Krishna Menon was here reflecting the views of the Congress Working Committee resolution of 6 March 1947 that proceeded on the assumption that as long as the North West Frontier Province remained with India, a Pakistan consisting of western Punjab locked inside the boundaries of India would prove harmless and would, most probably, be only a temporary phenomenon. Krishna Menon also told Mountbatten that, in view of the Constituent Assembly’s resolution of January 1947, India’s membership in the Commonwealth appeared to be a non-starter. In London Mountbatten had seen the note by V.P. Menon (no relation of Krishna Menon), the reforms commissioner to the viceroy, on his talks with Vallabhbhai Patel at the end of 1946. This note suggested that Patel may agree to accept a Pakistan of the truncated variety and independence on a dominion status basis – if power was transferred to Indian hands immediately. But Mountbatten did not pay much attention to this note in view of Krishna Menon’s above advice.
On his arrival in Delhi on 22 March 1947, Mountbatten found that the Asia Relations Conference organized by Nehru was to begin the next day and the ‘prime minister’ was engrossed in it. Nehru had been planning for this conference ever since he had become the minister for external affairs in the Interim Government in September 1946. Non-official representatives of all shades of opinion in the countries of Asia (plus Egypt) were invited to the conference. All views were represented; thus, the delegates could listen to both the Kuomintang and the Chinese communists as well as to the representatives of the Arab League and the Hebrew University. ‘An amazing success from every point of view. I think we can definitely call it the beginning of a new era in Asian history’,19 declared Nehru. Actually, nothing came of the Asian Relations Organization set up by the conference and no participating country acted on the resolution to set up national units of this organization or academies of Asian studies. There was not even a second session of the Asia Relations Conference, though one may perhaps discern its influence in the origins of the Asian–African Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955.
Neither the problems of law and order nor his ‘prime minister’s’ preoccupation with the Asia Relations Conference prevented Mountbatten from straightaway launching – working at an average of twelve hours a day – on a series of meetings with Indian leaders. He had written to Gandhiji on the very day of his arrival to come and see him. Gandhiji had promptly returned to Delhi from riot-torn Bihar and saw Mountbatten on 31 March 1947 and every day thereafter, except one, till 4 April.
Mountbatten’s tactics, with Lady Mountbatten joining in, was not to enter into any serious negotiations with him but just to humour him by lending a patient ear to all that he had to say. No vicereine before her had tried to woo Gandhiji. A photograph that showed the Mahatma’s hand resting on her shoulder was the butt of much adverse comment in England. Mountbatten knew that Gandhiji’s endorsement of whatever agreement he reached with Nehru and Patel would be vital. ‘No one listens to me any more; I am crying in the wilderness’, he had been complaining. Well, this viceroy had all the time for him that he wished.
Gandhiji was, however, not willing to be totally sidelined in the coming negotiations. During the second meeting on 1 April, he told Mountbatten that ‘the Indian problem could be solved if Mr Jinnah were to form a new Interim Government and the Viceroy eventually handed over power to him. Under it, the new Cabinet would be named entirely by Jinnah who could have all Muslim League representatives if he so liked. The Congress Party, with their majority in the Legislative Assembly, would guarantee to cooperate fairly and sincerely with such an administration. However if Jinnah rejected the offer, it was to be made mutatis mutandis to the Congress Party.’20
Mountbatten was not willing to be waylaid by such a proposal, whether or not it made any sense. He countered by asserting that he could have nothing to do with it unless Gandhiji had obtained the full backing of the Congress Party’s Working Committee, knowing fully well that for Nehru and Patel to agree to step down at this stage and take the risk of installing Muslim League rule in India was a non-starter. And, indeed, on 11 April 1947, Gandhiji wrote to him that ‘he had been unable to obtain the agreement of the leading members of the Congress’.21
Gandhiji, in fact, was making this offer some twenty years too late. If, in 1928, he had offered Jinnah the Congress Party’s presidency, instead of to the younger Nehru, Jinnah – an old Congress Party stalwart, at heart no fundamentalist, and hungry for attention – might have grasped it and not thrown himself into the British lap. He was a more intelligent and a more disciplined negotiator than the others. Once he accepted a brief, his professional barrister’s pride and ego would drive him to win at all costs, irrespective of other considerations. If he could have been persuaded to lead the Congress Party, the division of India could perhaps have been avoided, as there was no other Muslim leader to unite the Muslims for a separate state.
