At his meeting with the Cabinet delegation and Wavell on 24 May 1946, Bengal Governor Burrows said that the Muslim League ministers of Bengal were not very keen Pakistanis and that both Hindus and Muslims had felt relieved on the publication of the Cabinet Mission Plan that Bengal would not be partitioned. He added that one of the Muslim seats in the Constituent Assembly was likely to go to a non-Leaguer of Fazlul Huq's party who might align himself with the Congress. If the Europeans did not vote, the Congress might muster 35 supporters in a body of 70 in the Bengal-Assam group.(127) And yielding to the pressure of the Congress, the Europeans decided not to vote. Could anybody in his senses believe that the Muslim League could impose a constitution on Assam which would not allow it to opt out of the group after the first elections?
The Congress leaders' real objection was not to the denial of provincial autonomy to Assam or the NWFP. What they really objected to was the emergence of groups or sub-federations, which would render the centre weak. Their policy was basically opposed to the essence of the Cabinet Mission scheme -- decentralization of powers and a weak centre. As they had chosen the royal road of negotiations to attain the goal of self-government, they were prepared to settle for an India minus certain parts in the north-west and the east. But they were not willing to make any compromise on the issue of a strong centre -- a strong centre which would not be restricted to the exercise of merely three subjects. That is why on the pleas of upholding the sacred principle of provincial autonomy and Sikh interests, they torpedoed the Cabinet Mission plan. But they, especially Gandhi, manoeuvred as long as possible to have a monopoly of power in an undivided India within the British empire or commonwealth.
The Congress leaders demanded the dismissal of the League members from the interim government and threatened to resign if the demand was not complied with. The League refused to resign on the ground that the Congress too had not accepted the Cabinet Mission's scheme without qualification. The withdrawal of either the Congress or the League from the Government was likely to lead to a widespread communal conflagration. On the other hand, despite communal holocausts, the united struggles of the workers and peasants in different parts of India forged ahead.
On 20 February 1947 Attlee announced in British parliament their "definite intention" to transfer "power to responsible Indian hands" by June 1948. He stated that if a constitution was not "worked out by a fully representative [constituent] Assembly" by June 1948, the British government "will have to consider to whom the powers of the central Government in British India should be handed over, on the due date, whether as a whole to some form of central Government for British India, or in some areas to the existing provincial Governments" or in some other way. As regards the Indian states, the British government did not "intend to hand over their powers and obligations under paramountcy to any Government of British India". Attlee assured British commercial and industrial interests in India that they "can look forward to a fair field for their enterprise under the new conditions".(128) The British raj was afraid that the communal monster they had raised might cause irreparable damage to their plan of a "friendly and stable India". They were also afraid of the spectre of Communism. When Attlee asked Lord Mountbatten to become the Viceroy of India, he told him that if power was not transferred quickly, they might find themselves "handing India over not simply to civil war, but to political movements of a definitely totalitarian character".(129) Wavell was replaced by Mountbatten, for the former, as Attlee told the King, lacked "the finesse to negotiate the next step when we must keep the two Indian parties friendly to us all the time".(130)
The fixing of the date of transfer of power had been opposed by some governors like Jenkins of Punjab and Burrows of Bengal as well as by Wavell. They feared that the announcement of a target date "would precipitate a crisis and disorders", that it would intensify the war of succession.(131)
While the announcement was welcomed by the Congress leaders, the fears of Wavell and the governors proved true. There was a scramble for power, particularly in Punjab and the NWFP, and for dismemberment of Bengal. The Punjab Congress-Unionist-Akali coalition became the first casualty. To consolidate its power the League stepped up its campaign and Sir Khizr, heading the coalition, resigned. For some time the Muslims, the Sikhs and the Hindus had been building up private armies and a big communal upheaval was anticipated. From about early March several districts of Punjab became scenes of communal carnage. In the NWFP the Congress ministry survived the Muslim League bid to oust it but its hold on the people had grown considerably weaker(132); and the announcement threw the province into a turmoil. "In Bengal", as Wavell informed Pethick-Lawrence on 22 February, "the Hindu Mahasabha immediately called for the partition of the province. Nehru echoed this view suggesting that once the League and Congress fell out irretrievably (now an imminent prospect), Bengal and the Punjab would have to be partitioned."(131a)
Meeting from 6 to 8 March 1947, the Congress Working Committee urged division of Punjab into a predominantly Muslim part and a predominantly non-Muslim part. Congress president Kripalani declared that "the principle might be applied to Bengal also". Even earlier, on 21 February, the day after Attlee's announcement, Nehru spoke to Wavell "of the possible partition of the Punjab and Bengal..." Enclosing the Working Committee's resolution in a letter to Wavell on 9 March, Nehru stated that "The principle would, of course, apply to Bengal also". In the case of the League's refusal to join them in the constituent assembly "the division of Bengal and Punjab becomes inevitable", Nehru wrote.(133) This momentous decision to vivisect Bengal and Punjab, the homes of about 90 to 100 million people, was made on behalf of the Congress not even by the AICC but by Nehru and a few colleagues of his. The Nehrus never felt that in the provinces they were out to dismember there should be plebiscites to ascertain the views of the people concerned. According to the Nehrus, these national regions should be cut up and shared out with their human chattels between the rival claimants to the British legacy without even the formality of consulting their own men in the two provinces.
