Beyond the Lines: An Autobiography

by Kuldip Nayar

  Britain tried to limit the increasing unrest among the people following the Quit India movement by sending a senior cabinet minister, Sir Stafford Cripps, to meet the Congress and the Muslim League leaders. His mission in 1942 was to offer India ‘power’ after the end of the war. At the heart of his proposal was the creation of a de jure cabinet at the Centre, to be called an Executive Council under the viceroy who would be the de facto boss. The proposal had the seeds for germinating Pakistan because it said that any province which did not want to accede to the union, could remain outside it as a separate entity.

  Gandhi, who guided the Congress, rejected the proposal outright and characterized it as a post-dated cheque drawn on a failing bank. There was, however, more to it than that. The reality was that Gandhi did not want to be part of the war, not only because of his faith in non-violence but also because he honestly believed that the Allies would be defeated. From his perspective, accepting Cripps’ proposals meant participating in a war, which he thought the US and Britain had almost lost. Nehru, for his part, was in favour of Cripps’ proposals because he wanted to join the global democratic alliance against fascism. He was keen to re-establish his credentials as a liberal democrat which some in the West had begun to doubt when the Congress imposed conditions for joining the Allies.

  Jinnah, known to be a personal friend of the then British prime minister, Winston Churchill, was equivocal on Cripps’ proposals. He wanted to know what the Congress had in mind because he often played his cards after the Congress had announced its decision. He knew that without Congress backing, Cripps’ proposals were as good as dead. Accordingly, he too rejected them when the Congress said ‘No’. The real reason for the rejection, as Azad, the then Congress president, recounted, was the last-minute change in the proposal by Britain: from an undertaking to grant Independence at the end of war to a mere favourable consideration of India’s demand for freedom.

  My own view, as I recall those critical days, was that if the Congress had accepted Cripps’ proposals, it would have saved India from partition. True, the proposals held the seeds of division but the federal structure that the proposals provided would have forced the Congress and the Muslim League to work together for a single country. It would have meant depending on British goodwill, but that would have been temporary. Any one could see that London would be in no position to maintain its hold over India after the Second World War.

  Following the failure of the Cripps’ Mission, a group of Hindu extremists suddenly emerged on the scene and warned that the millions of Muslims who continued to live in India after the formation of Pakistan would pay the price of ‘Bharat Mata’s vivisection’. In other words, the Muslims left behind in India would have to face the ‘consequences’. Azad angrily scotched the thesis of hostages. Yet, in a way, he was proved wrong because the Muslims in India after Partition were victims of reprisals in the form of prejudice, neglect, and mistrust. They continue to face the same fate.

  The atmosphere in the subcontinent became increasingly murky. Both Hindus and Muslims, primarily those living north of the Vindhyas, began to feel that the parting of ways was inevitable. It was not as if the country was sharply divided into Hindus and Muslims. There was a vast grey area, but it was shrinking rapidly. The desire for separation had overtaken most of the Muslims. They increasingly flocked to the League, which was emerging as the only representative body in the community.

  Nearly a year before the creation of Pakistan, Azad described what would happen to the Muslims in an interview to an Urdu magazine, Chetan, in Lahore:

  Today the Muslims are not walking, they are flowing. The problem is that Muslims have not learnt to walk steady; they either run or flow with the tide. When the group of people loses their confidence and self respect, they are surrounded by imaginary doubts and dangers and fail to make a distinction between right and wrong. The true meaning of life is realized not through numerical strength but through firm faith and righteous action.

  He cautioned Muslims that the formation of Pakistan would stop the spread of Islam in India.

