Partition
Players’ Politics: IV
By Dr. Khan Dawood
L. Khan
Chicago, IL
Gandhi’s total pacifism in face of WWII
(and Hitler’s atrocities) was not fully
shared by the Congress party, although the party
had also refused to support the British in the
war. Gandhi wrote to the Congress Working committee
on their differences: “For Congress, non-violence
has always been a matter of policy; for me, it
is a creed… Since propagation of non-violence
is the mission of my life, I must pursue it in
all weathers.” Since Jinnah and the League
supported the British in the war, their position
received a distinct boost, while the Congress
remained mired in explanations.
Jinnah had called for ‘Direct Action’
(16 August 1946), but that was after the WWII
(not during it). That call came just one year
to the date before partition – when all
else had failed. While he was in London, for meetings
with the Attlee government, Jinnah publicly declared
that he “shared” Churchill’s
apprehensions “regarding the possibility
of civil war and riots in India.”
This was interpreted as a warning – Pakistan
or civil war. Congress had been demanding “Quit
India” for four years; the timing of this
demand (8 August 1942) angered the Churchill government,
because then Japan had been threatening an attack
on India. The Congress party wanted the British
troops to fight the Japanese and defend, but must
leave immediately thereafter. The British quelled
the disturbances that followed the “Quit
India” movement by arresting Gandhi and
the Congress Working Committee the next day. Jinnah
opposed the Congress call-to-action because, to
him, it was “to coerce the British Government
to surrender to a Congress Raj” while the
British, under direct German attack, were preoccupied
with WWII.
Ayesha Jalal (‘The Sole Spokesman’),
quoted in ‘The Oxford History of British
Empire’, tells us that “Jinnah might
have settled for something less than a separate
state provided he had parity at the center, which
the Congress would never have accepted.”
Apart from Jinnah and his doctors, no one knew
that the aging and gaunt Muslim, an inveterate
smoker, had serious health problems. Wavell (a
former Viceroy) thought it was pleurisy, but had
the British or others known in 1946-47 how serious
his ailment (TB or lung cancer) really was, they
could have easily waited it out by extending the
process. Had this been the case, there would have
been no partition and no Pakistan 58 years ago.
Gandhi was serious about the Congress forming
a government with the Muslim League, and even
advised Mountbatten, in their very first meeting,
to invite Jinnah, as the first Prime Minister
of undivided India. To the Viceroy, the suggestion
was “undoubtedly mad,” and he never
even raised it with Jinnah. It was roundly ridiculed
and denounced, and vehemently by both the emotional
and charismatic, Nehru and the pragmatist and
nationalist, Vallabhai Patel, the future PM and
Home Minister, respectively. Patel was most responsible
for bringing the princely states after partition,
by force or negotiations, into the India’s
fold. Gandhi was often criticized by ultraconservative
Hindus for making friendly overtures toward Muslims,
in general, and a fellow Gujrati, “Jinnah
bhai,” in particular. And, when he began
reciting verses from the Qur’an in this
addresses and temples, he was ridiculed as “Mohammed
Gandhi” and “Slave of Jinnah”
and even accused as a “traitor.” The
opposition to his ways became so intense that
a radical Hindu nationalist killed him (30 January
1948), just months after the partition.
Gandhi was a bundle of contradictions, both in
his personal life and political views. His ‘autobiography’
mentions quite a few instances. Others are brutally
pointed out by V. S. Naipaul in “India:
A Wounded Civilization” and “An Area
of Darkness,” and in other articles including
Grenier (above), David Lewis Schaefer (‘What
did Gandhi do ? One Sided Pacifist’, April
2003) and other sources (in Parts I & II of
this article). Gandhi would start something with
major plans (a protest, a fast, etc) but would
stop (or change) it suddenly, based on the dictates
of his ‘inner voice’; a pattern that
would confuse and frustrate many of his own supporters.
His ‘holy poverty’ and self-sufficiency
lifestyle was financially supported by billionaire
industrialist, Birla. Sarojini Naidu (the poet)
once joked that it costs a fortune “to keep
Gandhi living in poverty.” Publicly indifferent
to the image, he insisted on going over his secretaries’
records of events and ‘choosing the version
which he liked best’ because, he said: “I
want only one gospel in my life.”
Gandhi spent many hours with Richard Casey (British
Governor of Bengal), discussing many things from
his spinning and weaving to Casey’s irrigation
schemes. This is how Casey summarized these discussions:
“He [Gandhi] is credited by many of his
followers with being a saint and a statesman.
