A look back at the partition

[brihaspati]

^^^Islamic Sufism acknowledged by the Sufi side as being a special case of Bharatya darshan, or just the reverse - if at all? Why were the "stooping low" to conquer always contextuated on a recognition of military/political weakness and even then never, ever clearly stated in a narrative that compromised any bit on the superiority and primacy as source - of the Islamic theology? Why has that peculiar interpretation almost always led to even more orthodoxy - after of course the basic purpose of neutralization of ideological opposition from the kaffir side had been achieved?

Ideological obfuscation works only if you apply it to the "other" side, it does not work if you obfuscate your own to make it apparently more appealing to the other - unless of course you back it up with physical coercion. Exactly as the sufis did - always in collaboration with Islamic military presence close at hand.

The current attempts at reconstructing the Indic in ways to make it more acceptable to the "other" is a dangerous strategy -because it is not backed up with coercion like Islamists or EJ's early entry strategies. What it leads to is deracination and dhimmitude, a serious failure to model the enemy appropriately - and consequent strategic blunders.

[Agnimitra]

^^^ Islamic Sufism as being a special case of Bharatiya Darshana, of course. After all, there is a well-known saying in Persian - erfaan aval dar Hend naazel shod, pas be Iran aamad: "Metaphysical truth first descended in India, then came to Iran!"

Why was any such bowing in the past followed by even more "orthodoxy"? Firstly, not always, but whenver it did there were many circumstantial reasons and motivations to do so. Today the socio-economic-political equations are different, and the framework of the discourse is global and different from the past. Not all the past conditions apply. If handled skillfully, aggressively and in the present time, permanent and real reformation is possible now. Ulema-thuggery nexus needs broken without compromise so that aam abdul is not hostage to seige mentality. Then open and free spiritual debate needs expansion, and doctrinal theory needs presented with clarity, both, in word and by example. Like I said to Surasena ji - one can use the mandir issue to highlight the absurdity of certain Islamist absolutist memes, but it is Pyrrhic to gain a plot of land without cracking open and winning one aam abdul's heart.

"Reconstruction" of Bharatiya Darshan is not being suggested. Ontological principles of Bharatiya Darshan within each epistemic scope cannot yield to sentimental dhimmitude. But there is lots of space for morphological innovations, as our own history has shown. It is even encouraged if it restores balance.

[SBajwa]

Here are some more words what is their root?

Family = Parivar
Extended Family = Tabbar, Kunba, Kutumb

To Find = Dhoondna, Labhna, Khojna

Water = Jal, Paani, Neer, Amrit

Legs = Taange, Laatein

[brihaspati]

^^^ Islamic Sufism as being a special case of Bharatiya Darshana, of course. After all, there is a well-known saying in Persian - erfaan aval dar Hend naazel shod, pas be Iran aamad: "Metaphysical truth first descended in India, then came to Iran!"

Why was any such bowing in the past followed by even more "orthodoxy"? Firstly, not always, but whenver it did there were many circumstantial reasons and motivations to do so. Today the socio-economic-political equations are different, and the framework of the discourse is global and different from the past. Not all the past conditions apply. If handled skillfully, aggressively and in the present time, permanent and real reformation is possible now. Ulema-thuggery nexus needs broken without compromise so that aam abdul is not hostage to seige mentality. Then open and free spiritual debate needs expansion, and doctrinal theory needs presented with clarity, both, in word and by example. Like I said to Surasena ji - one can use the mandir issue to highlight the absurdity of certain Islamist absolutist memes, but it is Pyrrhic to gain a plot of land without cracking open and winning one aam abdul's heart.

"Reconstruction" of Bharatiya Darshan is not being suggested. Ontological principles of Bharatiya Darshan within each epistemic scope cannot yield to sentimental dhimmitude. But there is lots of space for morphological innovations, as our own history has shown. It is even encouraged if it restores balance.

Yes - open debate after mullahcracy is broken, away from rashtryia protection and manifestaion. Yes, also debate without compromising any single bit on the Bharatyia - not that part of the reconstructed "Bharatyia" that has been made to appear all-accommodating.

So ultimately it reduces to crushing the institutional basis of their power - and you think a debate will really be relevant any more after that?

[brihaspati]

Here are some more words what is their root?

Family = Parivar
Extended Family = Tabbar, Kunba, Kutumb

To Find = Dhoondna, Labhna, Khojna

Water = Jal, Paani, Neer, Amrit

Legs = Taange, Laatein

family - parivaar is suddha Sanskrit for family.
Extended family - kutumba is again Sanskrit, meaning relatives through wider clan connections. [typically wider marital or in-law type]. not sure entirely about the root for Kunba - but I suspect one, will let you know.

Labhna - definitely connected to labh-ya, "that which can be sought out/found/got/obtained"

jal, Neer are both Sanskrit - there are debates about origins of "paani".
Taang-e - Sanskrit anga, body/body-parts-limbs. T is debated about origins - but one theory is that it came from Tanu-body. But more likely to have been shortened from "pratyanga" - extensions of body, specifically meaning limbs and limb parts. Because "hasta" - haathon - already existed specifically for hands, pratyanga probably then converged in usage to legs. It would first have become -par-tanga, and then par would be dropped - leading to tang.

[Agnimitra]

So ultimately it reduces to crushing the institutional basis of their power - and you think a debate will really be relevant any more after that?

Finishing off the institutional basis of Islamist mental oppression is not restricted to liquidating or putting away the physical and human resources of the power and control structures. USSR pretty much did that in the CA stans. Ataturk tried it in Turkey. China is trying it in "Xinjiang". How much was achieved? Look at Hizb-ut-Tahrir, look at Dagestan. It is now Gulen's playground after a temporary hiatus.

So another thing that is needed is a replacement ideology which gives even more personal meaning, purpose and significance to the same old rudiments of the average abdul's faith. One based on freedom of personal curiosity and love, and cooperation based on common ethics (even in competition). Not on fear and enmity. That is the 'winning hearts' aspect of it, and is even more important as history is proving. Temporal solutions lead to temporary results; only psycho-spiritual solutions can lead to new vistas.

[member_19686]

paaniya is also a sanskrit word used in the sense of a general drink but also water sometimes.

In Telugu paaniyam is used for drink (whereas in many Northern languages it is used to mean water) and neeru for water specifically.

For word origins use Platts and Shakespear dictionaries:

http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/

P. generally indicates Persian/Farsi origin and A. Arabic origin, S. Sanskrit origin and so on.

[brihaspati]

So ultimately it reduces to crushing the institutional basis of their power - and you think a debate will really be relevant any more after that?

Finishing off the institutional basis of Islamist mental oppression is not restricted to liquidating or appropriating the physical resources of the power and control structures. USSR pretty much did that in the CA stans. Ataturk tried it in Turkey. China is trying it in "Xinjiang". How much was achieved? Look at Hizb-ut-Tahrir, look at Dagestan. It is now Gulen's playground after a temporary hiatus.

So another thing that is needed is a replacement ideology which gives even more personal meaning, purpose and significance to the same old rudiments of the average abdul's faith. One based on freedom of personal curiosity and love, and cooperation based on common ethics (even in competition). Not on fear and enmity. That is the 'winning hearts' aspect of it, and is even more important as history is proving. Temporal solutions lead to temporary results; only psycho-spiritual solutions can lead to new vistas.

No, replacement ideology will also need coercive backing. I think you are missing out on the transitional phase of central Asian policy -post Lenin. They did not physically liquidate- actually they allowed them to survive, when the mullahcracy pretended conformism. There was this ever-present problematic fascination in Asian "Marxism" with Islamism - and they were always in a dilemma about whether to crush or preserve for potential winning over and get a devoted tool. Moreover Soviet Marxism was after all still providing Russian-European value systems as replacement, which were unfit for the social conditions of central Asian muslim society.

Ataturk had to compromise even within the roughly 14 years of his shining. He went for external public forms, but did not really destroy the mullahcracy.

Some of the subregional experiments are most obvious in Balkans and hinterland. Look at them. Wherever mullahcracy's apparent submission was accepted and theyw ere allowed to survive with some of their institutions - Islamism has taken it all back, even if "preaching" by the other went on vigorously.

If you debate with them as equals - you are recognizing their theology as something that has salvageable parts. Any recognition of such salvageable parts instantly reinforces the original "empowering" belief - the one that frees you of any guilt for coveting what is others. To even begin a meaningful debate, you have to delegitimize the authenticity of the core memes - and which will be installed at different depths in different age groups. You will have a proportion with strongly entrenched belief of past glory and the right to jihadi overlordship of all they survey - for a very long time. You cannot allow them to propagate what they carry - while you bring out the upcoming generations into broad based education and exposure to alternate beliefs. None of that can be done without state coercion. Russians, Ataturk, Chinese - all have one big handicap - they cannot follow up their coercion with satisfactory religious replacement.

What you are proposing on the other hand is replacement without transitional coercion, and it repeats the mistakes Russians/Atatturk/Chinese from another direction.

[brihaspati]

paaniya is also a sanskrit word used in the sense of a general drink but also water sometimes.

In Telugu paaniyam is used for drink (whereas in many Northern languages it is used to mean water) and neeru for water specifically.

For word origins use Platts and Shakespear dictionaries:

http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/

P. generally indicates Persian/Farsi origin and A. Arabic origin, S. Sanskrit origin and so on.

I did say that "paani" has a debatable origin because, "paanyia" means that which is drunk, and "paan" is the verb form for "to drink". It implies fluids in general. Reducing it specifically to "water" only is a peculiar usage of dubious origin. if you note - in certain regions, "jal-paan" and "jal-paani" have particular connotations, and they are mentioned together. This in contrast to use of "paani" as stand alone for water - and has a religious colour in certain segments, where communities would deliberately use this form while their neighbour "other" communities would use standard Sanskritik words for water.

[Agnimitra]

What you are proposing on the other hand is replacement without transitional coercion, and it repeats the mistakes Russians/Atatturk/Chinese from another direction.

