A look back at the partition

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 08 Sep 2009 23:21

SwamyG wrote:
surinder wrote:And this discussion is relevant because ... ?
When we were in school we used to talk about politics, cricket and what not. Ultimately all conversations finally landed on the subject of girls. Similarly unless a discussion is about numbers, graphs, missiles, ships, space crafts, air crafts, submarines, guns, ammunition.... it is almost certain that we land up on trying to define India, its aims/objectives/vision ithyadi; and while doing so we tend to touch Indic terms (and Hinduism).

Goody that was a masterpiece.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 08 Sep 2009 23:35

Folks I brought up US role in order to understand if there was any and not go on a long discussion on religion(s).

Thanks, ramana

samuel · Post by **samuel** » 09 Sep 2009 00:17

Kenton J. Clymer, "Quest for Freedom: The United States and India's Independence." Columbia University Press., New York, 1995.
A. Guy Hope, "America and Swaraj: The U.S. Role in Indian Independence," 1968
Gary R. Hess, "America Encounters India, 1941–1947", 1971
B. K. Shrivastava, "Quit India: The American Response to the 1942 Struggle", 1979
B. K. Shrivastava, "Roosevelt, Gandhi, Churchill: America and the Last Phase of India's Freedom Struggle", 1983

shaardula · Post by **shaardula** » 09 Sep 2009 01:17

ahem...
isnt it desirable to help them "reconstruct" their image of a pagan? which is the principle focus of their theoretical bases? where as what we are is only a reflection of that. how are you going to tackle the main issue which is its effect on us, without addressing the motivation and help them understand and readjust their bases?

i may or may not be a pagan. but when somebody is acting upon me because he is made to believe that pagan's much be "reached" and "saved", then instead of explaining to him that i am not pagan, i think the real approach must must be to "help him understand" that, even if i am, there is nothing wrong about it and he is misunderstanding his bases. kindly, gently, lovingly in true nice genteel manner as jesus would have liked it. help them open their heart to love and warmth of the pagan people if not the gods.

we should redefine the terminology and take ownership of it, not run away from it and get into linguistics. just like the african americans did with the word nigger. i dont know about others, but i have never been impressed with a word because of its history.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 09 Sep 2009 01:29

P.C. Alexander in Deccan Chronicle, 9/9/09

Don’t forget British zeal to divide India

September 9th, 2009
By P.C. Alexander

The question as to who was responsible for India’s Partition into two independent countries has been dominating media headlines for the past few weeks. Some writers and political parties have taken the stand that Muhammad Ali Jinnah was mainly responsible for the India’s Partition, while some others have tried to pin the responsibility on Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. A surprising feature of these comments is that most of them are based on the assumption that the British only had a marginal role in the Partition when it happened in 1947 and that the main responsibility lay with India’s leaders.
It is true that after the assumption of power by the Labour Party in Britain in 1945, Britain had been genuine in its intention to quit India without destroying the unity of the country. But this change in the attitude of the British government towards India’s demand for Independence was a post-World War II development — Britain had been left too weak and debilitated to continue its role of imperial domination over India by use of force.
After the revolt of 1857, the British government had appointed a commission to examine what exactly went wrong in their assessment of the situation in India and what should be done to tighten their hold over the country. Lord Elphinstone, governor of Bombay in a note dated May 14, 1858, to the Governor-General had unabashedly advocated the policy of “divide and rule”. He stated: “Divide et impera was the old Roman motto and it should be ours”. Sir John Wood, another ardent colonialist, in a letter to Governor-General Elgin had said in plain words, “We have maintained our power by playing off one party against the other and we must continue to do so”.

