ARBITRARY DIVISION OF INDIA.
India-Pakistan Partition
Kuldip Nayar
August 11, 2016
The British had a reputation of leaving their
colonies in a mess when
they had to withdraw by force or otherwise.
One method they adopted
was to divide the country they had ruled. They
did this in Ireland,
Palestine-Israel and, of course, India.
This is mid-August 2016 and I recall the
conversation I had with Lord
Radcliffe who drew the line to divide India
into two countries, India
and Pakistan. Lord Mountbatten, the last
Viceroy, picked him up from
the British Bar and had him flown to India to
divide the subcontinent
into two countries.
Radcliffe had never set his foot inside India
before, nor did he know
much about the country. He told me that when
Mountbatten spelt out
what he wanted, he warned him that it was a
difficult job which he
could not undertake. Mountbatten offered him
Rs 40,000, which was a
lot of money at that time. But what ultimately
tempted him – as he
told me – was the responsibility which had
been thrown on his
shoulders to create two new countries.
For a well-known London lawyer, the thought of
becoming an
international statesman overnight was too
attractive a proposition to
reject. Radcliffe asked for district maps, but
none was available. All
that he was given was the ordinary map which
hung on the wall of all
government offices and educational
institutions.
Radcliffe made calculations and drew a
tentative line on the map
itself. He told me that on this premise, the
line he drew gave Lahore
to India. Then he realised that by doing so,
he would deprive Pakistan
of any important city. So, taking this into
consideration, he
transferred Lahore to Pakistan. To this day, the
people of then East
Punjab have never forgiven him for the loss of
their prize.
Radcliffe never collected his Rs 40,000 fee
that the Viceroy had
promised, because he felt that the blood of 10
million people who lost
their lives in the migration rested on his
conscience. Nor did he
visit India after partition. He died in London
and Indian newspapers
only picked up the story of his death from The
Times, London.
Here was a person who constituted two
countries but never got any
recognition. He was ultimately denied the
status of an international
statesman. Many years later, Qaid-e-Azam
Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the
founder of Pakistan, was angrily asked by his
naval aide who had lost
his parents in the migration, "Was
Pakistan a good thing to have?" The
old man kept quiet for a while and replied:
"I don't know young man,
only posterity will tell."
Probably, it is too early to pronounce any
judgment, but it is clear
that Qaid-e-Azam drew the line dividing the
two countries on the basis
of religion. This is ironic, considering that
Jinnah was a man who did
not care what he ate or drank. Even though he
made Urdu the official
language of Pakistan, he himself spoke a few
words only haltingly.
When several developments led to no option
except partition, Mahatma
Gandhi suggested to Jawaharlal Nehru and
Sardar Patel that they should
offer the prime ministership of a United India
to Jinnah. Both were
horrified because each, for many years, had
their eyes on the top job.
This indicates that even though they had gone
through the fire of the
independence struggle, they were not above the
greed of office.
In fact, the partition formula was accepted by
Nehru and Patel, not
Mahatma Gandhi. When Mountbatten was ready
with the partition formula,
he invited Gandhi first. Gandhi did not want
to hear the word
"partition" and walked out of the
room when Mountbatten mentioned it.
But Patel and Nehru accepted it, because they
argued with themselves
that they were not left with many years of
life and if they wanted to
build the country, they should accept what
Mountbatten offered.
The much-demonised Jinnah was not happy with
what he called a
"moth-eaten" Pakistan because the
Pakistan of his dream would at least
stretch from Peshawar to Delhi. But he was
left with no choice. This
was all that the British offered.
He was inevitably so bitter that when
Mountbatten suggested at the
instance of British Prime Minister Clement Attlee,
that he would
accept some linkage between the two newly
independent states, Jinnah
replied, "I do not trust them
(Indians)." Nor did Jinnah accept the
suggestion to have Mountbatten as the common
Governor General.
One-person show
Some people say to this day that Jinnah would
have made a good Prime
Minister and this way, India could have stayed
united. Till then,
nobody knew that he had malignant cancer. It
is suspected that the
British knew and only had to wait a while for
him to quit the scene.
Since Pakistan was a one-person show, probably
the idea of the country
would have died with him. But Jinnah's hidden
illness was not the
reason why Nehru predicted that Pakistan would
not last long. His
calculation, and that of other top Congress
leaders, was that Pakistan
was simply not economically viable.
Never did Nehru and any other Congress leader
know how Winston
Churchill had promised Jinnah that he
personally would see to it that
the latter would succeed and Pakistan would
come into creation.
Churchill had a pathological hatred for Hindus
and he said he could
not understand this polyglot religion.
Compared to that, Islam was
simple and easy to understand.
At the back of his mind were also strategic considerations.
Pakistan
was geographically so placed that it gave an
opening to the oil-rich
Islamic world on one side and the vast Soviet
Union on the other. To
have a grateful client-state like Pakistan was
an irresistible
attraction.
When I met Radcliffe in London many years
later, he was living in a
flat in the highly desirable location of Bond
Street. Therefore, it
was natural for me to expect some retainers
around him. I was
surprised when he opened the door himself and
put the kettle on the
boil to make a cup of tea. He was very
reluctant to talk about
partition and his responsibility. But he had
to reply to questions
when I was face-to-face with him. Regret was
written all over his face
and he seemed like a person who felt that the
killings during
partition were still on his conscience.
(Source: http://www. deccanherald.com/content/
563592/arbitrary-division.html )
==============================
No comments:
Post a Comment