While I [Casey] have a considerable regard for
him [Gandhi], I do not believe that he is either.
What claim has he to statesmanship? There is a
simple criterion for determining whether a man
is a statesman; the passage of time should show
that he was right in his major political decisions
three times out of four. I do not think Mr. Gandhi
can claim this record … Perhaps one might
say that amongst saints he is a statesman and
amongst statesmen, a saint.”
Quite different from Gandhi was the man who was
to become the PM of independent India, Jawaharlal
Nehru. He had a socialist view of nationhood,
different from Gandhi’s ‘orientalist’-religious
view, which called on Indians to build a new society,
‘Ram Rajya’ (the rule of Hindu God,
or of one God for all).
Nehru was a polished Westernized socialist of
a mold different from other Indian politicians:
emotional, complex, liberal and not really a pragmatist
like Vallabhai Patel, the Home Minister.
In addition to “Jinnah’s will,”
it was “Britain’s willingness”
that writers like Sashi Tharoor and others think
“that created Pakistan, not Nehru’s
willfulness.” There may be some support
for the view but I doubt if Nehru’s role
could be so conveniently relegated. Previous parts
to this article included several instances in
the partition process where Nehru’s actions
did a lot instead to damage his dream of keeping
India united.
Nehru was well-versed in history and aware of
reactions to the British Empire and its rule.
As a student, he visited Dublin and thought Sinn
Fein (‘Ourselves Alone’) founded in
1907 was “a most interesting movement.”
He wrote about it (7 November, 1907) to his father
and a known Congress leader, Motilal, “Their
policy is not to beg for favors but to wrest them.
They do not want to fight England by arms but
‘to ignore her, boycott her and quietly
assume the administration of Irish affairs …
They say that if its policy is adopted by the
bulk of the country, English rule will be thing
of the past.” That was when Gandhi was still
in South Africa. Since then, the southern 26 counties
of Ireland became a Republic (1922), but the remaining
6 counties (Northern Ireland) have been under
British control, as the entire Ireland has been
since the Norman invasion of late 12th century.
The basis of this centuries-long conflict has
been not only religious (Catholic vs Protestants)
but also the occupied Irish/Gaelic vs the occupiers
(Normans/English).
There are some very obvious parallels to the Indian
situation, only the Irish-English conflict is
longer, by several centuries, than India-Britain
or India’s Hindu-Muslim. Since about the
mid-1960’s till mid-90’s, an ultra-radical
Irish catholic group, IRA, had been in violent
religious conflict with their own fellow Irish
Protestants
Like Gandhi, Nehru also wanted to keep India united,
but one cannot ignore his own consistency in this.
He was the person responsible for sowing the seeds
of linguistic and regional conflicts that continued
for long (and some still do in certain areas and
on certain matters): the States’ Reorganization
on linguistic basis (1950’s), not too long
after Independence.
He was a Gandhi follower, and believed in ‘non-violence’
and preached it in all international situations,
but during the Hindu-Muslim riots in Bihar, he
even wanted to use airplane to attack the fighting
groups (Gandhi criticized it as the British way);
he was also involved (rightly or not) in war with
China and Pakistan. When, after vacillating for
years, he invaded Goa (a Portugese colony, south
of Mumbai) and took it over (within 26 hours),
it seems President Kennedy (one of Nehru’s
admirers but irked at his frequent criticism)
told the Indian ambassador in Washington, DC:
“India might now consider delivering fewer
self-righteous sermons on non-violence.”
Nehru’s last visit to the US (November 1961)
was, according to President Kennedy, “the
worst state visit he had suffered.” For
what was generally perceived in the West as his
self-righteous hypocrisy in international affairs,
Nehru was often ridiculed and satirized –
even in a poem (‘The Pandit’) By Ogden
Nash:
Just how shall we define a Pandit?/ It’s
not a panda or a bandit./ But rather a Pandora’s
box / of sophistry and paradox. / Though Oxforf
[sic] gave it a degree/ it maintains its neutrality
/ by quietly hating General Clive / as hard as
if he were alive. / On weighty international questions
/ it’s far more Christian than most Christians
;/ It’s ever eager, being meek/ to turn
someone else’s cheek./Oft has it said all
men are brothers, / and set that standard up for
others,/ yet as it spoke it gerrymandered / proclaiming
its private Pakistandard. / The neutral Pandit
walks alone, / and if abroad, it casts a stone,
It walks impartial to the last, / ready at time
to stone a caste. / Abandon I for now the pandit,
/ I fear I do not understand it. (To be continued)
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