Replying the following day, Gandhi pointed out the omission of some vital points which he had elaborated to Sarat Bose before leaving for Patna: 'There is nothing in the draft stipulating that nothing will be done by mere majority. Every act of the Government must carry with it the cooperation of at least two-thirds of the Hindu minority in the executive and the legislature. There should be an admission that Bengal has common culture and common mother tongue— Bengali. Make sure that the central Muslim League approves of the proposal notwithstanding reports to the contrary. If your presence is necessary in Delhi I shall telephone or telegraph. I propose to discuss the draft with the Working Committee'. Unfortunately, Sarat Bose was not able to convince Suhrawardy or the Muslim League to agree to Gandhi's stipulation. What appeared in the final draft instead was that any decision would require an overall two-thirds majority.
With the talk of a united sovereign Bengal gaining momentum, Assam felt insecure. In the event of a sovereign Bengal, Assam would be completely cut off from the Indian Union. The chief minister of Assam, Gopinath Bordoloi sent an SOS to New Delhi: 'If independent statehood is conferred to Bengal, Assam, cut off from the Centre and other consenting Provinces without any outlet to the sea, would be subjected to aggression both from the East and West. Assam must maintain contact with the Union, she must have an outlet to the sea'.
Important changes had been introduced in Mountbatten's first draft plan by this time. This took away from the provinces the right of option for independence, unless there was a request from both the Congress and the League for the same. Jinnah was prepared to entertain the idea of constituting a sovereign Bengal outside both India and Pakistan if this would give him, in return, the whole of the Punjab, but not if the Punjab was to be partitioned anyway, as envisaged under Mountbatten's draft plan, and certainly not if this entailed conceding sovereignty to the frontier province. The ground began to slip from under the united sovereign Bengal movement and soon Sarat Chandra Bose found himself isolated. On 28 May, two days before Mountbatten's return from London, the Working Committee of the Bengal provincial Muslim League adopted a resolution to the effect that, neither the Working Committee nor the sub-committee appointed by it, had 'anything to do with the proposal that had been published in newspapers for the settlement of a constitution for Bengal' and that it 'stood firmly with the Muslim League's demand for Pakistan'. The same day, the general secretary of the AICC too, issued a statement repudiating the formula for the establishment of a united sovereign Bengal and expressing opposition to the creation of a free state of Bengal.
On 6 June Sarat Bose again met Gandhi in Delhi to discuss some further developments. But by then both the League and the Congress had officially accepted Mountbatten's 3 June partition plan: Nehru and Patel were vehemently against any proposal for a united sovereign Bengal, alleging that it was merely a ploy to divide the Hindu and schedule caste leaders. They also alleged that legislators and politicians were being bribed on both sides to purchase their support. Gandhi was disheartened at this and finally advised Sarat Chandra Bose to abandon the idea of a united sovereign Bengal. In this, another opportunity to isolate Jinnah and prove his two-nation theory wrong was lost.
Mountbatten had dispatched invitations from Simla on 10 May to five Congress, Muslim League and Sikh leaders to attend a conference in Delhi a week later. He would then present to them his plan for the transfer of power, as finally approved by the British government. Mountbatten had assumed that it would be smooth-sailing from now on, but his optimism was premature. The proposal of dismissing Dr. Khan Saheb's democratically elected government as a prelude to the holding of a re-election in the NWFP had somehow been leaked and the Congress had reacted sharply to this political chicanery. The Congress leadership was perturbed by the possibility of Great Britain concluding a separate political treaty or even entering into a military alliance with Pakistan following the division of India. At the last minute, London introduced some further modification in the draft plan which made it less acceptable to the Congress. The Congress was now taking the stand that it had never admitted the right claimed by the League to partition India. Strictly adhering to the principle of non-coercion, it had conceded only the freedom to secede to such parts as might not want to remain within the Indian Union, as it had all along been opposed to keeping any unwilling part by compulsion. It therefore demanded that the Indian Union be recognised as being the successor of the British power, and such units as insisted upon separation should be regarded as seceders. But in the revised plan, this concept seemed to have been abandoned. There would be no heir nominated to replace the withdrawing British; the central authority would simply vanish; British India would be reduced to a conglomeration of autonomous units, 'successor governments' each possessing the right generally of determining its own future. The six hundred-odd Indian states would automatically become sovereign, each free to make peace or war, or enter into independent treaties with any other power. The British proposed to walk away, completely dissolving what was hitherto referred to as India.
