Understanding Pakistan Project

Athar Osama June 11th, 2007

By: Athar Osama 

The partition of the sub-continent at the eve of the British departure from India is such a colossal event in the history of the peoples of the region that it is difficult to adequately describe even a single element of it in the space allocated to this article. Indeed, British Historian Nicholas Mansergh has filled ten volumes of the “The Transfer of Power” containing documents and narratives describing the circumstances leading up to and of this momentous event.

It is also an event that unfolded over such a wide geographical swath of land and in such diverse circumstances of its protagonists—the British, the Hindus, the Muslims, the Sikhs—that generalizing these experiences into one will be a gross injustice to the event itself.

Despite all this, the partition of the subcontinent remains the single most important event in the history of the region that not only changed—sometimes altogether—the lives of hundreds of millions of people but also continues to define their outlook and destinies to this day.

The very act of the partition of India provides an opportunity to ask several questions:

• What were the ideas and opinions from all sides–British, Hindu, Muslims, Sikhs, but especially the British–that shaped the 3rd June Plan for Division of India?
• Why was the plan of partition rushed through the British parliament and thrust down the throats of the Indian (Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh) leadership?
• What was the role of Lord Mountbatten–the last Viceroy of India–in the entire scheme of things? Did he act as an impartial or a partial actor in the unfolding drama?
• Could the calamity that was unleashed at the partition have been avoided, had certain measures been adopted prior to the partition?
• Was the Pakistani demand an act of “political suicide”? Was the resulting Pakistan really “designed to fail” or could it it have been created differently to make it a more viable state?

This piece covers events of 1947–starting from the June 3rd Plan up until August 15th, 1947 and beyond–as it looks at partition from multiple perspectives. 

The best one can really do to hope to capture is some of this diversity is to take some snapshots across space and time to try to get at the events surrounding the creation of Pakistan and the concerns, aspirations, and challenges faced by the nation. I attempt to do so in the next few pages as I pick up the thread from where I left last week.

The Rush Toward Independence

With the results of the 1945-6 elections and the events immediately after that proving the popularity of the Muslim League’s Pakistan Demand, the British found themselves in the middle of a political stalemate with neither of the two parties willing to go along with the governance arrangement put forth in the Government of India Act of 1935. Their efforts to find a solution to the India’s “intractable communal problem” had come to a naught. Consequently, the British ambivalently agreed, in principal, to the division of India. Lord Attlee, the British Secretary of State, announced that India will be divided in July 1948.

When Mountbatten became the last Viceroy of India, he was not only convinced that there was no other alternative left but to divide India into two—Hindu and Muslim majority—dominions but also that this should be done as soon as possible. As soon as he arrived in India, he went into consultation with the leaders of both Congress and the Muslim League to gauge their reactions to his plan.  By mid-May of 1947, Mountbatten had “the plan” finalized and approved by the British Parliament. Hector Bolitho, the historian who wrote the first Biography of Jinnah, recalled in “Jinnah: The Creator of Pakistan” the meeting on June 2nd in which the Viceroy presented his plan to the leaders of the Muslim League as well as Congress and the Sikh community:

“Pandit Nehru said that ‘while there could never be complete approval’ by Congress, ‘on balance they accepted it.’ The Quaid was reluctant to commit himself: he said that he would need to go to the Working Committee of the Muslim League, and to ‘the people,’ for a final decision — not with any intent of ‘wrecking the Plan,’ but ‘with the sincerest desire to persuade them to accept it.’

He assured the Viceroy that he would do his ‘best.’

He [Lord Mountbatten] asked that the reactions of Congress, the League, and the Sikhs, should be declared to him by midnight; and by midnight the leaders answered him. Jinnah came in person, but the way was not easy. Mr Campbell-Johnson recorded that ‘No amount of pressure’ from the Viceroy could make the Quaid agree to ‘firm acceptance’ without the consent of the League.

‘Nothing Mountbatten could say would move him.’ With his peculiar care — reminiscent of the early days of argument before the judges in the Bombay law courts — Jinnah insisted that he was ‘not constitutionally authorized to make a decision without the concurrence of the full Muslim League Council.’

Lord Mountbatten then said, “If that is your attitude, then the leaders of the Congress Party and Sikhs will refuse final acceptance at the meeting in the morning: chaos will follow, and you will lose your Pakistan, probably for good.”

The Quaid shrugged his shoulders and answered, “What must be, must be.”