Bji, I did not say that transitional coercion is unnecessary. Rather, that ideological upliftment and help goes hand in hand with crushing the institutional basis of mulla-mafia power. In fact, the latter cannot fully be achieved without the former. Ideological challenge and heart-to-heart engagement must, both, precede and follow coercive measures. In fact, initial engagement will be met with aggressive push-back and menacing reactions, which will force the hand of justice to remove these reactionary influences by forceful measures. Then whenever such obstacles are cleared, the engagement should continue pro-actively.

If you debate with them as equals - you are recognizing their theology as something that has salvageable parts. Any recognition of such salvageable parts instantly reinforces the original "empowering" belief - the one that frees you of any guilt for coveting what is others.

Is this covetousness really a "core meme"? You mean doctrinally or socially?

[brihaspati]

What you are proposing on the other hand is replacement without transitional coercion, and it repeats the mistakes Russians/Atatturk/Chinese from another direction.

Bji, I did not say that transitional coercion is unnecessary. Rather, that ideological upliftment and help goes hand in hand with crushing the institutional basis of mulla-mafia power. In fact, the latter cannot fully be achieved without the former. Ideological challenge and heart-to-heart engagement must, both, precede and follow coercive measures. In fact, initial engagement will be met with aggressive push-back and menacing reactions, which will force the hand of justice to remove these reactionary influences by forceful measures. Then whenever such obstacles are cleared, the engagement should continue pro-actively.

If you debate with them as equals - you are recognizing their theology as something that has salvageable parts. Any recognition of such salvageable parts instantly reinforces the original "empowering" belief - the one that frees you of any guilt for coveting what is others.

Is this covetousness really a "core meme"? You mean doctrinally or socially?

The doctrine interfaces continuously with society. The doctrine is quite clear, and its legitimacy actually paralyzes socially even those who need not be completely free of guilt in "coveting" and hence not too keen on "coveting". This paralysis always manifests in tacit support or acceptance of jihadi violence on the kaffir for "covetous" purposes - even if not actually directly participating.

[brihaspati]

A discussion on the Indian Interests thread prompted me to think on something that has perhaps been visited a million times by much more erudite, capable and legitimately qualified by participation or otherwise - to comment.

Why did Partition happen the way it did? My interest in this stems not merely about what and why - but it is also about trying to understand how that experience has remained and shaped rashtryia thinking forever into the present times.

Here is my outline framework :

Key Players:
(1) Post WWI transformation of the older anti-establishment section within Brit society and ruling circles, the anti-monarchists through to liberals through to left-socialists. I will dub them Left-imperialists - the LIMP.

(2) The traditional autocratic/authoritarian hierarchical ruling inner circles - the Right-imperialists. RIMP.

(3) Whites in British sevice in India - admin/ICS as well as BIA, dominated by colonialist thinking with a small minority of "leftist/liberals" who however had little or no real impact on ground. WIBS.

(4) The islamist theologians and their institutional networks - whose sole target was the eventual creation of an Islamic state. ITIS.
(5) Provincial Islamic elite with regional ambitions. PIE.
(6) Provincial Hindu elite with regional ambitions. PHE.

(7) Flexible, rootless, western-educated ambitious Islam born charismatic individuals: Jinnah. FREAM (Flexible Rootless Educated Ambitious Muslim)
(8) Flexible, rootless, western-educated ambitious Hindu born charismatic individuals: Nehru. FREAH.

Confused as shown in frequent and often contradictory changes of positions and analyses, perhaps stemming from an acute awareness of internal contradictions between stated public goals and personal objectives.

note : here in rootless is not used in derogatory sense but as characterizing a certain detachment from the cultural moorings of their birth societies which allowed them to explore from a distance such cultures and be able to select which aspects of that culture they were going to adopt and which to reject and which they would use opportunistically for their personal targets.

(9) Rooted, educated, idealist Islam born (REIM) [Azad to an extent]
(10) Rooted, educated, idealist Hindu born (REIH) [Sardar, Bose]

note : here idealism is used in the sense that these individuals rarely if ever compromised on their ideals for their abstract nation. Even they did compromise the resentment showed through in a persistent attempt to subvert what force of circumstances or appeal to their various senses of commitments enforced on them at specific time points. Moreover they show an inability to abandon or subvert the ideological/cultural commitments to their birth cultures in general.


The intent and objectives:

RIMP : continue the British imperialist dominance of India - for various imagined and real interests, like obstructing communist Russia and China, keeping the white "commonwealth" islands of Oz and NZ connected and protected and reachable, racial supremacy and euphoria, possible future exploitation zone again and a captive market, etc.

LIMP : use the Indian unrest as a tool to weaken RIMP. Hoping to inch one more step forward in the long standing struggle between the two factions within British society - almost a pseudo-class-struggle.

WIBS : Lower orders : acutely aware of ground realities, torn between imperialist and colonialist affiliations and the changing influences between WWI and WWII home societies that were becoming increasingly disillusioned and skeptical about the shenangians of their upper crust. Except in Punjab, mostly looking to ensure only pension and financial benefits. However, in any overall clash between the ruled and the ruler - they would ruthlessly mow down the ruled.

ITIS : preserve enough Islamic institutional power and demographic support to revive Islamic overlordship over all non-Muslims in the future. Islamic state as the high end, and Islamic regional autonomy in the interim.

PIE : Use Islamic demographic strength as well as weakness - to have a controlling or dominant position if the Brits left. PIE imagined or projected Hindu copying of Islamic methods of genocide as a justfication.
PHE : Use Hindu demographic strength to have a dominant position post British. PHE had real fears of Islamic genocide - both because history provided ample one-sided Islamic genocides in their memory - and of course they were also proved right eventually, through ML and co-religionist violence.

FREAM : Jinnah : personal power. Often, without strong and sincere ideological commitment to a wider culture of an acknowledged root, personal ambitions are presented to the self as the larger community interest, especially in cultures where selfishness is socially disapproved with guilt.

FREAH : Nehru : Personal power. Same reasons as in FREAM.

REIM/REIH: Idealist to the point where there is genuine attempt at subordinating the ego, while retaining the overall commitment to the birth culture. Azad shows the contradictions and basic threads acutely. Their inability to have personal power as supreme value, makes them agree to sacrifices that push them away from key/supreme powerful positions.



I will use these obviously coarse-grained and limited characterizations to attempt to show how these interested interacted to give Partition the shape it took. My basic argument goes that the best model that can explain with minimal speculation the peculiar twists an turn in public posturings is that each player in that game were actually pretending commitments that they were not really sincere about.

Those public faces were means to mobilize support and gain acceptance from respective constituencies as well as opponents or other players. Let us consider the key two-way interactions first.

The provincial elections, subsequent ministries and legislatures - pitted the PIE and PHE against each other, and from this the Congress centre and the ML centre - the respective organizational elite drew their own lessons. The frustrations and failures right from the end of the 20's of the congrez leadership to try and coopt the Muslim mobilization minus their theologian/Isalmic-state-ambitions components had a peculiar spin on the overt rhetoric. The congress began to emphasize all of that as an "economic" problem, a kind of everything stems from "colonialism" to brush under the carpet the real problem staring in the face - that of Islamism, and its persistent hold on a wide section of Muslims towards the eventual dreamed for Islamic super-dominance over India. A large part of this spinning no doubt was provided with handy material from post 1917 Marxist ferment and the continuous stream of propaganda material and activists thrown out by the Comintern. But, this is actually inexcusable - since Comintern was based in Leningrad and Moscow, while congressmen were in India working with the "masses" here. So it can only be a deliberate spin adopted from the top by intellectuals probably enamoured of anything foreign and new as ideologies and not really invented by the grassroots of the congress.

I would be inclined to see such adoption more likely from those more detached from their birth cultures, with sufficient arrogance to deny or wish away reality. Thus it was that both FREAM and FREAH initially went out of their respective community networks and thought that they would bypass the reality of Islamism by sheer ideology - or even their personal charisma.

But the contests at the provinces showed the individual ambitious leaders of both FREAM and FREAH - that Islamism was an established force that could not be wished away, and each side then began to work out how best to serve their personal goals of power out of this.

Assumption: the personal rivalry for power between Jinnah and Nehru led Jinnah to use the Partition/division as a weapon to threaten JLN with to retain a powerful key position for himself post-Brit with a possible acceptance of something less than a Pakistan as a compromise in return. In this I differ from Jalal and Roy (Asim) - that I don't consider that Jinnah did this in order to ensure the safety/and or dominance of "minority" enclaves within the larger Indian federation with a strong centre outlined in the 1935 GOI Act.

For JLN, or similar thinking within the Congress, the PIE/PHE struggle actually gave two likely conclusions. First that their personal power would be conditional on the presence of a strong centre under their personal control and this meant sufficient weakening of those provincial powers that were proving unruly and "troublesome". These trouble makers took on another dimesnion where substantial Muslim populations co-existed with substantial non-Muslim populations. Such subregions showed a disturbing tendency of coming to mutual accommodations between Muslim and Hindu leaders sometimes against the personal dominance ambitions of the leaders at the centre.

Thus for both Jinnah and JLN, it perhaps began to get clear that their personal power would be under threat if these provinces remained within their respective future spheres of influence without a clear cut separation in some sense of the two communities.

I will continue with quotes and letters/docs in support of this phase, and then move over to the role of the interactions with the remaining players.

Disclaimer: this is a model with assumptions stated as so. Request not to take this a a personal affront to anyone.

[ramana]

RamaY, Above characterization lends itself to Mesquita analysis.

Bji on a scale of 0-100 where do the above groups rate? 0 being No partition and 100 being Partition. And what is their power again on 0-100 on a relative scale. 100 being very powerful 0 is very weak. Next are there any fixed positions i.e. totally inflexible.

At a high level when a powerful player is inflexible the solution converges to his position.

[devesh]

it's Brihaspati, not RamaY!!!

[RamaY]

Ramanaji - noted.

At a high level when a powerful player is inflexible the solution converges to his position

And if there are powerful highly-flexible players exist in the game and only one side is inflexible.

I found another prahelikA The Interests Of Global Elites Are Diverging

Devesh garu - Ramanaji and I are Mesquita (Predictioneer's game) followers. We tend to see various issues/puzzles from that model perspective.

