a world where racism was no longer acceptable. Israel remains the last bastion of white colonial domination in the occupied territories, but many Israelis know that occupation and domination of a defeated people in the long run is not sustainable. Shall we in Pakistan begin thinking how to turn the corner and become a normal state?

Returning to the partition and the deep wounds and scars it inflicted, when the Muslims of East Punjab and the Hindus and Sikhs of West Punjab crossed the international border in 1947 and religious cleansing had been completed on both sides there was no doubt left that Pakistan was a state of the Muslims. From Khyber-Pakthunkhwa too all Hindus and Sikh had to flee. Of the 29 per cent Hindu population of Sindh only a fraction remained behind. In Balochistan too, a handful could remain. Mr Jinnah’s speech of 11 August 1947 could not have reversed the underlying rationale of the Two-Nation Theory. He did have a vast following in Pakistan, but amongst them not more than a handful believed that Pakistan had to be created to establish two secular states in the subcontinent instead of one.

For Pakistan to switch from religious nationalism to civic nationalism was never going to be easy. With Jinnah dying soon after he founded Pakistan it will always be a matter of speculation as to what would have happened if he had lived longer. He ridiculed the suggestion that his 11 August 1947 speech was about a secular state. His basic argument was that Islam was democratic and democracy was in the blood of Muslims. From the point of view of most ulema and let me say honestly, most Muslims, the ideal state is one where the legendary first four caliphs of Islam ruled. But it was not a secular state by any stretch of the imagination, even when good government and chaste and honest leadership were provided by the pious caliphs.

Perhaps, even more importantly, the social or class basis for a secular state in Pakistan was too weak. The Muslim landlords were the main support base of the Muslim League in the UP and after 1944 in the Punjab. If we now add the powerful ulema of the Barelvi persuasion and the pirs to the Muslim League support base, then both democracy and secularism hold little or no attraction for them. One only has to remember that when in the early 1950s Mian Iftikharuddin and Mian Mumtaz Daultana tried to carry out land reform they were rejected by their colleagues in the Muslim League. In Sindh, the dissenting note penned by Masud Khaddarposh on the Sindh Hari Report (which spoke of the Waderas (landlords) as the protectors of the Haaris (tenant- cultivators and landless peasants)), resulted in him being accused of being a communist and an atheist. Ironically, but not at all surprisingly, both Maulana Maududi and the head of the Ahmadiyya Jamaat, Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad came out in favour of landlordism.

The late General Zia was an avid watcher of Indian films

It was Field Marshall Ayub Khan who could muster enough authority to carry out a land reform, which aimed at creating a strong class of commercial farmers instead of absentee landlords. Mr Bhutto’s land reforms did not achieve any great success because he secured a ruling that in Islam ownership of property was individual. Through such a subterfuge the landlords retained most of their land given by the British to their ancestors. In Sindh where the biggest landholdings existed, the reforms were even less effective. Because of the Islamic law of inheritance those holdings are shrinking but the landlord class remains powerful locally and this can be easily established by looking at the membership of the Pakistani legislatures. Even in India the land reforms were not all that radical but they were much better than what we could achieve in Pakistan. Far more people from humbler backgrounds are elected to the Indian legislatures. To cut a long story short, history, ideology, culture, class – all were poised against Pakistan becoming a secular-democratic state. In my book, The Concept of an Islamic State in Pakistan: An Analysis of Ideological Controversies (Lahore: Vanguard, no date given but 1991 or 1992), I had written:

Pakistan meant different things to different people. To the landlords it meant continued leadership; to the doctrinal-minded Muslims, a unique opportunity to create an Islamic state in the light of their ideas; to the Muslim intelligentsia and the poorer classes, a state where social and economic justice would prevail and their dignity established according to Iqbalite teachings; to the peasants, freedom from the yoke of the Hindu money-lender; to the regional leaders, greater autonomy than was expected in a united India dominated by the Congress; to the Muslim bourgeoisie, the necessary environment where they could develop their potential, which seemed choked in a united India due to the many times greater strength of Hindu and Parsee capital based in Bombay and Calcutta; to the bureaucrats and the military an excellent opportunity to secure quick promotions; and to the military establishment it brought a central role in a country where the civilian political process was dependent from the beginning upon its support and active participation (page 80-81).