Curiously, in the above letter of 9 March to Wavell, Nehru suggested the partition of Bengal and Punjab even if India was not partitioned. Birla's Hindustan Times had raised the same demand which was echoed by Shyamaprasad Mukherjee of the Hindu Mahasabha at a public meeting in New Delhi on 22 April and in his letter to Mountbatten on 2 May. Nehru too in his letter to Mountbatten repeated the same demand on 1 May.(134) What were the economic and political reasons behind this demand? Politically, they wanted to cripple Bengal, which had always rebelled against the Congress high command, despite the fact that there were several factions loyal to the high command. A divided Bengal would be a crippled Bengal. Economically, they sought to have a tight control over West Bengal, which was then the main seat of Marwari comprador capital. Immediately after Attlee's announcement, the Hindu Mahasabha led by Shyamaprasad, which had been totally rejected in the 1945-6 elctions, started an agitation in Bengal for the partition of the province. The Bengal Congress leaders loyal to Patel and Nehru lent their support to it. At the same time a movement to prevent her partition, preserve her integrity and build an undivided Bengal state, which would be free to decide her relations with the rest of India, was launched. The leaders of this movement were Sarat Chandra Bose, who had resigned from the Congress Working Committee; Abul Hashim, general secretary, Bengal Provincial Muslim League; H.S. Suhrawardy, Bengal Premier; and K.S. Ray, leader of the Assembly Congress Party.
Earlier, the Congress leaders on the advice of K. M. Munshi were trying "to circumvent the autonomy of the Sections" and assume control of them by abusing the rule-making powers of the Constituent Assembly.(135)
After assuming office on 23 March 1947 as Viceroy, Mountbatten soon realized that the Cabinet Mission scheme could not be revived as the difference between the Congress and the League over the grouping system could not be reconciled. The Viceroy and his British staff drafted a plan which gave to the representatives of the provinces (the NWFP after a fresh election) and the Muslim-majority and non-Muslim majority areas of Punjab and Bengal the right to decide whether they would join the existing constituent assembly or group together in one or more constituent assemblies or stand out independently and act as their own constituent assembly. Among the main features of the plan were: Compulsory grouping was avoided to meet the objections of the Congress to this feature of the Cabinet Mission Plan; the right of the provinces to decide their own fate was recognized; Bengal and Punjab would be free to decide whether they would remain undivided with their integrity intact and free to decide their relations with the rest of India.
The plan also envisaged that "the constituent assemblies, if more than one, should also create machinery for joint consultation among themselves on matters of common concern, particularly Defence, and for the negotiation of agreements in respect of these matters". The native states after the lapse of British paramountcy would be "free to arrange by negotiation with those parts of British India to which power will be demitted whatever measure of association they consider to be in the best interests of their people".(136)
This plan was shown to Nehru and Jinnah. Nehru approved of it except for his objection to fresh election in the NWFP and over the procedure concerning representation of Baluchistan, while Jinnah objected to the possibility of partition of Punjab and Bengal. On 1 May Lord Ismay, Mountbatten's chief of staff, took this plan to the British cabinet.(137)
But the Congress Working Committee, which met early in May for several days with Gandhi attending, took a completely different stand. In an interview to the Associated Press of America, Patel proposed two alternatives. All power should be transferred to the Central Government "as it now stands", which should function as a dominion government with "the Viceroy standing out". "If there were conflicts in the Cabinet on any question, the majority would rule." The other alternative was that power should be transferred to the two constituent assemblies -- the existing one and the other composed of Muslim League members already elected. Patel affirmed: "...Congress would like to have a strong centre. Apart from external troubles, it was absolutely essential that there should be a strong army, and for defence a strong central government".