[brihaspati]

ramana ji and RamaY ji,

Have you been exposed to "back-calculation" of weights? Using actual convergent outcome to estimate the initial weights? Mesquita assigns the weights from a variety of factors, and part of which is based on actual opinions as given to him by key players. I will try to argue this tentatively from actual population distributions as well as congress organizational strengths relative to ML. But for a rough start maybe we will need to run it as a simulation if possible with various initial choices to see which ones converge to the outcome we know.

RamaY ji,
my conclusion is that both sides bluffed, and JLN won the bluffing game - for his own power based on a powerful centre. Prices were paid by others.

[Sushupti]

Pakistaniyat: A Patriot’s View

MANI SHANKAR AIYAR


Jabbar takes up the Two-Nation Theory, traces Pakistan’s misery to the loss of pluralist Islam , has reasons for hope

Jabbar’s basic point is that, notwithstanding the division of the subcontinent into three states, the Two-Nation Theory holds good because, he says, a state can contain more than one nation—and so the Muslims of India continue to be a nation within the Indian state.

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?278997

[RamaY]

ramana ji and RamaY ji,

Have you been exposed to "back-calculation" of weights? Using actual convergent outcome to estimate the initial weights? Mesquita assigns the weights from a variety of factors, and part of which is based on actual opinions as given to him by key players. I will try to argue this tentatively from actual population distributions as well as congress organizational strengths relative to ML. But for a rough start maybe we will need to run it as a simulation if possible with various initial choices to see which ones converge to the outcome we know.

RamaY ji,
my conclusion is that both sides bluffed, and JLN won the bluffing game - for his own power based on a powerful centre. Prices were paid by others.

Bji

It may not be possible to back track from a single convergent outcome. However, it might be possible to back track if we know at lease some of intermediate adjustments/opinions/developments and a couple of initial values. Even then I doubt it will be accurate.

Your other option of trialNerror seems to be a better approach as it will let us use the model s/w...

[brihaspati]

This post comes out of a claim in the TSP thread that it was not [only] JLN's personal power hunger but also Sardar's that precipitated the Partition:

One of the observations from the sixties and fifties by several researchers is that the Congress realized the importance of a strong centre to ensure its own dominance in India after independence.
[R.Kothari,'The Congress "System" in India', in Party System and Election Studies, Occasional Papers of the Centre for Developing Societies, No. 1 (Bombay, Allied Publishers, I967), pp. 1-18;
S.A. Kochanek, The Congress Party of India. The Dynamics of One-Party Democracy (Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton UP, 1968);
G. Krishna, 'One Party Dominance-Developments and Trends' in ibid., pp. 19-98.
V. P. Menon, The Transfer of Power in India (Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton UP, I957), p. 358.

Menon, on p. 358 states that Partition, would "enable 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, and to frame a truly democratic constitution unhampered by any communal considerations." On page 360, V. P. Menon recalled that by May 1947 Nehru was no longer averse to a proposed partition.

Azad blames the Mountbattens : "Within a month of Lord Mountbatten's arrivalin India, Jawaharlal, the firm opponent of partition, had become, if not a supporter, at least acquiescent to the idea. I have often wondered how Jawaharlal was won over by Lord Mountbatten.... Jawaharlal was greatly impressed by Lord Mountbatten but perhaps even greater was the influence of Lady Mountbatten...." [M.A.K.Azad, India Wins Freedom p,. I65].

But did he need any convincing?

Soon after the Lahore session, MKG wrote: "Unless the rest of India wishes to engage in internal fratricide, the others will have to submit to the Muslim dictation, if the Muslims will resort to it. ...The Muslims must have the same right of self-determination that the rest of India has. We are at present a joint family. Any member may claim a division.[...]
As a man of non-violence, I cannot forcibly resist the proposed partition if the Muslims of India really insist upon it.... it means the undoing of centuries of work done by numberless Hindus and Muslims to live together as one nation.... My whole soul rebels against the idea that Hinduism and Islam represent two antagonistic cultures and doctrines ... But that is my belief. I cannot thrust it down the throats of the Muslims who think that they are a different nation." [D. G. Tendulkar, Mahatma(Bombay,Jhaveri & Tendulkar, 1952),V, pp. 333-4.]

On 15 April I940, questioned about the resolution, Nehru was apparently "pleased, not because he liked it- on the contrary he considered it to be the most insane suggestion- but because it very much simplified the problem. They were now able to get rid of the demands about proportionate representation in legislatures, services, cabinets, etc.... [He] asserted that if people wanted such things as suggested by the Muslim League at Lahore, then one thing was clear, they and people like him could not live together in India. He would be prepared to face all consequences of it but he would not be prepared to live with such people." [Leader, 5 April 1940, quoted S. R. Mehrotra, 'The Congress and the Partition of India', in C. H. Philips & M. D. Wainwright (eds), The Partition of India. Policies and Perspectives 1935-1947 (London, Allen & Unwin, 1970), p. 210.]

The very next day [16th April - quoted in the above] he had added:

"Many knots of the Hindu-Muslim problem had been merged into one knot, which could not be unravelled by ordinary methods, but would need an operation ... he would say one thing very frankly that he had begun to consider them [the Muslim Leaguers] and people like himself, as separate nations."

Writing from Ahmedabad jail, in the early nineteen-forties, he writes: "wrong steps have to be taken sometimes lest some worse peril befall us.... Unity is always better than disunity, but an enforced unity is a sham and a dangerous affair, full of explosive possibilities.'[J. Nehru, The Discovery of India (Bombay, Asia Publishing House, 1969), p. 526.]

What JLN thought about the unity proposals, as in the Cabinet Mission Plan, were clearly revealed several months before the occurrence of the plan. In January I946, during his 'four-hour discussion' with Woodrow L. Wyatt, Personal Assistant to Cripps on the Cabinet Mission, JLN was reported to have

"conceded that the British Government might have to declare for Pakistan ... granted however (a) a plebiscite, and (b) territorial readjustments so that solid blocks of Hindu territory were not included, he accepted Pakistan." [Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 15 January 1946; Mansergh, TP Documents, VI, Doc. No. 357, L/PO/Io/23, p. 796.]

Within two weeks, he writes to Cripps, "It seems clear that he [Jinnah] is not after Pakistan but something entirely different, or perhaps he is after nothing at all except to stop all change and progress." [Nehru to Cripps, 27 January 1946; ibid., Doc. No. 384, L/P & J/I/59: ff. 42-4, pp. 855-6.]

Duckworth, a British official covering Nehru's trip to Malaya during 18-26 March 1946, reported in April I946, that Nehru was scornful of Jinnah and doubted very much whether he had either the intention or the power to start a revolt in India if he did not secure Pakistan. .. "Jinnah", he said, "rather reminds me of the man who was charged with the murder of his mother and father and begged the clemency of the court on the ground that he was an orphan'. [Note by Duckworth, 4 April 1946;ibid.,VII, Doc. No. 54, L/P &J/8/636: if. 3-6, p. 136.]

As for Sardar, Menon writes that he managed to bring Sardar over from the uncompromising stand for "unity" in "May". On whose behalf could Menon go on about trying to convince Sardar?


We all know that Jinnah rejected the Cripps proposal only after the CWC rejected it. The Cabinet Mission on the other hand proposed the compulsory grouping of Muslim provinces- leaving Bengal and Assam in a separate grouping for ten years- offered him the effective contents of the Muslim federation, and brought the Muslim provinces under the control of the League at the centre. It denied the principle of secession and preserved India's integrity. It stipulated for a weak centre, thwarting the prospects for a total Congress dominance. The Mission Plan did not provide him with the prospects for the 'parity' he would have wished at the centre given Congress's position. The centre itself would not have been as strong to ensure his authority over the Muslim provinces. But the communal provisions held out the promise of a powerbroker role at the centre.

Jinnah accepted the Plan however and formally justified the acceptance of the Plan on 6 June 1946 on the ground that the "basis of Pakistan" was "inherent" in the plan. He also had to give them an undertaking that he would join no interim government without parity for the League. In the League's statement of acceptance there was further mention of the League's cooperation with the constitution-making apparatus in the "hope" that their efforts would ultimately be rewarded with the "establishment of a completely sovereign Pakistan". [Mansergh, TP Documents V,II,Doc.No.469,Enclosure,L/P&J/5/337:PP418- 20, p. 837]. This is an extraordinary response if one adheres to the view that Jinnah really wanted a sovereign Pakistan. As recently as 7 April, Jinnah had claimed: "we cannot accept any proposal which would be, in any way, derogatory to the full sovereignty of Pakistan". Jinnah was clearly prepared on 6 June to accept something less than what almost every one else thought of as Pakistan.

On 25 June I946 the Congress Working Committee gave qualified assent to the plan; the AICC, under Maulana Azad's presidency, voted its approval along the same lines, on 6-th July, exactly a month later than the League's acceptance of the plan. Thinking that they had been successful, the Mission left India on 29 June.

Within days JLN took over as President and declared that the Congress was "uncommitted" to the plan. He cast "grave" doubts over the grouping procedures and stressed that the central government would require some overall power to intervene in grave crisis or breakdown, warning that such central power "inevitably grows". He also rejected parity for the League in the Interim Executive Council. The Congress was trying to make it impossible for Jinnah to use the Cabinet Mission Plan to compromise.

Assuming that Jinnah was engaged in continuous taqyia, and he never meant what he said : and Sardar was the key proponent of Partition - was Sardar absent from CWC, AICC until JLN's presidency?

Azad thinks it was his failure to understand the situation and give up the presidency : "I can never forgive myself when I think that if I had not committed these mistakes the history of the last io years would have been different ... I warned Jawaharlal that history would never forgive us if we agreed to Partition. The verdict would be that India was not divided by the Muslim League but by the Congress." However, even if we discount Azad's sense of his own potency, what he indicates firmly is that everything changed from early July to soon after within the top decisionmaking body of the congrez - coinciding exactly with the inaugural of the Presidency of JLN. He was even openly criticized at the time for his ponderous statements.

[KLNMurthy]

History is made by persons who sense and sail the prevailing political winds of the time, and on rare occassions influence those winds. Those who are lucky and/or skilled will gain and hold power in this game. Painting them as villains is just part of the play of rivals while they struggle to mount an effective challenge. The wielders and holders of power, meanwhile, strive to create an aura of heroism around themselves. Somewhere from the murky depths of this game emerges, rarely, the thing known as public interest and welfare. This is the prism through which I view the never-ending controversy about the alleged villainy of the Nehru-gandhi clan.

