At 10.00 a.m. they assembled in the viceroy’s study, purposefully gathered around a small round table to create an atmosphere of fraternity. Nehru and Patel represented Congress, along with Congress president, Kripalani, whom Nehru had argued with Mountbatten should be included. Jinnah, Liaquat and Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar, the Minister for Communications in the provisional government, represented the League while Baldev Singh represented the Sikhs. Ismay, Eric Miéville and that most articulate of soldiers, Vernon Erskine-Crum, who took the minutes that would create two nations, sat at the back. Interestingly, V. P. Menon, the architect of the plan, was not present.
Mountbatten was, once again, at his best.13 He took the gathering through the history of the past five years, the Cabinet Mission Plan, to which the League would not assent, a point Jinnah immediately confirmed. He then emphasised that although he had arrived assuming that power should be handed over in accordance with Attlee’s 20 February announcement, he now felt that June 1948 was far too late. Power, the British Cabinet believed, should be handed over as soon as possible. There was soon to be a major twist to this. He then came to partition. Congress objected to the partition of India but agreed that areas containing a Muslim majority should not ‘be coerced into joining the existing Constituent Assembly’, in other words to the partition of provinces; the League, on the other hand, demanded the partition of India but not of the provinces. Mountbatten explained that he had made it clear to his government ‘the impossibility of fully accepting the principles of one side and not of the other’.
He then went to some lengths to explain that the question of India had become something of an issue between political parties in Westminster, with Churchill and the Conservatives still not fully supportive. The Indian leaders took this point in silence, realising that Churchill, to whom they ascribed the failure to achieve independence in 1935 and whom they regarded as no friend of India, was now all but irrelevant. Mountbatten then covered the need to look after the Sikh interest, something his government had concluded could only be achieved by partition of the Punjab and a carefully constructed Boundary Commission. Next he covered Calcutta and the question of Bengal. He went to surprising lengths to discuss whether there should be a referendum there, taking trouble to dismiss Jinnah’s argument that the scheduled caste Hindus would support Muslim rule. Patel would have grimaced at this point; nothing would induce Congress to accept anything other than Calcutta remaining in India.
The viceroy then explained that power would be ‘demitted on a Dominion status basis’, in other words both India and Pakistan would become members of the British Commonwealth, an issue which had occupied much time in the past few months. It had, obviously, been pre-agreed, and offered a way of maintaining links and some sort of federated structure which would allow cooperation between the two new countries. Both countries would choose a governor general, at that stage envisaged as being the same person, and British officers could continue to serve in both the civilian administration and in the forces. It was on this basis that a bill was now being rushed through the Westminster Parliament, creating ‘an all time world-wide legislative record’. The parliamentary session finished in late July and Attlee had given orders that it was to be passed by then, something that Churchill had assented to. Power should then be transferred as soon as possible thereafter, so not in June 1948 as everyone had thought, nor in January 1948, not even in the autumn of 1947 but in two and a half months’ time, on 15 August.
The political leaders were all then asked to take copies of the plan and obtain the written agreement of their Working Committees that day in writing. Mountbatten said that he intended to broadcast the plan worldwide the next evening, 3 June, and Nehru, Jinnah and Baldev Singh should speak after him. Nehru and Patel agreed and Nehru undertook to do so. He said that ‘there could never be full agreement of the plan from Congress, but, on balance, they accepted it’. Baldev Singh was reluctant to broadcast. He had nothing to say, he argued, and could not make up his mind to support the plan until he knew Congress and the League had agreed it. He was persuaded to change his mind and at least to make a call for violence to cease.
Jinnah demurred. He could not speak for the League Working Committee nor for the Muslim League Council which was due to meet later that week. It would be best to hear what they had to say rather than present them with a fait-accompli. He was also not sure whether he could respond to the viceroy in writing. He would, however, come to brief the viceroy verbally and he did, crucially, agree to broadcast the next day although he would not submit his speech beforehand despite much needling from Patel.
