Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel

by B Krishna

  The anarchy in Nepal led to the spilling of Maoists into the Indian states of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Jharkhand, and West Bengal. The Maoists and the Naxalites, it was feared, might jointly create terror in these states and beyond. Some even feared that a desperate king could play the China card and that China’s role might be facilitated with the improvement of the existing roads: Kathmandu-Lhasa through the Kodari Pass, and Kathmandu-Tibet through the Rasuwagadhi-Kerung pass; as also with the construction of new roads, one through the Koshi-Kimathanka corridor in the east, and the other, Jomsom-Lumanthang, in the west.

  Terror looked down upon India from the Himalayas’ 1,754 km open border. It posed a danger far greater than Kashmir, whose LOC is 778 km long, and protected by fencing. Nepal and the adjoining regions sat right on India’s head, whereas Kashmir was tucked away in a corner of India. Further, Nepal was an independent kingdom unlike Kashmir, which made matters far more difficult. China had stirred up moves to beat India by offering the king liberal military and monetary support, without, of course, ignoring Nepalese Maoists. It was necessary for India to pursue carefully worked-out tightrope diplomacy.

  In April 2006, when Kathmandu was rocked by protest marches, the London Economist wrote: “Few conventional observers feel qualified to peep far into Nepal’s future.”3 Patel, nevertheles, did that in 1950, as mentioned earlier, by openly advocating parliamentary democracy in Nepal through the Ranas, in the same manner as the Indian princely states by “dethroning” hereditary rulers. Nehru, however, favoured the king, which sowed the seeds of the later-day trouble in Nepal. Patel had desired a people-to-people relationship between Nepal and India.

  In the abolition of monarchy in December 2007 and Nepal’s becoming a republic in May 2008 lay a solution Patel had suggested to Nehru in 1950. It was the one he had himself implemented in India in the demolition of the princely order.

  Part III

  APPENDICES

  9

  A CHURCHILLIAN PLAN

  Partition of India

  Winston Churchill, as prime minister of Britain, had favoured, in March 1945, India’s “partition into Pakistan, Hindustan and Princestan”.1 He had won the war, but was losing the empire. Britain had neither manpower nor money to rule over a restive India. Churchill saw in a complete withdrawal “serious implications for Britain’s communications and bases between the Middle East and South-East Asia”. His plan, therefore, was to ensure continuation of British hold over India through a division of the sub-continent into three independent constituents under British hegemony in one form or another. It was called imperial strategy.

  Churchill agreed with Wavell that the Congress, under the influence of a pro-Soviet Nehru, was “unlikely to cooperate with Britain in military matters and foreign policy”, whereas the Muslim League would be “willing to do so”.2 Western Pakistan would, therefore, agree to have “defence ties with Britain”3 for her control over borders with Afghanistan and Russia. For effective implementation of such policy, it was considered imperative to create a Pakistan that would have “political stability” and “economic viability” through a larger, untruncated Pakistan. The two Pakistans were to be complementary to each other: the east economically strong; the west militarily. This was to serve, essentially, British interests in the north-west. Equally so, between Baluchistan and Chittagong on either ends, the British would have maintained the Indian Ocean as a zone of peace under their control. All this was part of imperial strategy.

  The British had decided on Pakistan’s creation earlier in 1942. On 2 March, the secretary of state, Amery, wrote to

  A. Harding: “Here is the Document as drafted by the India Committee under Attlee’s chairmanship . . . what Linlithgow* and I were agreed upon in July 1940 . . . This is the first public admission of the possibility of Pakistan, i.e. an India divided between the Muslim and Hindu parties.”4 Further, on 24 March, Amery wrote to Linlithgow: “Jinnah, I should have thought, will be content to realise that he has now got Pakistan in essence, whether as something substantial or as a beginning point.”5

  Partition of India was, thus, part of the imperial strategy Churchill had ordered to be prepared immediately on the surrender of Germany on 5 May 1945. It was to meet the grave apprehensions Russia was causing. Stalin had earlier told Hitler’s foreign minister, Ribbentrop, that it was “ridiculous that a few hundred Englishmen should dominate India”. And Churchill had concurred with his chief of staff, Ismay, that “if we evacuate India, nothing would remain to prevent Russian infiltration”.6 Churchill’s “long-term policy required to safeguard the strategic interests of the British Empire in India and the Indian Ocean”.7 Russia had come to be looked upon as “our most probable potential enemy”.8

