Short Essay on the Idea of a Separate Homeland for Muslims and Partition of India

Communalism remained at the second, liberal stage till 1937 when it increasingly started assuming a virulent, extremist or fascist form.

Extreme communalism was based on the politics of hatred, fear psychosis and irrationality. A campaign of hatred against the followers of other religions was unleashed.

The interest of Hindus and Muslims were now declared to be permanently in conflict. Communalism also now, after 1937, increasingly acquired a popular base, and began to mobilize popular mass opinion.

The idea of a separate homeland for Muslims to be called Pakistan took a definite shape in the mind of a young under-graduate at Cambridge, Rahmat Ali. He visualized the Punjab, N.W.F.P. (also called Afghan province), Kashmir, Sindh, and Baluchistan as the national home of the Indian Muslims and he coined he world ‘Pakistan’ in 1933.

The word Pakistan was formed by taking the initials of the first four and the last of the fifth. The most unequivocal declaration of the Hindus and Muslims for separate nationalism was made by M.A. Jinnah at the Lahore session of the League’s in March, 1940.

From 1940 onwards to the partition, Muslim Leagues activities centered on ‘Two Nation Theory’ and ‘Pakistan’. Thus the Lahour session of the Muslim League gave it an Ambition and a Programme. Henceforth the demand for Pakistan became as much as article of faith for the Indian Muslims as their holy book, the Koran.

In response to the Congress offer for co-operation with the British Government conditional on its declaration of ‘the full independence of India’ and formation of a provisional National Government at the centre, Lord Linlithgow in August 1940 offered the plan of setting up a constitution making body after the war but assured the minorities that the British Government would not agree to any system of Government whose authority was directly denied by large land powerful elements in India’s national life.

The Muslim League welcomed this part of the August offer and passed the resolution, ‘the partition of India is the only solution of the most difficult problem of India’s future constitution’. The Cripps plan (1942) carried further the Muslim League’s demand for the partition of India. The Muslim League rejected the Cripps plan and reiterated the demand for Pakistan.

After the failure of Cripps mission, when the Congress started the ‘Quite India’ movement M.A. Jinnah advised the Muslims to remain aloof from this movement. The Muslim League also did not participate in this movement. Not only this, when Viceroy Lord Linlinthgow expressed his opinions of maintaining the unity and integrity of India, in December 1942, Mr. Jinnah became furious.

In the Karanchi session of the Muslim League, Jinnah, in response to the Congress demand of ‘Quite India’ gave the slogan of ‘Divide and Quit’ in 1943. On the basis of the Rajagopalachari formula (10th July 1944), Gandhiji met Jinnah and discussed and persuaded Jinnah to agree on the formula. Jinnah however, rejected the Rajagopalachari formula by saying that the Muslims did not want’ maimed, mutilated, moth eaten and truncated Pakistan,’ Similarly, the Wavell Plan and the Shimla Conference in 1945 also failed because the League and Jinnah demanded that the League would be given power to nominated all the Muslim members of the Executive Council as if it is the sole representative of Muslims in India. Cabinet mission was sent to India after the failure of the shimla Conference.

The Cabinet Mission granted the formation of an interim Government till the formation of a new Constitution. But it also refused to accept the ‘Pakistan’ demand of the Muslim League. Both the Congress and the Mulsim League agreed on the proposals of the cabinet mission plan but, the deadlock continued on the quesetion of the formation of the Interim

Government. Initially the Congress did not accept to be a part of the Interim Government and therefore the League proposed to from the Government without the Congress. But the Viceroy was in no mood to keep away the Congress from the formation of the Interim Government and so he refused the proposal of the Muslim League.

As a result, the Muslim League withdrew its acceptance of the Cabinet Mission Plan and observed 16th August, 1946 as the ‘Direct Action Day’ Direct Action Day was not directed for wresting Pakistan from the hands of the unwilling British Government but was directed against the Hindus.

The League engineered communal riots in Bengal, U.P., Bombay, the Punjab, Sindh and the N.W.F.P. with the battle cry: ‘Lekar rahenge Pakistan, Larke Lenge Pakistan’. Muslim communal groups provoked communal frenzy in the country. The British authorities were worried that they had lost control over the ‘Frankenstein monster’ they had helped to create but felt it was too late to tame it.

They were frightened into appeasing the League by Jinnah’s ability to unleash civil war. Wavell quietly brought the League into the Interim Government on 26th October, 1946 though it did not accept either the short or long term provisions of the Cabinet Mission plan and had not given up its policy of Direct Action. The Muslim League joined the Government, not ‘to work it but to wreck it’ from inside. All the same the Muslim League refused to join the Constituent Assembly.

In order to end the deadlock of the Interim Government, a London Conference was held in December 1946 in which Prime Minister Atlee, Wavell, Nehru and Jinnah participated. Though the conference tried to end the differences between the Congress and the League but it failed.

The developing crisis was temporarily defused by the statement made by Atlee in Parliament on 20th February 1947, that British Government is ready ‘to affect the transference of power to responsible hands by a date not later than June 1948’. In order to facilitate the work of transference of power, Lord Mountbatten was appointed as the Viceroy in palace of Lord Wavell.

The anticipation of freedom from Imperial rule lifted the gloom that had set in with continuous internal wrangling. There were wide-spread communal riots in the country. The League launched Civil Disobedience in Punjab and brought down the unionist. Akali- Congress ministry was led by Khizr Hayat Khan.

In the communal riots all the three groups, the Muslim League, the Hindu Mahasabha and the Akali Dal (led by Master Tara Singh) participated. Anti-partition demonstrations took place in Lahore. There were large scale killings in Lahore, Amritsar, Taxila, Rawalpindi, Bihar, U.P., Bengal, Bombay and other places.

The Army and the police practically did nothing to stop this. Gandhiji was continuously touring the country and appealing the masses for the stoppage of this communal killing, but to no avail. This was the situation in which Mountbatten came to India as Viceroy. Moutbatten’s formula was to divide India but retain maximum unity. In June 3, 1947 he offered a plan for the partition of India.

The plan provided for a referendum in the N.W.F.P. to decide whether the province would join India or Pakistan. Gandhiji met Lord Mountbatten in April 1947 and requested him to avoid partition of India. He also agreed to make Jinnah, the Prime Minister of India. He said clearly that, ‘if the Congress accepts the Partition, it would have to do it over my agree on the partition plan and I will try to stop Congress from accepting the partition if possible’.

Later, under pressure from Nehru and Patel, the Congress accepted the partition of India. The Indian Independence Act passed by the British Parliament in July 1947 provided for the setting up of two independent Dominions of India and Pakistan with effect from 15th August 1947.