The Viceroy made his last appeal: “Mr Jinnah! I do not intend to let you wreck all the work that has gone into this settlement. Since you will not accept for the Muslim League, I will speak for them myself. I will take the risk of saying that I am satisfied with the assurances you have given me, and if your Council fails to ratify the agreement, you can put the blame on me.”

Lord Mountbatten made one condition: he asked that when, at the next morning’s session, he would say, “Mr Jinnah has given me assurances which I have accepted and which satisfy me,” the Quaid should ‘in no circumstances contradict;’ and that, when the Viceroy looked towards him, he should nod his head ‘in acquiescence.’

Quaid-i-Azam agreed, and Lord Mountbatten asked his last question. Did Jinnah consider that the Viceroy would be justified in advising Mr Attlee to ‘go ahead and make his announcement’ in the British Parliament?

Jinnah answered, ‘Yes.’”  (Bolitho, 1954)

The 3rd June Plan

The Plan for Partition was announced on June 3rd, 1947. According to this plan, British India was to be divided into India and Pakistan on the eve of August 14, 1947 thus moving the original date of partition forward by over a year.  There were two basic flaws of both content and timing that had serious implications for the future, namely, the demarcation of boundaries of the new countries and the issue of the princely states.

The plan called for the Muslim majority provinces of Bengal, Punjab, Sind, North West Frontier Province and Balauchistan to decide whether they wished to have a future constitution framed by the existing Constituent Assembly (that is for a united India) or by a ‘new and separate Constituent Assembly’ (i.e. join Pakistan). 

The will of the people was to be determined differently according to the circumstances of each of these provinces. For example, a referendum was to be held in the North West Frontier Province, and the views of Balauchistan would be ascertained by consulting the Quetta municipality and tribal representatives.

The plan also called for the division of Punjab and Bengal to demarcate the borders of India on both east and west respectively. The provincial assemblies of these two provinces were to be notionally divided on the basis of Muslim and non-Muslim majority districts. They would then meet separately to vote on whether their respective half of the province would join the existing constituent assembly or form an altogether new one which would then frame a new constitution for Pakistan. In effect, this series of actions would decide by a simple majority vote if the province would be partitioned. If Bengal should decide for partition, a referendum would be held in the Muslim district of Sylhet.

The 3rd June Plan received a lukewarm response from both the wider Muslim League and the Congress circles. Indeed, it had promised to deliver much less than the Muslim League had demanded, and gave away much more than what the Congress was willing to concede. Both Congress and the Muslim League, however, ultimately accepted the plan, perhaps as a necessary cost of getting at least a part of what they wanted. Kudaisya and Tang (2000) describe the response of the two communities as follows:

“Nehru saw the partition plan as an ‘advance bid towards complete independence’, and the All India Congress Committee accepted it as a final settlement. The Muslim League leadership was jubilant that, at last, its demand for Pakistan had been conceded, while there was much concern about the shape of the new Muslim State that would be carved out after dividing Punjab and Bengal…Evan Jenkins, Governor of Punjab, suggested that the Congress also regarded partition as a victory, as it was seen as a ‘masterstroke by [Vallabhai] Patel, who having pushed the Muslims into a corner (or two corners), will be able to destroy them before very long’.”

A “Moth Eaten” Pakistan

As the initial euphoria settled, however, the precise ramifications of the plan began to come to light. One of the biggest issues concerning the plan was the division of Punjab and Bengal. Earlier when the Viceroy had presented the proposition of dividing Punjab and Bengal to Jinnah, the latter is said to have seriously objected to it. However, given the “take it or leave it” nature of that conversation, he remarked that he would “rather have a moth-eaten Pakistan than no Pakistan at all”. 

The plan set up a boundary commission to decide upon which portions of these provinces would go to India and Pakistan. The division was to be carried out, to the extent possible, taking population concentrations but also incorporate other factors (not yet defined) into account. Sir Cyril Radcliff was appointed as the head of the Boundary Commission which also comprised two members each from the Congress and the Muslim League. 

The Radcliff award resulted in a very haphazard division of boundaries and was fair to no one. It, however, seemed to accentuate the problems of Pakistan much more than India’s. One commentator describes the Radcliff award as follows:

“Radcliffe knew only too well that his had been a butcher’s job, and not a surgeon’s operation, and that his rushed job of an award would please no one. Radcliff, on the eve of his return to Britain commented that ‘Nobody in India will love me for the award about the Punjab and Bengal and there will be roughly 80 million people with a grievance who will begin looking for me. I do not want them to find me’”

Both Punjab and Bengal suffered deeply through the inconsistent application of rules by the Boundary Commission. It created new problems that were to have both immediate and long-term repercussions for Pakistan and India. In Bengal, for instance, boundaries were drawn so as to include a large number of Hindus in East Pakistan while a large number of Muslim remained in West Bengal which joined India. Also, despite Muslim League’s pleas to the contrary, Calcutta—with only 23% of Muslim population—but all of the jute mills that processed the jute from East Pakistan went to India. This left the resulting East Pakistan as an over-agrarian economy with no access to an industrial base to process its largest export thus causing immeasurable suffering to that population.

