Inevitability
There is a popular strategy in looking back at past events to wonder ‘if only …’. It’s tricky. Any speculation about what could have been done is academic, but past events do shape the future. Were the resulting outcomes inevitable? Looking at alternatives may be worthwhile, as we might confront similar situations today, and thereby benefit from what we have learnt.
One example that has been on my mind is the decision to split British India in 1947, thereby creating the current nations of India and Pakistan (and a little later Bangladesh as well). The process was described as the ‘Partition’ of India, and inthe process of allocating people to the provinces between the two new countries many people were displaced, and two provinces, Bengal and Punjab, were actually split. As a result of the partition somewhere between 12 and 20 million people had to move, doing so based on religious lines. The result was a refugee crisis, the inevitable consequence of the mass migration and population transfers that took place between the newly constituted countries. Equally inevitably, there was trouble. The process led to large-scale violence, and estimates of loss of life range from at least several hundred thousand up to possibly as many as two million people killed.
The events in 1947 had been preceded by a long history of tensions between Muslims and Hindus. However, the outbreak of World War II in 1939 enhanced existing tensions when Lord Linlithgow, Viceroy of India, declared war on India’s behalf, and doing so without consulting Indian leaders. This dramatically increased some of the underlying tensions in the country. On one side Congress provincial ministries to resigned in protest. On the other, the Muslim League held “Deliverance Day” (deliverance from Congress dominance) and supported Britain in the war effort. The League’s action was followed in March 1940, at its annual three-day session in Lahore, when the leader of the All-India Muslim League observed that Muslims and Hindus were ‘irreconcilably opposed monolithic religious communities’ and as such, no settlement could be imposed without outraging one side or the other.
Perhaps seeking to defuse the situation, in August 1940, Linlithgow proposed that India be granted self-governing (dominion) status after the war. To allay Muslim fears of Hindu domination, the ‘August Offer’ was accompanied by the promise that a future constitution would consider the views of minorities. Unsurprisingly neither Congress nor the Muslim League were satisfied with the offer, and both rejected it. However, in March 1942, after the fall of Singapore and with the Americans supporting independence for India, Prime Minister Winson Churchill offered dominion status to India at the end of the war in return for the Congress’s support for the war effort. Not wishing to lose the support of the Muslim League the offer included a clause stating that no part of the British Indian Empire would be forced to join the post-war dominion. Both the League and the Congress party rejected this offer too.
In August 1942, Congress launched the Quit India Resolution, asking for major constitutional changes. The British saw this act as the most serious threat to their rule since in nearly 100 years. Alarmed, they immediately jailed the Congress leaders where they to remain until August 1945. This left the Muslim League free for the next three years to spread its message. Their leader admitted, “The war which nobody welcomed proved to be a blessing in disguise.” The British accepted the League was the key representative of Muslim India
After the Second World War, change was in the air. Labour won the 1945 General Election, and decided to end British rule in India. In early 1947 Britain announced its intention of transferring power no later than June 1948, and issued their Cabinet Mission Plan. This proposed preserving a united India which the British and Congress desired, while concurrently securing the League’s demand for a Pakistan. The scheme was a federal arrangement consisting of three groups of provinces. Two of these would consist of small predominantly Muslim provinces, while the third would be made up of the large remaining Hindu region. The provinces would be autonomous, but the centre would retain control over defence, foreign affairs, and communications. Though the proposals did not include a truly independent Pakistan, the Muslim League accepted the proposals, but Congress leaders believed it would leave the centre weak, and rejected the suggested provincial groupings .
After the Cabinet Mission broke down, in July 1946 the Muslim League stated it was “preparing to launch a struggle” and that they had a plan. If the Muslims were not granted a separate Pakistan then they would launch ‘direct action’. When asked to be specific, their leader Jinnah explained: “Go to the Congress and ask them their plans. When they take you into their confidence I will take you into mine. Why do you expect me alone to sit with folded hands? I also am going to make trouble.”. He announced that 16 August 1946 was to be Direct Action Day, and warned Congress, “We do not want war. If you want war we accept your offer unhesitatingly. We will either have a divided India or a destroyed India.”.