On 10 May the viceroy showed the revised plan to Nehru to gauge his reaction. The latter was livid. 'It is a complete betrayal,' he said. 'It means the Balkanisation of India; we can never accept it.' The viceroy hurriedly summoned V.P. Menon, the reforms commissioner. 'The fat is in the fire,' Mountbatten exclaimed. Menon reassured him that he would rework the draft to make it acceptable. The next day Nehru's reaction to the redrafted plan was reported to be favourable, but he was not quite certain as to how the CWC would react. Patel was contacted in Delhi and was requested to shepherd it through the CWC; he agreed 'to see to that part of it'. The viceroy and his staff realised that, henceforth, during all delicate negotiations they must have Patel as a steadying influence alongside Nehru. Once they took care of these two, the Congress high command would be in their pockets. And with these two riding shotgun, they did not have to worry about the one Churchill called the 'half naked fakir'!
One of the modifications in the re-drafted plan was that the provinces no longer had the freedom to determine their future. Under the original draft, the NWFP could have declared independence from both India and Pakistan if it so chose. This was offset by a similar freedom of choice for Bengal. The re-draft sealed the fate of the NWFP; their yoke was irrevocably tied to Pakistan, and Bengal's fate could only be decided by a joint request from both the Congress and the Muslim League, even if both the Bengali Hindus and Muslims desired unity and freedom. At one stroke everything that Jinnah had been demanding was granted to him.
Lord Ismay and Abell were in London at this time, securing the approval of the British Cabinet to the original draft plan. Mountbatten had, on a hunch, shown it to Nehru, and, based on his reaction had it redrafted. All this happened as HMG put its seal of approval on the original draft. The viceroy sent a cable to London, asking Ismay and Abell to stay back and get HMG to approve the redrafted plan. Southhall was annoyed; in a curt message from London, Mountbatten was ordered back post haste to explain the reason for the redrafted plan when the original had already been approved. The meeting with the Indian leaders scheduled for the 17th was postponed and rescheduled for 2 June with the concurrence of Whitehall. Nehru kept Gandhi informed about the happenings in Simla and Delhi. Since Mountbatten was going away to London and would only be back in Delhi on 28 May, carrying with him the final plan for India's freedom and vivisection, Patel and Nehru decided to avail of the opportunity for some rest and recreation in Mussoorie. Nehru invited Gandhi to join them. On 17 May Gandhi wrote to Patel: 'I have received your and Jawahar's letters. I do not feel the least enthusiasm to go to Mussoorie. You can stay in Mussoorie as long as you like. I have full use for every day that I can get here. If you will therefore allow, I shall reach Delhi on the 31st May or any time after that that you may want. It would please me if you took rest at Mussoorie. We shall of course talk in Delhi'.
Gandhi did not have the least doubt that the British would eventually leave, but of late he was worried that w
hat his countrymen would be left holding would be an empty shell that once was a glorious nation. On the morning of 24 May, as Gandhi boarded the train for Delhi, he told Dr. Mahmud, 'The Congress has practically decided to accept partition. But I have been a fighter all my life. I am going to Delhi to fight a losing battle.' When the train stopped at Kanpur station, his watch was stolen from under his pillow by a souvenir hunter who had entered his compartment for his darshan. Gandhi was very attached to the watch as it had been a present from Indira, Nehru's daughter. She had given it to him twenty years ago when he had gone to Allahabad to see her grandfather Motilal Nehru.