The division of Bengal in 1905 and the creation of a new province with a Muslim majority was one of the first measures taken in pursuance of the divide and rule policy. The grant of separate electorates for Muslims and the incorporation of this right in the Indian Councils Act of 1909 were indeed important landmarks in Britain’s efforts at isolating the Muslim community from the Hindus. From then on the course of Hindu-Muslim unity took an altogether new course of confrontation and alienation. By the time the Labour government expressed its support for the idea of Independence for a united India, the mischief had already been done and Jinnah found the field quite congenial to press his demand for Pakistan. If the British government had not openly resorted to its policy of divide and rule, Muslims would not have felt encouraged to make such a demand.
Therefore, “the first accused” in the crime of partitioning India was the British government itself. The “second accused”, of course, is Jinnah who had returned from London in 1934 to take up the leadership of the Muslim League which was then in a state of steady decline. Jinnah was no longer the liberal-minded secularist whom most people in India had admired during the early phase of his political career. In the second phase of his leadership, he deliberately adopted the policy of using “hatred” as a political weapon in his fight against the majority community in India. He systematically and vigorously promoted sentiments of hatred against the Hindus among the Muslims and made them believe that their social and economic backwardness was the result of deliberate attempts by the Hindus to keep them as their subordinates.
However, there was one mistake in Jinnah’s calculations and that was that he had ignored the fact that the logic adopted for the Partition of India as a whole could apply also to the Partition of Punjab and Bengal where the non-Muslims were in a majority in several districts contiguous to India. Jinnah had become the victim of his own dangerous logic and had to eventually be satisfied with the “moth-eaten and truncated” Pakistan he could get from India. As far as partitioning of India on the basis of population figures of Muslims in certain provinces goes, the responsibility should lie with Jinnah along with the British rulers of India.
Now about the charges levelled by some writers against Nehru and Sardar Patel for agreeing to the creation of even a truncated Pakistan. No one denies the fact that Nehru and Sardar Patel agreed to the Partition of India after it became clear that Punjab and Bengal would also be partitioned on the same criterion. For Nehru and Sardar Patel, who had spent their entire adult life fighting for the freedom and unity of India, even a Partition limited to certain districts of Bengal and Punjab was a very bitter pill to swallow. But the policies of the British government and Jinnah had not left then with any other alternative. If the Congress Party did not agree to the Partition even on a limited scale, freedom itself would have got postponed indefinitely as the British would not have left India leaving a power vacuum at the Centre. Further, if Nehru and Patel had not agreed to this limited Partition of the country, they would have been accused of dereliction of duty in preventing conditions of anarchy in India.
Finally, a word about the alleged failure of Mahatma Gandhi in preventing the Partition. Gandhiji was asked a question some visitors as to why he did not fast unto death for this great cause. Gandhiji himself told them that he had had no time to build an alternative leadership and that, therefore, it would have been wrong to weaken the present leadership under these circumstances. He went on to say with great mental anguish: “Who would listen to me? You (Hindus) don’t listen to me. The Muslims have given me up. Nor can I fully convince the Congress of my point of view”. In other words, on the issue of Partition he had accepted failure. With absolute transparency this great votary of truth admitted that there was nothing that he could do to prevent Partition.
It is, indeed, a great irony that some commentators have chosen to criticise even Gandhiji for his failure to prevent Partition, ignoring the circumstances in which he found himself at the dawn of the Independence of the country.

* P.C. Alexander is a former governor of Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra

surinder · Post by **surinder** » 09 Sep 2009 01:53

Gandhiji was asked a question some visitors as to why he did not fast unto death for this great cause. Gandhiji himself told them that he had had no time to build an alternative leadership and that, therefore, it would have been wrong to weaken the present leadership under these circumstances. He went on to say with great mental anguish: “Who would listen to me? You (Hindus) don’t listen to me. The Muslims have given me up. Nor can I fully convince the Congress of my point of view”.

Gandhi's statement is disengenuous. It is a cop out. It still does not answer why he did not fast unto death.

In his long career as a Satyagrahist, he waxes eloquently about the merits & power of Satyagraha. Never does he tell people that this superb technology has this implementation constraints. He seems to be making this up. Nor does he explain why fast for death was appropriate for funds-for-TSP cause (knowing fully well that those funds will fund the war on the TSP side in which Indians who are foolish enough to sign up as soldiers will be killed for an ungrateful nation.)

surinder · Post by **surinder** » 09 Sep 2009 02:32

http://books.google.com/books?id=f-KPH1 ... q=&f=false

Churchill, Roosevelt, and India: propaganda during World War II

tells some interesting details about Roosevelt & his interest in seeing India becomeing independent. US had been badgering UK to grant independence to India & others. Roosevelt harangued Churchill even before he aggreed to join the war formally. It seems that Indian independence was an important policy decision of the US. UK was squirming at such requests, and found the idea of granting independence nauseating. US had diplomatic presence in India, at least in Calcutta. They had, as this book states, an intelligence network. Roosevelt was fond of intelligence reports and in meetings with Churchill would contradict him regarding the situation in India using his reports.

A poll was conducted in the US where 70+% of Americans said they would not support UK in a war if it did not divest itself of its colonies: in other words, Americans did not want to fight to support an empire. Basically the US differed very substantially with UK on the issue of India. UK was in a tight spot, its very survival was at the hands of the US, and US was not going to shed blood nor share its wealth to continue the British empire. Americans, having fought the Brutish for their own independence, saw the idea of colonies as basically unpalatable. UK was sqeezed by the Americans.

Page 23: ... From 1941 to his death in 1945, at the many points when Roosevelt had the opportunity to intervene on India's behalf in its campaign for independence, his anti-colonialist values gave way to pragmatic war-related decisions. In his private corrospondence with Churchill, however, the pressure for reform in India did not cease, nor did the unspoken threat to intervevene, keeping the level of uncertainty high. ... He [Roosevelt] continually let Indain nationalists leaders know of his interest for self-government through his intelligence informants there."