On that morning, armed Muslim gangs gathered in Calcutta to hear the League’s Chief Minister of Bengal, who, in the words of historian Yasmin Khan, “if he did not explicitly incite violence certainly gave the crowd the impression that they could act with impunity, that neither the police nor the military would be called out and that the ministry would turn a blind eye to any action they unleashed in the city.” The same evening in Calcutta, Hindus were attacked by returning Muslim celebrants, an event later called the ‘Great Calcutta Killing of August 1946.’ The next day, Hindus struck back, and the violence continued for three days during which some 4,000 people died. The violence wasn’t confined to the public sphere, but homes were entered and destroyed, women and children were attacked. Although the Government of India and the Congress were shaken by the events, a Congress-led interim government was installed, with Jawaharlal Nehru as the ‘united’ India’s prime minister.
The communal violence spread. UK Prime Minister Attlee appointed Mountbatten as India’s last Viceroy, giving him the task to oversee British India’s independence by 30 June 1948, with instructions to avoid partition and to preserve a united India, but with an adaptable authority to ensure a British withdrawal with minimal setbacks. Mountbatten hoped to revive the Cabinet Mission scheme for a federal arrangement for India, but the tense situation led him to conclude that partition had become necessary for a quick transfer of power.
When Lord Mountbatten formally proposed an Indian Independence Plan on 3 June 1947, Congress’s leader Patel gave his approval and lobbied Nehru and the other Congress leaders to accept the proposal. Knowing Gandhi’s deep concerns over partition, Patel advised him on the perceived practical unworkability of any Congress-League coalition, which seemed likely to lead to a further rise in violence, and even the threat of civil war. At the All-India Congress Committee meeting called to vote on the proposal, Patel said:
“I fully appreciate the fears of our brothers from [the Muslim-majority areas]. Nobody likes the division of India, and my heart is heavy. But the choice is between one division and many divisions. We must face facts. We cannot give way to emotionalism and sentimentality. The Working Committee has not acted out of fear. But I am afraid of one thing, that all our toil and hard work of these many years might go waste or prove unfruitful. My nine months in office have completely disillusioned me regarding the supposed merits of the Cabinet Mission Plan. … Freedom is coming. We have 75 to 80 percent of India, which we can make strong with our genius. The League can develop the rest of the country.”
Menon, V. P. Transfer of Power in India. p. 385.
In June 1947, the nationalist leaders agreed to a partition of the country, despite it being in stark opposition to Gandhi’s views. The predominantly Hindu and Sikh areas were assigned to the new India and predominantly Muslim areas to the new nation of Pakistan, including a division of the Muslim-majority provinces of Punjab and Bengal into two parts. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the communal violence that followed the publication of the line of partition, the Radcliffe Line, was horrific. At a press conference on 3 June 1947, Lord Mountbatten announced the date of independence – 14 August 1947 – and also outlined the details of the actual division of British India between the two new dominions in what became known as the ‘Mountbatten Plan’ or the ‘3 June Plan’. This included the provision that Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims in the Punjab and Bengal legislative assemblies would meet and vote for partition. If a simple majority of either group wanted partition, these provinces would be divided. The separate independence of Bengal was ruled out.
Indian political leaders accepted the Plan on 2 June. The outcome was politically adroit. The Muslim League’s demands for a separate country were conceded. Congress’s position on unity was also acknowledged, while making Pakistan as small as possible. One leader, Abul Kalam Azad, expressed concern over the likelihood of violent riots, but Mountbatten replied:
At least on this question I shall give you complete assurance. I shall see to it that there is no bloodshed and riot. I am a soldier and not a civilian. Once the partition is accepted in principle, I shall issue orders to see that there are no communal disturbances anywhere in the country. If there should be the slightest agitation, I shall adopt the sternest measures to nip the trouble in the bud.