Mountbatten. In the background a countdown calendar to the transfer of power

These lines were written in 1984 for my doctoral dissertation. At that time I had no clue that Great Britain or rather the British military was another stakeholder in the Pakistan state project, and it is with its cooperation that the Muslim League succeeded in bringing about the partition of India. I have now provided proof of it by quoting verbatim from the horse’s mouth. No doubt the Congress Party and the Sikhs retaliated by demanding the partitions of Bengal and Punjab. Did any of the main leaders understand really that havoc would be wreaked upon millions of millions of innocent people whether Hindu, Muslim or Sikh? I don’t think fully but they could not have been completely unaware of the consequences a disputed division of India, Bengal and Punjab would entail. However, if the British military had stuck to its assessment of 11 May 1946 that a united India served their purpose better, notwithstanding Nehru’s anti-imperialism, history would have taken a very different direction. Therefore there was nothing inevitable about the partition, but it happened. And now we need to show maturity and accept the facts.

I toured India recently and spoke to many audiences. I got the distinct feeling that nobody wants Pakistan to merge into India. In fact rightwing Hindus are quite pleased India was partitioned. Equally, in Pakistan there is no will or desire to amalgamate into India. However, culturally, historically, and geographically the truth is: “There is an Indian in every Pakistani and a Pakistani in every Indian”. Ex-president Asif Ali Zardari made this fantastic remark and it is true. Culture unites but politics divides. Here I am using culture as a much larger concept than religion. Music, poetry, food, so many habits and hang-ups, prejudices and aspirations are the same. The Lahore film industry and film industries elsewhere in pre-partition India attracted talent from all religions and regions and the beauty they created was shared by all and sundry. The late General Zia was an avid watcher of Indian films and could sing as well. His most famous protégé Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is also a film buff yet both were keen to pander to the most reactionary Islamic constituencies and our only successful Islamic socialist, ZA Bhutto initiated Islamic measures that paved the way for General Zia’s comprehensive Islamization measures.

Split into two

In 1947, we missed a great opportunity to build together a progressive, secular and democratic united India. I am afraid that in 2013 we may miss a great opportunity to claim our right and share in economic development by not whole-heartedly taking part in converting South Asia into a zone of peace and prosperity through trade and commerce. We should not be a nation which specializes in missing opportunities. I do not for a moment doubt that in India too there are powerful forces, which do not want the people of these two nations to live in peace, trust and solidarity. Defeating them is the responsibility of Indian humanists, Gandhians, pacifists, internationalists, Marxists, South Asianists and just good people from all religions and indeed poets and writers and others. Pakistani peace lovers of similar varieties have to do the same. India and Pakistan can through SAARC build a bright future for their people.

The partition of India, Bengal and Punjab is not the only partition which has bequeathed a bitter legacy of territorial disputes and forced migrations and so on. After WW I the map of the Middle East was redrawn and when the mandates ended it looked very different from what existed when the Ottoman Empire was the ruling power in that region. The creation of Israel is a case in point. However, I am always willing to accept that reality, provided the Israelis agree to accept an independent and sovereign Palestinian state next to it. In Africa particularly colonization and decolonization took a very heavy toll of life as tribes and clans were divided and new states came into being. So, two or three states emerging instead of one on the Indian subcontinent is not all that strange.

Yet I am convinced British colonialism laid the foundations of modern society in the colonies. The railways, telegraph system, roads, bridges, and modern ideas of the rule of law and overall peace and stability were its outstanding contributions. Indian had stagnated since many centuries and oriental despotism prevailed all around. The British came with a more advanced civilization but they had to go because modern consciousness rejected foreign rule. Once upon a time that was not a problem. The truth is that the Congress Party’s claim to represent all Indians was an overstatement. Till the end large numbers of Indians, of all religions and of many regions, remained loyal to the British. There is a school of thought which believes that we would have been better off as a British Dominion than as two independent states.

