Chapter 13
Search for a Solution
THE Simla Conference first of all approved Lord Wavell’s proposal
that a central federal ministerial council be set up. Lord Wavell’s
view from the start was that there should be equal representation of
Muslims and non-Muslims on the council.
Mr. Jinnah, however, adopted his usual stand that except for Muslim
League no one had the right to claim to represent Muslims – and
therefore no one except the Muslim League could nominate Muslim
members to the ministerial council. This meant that there had to be
parity between Mr. Jinnah’s nominees on the one hand and the
representatives of the country’s rest of the population of Hindus,
Christians, Sikhs, Parsis etc.
India’s population at the time was 40 crore (400 Million), of which
Muslims were only 10 crore (100 Million). Besides, of the 11
provinces in the country Muslim League did not have a ministry in a
single one, whereas Congress had control over eight. Even so the
Muslim-majority provinces, in Bengal the league held just 40 of 117
seats, in Punjab just one of 84 seats, and not even that in Sindh
and NWFP. Yet Mr. Jinnah’s insistence about the Muslim ministers in
the central ministerial council, according to Wavell, was:
They must all be nominated by the League and must all be
Leaguers….None except himself as head of the Muslim League could
nominate the Muslims on the new council….. In face a communal veto.
The demand went even further. If a Muslim objected to any proposal
in the council, the decision it should require a two-thirds
majority.
On the other hand, the first right to name Muslim ministers was
claimed by the Unionist chief minister of the Punjab, Mr. Khizar
Hayat. The congress for its part included two Muslims in its own
list since it had NWFP with it and Sind was led by the nationalist
ministry of Khan Bahadur Allah Bakhsh. Mr. Jinnah, however, was
adamant about his right to name an equal number himself. Wavell was
puzzled.
If he really meant this it shows that he had never at any time an
intention of accepting the offer. It is difficult to see why he came
to Simla at all. The root cause of the failure was of course
Jinnah’s intransigence and obstinacy.
It needed to be asked of Mr. Jinnah that the Congress had just given
enormous sacrifices: thousands had died, tens of thousand were still
rotting in jails – and he was now claiming a right to not just his
but others’ share as well. It was a case of one person sowing and
tending the crop and another reaping it.
Look at the viceroy’s own attitude. He recognises the
unreasonableness of the demand and yet he rejects the rights of the
elected chief ministers Khizar Hayat of Punjab, Elahi Bakhsh of
Sindh and Dr. Khan Saheb of NWFP, and allows the conference to
collapse in failure because of an unjustified insistence of Mr.
Jinnah. Does it not again confirm that Britain’s game was that there
should be no resolution of the differences, that it could always
have lack of agreement between parties available to it as an excuse
for continuing its own rule? Even H.V. Hodson, generally partial to
the Muslim League point of view, writes in his book ‘The Great
Divide’:
A minority party with unsupportable claim had been allowed to veto
the whole project for advancing India’s self-government…. Some
observers thought that Lord Wavell’s sudden abandonment of his plan
was the decisive move which made the partition of India inevitable.
Before this Sir Stafford Cripp’s own proposals had the clear
provision that when after the war the constitution assembly of India
sets to draw up a constitution for the country.
Any province would be free to keep itself out of the proposed union
and to retain its prevailing constitutional position. If such
non-acceding provinces so desire they could have their own separate
union analogous to the proposed Indian Union.
This was clearly the first step on the ladder to Pakistan, and its
ultimate guarantee.
Thus, Lord Wavell dissolved the Simla Conference on the point that
the conference should accept Muslim League as the sole
representative of the entire Muslim population of the country. Dr.
Khan Saheb, the chief minister of NWFP was present at the
conference. He put it to the Viceroy that he was the head of a
Muslim-majority province and he was not a Muslim Leaguer, so what
was his position. Wavell had no answer. Despite the results of the
British held election of 1937, which, as we have seen, had allowed
the League only a minority position in just one Muslim province and
virtually eliminated it from all others, the British Viceroy was
insisting that Congress accept the League as the exclusive body of
the country’s entire Muslim population. How could Congress do that
in the midst of its own electoral victories and its own proven
support of large sections of the Muslims?
The viceroy wasn’t of course concerned about the interests of the
Muslims or the Muslim League. His sole preoccupation was the
advancement of British rule. The outcome of the Simla conference was
also a kind of British notice to all Muslims that if they wished any
official recognition they had to join up with the Muslim League.