Coming to Partition, it is treated as an emotional issue, therefore assigning "blame" for Partition becomes a weapon in this political Game of Thrones. But, in reading Patel's views on Partition as the lesser evil compared to yielding on separate electorates and potential paralysis and civil war, one can only admire the thoughtful, prescient mind and patriotic spirit of the man who participated in such a momentous, and ultimately correct solution to India's looming "muslim problem", at that point in history.

[brihaspati]

^^^Going by the record - since before JLN's presidency - the AICC came out in support of the Cabinet Mission plan, while "after" JLN's statements were made public and openly hostile to the mission plan and clearly indicated change from "qualified" acceptance to "uncommitted" - and Sardar being a member of AICC both "before" as well as "after", the change-agent has to be JLN and not Sardar.

This was the original point of contention - to which I was replying.

[ramana]

Until the periphery was allowed to explore their own viability, they would have been sitting inside and ruling the core. So 1947 though bloody and painful was a necessary catharsis. Regardless of who is to blame, the reality of current TSP would not have been revealed to all in full glory.

[KLNMurthy]

To me, it is secondary how the credit / blame for partition is apportioned between the various leaders or how they were persuaded; what I find more useful is an understanding of the main political forces of the time. What I gather from various accounts including paki ones like Ayesha Jalal's is that Jinnah and the nawabs of the Muslim League were mainly after separate electorates along with autonomy for States like Hyderabad and Bhopal so that muslims will have ovelordship in large chunks, electoral majority in others, and the ability to disrupt and wage political and direct war in the shared regions.

But Congress set its face against this demand (also pushed by brits since the time of minto-morley at least) and League was forced to up the ante by demanding Partition, gambling to bring Congress around playing on akhanda bharat sentiment. But this gambit ultimately failed to move Congress, which meant (given that League was adamantly against universal integrated constituencies) both Congress and League were stuck with only the Partition option. It is in this sense that paki historians and many anti-congress people like Jaswant Singh blame Nehru or Gandhi or Patel or Congress or "banias" depending on their proclivities and political leanings.

Indians may feel happy when various pakis say they are unhappy with Partition, but we may not realize that the unhappiness is due to their failure to realize their goal of veto power through separate electorates and the rest of it. We just mistake their unhappiness as endorsement of our sentimental love for akhanda bharat when it is nothing of the kind.

Judging by the tone of some of the correspondence, we can speculate as to whether Congress leaders talked themselves out of fighting more vigorously for a united India with integrated constituencies. Having said that, I think, rather than "blame for Partition", Congress leaders deserve "praise for saving India from the nightmare of separate electorates". Top leaders did not break ranks on this.

[ramana]

I agree with your assessment that in the end the leaders had to do the best they could to get the Brits out and keep door open to bring back the others.

Hence the appeasement and even letting the 93K POWs and SeS concessions.

[A_Gupta]

The claim was made by Brihaspati on the TSP thread that it was Jawaharlal Nehru's hunger for power that led to Partition.

My riposte was that in that case Sardar Patel was also hungry for power, for he too, ultimately pushed for Partition.

{Brihaspati turned that into "Sardar Patel's power-hunger (plus JLN's) precipitated Partition, which is, like Brihaspati's history, a distortion of the facts.}

The fact is that "short of suicide" (Gandhi's phrase), the Congress did everything it could to work with Jinnah, but ultimately it gave up and faced the inevitable. What was the reason for one-by-one, everyone in the A.I.C.C. to be convinced that Partition was unavoidable, necessary?

This is how Sardar Patel put it:

A little before he was sacked in early 1947, N.P.A. Smith, the powerful director of the Intelligence Bureau, submitted a note to Wavell. This note gives a flavour of the easy relationship that Patel[Home Minister in the Interim Government] could establish with his English subordinates, even with those who knew that he wanted them to go, as Smith did: I told him [Sardar Patel]...that any attempt to force the Muslim would result, through the disintegration of the police and Army in the loss of NW India. His reply was that, if I thought that generosity would placate the Muslim Oliver Twist, I did not understand either the Muslim mind or the situation. With which statement I am tempted to agree...

For that it is necessary to examine the series of Muslim League demands, beginning as early as the 1920s. It is obviously complicated, but if it could be put in one sentence it would be the demand for absolute parity. What this meant is that Muslims - Muslim League - would get 50%, Hindus would get 50%, and the place for Sikhs, Christians, Jains, tribals, nationalist Muslims, etc., would be taken from the Hindu 50%. This was obviously unworkable, and acceptance of it would constitute the suicide that Gandhi mentioned.

The sleight of hand Brihaspati does in his long series of quotes is the same as that of the Seervai-Noorani school of history of the Partition, and that is to focus solely on Congress actions and not what the Congress was reacting to - the Muslim League demands (and the British support thereof). That is the only way of making the Congress to be culpable for Partition.

Seervai, Noorani, et. al., may at least have had (I speculate) the purpose of removing the blame placed on Indian Muslims for the Partition and subsequent distrust and hatred of them. There is no such excuse available in this situation.

Fortunately for me, I don't have to do any work to answer Brihaspati. The Noorani-Seervai theories (as well as the Ayesha Jalal theory) of the Partition are examined and exploded on The Cabinet Mission Plan web-site (I helped assemble the collection of primary material for that web-site, but did not produce the content.)

http://sites.google.com/site/cabinetmissionplan/

There is an enormous amount of primary and secondary source material provided on that site. If you don't want to wade through that, the author's take on it is provided below. Though each statement in that essay is not cross-referenced as it could be, the substance of that essay is established by the primary material posted on the web site. I suggest reading through this, and we can take it further from there, if necessary.

http://sites.google.com/site/cabinetmis ... mp-my-take

[A_Gupta]

For completeness sake, one more:
http://sites.google.com/site/cabinetmis ... -my-take-3

Just excerpting the conclusion here, do read the whole thing:

In summary, by accepting the Cabinet Mission Plan, Jinnah and Muslim League did not surrender any substantial sovereignty to the Union; in contrast the Congress failed to get its demands for the federal centre accepted. Moreover, inspite of the Plan’s provisions, Jinnah explicitly asserted intent to secede; also, Muslim League did claim a right to interpret the Plan as granting the right of secession from the Union; and ultimately, Congress had ample reason to believe that the Plan was not politically sustainable and that the compulsory grouping scheme would result in a sovereign Pakistan.

[A_Gupta]

To me, it is secondary how the credit / blame for partition is apportioned between the various leaders or how they were persuaded; what I find more useful is an understanding of the main political forces of the time. What I gather from various accounts including paki ones like Ayesha Jalal's is that Jinnah and the nawabs of the Muslim League were mainly after separate electorates along with autonomy for States like Hyderabad and Bhopal so that muslims will have ovelordship in large chunks, electoral majority in others, and the ability to disrupt and wage political and direct war in the shared regions.

Sorry, KLNMurthy, but the Muslim League's position, if it can be summarized, was for absolute parity - 50% - not just separate electorates. The issue was also raised by others, and answered by Jinnah - what about the non-Hindu, non-Muslim minorities, and the answer was, their representation had to come out of the Hindu 50%. By conveniently leaving this out, Ayesha Jalal, Noorani, etc., and now Brihaspati, can come up with a narrative that Muslims had some acceptable propositions which the Congress turned down, leaving them with Partition as the only option.

Obviously, you can pick holes in the above 3 sentence summarization of several years of complicated history. But before diving into the details, I would like you to to understand the essence of the position that the nationalists faced; without that, Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, etc.'s actions may seem arbitrary or incomprehensible.

PS: with the Cabinet Mission Plan, the ML's demands grew to "parity with the right to secede".

[KLNMurthy]

I agree with your assessment that in the end the leaders had to do the best they could to get the Brits out and keep door open to bring back the others.

Hence the appeasement and even letting the 93K POWs and SeS concessions.

I think that the choices you mention--appeasement etc., have been a continuation of the compromises made in '47. However little effort seems to have gone into renegotiating the compromise, based on possible sea change in Indian Muslims' collective outlook, emergent evidence of costs and risks of the compromise and so on. That is one reason why SeS and the == hindu terror etc., have such a grotesque false ring.

[svenkat]

AGuptaji,
Thank you very much for laying out the facts bare.Not that this is some revelation.But for the benefit of those who choose to willingly ignore reality.

OT question:Given this past,is it not 'traitrous' on the part of MMS/Sonia to talk of 'Hindu Terror' and 'sachar committee',muslim reservation,active support to ejs not withstanding need to improve lot of dalits.Should not the congress take the lead in formulating policies for a united nation,not withstanding parochial interests on ground and also legitimate sectional aspirations?

In fact,this only lends credence to dark forces 'within' UPA being dictated by powerful external forces.

And sir,being from the deep south,I do not believe in any simplistic Hindutva positions.There seems to be clearly a battle at the very top.And Dr MMS himself seems to be torn between two sides given our diversity and the poor quality of BJP opposition?

[KLNMurthy]

@A_Gupta I don't claim detailed expertise on League demands but perhaps we can agree that what they were after, via various mechanisms including separate and/or proportional representation, was to institutionalize communal division and acquire the power to exercise veto or wage hot or cold civil war to estanlish muslim supremacy in perpetuity.

Again, it seems to me that Indians get caught in a trap of sentimentality about lost akhanda bharat and fail to understand what a lot of work was put in by Congress in averting the disaster of institutionalized muslim dominance (which in practice would have meant prolonged civil war which would have broken India into pieces). I think perhaps Congress itself didn't explain these decisions and choices to the people. Maybe that was also because a conspiracy of silence to preserve the echandee of muslims who stayed back was essential to making the whole thing work.

In any case, there was more wisdom in those leaders than is commonly appreciated today.

[member_19686]

What a lot of work indeed!

Keep telling the Hindus and Sikhs to stay put and that Partition was not going to happen but then throw them to the Muslim wolves when the time came.

Then you have some worthy always bringing up his "deep south" heritage as if it has any relevance at all to the topic.

