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| Syed Shahabuddin is a well known in the political and academic circles as well as in the mass media and does not need an introduction. In his many incarnations he has been a university teacher, a diplomat, who served as an ambassador and a government official who was at the time of his seeking pre-mature retirement, the Joint Secretary in charge of South East Asia, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific in the Ministry of External Affairs. He was a MP for three terms between 1979 and 1996 and made a mark as a Parliamentarian. He has edited Muslim India, the monthly journal of research, documentation and reference from 1983 to 2002 and again from July 2006. He has been a regular contributor on current affairs in the media and a familiar participant in seminars and TV discussions. He has been a member of many learned bodies and associated with several Muslim institutions and organizations. More... |
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| Was Partition Inevitable? The question whether the Partition of the Subcontinent and the formation of Pakistan was inevitable has been haunting me since I became politically conscious. To find an answer, I have been studying the political developments during the Freedom Movement. I am not a historian but as a student of contemporary affairs I have come to the tentative conclusion that the Partition was not inevitable and no single individual, community or political party can be held responsible for this great tragedy which not only affected the future of the Muslim community but shattered the prospect of the Subcontinent to emerge as a major force in world affairs. My major quest has been to understand why the Muslims in minority provinces (who became Muslim Indians) supported Partition during 1945-47. Today, the Muslim Indians constitute the second biggest Muslim community in the world; it is larger than Pakistan or Bangladesh. That it has a role to play in the building of a democratic India is realized by the intelligentsia but with a grudging acceptance of their religious identity and the recognition that despite their current backwardness, given state support to raise their economic and educational level, they have a great potential to participate in building the great future which India deserves. However, their nationalism and patriotism have not been accepted by the Hindu communal forces nor their equal participation in the democratic process welcomed. And the majoritarian forces have persistently tried to incite Hindus against Muslims, apprehensive of their awakening and claiming a share in power, in what they look upon as a Hindu State. Project Partition was realized not through any sacrifice or even deep involvement by the Muslims of the Muslim majority provinces like Punjab or Bengal, not to speak of Sindh, the Frontier and Baluchistan, who all became Pakistanis overnight. It is the Muslims Indians who prepared the ground for Jinnah emerging as the sole spokesman of the Muslim community in the negotiations leading to Independence and Partition during 1945-47. Muslim Indians appear to have been under a spell during this critical period. They did not ask any questions but simply supported the idea of Pakistan. We may say that the common Muslims at that time did not have the right to vote, which was based on property and education, and their leadership was largely feudal and hereditary. In 1945 when the Muslim League won practically all Muslim seats in the Central Assembly, it was a massive demonstration of support to the Muslim League. Nehru’s counter move of direct mass contact with the Muslim community had failed to take off. Since 1939 after the Congress Govts. resigned, Jinnah held the field, specially after1942 when the entire Congress leadership was under detention. The Left did not much understand the making of religious consciousness but it extended support to Pakistan on ground of territorial right of self-determination and secession. The British, engaged in a life and death struggle in the Second World War, took advantage of the dialogue of the deaf between the Congress and the Muslim League during the 30’s and the growing communal divide between the two communities. At the end of the War they were anxious to cut their losses and withdraw from the subcontinent, which, in any case, was in a rebellious mood. The question is why the Muslim League and its leader Jinnah never clarified the concept of Pakistan or explained the shape of things to come or its implication for the Muslims on the two sides of the dividing line. Muslim Indians did not even ask whether all of them in the Subcontinent shall enjoy unrestricted entry in the ‘promised land’. They did not ask whether there shall be an exchange of population or whether those who choose to remain in India shall be regarded as Pakistani citizens and enjoy its protection. They asked no questions and received no answers. Neither