Dr Sudhir Kumar Das
(The writer can be reached at dasudhirk@gmail.com)
Part-II
The divide-and-rule policy of the British was a well-known fact. The seeds of division between Hindus and Muslims, the two dominant religions of the masses of India, were sowed in 1909 itself when the British introduced the separate electorate system that envisaged that Hindus can vote for Hindu candidates only and Muslims for Muslims in elections. This resulted in a polarized election campaign and the candidates were more concerned about getting the support of their co-religionists rather than campaigning on issues concerning the masses. When Gandhi declared the Quit India Movement in 1942 to completely oust the British from India, the British were highly infuriated with him. Most of the Congress leaders were immediately arrested and put in prison. Jinnah, on the contrary, supported the British war efforts in return for the British support for his Pakistan demand. Secondly, the British promoted Jinnah as a counterweight to the Congress, the Party British were abhorrent of. This tilt of the British towards Jinnah can be noted in the fact that during his entire political career Jinnah was never arrested even once. When all the front-ranking Congress leaders were arrested in 1942, an open field was left for Jinnah to propagate his communal idea of a separate pure land for the Muslims of India. That bore fruit in the 1946 provincial elections where AIML (All India Muslim League) fared much better than its earlier performance in 1937 because by now Indian society has been divided into communal lines.
A comparative study of the AIML's electoral performance in 1937 and 1946 provincial elections throws light on the extent of communal division India had suffered by that time, thanks to Jinnah's toxic communal campaign. In Assam in 1937 out of 34 Muslim seats, AIML had won only 10, but it increased its tally exponentially to 31 in 1946; in Bengal in 1937 AIML had won only 43 seats out of 119. But in 1946 it won 113 out of 119, from a mere 36% to almost 95% rise in votes. In United Province, it had won 29 seats in 1937 and in 1946 its share increased to 54 seats out of 64. In Bihar where it had drawn blank in the 1937 elections, it won 34 seats out of 40. In the Bombay Presidency where it had won a mere 18 seats out of a total of 30 in 1937, in 1946 it swept the elections by winning all the 30 Muslim seats. The biggest shock was that in Muslim majority NWFP (North West Frontier Province) it had drawn a blank in all the 36 reserved Muslim seats in 1937. But in 1946 it managed to win 17 seats out of 36. Similarly, in another Muslim-dominated Sindh province AIML had drawn a blank by losing all the 34 seats; but in 1946 AIML won an overwhelming 28 seats. In Punjab, which is now the heart of Pakistan, in 1937 AIML had secured a mere 2 seats out of 86; Punjab Unionist Party (PUP) supported by the Congress had swept the provincial elections in 1937. However, in the 1946 elections, the AIML swept the elections in a communally surcharged atmosphere by winning 74 seats out of 86. An analytical look at the results of these two provincial elections of 1937 and 1946 throws the following facts: Muslims living in the heartland of undivided India had more or less rejected the idea of Pakistan in places like Assam, Bengal, Bihar, and Bombay Presidency; second, even in Muslim dominated regions like Sindh, Punjab, and NWFP the idea of Pakistan was rejected by the Muslims in 1937 elections. But in the 1946 provincial elections, the political scene had changed in favour of Jinnah and his demand for a separate state for the Muslims. He emerged as an unchallenged leader of the Muslims who the British could no longer ignore. There is another aspect that the results of the 1946 elections had thrown that is, the Muslims living in parts like Bombay Presidency, United Province, Central Province and Bihar too voted overwhelmingly for the idea of Pakistan but when the real Pakistan came to be a majority of them preferred to live in India rather than migrating to Pakistan. The 1946 provincial elections results made Jinnah harden his stand on Partition of India on religious lines no amount of political offer made him budge from his demand. By 1946, the British were aware that to stop the Communism juggernaut from sweeping south-east Asia a reliable ally is required and Pakistan suited the purpose as they did not believe in a left-leaning Nehru.
When Gandhi was putting all his efforts to keep every section of India united to fight against the British; Jinnah first fragmented that unity by declaring the Muslims as a separate nation and hence cannot coexist under the majority Hindu rule. The other section that created a further rift in the effort of unity in India was the forces led by Bhimrao Ambedkar, the leader of the Depressed Castes, as they were called at that time, and E. V. Naicker (popularly known as Periyar), the leader of the non-Brahmin castes in South India. These two leaders of the Depressed Classes met with Jinnah in early 1940 in Bombay to discuss the formation of a united front against the Congress comprising of the scheduled castes, tribes, and Muslims. Gandhi was aware of this meeting and surprisingly instead of taking offence to such an act by his political adversaries, he was supportive of that political proposition. He wrote a letter to Jinnah on 16th January 1940 in which he urged Jinnah to form a broad anti-Congress front so that the party will have a national character by playing the role of an alternative to the Congress within the unity of India.
This shows the commitment of Gandhi to the unity of India. Unfortunately, Jinnah dismissed this conciliatory letter from Gandhi outright by not responding to it. Ambedkar and Periyar both all along took a pro-Muslim and anti-Hindu stance and supported the demand for Pakistan. It was only in the later part of 1941 when Ambedkar's book Thoughts on Pakistan was published, that he made clear his thoughts mentioning that Islam talks of brotherhood but that brotherhood is confined to their fellow co-religionists only not for the others. But Periyar continued with his pro-Pakistan stance. People blame Gandhi for taking an ambiguous role during this critical juncture of Indian history. But in reality, he was opposed to Partition as any nationalist Indian was at that time. The second occasion when Gandhi very clearly took a position against partition was when he offered the post of Prime Minister to Mr Jinnah of an undivided India. An arrogant Jinnah refused to accept the offer and remained adamant in his demand for the Partition.
The Partition of India is too complex a historical event to be put in a straight jacket of perspectives. There are so many dramatis personae involved in giving shape to this human tragedy and it is now difficult to accurately hold any one of them accountable for this humongous human tragedy. However, after 75 years of independence both the countries have moved on their separate paths fully reconciled with the tragedy of Partition. Jinnah's two-nation theory that caused the death of over a million people and made about 2 million people homeless fell through in 1971 when Muslim East Pakistan refused to be a part of the Muslim West Pakistan and seceded to be called Bangladesh. People on both sides of the border may differ on their accounts of this man-made human tragedy but one thing stands out clearly that the Partition of India is a victory for religious nationalism over territorial nationalism. (Concluded)