Today’s generation curses every politician around saying that they are corrupt and only think of power and their happiness. They need not be entirely blamed for this. They are the result of the early politicians of India, Nehru and Jinnah. Both are so power hungry that they split the country into two. But where did this thought of a separate Muslim State come from?
Many people blame Jinnah. But No…In 1927 around 20 years before the actual partition, a person drafted a manuscript in London formulating the idea of a separate Muslim state being born out of India. The name Pakistan was given then and there. We need to understand the roles of some people during Partition….
Lord Mountbatten: Many people are in the misconception that Mountbatten is the person who split India and was responsible for the terrible bloodshed. The decision to grant Independence to India was taken way back in 1945 after the Word War and Mount Batten was sent to India just to monitor the process of dividing the country in a peaceful way (Here peace was intended for the British in India).
Mountbatten arrived in India in May 1946 and he did not have any day in his mind then. During a press conference, when he was asked the question that if Britain had thought of giving independence to India, they also must have thought of a day. He never thought of the exact day till then. He just mentioned August 15th as it was a very important day of his career where 6 years ago, he suppressed a revolution in South East Asia and emerged victorious.
Mountbatten never wanted to split India into two. Due to the Jinnah who ravaged Calcutta on the Direct Action Day (August 8th 1946), he had to concede to it. 25,000 innocent citizens were killed on a single day when the Muslim League called for the Direct Action (either you give it, or we will take it). It was a little known fact that Jinnah was dying of tuberculosis and he had not more than 3 years during 1947. Mountbatten till his death, repented on not knowing this fact and mentioned that if he had known this would have delayed the partition.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi: Gandhi had no role during partition and he was just a dummy. He had no say among the Congress in the late years. Nobody used to care about him and were making him the scapegoat whenever there was some issue. He was once requested to go to Noakali in Bengal when Hindus retaliated after the Direct Action Day. Only when Gandhi went over to Noakali and stood before the rioters, it stopped. Nehru used to instigate Gandhi into emotionally going into fasts.
Mohammed Ali Jinnah: Jinnah is the person who called for splitting India. With Nehru as the contender for the first Prime Minister, he had no chance in an independent India. And he knew pretty well that he was dying soon and he wanted to fulfil his dream of leading a country. He was the person who roused people’s religious sentiments and that led to the “Great Divide”.
Jawaharlal Nehru: A power hungry politician himself, he had the support of Mountbatten from day one. As a person who was educated in London, he had many friends and well wishers in the British Empire. It was eventual that he became the first Prime Minister of Independent India. As an administrator he was useless and completely dependent on Mountbatten.
After the partition in December 1947, Pakistan occupied Kashmir for the first time. Nehru could not decide where he could concentrate the Indian Army on. People were being butchered in Punjab as the migration was still going on and in Kashmir, he had to protect his land. He had to beg Mountbatten to take over the Indian Army again and solve the crisis (This is no where recorded, but it is a fact).
Partition was not a decision taken in a second. It was due to many things. There was nothing left in India for the British to loot. They left a country rotten and bleeding. The hunger for power and the religious sentiments of India was aptly used by them to split the country without much damage.