Owing to engine trouble, the train was late in reaching Delhi. Patel and Nehru had not returned from Mussoorie as yet. Rajaji met Gandhi during the course of the day. Gandhi told him that there was no place for him in the India taking shape before him. The country was taking to the way of violence. The spinning wheel was being replaced by big factories and rapid industrialisation; it was aiming to become a military power in the region. But amidst all this, it was his firm conviction that a day would come when they would all see for themselves that for India there was no way other than that of village industries and non-violence.
For some time now, a rumour had been gaining ground that on 3 June, when the viceroy announced the British government's plan for the transfer of power, riots would be engineered all over the country. News from Bengal said that several workers and leaders of the Bengal Muslim League had threatened to reduce Calcutta to ashes rather than allowing it to become a part of the Indian Union. Whole areas and streets were being fortified in preparation of the ransacking of Calcutta; the Muslims were readying their arsonists and arming their commandos; and the Hindus were not lacking in their preparations either. Neither side was willing to be taken by surprise. A telephone message from Bihar informed Gandhi that the situation there too was fast deteriorating. A Sindhi friend wrote to him from Sind that the Hindus in that province were living under a shadow of death and destruction.
When Gandhi returned to his room after the prayer meeting that evening, Devdas, Laxmi and Gopalkrishna, his youngest son and daughter-in-law and their youngest son affectionately called Gopu, came visiting as was their daily practice whenever Gandhi was in Delhi.
Jinnah, all this while, had been making unreasonable demands. In doing so, he would bring the entire process of the final negotiations for the transfer of power to a standstill. First was his demand for the inclusion of Assam in the Pakistan group. Assam had a majority Muslim population only in two districts; so Jinnah's demand went against the foundation on which two Pakistans were being created a thousand miles apart—that in those two areas there existed a Muslim majority. Jinnah's justification for Assam to join the Pakistan grouping, was that it was contiguous to the Pakistan areas, and that in two of its districts there was a Muslim presence. He made this most ridiculous demand four days after Mountbatten left for London. He said there was a necessity to have a land link between the two wings of Pakistan and demanded that a 1000 mile-long corridor be carved out of North India, linking East and West Pakistan. Patel characterised it as 'such fantastic nonsense so as not to be taken seriously'.
The hardening of the Congress's attitude against the partition plan as a result of Jinnah's extravagant and never-ending demands, which seemed to grow in their absurdity with every concession conceded, provided Gandhi with the glimmer of a hope of avoiding the partition of India. He made a final effort to induce the Congress high command to abandon Mountbatten's partition plan and revert to the Cabinet Mission Plan. 'Peace before Pakistan' was what should be the priority, he maintained. The viceroy must refuse to have any parleys with the Muslim League, before he had secured full implementation in the letter and spirit of the appeal to which Jinnah was a co-signatory. The viceroy was equally committed and he was a man of honour. If the Congress did not weaken, the Muslim League would have to come to the Congress and talk reason instead of presenting its mounting demands at gun point as it had got into the habit of doing.
The press was in over-drive; they printed one speculative story after the other about what Mountbatten would bring back with him from London. Gandhi did not like this attitude. Why should the Indians believe that their fate hung on what the British government might say or do? In his post prayer speech on 26 May he remarked that independence lay there, right in front of them. It was for them to take it, unless, in their folly, they chose to discard it. Why should they be concerned about what the British Cabinet or the British political parties wanted or desired? 'It is not for them to give us liberty but only to get off our backs. This they are under promise to do. But for retaining our freedom and giving it shape, we have to look to ourselves.... We are unable to think coherently, while the British power is there in India. Its function is not to change the map of India. All it has to do is to withdraw and leave India in an orderly manner, if possible. But withdraw in any case on or before the promised date it must even if it means chaos.
