Mountbatten has gone down in history as the man who partitioned India. But the idea was conceived by his predecessor.
Wavell served as the penultimate viceroy under two prime ministers, Churchill and Attlee. He came to India as the successor to Lord Linlithgow.
Neither Linlithgow nor Wavell wanted to divide India. Before Wavell arrived, it was a foregone conclusion that India would be granted self-governing status but as a single dominion.
Wavell was viceroy from October 1943 to March 1947. His diaries provide a unique first-hand account of the difficulties he encountered. They were published in The Viceroy’s Journal in 1973, edited and compiled by Penderel Moon.
Prior to being appointed viceroy, Wavell had served as commander-in-chief, India and been a member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council since July 1941. He had been in Delhi in March 1942 when Sir Stafford Cripps had flown out to offer independence. For very different reasons, both the Congress and the Muslim League had rejected the Cripps Plan.
Wavell says that Prime Minister Churchill had ‘never liked him’ but a ‘curious chain of circumstances’ had forced Churchill to appoint him as the viceroy. He adds that Churchill was horrified to discover that not only did he have ‘liberal views’ about India but that he was prepared to express them.
On becoming viceroy, Wavell engaged extensively with Indian leaders to find a mutually acceptable solution to independence. He quickly realised that Jinnah was determined to carve out Pakistan as a homeland for the Muslims of India and that Gandhi and Nehru were going to do their best to prevent that from happening.
On September 30, 1944, he noted that ‘Gandhi offered Jinnah (a) maimed, mutilated Pakistan… but without real sincerity or conviction. Jinnah rejected the offer and bluntly told Gandhi that the division of India was only on his lips and did not come from his heart.’ Wavell adds that Gandhi only wanted to divide India after the British left. ‘Jinnah believed that once the British had gone, the Hindus would never agree to the division of India.’
On June 24, 1945, as a prelude to the Simla Conference, he interviewed Gandhi and was given ‘a discursive monologue, interspersed with numerous digressions.’ Wavell’s impression was that while Gandhi was friendly for the time being, he would not hesitate ‘to go back on anything he had said.’
Then he met with Jinnah for an hour and a half and found him to be much more direct but also more difficult. Jinnah said that ‘whatever happened the Muslims would be in a minority.’
During the conference, on July 2, he had a long talk with Nehru, who ‘ranged at large over economics and history, and it was not easy to get him down to practical politics.’ On July 14, Wavell noted: ‘So my efforts to bring better understanding between the parties have failed and have shown how wide is the gulf.’
Would Pakistan have fared better had Jinnah got all the six provinces that he wanted? We will never know. What we do know is that even the smaller Pakistan that Jinnah was given broke into two in 1971
He also had a long conversation with Nehru after lunch during which the latter said after the British left, the real conflict would not be between the religious communities ‘but between the classes, between rich and poor, between peasant and landlord, between labourer and employer.’ He found Nehru ‘to be honest and sincere but a theorist and doctrinaire and not a practical politician.’
On December 27, 1945, he sent a memorandum to the Secretary of State for India detailing the only manner in which Pakistan would be created. It would not get Assam (except for Sylhet), or Western Bengal (including Calcutta) or two-fifths of Punjab. Wavell hoped that this ‘husk’ of a state would cause Jinnah to rethink his position.
During the Cabinet Mission conversations, in April 1946, Jinnah ‘reiterated his claim to all six Provinces and complete sovereignty.’ Wavell said Jinnah kept talking about unity. So Wavell put the question to Jinnah: What type of unity would be there within Pakistan itself? He did not get a convincing answer.
On November 20, 1946, he met Khizar, the Punjab Premier, who ‘thought Pakistan was nonsense and any idea about exchange of populations madness.’ Wavell commented that Khizar would have been ‘the best leader of the Muslims in India.’
By December 5, 1946, Wavell had become increasingly frustrated at his inability to reconcile the League with the Congress and began to recall the opening lines of a poem by Browning: “Let them fight it out friends: things have gone too far.”
Deep down, Wavell remained a military man. He was not a politician. That comes through in his diaries. Gandhi was a ‘remarkable old man,’ and ‘one of the most formidable opponents of the British Empire in recent years,’ but ‘a very tough politician and not a saint.’ He was the ‘real wrecker… His one idea for 40 years had been to overthrow British rule… and to establish a Hindu Raj.’ Wavell called him a ‘double-tongued, single-minded politician’ with ‘little saintliness.’
Jinnah was a man whose ‘arrogance and intransigence’ had created great difficulties for him. He ‘over-called his hand in the end… but he is straight compared with Congress, and does not constantly shift his ground, as they do, though he drives a hard bargain.’ On getting the news of his passing in 1948, he noted: ‘I never liked Jinnah, but had a certain reluctant admiration for him and his uncompromising attitude. He certainly had much justification for his mistrust of Congress.’
In his journal, there is a strong critique of the personalities who were in the Cabinet Mission. He noted, ‘The fatal weakness of the mission [was] their abject attitude to Congress, and the duplicity of Cripps.’ He ‘felt sorry for the Muslims, they have more honesty, courage and dignity than the Hindus, but cannot stand up to the power of the rupee and the superior education and chicanery of the Congress. Up to a point, Jinnah played his cards well, but I think he too has been too unyielding.’
He thought His Majesty’s Government was ‘absolutely committed to the League point of view… however, in my view, they were both cowardly and dishonest in this matter… Their attitude is that they dare not do anything which may upset Congress.’ His comments mirrored those of his predecessor, Lord Linlithgow, who had noted that a chief factor in the giving independence to India was ‘the dishonesty of the British.’
In January 1947, Wavell concluded that he had failed and asked Prime Minister Attlee for a one or two month-leave of absence. Attlee obliged by dismissing him, saying he needed a long rest.
So it was left to Lord Mountbatten to divide India. Neither Pakistan nor India was happy with the final result. Both blamed the British.
Postscript. Would Pakistan have fared better had Jinnah got all the six provinces that he wanted? We will never know. What we do know is that even the smaller Pakistan that Jinnah was given broke into two in 1971. Wavell had rightfully questioned how united it would be. Mountbatten had predicted it would collapse within a quarter century. Neither thought religion alone could hold an ethnically diverse nation together.
The writer has authored, Rethinking the National Security of Pakistan. He can be reached at [email protected]
Published in Daily Times, April 16th 2018.