The Carnage in Punjab

In Punjab, on the other hand, the problem was of an even more immediate and serious nature. By the time the Boundary Commission started its work, it became apparent to the Sikhs of Punjab that they had become an unwilling victim in the fight between Hindus and Muslims. The division of Punjab, no matter how it came about, would have the unintended consequence of dividing the Sikhs into two almost equal groups thus making them hostages to the artificially drawn borders. As the Boundary Commission’s work continued, this inevitable reality caused great consternation and restlessness among the Sikhs. The uncertainty of where the boundary will ultimately be drawn turned into bitterness and deep resentment and ultimately exploded into violence.

Writing in his diary on June 14th, Campbell-Johnson, Viceroy’s Press attache, noted that:

“the prevailing atmosphere is one of foreboding; Sikh unrest in the Punjab is growing hourly. The implications of the June 3rd are now all too clear to the Sikh people. They see that the partition of India means irrevocably the partition of the Sikhs, and they feel themselves sacrificed on the altars of Moslem ambition and Hindu opportunism. Their leaders, hopelessly outmaneuvered in the political struggle, begin to invoke more primitive remedies. Power is passing to the wilder men”. [Ian Stephens, 1960]

By July, intelligence reports of Sikh intentions had become precise. On July 31st came the first attack by Sikhs on a place called Jhund in what was to become East Punjab. The entire Muslim population was either massacred or forced to flee west. Soon these solitary incidences became more regular and turned into a full-fledged civil war and forced migration of proportions never seen before in recent human history.

The magnitude of the displacements and disruptions caused by the new boundaries far exceeded any original estimates. In the Punjab, an estimated 4.5 million Sikhs and Hindus were uprooted from their homes in West Punjab and migrated to the East, while almost 5.5 million Muslims moved in the opposite direction under the same conditions. In some instances, observers witnessed columns of people, sometimes miles long, moving side-by-side in opposite directions. One estimate suggests that over 1,000,000 Muslim lost their lives or were abducted during these disturbances [Khan, 2001]. The loss in property as a result of migration of communities to either side of the new border ran into billions.

As villages were burned down, people—men, women, old, and young—were mercilessly massacred by all sides. One observer recounts witnessing 50 villages being set on fire in one part of East Punjab at the same time. Those who were attempting to flee found themselves to be especially vulnerable. Entire trains crossing the Punjab borders were looted and burned down in revenge.

Women were perhaps the biggest and most vulnerable victims of this political violence. Men—at their ultimate worst—resorted to physical and sexual violence against the women. According to one observer as many as 40-50,000 women were abducted in Punjab alone —some never to be returned and others never to be accepted back in their communities. Many more were mercilessly subjected to violence and rape, and later murdered.

One British officer found “four babies roasted to death on fire”. Another commentator describes Sikh’s approach to lute and plunder as pre-meditated in its intention and “scientific” in its efficiency.

An observer describes the ensuing chaos as follows:

“The broad fact about those appalling three or four months, starting early in August 1947, simply is that nauseating brutalities were done on an unprecedented scale, by Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs. Some of the larger slaughters by Hindus and Sikhs had been carefully planned, whereas few if any instances of this sort of wickedness can be found on the Muslim side; but though important, that fact is secondary.”

Although Mountbatten had received the boundary award on 12th, August 1947, he did not disclose it until 17th August, 1947, a full two days after the independence. There are several theories of why he acted in this way. Some believe that after seeing the award and assessing the likely suffering that it was likely to cause, he got cold feet and decided to withhold it, perhaps, in an attempt to avoid the inevitable.

Others suggest that he wanted the Independence Day festivities planned for the 14th and 15th of August, 1947 to go forward without being affected by the likely carnage that was to follow. Having transferred the power to the two dominions, this would have had the additional advantage of removing any direct British responsibility for the events itself.

Regardless of Mountbatten’s motivations, the haste with which the partition plans were made and the power transferred, transformed the partition into a calamity of epic proportions. During a course of a few months, as many as half a million people perished and about 8-10 million became refugees. The uncertainty that prevailed on the Independence Day itself—as millions wondered which side of the border they were on—only made matters worse.