On 18 July 1947, the British Parliament passed the India Independence Act that finalised the arrangements for partition. The Government of India Act 1935 was adapted to provide a legal framework for the new dominions. In the event, dividing both Punjab and Bengal, the two provinces with slim Muslim majorities caused tremendous problems, as the demographic distribution of Hindus and Muslims was complex and ‘messy’. The new borders ran through the middle of villages, towns, fields, and more. Further, when Pakistan was created, East and West Pakistan were separated by about 1,000 miles (some 1,600 km). The commission also effectively sliced the large Sikh population in Punjab in half. As a result, nearly the entirety of the Sikh community ultimately fled to areas that would become part of India.
Mountbatten administered the independence oath to Jinnah on the 14th, before leaving for India where the oath was scheduled on the midnight of the 15th. On 14 August 1947, the new Dominion of Pakistan came into being with Muhammad Ali Jinnah sworn in as its first Governor-General in Karachi. The following day, 15 August 1947, India, now the Dominion of India, became an independent country, with official ceremonies taking place in New Delhi, and with Jawaharlal Nehru appointed Prime Minister. Mountbatten remained in New Delhi for 10 months, serving as the first governor-general of an independent India until June 1948. Gandhi remained in Bengal to work with the new refugees from the partitioned subcontinent.
The borders of the new countries were not published until August 17, two days after the end of British rule. This set the stage for an immediate escalation of communal violence in areas around the new borders. Many ordinary people did not understand what partition meant until they were in the middle of it, sometimes literally. If a border village was roughly evenly divided between Hindus and Muslims, one community could argue that the village rightly belonged to India or Pakistan by driving out or killing members of the other community.
The result was mass migration between the two newly formed states in the months immediately following the partition. There was little realisation that population transfers would be necessary because of the partitioning. Religious minorities were expected to stay put in the states there they were still residing. An exception was made for Punjab, where transfer was organized because of the communal violence affecting the province, but this did not apply to any other provinces. The population of undivided India in 1947 was about 390 million. Following the partition, there were perhaps 330 million people in India, 30 million in West Pakistan, and 30 million people in East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh). Once the boundaries were established, about 14.5 million people crossed the borders into what they hoped was the relative safety of a religious majority. The 1951 Census of Pakistan identified the number of displaced persons in Pakistan at 7,226,600, presumably all Muslims who had entered Pakistan from India; the 1951 Census of India counted 7,295,870 displaced persons, apparently all Hindus and Sikhs who had moved to India from Pakistan after partition.
During partition, the idea of a full population exchange was a contentious issue that led to differing opinions among Indian leaders. Some supported the idea of a complete population exchange between India and Pakistan. This meant that all the 42 million Muslims in India would move to Pakistan, while all the 19 million Hindus, Sikhs and other minorities West and East Pakistan would migrate to India. Its rationale was based on the idea of ensuring lasting communal peace by eliminating the possibility of future inter-religious conflicts and reducing the risk of large-scale violence. It suggested that such a population exchange, though harsh, was a practical solution to the communal problems that had led to Partition: it was believed that the lingering presence of hostile minorities could lead to future instability.
These concerns were rejected, both by Nehru and Ghandi, and a full population exchange did not occur. When a partial migration took place, the 14.5 million people who crossed borders did so amidst horrific violence, while millions remained where they had lived. This was to have profound and continuing repercussions. India retained a Muslim population, which was to grow to become a significant minority, while Pakistan’s Hindu and Sikh populations dwindled drastically over the decades due to migration and persecution. The absence of a full exchange almost certainly contributed to enduring communal tensions and periodic conflicts over the years. We will never know if a full exchange might have prevented these issues.
The scale of population movements was huge. As soon as the new borders were announced, roughly 15m Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs left (fled?) from their homes on one side of the newly demarcated borders to what they thought would be “shelter” on the other. Some people were able to take trains or buses from one country to another, but most were forced to flee on foot, joining refugee columns that stretched for miles. These columns were the target of frequent ambushes, as were the trains that carried refugees across the new borders. In the course of that exodus, perhaps as many as 2 million people were slaughtered in communal massacres (though the lack of any meaningful documentation has left open a wide range of estimates). Sikhs, settled astride Punjab’s new division, suffered the highest proportion of casualties. While the worst of the violence took place during the first six weeks of partition, the consequences of those weeks have played out over the decades.
Given this the obvious question is: Was there a better way to create an indepedent India?