  Britain’s first priority was defence of India’s western and north-western borders, adjoining Afghanistan and Russia. The former through Pakistan presented no problem, as Pakistan was totally dependent on Britain in military matters. The latter posed a problem, as the territory was part of the Kashmir state, whose Hindu Maharaja, the British feared, might accede to India. They played a clever ruse through the Gilgit Scouts, who were British and who contolled the region. On 30 July 1947, when India and Pakistan were yet to become independent, all the British officers of the Gilgit Scouts “opted to serve Pakistan”; on 31 October 1947, the Gilgit Scouts installed a provisional government; on 4 November, Major Brown “hoisted the Pakistan flag in the lines of his command; and on 12 November, an official styling himself as political agent arrived from Pakistan and established himself in Gilgit”.9

  Implementation of imperial strategy comprised: a) reinforcing defence installations on Pakistan’s north-western borders; b) “detaching Baluchistan from India” for purposes of developing the Indian Ocean as a zone of peace; c) ensuring fuel supplies for naval vessels in the Indian Ocean, for which purpose Mountbatten had proposed to the foreign oil companies operating in India to consider the building of two oil refineries, one each on the west and the east coasts of India; d) a common governor-general for India and Pakistan for effective coordination and control of the sub-continent; and e) an undivided army under the command of a British supreme commander in order to keep effective power in British hands.

  The imperial strategy did not take off. Patel was the first to kill it by not allowing the British to arbitrarily hand over to Jinnah the whole of Punjab and Bengal. Jinnah was the second killer. In his greed for power and status, he refused to accept a common governor-general for India and Pakistan, and an undivided army under a British supreme commander. No less a contributory factor was Churchill’s exit as prime minister on losing the election. Attlee, his successor, lacked the force of his personality: the courage, the tenacity, and the daredevilry of the bulldog that Churchill possessed.

  Partition of India was, therefore, a Churchillian plan. Jinnah was its implementor. There were “confidential” Churchill-Jinnah links before India’s independence.10 As part of his imperial strategy, Churchill had even directed Jinnah’s role at the Simla Conference in June-July 1945. Jinnah had wrecked the conference, confessing to Durga Das of the Statesman: “Am I a fool to accept this [compromise], when I am offered Pakistan on a platter?” He seemed to have been told that if he “stepped out of the talks, he would be rewarded with Pakistan”.11

  Wavell was Churchill’s hatchet man. It was he who gave shape to the Churchillian plan at the Simla Conference, leading ultimately to the break-up of India, as Churchill desired, into Hindustan and Pakistan. It was Patel who did not allow the creation of Princestan. Against heavy odds, Wavell built Jinnah’s position, as Churchill desired, both at the provincial and all-India levels. Since Punjab held the key to the creation of Pakistan, Wavell caused the demise of the powerful Muslim-dominated Unionist Party, which had ruled over the province successfully since 1926 in collaboration with Hindus and Sikhs.

  For Jinnah’s all-India spokesmanship of the Muslims, Wavell held the general elections by the year-end: just six mon
ths after the termination of the war, without updating the voters’ list and allowing the Congress leaders time for preparations. They had been in prison for nearly 3 years since August 1942. They were totally out of touch with the voters and the world outside. Wavell even tacitly allowed Jinnah to appeal to the Muslim voters in the name of Islam. A former governor of Punjab, Bertrand Glancy, warned of “a very serious danger of the elections being fought, so far as Muslims are concerned, on an entirely false issue . . . The uninformed Muslim will be told that the question he is called on to answer at the polls is: are you a true believer or an infidel and a traitor?”12 By not boycotting the communally-surcharged elections, the Congress helped Jinnah move faster towards his goal of Pakistan than he would otherwise have.