Gandhiji continued to meet Mountbatten on and off, without coordinating his views with the other Congress leaders. These approaches were skilfully used by Mountbatten to obtain information from him on the latest thinking amongst the Congress leaders and to brief himself on the internecine differences among them.
Mountbatten first met Jinnah on 5 April and their conversations continued every day from 7 to 10 April. Jinnah demanded that power be handed over, province by province, with the provinces themselves choosing how they would form themselves into groups, and ‘those with a Muslim majority forming a new State’. He threatened that ‘an attempt to maintain the unity of India would lead the Muslim League to resort to armed force to resist it’.22 Mountbatten argued that, logically, the same principle would have to be applied to areas of Bengal and the Punjab, where non-Muslims made up nearly half of the population, and, as a result, these two provinces would be partitioned. It was on 10 April that Mountbatten finally brought Jinnah to his knees, proving once more that his strength lay in direct proportion to the support he received from the British. ‘I do not care how little you give me as long as you give it to me completely’, he said. And then: ‘I do not wish to make any improper suggestion to you but you must realize that the new Pakistan is almost certain to ask for Dominion Status within the British Empire.’23
On another occasion, according to the viceroy’s report, Jinnah pleaded:
All the Muslims have been loyal to the British from the beginning, supplied a high proportion of the army which fought in both wars, none of our leaders has ever had to go to prison for disloyalty, not one member of the Muslim League was present in the Constituent Assembly when the Resolution for an Independent Sovereign Republic was passed.24
Jinnah had yielded on all the three points of interest to Mountbatten: He was accepting a truncated Pakistan; he was giving his assent to membership of the Commonwealth; and he was willing to be recruited as an ally in the Great Game on the British side – even though he continued to raise certain issues till the end, such as an independent Bengal, the joint control of Calcutta and even a corridor to link West Pakistan and East Pakistan.
When Mountbatten first met Patel, surprisingly, they did not focus on the nitty-gritty, though he was the leader most likely to be helpful in persuading the Congress Party to accept partition and the continued Commonwealth link. Even later, he mostly used V.P. Menon as a ‘go-between’ in the negotiations with Patel. Had he sensed the growing rift between Nehru and Patel and was careful not to burn his boats with his frontman, Jawaharlal?
The Nawab of Bhopal, the chancellor of the Chamber of Princes, asked the viceroy whether groups of princely states could be granted dominion status, i.e., become independent. Mountbatten gave him no encouragement. Bhopal then complained that some major princes had broken away from him and joined the Constituent Assembly to please the Congress Party. As things turned out, Bhopal soon lost the chancellorship of the Chamber of Princes and was replaced by the Maharaja of Patiala, the premier Sikh prince: Bhopal’s pro-Pakistan feelings had alienated the other princes. Mountbatten, from the start, showed great confidence and
a deft touch in handling the princes, giving himself only the last three weeks of his viceroyalty to make them accede to his will.
C.H. Bhabha, the member for works, mines and power, told the viceroy: ‘He was no politician but a businessman, who would not give a seat on the Board of his least important Company to most other members of the Interim Cabinet.’25 Mountbatten would not have included this remark in his top-secret report if he was not inclined to agree with it, though, in public, he showed the greatest degree of deference to his ministers.
Nehru was the first Indian leader whom Mountbatten had seen. This was just two days after his arrival, on 24 March. Nehru started by saying: ‘Economic problems were by far the most serious of all those which faced India.’26 When Mountbatten succeeded in focusing his attention on the question before them, that of the transfer of power, Nehru bluntly replied: ‘For psychological and emotional reasons India cannot remain in the Commonwealth.’27 Mountbatten, in his report to London, says: ‘It was not until 8 April (after several meetings in between) that I asked Pt. Nehru outright what his solution would be for the transfer of power if he was in my place’ (shades of Cripps!). Nehru replied, according to Mountbatten, that ‘it would not be right to impose any form of constitutional conditions on any community which was in a majority in a specific area’.28 Mountbatten took this reply to mean that Nehru was agreeable not only to non-Muslim parts of the Punjab and Bengal being given a free choice but also to all of the British provinces including those which were with the Congress Party, such as the NWFP.