they received any assurances. Like automatons and ‘zombies’ they shouted slogans for Pakistan and those who could vote, voted for it. The result of this historic mistake lies in that whatever the Muslim Indians may say in their defence and howsoever loyal in word and deed, they prove themselves to India and its Constitution, a vast majority of Hindu Indians still look upon them with suspicion and distrust. They have become the unwanted, the ‘other’, an ancient adversary who must now account for not only Pakistan but also for Muslim rule and supposed and real misdeeds of his ancestors, which are exaggerated and transmitted to the younger generations. I maintain that the creation of Pakistan was not inevitable. To begin with, it was a hazy idea which crystallized very slowly into a political goal. To achieve its realization, it took only 7 years. Unprecedented in history, the historic event cannot be attributed to the endeavour of any individual or to struggle of any party or the result of any mass movement. Pakistan was nothing but the outcome of the tragic failure of the Indian Freedom Movement to evolve a power sharing arrangement acceptable to the two major communities of the country. Such a formula should have removed the genuine apprehension of the minority of being swamped and marginalized in a democratic setup by the Hindu majority and its legitimate rights and interests being ignored. These apprehensions were not new. They were voiced at the dawn of the Freedom Movement when the Congress was formed in 1885 and the first local bodies election were held in 1892. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan had then noted that even in high Muslim concentration districts hardly any Muslim was elected to the district boards and municipalities. This is why the idea of reservation was born. Sir Syed had also noted the organized movement to replace Urdu by Hindi in courts and offices. Though backward and deprived the Muslims became conscious of their identity but there was no hint of separatism in their thinking. The Partition of Bengal was welcomed by the Muslims and its annulment under Congress pressure distanced them from the Freedom Movement. They realized that the Freedom Movement was slowly but steadily being Hinduised. The Muslim traditional elite, nobility and religious establishment made statements and declarations which made the Hindu leadership suspect that the ambition of the Muslims was to seek parity with them on historic grounds with the real objective of restoring dominance. Arguments were not made to stress the commonality of the Hindu and the Muslim masses and their common aspiration for self-rule but to point out how different they were from each other despite centuries of cultural interaction. Such statements indicated an inherent superiority complex (‘we ruled India for a thousand years’) tinged with notions of pan-Islamic solidarity and memories of past glory, frightened the Hindu leadership and reinforced their drive for a majoritarian polity and for giving a Hindu complexion to the country. At this point the Muslim leadership including even the intelligentsia began to argue for weightage in the electoral bodies at the centre and in the provinces where they formed a majority without conceding equivalent weightage to the Hindu minorities in the provinces where they formed a majority. Thus mutual misunderstandings piled on top of each other. At times the various trends in the nationalist movement would come close but the gulf kept on widening. One feels that the course of this great tragedy could have been changed at several points, with vision and foresight, goodwill and statesmanship, before it resulted in an inexorable tragedy. The first opportunity came in 1916 when the Congress and the Muslim League signed a Pact at Lucknow, by all means a great achievement in which Jinnah who had joined the Muslim League only a few years earlier played a positive role. This point of convergence if followed up could have given birth to a federal, democratic polity with adequate safeguards for the religious and other minorities in every province. But the Lucknow Pact was not whole-heartedly accepted by the Congress leadership because it conceded the idea of reservation with separate electorate. Then came the Khilafat Movement, which in a historic perspective appears to have been a false move. The pan-Islamic sentiments of the Muslim masses were played upon with hazy memories they had of the defunct Ottoman Empire, in decay and in doldrums for years. Gandhiji supported it with the idea of drawing the Muslim masses into the mainstream of freedom struggle. Gandhiji rolled on the crest of the Khilafat Movement to become the supreme national leader and the Ali Brothers became household homes. But the Khilafat Movement was an Indian affair; it had no counterpart anywhere in the Muslim world even in the territories which had come under the Caliphate. From our point of view, it put the Muslim