  Partition would have foundered on what was most dear to the Punjabi Muslims: their united Punjab. According to Ayesha Jalal, “once Punjabi Muslims realised” that Partition meant partition of their province, they would “think twice before blindly following Jinnah”.13 Not to let that happen, and at the same time smoothen Jinnah’s path, an undivided Punjab was conceived to be part of both the Cabinet Mission plan of May 1946 and Attlee’s policy statement of 20 February 1947.

  The Simla Conference, held in June-July 1945, laid the foundation for Jinnah’s rise as the sole spokesman of the Muslims through two steps: first, by bringing Punjab under Jinnah’s control; and second, in securing equality of status for the League with the Congress through parity between the caste Hindus and Muslims. That built the latter’s faith in Jinnah even when he did not enjoy the provincial leaders’ confidence and their support. Jinnah received added strength with Congress president Azad’s tacit acceptance of parity. The Congress failed to realise that parity would, in the end, lead to Partition. It was far more pernicious than separate representation granted to the Muslims under the Morley-Minto Reforms of 1909.

  When Jinnah faced a challenge to his authority to nominate Muslims on the viceroy’s proposed Executive Council, he appealed to Wavell: “I am at the end of my tether . . . I ask you not to wreck the League.” The challenge came from powerful non-League Muslims including not only the prime ministers of the NWFP and Punjab—Dr. Khan Sahib and Khizar Hyat Khan Tiwana—but also independent influencial Muslims like Sultan Ahmed and others. They shared former Punjab premier Sikander Hyat Khan’s vision for his province: “If Pakistan meant Muslim raj in Punjab, he would have nothing to do with it. He wanted a free Punjab in which all communities would share self-government.”14 In 1945, Sikander Hyat Khan was no more to oppose Jinnah.

  Wavell responded to Jinnah’s call by taking two steps, both drastic and arbitrary. He called off the Simla conference. H. V. Hodson, a former reforms commissioner, called it “a capitulation to Jinnah”, and opined: “If the Viceroy had been as adamant as Jinnah, the latter would have obliged himself to give in . . . Jinnah’s control of the Muslim League was at that time far from complete . . . There were still many uncommitted Muslims in the country.”15 Wavell’s second step, in refusing a Muslim nominee of the Unionist Party on his proposed Executive Council, resulted in “the destruction of the Unionist Party, which paved the way for partition of Punjab”.16 Jinnah’s solid position, nevertheless, depended on the Muslim voters. At the elections held by the end of 1945, the League won every Muslim seat in the Central Legislature, and 442 out of 509 Muslim seats in the eleven provinces combined.

  The Simla Conference had opened the doors for Jinnah to move towards Pakistan, while the general elections had put a stamp on his total support of the Muslims on an all-India basis. Six months later, in May 1946, the Cabinet Mission plan virtually granted Jinnah his Pakistan in Groups B and C: Punjab, the NWFP, and Sind in Group B; Bengal and Assam in Group C. It was under the fictitious concept of keeping India united. Jinnah seemed satisfied, as he was getting Hindu Assam and non-Muslim East Punjab and West Bengal. In the federal structure envisaged, Jinnah would have dominated India with the support of pro-League Muslims in India—the vanguard of Jinnah’s fight for Pakistan. As later events proved, Jinnah would have mustered support of some of the Indian princes through horse-trading. Congress rejection of the plan shattered his dream. A deeply frustrated Jinnah called on the Muslims, on 30 July 1946, to launch “Direct Action” in his declaration: “This day we bid goodbye to constitutional methods . . . Today we have also forged a pistol and we are in a position to use it.”17

  The British-owned and edited Statesman of Kolkata called Jinnah’s “war” the “Great Calcutta Killing”. A year later it turned into the “Rape of Rawalpindi”, called so by a leading Punjab Youth Congress leader and member of the Punjab Legislative Assembly, Probodh Chandra. Both happenings were gruesome tales of sadistic carnage and butchery.

  In Kolkata, the first to answer Jinnah’s call was the Bengal premier, H. S. Suhrawardy, with twin objectives: to terrorise the Hindus and force them to leave Kolkata; and to fill their places by arranging migration of Bihari Muslims to Kolkata and thereby turn the city into Muslim majority, and claim it as part of Pakistan.