If Congress was so keen on averting violence then why did they block peaceful, orderly population exchange as suggested by Ambedkar, even Jinnah seemed ok with it.

After silently watching the genocide of Hindus and Sikhs, Nehru signed the pact with Liaqat in 1950 washing his hands off those whom he and his party delivered to the slaughter.

Now we get shibboleths 64 years later about how Congress had no choice and how their heroics prevented a "civil war", well then they should have gone the whole hog and exchanged populations if they abhorred violence so much. That would have prevented the millions killed or cleansed in 1947 and the subsequent ethnic cleansing of Hindus carried out by patriotic Indian Muslims (e.g. Kashmir).

[svenkat]

Surasena,
The Andhra brigade (with apologies to ramanaji and RamaYji) will have greater credibility if they dont hold out seccessionist threats on the issue of telengana,as has been done umpteen number of times in the Telengana dhaga.If this is the stand of educated people,God save us and telengana people from the political goons.

I bring in my 'deep south' part not to hold out threats,but to show sensitivity to other views,without in any way appeasing any section of the populations and also do not believe India is some God given idea,but something which needs to be nurtured,because it is the most necessary and correct need of our age based on our ancient values which includes the 'deep south'.

[brihaspati]

The claim was made by Brihaspati on the TSP thread that it was Jawaharlal Nehru's hunger for power that led to Partition.

My riposte was that in that case Sardar Patel was also hungry for power, for he too, ultimately pushed for Partition.

{Brihaspati turned that into "Sardar Patel's power-hunger (plus JLN's) precipitated Partition, which is, like Brihaspati's history, a distortion of the facts.}

I can see, that A_Gupta's hyperfine sense of logic has landed him into saying that "Sardar Patel was also hungry for power since he also pushed for partition just as JLN did" is not equal to "Sardar Patel's power hunger plus JLN' precipitated partition" - even if the latter is not a statement I set out to briefly prove.

Actually, just as the congrezite spin on the Partition process has constructed a so-called "nationalist" (essentially Nehruvian) version of Partition historiography which in a sense A_Gupta is trying to re-promote - there is a similar spin by the "nationalist" (essentially Jinnahian) Paki historiography.

In the need to clear JLN's name, A_Gupta had to cherry pick as he typically does in his own version of distortion of history - beginning with the original post of mine in the TSP thread where I had clearly mentioned that JLN was just one of the two individuals between whom a contest for personal power precipitated the Partition process. Since the post was about the consistent historical record of the congrez platform in the creation and preservation of Pakistan - from the congrez side. I never made any statement that it was done in a vacuum, and I explicitly stated that facilitators - Brits. When I had mentioned two individuals - obviously I was mentioning the other of the pair - Jinnah. But there has never been any derying or denying on my part, of the secessionist, Islamist role of the theocratical Islamic society substructure - and hence whatever be the role of Jinnah, has never been denied by me.

The question may arise, now as to how can then JLN's role be discussed separately from Jinnah. This innocent looking question is actually a very old "congrezite" version of nationalist historiographical trick : it is moving the goalposts subtly towards Jinnah as the initiator - against whom JLN was merely, oh merely "reacting"! This then removes any personal inclination or motivation from JLN.

This is how there is now an impressive pseudo-nationalist historiography on both sides of the border - each trying to absolve its icon's roles of the initiative or personal motivation. Each side blames the "other" for initiating partition. The following is exactly a representation of this reconstructive attempt and spin :

The fact is that "short of suicide" (Gandhi's phrase), the Congress did everything it could to work with Jinnah, but ultimately it gave up and faced the inevitable. What was the reason for one-by-one, everyone in the A.I.C.C. to be convinced that Partition was unavoidable, necessary?

As in most of A_Gupta's selective quoting, his lambasting of JLN/congrez -critical positions are based on "opinions" and "summaries" and impressions. It is repeatedly claimed that congrez and JLN did everything possible to "work with Jinnah". Really? It can be shown that congrez under MKG's influence tried to work with Islamism and Islam, but not with Jinnah. In the process they began the process of buttering up and conceding to Islam itself a space in Indian politics that would ultimately lead to provincial hardcore Islamist elite getting legitimized in politics. In the 1920's, the selective whitewashing and blackwashing of the type A_Gupta does - suppresses the detailed evidence of Jinnah's overt position against the overt Islamists - whom the congrezites were pampering ignoring protests even from within. Will A_Gupta have the courage to put up the process by which Jinnah left the congrez? Even the Nehruvian spinning historiography version of it?

This is how Sardar Patel put it:

A little before he was sacked in early 1947, N.P.A. Smith, the powerful director of the Intelligence Bureau, submitted a note to Wavell. This note gives a flavour of the easy relationship that Patel[Home Minister in the Interim Government] could establish with his English subordinates, even with those who knew that he wanted them to go, as Smith did: I told him [Sardar Patel]...that any attempt to force the Muslim would result, through the disintegration of the police and Army in the loss of NW India. His reply was that, if I thought that generosity would placate the Muslim Oliver Twist, I did not understand either the Muslim mind or the situation. With which statement I am tempted to agree...

No one, including me, has ever tried to portray Sardar as an islamophile. A_Gupta simply quotes a statement that actually confirms Sardar's correctly negative understanding of Islamism - but ironically confirms something A_Gupta has chosen to ignore, that Sardar's statement here is showing simply his uncompromising stance on secession. He is unconcerned about the fallouts of "forcing" the Muslim. Now the types of A_Gupta spinning of history will not stop to think - that if Sardar here is trying to promote secession, why would he counter the Brit's claim that "NW India" would be "lost" if Muslims are "forced" by "not placating them" - by saying that "placating" will not change Muslim behaviour? What was this "forcing" about being referred to? Obviously it was the Sardarian line of "integration" - by "force" if necessary. Some minimal basic historical honesty and integrity should force Nehruvians to acknowledge the evidence for this position in Sardar - almost uncompromisingly until June -in Sardar.

I will wait for A_Gupta to bring up the ubiquitious "sequence" of pronouncements from Sardar and Nehru on the issue of secession. Who started when talking about what. That would be most illuminating.

For that it is necessary to examine the series of Muslim League demands, beginning as early as the 1920s. It is obviously complicated, but if it could be put in one sentence it would be the demand for absolute parity. What this meant is that Muslims - Muslim League - would get 50%, Hindus would get 50%, and the place for Sikhs, Christians, Jains, tribals, nationalist Muslims, etc., would be taken from the Hindu 50%. This was obviously unworkable, and acceptance of it would constitute the suicide that Gandhi mentioned.

The sleight of hand Brihaspati does in his long series of quotes is the same as that of the Seervai-Noorani school of history of the Partition, and that is to focus solely on Congress actions and not what the Congress was reacting to - the Muslim League demands (and the British support thereof). That is the only way of making the Congress to be culpable for Partition.

Actually, it is not taken from Seeravai-Noorani school of history. It is from actual statements which are usually and strangely not found quoted in the Nehruvian version that A-Gupta is promoting. Once again, A_Gupta's sleight of hand is again trying to show the standard Nehruvian justification based on the so-called "reactive" principle - that everything congrez and JLN did was in reaction to ML. This is partial truth if the other sides' parallel claims are then dismissed that Jinnah was reacting to congrez and JLN. Both then should be taken together and analyzed for reality - without accepting claims on any one side as sacrosanct. I have not done anything like this - and not claimed that I am accepting Jinnahian history! But of course defenders of JLN's image needs to ignore my specific proposition that we assume that "Jinnah was doing continuous Taqyia" and "he never really meant what he said". In the eagerness to serve the Nehruvian cause A_Gupta of course has to ignore such lines.

Seervai, Noorani, et. al., may at least have had (I speculate) the purpose of removing the blame placed on Indian Muslims for the Partition and subsequent distrust and hatred of them. There is no such excuse available in this situation.

Fortunately for me, I don't have to do any work to answer Brihaspati. The Noorani-Seervai theories (as well as the Ayesha Jalal theory) of the Partition are examined and exploded on The Cabinet Mission Plan web-site (I helped assemble the collection of primary material for that web-site, but did not produce the content.)

http://sites.google.com/site/cabinetmissionplan/

There is an enormous amount of primary and secondary source material provided on that site. If you don't want to wade through that, the author's take on it is provided below. Though each statement in that essay is not cross-referenced as it could be, the substance of that essay is established by the primary material posted on the web site. I suggest reading through this, and we can take it further from there, if necessary.

http://sites.google.com/site/cabinetmis ... mp-my-take

[/quote]

Once again, I have omitted Jalal's work from my post - so Nehruvian spinner's hatred of Jalal doesn't really apply to what I wrote. I look upon her as similar to the reconstructive spin that A_Gupta is giving.

However, all the quotes I quoted - are typically not placed in a sequence that I placed - from the Nehruvian apologists. As is the typical tendency with such apologists - everything "negative" associated with activities/statements/positions of JLN have to be "shared" by others, typically Sardar because errors cannot be blamed on one single person - while everything "positive" is JLN's credit alone in which case apparently the former logic of things not happening onlee on individual initiative is not to be applied.

But what is more interesting is the sleight of hand by which A_Gupta ignores my specific questions - since he was so insistent on formal statements form stalwarts representing their true inner "minds" -
(1) if parity was so much an obsession - why did Jinnah accept only on the "hope" of achieving this?
(2) more importantly, what changed between the initial acceptance of the plan by congrezz AICC in July and then the sudden volteface after JLN took over the presidency?

Specifically to A_Gupta's "co-sharing-of-initiative" tactics - Sardar was present both "before" and "after" : but the sudden public statements by JLN (for which he was criticized from within his party - which in turn implies that he did this without consulting his senior colleagues - which in turn shows that they did not share his views to the extent he articulated them) seems to have started the ball rolling.

Why was Menon claiming that he "brought Sardar" around from his uncompromising stand in May? Who was Menon most closely associated with?

All of this points to JLN's specific initiative preceding Sardar's. Sardar was for integration by force if necessary - which shows through in all his subsequent actions and moves.