The truth is that the British were not planning to grant independence to either a united India or a divided one, but WW II broke the back of the Raj and US pressure to grant independence to this region became irresistible. The salaries of the British military were being paid by the Americans and in the new world order there was no scope for colonies. The Cold War however polarized the world and instead of colonies a system of dependent or neo-colonial/post-colonial states came into being in which instead of direct rule by an imperial power the system of control was through economic and military pacts. India successfully kept out of it but we could not. I have explained fully why this happened in my latest book, Pakistan: The Garrison State – Origins, Evolution, Consequences (1947-2011), (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013).  

Splitting India VII

Dr. Ishtiaque Ahmed in The Friday Times on the Radcliffe Award

One of the bitterest and most enduring controversies surrounding the partition is the Radcliffe Award.Viceroy Linlithgow had ruthlessly smashed the Quit India movement, but his successor Viceroy Wavell believed that it would not be possible to control another wave of protests and, therefore, preparations had to be made to pull out of India if such an emergency arose. In a top-secret communication of 27 December 1945 he sent a “Breakdown Plan” to the Secretary of State for India, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, in which he noted:

Cyril Radcliffe

We should base ourselves on two points of principle:

If the Muslims insist on self-determination in genuinely Muslim areas this must be conceded.

On the other hand there can be no question of compelling large non-Muslim populations to remain in Pakistan against their will (Ahmed 2012: 73-75; TOP, Vol. VI: 700).

On 7 February 1946, Wavell submitted to Pethick-Lawrence a “Breakdown Plan”. His idea was that if compelled to give an award, the demarcation of ‘genuinely Muslim areas’ (ibid: 912) should include:

1. Sind, North West Frontier Province, British Baluchistan and Rawalpindi, Multan and Lahore divisions of Punjab; minus Amritsar and Gurdaspur districts.

(b) In Bengal, the Chittagong and Dacca divisions, the Rajshahi division (minus Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling), the Nadia, Murshidabad and Jessore districts of Presidency division; and in Assam, the Sylhet district.

2. In the Punjab, the only Moslem-majority district that would not go into Pakistan under this demarcation is Gurdaspur (51-per cent Moslem). Gurdaspur must be attached to Amritsar for geographical reasons and Amritsar, being sacred city of Sikhs, must stay out of Pakistan. But for this case of importance of Amritsar, demarcation in the Punjab could have been on divisional boundaries. Fact that much of Lahore district is irrigated from upper Bari Doab canal with headworks in Gurdaspur district is awkward but there is no solution that avoids all such difficulties.

With regard to Calcutta (23 per cent Muslim population) in Bengal, it should also remain in India or be made into a free port if negotiations between the parties could successfully reach such an arrangement (ibid: 913).

The Partition Plan of 3 June 1947

The final drama in the partition saga began with the arrival of Lord Louis Mountbatten as the last viceroy. His negotiations with Indian leaders led nowhere. From 19 May onwards, Mountbatten was in the UK for consultations with the British Cabinet and the India Office and did not return to India until 30 May. He met the Indian leaders on 2 June. They were handed copies of his partition plan at 10 a.m. with the request that they give their replies and comments by midnight, but that the statement was final. Much of the text had in fact been shared with the Indian leaders in various revised forms, but the early date of the transfer of power had not been mentioned. Both India and Pakistan were to be accorded dominion status.

Nehru and Patel had already been taken into confidence about an early British withdrawal from the subcontinent and were themselves in favour of it. However, the exact day of withdrawal being brought forward from June 1948 to mid-August 1947 may not have been intimated to them. There is no doubt that the Muslim League, the Sikhs and possibly other Congress leaders learnt about it only on 2 June. The Viceroy remarked: ‘The severe shock that this gave to everyone present would have been amusing if it was not rather tragic’ (Ahmed 2012: 214; TOP, Vol. XI 163).

