Expert Weighs In: ‘Blaming Nehru or Gandhi for Partition is an inversion of history’

Aditya Mukherjee, who taught Contemporary History at JNU for more than four decades, speaks about how the British and the “communal parties” within India pushed the country to Partition.

What would you say were the biggest factors that led to the Partition of India?

The most important was the role of the British, which is surprisingly something nobody is mentioning these days — we are talking about the responsibility of Congress, [Mahatma] Gandhi, Nehru, etc. It was the British who introduced this whole idea of Indian people being divided on the basis of religion historically, which was not true. They first introduced the idea of Hindu and Muslim periods in Indian history for the Ancient and Medieval period.

Number two were the religion based communal instruments created by the British to weaken the Indian national movement. The first such instrument was the Muslim League. And then came the other communal parties which also the British promoted, such as the Hindu Mahasabha, the RSS. They played a part in the Partition, because they divided people on the basis of religion. These parties stood apart from the Indian national movement, and opposed the Congress, which was leading the movement.

Could you elaborate on the role of the British in the Partition?

This started in the 19th century itself, when modern Indian nationalism started. The nationalist movement demanded that India should be run on a democratic basis. But the British said that it is not possible in India, because if you introduce the democratic principle, then the Hindu majority will rule over the Muslim minority. So, they created this notion of majority-minority on the basis of religion. And it is on that basis that the Muslim League was promoted, who opposed the Congress demand for democratic rights and supported the British, except for brief periods. In fact, when the Muslim League was formed, one of the British ideologues said that so many million people have now been taken away from the hands of the Congress.

The communal parties were seen as a bulwark against the growth of the Indian National Movement. The same role was played later by the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha. As you know, the RSS opposed the Quit India movement, the Hindu Mahasabha actually formed governments with the Muslim League, as opposed to the Congress, which had resigned from all governments during the Second World War.

Thus, blaming Congress for the Partition is a total inversion of history. This was the party that tried the hardest to keep people together.

To what extent would you say the personal dislike between Jinnah and Nehru led to talks between the Congress and the Muslim League breaking down?

Personal rivalries or dislikes were not at all the issue here, the issue was political. At a personal level, Jinnah was no fanatic Muslim. He married a Parsi, he ate all kinds of meat. In his early years, he was liberal and a nationalist. But when his politics changed after 1937 [became extremely communal], naturally you could not play ball with him. In fact, Gandhiji as a desperate measure had offered Jinnah the PM post, but it was Jinnah who refused. He knew it was something that was not possible.

As for Nehru, what needs to be kept in mind is that he was a quintessential democrat. He did not hold personal animosities against people who critiqued him or he wrote against and argued with.

Nehru and Jinnah in Shimla, in 1946. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

He would praise Atal Bihari Vajpayee for his performance in Parliament, when he was actually critiquing him very sharply. Nehru’s autobiography was a critique of Gandhiji, yet Nehru remained his staunch follower.

At what point can we say that Partition had become inevitable?

It became inevitable in the period post 1945, especially after the Great Calcutta Killings of 1946. Once the people had been communalised on a large scale, there was no coming back. There was no other way. This is why Gandhiji had to give way at the end. He realised that once people had been communalised, trying to prevent the Partition would have led to more bloodbath.

That is why everybody, people who their entire life had fought against the notion of Partition, had to agree to it. In fact, the Indian national movement had been founded on the idea that the Indian nation is imagined not on the basis of one religion, one language, like it was in Europe. The Indian nation is imagined in a way that it celebrates diversity, all languages, all religions.

Overcrowded train transferring refugees during the partition of India, 1947. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

And this was proven by the fact that even after Pakistan was formed on the basis of religion, India did not become the counterpart or the mirror image of Pakistan, it became a secular country. In the first election after Independence, 94% of the people voted against the idea of India being a Hindu Rashtra. The communal parties got only 6% of the votes. Jawaharlal Nehru played a critical role in saving the secular idea of India at a time when the communal frenzy had reached a peak, leading to the murder of Mahatma Gandhi by a Hindu communalist.

In the run-up to Independence, what attempts were made to prevent Partition?

It can be put the other way. The British put hurdles at every stage of a natural handover of power to the Indian people as a republic.

The old plan of the national movement was based on universal adult franchise, with each citizen having equal rights. It was this which was being continuously challenged by the British and by the communal parties. They recognised groups as nations — the British recognised Muslim League as a party which represents all Muslims, even when they represented a microscopic minority of Muslims.

Similarly, Congress never represented only the Hindus, as the British argued, it represented the entire Indian people. Thus, instead of preventing Partition, the British put hurdles, empowering the religion-based parties in order to stymie the transition from Empire into a democratic republic.

The withdrawal of the British from India was hasty. Why was that?

It is well-known that it was a very cynical departure, that the British did not take responsibility. There is evidence to show that when violence broke out, British officials and policemen were saying, “You asked for it, now you got it. We told you that you cannot live together.”

So while the massacres happened, there were not enough efforts to contain them.

The most effective agent against the Partition violence was again Gandhiji, who managed to contain the bloodshed in Bengal thanks to his presence. Even Mountbatten [Lord Louis Mountbatten, last Viceroy and first Governor-General of independent India] had to accept this. He wrote to Gandhi that you are a one-man boundary force, you have done what we were unable to with thousands of soldiers in Punjab.

So, while Gandhiji is often blamed for the Partition, not only did he always advocate against it, he did not even celebrate the freedom of India because he was busy quelling communal violence.

About why the British withdrew in such a hurry, there are a lot of reasons. The situation was becoming very grave and they didn’t want to take responsibility for what they had started — the Frankenstein that they created over a long period of time, by dividing people on the basis of religion.