All my quotes are from documentary evidence typically not cited by the likes of A_Gupta in a sequence, because they then start revealing a disturbing pattern perhaps. Combined with this, I have already shown the callous statements and attitude shown by JLN in his ethically perverse selective application of legal and other excuses in behaving completely differently when it came to intervention to save Hindu lives and Muslim lives [ahimsa "for Bengali hindu suffering from Muslims in Noakhlai" and "bullets for Bihari hindus rioting on muslims" ] - points to his personal panic at the possibility of having to share personal dominance with Jinnah.

But in contrast to Sardar, he neither showed Sardar's grasp of the dynamics of Islamism, and Islam nor Sardar's primary desire to unite by force if necessary. His attitudes towards Bengal and Punjab throughout the Partition years confirm this personal angle further.

I am not an apologist for Jinnah, and even less an apologist for Islamism. That should not prevent us from looking up the actual documents - and claims from both sides [because each side suppresses documents that do not fit into their whitewashing campaigns] and coming to our own conclusions.

[brihaspati]

One big problem with post-analysis is that, we look back and think - oh things have turned out this way, and it seems to be for the better . Therefore those who decided then must have done this consciously for our good.

The problem in this sort of logic is the assumption
(1) what we now have is the "best" outcome ("best" is flexible)
(2) the negatives that we see against which we compare our "good" - are not a direct consequence of those decisions in the past.
(3) the motivations that we attribute to deciders now were also actually the motivations of the deciders.

Has the creation of an independent Pakistan really been "good" for India? The only logic that is most commonly given out goes along the lines : "look at how bad now Paki situation is/in terms of socio-economic development". Now there are many other nations which have not fared well since post-colonial independence. So this socio-economic criticism can only be connected to the act of Partition through the characterization of this negativity as resulting from Islamism and predominance of the islamic principle in running the rashtra.

This connection is again problematic from two different angles :

(a) the reality of non-oil dominant GDP Islamism based societies like Indonesia or Malaysia towards socio-economic growth.
(b) also is an underhand acknowledgment of the basically anti-Islamist viewpoint as source of criticism of Pak.

The most common form in which (b) is expressed is the argument - that without partition, all these muslim majority areas would be inside India, with a possibly weak centre - and hence we would not be able to see the current prosperity that we see.

This line of argument inherently assumes that - majority muslim societies are counter-productive towards socio-economic growth, which in turn assumes that Islam [which is the only common fibre in chracterizing islamic socities - however much we try to spin it in our language] is counter-productive to socio-economic growth if it attains influential position in a society.

But if that is the sentiment - then it becomes necessary to keep the muslim in "India" firmly under "control" and not in dominant or "influential" position to affect socio-economic policy!

There is another angle to the whole "they decided well" thing: they might not have decided for the "good" of generations 60-70 years down the line - and we have reasons to suspect this because they themselves acknowledge even within 10-20 years, that they had not "expected" consequent events to happen. If they were unable to accurately plan and foresee for major events 2, 4,5,10,12,15 years down the line - it will be hagiography to allot them credit for having foreseen and planned for 60-70 years down the line.

Our tendency to idolize people and raise them to divine unquestioned status - makes us forget that they could be just like us, with personal ambitions, frailties, narrowness, shortsightedness or excess-ego or other negative qualities that we completely wash off from consideration when thinking about them.

It is important to investigate the costs for India in having Pakistan continuing to exist on its borders throughout the decades. Only after we do such an analysis may we claim to have settled the question of whether by promoting "Partiion" or accepting it people really did decide well for the future of India. In the absence of such an analysis - lets keep the conclusions open.

[brihaspati]

" The Muslim League Council had accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan. So had the Congress Working Committee. It however needed the approval of the AICC. A meeting of the AICC was called at Bombay on 7 July, 1946. When the AICC met I invited Jawaharlal to take over as Congress President from me. Then I moved the resolution on the Cabinet Mission Plan and briefly spoke about its main features [...] I pointed out that the Cabinet Mission Plan had accepted in all essentials the Congress point of view. It guaranteed the unity of India while at the same time it held out the necessary assurances to the minorities[....] My speech had a decisive influence on the audience. When the vote was taken, the resolution was passed with an overwhelming majority. Thus the seal of approval was put on the Working Committee's resolution accepting the Cabinet Mission Plan.

Now happened one of those unfortunate events which change the course of history. On 10 July, Jawaharlal held a press conference in Bombay in which he made an astonishing statement. Some press representatives asked him whether, with the passing of the Resolution by the AICC, the Congress had accepted the plan in toto, including the composition of the Interim Government. Jawaharlal in reply stated that the Congress would enter the Constituent Assembly 'completely unfettered by agreements and free to meet all situations as they arise'. Press representatives further asked if this meant that the Cabinet Mission Plan could be modified.

Jawaharlal replied emphatically that the Congress had agreed only to participate in the Constituent Assembly and regarded itself free to change or modify the Cabinet Mission Plan as it thought best.

The Muslim League had accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan only under duress. Naturally, Mr.Jinnah was not very happy about it. In his speech to the League Council, he had clearly stated that he recommended acceptance only because nothing better could be obtained.[...] Jawaharlal's statement came to him as a bombshell. He immediately issued a statement that this declaration by the Congress President demanded a review of the whole situation. He accordingly asked Liaqat Ali Khan to call a meeting of the League Council and issued a statement to the following effect. The Muslim League Council had accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan in Delhi as it was assured that the Congress also had accepted the scheme and the Plan would be the basis of the future constitution of India. Now that the Congress President had declared that the Congress could change the scheme through its majority in the Constituent Assembly, this would mean that the minorities would be placed at the mercy of the majority[...]

The Muslim League Council met at Bombay on 27th July. Mr.Jinnah in his opening speech reiterated the demand for Pakistan as the only course left open to the Muslim League. After three days' discussion, the Council passed a resolution rejecting the Cabinet Mission Plan. It also decided to resort to direct action for the achievement of Pakistan. [...]Mr. Jinnah declared 16 August the Direct Action Day, but he did not make it clear what the programme would be.

[...]16th August was a black day in the history of India. Mob violence unprecedented in the history of India plunged the great city of Calcutta into an orgy of bloodshed, murder and terror....Soon the whole city was in the grip of goondas of both the communities.

[...]At Dum Dum) I found a large contingent of the military waiting in trucks. When I asked why they were not helping in restoring order, they replied that their orders were to stand ready but not to take any action. Throughout Calcutta, the military and the police were standing by but remained inactive while innocent men and women were being killed. Sixteen august, 1946 was a black day not only for Calcutta but for the whole of India. The turn that events had taken made it almost impossible to expect a peaceful solution by agreement between the Congress and the Muslim League. This was one of the greatest tragedies of Indian history and I have to say with the deepest of regret that a large part of the responsibility for this development rests with Jawaharlal."

[India Wins Freedom by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, (Complete version), Orient Longman, India, 1988, pp 163-170]

Let us ignore what Azad thought about motivations in the lead actors and only concentrate on the timeline and turn of events. Obviously even from within AICC, he was "astonished" at JLN's "statements". This shows that at least one person within AICC had not been able to anticipate the "turn" that JLN would take. Moreover, apparently as per this statement - AICC passed the resolution of accepting the "plan".

We will have more.

[brihaspati]

I was reluctant to bring up the cabinetmissionplan website into the discussion: but it may now be worthwhile to look into this as an exercise in reconstructive historiography that weeds out material not suitable for a particular historiographical objective. I will point out the documents omitted in context as we go through the various headings. But what has been put up and assembled contain some peculiar clues - which were retained I guess because it was not realized what their significance was:

Let us start with the so-called "behind the scenes Gandhi" [note that the site contains "behind the scenes" for Gandhiji, Jinnah and nothing for JLN. In fact throughout the material assembled, JLN's representation is minimal -except through press conference report for 10th July and a highly selective prior correspondence with Jinnah].

http://sites.google.com/site/cabinetmis ... nes-Gandhi

503 Page 884 (excerpt)
Note by Field Marshal Viscount Wavell
Note on Interview with Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
12 June 1946
Patel was not at all convinced, but said finally that if Jinnah and Nehru met and could agree on a list of names of the Government, he would be prepared to accept it. He said that it would be better if they sat alone, with no-one else.

Sardar's opposition to the cabinet mission plan is consistent - because he was against dissolution of subregions into secessive tendencies, and particularly thought of the Islamists/Muslims as prone to ideologically motivated and committed secession. The grouping schemes would be anathema to him for reasons based on his general understanding of the Muslim societal dynamics.

But he is prepared here in the quote to go along with it - and points to the main difficulties on the way to the personalities of the two men - Jinnah and Nehru. He also points to the basic reason for this indirectly - and that is over the "list" of names for the "government". If he was merely being tactical knowing that the two would not be able to agree on a common list - then it shows that he was aware of where the fundamental contest lay between the two men - over distribution of power.

In that case he would not have added the line on that the two should meet on a one-on-one basis without anyone else present. If all the others were already opposed, presence of such third parties in the discussion would ensure that the plan would not be accepted - because these others would pressurize or raise objections that the respective leaders would not be able to deny publicly in their respective support groups.

So taken together this implies that Sardar was consciously suggesting that the chief obstacle he saw to acceptance of the plan lay in the two individual leader's urge for dominance of the government - and he was suggesting an old method followed in many organizations [as in the election of the pope] that the most eager beavers be locked up on their own in a room and not allowed to come out until they had agreed on a division of spoils.

238. TALK WITH VALLABHBHAI PATEL—I
June 24, 1946
After the meeting, . . . on the way the Sardar asked Bapu: “There is a meeting of the Working Committee; what am I to tell them?” Bapu answered that he was not satisfied with the talk with the Cabinet Mission. The Sardar was irritated. “You raised doubts as regards para 19. They have given a clear assurance on that. What more do you want?” Bapu scribbled in reply: During our meeting when Cripps said to me that if we were apprehensive about the wording of the instructions issued by the Reforms Office they could delete the reference to para 19 and substitute in its place the words “for the purpose of the declaration of the 16th May”, Lord Pethick-Lawrence immediately intervened and said: “No, that presents difficulty.”

The Sardar dissented. Bapu asked Sudhir. Sudhir confirmed Bapu’s version but added that his own impression was that they were prepared to concede what Bapu had asked for.