  The “Great Calcutta Killing” was an unimaginable tragedy. “An orgy of killing, loot and arson, incredible in its manifestation of communal savagery and hatred: corpses piled one on top of the other like corn sacks in a railway yard, headless bodies sprawled on the streets, walls bespattered with blood everywhere, shops broken open and rifled, cars burnt without intervention of the police . . . the streets flowed with blood.”18 Much to Suhrawardy’s utter disappointment, of around 6,000 killed, more than 4,500 were Muslims.

  Further, the Statesman considered the happenings

  the worst communal rioting in India’s history—a political demonstration by the Muslim League . . . This is not a riot. It needs a word found in mediaeval history: a fury . . . there must have been some deliberation and organisation to set this fury on the way. Hordes, who ran about battering and killing with eight-foot lathis . . . bands found it easy to get petrol and vehicles when no others were permitted on the streets. It is not mere supposition that men were imported into Calcutta . . . On all sides are death, injury and destruction. Houses have been destroyed with men, women and children in them. Men have returned home in the evening to find neither wife nor children. The homeless are lying about unsheltered and starving along the streets, in any open space, wherever they can find room or a little hospitality. Some who gave shelter to the homeless have been dragged out and bludgeoned for doing it . . . Thousands are brutally hurt. Smashed jaws, burst eyes, fractured limbs.19

  To avenge his failure, Suhrawardy carried the “war” to Noakhali and Tipura in East Bengal. Nehru called this “mass slaughter . . . far worse than the Calcutta killings”. East Bengal happenings set a chain reaction. The Muslim League’s communal war travelled to Bhagalpur in Bihar, to Gharmukhteshwar in Uttar Pradesh, and, in its final phase, to Punjab and the NWFP.

  Jinnah’s silence was taken as his approval of such an orgy of violence. But inflammatory speeches by his chief lieutenants worked up the passion and greed of the Muslims. Suhrawardy had threatened: “Let the Congress beware that it is not going to fight just a handful of people fighting for power but a nation which is struggling for its life.”

  In Punjab, the Nawab of Mamdot declared: “I ask the Mussalmans to be prepared . . . if there were to be a war, we shall accept the challenge.” The most provocative was Firoz Khan Noon, a former member of the viceroy’s Executive Council, who called upon Muslims to outshine Genghis Khan and Halakku. That let loose genocide in West Punjab: large-scale murder, arson, loot, and, most tragic, rape and abduction of women and young girls. Nehru, who visited some of the affected areas, was appalled by “ghastly sights”, and “heard of behaviour of human beings which would degrade brutes”. The British deputy inspector-general of police, Rawalpindi Range,

  J. A. Scott, admitted: “I could never believe that such barbarous acts as were committed on innocent people in rural areas of Rawalpindi district could be possible in Punjab.” Home secretary to the Punjab government A. A. Ma
cDonald admitted that it was all pre-planned. Mobs of a few thousand, armed with sten-guns and Bren-guns and led by demobbed military personnel, attacked defenceless Hindus and Sikhs in remote, isolated villages.

  What was the genesis of the genocide in Punjab? Penderel Moon (ICS), a senior British bureaucrat from Punjab, thought that since Jinnah could never make his “planned exchange of population a live issue”, it was considered that “brute force or overwhelming fear would drive non-Muslims to leave their ancestral homes . . . to make room for incoming Muslims”.20 Jinnah feared that the strong, sturdy, virile Sikh colonists from Central Punjab would be a stumbling block, and could be made to leave through the use of force. Sikander Hyat had told Moon as early as 1937: “Pakistan would mean a massacre.”21 That took place a decade later in 1947.

  I personally witnessed Lahore’s fate hanging in the balance from May onwards. Many localities were under siege—some under 72-hour curfew. At night, from our terraces, we witnessed, in mute silence, the horizon lit up by red fire; by day it turned into thick black smoke darkening the skyline. In June, in a single night, in a locality, Shahalami, 200 houses were set on fire. Not to let the residents escape, curfew was imposed. Death faced them grimly. A senior government official, who ventured to come out on duty, was shot dead. To their rescue came Dogra troops who happened to be on their routine round. The residents were carried in their trucks to the safety of a newly opened refugee camp.