The book gives the impression that the Cripps commision was sent to India basically to mollify the Americans, that it was considering granting independence to India. the outcome of the Cripps commision was basically pre-determined: it was destined to fail, as it was only a white wash excercise for the American eyes. Gandhi, it seems here played into the Brutish hands very well.

Check out pages 18-25.

samuel · Post by **samuel** » 09 Sep 2009 02:50

A slightly different take at:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Mc9Mgb ... q=&f=false

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 09 Sep 2009 09:17

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/daw ... detail12-1

The Jain temples lost in Partition> many Hindu,Sikh holy sites left in lost land to the Muta children of Arabs ,Pesians and god knows how many travelling fathers.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 09 Sep 2009 09:35

Acharya wrote: Pagan is a western term and a abahamic word and derogatory. Better to avoid it

Actually lots of people in the US and Europe feel cool about calling themselves pagans. So I think the negative connotation is pretty much lost now.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 09 Sep 2009 20:56

Be that as maybe, its still a self goal to use terms that others use to define the others. We are not the others they were talking about. So why make ourselves belong to their world?

However one is free to describe themselves as that on an individual basis, but do not use that to describe all of us as such.

We are still people who cherish our vada pao.

RayC · Post by **RayC** » 09 Sep 2009 22:40

Be that as maybe, its still a self goal to use terms that others use to define the others. We are not the others they were talking about. So why make ourselves belong to their world?

I reckon the English language is their world.

As Mlechhas is ours!

The day our language rules the world, it will be accepted as the Gospel!

surinder · Post by **surinder** » 10 Sep 2009 03:58

http://www.rediff.com/freedom/13allan1.htm

Alan Campbell-Johnson, the last viceroy's press attache, is one of the few surviving eyewitnesses to history, those tumultous months when India became free.

Check out all the three pages. Any opinions on his opinions? To me they carry more deception than truth; intended to hide than to reveal; intended to assuage Indian anger, rather than fuel it.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 10 Sep 2009 22:00

I think if we look at Partition in isolation confined to British and Indians then we dont get the whole picture. The Partition should be seen as a part of the global change from WWI thru WWII and the decline of the British Empire and rise of Indian national concsiousness after the Great uprising.

Niall Fergusson discussess the origins of WWII and tries to paint a global picture. Convienently he paints Hitler and Stalin as the oppressors and their national ideologies as the root cause for the extreme violence. Some of his analysis applies to the Partition violence too and we need to understand who promoted it.

Gerard wrote:Why did the second world war begin

The third prong of the Asian attack on European dominance was internal. Encouraged by Japan's initial crushing victories, many Asian nationalists in India, Indochina and Indonesia felt emboldened, if not to join the axis side (as Subhas Chandra Bose did), then at least to redouble their efforts to achieve independence after the war. In this they were largely successful, to the extent that very little remained of European power in Asia after 1950, aside from those vestiges the United States sought to preserve.

For all these reasons, the events of September 1939 look less like the beginning of a world war and more like a critical moment in the escalation of an ongoing global conflict. It was a war, above all, for dominance in Eurasia. It was a war begun by the "have-nots" – Japan, Italy and Germany – but won by the least deserving of the "haves" – the Soviet Union, which had begun on the wrong side in 1939, and the United States, which entered the war more than two years later. It was a war that was not really over until 1953, by which time its two most hotly contested zones – central and eastern Europe and Manchuria-Korea – had been divided in two, with deadly, impassable borders dividing each of them.

That we describe this cataclysmic world war as having begun in Poland on 1 September 1939 is thus merely a trick of the historical light – an illusion caused by our own parochialism.

Niall Ferguson is Laurence A Tisch professor of history at Harvard University and the author of The War of the World: History's Age of Hatred (Penguin)

And not that Subash Boseji still irks even after getting recognition as Harvard Professor!

surinder · Post by **surinder** » 10 Sep 2009 22:47

Fergusson is a court historian. A protagonist of Imperialism & colonialism.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 10 Sep 2009 22:53

How about commenting on what he wrote and not on him and relate it to the horrors of Partition.

a_kumar · Post by **a_kumar** » 11 Sep 2009 01:07

ramana wrote:I think if we look at Partition in isolation confined to British and Indians then we dont get the whole picture. The Partition should be seen as a part of the global change from WWI thru WWII and the decline of the British Empire and rise of Indian national concsiousness after the Great uprising.
....
And not that Subash Boseji still irks even after getting recognition as Harvard Professor!

