Dirty game before partition

The British supported Congress’ united India over League’s Pakistan

Several myths surrounding the partition of India have become common perceptions in the historical discourse. One such myth is that the British presented Pakistan on the platter to the Muslims because they favoured the Muslim League and were deadly opposed to the Congress party’s demand of united India and its ‘anti- imperialist’ leaders Gandhi and Nehru. Professor Muhammad Iqbal Chawla in his doctoral dissertation entitled, “Wavell and the dying days of the Raj” has smashed this myth into smithereens after researching hundreds of historical sources, particularly the unpublished private papers of over two dozen top British politicians and key officials involved with the policymaking during the transfer of power.

This myth gained currency primarily due to two factors: one was Gandhi’s unsubstantial claim that the ‘Two Nation Theory’ was a British creation; and two, Jawaharlal Nehru’s assertion that there were only two parties in India i.e., the British and the Congress. This myth was strengthened by the Congress allegation that the Lahore Resolution was dictated and encouraged by Viceroy Linlithgow (1936-43) whereas he is on the record to have termed it a “silly Muslim scheme for partition”. Dr Chawla rejects this premise by arguing that most of the British policymakers such as Churchill, Amrey, Cripps and Atlee ardently supported united India and vehemently opposed the idea of Pakistan.

Of these, Premier Atlee and the Cabinet Minister Cripps stooped quite low to appease the Congress. For example, within one month of assuming premiership in July 1945, Atlee not only lifted the ban on Congress but also ordered the release of all of its imprisoned leaders. Next, he pressured Viceroy Wavell to accept Sir Maurice Gwyer, the pro-Congress former Chief Justice of India as his political advisor. On 13th April, 1946, Atlee shot a letter to Wavell and the Cabinet Mission with the explicit instructions to ensure a united India and nullify the demand of Pakistan. Even a Hindu historian Durga Das’s account of a meeting with Atlee testifies this fact in which Atlee “did not conceal his deep agitation over the Muslim demand for Pakistan” and promised to work for the ‘federal unity’ of the subcontinent because he considered Congress as “the true advocate for freedom and the League a disruptionist one”.

Now, a variety of historical evidence has been brought to light to judge the extent of the members of the Cabinet Mission – AV Alexander, Pethick-Lawrence and Stafford Cripps – to appease the Congress during the crucial negotiations at the cost of Jinnah and the League. Historian Richard Symonds has revealed that both Cripps and Pethick-Lawrence conducted almost daily secret meetings with Agatha Harrison and CF Andrews, who were associates of Gandhi and Horace Alexander, who acted as an intermediary between Gandhi and the British officialdom – the trio being ‘sold to the Gandhi’ in the eyes of Viceroy Wavell.

Moreover, Sudhir Ghosh, the author of ‘Gandhi’s emissary’ has self-confessed the underhand dealings of the Cabinet Mission with the Congress by stating that at critical junctures during the parleys, Cripps and Lawrence secretly met Gandhi “in the garden at the back of the Viceroy’s House” without the knowledge of the Viceroy Wavell or other Indian leaders. This dirty game must have been quite testing for Wavell, who confided in ‘Viceroy’s Journal’ that Cripps “is sold to the Congress point of view” and complained to Alexander that “Cripps had not been quite straight” to the Muslim League. The disgusted Viceroy did not resign just because his exposure of the scandalous conduct of these three members of the Cabinet Mission would have caused big embarrassment to His Majesty’s Government back in London.

Not only that Atlee’s Cabinet Ministers shredded the ideals of fair play and honesty in thin air during the course of their talks to win over Congress and deprive League of its demand of Pakistan but Pethick-Lawrence also used provocative language and irresponsible remarks about League’s leader Jinnah for which he had to apologise later on. Despite this dirty game, when the Mission proposed a united India with one federal government, the large hearted Jinnah accepted it for the greater good but Nehru as the president of the Congress rejected the Cabinet Mission Plan by stating, “We are not bound by a single thing except that we had decided for the moment to go to the Constituent Assembly”, making Maulana Azad to comment that Nehru’s statement was “one of those most unfortunate events which changed the course of history”. Nehru’s political biographer, Michael Breecher found his utterances “the most fiery and provocative” in his four decades of public life, and to the Hindu historian Bipan Chandra, “Nehru’s approach to the communal problem proved to be a complete failure because of its very impracticability”.

It is possible to conjecture that had the ‘impractical’ Nehru been not catapulted to the presidentship of Congress by unseating of Azad by Gandhi, “the super-president of the Congress” — who had formally left the party in 1943 yet continued to pull strings from behind — the history of the subcontinent might have been different. The true colours of Gandhi, the “apostle of non-violence” came to the fore when he intensely lobbied with Wavell to install Congress in power in the Interim Government after the League had withdrawn the acceptance of the Cabinet Mission Plan as a result of Nehru’s rash statement. During a meeting with Wavell, Gandhi insisted that “force should be used against the Muslims if they resisted against the Congress government”. This shows that Gandhi was willing to bid goodbye to his creed of non-violence to acquire power.

Wavell, who initially, had a high opinion of ‘Mahatma’, was aghast. An entry in his ‘Viceroy’s Journal’ summarises this evolution in the Gandhian thought: “Gandhi at the end exposed Congress policy of domination more nakedly than ever before. The more I see that old man, the more I regard him as an unscrupulous old hypocrite; he would shrink from no violence and blood-letting to achieve his ends though he would naturally prefer to do so by chicanery and false show of mildness and friendship.”

The writer is an academic and journalist. He can be reached at [email protected]