Ravinder Jalali    

On a contentious debate over the Partition of India, former J&K chief minister Farouq Abdullah claimed that it was Pt. Nehru, Sardar Patel and Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad who were responsible for the partition of India and not Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. Dr. Abdullah said that it was the refusal of the three Congress leaders to accept minority status for the Muslims which led to the partition of India, which is not the whole truth. He further said that there would have been no separation. There would have been one India. The debate over who were responsible for the partition, which led to the creation of the dominions of India and Pakistan, has been raging on for many years now.

If we go into deeper dimension of the partition, which includes the role of the Muslim League as well as Congress, it will not be fair to blame squarely Congress for partition but for obvious reasons Muslim League as well as the British were responsible for it. Although Britain has no stake in the partition because of being outsiders and knowing that it hardly matters for them because they are the outsiders and are not going to settle in India but for the Muslim League and Jinnah it was a bounty with power and money.

“It was also observed that Pt. Nehru and Patel decided to get on with it quickly. Some of the writers are of the opinion that Nehru, with Mahatma Gandhi’s support, even tried in May, 1947, to get the British to hand over India in June, 1947. In Jaswant’s book “Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence  he mentioned that that it was Nehru’s centralized policy which forced Jinnah to seek a separate homeland for Indian Muslims. But there seems to be sense to have centralized policy for the whole of India. Otherwise it can be knitted loosely to avoid its further erosion in its consolidation.

Does it mean that Jinnah cannot be held responsible for partition? Absolutely, No. It was he (Jinnah) who sowed the seed of partition on the basis of religion and he is the main culprit. The letter of Jinnah to Gandhi dated September 17,1944, is a testimony to it which reads as:

“Muslims and Hindus are two major nations by any definition or test of a nation. We are a nation of a hundred million, we are a nation with our own distinctive culture and civilization, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, legal laws and moral codes, customs and calendar, history and traditions, aptitudes and ambitions — in short we have our own distinctive outlook on life and of life. By all cannons of international law we are a nation.”

The demand for Pakistan was based on the homeland concept. It was meant to be a separate homeland for protecting the Muslims. It is here pertinent to mention that neither Jinnah nor any resolution of the Muslim League ever suggested that a separate state was needed because Islam was in danger. However, some Muslim League leaders made religion-oriented speeches in the per- independence period and Islamic slogans were raised by the Muslim League in order to build support for itself in the 1946 provincial elections.

The role and responsibility of Congress in the creation of Pakistan, a country founded on the idea of religious identity of Muslims, is, also, of great significance and cannot be ignored. It seems quite logical to infer that it is the Congress which can also be held responsible for the creation of Pakistan on the basis of the fact that when the Congress claims itself as a champion of the freedom struggle and the main architect of the Indian independence, it should claim itself as the cause of creating Pakistan. Pakistan is a bye-product of gaining India’s Independence.

If we go through one of the videos of former Justice of Pakistan Supreme Court and son of poet Iqbal, Dr. Javed Iqbal who clearly states that that Muslims are not capable of creating a nation. If we go by the Cabinet Mission Plan there was a concept of Autonomy within the Indian union which Jinnah also accepted.

If today somebody is raising a demand for freedom or autonomy or something, it does not mean that he will get it unless it is given to them and it is the giver who is responsible for it. If in today’s scenario, e.g. some separatists are demanding freedom, does it mean that we should give it? When slogans in JNU are raised which are anti-Indian or the demands are anti-national, but we do not accede to their demands. Similarly, some separatists in Kashmir, backed by Pakistan, are demanding cessation or freedom from India, does it mean that we should grant them what they want. No. Then how demand of Muslim League for the creation of Pakistan for Muslims could be granted? Who acceded to their request? Now it will be argued that the British are responsible for dividing India, but why Congress accepted the two-nation theory on the basis of religion. It simply means that they negotiated and compromised the freedom of India by giving a portion of India to Pakistan.

If Muslims succeeded in getting their Pakistan where they feel free to practice Islam and will be a Islamic country governed by Islamic rules, what about the other faiths? Then obviously the areas other than Pakistan should have been for the rest of the faiths only, which is not. It was the Hindu Mahasabha, an organization of Hindus, which vehemently opposed the creation Of Pakistan on the basis of religion.

The Congress cannot absolve itself by saying that it was the British who divided India but then why they accepted the freedom? We cannot say that the Congress has achieved or fought for freedom, but was offered by British on the condition that the country will be divided between Muslims and Hindus. We could have continued with our fight for freedom for the whole of India, for more time. The Congress cannot take a plea that it would have taken longer period or the country could not have got freedom so early. It seems that the Congress was eager to get power rather than the freedom of the country. Had they been fighting sincerely for freedom of their mother land, they would not have accepted the partition, no matter what Jinnah or Muslim league would have demanded, if we go through the events of history and the freedom struggle

Those who say that the Muslim League fought for the independence of India are not correct. They never fought for independence but for Islam and the caliphate. It was during the popular Khilafet movement in Turkey for retaining the caliphate, protests emerged across the Muslim world. The most prominent activities took place in India and Muslims supported for the caliphate. To its founders and followers, the Khilafat was not a religious movement but rather a show of solidarity with their fellow Muslims in Turkey. They aimed at building political unity among Muslims and use their influence to protect the caliphate. In 1920, they called upon the British to protect the caliphate and for Indian Muslims to unite and hold the British accountable for this purpose.

After the victory of Mustafa Kemal’s forces, which overthrew the Ottoman rule to establish a secular republic in independent Turkey and abolished the role of Caliph and sought no help from Indians, the Khilafat leadership fragmented on different political lines. They played a major role in the growth of the Muslim League’s popular appeal and the subsequent Pakistan movement.  

(The writer is a social activist, political analyst)

DISCLAIMER:

The views expressed in the Article above are Author’s personal views and kashmiribhatta.in is not responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article.

Courtesy: Koshur Samachar April, 2018 and Ravinder Jalali  a social activist, political analyst