Chapter 18
Mountbatten Gets to Work
THE new Viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, plunged into political
negotiations soon after his arrival. His first meeting was with
Gandhiji, the latter suggested that since Mr. Jinnah had
reservations about the interim government it could be dissolved, and
Mr. Jinnah given the powers to form a new government in its place
and include, whoever he likes in the Cabinet. The purpose, and
Gandhi, was to show to the world that we Hindus and Muslim have
resolved our issues among ourselves and are ready to co-operate with
each other to begin the life together in a new independent India.
Gandhi asked in return that on the formation of Mr. Jinnah’s
government the British responsibility would be to try and safeguard
the majority community’s interests!
When Mountbatten next met Mr. Jinnah and told him about Gandhiji’s
proposal, Mr. Jinnah replied that the malaise had now gone so deep
that there was no cure of it short of surgery.
There was reason for this stiffness in the Muslim League leader’s
tone. The departure of Wavell had caused apprehensions in his mined
that the chances of the British granting Pakistan had receded, but
later a new development had taken place. It will be recalled that
when serious differences had occurred between the British and the
Congress and the latter felt constrained to launch a movement, the
Americans had kept pressing on the British to find a way for
political settlement. The U.S had thus started taking deep interest
in Indian affairs.
The same interest led to two senior Americans calling on Mr. Jinnah
at his residence on May 1, 1947. One was Ronald A. Hare, head of the
division of south Asian affairs, and the other Thomas E. Weil,
second secretary of the U.S. embassy in India. The details of this
meeting were sent the next day by the U.S. charge d’affaires to his
Secretary of State in Washington.
According to this account Mr. Jinnah:
Sought to impress on his visitors that the emergence of an
independent, sovereign Pakistan would be in consonance with American
interests. Pakistan would be a Muslim country. Muslim countries
stand together against Russian aggression. In that endeavour they
would look to the United States for assistance, he added. –
Vinkataraman. American Role in Pakistan
This exactly coincided with the longstanding British scheme to use
Islam as a halter round the Soviet neck. The other danger that Mr.
Jinnah pointed out to these Americans–that the Congress wouldn’t be
ready to protect Western interests in the Middle East and the
Gulf–also squared with the thinking of the colonial power.
Jinnah coupled the danger of “Russian aggression” with another
menace that Muslim nations might confront. That was “Hindu
imperialism”. The establishment of Pakistan was essential to prevent
the expansion of Hindu imperialism to the Middle East, he emphasised.
– Vinkataraman. Op. Cit.
The idea was conveyed that it was vital for American’s own interest
in the region that India was divided and a Muslim State established
there. It appears that a commitment on Pakistan had been reached in
this meeting since it will be remembered that Mr. Jinnah had later
in the same month, in May, told Sikandar Mirza that he might drop
the scheme of mounting a tribal jehad against India since Pakistan
was coming anyway: Thus, it appears that the Americans had filled in
the void created by Wavell’s going.
The fact is both Linlithgow and Wavell had given the communal issue
such a turn as to vest the initiative in Mr. Jinnah’s hands. Three
alternatives had emerged for him: a united India; an India divided
in three groups under the Cabinet Mission Plan; and Pakistan. It
would not have been difficult, if they had so wished to ask Mr.
Jinnah and the Muslim League to devise a way so that the rights of
the Muslims in the non-Muslim majority area could be fully
protected. For the real problem was the latter’s. These League
leaders had in fact been elected by these same minority provinces
just in order that they could ensure safeguards of their interests.
In the event, however, Mr. Jinnah was offered the choice either of a
vast Pakistan with some restraints, or a smaller Pakistan without
any restraints.
For when the Muslim League finally rejected the Cabinet Mission Plan
and demanded Pakistan, it was told that if India was partitioned,
the two Muslim majority provinces, Punjab and Bengal, would also
have to be partitioned. Mr. Jinnah demanded the reason for this, and
Mountbatten replied that it followed exactly the same logic as in
the making of Pakistan, the arguments he had used for seven years to
press for Pakistan would have to be applied to the provinces also,
for the provinces were administrative units and the parts of them
that had non-Muslim concentration had to be separated. Mr. Jinnah
countered by saying that he would them demands the Sylhet district
of the Assam province, and Mountbatten agreed.