  Despite acute differences between the Congress and the League, a flicker of hope appeared when they joined hands to defend members of the Indian National Army (INA) put on trial in Delhi in 1945. The INA was a 20,000-strong force drawn from Indian soldiers captured by the Japanese after the fall of Malaya and Burma. Led by the fiery former Congress President Subhash Chandra Bose, a passionate advocate of Indian Independence, the INA was in a way an anti-colonial movement. Bose was not bothered about the niceties of method, an article of faith with Gandhi, but with the ends alone. Bose said he would achieve Independence without violence, if possible, but would use arms if necessary. This approach distanced him from Gandhi. He stealthily left his home in Calcutta where he had been detained by the British. I have seen the place in Kabul where he stayed before slipping into Europe. It was a solitary room on top of a dilapidated building when I visited it some 40 years ago. His escape, first to Germany and then to Japan was applauded by India.

  Nonetheless, I had reservations about the INA which, however nationalist, was dependent upon Japan, a fascist country fighting against the democratic world. I was happy that the INA had demanded India’s freedom but wondered whether the Japanese would have freed us had they won. My fears were somewhat allayed when Gandhi praised Bose, recalling not only his bravery and patriotism but also his contribution to the freedom struggle. He did not criticize the creation of the INA. Subhash Chandra Bose never returned to India, dying in ‘an air crash’. The authenticity of the accident is still doubted even after three probes at the behest of the Indian government.

  The trial of three INA officers (between November 1945 and May 1946) – Shah Nawaz, a Muslim; Prem Sehgal, a Hindu; and Gurbax Singh Dhillon, a Sikh – forged a unity of sorts. There was a joint countrywide demand for their release. This had its impact because the British government bowed to the pressure and released all three. It was one of the rare occasions when Nehru, who had a law degree from London, donned his lawyer’s robe to appear in court. The way in which Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs came together at the time was proof that the Congress and the League could overcome their internecine quarrels on an issue that transcended their differences.

  However, not a single member from the INA was taken back into the army. The British top brass refused on grounds of ‘morale and discipline’. Nehru could have insisted on absorption of the INA men into the Indian army and the nation would have backed him, but he faltered and went along with the British who made it an issue. The nationalists, and 20,000 soldiers of independence lost the opportunity to be integrated in the armed forces.

  A similar angry outburst, national in scope and secular in character, was visible in the wake of the Royal Indian Navy uprising in February 1946 against the general conditions in the naval force. Once again, both Muslims and Hindus stood together to defy the British. Nearly 3,000 ratings from the two communities marched on the streets of Bombay. There was an exchange of fire between the British soldiers and the ‘mutineers’. Sardar Patel, the Iron Man of the Congress, was against the uprising. Nehru joined him to condemn the ‘mutiny of ratings’. It was called off but the bourgeois character of Congress leaders became ever more visible. This made me wonder if a post-Independence Congress government would respect popular agitations and ideological challenges.

  The INA trial and the Ratings uprising made us feel good. A pleasant mood of expectancy over, the country looked towards London for some important announcement on India’s future. The Labour party’s victory in the 1945 British elections strengthened the impression that Britain’s policies would change. This proved to be true. London announced fresh elections in India. The British also held out the promise of an ‘early realization of full government’. Both the Congress and the League expressed their disappointment over the wording of the announcement; the former missing any reference to Independence and the latter to Pakistan.

  Yet, whatever their reservations, the two pa
rties participated in the polls to prove their support among the electorate. The League likened the polls to a referendum on Pakistan; the Congress characterized them as a path to Swaraj (self-rule or Independence). The Communist Party of India, which otherwise opposed communalism, clung to the old formula of supporting whatever the Soviets wanted. In this case it was the creation of Pakistan. The Hindu Mahasabha fought on the platform of Akhand Bharat (United India). I recall that Nehru, accompanied by Sheikh Abdullah, then popularly called the Kashmiri Gandhi, came to address an election meeting in Sialkot. Both, clad in khaddar achkans, urged the gathering, which had waited for five hours to listen to them, to vote for the Congress. The two travelled together in many parts of India.