Lord Mountbatten

Announcement of the Partition Plan

Mountbatten announced the Partition Plan over All-India Radio in the evening of 3 June 1947. The British government also issued a statement from London on 3 June. It stipulated among other things:

5. The Provincial Legislative Assemblies of Bengal and the Punjab (excluding European Members) will … each be asked to meet in two parts, one representing the Muslim majority districts and the other the rest of the Province. For the purpose of determining the population of districts, the 1941 census figures will be taken as authoritative.

9. For the immediate purpose of deciding on the issue of partition, the members of the Legislative Assemblies of Bengal and the Punjab will sit in two parts according to Muslim majority districts (as laid down in the Appendix) and non-Muslim majority districts. This is only a preliminary step of a purely temporary nature (emphasis added) as it is evident that for the purposes of a final partition of these provinces, a detailed investigation of the boundary question will be needed and, as soon as a decision involving partition has been taken for either province, a Boundary Commission will be set up by the Governor-General, the membership and terms of reference of which will be settled in consultation with those concerned. It will be instructed to demarcate the boundaries of the two parts of the Punjab on the basis of ascertaining the contiguous majority areas of Muslims and non-Muslims. It will also be instructed to take into account other factors. Similar instructions will be given to the Bengal Boundary Commission. Until the report of a Boundary Commission has been put into effect, the provisional boundaries indicated in the Appendix will be used (Ahmed 2012: 216-217; TOP Vol. XI:90-1).

The Appendix was based on district-wise majorities as recorded in the 1941 census. It showed that Muslims were in the majority in three of the five administrative divisions of the Punjab:

1. Rawalpindi Division: Attock, Gujarat, Jhelum, Mianwali, Rawalpindi, Shahpur.

2. Multan Division: Dera Ghazi Khan, Jhang, Lyallpur, Montgomery, Multan, Muzaffargarh.

3. Lahore Division: Gujranwala, Gurdaspur, Lahore, Sheikhupura and Sialkot districts (Ibid: 94).

Amritsar, which belonged to Lahore division, had a non-Muslim majority (emphasis added) and was, therefore, not included among the Muslim majority areas in the appendix. Besides Amritsar district, Hindus and Sikhs were in a majority in the following division and their districts:

4. Jullundur Division: Ludhiana, Ferozepore, Jullundur, Hoshiarpur, Kangra.

5. Ambala Division: Gurgaon, Rothak, Hissar, Karnal, Ambala, Simla.

The Partition Plan stipulated that the members of the Punjab Legislative Assembly, organised separately into a western and an eastern bloc, would vote on the issue of partitioning the Punjab. Accordingly, members of the Western Section of the Assembly (presided over by the Speaker Diwanm Bahadur S.P.Singha) and that of the Eastern Section (presided over by the Deputy Speaker Sardar Kapur Singh) voted on 23 June 1947 (Ahmed 2012: 219)

Radcliffe Award

With regard to the voting, 72 members from East Punjab met in a separate session. They rejected by 50 votes to 22, a motion by the Muslim League leader the Khan of Mamdot that the province should remain united. On the other hand, in the West Punjab section a motion to partition the Punjab was rejected by 69 votes to 27. In communal terms, 88 Muslims, including Khizr Tiwana and seven other members of the Unionist Party, two Indian Christians (Diwan S. P. Singha and Fazl Elahi) and one Anglo-Indian (Mr Gibbon) voted for a united Punjab; Hindus, Sikhs and representatives of the scheduled castes, numbering altogether 77, voted for partitioning the Punjab (Ibid: 567). With regard to Bengal, the voting took place on 20 June. The Muslim majority eastern bloc voted 106 against the partition of the province and 35 for it; the non-Muslim majority western bloc voted 58 for partition and 21 against it.