It was after these conversations that Mountbatten’s staff, headed by Lord Ismay, started to draw up a plan for British withdrawal. To them it was inherent in Attlee’s statement of 20 February 1947 that freedom of choice be accorded to the British provinces (and to the princely states). They assumed that both Jinnah and Nehru accepted this. Therefore, under their plan, the elected members to the assembly of each and every British province (including those under the Congress Party control) were given a free choice about future affiliation to the All-India Constituent Assembly or to a second Constituent Assembly or assemblies that they might constitute; this included the freedom to declare independence. The freedom of choice given to the British provinces would apply equally to the Indian princes who would be enabled to affiliate their territories in any manner they wished, or to choose independence.
The NWFP, a wholly Muslim province, could not be detached from India as long as its representatives to the All-India Constituent Assembly supported its affiliation to India. The way to bypass them would be to decree another election there, despite one held just a few months back and ask the electorate to vote directly on the province’s future. The Ismay–Mountbatten plan, therefore, provided for an election once again in the NWFP, the justification being that freedom to become independent had not been a choice in the last election. Now that the creation of Pakistan was on the cards, it was hoped that joining a Muslim state or choosing independence might persuade the Pathans to turn away from the Congress Party.
Sir Olaf Caroe, the most knowledgeable British expert on Pathan and tribal affairs, took over as governor of the NWFP the previous year. The Muslim League had already begun an agitation against the incumbent Congress Party Government led by Dr Khan Sahib, who like his stepbrother, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, was totally opposed to Muslim separatism in India. He took strong measures against the Muslim League’s agitation, employed pressure tactics and jailed thousands of its supporters.
On the very day that Mountbatten arrived in Delhi (22 March 1947), he received a long letter from Governor Caroe advising him on the unsettled situation in the province. The governor squarely laid the blame for the Muslim League’s agitation on Dr Khan Sahib’s ‘repressive measures’ and advised that the only way to pacify the province was to hold another election in it, and to ensure it was fair, dismiss the Khan Sahib Government and hand over direct control over the administration to the governor under Section 93 of the Constitution. He pressed for the same policy at the Governors’ Conference that Mountbatten called in the middle of April 1947, saying that the Congress Party would be trounced if a fresh election were held. Jinnah too requested the viceroy to impose governor’s rule and to hold an election in the province.
Mountbatten turned down the request for the dismissal of a duly elected government, but agreed to explore, with Nehru, the possibility of directly consulting the people on the province’s future. Mountbatten privately told Caroe that Nehru, Ghaffar Khan and Dr Khan Sahib were all baying for his blood and, indeed, Nehru had made a formal proposal for his dismissal. Mountbatten hinted that he might try to strike a deal with them by agreeing to replace Caroe and leave the Khan Sahib ministry in place, provided they agreed to a referendum in the province. Mountbatten felt that a referendum was needed in the province, which would mean the same thing as an election, but the change of word would provide an excuse for Nehru and his party colleagues to climb down.
‘Operation Frontier’ was launched by Mountbatten on 18 April 1947. According to the viceroy’s report, Nehru ‘forcefully rejected’ the idea of an election in the NWFP but ‘did agree in principle that it would be desirable to obtain the views of the people before the final turnover of power was effected’.29 Having gained this important point, the viceroy next sent for Dr Khan Sahib. The Pathan accused the governor to his face of indulging in ‘partiality, non-cooperation and interference’. Mountbatten then decided to visit the province on 28 and 29 April 1947. On his arrival in Peshawar, a huge crowd of over 50,000 had assembled, shouting ‘Mountbatten ki jai’ (victory to Mountbatten) and ‘Pakistan zindabad’ (long live Pakistan). When Dr Khan Sahib told him that Jinnah had no control whatsoever over the Muslim League in the NWFP, Mountbatten asked: ‘Who then controls it?’ Promptly came the Khan’s reply: ‘His Excellency the Governor, of course and his officials; their one object is to turn my Ministry out of power.’30 Whatever Dr Khan Sahib’s view, the large demonstration in Peshawar and the strong anti-Congress showing in the tribal belt, when Mountbatten visited that area, enabled him to argue ‘that it would certainly be necessary to know whether they [the Congress Party] still had a mandate from the people before the decision would be taken as to who was to inherit the Province at the transfer of power’.