If the British were at the time thinking in terms of a ‘Pakistan’ I
am certain that it was not out of sympathy for Muslims but because
they needed a Muslim state to complete their Islamic shield against
the Soviet ideological challenge, extending from Turkey to the
borders of China. If Pakistan meant not so much a partition of India
as a partition of Muslims, they were not bothered, so long as that
served their own colonial and imperialist objectives.
So once again Britain turned its thought to its idea of a Military
Crescent.
It had seen that Congress was strong in the rest of India and it
wouldn’t accept British rule much longer. It thought: why not then
return the Pushtoon areas to Afghanistan? The idea commended itself
on two grounds. First, India would thus lose the hilly areas in the
north-west which had constituted a natural physical boundary.
History had taught the lesson that India could never rest in peace
if it did not have the north-western passes in its control. Their
loss would thus make the country weak. It would continually remain
concerned and dependent. Secondly, restoring those areas to
Afghanistan would make the latter feel obligated to Britain and this
could be beneficial in the future.
The Soviet victory in Europe, however, turned the scheme to dust.
Britain quickly retracted, and set to thinking of ways to face the
Soviet danger. Wavell’s diaries throw great light on the British
dilemma of the time.
In fact it is impossible to fully understand the British policies of
the time without going through these diaries. Even a person as
politically aware and acute in understanding people as Maulana Abul
Kalam Azad was deceived by Wavell’s appearances. The fact is that
Wavell pursued the design laid down by Linligthgow – in fact, I
think he even exceeded his predecessor’s ambitions – but he was so
shrewd that the Congress president Maulana Azad was misled and spoke
well of his sincerity and integrity in his book ‘India’ Wins
Freedom’.
Before taking over as Viceroy of India, Wavell was the
commander-in-chief of the Indian Army. He looked on Congress as the
sworn enemy of the British and had tried to create great problems
for Britain during the War. It had chosen that time to start a
movement against the British and had tried to create innumerable
hurdles in the latter’s way. It also had the support of a body of
nationalists Muslims, including a large number of religious scholars
of standing who had dared to challenge the British.
Wavell’s letter to his private Secretary of August 10, 1946,
reproduced in his book on pages 330-332, details his ‘Breakdown
Plan’. He wrote that as soon as a deadlock would develop in the
negotiations with the Congress and the Muslim League the British
government would send for him, and he would then present his own
plan. He asked his Secretary to set up a committee of five senior
officers to prepare a confidential report for him on how his plan
would be implemented.
Wavell’s analysis was that the Muslim League and the Congress were
mainly quarreling over areas that lie on the borders. The proposed
Pakistan comprised two parts, one in north-east and the other in
north-west, both with Muslim majorities. The plan in brief was that
the provinces with clear Congress majority should be handed over to
them and given full independence. The British, with all their Army,
their officials and the latter’s families should transfer to the
provinces of Muslim majority.
Being a professional soldier Wavell knew that one the north-west
(NWFP, Sindh, and Punjab up to Delhi) and north-east (Bengal and
Assam) were separated from India and the British took full control
of them the defense of the rest of India would become a problem. He
was sure that the Muslim League would have no objection: “In fact
the Muslim League would presumably welcome the Plan,” he wrote. He
actually called over Sir Feroz Khan and asked him to sound the
League leaders. Noon’s report was that they were willing.
When one reflects over the scheme one is amazed at the mentality of
these British. The Congress was being punished for its opposition to
colonial rule. It was being sought to be deprived of its natural
geographical frontiers, with China to one side and the Soviet Union
to the other. If partition had taken place on that basis and in an
atmosphere of such hostility how could the inhabitants of India have
defended themselves?
The scheme to another aspect – that if the British were helping or
supporting the Muslim League in any way it was not out of
consideration of the Muslim good but for the promotion of their own
imperialist and colonial interests. Says Wavell: “I pointed it out
that Pakistan issue affected not only India, but the whole Empire.”
Britain’s pursuit of its political strategic objective is possible
to understand, but the greater surprise is the attitude of the
Muslim League leaders. The party might never have been too concerned
about the country’s independence, nor worked hard to get out of
Britain’s yoke, but if the country was anyhow going to get its
independence as a result of the struggle of the Congress and the
nationalist Muslims, were the Muslim League area going to remain
under British tutelage? How could they allow the British to convert
their defeat into victory, and allow the fruit of independence to
become confined only to the non-Muslim majority areas while letting
the Muslims remain the slaves they were?