As the meeting broke up, Gandhi came in to see Mountbatten. It was the meeting both he and Ismay had been dreading but the old man declared that Mondays were his day of silence so he could not speak. Instead he handed Mountbatten a note, written on old envelopes with a stubby pencil. ‘I am sorry I can’t speak; when I took the decision about the Monday silence I did reserve two exceptions – about speaking to high functionaries on urgent matters or attending upon sick people’. There could hardly be a higher functionary than the viceroy, nor a matter more urgent than the future of India. ‘But I know’, Gandhi added tellingly, ‘you do not want me to break my silence’, although that did not stop him adding a postscript demanding once more that Mountbatten sack Caroe from the North West Frontier Province.14
The viceroy should not really have been surprised. The plan he had just briefed was, after all, Congress’ plan, amended as Nehru and Patel wanted by V. P. Menon in those final days of May. All the British government had done was to put their stamp on it. Skilfully as Mountbatten and his team played its transmission, they were in fact just confirming what Congress had already decided, that what they thought would be temporary partition was the price worth paying for getting on with governing and for the preservation of a strong central government. Gandhi, for all his frequent spats with Nehru, was not going to upset that. The man who had not got what he wanted on 2 June was Jinnah who even now played for time.
He went back to see Mountbatten that evening as agreed. He immediately described the plan as ‘scandalous’. He himself would reluctantly support it but he could not speak for the Muslim League Council. The best Mountbatten could squeeze out of him was a grudging acceptance that Attlee could go ahead with his planned announcement to the House of Commons the next day. But Jinnah could not really hide behind the League Council. It was he, as he had constantly reminded everyone, who was the ‘sole spokesman’. In reality he had little choice but to accept this ‘moth-eaten’ Pakistan. ‘He had no alternative’, reflected V. P. Menon later, ‘he had rejected so much so many times’.15 ‘Later that night’, Ismay recorded, ‘letters arrived from Kripalani, as Congress President, and Baldev Singh, accepting the plan’,16 although with some rather wild amendments. Jinnah could play for time no longer.
The next morning the same party reassembled in the viceroy’s air-conditioned study overlooking the fabulous Moghul Gardens. Mountbatten opened by saying that all three parties had accepted the plan albeit with some proposed amendments which had no chance of being mutually acceptable so he saw no point in discussing them further. He therefore thought there was no reason that the plan could not now be made public. ‘The Conference appeared to be quite happy to accept this somewhat naïve reasoning,’ recorded Ismay and, critically, Jinnah remained silent. Mountbatten then distributed a thick thirty-page document entitled ‘The Administrative Consequences of Partition’.17 It had been drawn up by John Christie, Chaudhuri Mohammed Ali, who would later become Prime Minister of Pakistan, and H. M. Patel, both ICS officers. It explained the different parts of the Indian government and its bureaucracy that would need to be divided. It was a daunting list. Starting with the armed forces, it then covered government staff and their records, railways, post and telegraphs; broadcasting; civil aviation; meteorology; public works; tax; customs and excise; accounts and audit; scientific services; waterways; power; government buildings and installations; the Reserve Ba
nk and currency holdings; jurisdiction and the courts; powers of domicile and diplomatic representation. It recommended a Partition Committee to undertake the management of this immense and complicated portfolio. Issuing this bulky dossier at this juncture was intended to concentrate minds on the reality of what partition actually meant. It certainly did so. The meeting broke up agreeing that the broadcasts would go ahead that evening.