Well put. I know the current topic is partition specifically, but I would even extend that to beyond partition of India. Here is something from the blogosphere for a view from the top..

While Sardar Patel well understood India and surroundings, possibly only Bose saw the "big picture". Unfortunately, he didn't have a choice on picking sides.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 11 Sep 2009 01:11

Good job A_Kumar. We need more people on blogs to articulate an India centric view.

a_kumar · Post by **a_kumar** » 11 Sep 2009 02:48

Thanks.. From above Guardian link.

Wow, Zooming in a little more..

It was a war begun by the "have-nots" – Japan, Italy and Germany – but won by the least deserving of the "haves" – the Soviet Union, which had begun on the wrong side in 1939, and the United States, which entered the war more than two years later.

If US and Russia don't deserve it and France lost the war at get go, I guess most deserving of the "haves" would be...... England

.

surinder · Post by **surinder** » 11 Sep 2009 19:44

Got Sarila's book (Shadow of Great Game) yesterday. The book is loaded with interesting tid-bits. Its a gem.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 11 Sep 2009 20:09

K Elst Comments on:
> Abandoned By Tarun Vijay
> Monday September 07, 2009, Times of India
>
>
> TV Wrote:
> >From a bird’s eye view, look how it has happened and ask yourself, why?
> >(...) It was a partition decided by the British Empire and conceded by
> >the Gandhis who feared more Jinnah’s direct action massacres if stood
> >firm on an undivided motherland.<
>
> KE Wrote:
>
> Hindus will continue to descend into extinction until they muster the
> courage and honesty to face facts. Case in point: they keep on lying to
> themselves about the Muslim guilt for Partition. Far from doing
> something about appeasement in the government's policies, they can't
> even stop appeasement in their very own discourse. Time and again, and
> recently at very high frequency in the Jaswant/Jinnah debate, we hear
> Hindus repeat the lie that Partition was the handiwork of the British,
> so as to absolve the Muslims.
>
> In reality, Partition was thought up and wrought by the so-called
> Aligarh faction in the Muslim community, the relatively modernistic
> counterpart of the orthodox Deoband school featuring Maulana Maudoodi
> and Maulana Azad, the falsely-named "nationalist Muslim" who wanted to
> keep India united but only as an incipient Islamic state. Both Muslim
> factions were determined to let Muslim interests prevail over Indian
> interests, but they differed on tactics. Jinnah tried to convince the
> British of the sensibility of his partition scheme. However, he was told
> very clearly by viceroys Linlithgow and Wavell that they were in no mind
> to let their craftily integrated Indian empire be cut into pieces. Even
> Mountbatten, who ended up giving in to Jinnah, started out as an
> opponent of Partition. Kuldip Nayar ("Scoop! Inside Stories from the
> Partition to the Present", HarperCollins 2006, p.28) reports:
> "Mountbatten made no secret that Lord Clement Attlee, the then British
> Prime Minister, wanted to keep India united. (...) 'I tried to preserve
> unity but Jinnah did not agree', Mountbatten assured Attlee."
>
> In another Hindutva write-up on the Jaswant/Jinnah affair, it was
> claimed that Jinnah, in his period out of politics (late 1920s), was
> "brainwashed by the British" into demanding Partition. This is a
> self-serving (well, Hindu-harming but appeaser-serving and
> Islam-serving) invention, a transparent lie. You will only get more
> partitions, more Kashmir expulsions, more Kandahar hijacks, more Godhra
> arson massacres, more Bangladesh rapes, more Malaysia temple attacks,
> more Sangli procession attacks, if you don't kick this evil habit of
> telling lies in order to spare your declared enemies.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> KE

Abhi_G · Post by **Abhi_G** » 11 Sep 2009 20:49

Acharya wrote:
K Elst Comments on:

> KE Wrote:
>
>However, he was told
> very clearly by viceroys Linlithgow and Wavell that they were in no mind
> to let their craftily integrated Indian empire be cut into pieces. Even
> Mountbatten, who ended up giving in to Jinnah, started out as an
> opponent of Partition. Kuldip Nayar ("Scoop! Inside Stories from the
> Partition to the Present", HarperCollins 2006, p.28) reports:
> "Mountbatten made no secret that Lord Clement Attlee, the then British
> Prime Minister, wanted to keep India united. (...) 'I tried to preserve
> unity but Jinnah did not agree', Mountbatten assured Attlee."
>

Acharya,

The highlighted quote of KE may not be fully correct. I will refer to Sarila's book in this regard. Wavell had a fairly thorough plan for the partition much before independence and these maps formed the basis of the future Radcliffe line. But Wavell and Linlithgow kept Jinnah in a tight leash, so to say, only allowing him to speak what they would like him to speak and tell him what they wanted to tell, i.e., whatever Churchill felt necessary.

