The Shadow of the Great Game

by Narendra Singh Sarila

  On 30 August 1946, Dean Acheson, the assistant secretary of state in the State Department, Washington, exactly on the other side of the globe from Delhi, advised the new president, Harry S. Truman, on developments in India as follows:

  The new Cabinet would be composed of outstanding leaders of the principal Indian political party together with representative leaders of certain minority groups. The British plan likewise calls for the convening of a Constituent Assembly in the immediate future which will have authority to complete severance of India from the Empire and Commonwealth if the Indians so desire. Although the second most important Indian political party [the Muslim League] has refused to participate thus far in these developments, it is believed that the new Government will be representative of at least 80 per cent of the Indian people.

  It is anticipated that one of the first acts of the new Government will be to request the exchange of fully accredited diplomatic representation between India and the United States.

  While the Viceroy will continue legally to have the power of veto until the new constitution comes into effect, we feel that representative Indian leaders capable of speaking in the name of the great majority of the Indian people will now be in effective de facto control of the affairs of India. In view of the violent repercussions which would probably follow a decision by the Viceroy to act contrary to the advice of his new Cabinet on any important issue…we should without hesitation agree to receive an Indian Ambassador and to send an American Ambassador to India.

  I should appreciate receiving your views on the subject in order that we may act with a minimum of delay in case the new government would like to have such an exchange effected.2

  Truman approved of this memorandum on 2 September 1946.

  The British Government was not too pleased with the American move. When the American chargé d’affaires informed Sir Paul Patrick of the India Office, London, on 9 September 1946, of his government’s readiness to appoint an ambassador to India, Patrick replied:

  It would give a certain prestige to Interim Government [and] make Muslims more conciliatory to Congress following this direct evidence that US Government considers Interim Government respectable enough for an exchange of Ambassadors…. US willingness to establish direct diplomatic relations with India might encourage Nehru to take decisions in foreign policy which would meet with British disapproval. Technically Interim Government comes under Government of India, where it will remain until a new Indian constitution is formulated. Therefore, there might still be “Whitehall interference” in decisions of Interim Government, but British Government would make every effort to avoid such interference. Nevertheless subject might be raised by questions in Parliament as to decisions and activities of Interim Government.3

  When a crisis arose soon after with regard to the convening of the Constituent Assembly and the possibility of the resignation of the Nehru Government loomed large, the British ambassador to the US, Lord Inverchapel (Sir Archibald Kerr), could not help taking a dig at the Americans in a telegram to London: ‘To all intent and purposes they [the US] have given HMG a hostage by their possibly premature assumption of full diplomatic relations with the Interim Government, the dissolution of which could leave their faces very red.’4 Whatever its reservations, the Attlee Government did not hesitate to give its consent to the US proposal. And Henry Grady, a professional diplomat and an assistant undersecretary in the US State Department, was named the ambassador to India. (India followed suit by sending to Washington Asaf Ali, a Congressman of the Muslim faith, who had never visited the USA and whose wife Aruna was a rabid leftist.)

  According to the US archives, the first message that Jawaharlal Nehru as ‘prime minister’ addressed to the US Government was on 20 September 1946. It reads as follows: ‘In view of very serious food situation in India which is being aggravated by delay in arrival of promised allotment due to shipping strikes in America, would earnestly request you and through you the labour leaders to permit and arrange for earliest dispatch of food ships to India.’5 There is no recognition in this message of the United States’ policy to support Nehru’s Interim Government and the Congress Party position vis-à-vis the Muslim League.

