The Shadow of the Great Game
Page 32
Mountbatten’s sudden shift caused tremors in London but the viceroy was confident that if he could persuade the Indian leaders to agree to the ‘truncated’ Pakistan, which would include the NWFP, and to accept independence on a dominion status basis, Attlee would agree to the new plan. He wired to Ismay on 11 May 1947 to explain the plus points of the new plan as follows:
(1) The terrific worldwide enhancement of British prestige;
(2) The completion of the framework of world strategy from the point of view of Empire defence;
(3) An early termination of present responsibility especially in the field of law and order; and
(4) A further strengthening of Indo–British relations.47
For Britain, the advantage of (1) was that the Indian parties themselves would agree to the partition and remain in the British Commonwealth; (2) would mean that the creation of an entity separate from India in the strategic north-west of the subcontinent, that would cooperate with Britain on strategic matters, would plug the hole in Empire defences resulting from the British withdrawal from India; (3) would see Britain absolved of all administrative responsibility for dealing with the coming upheaval in the Punjab and elsewhere and (4) would mean that despite being divided, India would remain on good terms with Britain.
‘I had only two or three hours in which to prepare an alternative draft plan and I sat to work on it at once’, wrote V.P. Menon. ‘The Viceroy was anxious to show the draft to Nehru and to ascertain his reactions before he left Simla that evening and I had barely got the draft into shape when Sir Eric Mieville came and took it away to the Viceroy. That night I dined at [the] Viceregal Lodge. I found that Lord Mountbatten had completely regained his buoyant spirits and good cheer.’48
Lord Mountbatten was summoned back to the UK to explain his U-turn. Upon reaching London, he immediately went into a meeting with the British Cabinet. He explained that the possibility of the Indian parties willingly accepting partition and the transfer of power on a dominion status basis, which would mean India remaining in the British Commonwealth, was an entirely new and very significant development. He emphasized that to secure the Congress Party’s agreement, power would have to be transferred immediately. There would be no fresh election in the Congress-run provinces. In the NWFP, however, even though this province had joined the Constituent Assembly, he declared that he would negotiate for a referendum (not an election) to decide anew whether it wanted to join India or Pakistan. The withdrawal of the option to the British provinces, including the NWFP, to choose independence, would of course apply to the possibility of Bengal becoming independent.
The procedure for ascertaining the wishes of British Baluchistan through a more democratic system, as insisted upon by the Congress Party by a vote in the Shahi Jirga (Royal Assembly), would be explored, even though this change would not alter anything in reality. The armed forces would be divided according to territorial recruitment. A Boundary Commission would finalize the precise boundaries between India and Pakistan on the basis of the agreement on division. With regard to the princely states, nothing more needed to be stated except that British paramountcy would lapse.
The point about India accepting dominion status as a basis for independence was enthusiastically received by the cabinet. Doubts were, however, expressed on foreclosing Bengal’s option to become independent, but this was not insisted upon. For Bengal to remain under Muslim League rule might confer some advantages to British enterprises in the immediate future, but the essential requisite for Britain was to remove the strategic NWFP from Congress control. Attlee, as usual, was decisive. The draft of the India Independence Bill based on the new plan, he said, would be ready in six weeks after 3 June, the date on which the plan was to be announced.
The next step was to obtain the approval of the leaders of the opposition, including Winston Churchill. Churchill was unhappy that Mountbatten had accepted the viceroyalty. Churchill had built him up to serve and uphold the old Empire, least expecting him to agree to go out to dismantle it. Mountbatten described to me in 1973 how his meeting with Churchill had gone. (This meeting must have been on 20 or 21 May because, according to the record, when he saw him on 22 May under Attlee’s instructions, Churchill gave him a letter approving the plan.)