The INC leaders were unaware of the secret maps and of course the brits would not let them know the masterplan. The plan was to secure a future base either in a balkanized India or a partitioned India. Comments about Atlee and Mountbatten are also also not fully correct. Again, according to Sarila, Atlee engaged a smokescreen. Basically, before him Churchill was totally opposed to any form of realignment in India (partition, independence etc.) since the brits were facing the Germans right behind their posterior. It is also due to his own imperialist world-view. Linlithgow also felt that the brits are going to stay in India for a much longer time. Wavell felt that they have to leave early. What made Wavell think of this is not clear. But he ensured that a future strategic foothold in India's northwest is safeguarded. Wavell was not liked by Churchill because of these realignment ideas and also because of the debacle of the brit forces in Singapore under his command. This "change" of strategy of the brits leaving early continued with Atlee and Mountbatten. Atlee's smokescreen ensured that it would look like that partition has been "accepted" by the INC and not due to the brits. The military was under brit command and the propaganda apparatus was in their hand, muslim league was in their hands and JLN was weak and "tired" (?)!! So butchering of Hindus and Sikhs was much below in their priority list anyway as long as the strategic issue of containing USSR was fulfilled. The butchering and ethnic clensing of Hindus and Sikhs were topmost priority of muslim league. So all conditions show that INC was in a tight spot where they had absolutely no control. They had willingly removed the "military" component from their agenda much much before and had claimed the moral superiority of non-violence. So there was absolutely nothing that JLN and MKG could do or could re-ignite (fast until death, reagitation that would have led to a sure civil war). All of these with the blessing of hindsight....

But bottomline was that brits ensured securing a strategic base to the northwest of India in the form of pak to contain USSR. They found in Islamist fundamentalism a willing partner. The non-accpetance of Islamist fundamentalism is definitely an error in the Indian discourse. KE is correct in this.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 11 Sep 2009 20:55

Moved the Jaswant Singhji related posts to the JS on Jinnah book thread.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 11 Sep 2009 20:56

Abhi_G wrote:

Acharya,

The highlighted quote of KE may not be fully correct. I will refer to Sarila's book in this regard. Wavell had a fairly thorough plan for the partition much before independence and these maps formed the basis of the future Radcliffe line. But Wavell and Linlithgow kept Jinnah in a tight leash, so to say, only allowing him to speak what they would like him to speak and tell him what they wanted to tell, i.e., whatever Churchill felt necessary.

Now you see the agenda of people like KE.
There is a fear that Hindus will get friends. Indian Muslims may be the only friends of the Hindus

Abhi_G · Post by **Abhi_G** » 11 Sep 2009 21:01

Acharya,
I do not know what KE's agenda is. But his comments do not match with Sarila's account.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 11 Sep 2009 21:21

Abhi_G, So in essence KE's message is right despite his facts. Can you do me a favor and put all the info in slides format and we can then put it on scribd type of platform? If yes then will send you my e-mail.

Abhi_G · Post by **Abhi_G** » 11 Sep 2009 21:44

Ramana, was thinking of taking notes. So please send email. Thanks.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 11 Sep 2009 21:49

Done.....

So can we discern a hedging process going on in the attitudes of Linlithgow and Wavell? I mean based on how things turn out they would have unleashed the dogs of war. IOW Islamism would be contained or unleashed as Indian nationalist movement decides on its own future course of action?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 11 Sep 2009 22:28

BR is really ahead of the curve at our own level of thinking.

Here is op-ed from Hindu on very same subject by a Pakistani author.

LINK

A case of mistaken paternity?
Mahir Ali Share · Comment (1) · print · T+

The Hindu
Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohammad Ali Jinnah:

There can be little doubt that it is Jinnah ? rather than Nehru or Patel ? who ought to have known that the country he left behind 61 years ago was not destined for secularity.

Nobody, including Jinnah, Nehru, Patel, or Lord Mountbatten, had any idea of what Partition would entail. Would they, with the benefit of hindsight, have chosen a different course?

Success has many fathers, as the familiar proverb puts it, while failure is an orphan. In the event, conjecture about Pakistan’s possible progenitors comes across as a decidedly odd phenomenon.

The one striking feature about former Indian foreign minister Jaswant Singh’s political biography of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, relentlessly cited in reports about the controversy spawned by the book, is the author’s supposed contention that Pakistan would not have been born but for the supportive stance adopted by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

Given the broadly positive reception accorded to the book in Pakistan, does it follow that Pakistanis are happy to acknowledge the Pandit and the Sardar’s pro-creative role in the birth of their nation? Or is their enthusiasm based chiefly on the childish ire generated by Jaswant Singh’s version of history on the Indian side of the border?