A British lawyer, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who had never stepped on Indian soil before was appointed as chairman of the Boundary Commission

A British lawyer, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who had never stepped on Indian soil before was appointed as chairman of the Boundary Commission. Four more members, two nominated by Congress (of which one was to be a Sikh) and two by the Muslim League were added. It heard the arguments of the counsels representing the disputing parties: the Muslim League, the Congress, the Sikhs as well as a number of minor groups. The Commission met in Lahore during 21 July -31 July 1947. The counsels representing the two main adversarial blocs – the Muslim League, on the one hand, and, the Congress-Sikhs, on the other, put forth maximalist claims. The four nominated judges took equally partisan positions. The Muslim League’s stand was that contiguous Muslim and non-Muslim areas were the main term of reference and “other factors” applied only to extraordinary situations demanding deviation from it. Arguing that the tahsil should be used as the unit to determine contiguity the Muslim League counsel could claim that such contiguity continued as far in the east as the Sutlej River in the vicinity of Ludhiana.

On the other hand, Congress and Sikhs insisted that “other factors” were equally important. The other factors, according to them, referred to greater ownership of land and other forms of property (75 per cent agricultural land and other types of property belonged to the Hindus and Sikhs). Both sides stuck to their respective stances. The Sikh counsel insisted on the zail (a revenue unit of 12 villages) as the correct unit for determining contiguity. With such an approach he could claim contiguity right up to Lyallpur in the west. The Congress supported the Sikhs. Therefore an agreed formula of partitioning Punjab could not be agreed upon. The same happened at the Bengal Boundary Commission’s hearings in Calcutta. Consequently, instead of an agreed settlement a government award became necessary (Ahmed 2012: 253-273).

The Radcliffe Award was ready on 13 August but was revealed to political leaders two days after India and Pakistan had celebrated their independence

The Radcliffe Award

The Radcliffe Award was ready on 13 August but was revealed to the political leaders on 16 August and made public on 17 August – two days after India and Pakistan had celebrated their independence! The most controversial aspect of the boundary award was that three of the four tahsils of Gurdaspur district on the eastern bank of the Ujh river (which joined the Ravi a little further down) – the tahsils of Gurdaspur, Batala and Pathankot – were awarded to India and only one, Shakargarh, was assigned to Pakistan. Curiously enough, however, instead of choosing the Ujh-Ravi rivers as the cut-off point for the border, ‘The tahsil boundary and not the actual course of the Ujh river shall constitute the boundary between the East and West Punjab’ (ibid). Such an arrangement gave both India and Pakistan some foothold on the other side thus making the border quite erratic.

There is considerable literature available alleging that Mountbatten had the original text altered

There is considerable literature available alleging that Mountbatten had the original text altered so that the whole of Gurdaspur in which Muslims formed a very slim majority would not be awarded to Pakistan. The reason he did so, it is alleged, was to provide a land route for India into Kashmir through Pathankot. Notwithstanding the controversies, the Radcliffe Award relied essentially upon the principle of Muslim and non-Muslim majority contiguity and did not recognize claims to property as a valid basis for awarding territory. Therefore, these areas in which Sikhs in particular owned much of the land, and Hindus and Sikhs together owned most of the urban property, went to Pakistan. In this sense, then, the Radcliffe Award was more sympathetic to the claims of the Muslim League than to those of Congress and the Sikhs.

Had the tahsil been used as the unit of contiguity Pathankot tahsil of Gurdaspur, which had a 60 per cent Hindu-Sikh majority would have been awarded to India even if Gurdaspur and Batala tahsils which had Muslim majority would have been given to Pakistan. Wavell’s reasons for giving the three tahsils of Gurdaspur to India was to protect Amritsar from being surrounded on all sides except the east by Pakistani territory. This is easily understood by looking at the maps. The most interesting point to note is that the Radcliffe Award was almost identical to Wavell’s Boundary-Demarcation Plan of 7 February 1946. Only a very tiny portion of Kasur tahsil of Lahore district was given to India to make the international border equidistant between India and Pakistan.

There is no doubt that the Congress Party was determined that if India is divided so must Bengal and Punjab. Therefore it had on 8 March 1947 came out in support of the Sikh demand for a partition of the Punjab. Similarly it exerted its influence to have Bengal partitioned as well. The main consideration was defence and security. The international border that was drawn in Bengal and Punjab was far away from Delhi. Had Bengal and Punjab, as a whole, been given to Pakistan, as Jinnah wanted, Delhi would have become a frontier city.

