The Third
Side of the Partition Coin
By Dr. Dawood Khan
Chicago, IL
There’s a third side
to the coin that the Partition debate seems to
ignore: the British.
The British did ‘divide-and rule’,
and did it quite successfully for two centuries
over the Indo-Pak subcontinent. And, we not only
had the kind of homegrown ‘diversity’
such a policy needs but also provided it generously.
The seeds of communalism were already in the fertile
Indian soil, long before partition. The British
couldn’t have ignored them. Besides, you
don’t build an empire, a far- flung one
at that covering nearly a quarter of the world’s
population and area, without a well-trained eye
for such pathology and an ability to exploit it.
We already had slogans: “Quit India”
(Congress, 1942) and “Divide and Quit”
(Muslim League, 1943), both of which caused, directly
or indirectly, sectarian violence and bloodshed.
Both sides had extremists. We had satyagrahas
and “Direct Action” riots. We had
a vocal minority that felt increasingly alienated,
and found the majority’s promises unacceptable.
No matter who initiated or precipitated it or
how, such complex situations often have shared
responsibility. To consider them otherwise is
just politically naïve. We can keep pointing
fingers at each other, calling names, throwing
around poorly-understood, inflammatory labels,
and we seem to have an inexhaustible reservoir
of all this, even after some 58 years. We can
continue to wallow in the same, or bury the hatchet,
learn from our mistakes and start a bold new page
as neighbors with a shared heritage.
When Clement Attlee (Labor) was elected Prime
Minister of Britain in 1945 (soon after the WWII),
he decided that India was strategically indefensible,
and Britain could no longer afford to govern it.
He also did not believe that Britain had the right
to govern it. He sent a Cabinet Mission to India
to work out a plan for a Hindu-Muslim working
together in undivided India. All parties accepted
it initially because the plan provided for protection
of Muslim minority rights, but after the elections
for the new Assembly, Nehru decided not to have
anything to do with the new government. Jinnah
also refused and called for Direct Action on August
16, 1946 (a year to the day before Partition).
Amid all this, Attlee appointed Louis Mountbatten
as Viceroy to India in March 1947 (just five months
before the Partition). He had instructions to
keep India united if at all possible. Attlee had
even set a deadline for the freedom of India:
“No later than June 1948.” Mountbatten
did one-up, and suggested an earlier date and
swifter transfer of power. He also thought the
confederal proposals were essentially unworkable
and acceded in principle the partition of the
subcontinent. He presented a Partition plan to
all parties on June 3, 1947, which they accepted.
To Mountbatten’s annoyance, it seems Jinnah
told him (according to Alan Campbell-Johnson,
viceroy’s press secretary), “I do
not agree, but I accept.” Basically, no
one liked Partition. It wasn’t just one
of the most desirable options, it was “the
only solution,” as Campbell-Johnson puts
it, and thus they “accepted what they got.”
Then, to devise a partition plan, Attlee appointed
a distinguished barrister, Cyril Radcliffe, who
had never been to the subcontinent, and had no
first hand knowledge of the situation, the problems
or the people. He was chosen because he was ‘unbiased’,
and was expected to remain so. He was provided
with the services of four judges, two Hindu, two
Muslim, who almost constantly fought along the
partisan lines and weren’t much help to
him at all. Radcliffe had the 1943 census (the
figures were probably old, and never confirmed)
and the maps of the region (perhaps out-dated).
Radcliffe’s former press secretary, Christopher
Beaumont, thinks Radcliffe had an “impossible
assignment.” When Radcliffe met Mountbatten
for the first time, he learned that he actually
had 36 days. Still, Radcliffe managed to complete
the task on 13 August, 1947, two days ahead of
schedule.
Karl Meyer, a veteran journalist, scholar and
a long-time editorial board member of the New
York Times, is quite critical of the British in
his book “The Dust of Empires: The Race
for Mastery in the Asian Heartland” (May
2003). He concludes that the ‘shabby’
and ‘hasty’ departure of the British,
together with Mountbatten-Nehru friendship (particularly
between Mountbatten’s wife, Edwina and Nehru),
turned a bad outcome into worse. Meyer rejects
the view (promoted by the movie Gandhi) that Jinnah
and the Muslim League were “the only culprits.”
In Meyer’s view the “real villain”
was Mountbatten, “in collusion” with
Nehru, and Jinnah was “nearly blameless
by comparison.” He thinks Mountbatten’s
method of drawing borders between these countries
was “at best arbitrary, at worst reckless.
His timetable for partition left the Indian army
on the sideline when communal slaughter began.
Some people in Britain were very critical of Mountbatten,
right from the beginning, suggesting that his
friendship with Nehru interfered with fairness.
Mountbatten supporters obviously disagree. There
is no way that the issue can now be independently
reviewed, because Radcliffe destroyed all the
records when he completed the assignment, refused
any discussion of his Commission’s work,
and never went back to the subcontinent again.
His aide, Christopher Beaumont, did however make
some things clear in 1992. He gave the British
conservative newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, a
copy of the memo he had prepared on the deliberations
of the Radcliffe Commission, which he had already
donated to All Souls College at Oxford. Beaumont
confirms that borders were secretly redrawn, to
Pakistan’s disadvantage, particularly in
case of Ferozepore, a 400 sq. mile area, where
the canal head-water controlled irrigation in
Bikaner. Nehru somehow got the wind of the still-confidential
work, and he and Maharajah of Bikaner appealed
to the Viceroy. The Viceroy then asked Radcliffe
for a private lunch (his second and last meeting
with him), and after that, Radcliffe promptly
altered the border he had originally drawn. According
to this Beaumont memo, “This episode reflects
great discredit on Mountbatten and Nehru.”