Mr. Jinnah wasn’t on the whole happy with the division of the
provinces. He ….
Admitted the apparent logic of this but begged Lord Mountbatten not
to give him a “moth-eaten” Pakistan. The demand for partitioning of
Bengal and the Punjab was all the bluff on the part of the Congress
to frighten him off his claim for Pakistan. But he was not so easily
frightened.
Hodson. The Great Divide.
Mountbatten was still apparently trying to persuade Mr. Jinnah to
accept the Cabinet Mission Plan. He kept pointing out the possible
consequences of partition, especially the destruction that might
follow. He found that Mr. Jinnah had not seriously considered all
the aspects of his proposal. As he wrote, “He gives me the
impression of a man who has not thought out one single piece of the
mechanics of his own scheme and he really will get the shock of his
life when he comes down to earth.”
When Mountbatten saw that Mr. Jinnah was immovable, he invited
Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan and explained to him that if Muslim
League and Mr. Jinnah kept insisting on Pakistan they would only get
what Mr. Jinah had himself characterised as a crippled, Moth eaten
state, and which he had earlier refused to accept. Mr. Liaquat Ali
promised to discuss this with Mr. Jinnah and other colleagues. When
he came back the next day, his message was, “If your Excellency was
prepared to let the Muslim League have only the Sindh desert I would
still be prepared to accept it” (Hodson, P-224).
Meanwhile, in Bengal itself the thinking was running in a different
direction. The possibility that the province will be divided along
with the country caused no joy. The Muslim League Chief Minister,
Mr. Hussain Shaheed Suharwardy, asked the Viceroy for time. He
wished to talk to both the Congress and the Muslim League and
persuade them to let the province stay undivided and not join
Pakistan or nor wanting it remains in India.
Mountbatten himself mentioned Suharwardy’s proposal to Mr. Jinnah.
As he reports it, without hesitation Mr. Jinnah replied, “I should
be delighted. What is the use of Bengal without Calcutta? They had
much better remain united and independent.”
(Hodson, P-246).
One sometimes wonder what all this bargaining, this give-and-take of
territories, was really in aid of. Was the concern for the poor,
suppressed Muslims really the driving consideration, or was it
something else?
The most problematic link the chain was NWFP with its 93 percent
Muslim population. It had rejected the Muslim League politics and
the demand for Pakistan in 1946. The British were particularly
interested in this province and in the tribal passages that led
through Afghanistan to the borders of Russia. The governor of the
province, Olaf Caroe, proposed that the election that had taken
place that year should be annulled and a new one held so that the
responsibility of determining the future of the province should
devolve on the newly elected member.
Mountbatten sent of the chief secretary of the province, De la
Farque, who was about to proceed on home leave. He asked him two
questions – first, what was likely to be the outcome of a new
election; and, second, why were the provincial ministers unhappy
about their governor. (One the latter point, Dr. Khan Sahib had told
the viceroy that since he was keen on meeting the Muslim League
president of NWFP, he needed to go no further than his own governor,
for Olaf Caroe was virtually the Muslim League president!).
According to Hodson (P-283), the replies given to the Viceroy was as
follows:
Lt. Col. De la Farque, chief secretary to the NWFP government held
the belief that a free and clean election in the province was more
likely to return the Congress to power than the League, even if
Section 93 government had been interposed. That the Governor though
having great knowledge of the Frontier was biased against his
Congress government, and that his continuance in office was menace
to British prestige.
After this confidential report from the chief secretary, Mountbatten
dropped the idea of a fresh election.
Incidentally, the thinking of the Muslim officers of the Province
can be gauged from what Campbell Johnson reported in his book
‘Mission with Mountbatten.’ He had gone with Mountbatten to Peshawar
and at the governor’s dinner that evening he was seated beside the
deputy commissioner of the city, S.B. Shah, who spent the whole
evening arguing with Johnson that the British should not leave
India. Johnson writes that he was greatly surprised that while he
and Mountbatten, both members of the British ruling class, were keen
that India should be given its independence here was an important
Indian passionately arguing against it.