The third points emerging from the Wavell plan want the reason why
the Pushtoon Frontier and the Khudai Khidmatgar was such an irritant
for the British. Among all the Muslims, the Khudai Khidmatgar was
the single body of people who understood the British machinations
and who supported the Congress in order to get out of the British
stranglehold. This was particularly irksome to the British since,
firstly, although this was a province with as big a Muslim majority
as 93 per cent it was not only not supporting the Muslim League but
was opposed to the British; and secondly, the province was located
at a point where Britain had planned to raise an Islamic shield in
protection of its interests against the Soviet Union.
This explains why Britain was expending so much effort to crush the
Khudai Khidmatgar movement. And why it was mustering in its support
the Khwanin, Sirs, Khan Bahadurs and Khan Sahibs on one side, and
the mercenary mullah’s pirs, faqirs, akhunzadigan and head of
madrassahs on the other. It prepared for the assault on the Khudai
Khimatgars both from the temporal and the spiritual fronts.
The ultimate objective was of course simply to crush all opposition
to Britain and to make the province safe for Muslim League so that
the latter could be used in the promotion of Britain’s imperialist
interests both internally and in foreign relations.
When Germany had invaded Russia and kept advancing until Moscow was
short way ahead, Britain felt free of the Soviet danger. It thought
that the Soviets would no longer be in a position to threaten its
rule in the Indian subcontinent. On the other side when it had begun
losing its colonies one by one to the Japanese onslaught until Burma
was gone and Calcutta came under daily raids from the air, it was
safety in mending its fences on the west. The Pushtoon areas that it
had separated from Afghanistan in 1893 by drawing the so-called
Durand line could well fall into Japanese or German hands, so why
not earn the Afghan good will by restoring them to Afghanistan while
this was still possible, it thought. Thus a correspondence began
with Kabul and a propaganda campaign was started in favour of
Afghanistan through such people as Haji Saheb Turangzai’s son, Bacha
Gul, who had been an agent of Cunningham. It is not without
significance that even while Britain was still ruling the country,
the Friday Khutbas in the mosques here were being read in the name
of King Zahir Shah of Afghanistan.
However, when events took yet another turn, when Russia retaliated
and chased the German forces right up to the borders of Berlin in
the same way that Napoleon’s armies were once made to beat a
retreat, the British once again took alarm and began to worry about
the Soviet threat in India. Surely if after a total devastation of
its cities and annihilations of 20 million of its citizens the
Soviets could turn back on their tormentors the way they had done
they couldn’t be taken lightly.
THE Simla Conference first of all approved Lord Wavell’s proposal
that a central federal ministerial council be set up. Lord Wavell’s
view from the start was that there should be equal representation of
Muslims and non-Muslims on the council.
Mr. Jinnah, however, adopted his usual stand that except for Muslim
League no one had the right to claim to represent Muslims – and
therefore no one except the Muslim League could nominate Muslim
members to the ministerial council. This meant that there had to be
parity between Mr. Jinnah’s nominees on the one hand and the
representatives of the country’s rest of the population of Hindus,
Christians, Sikhs, Parsis etc.
India’s population at the time was 40 crore (400 Million), of which
Muslims were only 10 crore (100 Million). Besides, of the 11
provinces in the country Muslim League did not have a ministry in a
single one, whereas Congress had control over eight. Even so the
Muslim-majority provinces, in Bengal the league held just 40 of 117
seats, in Punjab just one of 84 seats, and not even that in Sindh
and NWFP. Yet Mr. Jinnah’s insistence about the Muslim ministers in
the central ministerial council, according to Wavell, was:
They must all be nominated by the League and must all be
Leaguers….None except himself as head of the Muslim League could
nominate the Muslims on the new council….. In face a communal veto.
The demand went even further. If a Muslim objected to any proposal
in the council, the decision it should require a two-thirds
majority.
On the other hand, the first right to name Muslim ministers was
claimed by the Unionist chief minister of the Punjab, Mr. Khizar
Hayat. The congress for its part included two Muslims in its own
list since it had NWFP with it and Sind was led by the nationalist
ministry of Khan Bahadur Allah Bakhsh. Mr. Jinnah, however, was
adamant about his right to name an equal number himself. Wavell was
puzzled.
If he really meant this it shows that he had never at any time an
intention of accepting the offer. It is difficult to see why he came
to Simla at all. The root cause of the failure was of course
Jinnah’s intransigence and obstinacy.
It needed to be asked of Mr. Jinnah that the Congress had just given
enormous sacrifices: thousands had died, tens of thousand were still
rotting in jails – and he was now claiming a right to not just his
but others’ share as well. It was a case of one person sowing and
tending the crop and another reaping it.