  The results of the poll held in 1946, a year before Partition, demonstrated that 90 per cent Hindus were with the Congress while 90 per cent Muslims supported the League. Of the 102 elected seats in the Central Assembly, the Congress won 57 and the League 30. Every Muslim seat in the Central Assembly went to the League. It also won 442 out of the 509 Muslim seats in the provincial assemblies. Once again, the League lost the NWFP assembly where nationalist Muslims won a majority. Baluchistan too rejected the League and in Punjab, the pro-agriculturist Unionist Party took seven Muslim seats away from the League. It was obvious that a line had been drawn between Hindus and Muslims. Meanwhile, London announced the visit of the Cabinet Mission to India.

  2

  The Nehru Years

  The Road to Partition

  In this chapter I have dealt in detail with the Cabinet Mission’s plan because I believe it was the last scheme, and the last opportunity, to save India from division. The Mission’s three ministers – Frederick Pethick-Lawrence, then secretary of state for India; Sir Stafford Cripps; and A.V. Alexander – arrived in India on 24 March 1946. Cripps was an old hand and friendly to India. Pethick-Lawrence was more sold on India’s independence than Cripps. Alexander was, however, a Churchillian who could not brook the thought of the British losing India, the jewel in the crown. The Mission’s thinking was clear from its observation at the first press conference: the British wanted Indians to set up an ‘acceptable’ machinery to realize full independent status and to put interim arrangements in place. That Jinnah stood for India’s partition was no secret for the Mission. It did not, however, know how far the Congress was willing to accommodate him. It therefore initiated its talks with the Congress to get a sense of where the party stood.

  To the Mission’s surprise, Nehru spoke about a plebiscite in the border districts as if his party had already accepted the idea of division. Jinnah also mentioned partition, and told a Punjab Hindu delegation that in his scheme of things Ambala would not form part of Pakistan. Azad, still the Congress president, was on a different wavelength. He ruled out both Partition and a unitary structure. His thesis, which Gandhi had approved, was that a federal constitution would give full autonomy to the provinces and transfer all subjects to them except defence, foreign affairs, and communications. If they so desired, the provinces could delegate more subjects to the Centre. This was, to use Pethick-Lawrence’s words, ‘a new solution of the communal problem’. He liked Azad’s proposal: provinces getting full autonomy and, at the same time, retaining links with the Centre to keep the country a single entity.

  Azad’s effort was to allay the fears of the Muslim majority provinces. He wanted to ensure a secure position for the community in a free India. However, at the same time he wanted the community to play a pivotal role in creating a pluralistic society. ‘The basis of Pakistan,’ he argued, ‘was the fear of interference by the Centre in Muslim majority areas since the Hindus would be in a majority at the Centre.’ He tried to counter these fears by proposing full autonomy to the provincial units and also vesting in them the residuary power. Two lists of central subjects were contemplated, one compulsory and the other optional. The provinces would administer all affairs, excluding the three subjects given to the Centre: foreign affairs, defence, and communications.

  I liked Azad’s scheme because it kept India united and at the same time gave autonomy to the provinces. I imagined that there was something called the Indian civilization, 5000-years old, to which the Muslims had also contributed. If and when the chips were down that pull of civilizational links would prevail and India would stay one. I was however proved wrong. Hindus and Muslims had drifted too far apart. One person who could make the difference was Jinnah, and he did not want a centralized government, however federal in character.

  Azad’s formula was a midway solution. It gave space to both the provinces and to the Indian union. Azad wanted to avoid the shortcomings of the Pakistan scheme which would leave roughly 12 per cent Muslims in India with 80 per cent Hindus.

  Azad called a meeting of senior Congress leaders to stress that after attaining freedom India would forget the days of communal suspicion and conflict, and face the problems of modern life from a modern point of view. Opposition among political parties would continue, but it would be based on economic and political issues, not religious. Class and not community would be the basis of future alignments, and policies would be shaped accordingly. I hoped such thinking would become a reality. Both Azad and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan were too optimistic and failed to realize that the poison of communalism had penetrated too deeply into India’s body politic.