Churchill was at the time in bed with a severe cold and Mountbatten was shown to his bedroom. ‘As soon as he saw me come through the door he turned away to face the other side without acknowledging my presence’, Mountbatten recounted. He pulled up a chair and sat down without saying a word. After a few minutes of absolute silence, Churchill growled: ‘I know why you have come to see me.’ Mountbatten said that he then enquired about his cold. There was silence again; and then another growl: ‘Keep them as Dominions and in the Commonwealth at least.’ Mountbatten replied at once: ‘This is exactly what I have been able to do.’ This response had a therapeutic effect on Churchill, who turned, the cold forgotten, to listen to him with attention. Mountbatten then recounted to him how he had been able to obtain the separation of Pakistan from Hindustan and yet keep them both as dominions and in the Commonwealth. Churchill was moved. ‘He thanked me with moistened eyes and promised to support the India Independence Bill in the House of Commons if it adhered to what I had reported to him.’
When Mountbatten saw Churchill again on 22 May, he mentioned that, before he had left Delhi, he had secured the assurance of the Congress Party to his new plan in writing. He, however, pointed out that he had not yet managed to get Jinnah’s assent, though he had no doubt that he (Jinnah) would ultimately accept it. Churchill’s reply is quoted in Mountbatten’s report. ‘It is a matter of life and death for Pakistan to accept this offer with both hands. By god! He [Jinnah] is one man who cannot do without British help.’49 And Churchill pointedly asked Mountbatten to pass on this advice from him to Jinnah.
Churchill, a few months earlier, had condemned, in Parliament, the formation of the Constituent Assembly, calling the Indian legislators in it ‘men of straw of whom in a few years no trace will remain’. He also lambasted the Labour Government for its India policy: ‘Many have defended Britain against her foes. None can defend her against herself; but, at least, let us not add by shameful flight, by a premature scuttle; at least let us not add to the pangs of sorrow so many of us feel – the taint and smear of shame.’ However, after the plan was announced on 3 June, he spoke in the House of Commons thus: ‘These are matters about which it is difficult to form decided opinions now, but if the hopes that are enshrined in the Declaration should be borne out, great credit will indeed be due to the Viceroy, and not only to the Viceroy but [also] to the Prime Minister who advised the British Government to appoint him’.50
When Mountbatten met Churchill on 22 May 1947, the latter had given him a letter for Attlee approving the Mountbatten–Attlee plan based on ‘an effective acceptance of Dominion status for the several parts of a divided India.…’ This letter suggests that he was under the impression that dominion status had been accepted by India and Pakistan as a permanent feature. Further, the letter suggests that Churchill was expecting more dominions, not merely two, to emerge from the Indian Empire – the larger princely states most likely. Mountbatten next met Churchill at the reception in Buckingham Palace for Princess Elizabeth’s (the future Queen) wedding in November 1947. Churchill hurled angry words at him suggesting that his former protégé had led him up the garden path. Then Churchill turned and walked away in full view of the assembled guests. He refused to talk to Mountbatten for many years thereafter.
Notes and References
1. Philip Ziegler, Mountbatten (Collins, London, 1985, p. 156).
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., p. 66.
4. Ibid., p. 71.
5. Ibid., Mountbatten’s diary, 18 October 1922.
6. Financial year ending 5 April 1920, Broadland Archives (BA), p. 10.
7. Ziegler, op. cit., p. 21.
8. Patrick French, Liberty or Death: India’s Journey to Independence and Division (HarperC
ollins, London, 1995, p. 284), based on an interview with Alan Campbell-Johnson in 1946.
9. Ziegler, op. cit., p. 144, based on Lady Mountbatten’s Papers, 10 June 1941.
10. Ibid., p. 149.
11. Rear Admiral A.M. Peters to H. Hardinge, RA GVI (PS) (Navy), pp. 53–78, 21 June 1941.
12. Ziegler, op. cit., p. 150.
13. British ambassador’s letter, 27 October 1941, BA, p. 116.
14. Francis Lowenheim et al (eds.), Roosevelt and Churchill: Their Secret Wartime Correspondence (De Capo Press, New York, 1975, p. 162).