This was the issue over a telegram from Assam about the clarification over a point of signing an item. Note here that Sardar at this stage is willing to accept the verbal clarification prvided by the Brits, and dissents from MKG.

239. DISCUSSION AT CONGRESS WORKING COMMITTEE MEETING—I
June 24, 1946
The Sardar said that they were under a promise to give their decision to the Cabinet Mission that afternoon. Bapu dissented. In a series of scribbled slips he suggested that they should postpone their decision till he met the Cabinet Delegation in the evening and obtained further clarification from them. Finally he scribbled: There is no question of my feelings being hurt. I am against deciding this issue today but you are free to decide as you like.

Sardar is still on, here.

241. DISCUSSION AT CONGRESS WORKING COMMITTEE MEETING—II
June 24, 1946
Their recommendation will remain in their mouths or on the printed paper. We shall have no authority even to order a constable if there is a row in the Constituent Assembly. This is a dangerous situation. There must be the imprimatur of the Parliament and real power in the Central Government before we can make anything of the Constituent Assembly. The imprimatur of the Parliament would clear the way for the Chairman of the Constituent Assembly (by making the issue adjudicable) in case he wants to refer a point of major importance to the Federal Court for decision.

In the course of the discussion that followed, the Sardar pressed with great vigour his view that the explanation given by the Cabinet Mission in regard to the form issued by the Reforms Office was quite adequate and the Congress could not postpone giving its decision forthwith without damaging its prestige. Bapu scribbled. My mind is in a fog. . . . It centres round the insertion of reference to para 19 . . . and the meaning of “scrapping the whole plan” (of the Interim Government).

I have asked Rajen Babu and Sarat Babu as lawyers whether the candidates, after acting according to the instructions given to Governors, can afterwards disregard them.[1] If the answer is yes then my mouth will be shut although I find a great danger in joining [the Constituent Assembly]. You examine all the instructions. There are other things in it which irk me. Now I think the point will also be raised that the State Paper should bear the imprimatur of the Parliament. Whatever the Cabinet Mission may say or write it will remain in their mouths or on the printed paper. They have opened here a Reform Office. Whatever they do and the interpretation they put will be final. The Government office not being in your hands you cannot have control over it. You should consider all this. You should do nothing in haste. I shall be meeting them today or tomorrow after which I shall be able to enlighten you as I shall be better informed. Today’s interview has not produced a good impression on my mind. Because of my silence I could not myself ask questions. So I do not blame these people. I am in a very delicate position. I see darkness where four days ago I saw light.

[1] According to the source “the opinion of Sarat Bose was that reference to para 19 in the instructions did not take away from the members liberty of action since their acceptance of the State Paper was subject to the legal interpretation of the clauses in dispute. Rajendra Babu’s opinion was that para 19 did not make grouping compulsory. It only gave Provinces freedom to form groups as was clear from the language of the document itself.”

Iam omitting the next interview - since in this MKG is simply discussing the previous clarification and raising new questions. Sardar here is mentioned only in seeking clrification on European voting.

243. TALK WITH VALLABHBHAI PATEL—II
June 24, 1946
On returning from there the Sardar again asked Bapu: “Were you satisfied?” Bapu replied: On the contrary my suspicion has deepened. I suggest that hereafter you should guide the Working Committee.
The Sardar replied: “Nothing of the sort. I am not going to say a word. You yourself tell them whatever you want.”

Sardar is clearly not participating in MKG's tactics here. He has already seen how MKG behaves when MKG saw the indications of things getting out of his grip - this was a deliberate withdrawal, and most likely that he would then soon hang the threat of a mass movement - until his tantrums were met with satisfying responses from truant or disobedient . This time Sardar is not stepping into the trap again.

308. SPEECH AT A. I. C. C.
BOMBAY,
July 7, 1946
I did say in one of my speeches at Delhi in regard to the Cabinet Mission’s proposals that I saw darkness where I saw light before. That darkness has not yet lifted. If possible it has deepened. I could have asked the Working Committee to turn down the proposals about the Constituent Assembly if I could see my way clearly. You know my relations with the members of the Working Committee. Babu Rajendra Prasad might have been a High Court Judge, but he chose instead to act as my interpreter and clerk in Champaran. Then there is the Sardar. He has earned the nickname of being my yes-man. He does not mind it. He even flaunts it as a compliment. He is a stormy petrel. Once he used to dress and dine in the Western style. But ever since he decided to cast his lot with me my word has been law to him. But even he cannot see eye to eye with me in this matter. They both tell me that whereas on all previous occasions I was able to support my instinct with reason and satisfy their head as well as heart, this time I have failed to do so. I told them in reply that whilst my own heart was filled with misgivings, I could not adduce any reason for it or else I would have asked them to reject the proposals straightway. It was my duty to place my misgivings before them to put them on their guard. But they should examine what I had said in the cold light of reason and accept my view-point only if they were convinced of its correctness. Their decision, which they have arrived at after prolonged deliberations and which is almost unanimous, is before you. The members of the Working Committee are your faithful and tried servants. You should not lightly reject their resolution.[....]
This is no time for dalliance or ease. I told Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru that he must wear the crown of thorns for the sake of the nation and he has agreed. The Constituent Assembly is going to be no bed of roses for you but only a bed of thorns. You may not shirk it. That does not mean that everybody should want to go into it. Only those should go there who are especially fitted for the task by virtue of their legal training or special talent. It is not a prize to be sought as a reward for sacrifices, but a duty to be faced even like mounting the gallows or sacrifice of one’s all at the altar of service.

We have a very illuminating take from MKG's viewpoint, and can see the arguments that he is forming to put JLN in place for the top job. At this stage the crucial point to note is that he is correctly identifying the two most likely strong opponents of the overall Plan - but who have chosen to dissent from MKG's own "unexplained/intuitive/without concrte reason/misgiving" against the Mission Plan. We can clearly identify the ideological position of both Rajendra Prasad and Sardar as to their opposition for anything that they felt would give sovereign territory carved oout of what they considered India - to muslims. It is here that MKG and JLN had always been vahue and non-commital. They had always hagiographed Islam the religion and even refused to accept historical narratives of trauma and atrocities from Islamists as being driven by the ideology of the faith - which left their opposition to Islamic power demands focused on individuals - like Jinnah. Once the ideological component behind opposition is disclaimed - all that remains is a refusal to share power with "others".

BOMBAY, July 9, 1946
Harijan, 14-7-1946
MKG’s speech
First in importance is laziness of mind and body. This comes out of the smug satisfaction that Congressmen having suffered imprisonment have nothing more to do to win freedom and that a grateful organization should reward their service by giving them first preference in the matter of elections and offices. And so, there is an unseemly and vulgar competition for gaining what are described as prize posts. Here there is a double fallacy. Nothing should be considered a prize in the Congress dictionary and imprisonment is its own reward. It is the preliminary examination of a satyagrahi. Its goal is the slaughter-house even as that of the spotless lamb. Jail-going is, instead, being used as a passport to every office accessible to the Congress. Hence there is every prospect of a satyagrahi’s imprisonment becoming a degrading occupation like that of professional thieves and robbers. No wonder my friends of the underground variety avoid imprisonment as being comparatively a bed of roses. This is a pointer to the pass the Congress is coming to.

The friends who opposed the resolution on the British Cabinet Delegation’s proposals do not seem to know what they are aiming at. Is independence to be bought at the price of a bloody revolution as was, say, the French, the Soviet or even the English? Then frank and honest work has yet to begin. They have to tread a very dangerous path in openly making the Congress such an institution. My argument has no force if subterranean activity is a doctrine of univer-sal application and is now being employed against the Congress. The very thought repels me. I should hope for the sake of my own sanity that the thought is devoid of any foundation. Then it is clearly their duty to say to the Congressmen that now that there is Congress Raj or Representative Raj, whether of the Congress variety or the Muslim League, they must set about reforming it in detail and not condemn it in toto. Total non-violent non-co-operation has no place in popular Raj, whatever its level may be.

Who is responsible for the mad orgy in Madura and, coming nearer, in Ahmedabad? It will be folly to attribute everything evil to British machinations.This senseless theory will perpetuate foreign domination, not necessarily British. The British will go in any case. They want to go in an orderly manner as is evident to me from the State Paper or they will go and leave India to her own fate assuming that India has forsaken the path of non-violence with the certain result of a combined intervention of an assortment of armed powers. Let the opposition say to the Congressmen what kind of independence they want. Congressmen in general certainly do not know the kind of independence they want. They recite the formula almost parrot-like. Or, their notion of independence is fully expressed in saying that they mean by it Congress Raj. And they won’t be wrong. They have left further thinking to the Working Committee—a most undemocratic way. In true democracy every man and woman is taught to think for himself or herself. How this real revolution can be brought about I do not know except that every reform like charity must begin at home.

If then the Constituent Assembly fizzles out, it will not be because the British are wicked every time. It will be because we are fools or, shall I say, even wicked? Whether we are fools or wicked or both, I am quite clear that we must look for danger from within, not fear the danger from without. The first corrodes the soul, the second polishes.
BOMBAY, July 9, 1946
Harijan, 14-7-1946

What is left out of this discussion is what exactly was the "opposition" saying - that MKG was reacting against. He is bringing in all his threats - the threat of potential armed intervention by the Allies if "non-violence" is abandoned and the "revolutionary" road taken. He is ironically at the same time conceding that "non-violence" is not unconditional - that it could actually be unemployable under certain conditions. Here MKG is overtly pushing for the constitutional road - because he is scared that otherwise the mood of the country would go in a direction that - again - would be out of his control, and might very well decide to crush the secessionist tendencies as well as the nakhra of the Brits through a violent "revolution".

Reality or not - in 1946 MKG had reasons to fear such an outcome. Such a movement might actually suit those within the congrez, even tacitly from the likes of Rajendra Prasad and Sardar - who would be able to use it to bypass MKG's delaying tactics as well as Jinnah's ML using the post-war incapability of the Brits to enforce militarily any decision on the Indians.

Nowhere in this viewpoint from MKG as quoted on the site - JLN figures as a decisive dissenter from MKG's position - which wants a constitutional guarantee and constitutional process for what he supposes congrez represents in dominance of the unified power structure over the long run. But he wryly notes who even among his "yes-men" and "clerks" have dared to "oppose him".