As far as I am concerned, it’s entirely a question of blame rather than credit. He is by no means the first person, or even the first Indian, to point out that Jinnah’s demand for Pakistan was primarily a bargaining ploy and that the leaders of the Indian Congress could have thwarted Partition had they agreed, for instance, to a federation based on a weak centre.

Their intransigence effectively blocked feasible alternatives and propelled the two-nation theory towards its illogical conclusion.

This hardly qualifies as a novel thesis, and there can be little question that Jaswant Singh’s petulant expulsion from the Bharatiya Janata Party reflects poorly on the latter’s viability as a political force in a secular country. The Congress, too, has reacted importunately to the book, possibly because of its reluctance to countenance criticism of India’s first Prime Minister by a prominent opposition figure (notwithstanding the party’s own drift away from what is regularly derided as “Nehruvian socialism”).

The fact is that more than six decades after independence, the blame game is still being played in the subcontinent. Barring honourable exceptions, the general impression in India seems to be that Partition was a fulfilment of Jinnah’s dream; a perhaps inevitable corollary of this view is that he was a closet Islamic fundamentalist.

The Pakistani equivalent of this phenomenon is the inability to make a distinction between the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s endeavours to forge communal harmony seldom find mention in Pakistani history books. Nor is there any mention of the fact that in the charged atmosphere of 1947, Nehru routinely risked his life to protect Muslim refugees — as did the great love of his life, Edwina Mountbatten, whose empathy with the victims of violence, regardless of their caste or creed, contrasted with her vain husband’s obsession with his own place in history.

Jaswant Singh dwells time and again on the mutual antipathy between Nehru and Jinnah, implying that the former was ill served by his rancour. Both leaders were secular Indian nationalists before Jinnah dedicated himself to communal leadership. Nehru was able to prevent India from lapsing into an identity focused on religion. “As long as I am at the helm of affairs,” he declared, “India will not become a Hindu state. The very idea of a theocratic state is not only medieval but also stupid.”

In his oft-quoted speech to Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly in the run-up to Partition, Jinnah offered the impression that a citizen’s faith would bear no relation to his or her status. But did he wonder whether it could indeed be so, given that Pakistan had been founded on an unequivocally communal basis? And would it not have made infinitely more sense to strive for such an undertaking in an undivided India?

To his credit, Jaswant Singh concedes that, after the event, Nehru regretted Partition and held out the hope that it may be reversed. Based on a perusal, rather than a complete reading, of his book, he does not cite indications, insufficiently corroborated though they may be, that Jinnah was similarly inclined.

“According to his doctor,” writes Alex von Tunzelmann in Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire, “Jinnah [in his last days] saw Liaquat [Ali Khan] and told him that Pakistan was ‘the biggest blunder of my life’. Further yet, he declared: ‘If now I get an opportunity, I will go to Delhi and tell Jawaharlal to forget about the follies of the past and become friends again.’”

The evidence, admittedly, is circumstantial, but it complements the impression Jinnah created when, during a Pakistan Times-sponsored flight to survey the extent of the refugee crisis in the Punjab, he held his head in his hands and reputedly remarked, “Oh my God, what have I done?”

Nobody, including Jinnah, had any idea of what Partition would entail. Would he, with the benefit of hindsight, have chosen a different course? Almost certainly. So would have Nehru and Lord Mountbatten. And Patel, notwithstanding his pro-Hindu slant. Radcliffe’s boundaries tend to be derided, and not without cause. But no possible division of India could have been entirely satisfactory to anyone.

That view does not, however, solve the problem of Pakistan’s antecedents. There is even an unexpected intruder. “There can be no doubt,” writes von Tunzelmann, “that his public championing of the Muslim League’s cause in the House of Commons throughout 1946 and 1947, and of Pakistan’s thereafter, was crucial both to the creation of Pakistan and to the British government’s support for its interests over the years to come. If Jinnah is regarded as the father of Pakistan, [Winston] Churchill must qualify as its uncle; and, therefore, as a pivotal figure in the resurgence of political Islam.”

That last bit is, arguably, a bit of a stretch. In 1947, hardly anyone could have suspected that a nation carved out on a confessional basis would lead to a country obsessed with jihad. However, there can be little doubt that it is Jinnah — rather than Nehru or Patel — who ought to have known that the country he left behind 61 years ago was not destined for secularity.

(Email: mahir.dawn@gmail.com)

Paul, kudos on role of Churchill!

Pulikeshi · Post by **Pulikeshi** » 11 Sep 2009 23:54

The premise is that two secularists (Nehru & Jinnah) took up the experiment of creating secular democracies...
If the above were true, then does it warrant that one failed versus other because of the leaders in question
or was the failure due to religio-political nature of the majority community in each state or was it something else?