15. Clement Attlee, A Prime Minister Remembers (Heinemann, London, 1961, pp. 209–10).
16. Report on ‘The Last Viceroyalty’, Part A, Para 94 (OIC, British Library, London).
17. In conversation with me in 1958.
18. Krishna Menon to Mountbatten, MBI/104, 14 June 1947, Hartley Library, University of Southampton.
19. S. Gopal, Nehru (Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2003, p. 345).
20. Report on ‘The Last Viceroyalty’, Part A, Para 11 (OIC, British Library, London).
21. Ibid., Para 14.
22. Ibid., Para 19.
23. Ibid., Para 26.
24. Ibid., Part B, Para 152.
25. Ibid., Part A, Para 41.
26. Ibid., Para 28.
27. Ibid., Para 31.
28. Ibid., Para 34.
29. Ibid., Part B, Para 46.
30. Ibid., Para 49.
31. Ibid., Para 54.
32. Ibid., Para 62.
33. Baldev Singh to Nehru, Nehru Papers (Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, 19 September 1955).
34. Penderel Moon, Divide and Quit (Oxford University Press, London, 1998 edition, p. 33).
35. IOR/L/Part/10/77 (409), p. 303.
36. MBI/E 104, 16 July 1947, Hartley Library, University of Southampton.
37. Ibid., 18 July 1947, pp. 6–7.
38. Ibid., 10 June 1947, p. 2.
39. MBI/E 104, 16 July 1947 and 18 July 1947, Hartley Library, University of Southampton.
40. Ibid., 23 July 1947.
41. Report on ‘The Last Viceroyalty’, Part B, p. 123 (OIC, British Library, London).
42. Alan Campbell-Johnson in a conversation with me.
43. V.P. Menon, Transfer of Power in India (Longman Green, London, 1957, p. 323).
44. Report on ‘The Last Viceroyalty’, Part A, Para 26 (OIC, British Library, London).
45. As told by the late Raja of Sarila to me.
46. H.V. Hodson, The Great Divide: Britain-India-Pakistan (Oxford University Press edition, Delhi, 2000, p. 308).
47. TOP X, p. 409.
48. V.P. Menon, op. cit., p. 365.
49. Report on ‘The Last Viceroyalty’, Part C, Para 56 (OIC, British Library, London).
50. Quoted from V.P. Menon, op. cit., p. 378.
* In the northern and western parts of India ‘babu’ means a lowly clerk. In Bengal it is equivalent to the French ‘monsieur’ though not quite to the English ‘gentleman’.
11
The End Game of Empire
MOUNTBATTEN HAD NOW IN HIS POCKET THE REVISED INSTRUCTIONS from Attlee for the final round of negotiations with the Indian leaders. He returned to Delhi barely two days before the British withdrawal plan was to be announced on 3 June 1947 to the world. The most serious issue that remained to be tied up was the future of the NWFP. As long as this remained uncertain, the future of Pakistan and the whole plan would continue to hang in the balance.*
Gandhiji, since his return from the riot–torn areas of eastern India to Delhi on 24 May 1947, had been speaking against partition, and influencing public opinion against it. Mountbatten saw him on 2 June. His report on his talk with Gandhiji says: ‘My relief may, therefore, well be imagined when I saw him entering the room with his fingers on his lips indicating that it was his day of silence. “I am sorry I can’t speak”, he scribbled on a note paper. His waggishness had not deserted him in calamity. His second sentence read: “But I know you too do not want me to break my silence.” He then wrote another chit to say that Abdul Ghaffar Khan had asked him to convey to him to remove the governor of NWFP (Sir Olaf Caroe). I do not know whether he (Ghaffar Khan) is right or wrong. He is truthful. If it can be done decorously you should do it’.1
It had been agreed between Mountbatten and Nehru before he left for London that the problem of the NWFP would be tackled after an agreement on all the other points had been reached. Even so it was essential that the Congress Party gave its agreement in principle to a referendum in the NWFP before 3 June. While talks in London were going on, Abdul Ghaffar Khan had started propaganda in favour of a ‘Pathan national province’,2 i.e., for a Pathanistan or Pakhtoonistan as a separate independent state. What had happened was that, as the Muslim League propaganda intensified that the Khan brothers were about to deliver the Pathans into the hands of the Hindus of the plains of India, the Frontier Congress Party men decided that the best way to beat this Muslim League line of approach was for them to demand an independent Pathan state. This, they felt, would also appeal to tribal leaders such as the Fakir of Ipi.