Having turned down the governor’s proposals for fresh election,
since it would have once again brought the Khudai Khidmatgars to
power, Mountbatten had to think of other ways whereby the Muslim
League could emerge as the predominant entity.
The difference between the governor and Congress had led to another
problem. When the head of interim government, Jawaharlal Nehru
expressed the wish to tour NWFP, visit the various agencies and hold
jirgas with the tribal brethren on the future of Indian and their
place in it, Olaf Caroe felt disturbed. He wasn’t prepared for this
direct communication. He had been giving the central government the
impression that the tribes were all deadly opposed to the Congress
and backed the Pakistan demand. In support of this he would have to
prove that the tribal leaders who went to see the government were
not the true representative of their people.
The servants of the British had directly and through mercenary
mullahs, pirs and faqirs done a lot of work in the tribal area and
were still active one Masud Malak Gulab Khan wrote a letter to Mr.
Jinnah on April 20, 1946. He said:
I on behalf of all the Masuda of S. Waziristan Agency beg to assure
you of our armed help for the achievement of Pakistan whenever so
ordered by the Muslim League High Command. We have full faith in
your leadership in the critical time…. I am also ready to send Masud
armed escort as your body guard if so ordered. Pakistan zindabad.
Quoted in Erland Janson. P-175.
This Malak is thus ready for armed conflict for Pakistan. Against
whom? Against the British? No one can believe that a Malak from
South Waziristan would write to Mr. Jinnah in Bombay to offer to
fight for his politics against the British. He couldn’t have written
what he did except for the favour of the political agent and other
officials, as anyone who knows anything about these agencies, their
malaks, and their relations with political agents would easily
understand. Apart from the fact that Malak Gulban Khan knew how to
address Mr. Jinnah, as Quaid-I-Azam, the odd thing is that a Malak
of South Waziristan should want to enter into a political pact with
a leader of India and assure him of full support for the achievement
of Pakistan on behalf of the entire Masud Agency, and Mr. Jinnah
even replies to him: all supposedly without the knowledge of the
political agent and of other official institutions on the other
hand, about the same time a Salar of the Khudai Khidmatgar, Yaqub
Khan, was languishing in jail and was being threatened with hanging
only because of an accusation that a lieutenant of Faqir Ipi had
written him a letter, although there was no proof that such a letter
existed, not a witness to attest to the charge.
It wasn’t just a question of Waziristan. A Shinwari Malak of Khyber
Agency, Bawar Khan, sent a telegram to the members of the Cabinet
Mission saying, “Khyber Agency tribes have full confidence in Jinnah,
Muslims cannot accept anything except Pakistan” (Khyber Mail, April
5, 1946). Malik Gulab Khan might have sent his message secretly, but
this Shinwari Malik Bawar Khan had dispatched a telegram and even
got it printed in an English daily of Peshawar. Yet the British
displayed not a hint of worry or displeasure.
The examples only serve to show why Mr. Olaf Carore wasn’t happy
over Jawaharlal’s going to the tribal areas. Both he and the Muslim
League wished to prevent the visit. The Pir of Manki Sharif himself
toured the different tribes and sent out mullahs to that region to
mount an opposition to the Hindu Jawaharlal’s coming. It was said
that he was coming to bring their independence to an end and to make
them the slaves of the Hindus. Caroe made a detailed mention of
these efforts in his weekly report to the centre – that Pir Manki
was touring Khyber, Mohmand and Malakand; that in Peshawar Muslim
League had held a public meeting addressed by barrister Qayyum; etc.
Declared Mr. Qayyum:
The Hindu Congress is on the warpath. In the tribal belt we have an
immeasurable reservoir of strength. You must organise and unite from
Gilgit to Quetta. The hour of trial is coming. Be prepared. Islam in
India needs your help in this hour of trail. Tell Pundit Nehru that
if he wants to talk he should go to Mr. Jinnah. There is no sense in
talking to the tribal.
Dawn October 13, 1948
|