  Cripps asked Azad whether the Muslim-majority provinces could align themselves to administer subjects other than those delegated to the Centre. Azad’s reply was that this was ‘worth considering’. He was not opposed to the idea but did not give a categorical reply at that time because Patel had made it clear before Azad’s meeting with the Mission members that every comma and full stop of the scheme had to be discussed and approved by Congress leaders before anyone could say anything on behalf of the party. Patel’s obvious reference was to Azad.

  I believe Patel’s suspicion was that Azad and Nehru were in league and would bypass him. Even during the Cripps Mission in 1942, he was tormented by similar thoughts. C.P. Ramaswami Iyer, a distinguished scholar from south India, with whom I briefly worked on a committee on Hindu temples to ensure their proper administration, told me that Patel ‘interpreted the Cripps Mission as an organized stunt by Nehru to get himself into the forefront so that he could become the prime minister of India’.

  Azad’s meeting with the Cabinet Mission was discussed threadbare by the Congress Working Committee (CWC) when it met on 12 April 1946. Members voiced their doubts over the federal structure. Gandhi came to Azad’s rescue and silenced the critics by saying that a federal solution alone could work in a country of India’s size and diversities. When Patel said that subjects like currency and finance should be in the hands of the Centre, Gandhi intervened to say that it would be in the interest of the provinces to have a unified policy in such matters but it was not necessary to include such subjects in a compulsory central list.

  The Mission was clear on its purpose. It wanted a united India, with a status somewhere between a federal structure and autonomous provinces. When the Mission invited Jinnah for talks it placed two options before him. One was the constitution of a separate state of Pakistan embracing Sind, the NWFP, Baluchistan, Punjab, Assam, and the Muslim-majority districts of Bengal minus Calcutta, linked to India in a mutual defence alliance.

  The other option was to group together more or less the same areas with a strong Centre. There was a provision for a central government with an equal number of Hindu and Muslim ministers to administer defence, foreign affairs, and communications. After 15 years, either group could secede from the union. The princely states could either join India or Pakistan or remain separate.

  Alexander in his diary, which I read in the archives many years later, had jotted down on 2 April 1946 that Jinnah did not define what he meant by Pakistan. Neither did M.A. Ispahani and the Raja of Mahmudabad, the two Muslim League stalwarts who met the Mission. Jinnah first showed interest in the second option, a central government with a parity of ministers but later re
fused to commit himself. As always, he wanted to see the cards the Congress held before playing his hand.

  The representatives of the Sikhs, according to the Mission’s own records, ‘don’t know what they want but are worried and alarmed’. One leader, Giani Kartar Singh, felt that the Sikhs would be unsafe whether they were in Pakistan or in a united India. Master Tara Singh favoured a Sikh state, or an autonomous province which Sardar Baldev Singh, later defence minister of India, elucidated should include Ambala, Jalandhar, and Ludhiana divisions of Punjab.

  The Mission wanted an all-India commission, drawing members from the Centre and the provincial assemblies, first to work on the constitutional guarantees for the minorities and then to consider whether India should be one or two countries. Jinnah and Nehru were consulted. Both rejected the scheme, which was then not made public at all.

  The Mission members also picked up the thread with Gandhi who wanted an undivided India, and with Azad who saw in their efforts the last hope of keeping India united. Azad sincerely believed that Partition would divide and harm Muslims more than Hindus. C. Rajagopalachari, a top Congress leader from the south, wanted the issue of Pakistan to be referred to an international arbitration committee with the Soviet Union as a member.

  Thus far, the Mission’s proposal had been a matter of conjecture. It was only known that the British had decided to leave, but the formula of their departure was made public only on 16 May. The Mission respected the wishes of both Gandhi and Azad to keep India united but tried to please Jinnah too by giving him ‘the Muslim zones’.