  Wavell had bitterly opposed the formation of an executive council without including the representatives of the Muslim League in it. But he had been overruled by London. On 27 August 1946, he made a last desperate attempt to induce Gandhiji and Nehru to accept the Cabinet Mission’s grouping formula without reservation. Without such acceptance, he argued, the League was unwilling to enter the Viceroy’s Executive Council, which may mean more communal riots. Gandhiji and Nehru rejected Wavell’s plea on the ground that Jinnah had to first enter the Constituent Assembly. Attlee was adamant that, whatever the dispute over the Constituent Assembly, the formation of the Interim Government should go through; he wanted a ‘Congresstan’. Wavell’s entry in his diary on 29 August 1946 reads: ‘I had an almost panic-stricken telegram from the Secretary of State to do nothing rash with the Congress’,6 and on 30 August 1946, he noted: ‘I had another panic-stricken cable…S of S asking me on no account to do or say anything that might occasion a breach with Congress.’7 To the last cable, he replied that he would form the government on 2 September 1946, but that ‘he did not think a single party government could control India for long without serious trouble arising’. Wavell’s view of his secretary of state was not particularly charitable. ‘Without Commonwealth backbone’, was what Wavell wrote about his secretary of state in his diary.

  The Calcutta killings had hastened the Congress leaders’ decision to enter the Interim Government. Short of taking up arms, getting into the driver’s seat that was being offered appeared to them their best bet. The British invitation to form the Interim Government and the prospect of the early summoning of the Constituent Assembly, in which they held a majority, gave them the feel that they might be able to muddle through to establish a united, free India. Cripps’ companionability during his long stay in Delhi, as part of the Cabinet Mission, had encouraged their hopes to the extent of their becoming complacent. Even the down-to-earth Sardar Patel appears to have succumbed. He wrote to a friend on 2 June 1946: ‘His [Jinnah’s] main demand of Pakistan is buried forever.’8 Later, while speaking to a representative of the Bombay Chronicle newspaper, on 2 August 1946, Patel compared Pakistan ‘to a deflated cycle tube’.9

  If Nehru was excited by the prospect of acquiring, with British help, the means and the wherewithal to remould India to his heart’s desire, Patel’s change of heart towards Britain had a political purpose. He had opposed a violent upheaval against British power in 1946, helped to pacify the naval mutineers in Bombay and cooperated with Cripps in the hope of mollifying the British. He had come to feel that the nationalists could not possibly fight Britain and Jinnah at the same time and that the British, who were on their way out, were a better option than the Muslim League, whose fortunes were on the rise. Patel wanted to do exactly what Jinnah feared, that is, to get hold of the levers controlling the executive and constitution-making powers and, with Britain looking the other way, make a united free India a fait accompli.

  In early 1947, N.P.A. Smith, the powerful director of the Intelligence Bureau, submitted a note to Wavell. This note gives a flavour of the easy relationship that Patel could establish with his English subordinates, even with those who knew that he wanted them to go, as Smith did:

  I told him [Sardar Patel]…that any attempt to force the Muslim would result, through the disintegration of the police and Army, in the loss of NW India. His reply was that, if I thought that generosity would placate the Muslim Oliver Twist, I did not understand either the Muslim mind or the situation. With which statement I am tempted to agree.10

  Wavell, who disliked the Congress Party leaders, described the Sardar as follows: ‘Patel is more like a leader than any of them, and might become the easiest to do business with.’11 Whether or not Patel would have succeeded in winning over Britain by merely demonstrating goodwill is
problematic. Britain would not so easily give up on Jinnah, who alone could deliver them the strategic prize in the form of northwest India. Moreover, Nehru, as foreign minister, had adopted a stance that was the least likely to lull the British mistrust of the Congress Party. Even so, Patel did succeed, in early 1947, through his intermediary, the reforms commissioner to the viceroy, in limiting the area of India that would secede and, particularly, in preventing the princely states from breaking away.

  Wavell’s gloom, after the Attlee Government had decided to induct the Congress Party into the Interim Government without the Muslim League, is reflected in an entry in his diary on 20 August 1946:

  Ian Scott usually cheerful and optimistic was very depressing in a talk I had with him out riding this morning. Both he and George [Abell] now seem to be convinced that our only course is to get out of India as soon as possible and leave her to her fate, which will be civil war.12 [Scott was the deputy private secretary to the viceroy and Abell private secretary to the viceroy.]