A "revolution" that did not stick to his ideology, would rob him of his decisive influence over the course of events - and might simply crush out secessionist dissent through violence. But it will also ensure that his brand of politics would be written out of Indian history as having gifted "independence" and his life's work would be crowned with this ultimate rejection. He saw JLN as the obvious disciple who appeared not to go against him and who had his own reasons to oppose the "revolutionary" route - because he too would then no longer be an unchallenged claimant of supreme power.

What has not been quoted here are many other correspondences, and writings/speeches from both MKG and JLN in this crucial transitional year - that would support the above impression.

But even from the selection represented on the website, thsi should be a good starting point for exploration.

[surinder]

I totally agree with Brihaspati. But for the sake of argument let us accept that it was indeed better to accept partition otherwise a civil war would erupt. Even if I accept this ludicrous argument, but then that itself raises a whole lot of question: Why was it acceptable for the INC to have the British dictate the terms of the partition? Why did JLN, MKG, Patel not tell the British and campaign for the their departure and ask them to get out of India and not worry about Partition? Why accept a British role in this sad saga? Why not deligitimze the British in the entire discussions on Partition? The INC should have insisted on the ouster and treat the partition an internal problem to addressed after thier expulsion, why did not do so? Why did they even not come out strongly for it?

If INC is so sure of its dealings, can they explain why the Radlcliffe line was the best possible line for India? Why was loss of Lahore, Chittagong Hill Tracts, the absolute right thing for India? Why were the Hindus/Sikhs not informed of the border before TSP & India were declared independent? Why did have to happen in this particular manner?

Fundamentally they also need to explain that since many great nations of the world are born by Civil war, why is it so it more important that 1/3 of India be surrendered instead of going through civil war. Even India has experienced Civil War (Mahabharata, Marathas, Sikhs, etc.). Why is civil war such a bad thing? Why does it need to be avoided at *all* costs? INC made a cost-benifit analysis for us and shoved it in our throats. It so happens that the benefits are tremendous for the INC, but minimal for ordinary Indians. Why?

[svenkat]

surinderji,
I request you to go through the linked site.
Please do read the conclusions drawn in the site.The particular conversations quoted do portray Gandhiji as obstinate,legalistic and clumsy.But what the British had in mind was worse,not just a weak centre,but Schedule B and C provinces which could secede(including the whole of Bengal,Punjab and Assam).

One further sinister British ploy was to make Jinnah the sole spokesman of muslims,when Punjab was under unionists,NWFP was under Congress and to use the Direct Action day tragedy to put pressure on Congress.Worse,Jinnah was in direct contact with British 'statesman' for two years and these British leaders included Churchil who wanted a 'bit of India'.There were efforts to balkanise India by propping up multiple power centres.The British had an accurate map ready by 1945 to divide India on communal lines.

FWIW,I like many others,share your pain.As you have said many many times,the people of Rawalpindi and Lahore and other places in West Punjab and East Bengal were uprooted from ancestral lands and no amount of argument can redeem your personal loss.

I request you once more to go through the linked site and make your judgements.

Shri Brishapathi has not explained why SPatel or BRPrasad did not revolt against MKG and why the whole Congress accepted final partition?

The Congress was fighting for a united India,the British and ML had decided on balkanisation.

[brihaspati]

surinderji,
I request you to go through the linked site.
Please do read the conclusions drawn in the site.The particular conversations quoted do portray Gandhiji as obstinate,legalistic and clumsy.But what the British had in mind was worse,not just a weak centre,but Schedule B and C provinces which could secede(including the whole of Bengal,Punjab and Assam).

Actually, the site does not quote background material which would add some sense to what or why MKG appeared to behave so. I, on my part, have simply quoted one page - and highlighted statements from a particular page entitled "behind the scenes Gandhi" - connected to the particular painting or bracketing of Sardar's role/attitude/motivation about Partition and JLN's parallel role.

From the Nehruvian reconstruction, JLN was entirely impersonally, only reacting to provocations by others - entrapped by others, Brits, Jinnah, etc etc. He was simply pushed into key powerful positions reluctantly by others - by supreme "leaders" like MKG. It is interesting that questions are never asked as to why the Brits did not intervene in leadership selection, manipulation behind the scenes within the inner power structure that had evolved in Congress around MKG after the elimination of Bose - while they are supposed to have almost handpicked and guided the ML structure and agenda. Brits had records of crucial WCC and AICC meetings almost immediately after the meeting ended - for example the critical 1942 decider meeting's details were available to the Brits published in a 1943 white paper published by the GOI. Note that most of the meeting attendants were arrested almost immediately within a day.

The statements attributed to MKG and others in that meeting if studied would give quite curious insights into the evolving power structure and how MKG "led" it.

I disagree that MKG was merely being stubborn or legalistic : he was working on a good understanding of what was happening, but his reaction was shaped by his own priorities and ideological, political, ideological objectives. What those are - can be reconstructed or reassessed - but would be controversial to the infinite degree.

One further sinister British ploy was to make Jinnah the sole spokesman of muslims,when Punjab was under unionists,NWFP was under Congress and to use the Direct Action day tragedy to put pressure on Congress.Worse,Jinnah was in direct contact with British 'statesman' for two years and these British leaders included Churchil who wanted a 'bit of India'.There were efforts to balkanise India by propping up multiple power centres.The British had an accurate map ready by 1945 to divide India on communal lines.

Basically this was not my point of exploration - as I wanted to restrict my post to bring out the contrasting role of Sardar with JLN, and raising valid questions about the mythical claim that started off this subdebate. How and why or what led to Jinnah's primacy is always, always laid at British doors. In a sense superficially making the Brits the whipping boy - lightens their actual perversity, becuase it prevents the really sinister roles played by them. But additionally, this superficial whipping also simplifies the reconstruction of the history of the period : if onlee the Brits can be shown as responsible to pushing up Jinnah, then the exploration of the sequence of events, processes, and manipulations that led to Jijjanh's departure from Congress, the events leading up to and the fallout of the Khilafat movement, and the profound effect that period of congrez politics had in legitimizing two completely different types of Islamist politics getting political space and recognition - can all be wiped off and dusted off under the carpet.

If JLN and MKG and congrez was reacting to Jinnah onlee, and history always a sequence of reactions - then what or who was Jinnah reacting against? a vacuum? History of the congrez brand always lambasts others for selecting a starting point - but never agrees to apply the same logic on its own.

FWIW,I like many others,share your pain.As you have said many many times,the people of Rawalpindi and Lahore and other places in West Punjab and East Bengal were uprooted from ancestral lands and no amount of argument can redeem your personal loss.

I request you once more to go through the linked site and make your judgements.

Shri Brishapathi has not explained why SPatel or BRPrasad did not revolt against MKG and why the whole Congress accepted final partition?

The Congress was fighting for a united India,the British and ML had decided on balkanisation.

Shri Brihaspatiji was trying keep himself within the limited scope of showing that Sardar was dissenting from MKG's approach to the CMP, until June, and he cannot be blanketed with JLN who alone appears to be iconic of the change in stance of the congrez between 24th June and 10th July - in fact, in particular, between 7th and 10 th July. Shri B was really not taking it up on himself to find out the reasons for no-revolt or why and how the "whole" congrez accept the "partition". Each of these statements are complicated and cannot be so simplistically declared - based on the limited focus of the papers cited on the site.

Whether congrez was fighting for a "united India" and what that "united India" meant to different forces within the congrez - are all a huge matter of dispute that needs much further reading than the scope of the site. The claim of "balkanization" onlee on ML+Brit part and no motivation, even on individual or subgroup level for similar balkanization within the congrez upper echelon politics - is a post "apocalyptic" myth that is so loudly insisted on - perhaps becuase of awareness that if events are really analyzed, they might show up skeletons in the cupboard. Surinder - if you look through my posts on the attitudes manifested by JLN in particular over Partition violence and subsequent statements about the troubled subregions - should be highly illustrative.

These are claims : they need to be re-explored. New documents and research happen all the time, and by necessity modern historiogrpahy is forced to revisit old questions and re-explore them.

[member_19686]

Fundamentally they also need to explain that since many great nations of the world are born by Civil war, why is it so it more important that 1/3 of India be surrendered instead of going through civil war. Even India has experienced Civil War (Mahabharata, Marathas, Sikhs, etc.). Why is civil war such a bad thing? Why does it need to be avoided at *all* costs? INC made a cost-benifit analysis for us and shoved it in our throats. It so happens that the benefits are tremendous for the INC, but minimal for ordinary Indians. Why?

+ 1

American Civil War, English Civil War, Spanish Civil War need I go on?

Even as far back as Vedic times the Arya-s never shrank from battle even if it was against related people (e.g. Battle of Ten Kings under Sudas, and battles under Trasadasyu which means one who makes the dasyus tremble).

First Congress sells out millions of Hindus and Sikhs who were being told till the last possible minute to stay put, then after the carnage is over their sycophants start telling us how the great Congress leaders were to be thanked for avoiding "civil war" and further "violence".

What was wrong with fighting a civil war?

Instead of a civil war we have had 4 wars, constant terrorism and Jihad from 1947 on wards.

The duplicity of Nehru and Gandhi becomes clear when you realize how callous they were to Hindu refugees and outright rejected population exchange which would have saved countless lives (indeed even today we are seeing the results of this refusal to exchange populations).

Ambedkar was prophetic in saying that the "communal" problem would never be solved until all Muslims go away to Pakistan and non Muslims come to India. Had his advice been listened to millions of lives would have been saved and India would be far ahead of where it is today.

But Congress willingly accepted a theocratic Islamic state and oversaw the genocide of millions of Hindus-Sikhs and now its supporters want to rewrite history to paint the Brits as the arch villains as if Congress leaders were all innocent lambs.

People's lives were never a major concern for them (i.e. Gandhi & Nehru) especially if it was Hindus and Sikh lives, one only has to read Gandhi's mad speeches during that time to realize this.

Nehru was the same man who in all seriousness suggested that Bihari Hindus should be air bombed but he is now portrayed as some peace nick who wanted to avoid violence.