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The Partition debate - I
By Mushirul Hasan
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The transfer of power may not have taken such an ugly and violent turn had Gandhi's Congress colleagues allowed him to wield his moral stick.
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IT IS hard to comprehend how and why Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, having dominated the political scene for three decades, could do so little to influence the Congress to take effective steps to contain Partition violence. Even if this illustrates Gandhi's diminishing political influence, we can still ask why he became `a spent bullet', and what turned him into `a back number'. What led him to conclude that he could not influence, much less lead, India on the eve of Independence? Was it because he had found no way of tackling the communal problem, and that he himself was groping in the dark?
It may well be that the otherwise well-tested Gandhian methods became out of place in the new political culture fashioned by the Congress. Or, do we see the balance of power tilting against him from the time he suggested the dissolution of the Congress? He had stated at the Congress Working Committee meeting, which finally approved the Partition plan, that he would have declared rebellion single-handedly against the CWC if he had felt stronger or an alternative was available. That he did not feel strong enough to carry out his threat is a powerful indictment of the Congress party and its tall poppies.
Doubtless, Gandhi did not have a ready-made answer to allay Jinnah's anxieties or curb the stridency of Hindu militants. Yet, he still commanded the allegiance of millions across the subcontinent to reconcile competing political aspirations. His charisma still worked, as in Bihar, where his presence did much to reassure local Muslims. Doubtless, he lacked the political resources to prevent Partition, and yet the transfer of power may not have taken such an ugly and violent turn had his Congress colleagues allowed him to wield his moral stick. Violence had engulfed the country, and yet he hoped that the people's goodness would assert itself against the mischievous influence.
Gandhi did not expect to convert Jinnah to his creed. Still, he counted on his party comrades to pay heed to his warnings. The fact is that they did not. Gandhi was deeply hurt, complaining to friends about his estrangement from those very Congress leaders whose careers he had nursed assiduously. Sometimes he would ask himself, `had India free no longer any need of him as it had when it was in bondage'.
In Noakhali, a weary Mahatma, leaning against his lathis that had stood him in good stead in his political journeys, had to prove to the world that personal courage, moral fervour, and commitment, more than formalistic ideologies, could soothe violent tempers. In Noakhali, he would have said to his restless audience basking in the morning sunshine that violence breeds more violence. Hatred, he would have reiterated in his low and soft voice, betrayed weakness rather than strength, generated fear, heightened anxieties, and created insecurities. Never before had a political leader taken so bold an initiative to provide the healing touch not just to the people in Noakhali but to the warring groups across the vast subcontinent. And yet, never before did so earnest an effort achieve so little.
After Noakhali, Gandhi was caught up in the whirlpool of hatred, anger and violence. Jinnah, on the other hand, steered his ship through the rough currents seeking a secure anchorage. Riding on the crest of a popular wave, he seemed oblivious to the human sufferings caused by his cry for a Muslim homeland. The Lincoln's Inn-educated barrister told Gandhi during talks in early September 1944, `we are a nation'. Gandhi did not agree.
Was there even the slightest possibility of mediating their differences within or, outside the party structures? Were they politically equipped to push through a negotiated settlement against the wishes of their following? Frankly, the pressures from below, as indeed the exertions of senior leaders, were too strong for reversing attitudes and strategies. A groundswell of rural Punjabi support for the League was in evidence. In Bengal, the League captured, in the 1946 elections, 104 out of 111 seats in the rural areas. The Great Calcutta Killing of August 1946 completed the convergence between elite and popular communalism. Jinnah could ill-afford to backtrack. For him, achieving `Pakistan' became a matter of life and death.
Similarly, Gandhi could not single-handedly negotiate an agreement without incurring the hostility of his own Congress colleagues. The Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS, too, emerged out of the dark corridors to ensure that Gandhi and the Congress did not yield to Jinnah's demands.
At the crossroads of communal polarisation, India became a fertile ground for the idea of a divided India to nurture. Most found, willy-nilly, and that included powerful Congress leaders who had until now paid lip service to the conception of a united India, Partition the way out of the impasse. The options, if any, were foreclosed. The Congress agreed to Partition because, as Nehru stated at the All-India Congress Committee meeting on August 9, 1947, there was no other alternative. This was not an admission of failure but a recognition of the ground realities that had moved towards the polarisation of the Hindu, Muslim and Sikh communities.
For Jinnah, the real and ultimate challenge was to translate his otherwise nebulous idea of a Muslim state into a territorial acquisition that he could sell to his partners in Punjab, Bengal and United Provinces. When the Lahore Resolution was adopted in March 1940, Jinnah hesitated placing his cards out in the open because he could not predict the reactions of his own allies in these provinces. But once the edifice of resistance crumbled, especially in Punjab after the deaths of Sikander Hayat Khan and the Jat leader Chhotu Ram (both had kept the Punjab Unionist Party intact), and popular support for the Pakistan idea gathered momentum, Jinnah had no qualms in defining his future Pakistan.
At every critical moment, Jinnah's great asset was the colonial government's readiness to negotiate with him as an ally rather than as an adversary. This had not been the case earlier, though Nehru had pointed out that the third party could always bid higher and, what is more, give substance to its words. The Quit India movement (August 1942) turned out to be yet another milestone. From that time onwards the League bandwagon rolled on, and Jinnah developed the habit of reminding senior British officials of their obligations towards the Muslims. Whenever he found them dithering or tilting slightly towards the Congress, he, conjuring up the self-image of a wounded soul, raised the spectre of a civil war.
Words were translated into deeds on Direct Action Day on August 16, 1946. This ill-advised call did not exactly heal the communal wounds, but proved to be, as was the undeclared intention, Jinnah's trump card. The Quaid, says Ayesha Jalal, was forced by the Muslim League Council to go for Direct Action; otherwise he would have been swept aside himself. What remains unexplained is how this decision, besides leading to the Great Calcutta Killing, sounded the death-knell of a united India. If the resignation of the Congress Ministries allowed Jinnah to jump the queue and gain proximity to the colonial government, direct action confirmed his capacity to call the shots and create, with the aid of his allies in Bengal particularly, the conditions for civil strife on a continental scale.
Meanwhile, the colonial government - the `third party' - nursed its wounds. Bruised and battered by the impact of World War II, it had little or no interest in curbing violence. As the sun finally set on the empire, the imperial dream was over. ``Your day is done,'' Gandhi had written. The British, having read the writing on the wall, had no desire or motivation to affect a peaceful transfer of power. Having bandied round the view that Hindu-Muslim violence resulted from a civilisational conflict between Islam and Hinduism, they now put forward the thesis that it could not be contained once Pakistan became inevitable.
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