  It was in this frame of mind that Wavell revived his ‘Breakdown Plan’, which he had submitted to the Cabinet Mission on 30 May 1946, without any result. This plan would, in one stroke, sweep away the Cabinet Mission’s proposed Nehru Government, the Constituent Assembly, and indeed the whole structure raised by the Cabinet Mission. This plan would also permit Britain to maintain its hold on the strategic areas of both the northeast and northwest in the immediate future, while retreating from the rest of British India, and would force the Congress Party to accept Pakistan as a fait accompli. On 10 August 1946, he had put down, in a note, the following ingredients of his plan, which concluded with the remark: ‘[The] Muslim League would presumably welcome the Plan’:

  (1) Britain would hand over Congress-majority provinces, i.e., Bombay, Madras, Orissa, Central Provinces, Bihar and United Provinces to the Congress Working Committee.

  (2) Present constitution and control would be maintained in the NWFP, Punjab, Sind, Bengal, Assam, the Chief Commissioner’s Province of Delhi and the Agency of British Baluchistan (all except Delhi being claimed for Pakistan).

  (3) HMG will undertake responsibility for defence of NW and NE India, and will, by agreement, assist Hindustan in external defence, if desired.

  (4) The exercise of Paramountcy over the [Princely] States that lie within the boundaries of Hindustan will be relinquished by the Crown. Paramountcy will continue with those States which lie within the boundaries of NW and NE India still remaining under British control.13

  A detailed plan of action was then drawn up on the basis of this note, with some amendments made in order to cloak the latent Pakistan scheme in it. The plan was to be put into effect as soon as there was a breakdown in the negotiations, and when Nehru and company tried to either unilaterally declare independence or launch a massive agitation.

  While forwarding his plan to London, Wavell added a few comments: ‘On administrative grounds we could not govern the whole of India for more than a year and half from now’ and ‘in most provinces they [the constitutional powers of the governor] can now only be enforced to a limited degree by persuasion and bluff.’14 He also emphasized that a government at the Centre, exclusively in the hands of the Congress Party, and any attempt to run the Constituent Assembly without the Muslim League, would result in serious Hindu– Muslim clashes. He highlighted the Calcutta tragedy as an example of what could happen. He added that it would be impossible to maintain the integrity of the Army if the main political parties were to instigate communal war.

  Wavell’s plan was received with shock and dismay in London. Attlee’s reaction can be summed up in his following comment: ‘While it is reasonable for the Viceroy to want to have a breakdown plan, it is unreasonable of him to expect us to envisage failure’15 (i.e., failure of his own policy, unrevealed to the viceroy). Rebuffed, Wavell, nevertheless, persevered: ‘We shall be without power to control events within eighteen months and delay would increase dependence on the hostile Congress Party.’ He argued: ‘Our present position in India was analogous to that of a military force compelled to withdraw in the face of superior numbers…. As a military commander [he knew] something about retreats.’16 Wavell then tried to sweeten the pill for Whitehall:

  My proposals do provide for British control of the vulnerable North-Western and North-Eastern frontiers of India for a certain period.17

  Attlee was in favour of partitioning India but with the Congress Party’s concurrence and not by way of an award. Whereas several British historians and political analysts have criticized Attlee’s India policy as one of appeasing the Congress Party, the fact is that, by creating ‘Congresstan’, he not only succeeded, the following year, admittedly under a different viceroy, in placing the responsibility for the partition of India squarely on Indian shoulders, but also in inducing the Congress Party to accept independence as a British dominion (i.e., as a member of the British Commonwealth).

  The nationalists’ only hope of accomplishing their goal of a united India was if they could hold the reins of government firmly in their hands and exclude Jinnah from entering it. This would encourage those Muslim leaders, opposed to Jinnah, to come to the forefront and thus weaken his hold over the Muslims. Wavell understood this, but had failed to obtain HMG’s support to block the Congress Party. He now turned to achieving his goal through his ‘prime minister’, Nehru! Wavell did not like Nehru – Harrow boys were not supposed to act so emotional – nor could he switch on charm from one minute to another as his successor (Louis Mountbatten) and indeed even his predecessor (Linlithgow) could, though he did gift Nehru, in jail (in 1943), the anthology of poems he had compiled, titled Other Men’s Flowers.