It was a momentous evening for India. Mountbatten spoke first and well. ‘For more than a hundred years, hundreds of millions of you have lived together, and this country had been administered as a single entity’, he said, but
it has been impossible to obtain agreement on any plan that would preserve the unity of India. But there can be no question of coercing any large areas in which one community has a majority to live against their will under a Government in which another community has a majority. The only alternative to coercion is partition. The whole plan may not be perfect but like all plans its success will depend on the spirit of goodwill in which it is carried out.18
After he had finished the full plan was read out in detail. It was the first time the whole country had heard definitively what Pakistan was to be, that there would be a plebiscite in the North West Frontier Province, that the assemblies in the Punjab and Bengal would decide on partition and then the future affiliation of their provinces, that the boundaries of the new countries would be decided by an independent Boundary Commission, that special arrangements would be made for Sylhet although not for Calcutta and that the armed forces would be divided. Nehru followed, speaking in English and Hindi. The proposals gave him no joy in his heart, he said, but he had no doubt that it was the correct course. ‘It may be’, he said, tellingly, ‘that this way we reach that united India sooner than otherwise’.19 He was followed by Jinnah who spoke in English. He was balanced, statesmanlike, paid tribute to Mountbatten’s ‘highest sense of fairness and impartiality’ and seemed excited to be addressing ‘the people through the medium of this powerful instrument’. It was the first time all but a handful of his 100 million followers had actually heard his voice. He prevaricated about the plan, saying its ultimate acceptance was a matter for the League Council, but went on to say that everyone should help ensure it was delivered in a peaceful and orderly manner. It wasn’t quite full acceptance but it was taken to be so. His speech was well received. ‘The Quaid’s talk was masterly’, noted Shahid Hamid approvingly, ‘and in simple language which could be understood by the common man. He ended it with the words “Pakistan Zindabad”. It was the first time this term was heard over the radio. It was good to hear’.20 The speech was then translated into Urdu.
Baldev Singh spoke last and most prosaically. ‘We have closed a dreary chapter’, he said, ‘and a new leaf is now turned. It would be untrue to say I am altogether happy. Seldom has a settlement like this been tarnished with so much fear and sorrow.’ It did ‘not please everybody in the Sikh community’ but he urged its acceptance.21
The broadcasts on 3 June did not produce an immediate reaction. People wouldn’t remember where they were that evening so much as they would later on 15 August. The plan was complicated and it took several days to understand exactly what it meant. Tuker produced an excellent two-page résumé for his soldiers, particularly concerned about the division of the army, but he over-optimistically ended it by saying that the leaders of both new states were bound to cooperate.22 Many were elated that there was finally an agreement; others felt rather flat, as if acceptance of partition was a failure. Ratan Singh, a high-caste Hindu from Bikaner, wrote to the Statesman blaming his own kind. ‘The Hindu must not eat food touched by the Muslims, nor allow them entry in their temples, not even as visitors. Such blind and discriminatory Hindu orthodoxy practiced for generations has ultimately led to this division. Unless Hindus learn to treat their Muslim brethren on an equal footing, socially and politically, this unfortunate division has come to stay.’23 For Sandtas Kirpalani, in Lahore, his immediate thoughts were the horrors of partition. For others in positions of power it was the realisation that they had very little time. John Christie’s magnum opus ‘The Administrative Consequences of Partition’ was but a brief summary of the enormous amount that now had to be done to create two nations out of one. Chaudhuri Mohammed Ali and H. M. Patel would run the Partition Committee and they started work that same day. On 4 June ‘a calendar appeared on every official’s desk with ‘70 days left to prepare for the Transfer of Power – and so on, in diminishing sequence’, wrote Christie.24
The League Council finally met on 9 June in a secret session although not so secret that Patel hadn’t been able to smuggle in a Congress spy who took full shorthand notes. The council said, predictably, that they could not agree to the partition of the Punjab and Bengal, but agreed that they must take the plan as a whole and gave Jinnah the authority ‘to accept the fundamental principles of the plan as a compromise’. They would not, however, put their agreement in writing. Congress was furious. Why had Jinnah gone to the full council? And why did they now say the plan was just a compromise? That meant Congress should refer the plan to the full All-India Congress Committee. Patel demanded Jinnah should now give full acceptance in writing himself. Jinnah refused. Mountbatten then attempted a compromise, suggesting Jinnah write to him saying that he was authorised to accept the plan as a compromise settlement subject