I know this is sensitive topic, do not mean to start any "religious" debates... but want to know what the general trend is @ BRF.
If it is the former, then India was merely lucky to have Nehru. However, there is no hope for TSP - as it chanced on a leader without foresight and carried the burden of its religio-political prejudice. Perhaps this insight explains the reason why leaders such as Sardar and Gandhi reconciled to partition. Now, I do suspect these leaders expected Pakistan to revert back to the mother ship sooner - what they were blind to was the ability of a "weak" state becoming a client to other powers. What we really have is a "glacial civil war" not partition.

Finally, most average lallu and rambha in India have made peace with partition.
What they have not understood is that we are in a "glacial civil war" which is yet to be won!

My two free rupiah!

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 12 Sep 2009 01:44

Pulikeshi wrote:The premise is that two secularists (Nehru & Jinnah) took up the experiment of creating secular democracies...
If the above were true, then does it warrant that one failed versus other because of the leaders in question
or was the failure due to religio-political nature of the majority community in each state or was it something else?

Nehru is really overrated, he was only a moon for MKG's sun.

Jinaah for all his flaws, was a competitor to Gandhi in many senses.

I think that answers the question adequately from my end at least, dont you agree?

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 12 Sep 2009 01:57

http://kanchangupta.blogspot.com/2009/0 ... innah.html

Like Jaswant Singh, I am neither a scholar nor a historian. But unlike him, I am the child of parents who suffered the horrors of Partition; my father arrived in India from East Pakistan with his widowed mother and four younger siblings, penniless and virtually with nothing more than the clothes on his back. He didn’t have the privilege of growing up in princely Jodhpur, nor did life afford him the luxury of pondering over the minutiae of the politics of Partition in the amiable surroundings of Nehru Memorial Library. Yet, I do not recall him ever expressing either rancour or regret. Even if he wanted to, my mother wouldn’t have let him. The struggle for survival rode rough-shod over any emotional struggle that might have peeked hesitantly in their minds.

And unlike Jaswant Singh, as well as many others who believe that Partition was a blunder, that India would have been one large happy family had the Radcliffe line not been drawn, that the Congress should not have persisted with its idea of India as one nation with a unitary system in which power would be concentrated at the Centre, that the Muslim League had a case when it argued for proportionate representation if not more for Muslims to compensate them for the loss of the power they wielded before the British took charge of India’s affairs, I belong to the minority which believes that Partition was the second best thing to have happened to us. The first was the failure of the ghazis to prop up a dissolute badshah in 1857. In his literally weighty tome Jinnah: India - Partition - Independence, Jaswant Singh obviously disagrees with this contention: “It was here in the middle of the 19th century that the symbol of our sovereignty was finally seized and trampled underfoot by British India.” Not everybody mourned that event, just as Hindus in Bengal were not terribly upset when Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah was given the boot in 1757.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 12 Sep 2009 02:22

Thanks Rahul_M. In one sentence the author ties the fall of Sirauddaulah to the exit of the Britsh as a continuum of evacuation of Muslim rule in India.

In his literally weighty tome Jinnah: India - Partition - Independence, Jaswant Singh obviously disagrees with this contention: “It was here in the middle of the 19th century that the symbol of our sovereignty was finally seized and trampled underfoot by British India.” Not everybody mourned that event, just as Hindus in Bengal were not terribly upset when Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah was given the boot in 1757.

Jaswant Singh due to his Rajput origins sees the Mughals as one of their own while Kanchan Gupta from Bengal sees Siraj-ud-Daulah as a Mughal foreigner. Recall Siraj was the grandson of Ali Vardi Khan sent to Bengal. JS laments the deposition of Mughals as a sad event, however its the begining of the Indian independence journey.

Not too many people understand the forces at play in shaping the idea of India. Indian independence was the over throw of double colonizations and Partition is an intermediate event in this long journey.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 12 Sep 2009 02:43

ramana wrote:Thanks Rahul_M. In one sentence the author ties the fall of Sirauddaulah to the exit of the Britsh as a continuum of evacuation of Muslim rule in India.
Not too many people understand the forces at play in shaping the idea of India. Indian independence was the over throw of double colonizations and Partition is an intermediate event in this long journey.

IMHO, Kanchan Gupta mirrors aam Indian's sentiment and opinion much more truthfully than JS. If Mughals were JS 'own then how do you justify their treatment to Indics ? JS's India is not a Civilizational India , glad he got the boot from party which at least pretend to think so.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 12 Sep 2009 02:49

Prem, In the end the role of a lot of people will get re-examined and there will be a lot of bad apples shown up to be that.

BTW, I hope you are asking JS and not me!