Look at the viceroy’s own attitude. He recognises the
unreasonableness of the demand and yet he rejects the rights of the
elected chief ministers Khizar Hayat of Punjab, Elahi Bakhsh of
Sindh and Dr. Khan Saheb of NWFP, and allows the conference to
collapse in failure because of an unjustified insistence of Mr.
Jinnah. Does it not again confirm that Britain’s game was that there
should be no resolution of the differences, that it could always
have lack of agreement between parties available to it as an excuse
for continuing its own rule? Even H.V. Hodson, generally partial to
the Muslim League point of view, writes in his book ‘The Great
Divide’:
A minority party with unsupportable claim had been allowed to veto
the whole project for advancing India’s self-government…. Some
observers thought that Lord Wavell’s sudden abandonment of his plan
was the decisive move which made the partition of India inevitable.
Before this Sir Stafford Cripp’s own proposals had the clear
provision that when after the war the constitution assembly of India
sets to draw up a constitution for the country.
Any province would be free to keep itself out of the proposed union
and to retain its prevailing constitutional position. If such
non-acceding provinces so desire they could have their own separate
union analogous to the proposed Indian Union.
This was clearly the first step on the ladder to Pakistan, and its
ultimate guarantee.
Thus, Lord Wavell dissolved the Simla Conference on the point that
the conference should accept Muslim League as the sole
representative of the entire Muslim population of the country. Dr.
Khan Saheb, the chief minister of NWFP was present at the
conference. He put it to the Viceroy that he was the head of a
Muslim-majority province and he was not a Muslim Leaguer, so what
was his position. Wavell had no answer. Despite the results of the
British held election of 1937, which, as we have seen, had allowed
the League only a minority position in just one Muslim province and
virtually eliminated it from all others, the British Viceroy was
insisting that Congress accept the League as the exclusive body of
the country’s entire Muslim population. How could Congress do that
in the midst of its own electoral victories and its own proven
support of large sections of the Muslims?
The viceroy wasn’t of course concerned about the interests of the
Muslims or the Muslim League. His sole preoccupation was the
advancement of British rule. The outcome of the Simla conference was
also a kind of British notice to all Muslims that if they wished any
official recognition they had to join up with the Muslim League.
If the British were at the time thinking in terms of a ‘Pakistan’ I
am certain that it was not out of sympathy for Muslims but because
they needed a Muslim state to complete their Islamic shield against
the Soviet ideological challenge, extending from Turkey to the
borders of China. If Pakistan meant not so much a partition of India
as a partition of Muslims, they were not bothered, so long as that
served their own colonial and imperialist objectives.
So once again Britain turned its thought to its idea of a Military
Crescent.
It had seen that Congress was strong in the rest of India and it
wouldn’t accept British rule much longer. It thought: why not then
return the Pushtoon areas to Afghanistan? The idea commended itself
on two grounds. First, India would thus lose the hilly areas in the
north-west which had constituted a natural physical boundary.
History had taught the lesson that India could never rest in peace
if it did not have the north-western passes in its control. Their
loss would thus make the country weak. It would continually remain
concerned and dependent. Secondly, restoring those areas to
Afghanistan would make the latter feel obligated to Britain and this
could be beneficial in the future.
The Soviet victory in Europe, however, turned the scheme to dust.
Britain quickly retracted, and set to thinking of ways to face the
Soviet danger. Wavell’s diaries throw great light on the British
dilemma of the time.
In fact it is impossible to fully understand the British policies of
the time without going through these diaries. Even a person as
politically aware and acute in understanding people as Maulana Abul
Kalam Azad was deceived by Wavell’s appearances. The fact is that
Wavell pursued the design laid down by Linligthgow – in fact, I
think he even exceeded his predecessor’s ambitions – but he was so
shrewd that the Congress president Maulana Azad was misled and spoke
well of his sincerity and integrity in his book ‘India’ Wins
Freedom’.
Before taking over as Viceroy of India, Wavell was the
commander-in-chief of the Indian Army. He looked on Congress as the
sworn enemy of the British and had tried to create great problems
for Britain during the War. It had chosen that time to start a
movement against the British and had tried to create innumerable
hurdles in the latter’s way. It also had the support of a body of
nationalists Muslims, including a large number of religious scholars
of standing who had dared to challenge the British.
Wavell’s letter to his private Secretary of August 10, 1946,
reproduced in his book on pages 330-332, details his ‘Breakdown
Plan’. He wrote that as soon as a deadlock would develop in the
negotiations with the Congress and the Muslim League the British
government would send for him, and he would then present his own
plan. He asked his Secretary to set up a committee of five senior
officers to prepare a confidential report for him on how his plan
would be implemented.