Herein lies the security problem that beset Pakistan from the very onset. With Lahore, Sialkot and other major towns in West Pakistan bang on the border and East Pakistan lacking any military infrastructure worth the name, Pakistan was a security nightmare. 

Splitting India VI

A divided India was not a foregone British conclusion. Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed in The Friday Times continues his series on the partition 

Indian and Pakistani historiography, nationalist and revisionist, tends towards the blame game. Perhaps the most successful work up to now has been Ayesha Jalal’s, The Sole Spokesman (1985). Its fundamental argument is that Jinnah never wanted partition. Rather, it was the Congress which forced the partition on Jinnah. While ultra-nationalist Pakistani historians were exercised by the fact that it severely undermined the originality of the demand for Pakistan, in India critics of Gandhi and Nehru in general and pro-BJP authors in particular relished it because it could be used ideologically to build a case against Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi. Indeed the Congress is not without blame and I have pointed out some major blunders such as the resignation of the Congress ministries in September 1939 and even more crucially the Quit India movement of August 1942 which effectively removed it from the political arena till June 1945. However, that Jinnah never wanted Pakistan is most certainly a myth. Any honest content analysis of his speeches from March 1942 till Pakistan came into being would not allow such an inference. Also, if one brings in British geostrategic interests in the partition into the analysis then one cannot tell a credible story without focusing on the complete picture. Intellectually such an approach is untenable. Another problem confronting serious research on the partition has been that the 12 volumes of the Transfer of Power, published by the British between 1970 and 1983, have been used selectively by Indian and Pakistani historians to tell a story suiting their script. These volumes are available only in a few universities and those too essentially in the UK. I spent a fortune in buying my own 12 copies, and what I found was very different from what the historians have been telling us.

Of late a perverted British specialty has been to peep into bed chambers in search of new material

With regard to the British writings on the partition, the aim has been mainly to highlight the role of their men as honest brokers wanting to close a deal between the Congress and the Muslim League that would leave India united in some form. The Cabinet Mission Plan of May 1946 is an example of that. However, of late a perverted British specialty has been to peep into bed chambers in search of new material. The famous Nehru-Edwina Mountbatten liaison has served that purpose well. A variation of it has been to ‘shed light’ on the alleged homosexual indulgences of some actors in the partition drama, thus adding more spice and scandal to it. All such literature makes for very interesting reading but is woefully inadequate at explaining the role of the British as the paramount power in the Indian subcontinent in the final outcome of the partition of India, Bengal and Punjab. To believe that the British would leave India without trying to ensure that their interests were safeguarded in the region is quite incredible when it comes to serious academic research. In fact the role of the United States and the former Soviet Union is also of great interest but in this series I shall focus only on the British role.

Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck prepared a top secret note on ‘The Strategic Implications of the Inclusion of “Pakistan” in the British Commonwealth’

In this regard the publication of Narendra Singh Sarila’s, In the Shadow of the Great Game: The Untold Story of India’s Partition (New Delhi: HarperCollins and the India Today Group, 2005), is an exception. He brings into the picture the role of Britain as an imperial power in decline and the USA as the future leader of the Western world in ascent in relation to the partition. His thesis is that the British had been planning to partition India for a long time. My understanding is that they had been considering it as an option for a long time but remained opposed to it till at least March 1947. The reasons for it I have explained in my two recent books. My contention is that the decision to partition India was arrived at very late and it was the British military which was the main force behind it. I have already said in earlier articles that Viceroy Lord Linlithgow had encouraged the Muslim League’s separatist posture and Sir Zafrulla was the one who conveyed that to Mr Jinnah. The 23 March 1940 Lahore resolution was a product of that communication. I also said that at that stage it was only a pressure tactic. The fact is that the British military favoured a united India till at least May 1946. On 11 May 1946, Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck prepared a top secret note on ‘The Strategic Implications of the Inclusion of “Pakistan” in the British Commonwealth’. In a long and detailed study of the pros and cons of partitioning united India he concluded that it would not serve British interests in the Indian Ocean because Pakistan would be an economically and militarily weak state whereas a strong and independent Indian state (post-1947 India), estranged from Britain, could move closer to the Soviet Union. In the end of his report he summed up his position: If we desire to maintain our power to move freely by sea and air in the Indian Ocean area, which I consider essential to the continued existence of the British Commonwealth, we can do so only by keeping in [it] a United India which will be a willing member of that Commonwealth, ready to share its defence to the limit of her resources. (Transfer of Power, vol. VII, 1977: 806).