When at Simla on 10 May Mountbatten showed the plan with minor amendments made by the British cabinet to Nehru, who was his guest, Nehru was completely upset and rejected it outright on the plea that it would lead to the balkanization of India. Drawing Mountbatten's attention to Patel's interview, he said that it was "a clear expression of the Congress viewpoint". "The present draft", claimed Mountabatten at a meeting attended by Nehru on 11 May, "did not differ in essentials from that [approved by Nehru on 30 April]."(138)
To obtain a monopoly of power (of course, under the British umbrella), the Congress leaders opposed the plan that the provinces should initially be successor states and that the central authority or authorities should emerge on the voluntary coming together of the provinces -- their voluntary agreement to part with some powers in favour of some central authority -- the essence of genuine federalism. Every province (or national region like Andhra, Tamil Nadu, Bengal, Maharashtra etc.) was big enough to constitute an independent state -- many of them far bigger and more populous than most of the states of Western or Central Europe. Instead of accepting the federal principle to which they often paid lip-service, they killed the provincial choice and insisted on the partition of India on artificial, religious lines: the national regions or parts of them were coerced to join either Hindustan or Pakistan.
Nehru's violent reaction persuaded Mountbatten to ask V.P. Menon, the Reforms Commissioner, to draft another plan, which he did consulting Patel on the phone. The outline of this plan had been drawn up either late in December 1946 or early in January 1947, when Menon had had a long discussion with Patel. Patel had agreed with Menon that if partition and dominion status were accepted, there would be many advantages. Such an agreement would guarantee a peaceful transfer of power, earn Britain's friendship and goodwill, ensure continuity in respect of civil and military administration and "enable the Congress to have at one and the same time a strong central Government, able to withstand the centrifugal tendencies all too apparent at the moment..." In Patel's presence Menon had dictated the outline of this plan and sent it to the Secretary of State.(139)
Nehru was pleased to see the new plan which would provide for "a strong central government" for combating "centrifugal tendencies" (that is, the demands of the different nationalities to decide their own fate).
Communicating to the British cabinet on 8 May the desire of Nehru and Patel "for a form of early Dominion Status (but under a more suitable name)", Mountbatten observed: "This is the greatest opportunity ever offered to the Empire." Nehru told the Viceroy and his staff on 10 May that he was "most anxious...to have the closest relations with the British Commonwealth.... He did not intend to talk about `Dominion Status' openly because of the many suspicions. He wanted to prepare the ground."(140)
Jinnah and the League were equally anxious that Pakistan should be allowed to join the British Commonwealth. On 26 April Jinnah told Mountbatten that "it was not a question of asking to be admitted, it was a question of not being kicked out".(141)
On 23 May Attlee wired to the Dominion Prime Ministers that the Congress leaders
"said that though, in order to secure assent of their party, they would have publicly to stress the fact that it is inherent in Dominion Status, that Dominion can secede from the Commonwealth..., in their view Hindustan would not ultimately leave the Commonwealth, once Dominion Status had been accepted."
He expected the whole of India, "divided into two or possibly three independent states", to remain in the Commonwealth and hoped that
"[the] example set by India would be likely to influence Burma, and probably later other parts of the Empire to remain in the Commonwealth."I must emphasize the need for extreme secrecy on this matter because if it became known that Congress leaders had privately encouraged this idea, the possibility of their being able to bring their party round to it would be serious[ly] jeopardized."(142)
While sending the new plan to London on 13 May, Mountbatten wrote to the Secretary of State:
"The issues...are limited to joining existing Constituent Assembly or joining together in a new Constituent Assembly. I have omitted choice to Provinces of standing out independently."