  As soon as Nehru was sworn in as ‘prime minister’ on 2 September 1946, Wavell started to press him to invite the Muslim League to enter the Interim Government ‘in the interest of communal peace and harmony’, a sentiment that he knew was so dear to the staunchly secular Nehru. The record shows that he spoke to Nehru on 11, 16, 26 and 27 September on this subject, but that Nehru stood firm, demanding that Jinnah first enter the Constituent Assembly to prove his acceptance of the Cabinet Mission plan; in other words, of a unitary solution. But then on 2 October 1946, unexpectedly, Nehru threw in the towel and gave an answer to Wavell that could be interpreted as his acquiescence with the viceroy approaching Jinnah on this subject. ‘Well this man [Wavell] had been pestering me to start talks with Jinnah. A few days ago I told him in sheer exasperation that if he was so keen to talk to Mr Jinnah he could do so. The next morning he [Wavell] started negotiations with Jinnah’, Nehru told Sudhir Ghose, a young confidant of Gandhiji. ‘Why did you not tell the Viceroy that if he was going to interfere with your responsibility he could have your resignation?’ asked Ghose. In this context, Ghose has written: ‘Nehru looked tired, worried and unhappy and replied, “Well, I have told you all I know about it”.’18 Wavell’s version of the incident is as follows: ‘N [Nehru]…tried to minimize the danger of communal trouble (in case the League was kept out) and said that the police could easily suppress it. I firmly disabused him of this idea. In the end, he said: “If you want to see Jinnah I can’t prevent you.”’19

  H.V. Hodson, the former reforms commissioner to the viceroy, notes:

  Had they [the Congress leaders] threatened to resign rather than take in the Muslim League until it had accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan and agreed to take part in the Constituent Assembly, they would have forced the Viceroy either to abandon his negotiations with Mr Jinnah or to substitute the League for the Congress in office, or to return to a nominated quasi-official government.20

  As it happened, Wavell invited the Muslim League to join the Viceroy’s Executive Council without either insisting that its members agree to enter the Constituent Assembly or even to call off their ‘direct action’ campaign.

  The League’s entry into the Interim Government signified a great victory for Jinnah and the viceroy and a major debacle for the Congress Party. Jinnah and his party leaders had be
en taken into the government without compromising his stand: the League could now proceed to sabotage the working of the Nehru Government from the inside and once again prove that the parting of ways maybe the best for all. This indeed they successfully accomplished within a few months after their men, led by Liaqat Ali Khan, entered the Viceroy’s Executive Council. Liaqat Ali Khan was given the finance portfolio; Jinnah did not join.

  A couple of months earlier, on 29 July 1946, Sardar Patel had written to D.P. Mishra, the senior Congress leader in the Central Provinces, as follows:

  He [Nehru] often acts with child-like innocence…. He has done many things recently which [have] caused us great embarrassment…[his] acts of emotional insanity…put tremendous strain on us to set matters right. But, in spite of his innocent indiscretions, he [has] unparalleled enthusiasm and a burning passion for freedom which makes him restless and drives him to a pitch of impatience where he forgets himself.21

  Wavell’s contention that a coalition government would prevent communal violence proved totally wrong; the Muslim League’s entry into the government merely emboldened this party to increase political pressure by organizing riots. In the Noakhali and Tripura districts of East Bengal, ‘direct action’ was launched in November 1946 after the formation of the coalition government. ‘There was evidence that this was an organized operation and not a spontaneous combustion of individual communal hatred,’22 has written a British observer, who was close to the scene. Gandhiji roamed the affected countryside on foot, which had a calming effect. Then the Hindus in the neighbouring Bihar province once again retaliated and terrible massacres followed, Nehru wanting the ravaging Hindu mobs to be bombed. The riots were finally quelled by the Army. Irrespective of the extent of the suffering caused to the people, Jinnah’s point had again been made for all to observe in England, India and elsewhere: Hindus and Muslims were best separated.