Partition of INDIA

The Background 

The great writer and philosopher Mohammad Iqbal was the first to propose the idea of a separate Muslim state. In 1930 at the convention of Muslim League of Allahabad, he talked about the merger of all the Muslim dominated states into a single state. However, he wanted the proposed Muslim state to remain within the Indian federation.

Before this some of the Cambridge Muslim scholars led by one Rahmat Ali demanded the creation of a separate nation comprising Punjab, NWFP, Sindh and Baluchistan. He named it Pakistan.

By 1940 the Muslim League called for the grouping of the Muslim majority states in the North West and east into independent states. However, the movement of Pakistan gained momentum when Jinnah took it up.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah had started his political career in the Congress and then shifted to the Muslim League after its formation; still he was sympathetic to the Congress and was instrumental in bringing the Congress and the League together during the 1920s. However, by 1930 he started talking about the fate of minority community in a united India and that the Congress was insensitive to Muslim interests.

Two Nation Theory  

In 1940 at the Lahore session of the League, Jinnah in his presidential speech gave the famous Two Nation Theory. His Two-Nation Theory was rejected by several prominent Muslim leaders such as Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. Gandhi was also totally against the Two Naion theory, as was the whole Congress leadership.

However from 1940 the demand for a separate Pakistan became central to the League’s policy. The British government took full advantage of the situation. It adopted the policy of encouraging the League’s ideas in order to weaken the national struggle.

Wavell Plan  

The Muslim League rejected the Wavell Plan because they wanted that all Muslim representatives in the Council should be the nominees of the League. It wanted to have veto power and absolute custodian of the Muslim representation in India.

Elections and the Interim Government  

The elections to the central and the provincial assemblies happened in the winter of 1945, which saw Congress winning 57 out of 102 seats in the Central Assembly and got a majority in the provincial assemblies of all provinces except Bengal, Sindh and Punjab which went to the Muslim League. The Muslim League managed to get about 90 percent votes of the Muslims and won 30 reserved minority seats in the Central Assembly and formed provincial governments in Bengal and Sindh. The elections clearly established the League as the sole representative of the Muslims. From now onwards they wanted nothing but partition.

Next year after the Cabinet Mission’s limited success, the British government decided to hold elections for the Constituent Assembly. The Congress managed to win 201 seats and the Muslim League 73 seats. The Congress formed the interim government under the leadership of Nehru, which made the League uncomfortable. The League was mainly offended because it wanted all Muslims in the interim government to be from its leaders. They did not agree to the appointment of any Muslims, even from the Congress quota.

From now onward Muslim League started to create troubles for the interim government and was non cooperative.  It accused the Viceroy and withdrew its acceptance of the Cabinet Mission. On August 16, 1946 the Muslim League gave a call for the ‘Direct Action’ to achieve Pakistan. The call was followed by horrible bloodshed and communal riots in Calcutta, Bombay and Noakhali leaving more than 5000 people dead within a couple of days.

At last, Lord Wavell persuaded the League to join the interim government by October 1946. The Muslim League joined the interim government and its leader Liakat Ali Khan got finance portfolio, but its intentions were not good since the beginning, as they had accepted the invite to join the interim government to secure foothold in the government to fight for Pakistan. Finally, the League recommended the dissolution of the Assembly and boycotted the interim government. It didn’t join any of its sitting and intensified its agitation. It brought down the Congress-Akali coalition government in Punjab.

Mountbatten Plan  

Lord Mountbatten took charge as Viceroy in March 1947 with a sole objective of independence of India. As soon as he took charge he started to discuss with the leaders of Congress and the Muslim League for transfer of power.

By this time it was clear that the country was heading towards a partition, a Hindu majority India and a Muslim majority Pakistan. Congress leaders were resigned to fate, as they believed this was inevitable, and could save the country from civil war. Congress leaders decided that a stronger central authority without autonomous Pakistan was better than a bigger state with autonomous Pakistan and  a weak central government, as was suggested by some leaders (to have Pakistan work as autonomous body under the Indian Union).

A Bill, called the Indian Independence Act was passed in the British Parliament on 1 July, 1947 deciding that India would be partitioned into two dominions – India and Pakistan, to be created on 14 and 15 August 1947.

The Partition  

The British authority now decided to work out the details of the Mountbatten Plan. A Boundary Commission under the British lawyer Radcliff was formed to mark the boundary lines of the two states of India and Pakistan. The Provincial Assemblies of Bengal and Punjab were given the right to meet separately and as expected they voted for the partition of Punjab and Bengal. A plebiscite was done for Assam, which chose to be in India. There were lot of resentment from both Hindus and Muslims for loss of some parts. The Hindus resented the loss of Lahore, Khulna and Chittagong while the Muslims resented the loss of Gurdaspur, Murshidabad, Nadia and Calcutta.

Nevertheless, the country was partitioned and got independence on the night of 14 and 15 August. Pakistan was independent on 14 and India on 15 of August. The partition was made so hastily that it created a great communal problem. Lakhs of people were forced to leave their ancestor’s land and migrate to a new country as refugee.

Between September 1947 and March 1948 a little more than one million people crossed over from the new state of Pakistan to East Punjab in India on foot, over one and a half million by rail, 364000 by motor transport and 28000 by air. 

The worst sufferers were the refugees from East Bengal who crossed over to the Indian state of West Bengal. The exodus of the Hindus from East to West Bengal was massive, nearly one million. By contrast the number of Muslims who left West Bengal after partition was relatively very small. Between 197 and 1967 six million Hindus crossed over to West Bengal.