But the India and Burma Committee of the British cabinet was in favour of giving the provinces, particularly to Bengal, "the option of remaining independent of either Hindustan or Pakistan, if they so desired". Earlier, on 4 March 1947, a memorandum by the Secretary of State for India took note of the possibility of transfer of power to "three authorities": Pakistan, Hindustan (including Assam) and Bengal. In a memorandum, dated 17 May 1947, Earl Listowel, then Secretary of State, noted that "there are strong practical arguments for giving the third option of remaining united and framing its own constitution certainly to Bengal and probably also to the Punjab". He was "in favour of giving the third option to all the areas which have a right of choice."(143)
But on 27 May Nehru gave an interview to News Chronicle, in which he bitterly opposed the proposal to keep Bengal undivided and outside Hindustan and Pakistan. In the meantime an agreement had been reached between Bengali leaders -- Sarat Bose, H.S. Suhrawardy, Abul Hashim, K.S. Roy and others -- that Bengal should be a "free state" and would decide its relations with the rest of India. It had also been agreed to form immediately a coalition ministry, to adopt a modified form of joint electorate and to constitute a body to prepare a constitution for Bengal. On behalf of the Muslim League Jinnah and Liaquat Ali welcomed the formation of undivided Bengal as a separate state outside Hindustan and Pakistan.(144)
As Mountbatten told the Viceroy's staff meeting on 31 May on his return from London after consultation with the British cabinet, the British government "had declared themselves willing to agree to an independent Bengal -- in fact willing to agree to any solution for Bengal with which the leaders of the principal parties agreed". Though the British government and the Muslim League were willing, the move to preserve the integrity of Bengal was frustrated by the Congress leaders(145) and Bengal was dismembered resulting in endless tragedies for her people. My personal experience agrees with what V.P. Menon wrote:
"In fact, it was when the West Pakistan officials had established themselves in East Bengal that the exodus of Hindus began in earnest. It has always been my belief that the East Bengal Muslims, if left to themselves, would have been content to live with their Hindu brethren as one family..."(145a)
There is no doubt that Nehru-Patel-Birla loyalists in Bengal would have been trounced if a plebiscite was held, though a section of the Hindu petty bourgeoisie and upper stratum, mainly in West Bengal, was swayed by the communal propaganda. Sarat Bose was right when he wrote to Gandhi that if a referendum was taken, even the Hindus would have voted by a large majority against the dismemberment of Bengal. Bose's move to prevent it had the support of a section of Congressmen, the Forward Bloc and the CPI. Jogendranath Mandal, an influential leader of the scheduled castes, opposed the partition of Bengal and demanded a referendum on the issue. On 28 May 1947, the Working Committee of the Bengal Provincial Muslim League left it to Jinnah "to negotiate and settle the future constitution on behalf of the Muslims of India as a whole" and affirmed that "the Muslims of Bengal shall stand by his decision".(145b) Jinnah, as we have seen, was in favour of an undivided Bengal outside Hindustan and Pakistan.
It may be noted that in a by-election to the West Bengal Legislative Assembly in 1949, when the West Bengal ministry was packed with Nehru's and Patel's men including Bidhan Roy and Nalini Sarkar, Sarat Bose defeated the Congress candidate by a more than three to one margin, despite the determination of Nehru and Patel to defeat him. Bose easily won in the teeth of the opposition of these men though he himself was away in Europe during the election campaign. Earlier, at the end of 1945, he had won the election to the Central Legislative Assembly with 7,290 votes against 88 votes polled by his Hindu Mahasabha rival.
But Bengal's fate was decided by big Hindu compradors and their front men. It was the Communist Party that could foil the conspiracy of the reactionaries by organizing and mobilizing the masses, but it was too weak for such a role.
The two parts of Bengal, interdependent and forming together an integrated country for centuries were both reduced to misery and wretchedness, and Bengal was crippled as a result of the partition. The full story of how she was dismembered and in whose interests is yet to be written. The new plan, known as the Mountbatten Plan, dividing India on religious lines and awarding dominion status to two new states -- the Indian Union and Pakistan -- was adopted formally on 3 June 1947 by the three parties. On 5 June B.M. Birla, G.D. Birla's brother, replying to Patel, congratulated him, for "things have turned out according to your desire.... I am very happy that the Bengal partition question has also been settled by you". He suggested that "we should consider Hindustan as a Hindu State with Hinduism as the State religion" and that Shyamaprasad (who was not even a Congress member) should be made the leader of the West Bengal Congress Assembly Party, that is, chief minister of the new province of West Bengal to be formed.(146)
Michael Brecher, Nehru's American biographer and admirer, writes that the consensus among the people, including Nehru, whom he saw, was that "a united India was within the realm of possibility as late as 1946". He adds that "one must assume" that the partition of India "was a voluntary choice of Nehru, Patel and their colleagues". It seems that "a united India was within the realm of possibility" as late as April 1947. On 14 April Birla's Hindustan Times reported that Jinnah was willing not to press his "demand for a division of India's armed forces and her financial resources in order to create Pakistan", "if the Congress would reiterate its acceptance of the Cabinet Mission's proposals and of the British Government's statement of 6 December". It appears from Nehru's letter of 15 April to Mountbatten that this report in the Hindustan Times was correct.