As Mountbatten landed in Delhi, the Congress Party, according to his report, made to him ‘the request to allow the NWFP referendum to include a third choice – for independence’. Mountbatten took up this request with Nehru on 3 June, just before the Indian leaders were scheduled to meet him to approve the plan. Mountbatten argued that ‘the Muslim League would never accept it’. Further, ‘it had been at Pt. Nehru’s own request and in order to avoid “Balkanization” that the option for independence in the case of Bengal and other provinces had been removed. I expressed surprise that he should have raised this point at this stage, all the more since he admitted that the NWFP could not stand on its own.’3 It was at this meeting that Mountbatten played two cards he had kept up his sleeve. First, he told Nehru that he intended to remove Caroe; this gesture would appease the Congress Party. And second, that he would assist with the integration of the Indian princely states to the dominions. The second gesture was a significant one, and V.P. Menon was dispatched to Sardar Patel to explain its significance.
Nehru explained to his colleagues that if they did not yield on the referendum, Mountbatten, having committed himself on it to the British Cabinet, would have to resign and that would be harmful as he could be counted upon to help them during the crucial period before British withdrawal.4 There was no time to get Dr Khan Sahib’s agreement to the referendum before the meeting of the leaders on the plan that very morning.
Mountbatten saw Khan Sahib on 5 June 1947. Mountbatten told him that he was helpless in the matter as ‘the independence option had been excluded for all Provinces at the express request of the Congress Party to avoid “Balkanization”’. Mountbatten also pointed out to Khan Sahib that a province of three million people, which received considerable subventions from the Centre, could not stand alone. He said that the referendum would be supervised by military officers under his auspices.5 If he wanted the NWFP to join India, why not through the referendum?
Though Khan Sahib could not argue back because his peers had blocked the possibility of Pathan independence, he decided to fight the referendum on the slogan that a vote for his party would give them Pakhtoonistan. But in this quest also he was blocked, this time by the Frontier Gandhi, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who decided that his party would not take part in the referendum. Mohammed Yunus, the nephew of the Frontier Gandhi, told me that Ghaffar Khan made this decision for two reasons. First, in a referendum, unlike in an election, there could be no provision that the votes of those who had cast them with fraudulent means would be discounted and he feared massive abuse by the Muslim League supporters, as, for example, the same voter casting his vote several times (which Yunus claimed actually happened.) Secondly, the Frontier Gandhi feared massive violence and blood-letting between the two Pathan groups and he was absolutely bent upon avoiding violence. ‘Gandhiji’s pacifism had entered his soul’, said Yunus. ‘T
he referendum would go forward without any interference by the followers of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan’, Gandhiji assured Mountbatten through a letter on 29 June 1947.6
Dr Khan Sahib and many others in the NWFP and India considered the above stance of the Frontier Gandhi, in which Nehru and Patel acquiesced, a big mistake if they indeed wished to scuttle Pakistan. Dr Khan Sahib believed that no great revolution could be brought about without the spilling of blood and wanted to take part in the referendum, matching violence with violence, if necessary. He was confident of winning.
The referendum was held in July. Caroe had left Peshawar by then, replaced by General Robert Lockhart as governor. The Congress Party leaders were instructing their followers to be peaceful and abstain from voting, reported Lockhart to Mountbatten. The results declared on 20 July 1947 showed that out of a total electorate of 572,798, 289,244 or 50.49 per cent had voted for Pakistan. The results suggested that Dr Khan Sahib’s assessment that, had his party participated in the referendum, India had a good chance of winning it and blocking Pakistan, might have been correct. Less than three lakh people decided the fate of the NWFP. The last bastion from which the defence of a united India could be organized was evacuated without a fight.
The tribes were divided: some, like the Afridis around Khyber, siding with the League, but many others remaining with Dr Khan Sahib. Lockhart’s last report to Mountbatten on 12 July 1947 said: