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Unit 10: National Movements and Indian Independence

surrender to the Congress’ had already been sent out and the weapon of Direct Action forged. Notes
Jinnah had become ‘answerable to the wider electorate of the streets.’ With the battle cry, Lekar
rahenge Pakistan, Larke lenge Pakistan, Muslim communal groups provoked communal frenzy in
Calcutta on 16 August 1946. Hindu communal groups retaliated in equal measure and the cost
was 5000 lives lost. The British authorities were worried that they had lost control over the
‘Frankenstein monster’ they had helped to create but felt it was too late to tame it. They were
frightened into appeasing the League by Jinnah’s ability to unleash civil war. Wavell quietly brought
the League into the Interim Government on 26 October 1946 though it had not accepted either the
short or long term provisions of the Cabinet Mission Plan and had not given up its policy of Direct
Action. The Secretary of State argued that without the League’s presence in the Government civil
war would have been inevitable. Jinnah had succeeded in keeping the British in his grip.
The Congress demand that the British get the League to modify its attitude in the Interim
Government or quit was voiced almost from the time the League members were sworn in. Except
Liaqat Ali Khan all the League nominees were second-raters, indicating that what was at stake
was power, not responsibility to run the country. Jinnah had realized that it was fatal to leave the
administration in Congress hands and had sought a foothold in the Government to fight for
Pakistan. For him, the Interim Government was the continuation of civil war by other means.
League Ministers questioned actions taken by Congress members, including appointments made,
and refused to attend the informal meetings which Nehru had devised as a means of arriving at
decisions without reference to Wavell. Their disruptionist tactics convinced Congress leaders of
the futility of the Interim Government as an exercise in Congress-League cooperation. But they
held on till 5th February 1947 when nine members of the Interim Government wrote to the Viceroy
demanding that the League members resign. The League’s demand for the dissolution of the
Constituent Assembly that had met for the first time on 9th December 1946 had proved to be the
last straw. Earlier it had refused to join the Constituent Assembly despite assurances from His
Majesty’s Government in their 6th December 1946 statement that the League’s interpretation of
grouping was the correct one. A direct bid for Pakistan, rather than through the Mission Plan,
seemed to be the card Jinnah now sought to play.
This developing crisis was temporarily defused by the statement made by Attlee in Parliament on
20 February, 1947. The date for British withdrawal from India was fixed as 30 June 1948 and the
appointment of a new Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, was announced. The hope was that the date
would shock the parties into agreement on the main question and avert the constitutional crisis
that threatened. Besides, Indians would be finally convinced that the British were sincere about
conceding independence, however, both these hopes were introduced into the terminal date notion
after it had been accepted. The basic reason why the Attlee Government accepted the need for a
final date was because they could not deny the truth of Wavell’s assessment that an irreversible
decline of Government authority had taken place. They could dismiss the Viceroy, on the ground
that he was pessimistic, which they did in the most discourteous manner possible. The news was
common gossip in New Delhi before Wavell was even informed of it. But they could not dismiss
the truth of what he said. So the 20 February statement was really an acceptance of the dismissed
Viceroy, Wavell’s reading of the Indian situation.
The anticipation of freedom from imperial rule lifted the gloom that had set in with continuous
internal wrangling. The statement was enthusiastically received in Congress circles as a final
proof of British sincerity to quit. Partition of the country was implied in the proviso that if the
Constituent Assembly was not fully representative (i.e. if Muslim majority provinces did not join)
power would be transferred to more than one central Government. But even this was acceptable
to the Congress as it meant that the existing Assembly could go ahead and frame a constitution for
the areas represented in it. It offered a way out of the existing deadlock, in which the League not
only refused to join the Constituent Assembly but demanded that it be dissolved. Nehru appealed
to Liaqat Ali Khan: ‘The British are fading out of the picture and the burden of this decision must
rest on all of us here. It seems desirable that we should face this question squarely and not speak
to each other from a distance.’ There seemed some chance of fulfilment of Attlee.’s hopes that the
date would ‘force the two political parties in India to come together.’

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