community on a wrong track, just as Tilak’s emphasis on Ganesh Puja and the Bengali nationalists‘ commitment to Vande Mataram and Gandhiji’s slogan of Ram Rajya served only to widen the inter-religious gulf. The great loss for the Muslim community was that its leadership changed hands from the emergent moderate, liberal intelligentsia to the orthodox. With the abolition of the Caliphate by Turkey in 1924, the Khilafat Movement died a natural death. Gandhiji had already withdrawn the Non-Cooperation Movement unilaterally after the Chauri Chaura incident. The political vacuum was filled by Shudhhi and Tanzim and the national environment became suffused with religious sentiments and inevitably with communal violence. During this period Lala Lajpat Rai came out with his famous articles arguing for a division of Punjab on the basis of religion and hinted at a future division of India and Savarkar defined Hindu nationalism in terms of deification of the mother-land. Both these ideas occupied the field and eroded national solidarity while constitutional negotiations were conducted by the English speaking elite with the British government. In December 1923 C.R.Das tried to resuscitate the Lucknow Pact with the formation of a National Pact based on reservation with joint electorate and a statutory majority for Muslims in Bengal and Punjab. But he died in 1925 and the Congress leadership buried the Pact. Thus the second opportunity was lost. In the next phase the Nehru Report which provided a constitution for free India was published and widely debated. Perhaps the Report could have been more generous and accommodative towards the Muslim community, which formed ¼ of the population. But it was not under pressure from Hindu leaders. It rejected both reservation and weightage and thus widened the gulf. At that point All Parties Convention tried to salvage the situation and offered a glimmer of hope for a settlement. But the Convention summarily rejected Jinnah’s 14 Points. In frustration, he made a escape from Indian politics to practise law in London. In retrospect, Jinnah’s 14 Points appear to provide a reasonable compromise for power-sharing, except for the point which demanded undue weightage for the Muslims in terms of 1/3 representation in Central Assembly, and a higher representation for Muslims in Muslim minority provinces. The Muslim majority enjoyed by the Muslim community in the two key provinces of Punjab and Bengal was so marginal that they deserved statutory guarantee. This was another major failure of the Freedom Movement and the third point of convergence missed. Nehru Report was finally drowned in the Ravi. Then came the Round Table Conference in London where the liberals including the Agha Khan, Tej Bahadur Sapru and Dr. Ambedkar made a brave effort to evolve a compromise but this was rejected by the extremist Hindu leaders while, Gandhiji, the sole representative of the Congress, remained silent. At that point the Muslim leadership was agreeable to joint electorate with proportional representation in all legislatures which would have been fully democratic. On the failure of the Round Table Conference the British government came out with the Communal Award on the basis of which the Government of India Act, 1935, was promulgated and provincial elections were held in 1937, on the basis of reservation and separate electorate, to give British India the first taste of self-government. The Congress contested the election, won a majority and formed provincial governments in UP, Bihar, Bombay, Central Provinces and Madras. In Bengal it joined a coalition. In UP and Bombay the Muslim League and the Congress had fought the elections without opposing each other. They were virtual allies without formal agreement. But on achieving a majority of its own, the Congress refused to share power with the Muslim League though it invited the Muslim League leaders to join the government as Congressmen. Also Congress preferred S.K.Sinha as Prime Minister over Syed Mahmood in Bihar and B.G.Kher, over Horniman in Bombay and thus showed its Hindu teeth. This was the 4th point of convergence missed by the Freedom Movement. In 1939 the Congress governments resigned. Jinnah asked Muslims to observe a Day of Deliverance. The Muslim League published compilations of Muslim grievances under Congress rule, which, exaggerated as they were, served to ignite separatism. This resulted in the formal adoption of the Pakistan Resolution by the Muslim League in Lahore in March 1940, though it was deliberately phrased in a manner to keep the idea of United India alive. The Congress launched the Quit India Movement in 1942. Soon, all its leaders were put behind bar. Jinnah and the Muslim League had the freedom of the arena. Between 1942-45 Congress rejected the Cripps Proposal as well as the Rajaji Formula. The Rajaji Formula was yet another point of convergence. Indeed, it is sad to realize that the national leadership accepted in August 1947 