to the All-India Congress Committee doing the same thing. Jinnah refused to sign any such letter until after the All-India Congress had actually decided. Mountbatten then decided to take responsibility himself, writing to Kripalani that Jinnah had given him a verbal undertaking. Next Gandhi seemed to be wavering. He went to see Mountbatten, who talked him round. Gandhi had always advocated leaving the choice to the Indian people, which was what the plan now did as far as it was practically possible. It allowed for the British to go and go quickly, exactly as the Mahatma had always urged. Dominion status retained the bonds of friendship. Gandhi was won over. When the All-India Congress Committee met on 14 June he also supported the plan. Peace in the country was, he argued, essential. He deplored partition but even he now realised that, however unpalatable, it was the best solution on offer. Nehru had prepared him well.25
The choice of 15 August as the date for Indian independence and the creation of Pakistan remains something of a dilemma. There is very little correspondence about it in official files. Mountbatten said later that he had decided on it off the top of his head as he was briefing the political leaders on 2 to 3 June and he mentioned it publicly on 4 June. He had chosen the 15 August as it was VJ Day, the day the Allies in South-East Asia declared victory over Japan in 1945. What is clear is that during the discussion with the Cabinet in late May there had been general agreement to Mountbatten’s insistence that the handover be as soon as possible and that, from the Whitehall perspective, meant as soon as they could clear a bill through Parliament. Given the complexity of the bill, and even with Churchill’s agreement not to oppose it, passage through both houses would still take until the end of July. Early to mid August was therefore the earliest possible date in legislative terms, which would seem to be why the date was chosen. It didn’t turn out to be an inspired choice. Astrologers declared it an inauspicious day and the final programme had to be changed to accommodate their very powerful reservations.
But what it had done was create an extraordinarily short, and many would argue far too short, period in which to complete the mass of work necessary not only to decommission the Raj but to hand over its functions not to one government but two. Mountbatten will continue to be heavily criticised for trying to rush things, particularly by the British Raj officials and army officers, and by Pakistan, although not by many Indians. Paddy Massey spoke for many of his kind when he wrote, ‘Mr. Attlee and Lord Mountbatten were not interested in a consensus – all they wanted was out, partly because of Socialist ideology and partly from American pressure. The Indian leaders did not realise this. Mountbatten only had the interests of Mr. Attlee at heart. Hence partiti
on and a blood bath. Both were avoidable’.26
Others would say that Mountbatten just wanted to hand over as quickly as possible so he could return to his naval career but that is an unfair accusation, not least because he stayed on in India for nearly another year as governor general. More relevantly, it wasn’t actually Mountbatten’s decision, although again, in later life, he would perhaps ascribe greater powers to himself than he actually exercised. The decision had already been taken by Attlee and the Cabinet in late May, undoubtedly discussed in that informal but powerful clique of Attlee, Cripps, Krishna Menon and Nehru, which is why Congress did not demur when it was floated as a possibility in that first week of June. They wanted to govern as quickly as possible. Many fair-minded Indians, closer to the fear, the violence and the inter-communal hatred than the few remaining Raj officials, agreed that the sooner the better; if the British had tried to hold on any longer, with the shadow of what had only ever been a wafer-thin administration, civil war would have been inevitable. ‘I have no time for people who blame Mountbatten’, said the journalist and diplomat Prem Bhatia, whose family were to lose everything in Lahore. ‘He was only carrying out orders and he thought the longer he waited the worse it would become and he may very well have been right.’27 A. K. Damodaran, the Congress activist, intellectual and again a future Indian diplomat, thought the
Brits all feel Mountbatten rushed it – but many Indians felt that more people would have been killed if they had tried to stagger on for another year. Despite the Calcutta killings, the cosy Delhi elite had an overromantic view of the Punjab. They never expected what happened. We took a very purist Hindu logical view of partition. In retrospect we were being too clever by half.28
But behind all this runs the hand of Nehru and of Patel. They wanted to get on with governing. They wanted the British out and they wanted them to go as quickly as possible. Nehru, with Gandhi’s strong support, had recently tried to get Mountbatten to consider handing over in June. He never questioned 15 August; Congress was impatient for power. Had the date not been Nehru’s decision then there would undoubtedly have been a major protest. There was none. Mountbatten had little choice. He was merely once again putting into practice what Congress wanted.
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