Wavell’s analysis was that the Muslim League and the Congress were
mainly quarreling over areas that lie on the borders. The proposed
Pakistan comprised two parts, one in north-east and the other in
north-west, both with Muslim majorities. The plan in brief was that
the provinces with clear Congress majority should be handed over to
them and given full independence. The British, with all their Army,
their officials and the latter’s families should transfer to the
provinces of Muslim majority.
Being a professional soldier Wavell knew that one the north-west
(NWFP, Sindh, and Punjab up to Delhi) and north-east (Bengal and
Assam) were separated from India and the British took full control
of them the defense of the rest of India would become a problem. He
was sure that the Muslim League would have no objection: “In fact
the Muslim League would presumably welcome the Plan,” he wrote. He
actually called over Sir Feroz Khan and asked him to sound the
League leaders. Noon’s report was that they were willing.
When one reflects over the scheme one is amazed at the mentality of
these British. The Congress was being punished for its opposition to
colonial rule. It was being sought to be deprived of its natural
geographical frontiers, with China to one side and the Soviet Union
to the other. If partition had taken place on that basis and in an
atmosphere of such hostility how could the inhabitants of India have
defended themselves?
The scheme to another aspect – that if the British were helping or
supporting the Muslim League in any way it was not out of
consideration of the Muslim good but for the promotion of their own
imperialist and colonial interests. Says Wavell: “I pointed it out
that Pakistan issue affected not only India, but the whole Empire.”
Britain’s pursuit of its political strategic objective is possible
to understand, but the greater surprise is the attitude of the
Muslim League leaders. The party might never have been too concerned
about the country’s independence, nor worked hard to get out of
Britain’s yoke, but if the country was anyhow going to get its
independence as a result of the struggle of the Congress and the
nationalist Muslims, were the Muslim League area going to remain
under British tutelage? How could they allow the British to convert
their defeat into victory, and allow the fruit of independence to
become confined only to the non-Muslim majority areas while letting
the Muslims remain the slaves they were?
The third points emerging from the Wavell plan want the reason why
the Pushtoon Frontier and the Khudai Khidmatgar was such an irritant
for the British. Among all the Muslims, the Khudai Khidmatgar was
the single body of people who understood the British machinations
and who supported the Congress in order to get out of the British
stranglehold. This was particularly irksome to the British since,
firstly, although this was a province with as big a Muslim majority
as 93 per cent it was not only not supporting the Muslim League but
was opposed to the British; and secondly, the province was located
at a point where Britain had planned to raise an Islamic shield in
protection of its interests against the Soviet Union.
This explains why Britain was expending so much effort to crush the
Khudai Khidmatgar movement. And why it was mustering in its support
the Khwanin, Sirs, Khan Bahadurs and Khan Sahibs on one side, and
the mercenary mullah’s pirs, faqirs, akhunzadigan and head of
madrassahs on the other. It prepared for the assault on the Khudai
Khimatgars both from the temporal and the spiritual fronts.
The ultimate objective was of course simply to crush all opposition
to Britain and to make the province safe for Muslim League so that
the latter could be used in the promotion of Britain’s imperialist
interests both internally and in foreign relations.
When Germany had invaded Russia and kept advancing until Moscow was
short way ahead, Britain felt free of the Soviet danger. It thought
that the Soviets would no longer be in a position to threaten its
rule in the Indian subcontinent. On the other side when it had begun
losing its colonies one by one to the Japanese onslaught until Burma
was gone and Calcutta came under daily raids from the air, it was
safety in mending its fences on the west. The Pushtoon areas that it
had separated from Afghanistan in 1893 by drawing the so-called
Durand line could well fall into Japanese or German hands, so why
not earn the Afghan good will by restoring them to Afghanistan while
this was still possible, it thought. Thus a correspondence began
with Kabul and a propaganda campaign was started in favour of
Afghanistan through such people as Haji Saheb Turangzai’s son, Bacha
Gul, who had been an agent of Cunningham. It is not without
significance that even while Britain was still ruling the country,
the Friday Khutbas in the mosques here were being read in the name
of King Zahir Shah of Afghanistan.
However, when events took yet another turn, when Russia retaliated
and chased the German forces right up to the borders of Berlin in
the same way that Napoleon’s armies were once made to beat a
retreat, the British once again took alarm and began to worry about
the Soviet threat in India. Surely if after a total devastation of
its cities and annihilations of 20 million of its citizens the
Soviets could turn back on their tormentors the way they had done
they couldn’t be taken lightly.
|
