The Powers Behind Partition

WHILE Congress went from one civil disobedience movement to another, the Muslim League propagated among Muslims that it was "fighting for supremacy of Hinduism and submergence of Muslims".

One result of the civil disobedience movement were the two Round Table conferences convened at Londonthe first in November 1930 and the second a few months later. Both conferences failed because there was no agreement on the number of seats that the minorities should have in various legislatures. The British could claim with some justification that the fault lay with the Muslim League and the Congress Party; with the Hindus and the Muslims and not with them.

One of the delegates to the Round Table conference was Muhammad Iqbal, a renowned Urdu poet, said to be the author of the idea of Partition. He said: "I would like to see the Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state.... The formation of a consolidated North, North-west Indian Muslim state appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-west India." But it was Chaudhary Rahmat Ali, a lawyer in England, who three years later coined the word Pakistan meaning the "Land of the Pure". "North of India is Muslim and we will keep it Muslim. Not only that, we will make it a Muslim state. But this we can do only if and when we and our North cease to be Indian. So the sooner we shed Indianism, the better for us all, for Islam," he said.

Since the question of communal electorates was the rock on which the two Round Table conferences foundered, Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress began to play it down. In the Central Assembly, when the British White Paper was processed to give "more powers" to Indians, the Congress Party stayed neutral on separate electorates. Jinnah, however, supported their continuation "until a substitute is agreed upon by the various communities concerned." Nationalist Muslims were equivocal in their attitude, though they knew the Congress ticket for Muslim candidates would be a dead weight in the elections. Some joined together to form the Muslim Unity Board, to appeal to the Muslim electorate. They hoped to cooperate with the Congress after the poll. But this strategy annoyed the Hindus.

So far, the League was still a party of the Muslim electorate dominated by the titled gentry and toadies who went as far as the Government allowed them to go. When Jinnah took over its presidentship on March 4, 1934, his first task was to make it a representative body by bringing the Muslim leaders of various convictions under one umbrella. For this purpose, he convened a conference at Lucknow. Not all who attended were Muslim Leaguers.

There was Sikandar Hayat, head of the Punjabs Unionist Party, a body of agriculturists, which included Hindus. Jinnah had won him over by promising to work for full autonomy for his state. There was Fazlul Haq who had won a seat in the Bengal assembly on the Krishak Praja ticket, not on the Muslim Leagues. They went along with Jinnah because he promised not to interfere in their states politics. Even though it was not the usual rigour of party discipline which bound the participants, the fact remained that they agreed to be identified with the League. On that basis, Jinnah claimed to represent the Muslims.

There is no doubt that 1937 was a watershed for Hindu-Muslim relationships. From then on, the differences which were earlier based on prejudice and social attitudes between the two communities began to be insti-tutionalised. Jinnah took full advantage of the situation and stoked the fires of separation from then onwards.

Uttar Pradesh thus became the cradle of Pakistan. Perhaps, as Maulana Abul Kalam Azad argued later, "if the UP Leagues offer of cooperation had been accepted, the Muslim League Party would for all practical purposes have merged in the Congress." Intriguing, nonetheless, is Jinnahs remark to Louis Heren, then the New Delhi correspondent of The Times, London, within a few months of the formation of Pakistan that: "Nehru was responsible for Partition; had he agreed to the Muslim League joining the Uttar Pradesh Congress government in 1937, there would have been no Pakistan."

Whether Jinnah was trying to shake off responsibility for the division of the subcontinent or merely trying to blame Nehru with whom he invariably clashed is anybodys guess. What Jinnah was referring to was Nehrus refusal to give two seats to the Muslim League in the United Provinces cabinet. But this was probably an attempt to over-simplify the situation. But what could Nehru do when an Uttar Pradesh League leader, Khaliquz-zaman, added to the draft agreement with the Congress a covenant that: "The Muslim League Party members in Uttar Pradesh will be free to vote in accordance with their conscience in communal matters?" What was meant by communal matters? Where did one draw the line?

Nehru explained to Khaliquzzaman a few weeks later, on June 27, 1937: "So far as I am concerned, I have carried on in the past and I shall carry on in the future, thinking more of the principles I cherish than of the results that may follow from my actions...I have found life often enough a heavy burden to carry, but I have had some consolation from the fact that I have tried to adhere to some fixed principles."

In 1959, when Nehru learnt from Azads book that the latter had blamed him for giving a new lease of life to the Muslim League, he explained that as he had been eager to introduce land reforms in Uttar Pradesh he had been averse to the idea of the League, which represented "some big landlords", joining the state cabinet.

After rejecting the Leagues offer, Nehru declared that henceforward only two forces counted, the British Raj and the Congress. But Jinnah countered saying there was a third power: the League.

How right he was!