Men, women and children who died in the rioting were cremated on a mass scale

However, such a view was not necessarily shared by his peers. General Officer Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Command, Lieutenant General Sir Francis Tuker took up cudgels on behalf of Pakistan. He opined: There was much therefore to be said for the introduction of a new Muslim power supported by the science of Britain. If such a power could be produced and if we could orient the Muslim strip from North Africa through Islamia Desertia, Persia, Afghanistan to the Himalayas, upon a Muslim power in Northern India, then it had some chance of halting the filtration of Russia towards the Persian Gulf. These Islamic countries, even including Turkey, were not a very great strength in themselves. But with a northern Indian Islamic state of several millions it would be reasonable to expect that Russia would not care to provoke them too far. (While Memory Serves, London: Cassell and Company,1951 edition: 26–27). After the Cabinet Mission of May 1946 failed, the next move towards partition was the 20 February 1947 statement of Prime Minister Attlee that power would be transferred to Indians by June 1948. Attlee chose a cousin of the King, Lord Louis Mountbatten, as the last viceroy to India—to oversee and manage the transfer of power. Since the passing of the Lahore Resolution in March 1940, the Sikhs had insisted that, if India was divided on a religious basis, the Punjab should also be so divided so that areas where the Hindus and Sikhs were in a majority would be separated from the Muslim-majority parts of the Punjab. The Congress Party supported this Sikh demand in a resolution dated 8 March, 1947. The Congress also insisted on the partition of Bengal. Once the Congress had decided that it must accept a partitioned India it wanted to keep the international border as far away from Delhi as possible and therefore the partitions of Bengal and Punjab made crucial strategic sense to its leaders.Mountbatten had been specifically tasked to ensure that, united or divided, India remained in the British Commonwealth. One of Jinnah’s confidants, the Nawab of Bhopal, sent a telegram to Mountbatten in which he suggested that, if Pakistan was granted, Jinnah could be persuaded ‘to remain within the Commonwealth’ (Transfer of Power, vol. X, 1981: 36). However, the viceroy tried to convince Jinnah not to demand the division of India because a united India would be a strong and powerful nation whereas Pakistan would be economically and militarily weak. Jinnah remained unimpressed. Rather, he insisted that a separate Pakistan would seek membership of the Commonwealth, which should not be denied to it because: All the Muslims have been loyal to the British from the beginning. We supplied a high proportion of the Army which fought in both wars. None of our leaders has ever had to go to prison for disloyalty…. Not one of us had done anything to deserve expulsion from the Commonwealth…. Mr Churchill has assured me that the British people would never stand for our being expelled. (ibid: 541). At this stage, there was a dramatic change in the attitude of the British military on partition and the creation of Pakistan. Thus, senior military and civil officers—RAF Marshal Lord Tedder (in the chair), Admiral Sir John H.D. Cunningham, Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, Lieutenant General Sir Leslie C. Hollis, Minister of Defence, A.V. Alexander, Chief of the Viceroy Staff, Lord Ismay, and Major General R.E. Laycock—in a memorandum prepared at the meeting of the Chiefs of Staff Committee in London on 12 May 1947, strongly supported the assumption that it would be good for Britain if Pakistan remained in the Commonwealth. It was noted: It was feasible that Jinnah . . . might well announce a Moslem application to remain within the Commonwealth. A number of Princes might do the same thing. On the other hand, Hindustan might well stick to the declared intention of Congress to be a free Sovereign State, although there were signs that some Congress leaders had doubts of their ability to continue without some British advisers and administration (ibid: 788). After considerable deliberation, the Chiefs of Staff agreed that their views should be submitted to the Prime Minister. They agreed: From the strategic point of view there were overwhelming arguments in favour of Western Pakistan remaining within the Commonwealth, namely, that we should obtain important strategic facilities, the port of Karachi, air bases and the support of the Moslem manpower in the future; be able to ensure the continued integrity of Afghanistan; and be able to increase our prestige and improve our position throughout the Muslim world. . . . There was therefore everything to gain by admitting Western Pakistan into the Commonwealth. A refusal of an application to this end would amount to ejecting loyal people from the British Commonwealth, and would probably lose us all chances of ever getting strategic facilities anywhere in India, and at the same time shatter our reputation in the rest of the Moslem world. From a military point of view, such a result would be catastrophic’ (ibid: 791–2). Mountbatten finally announced the Partition Plan to divide British India between two states, India and Pakistan, on 3 June 1947. It drastically expedited the transfer of power from June 1948, as had been announced on 20 February 1947 by Attlee, to mid-August 1947—that is, in less than eleven weeks. It envisaged a Pakistan comprised of two separate geographical entities, East and West Pakistan, where the Muslims were in a majority. Moreover, the Partition Plan stipulated that the legislative assemblies of Bengal and Punjab would vote on partitioning their provinces. On 20 June, the East Bengal Assembly voted to divide Bengal and on 23 June the Punjab Assembly returned a similar verdict (Ahmed 2012: 215-219). During 21—31 July, territorial claims by the conflicting parties were presented before the Bengal and Punjab boundary commissions. The arguments put forth were based on zero-sum tactics that nullified any consensus on the distribution of territory. Even the judges nominated by the two sides made partisan recommendations. Therefore, the Chairman of the Boundary Commission, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, prepared an award which, although ready on 13 August was not made public until 17 August—that is, after India and Pakistan had become independent! It created considerable bitterness on both sides. In Pakistan, particularly, it was assailed as a conspiracy hatched by Nehru and Mountbatten to compel Radcliffe to award Muslim-majority areas to India. I will be looking at the Radcliffe Award in the next article.

