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Unit 10: National Movements and Indian Independence

resolution was passed in the Congress Working Committee that Punjab (and by implication Bengal) Notes
must be partitioned if the country was divided. The final act of surrender to the League’s demands
was in June 1947 when Congress ended up accepting Partition under the 3rd June Plan,
The brave words of the leaders contrasted starkly with the tragic retreat of the Congress. While
loudly asserting the sovereignty of the Constituent Assembly, the Congress quietly accepted
compulsory grouping and abandoned NWFP to Pakistan. Similarly the Congress leaders finally
accepted Partition most of all because they could not stop communal riots, but their words were
all about not surrendering to the blackmail of violence. Nehru wrote to Wavell on 22nd August
1946: ‘We are not going to shake hands with murder or allow it to determine the country’s policy.’
Unred hopes
What was involved here was a refusal to accept the reality that the logic of their past failure could
not be reversed by their present words or action. This was hardly surprising at the time, for hardly
anybody had either anticipated the quick pace of the unfolding tragedy or was prepared to accept
it as irrevocable. It is a fact that millions of people on both sides of the new border refused to
accept the finality of Partition long after it was announced, and that is one major reason why the
transfer of population became such a frenzied, last-minute affair. Wishful thinking, clinging to
fond hopes and a certain lack of appreciation of the dynamics of communal feeling characterized
the Congress stand, especially Nehru’s. The right of secession was conceded by the Congress as it
was believed that ‘the Muslims would not exercise it but rather use it to shed their fears.’ It was
not realised that what was in evidence in the mid-1940s was not the communalism of the 1920s or
even 1930s when minority fears were being assiduously fanned, but an assertive ‘Muslim nation,’
led by an obdurate leader, determined to have a separate state by any means. The result was that
each concession of the Congress, rather than cutting the ground from under the communalists’
feet, consolidated their position further as success drew more Muslims towards them. Jinnah
pitched his claim high, seeing that Congress was yielding. Hindu communalism got a chance to
grow by vaunting itself as the true protector of Hindu interests, which, it alleged, the Congress
was sacrificing at the altar of unity.
Another unreal hope was that once the British left, differences would be patched up and a free
India built by both Hindus and Muslims. This belief underestimated the autonomy of communalism
by this time — it was no longer merely propped up by the British, in fact it had thrown away that
crutch and was assertively independent, defying even the British. Yet another fond hope was that
Partition was temporary — it had became unavoidable because of the present psyche of Hindus
and Muslims but was reversible once communal passions subsided and sanity returned. Gandhiji
often told people that Pakistan could not exist for long if people refused to accept Partition in their
hearts. Nehru wrote to Cariappa: ‘But of one thing I am convinced that ultimately there will be a
united and strong India. We have often to go through the valley of the shadow before we reach the
sun-lit mountain tops.’
The most unreal belief, given what actually happened, was the one that Partition would be peaceful.
No riots were anticipated, no transfers of population planned, as it was assumed that once Pakistan
was conceded, what was there to fight over? Nehru continued to believe as always in the goodness
of his people, despite the spate of riots which plagued India from August 1946 onwards. The hope
was that madness would be exorcised by a clean surgical cut. But the body was so diseased, the
instruments used infected, that the operation proved to be terribly botchy.Worse horrors were to
accompany Partition than those that preceded it.
what about Gandhiji? Gandhiji’s unhappiness and helplessness have often being pointed out. His
inaction has been explained in terms of his forced isolation from the Congress decision making
councils and his inability to condemn his disciples, Nehru and Patel, for having succumbed to the
lust for power, as they had followed him faithfully for many years, at great personal sacrifice.
In our view, the root of Gandhiji’s helplessness was neither Jinnah’s intransigence nor his disciples’
alleged lust for power, but the communalisation of his people. At his prayer meeting on 4th June
1947 he explained that Congress accepted Partition because the people wanted it: ‘The demand

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