Explaining the reasons why he made this voluntary choice, Nehru told Brecher that "a federal India with far too much power in the federating units" would be "a very weak India". According to him, "A larger India [i.e., an undivided India] would have constant troubles, constant disintegrating pulls."(147)
Though the Congress leaders professed too much their adherence to the principle of provincial autonomy, they trampled it underfoot when the test came. On 14 July 1947, while presenting a report of the Order of Business Committee at the fourth session of the Indian Constituent Assembly, K.M. Munshi, one of the main architects of the Indian Constitution, said that they were free to have a federation of their own choice, with as strong a centre as they could make it and that there would now be no Provinces with residuary powers. Earlier, moving the resolution on 14 June at the AICC meeting for the acceptance of the 3 June plan, Govind Ballabh Pant argued that it "would assure an Indian Union with a strong Centre" and that it "was better than the Cabinet Mission plan with its groupings and sections and its weak Centre".(148)
When the choice was between a united, federal India with autonomy for the federating units and an India minus certain parts but with a strong, unitary government, the Congress leaders opted for the latter. A strong centre was the need of the Indian big bourgeoisie aspiring to dominate the Indian Union and the Indian Ocean region under the umbrella of the Anglo-American powers. It was this ambition to domineer over and exploit smaller and weaker nations which made partition inevitable. Before we discuss this point, we shall refer to a few other things.
It has been noted that Gandhi had been prepared to agree to partition till early 1946. But he struck an increasingly militant note after the Cabinet Mission came. He spoke many times of his preparedness to face a blood-bath. Even on 1 April 1947 he said to Mountbatten: "The blood-bath must be faced and accepted."
Yet on 3 April, during his interview with Mountbatten, Gandhi "agreed that if the Muslim League were completely intransigent, partition might have to come..." Even though on 1 May the Congress Working Committee resolved in favour of partition with the benefit of his "presence and advice" (to quote Nehru), he went on making militant speeches welcoming chaos, an armed conflict, "the worst kind of violence", etc. Toward the end of May Gandhi's speeches at public prayer meetings, expressing his determination to resist partition, became particularly violent. On 30 May he asserted: "We must make it clear that even if we all have to die or the whole country is reduced to ashes, Pakistan will not be conceded under duress." On 31 May he stated:
"I said yesterday that we would not let Pakistan be formed by threat of force even if the whole of India were burnt down..."(149)
When Gandhi was making these fiery speeches, which were being flashed throughout India by the daily press, parts of India were literally burning. Communal fires were then ravaging extensive areas in Punjab and communal frenzy had been raised to a fever pitch by the vested interests.
Curiously, when the mahatma was hurling threats in public, he was conveying in private an impression to Acting Viceroy John Colville, who "had recently seen Gandhi", that Gandhi had no "intention to sabotage the present plan" -- the plan envisaging the emergence of Pakistan.
V.P. Menon, who had become Patel's man, informed the Viceroy's staff meeting on 31 May that "it was Sardar Patel's opinion that not too much account should be taken of the recent utterances of Mr Gandhi in favour of a united India". On 3 June when "Jinnah and Liaquat Ali insinuated that Gandhi was inciting the people to do as they liked", Patel assured them and the Viceroy that "Gandhi would abide loyally by any decision taken".(150)
So it was Gandhi who spoke in favour of partition on communal lines at the meeting of the Congress Working Committee on 3 June (within three days of his last "even-if-the-whole-of-India-were-burnt-down" speech) and used his influence to persuade the AICC on 14 June to accept it.(151)