The Many Faces of the Partition

As Punjab was falling into a cycle of never ending violence, the festivities were being planned to celebrate what was described by the Daily Dawn as “the greatest moment in Muslim nation’s history for the past 200 years”. Quaid-e-Azam Muhmmand Ali Jinnah arrived in Karachi on 7th of August, aboard Viceroy’s personal airplane. The procession of cars waiting to welcome the newly appointed Governor General was three miles long. As he stepped out of his plane, Jinnah is reported to have remarked to his ADC, ‘Do you know I never expected to see Pakistan in my lifetime. We have to be grateful to Almighty God for this great gift’. [Bolitho, 1954].

One observer describes the mood of those in Karachi as: 

“For the residents of Karachi, the new occupant of the Government House was a very special person. The celebrations also marked the homecoming of the city’s greatest son, Muhammed Ali Jinnah. His return to the city of his birth, according to Dawn, was the end of a journey from a ‘cradle room in a nursery to the throne room of the Governor-General’s House in the selfsame city’ which had ‘no parallel in modern history’.  Karachi eagerly awaited the return of its greatest son in ‘his supreme moment of glory’.” (Kudaisya and Tang, 2000)

On 10th August, 1947, Jinnah addressed a session of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan where he declared:

“Now, if we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor. If you will work in co-operation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet, you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in a spirit that every one of you, no matter what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste, or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges, and obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make.”

On August 14th, 1947, Viceroy Mountbatten arrived in Pakistan to formally take part in the transfer of power ceremonies. Pakistan’s green and white national color was raised as more than a century of the reign of the Union Jack came to a close in the subcontinent. He addressed a session of the Constituent Assembly and then, despite the advice of intelligence agencies that had unearthed a likely assassination plot, traveled in an open Rolls-Royce amidst crowds chanting slogans of Pakistan Zindabad!

While the mood among the Muslims of Karachi was decidedly jubilant, it was not necessarily the same case elsewhere in subcontinent. The minorities both in India and Pakistan—Muslims in India and Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan—had deep reservations about their own future. While many leaders, including the Quaid-e-Azam, Nehru, and Gandhi, moved to allay the fears of their respective minorities, others did not.

In India, for instance, the extremist members of the Congress Party as well as other Hindu Nationalist Groups like Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangha (RSS) had given calls for boycotting the celebrations altogether. They believed that 15th August marked not the independence from the British but the day of vivisection of the country. These nationalist saw no point in commemorating the day. Their view was perhaps best captured by words attributed to one Vishua Nath Singh, a lawyer from UP:

“For what should we celebrate? The mother is cut into two and we are asked to rejoice over it’, he protested. In his view, instead it ’should be celebrated as a day of great mourning by the Hindus for it was a day of great shame and humiliation.”  [Kudaisya and Tang, 2000]

To its credit, however, Congress managed to overcome the influence this group of Hindu nationalist leaders and Delhi, like Karachi, celebrated an independence day in style on the midnight hour between 14th and 15th of August, 1947. This ceremony was also attended by Chaudhary Khaliquzzaman—a prominent Muslim League leader from UP—who, having seconded the Pakistan Resolution in 1940, now seconded a motion to create an Indian constitution that could protect the rights of all Indians (including Muslims) in India.

The festivities and celebrations continued well into the next day, and included raising the Congress flag on Dehli Red Fort—one of the greatest symbols of Muslim rule in India. According to one account, after the dinner on August 15th, Shahid Hamid, then on the staff of Field-Marshall Auchinleck, encountered Nawab Ismail Khan, a prominent Muslim League leader from Uttar Pradesh, the ‘heartland’ of the Pakistan campaign. He later recalled his conversation with the Nawab:

“I was walking through the Moghul Gardens when I noticed a man sitting on a stone bench, with his head bent, smoking a cigarette. To my surprise I found it was Nawab Ismail Khan in deep meditation. I asked him when he was leaving for Pakistan. Very quickly he said that he would stay in India and look after the people who stood by him and voted for him. He felt that such people needed him more now than ever before. He could not let them down. He maintained that some Muslim leaders must stay behind for there were still too many Muslims in India who were not able to dream of going to Pakistan. The simplicity of his statement left me dumbfounded and I admired him all the more.” [Kudaisya and Tang, 2000]

Clearly, for many, the struggle for the rights of Muslims in India—what later became the Pakistan Movement—had come a full circle and had started afresh.

• History in a Nutshell