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 12 Sep 2009 03:15

ramana wrote:
In his literally weighty tome Jinnah: India - Partition - Independence, Jaswant Singh obviously disagrees with this contention: “It was here in the middle of the 19th century that the symbol of our sovereignty was finally seized and trampled underfoot by British India.” Not everybody mourned that event, just as Hindus in Bengal were not terribly upset when Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah was given the boot in 1757.

Not too many people understand the forces at play in shaping the idea of India. Indian independence was the over throw of double colonizations and Partition is an intermediate event in this long journey.

The second decolonization is yet to happen but the time has come after 911.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 12 Sep 2009 03:26

Ramana Sir ,
Yes, i was bewildered with JS's affinity for Mughals but then i forgot Some Rajputs have been taunted by others for centuries precisely because of their alliance with Mughals. Lets wait for mental decolonisation and passing of the 30-50s Britindian generation ruling India now. 2020 onward, Naya Daaur, Nayi Kahani for Hindustani.

Kaushal · Post by **Kaushal** » 12 Sep 2009 03:34

JINNAH was an opportunist. He had no interest in cleansing his soul nor was he obsessed with remaking the Indian into the perfect human being. He simply wanted to drive out the British so that he could get on with the business of living in his own country as one of the elite. He loved livng the luxurious life and was one of the most successful lawyers in the bombay high court. He was not a particularly religious man and was a second generation Muslim who was far more at home in Gujarati environment than with Pathans or Paki punjabies. I believe he belonged to the Bohra community.

Somewhere along the line he got disillusioned with the antics of the Mahatma and his insistence that the Indian should be above reproach . Some of this attitude is pervasive among the secularists even today, when they demand an extraordinary level of tolerance even to those who dont deserve such consideration. So Jinnah packed of to London for quite a number of years. Something happened in London. MY suspicion is he was given the green light by Churchill (with whom he was reasonably well acquainted) himself that if he so desired he would given a sizable chunk of the subcontinent to rule. That is when he became a hardliner. The British made him an offer he couldnt refuse . The opportunist part of his personality couldnt resist and the rest his history.

The issue of whether he was secular or not is primarily an obsession of a very small number of Indian with nothing better to do. Clearly he was willing to cut the baby in 2 pieces to get his share and he Mohammaad Ali Jinnah would become the leader of one of the largest Muslim Nations in the world. He issued the prder for direct action to kill as many Hindus as possible to make his point that Muslims were a separate nation.He was totally callous about the fate of numerous other 'nations' within India . To that extent he was highly bigoted individual, that sacrificed the lives of so many so that he could say he was leader of a country.

All said and done Jinnah was not a very nice man . But then he probably never claimed he was.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 12 Sep 2009 03:36

Think of another angle for the Bengal reaction. Could there be branches from the Rajputs and others who escaped with the progress of the Turks and who settled in the more difficult terrain in Eastern India? These could be people who were not ready to accept living under Islamic rule. The Rajputs had a practice of sending out a younger son to distant safety before impending annihilation so that the "line" and "spirit" continues. Isolated, pockets, in forest and less lucrative areas around Bengal and Bihar hosted some of these groups. If this si true, then they could have an inherent bias against Islamic rule. Theyw ould be more concentrated in the western part.

Consider exploring the possibility that there could be some from the west gone into the east, who did not share the love for the Mughal with those who remained for the sake of title and land. There are connections in the "shakti" worshipping sections, in kulajis, and even some rarely advertized historical marriages. Bankim Ch. Chatterjee hints of thsi in one of his famous novels. The castle in that novel actually existed and has been reworked to suit modern needs.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 12 Sep 2009 04:14

Kaushal wrote:
Somewhere along the line he got disillusioned with the antics of the Mahatma and his insistence that the Indian should be above reproach . Some of this attitude is pervasive among the secularists even today, when they demand an extraordinary level of tolerance even to those who dont deserve such consideration. So Jinnah packed of to London for quite a number of years. Something happened in London. MY suspicion is he was given the green light by Churchill (with whom he was reasonably well acquainted) himself that if he so desired he would given a sizable chunk of the subcontinent to rule. That is when he became a hardliner. The British made him an offer he couldnt refuse . The opportunist part of his personality couldnt resist and the rest his history.

British had to show that the were serious in helping the Muslim League.
After 1906 partition of Bengal the ML was still satisified by the commitment of the Colonial British for helping them. The British promised them that the Capitol of India will be moved to Delhi from Kolkatta in 1911. It took the British till 1930 for transfer of the capitol to Delhi so that a Mughal state that could be created in future with Agra, Lucknow incorporated.
After 1930 Iqbal and Jinnah started talking about Pakistan. CRAK then coined the term Pakistan.

The British move to help in the final goal of a modern Mughal state is not even discussed anywhere.