what they rejected in 1942 and with Partition thrown in! In 1945 election Muslim League emerged on the crest of Pakistan movement as the sole representative of Muslim community. The Congress as always wanted exclusive negotiations with the British but now Jinnah firmly staked his claim. He could not be ignored. The 3 June, 1946 Plan would have kept India united with Jinnah accepting the grouping but then the fateful observation of Nehru on the sovereign status of the Constituent Assembly gave Jinnah an opportunities to resile. This was the last stroke to kill the idea of united India. In the last phase, Jinnah for the first time adopted the politics of mass agitation and called for Direct Action which left a streak of blood not only in the streets of Kolkata but in Noakhali, Bihar and Panjab. Maulana Azad made the last ditch effort to keep India united but he obeyed Gandhiji and remained silent. Mountbatten who had replaced Wavel acted in unholy haste to divide the country. He first convinced Patel, then Nehru and finally Gandhiji that Partition had become inevitable. The Congress facilitated the Partition of the country by adopting a resolution calling for the partition of Panjab on religious lines, which demolished the moral plateau on which the Freedom Movement and the concept of united India stood. In the AICC, Azad and Abdul Ghaffar Khan remained silent, Nehru and Patel argued in favour of the acceptance of the Partition Plan. Gandhij failed to undertake fast-unto-death he had threatened to stop the division. Over the last 60 years several historians have come to the conclusion that Jinnah did not really want Partition and was using the threat in order to achieve the best settlement for the Muslims. One continues to wonder what the Muslim community in the minority provinces on the eve of independence saw in Pakistan an open door to the cherished land, or a confederation of India and Pakistan or a bilateral arrangement between two sovereign states for protecting the minorities on both sides of the border. To sum up, Partition was not inevitable but it could not be avoided in 1947 because of the follies, pettiness, idiosyncrasies and shortsightedness of our leaders who were committed more to the interest of the groups, which they led, rather than to that of the Subcontinent’s people as a whole. History will record that in the course of the Freedom Movement between 1885-1947, particularly after Muslim leadership entered the field in 1909, there were many points of convergence between the Congress and the Muslim League which could have brought them together on the basis of acceptable power-sharing, formulated in the best tradition of parliamentary democracy. All said and done, both sides recognized social plurality of the Subcontinent the identities of the communities living therein. They differed only on the quantum of representation in the power structure, the legislature, the government and the civil services, and the mode of election which would give every community the satisfaction of being represented by persons of their choice. What is important is to realize that the Congress which led the Freedom Movement, instead of acting as the leader, it often took upon itself the role of an umpire between the Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha and thus permitted the extremists Hindu elements to block any progress towards a constitutional settlement, even when the Muslim leadership was inclined to make a compromise. In 1916 it negotiated directly with the Muslim League. Why was this practices abandoned? Why was it not resumed when the Muslim League had proved its standing in 1945 as a national force? The issues of quantum of reservation or joint or separate electorate, or safeguard for minorities are not unique to the Subcontinent. They are common to all multi- ethnic states, in the age of democracy. A little generosity, a little give-and-take in the larger interest of the nation, a little foresight, a little appreciation of inevitable emergence of South Asia as a major pole of international affairs, a little pride in the fact of Indianness, a little less personal ego could have kept the ship of the Freedom Movement on an even keel to sail to the port during the last stormy decade of 1937-1947. The freedom of the Subcontinent was its destiny. Perhaps, it could have come earlier and at less human cost, if our leaders had agreed to a federal state, with specified power for the centre and autonomous provinces with residual powers and a Charter of Fundamental Rights and Minority Rights in keeping with the cultural plurality and religious diversity of our people. No one can deny the greatness and integrity of our leaders like Gandhi, Jinnah, Nehru, and Azad. But they had all their shares of human frailties. In the final analysis, our national leaders proved themselves to be great masters of political tactics, but collectively they failed the test of statesmanship. New Delhi 1 Augustm 2008 |