Two other major cases in which Mountbatten intervened
were: Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) and Gurdaspur
District. Despite a higher non-Muslim population,
Radcliffe had CHT going to Pakistan and Gurdaspur
(with a Muslim majority) to India. In Radcliffe’s
initial proposal, Gurdaspur District was in Pakistan,
but it was changed later because of Mountbatten’s
intevention.
It’s not that the British are suddenly forthcoming
with their criticism now. One of the Indian supporters
of the British also had some tough words. In the
second volume of his autobiography “Thy
Hand, Great Anarch !” Nirad Chaudhuri says:
(i) “ … then an apologia emerged ex
post facto which is the most shameless sophistry
I have read anywhere. It was argued, and is still
being argued, that if the British had not left
– the manner of their leaving being conveniently
glossed over – there would have been uprisings
and therefore loss of life far exceeding what
was seen. Now, the conjuring of the hypothetical
bogeys which no one can prove or deny is the best
defense of every coward who yields at the first
sign of trouble.” (ii) [and this is on Jinnah],
“I must set down at this point that Jinnah
is the only man who came out with success and
honor from the ignoble end of the British Empire
in India. He never made a secret of what he wanted,
never prevaricated, never compromised, and yet
succeeded in inflicting unmitigated defeat on
the British Government and the Indian National
Congress. He achieved something which not even
he could have believed to be within reach in 1946.”
India received most of the 562 scattered princely
states, among other things. Karl Meyer is quite
astute when he says there’s some “provincial
unfinished quality” about Pakistan: 7 different
Constitutions, not a single Chief of the State
completing his/her term, or managing to have a
peaceful transfer of power. Meyer thinks Pakistan
got the “loser’s share of the Raj
spoils.” India did receive most of everything
(even most of 562 princely states). Out of the
thousands of Indian Civil servants and other elite,
Meyers notes Pakistan got just a tiny fraction:
about 100 Civil Service and national police, supported
by 50 British civil servants, 11 Indian army officers
that “overnight had to create Pakistan’s
administration, judicial and diplomatic realms.
Jinnah was a complex character, much different
from Nehru and Gandhi. He was autocratic, aloof,
much anglicized and distrustful of the British
attitude toward Muslims. His relationship with
Mountbatten was stiff, frosty, and decidedly unfriendly
(Mountbatten had some choice words, including
“awfully cold,” to describe an arrogant
Jinnah). It’s hard to say whether this worked
against his cause, but it didn’t quite earn
him the brownie-points that Nehru seems to have
gotten plenty of. He, according to some, was Pakistan’s
Charles de Gaulle: haughty, impervious, nationalistic
and the country, personified.
The question, again, is not whether the British
withdrawal was hasty: In the eyes of the Indian
group, it was long over-due. As to the British,
they saw the light and had their own deadline,
announced well in advance. The important questions
are: (i) Whether, in haste to withdraw, did the
British thoroughly explore ALL options ? (ii)
Were adequate security precautions taken to protect
the public at large from the inevitable violence
and massacre? The answer to both questions is
probably NO ! Among facile rationalizations offered
are: Since independence was announced before Partition,
it was up to the new governments of India and
Pakistan to keep public order; no large population
movements were suspected; the plan did call for
the protection of minorities in both countries,
but both of them failed; and some Mountbatten
supporters hypothesize that by rushing, Mountbatten
actually saved more lives than those who died
on the eve of Partition, and had he delayed the
partion/independence any longer, there would have
been a huge civil war, with much greater loss
of life. As a rationale, this is unbecoming and
bizarre.
For another, non-political perspective from one
of my favorite British poets, W. H. Auden (‘Partition’,
May 1966):
Unbiased at least he* was when he arrived on his
mission,
Having never set eyes on this land he was to partition
Between two peoples fanatically at odds,
With their different diets and incompatible gods.
“Time,” they had briefed him in London,
“is short***. It’s too late
for mutual reconciliation or rational debate:
the only solution now lies in separation.
The Viceroy** thinks, as you will see from his
letter,
That the less you are seen in his company the
better,
So we’ve arranged to provide you other accommodations.
We can give you four judges, two Muslim, two Hindu,
To consult with, but the final solution must rest
with you.”
Shut up in a lovely mansion, with police night
and day
Patrolling the gardens to keep assassins away,
He got down to work, to the task of settling the
fate
Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out
of date
And the Census# returns almost certainly incorrect,
But there was no time to inspect
Contested areas. The weather was frightfully hot
And a bout of dysentery kept him constantly on
the trot,
But in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers
decided,
A continent for better or worse divided.
The next day he sailed for England where he quickly
forgot
The case as a good lawyer must. Return he would
not
Afraid, as he told his Club, that he might get
shot.”
[* Sir Cyril Radcliffe, British barrister, made
Viscount in 1962, died 1977, but the controversy
continues ; was appointed by then British PM,
Clement Attlee (Labor); ** Louis Mountbatten,
also the 1st Governor General of independent India;
*** He had less than 6 weeks and presented the
‘Radcliffe Award’, the Partition plan,
in about 36 days; # of 1943
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