Meanwhile, the Muslim League agitation and ‘direct action’ had started to take their toll, communalizing the situation in the NWFP as the Sikhs and Hindus in towns came under attack. The viceroy’s report mentions certain areas such as Dera Ismail Khan, Bannu and Tank, where ‘property amounting to millions of rupees was damaged and bitter hatred was laid [sic] by massacres, forcible conversions and atrocities’.31
Towards the end of April Mountbatten was able to convince Nehru to accept a referendum in the NWFP on the simple issue of ‘Pakistan or the new India’ instead of a fresh election. Records the viceroy: ‘Pt. Nehru accepted the proposal saying that the organization running the election should be controlled by me, so as to ensure impartiality.’32
Thus, in the case of the NWFP, the Congress Party departed from the procedure to be followed in all other British provinces for ascertaining their affiliation to India or Pakistan. The Congress leaders agreed that the elected representatives of the NWFP, sitting in the Constituent Assembly, who had the responsibility of deciding the future of the province, could be bypassed. In so doing, they had taken a big risk with their plans to frustrate the creation of Pakistan by denying the Muslim League the NWFP. The hope that the Congress Party would win a referendum if the Pathans were not given the option of independence influenced their judgement. This was the situation in the NWFP as Ismay prepared to leave for London, on 2 May 1947, with the Ismay–Mountbatten plan on India’s future.
After Husyen Suhrawardy (the premier of Bengal) and Jinnah realized that a divided Bengal would deprive them of the opportunity of ruling from Calcutta, the second city of the British Empire, they had started to lobby Mountbatten and the Congress Party legislators of Bengal for a united independent Ben
gal. Admittedly, Bengal had a distinct culture and the Bangla language was spoken by all communities. Then also, Britain had a special stake in Calcutta. It was the hub of British commercial interests in India and housed the headquarters of most British enterprises in the country. Tea from British-owned tea gardens in Assam and Darjeeling was tasted and packed there and exported from its major port. British-owned jute mills were all in West (non-Muslim) Bengal around Calcutta, whereas the fibre was grown in East Bengal, which was to go to Pakistan. If it became independent, and was ruled by the League, Bengal would continue to depend upon Britain.
Calcutta also enjoyed the Raj’s flavour more distinctly than any other city in India. Some of its streets resembled those in the city of London around Threadneedle Street; Chowringhee was fashioned after Piccadilly with the vast open space of the Maidan on one side. The marble Victoria Memorial, a huge domed edifice in classical style, dominated the Maidan. The Royal Turf Club was nearby and numerous sports and social clubs dotted the shaded streets in the English quarters of the town. The Bengal Club still prohibited Indian membership. Before the massive influx of refugees from East Pakistan, Calcutta was not the overswollen and dirty city that it became later. Under the Ismay–Mountbatten plan, a provision was made for an independent Bengal if its legislators so decided.
Similarly, in the Punjab, efforts had started for a united province, which, would surely land in Pakistan’s hands. Baldev Singh, the Sikh minister of defence, has recounted how, during the December 1946 conference in London, Jinnah approached him and stated:
Baldev Singh! You see this matchbox. Even if Pakistan of this size is offered to me, I will accept it. But it is here that I need your collaboration. If you persuade the Sikhs to join hands with the Muslim League, we will have a glorious Pakistan, the gates of which will be near about Delhi if not in Delhi itself.33
The Shadow of the Great Game Page 30