'There is an additional reason why no vital change in the shape of Hindustan with or without partition is possible in the existing stage of the country. There is the joint statement issued by Quaid-i-Azam and me. It enunciates a sound principle that there should be no violence employed in the pursuit of any political aim.
'We shall then have learnt the cruel lesson that everything was to be got if mad violence was perpetrated in sufficient measure. I would, therefore, urge every patriot and certainly the British power to face out the worst violence and leave India as it can be left under the Cabinet Mission document of May 16th of last year. Today, in the presence of the British power, we are demoralised by the orgy of blood, arson and worse. After it is withdrawn, let me hope, we shall have the wisdom to think coherently and keep India one, or split it into two parts or more. But if we are bent even then on fighting, I am sure we will not be as demoralised as we are today, though admittedly all violence carries with it some amount of demoralisation. I shall hope against hope that India, free, will not give the world an additional object lesson in violence with which it is already sick almost unto death.'
The next evening Gandhi directly posed a challenge to Jinnah, the Congress leadership and the British government. Jinnah was a cosignatory to the famous statement issued jointly over their names. He should have been seen working with him from the same platform without allowing himself to rest till they had secured peace in the land of their birth or died in the attempt. And yet while arson and murder were rampant even around the capital itself, preparations for the division of India were being pushed on. The interim government had unfortunately chosen to follow the negative practice of the British government: its communiques repeatedly mentioned, in the vaguest of terms, how members of 'a certain community' had done the killing, without clearly indicating who had killed whom. Why could not they be bold enough to mention the butcher by his name? Why did not the British power name the guilty party and put it outside the pale? He maintained that, after the joint appeal, Jinnah had left no way open to himself for the attainment of Pakistan expect that of conversation through appeal to cold reason. He had said before that if he had his way, there would be no talk about Pakistan before there was peace, and certainly not through British intervention. Jinnah should first establish peace—in that effort he could always command his cooperation—then convene a meeting of Indian leaders of all classes and communities and go on pleading with them the cause of Pakistan till he had carried conviction to them. 'The day we meet together as brothers will be a red letter day in India's annals. For whatever decision we shall then take will be our decision as amongst members of one family.'
If the Pakistan of his conception was a reasonable proposition, Gandhi continued, Jinnah should have no difficulty in convincing India. Though the events in the NWFP, in the Punjab and in Bengal left little room for hope, he was even now prepared to make a sporting offer. Jinnah had claimed that Pakistan would be a state where each would enjoy the fullest security; where there would be no distinction of h
igh and low and where there would be justice for all. If that was really so, he [Gandhi] would himself accompany him and tour with him all over the country and tell the people that they could all live happily in such a Pakistan: 'Let him [Jinnah] not appeal to the British power or its representative Viscount Mountbatten. The latter's function is only to quit by the end of June next year—peace or no peace. Imposed peace would be the peace of the grave of which all India and the British should be ashamed. Let it not be said that Gandhi was too late on the scene. He was not. It is never too late to mend, never too late to replace the force of the sword with that of reason. Dare the British impose Pakistan on an India temporarily gone mad.'
Jinnah turned a deaf ear to the appeal; he knew he had the Congress leaders by their tails and the British were partial towards him in any case, so why should he be bothered by the utterances of one who was himself isolated. Mountbatten complained that he had arrived too late on the scene, when no solution, other than on the basis of partition, could be made acceptable to both the parties, and the Congress was not prepared to take the difficult route. Since coming to power, the Congress had been relying heavily upon the British-created machinery for the preservation of law and order. It needed the good offices of the British administration to help them tackle the problem of the princely states. They were wholly dependent upon what Mountbatten would bring back from London. Gandhi was someone they had to tolerate and use when the need arose, but his utterances were not to be taken seriously; to these newly baptised career politicians, Gandhi's ideas and philosophy were no longer practical or realistic. In public they showed sympathy for him, in private they scoffed at him.
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