Of late a perverted British specialty has been to peep into bed chambers in search of new material

The actual partition process proved to be one of the bloodiest as the machinery that Mountbatten put in place proved to be woefully inadequate to stem the rising tide of violent rioting and terrorism. Some 14-18 million were forced to flee their homes – it is the biggest forced migration ever recorded in history. The fatalities that took place are counted between 1 -2 million (Ahmed 2012). Naturally the worst casualties took place in the Punjab and Bengal, but what happened in the Punjab dwarfed the human suffering that took place elsewhere. In the divided Punjab anywhere between 500,000 – 800,000 were killed. There is good reason to believe that the biggest loss of life was that of East Punjab Muslims even when for months – March to June 1947 – most of the attacks took place in the Muslim-majority districts and the non-Muslims, especially Sikhs, were the main victims. Why did the British military make a complete turn within a year – from 11 May 1946 to 12 May 1947 precisely? The answer must be because it was felt that future Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru may resist becoming an appendage of the Western policy of building a front against Soviet Communism. On the other hand, the Muslim League leadership had been marketing Pakistan as a frontline state and many in the British military establishment were convinced that a smaller Pakistan would be far more dependent on Western help and aid and in lieu of that serve a very important geo-strategic role in the future. Ironically, British ambition of remaining a major power in South Asia proved to be delusional. American influence increased rapidly. I have also shown that the Americans were against the creation of Pakistan for the same reason Field Marshall Auchinleck had given – a divided India would be vulnerable to Communist expansionism, but in the American analysis it was China and not the Soviet Union that needed to be kept out of South Asia. The partition of India was not something the British as an entity had planned in 1940 and then promoted. On the contrary, it was a very late decision which had some early proponents.