Untold History of India's Partition RANDOR GUY spoke to British historian, ANTONY COPLEY

Untold History of India's Partition

RANDOR GUY spoke to British historian, ANTONY COPLEY

The noted British historian, ANTONY COPLEY, whose areas of specialisation include, Hinduism, Modern Indian History, the life and career of leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru, (Rajaji), and Mohammed Ali Jinnah, has been an active India-watcher for years.

A senior member of the Faculty of History in the University of Kent at Canterbury, England since 1967, he has written many books on various aspects of Indian history and culture. Prof. Copley was recently in India on a study tour and RANDOR GUY spoke to him about some events of recent Indian history.
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=103295562390&topic=19170
Excerpts from the interview.

Many think that the Partition of India in August 1947 could have been averted! Do you think so?

OVER the last 10 years that led to the Partition, there was lot of poor communication, possibly dishonesty and lots of misunderstanding. People were adopting positions, fencing for the future power structure in India and in doing so opportunities were constantly being lost...

When you say, "people", who were they?

The leading representatives of the Congress starting with Pandit Nehru with Gandhi beginning to be marginalised. Sardar Patel was, of course, another key player... On the other side was Jinnah, the outstanding figure of the Muslim League, and the representatives of the British Government, this was the structure. The only last possible moment when the division could have been avoided was in 1946 when the Cabinet Mission came here — Lord Pethick-Lawrence, A. V. Alexander and Sir Stafford Cripps. Those negotiations were the best prospect for any possible all-India settlement. Once the Cabinet Mission proposals had been discarded and the Muslims rejected them, there was no more opportunity.

Why did they reject them?

That was the beginning of a rethinking process by Nehru about the most possible future of independent India. Nehru began to sense that coming to some arrangement with the Muslim League was so off-putting. His experience with the Muslim League representatives in the Interim government cabinet in 1946 made him painfully aware that it was not worth the candle of trying to find some order over the division of power between the two forces. It made much more sense to cut your losses! So he began to move away from such division to reluctant toleration of partition of India. Jinnah too was for a showdown for the partition. The Congress was also scared of the initiative slipping away and getting out of their hands. The radical movements taking over especially the Leftists in Bengal! The biggest factor in the last stage was the readiness in West Bengal for partition. The Bengalis (Hindus) felt marginalised and alienated by the Muslims and were willing to accept a truncated Bengal to restore their prestige.

When you say that Gandhi was marginalised and Pandit Nehru took over, was it deliberately done by him and others or did Gandhi himself contribute to it by his moralistic stance and philosophy?

Nehru was very faithful to Gandhi. It was a painful process of setting aside the peculiar and high values of Gandhi. Once the practicalities of power politics began to be dominant, he realised that an idealist like Gandhi could not be the focus of the power structure. Gandhi said that when India became independent the Congress party should be disbanded and become a social service organisation! Besides he made some extraordinary proposals like Jinnah should become the Prime Minister of India! He even offered it to Jinnah, he never abandoned the idea even in 1947. Meanwhile the Congress moved in another direction.

Was there any lust for power in the Congress leaders at that time?

They were only human...People who had devoted major part of their adult lives in prison felt themselves getting closer to power and the prospects of an independent India seemed much brighter than ever before and they did not want to postpone what they have been seeking for years.

Looking back to 1942, when the Congress rejected the "Cripps Plan", Rajaji came up with his "CR-Plan". He advised the Congress to accept the formation of Pakistan but was violently opposed by the party. Some historians think that if only the Congress had only accepted the CR-Plan, the trauma of Partition in 1947 could well have been avoided. Do you agree?

The CR-Plan anticipated in acute detail what actually happened later in 1947. In a way he paved the way for talks if not a solution. Rajagopalachari largely engineered the Gandhi-Jinnah Talks of 1944. It gave Jinnah much publicity, much propaganda of his cause, much force and increased the chances of formation of Pakistan.
CR was the most brilliant, serious, rational and clever-thinking man India ever produced. Here was a man who could see far ahead but he could not grasp the human frailties in the situation. We now know that Cripps did not have the support of the Home Government in London! Winston Churchill was not for any proposals. And he did not want the Cripps Plan to work. FDR was pressing Churchill that he should do something for India and her demand for freedom. So Churchill knew he had to make some of gesture to the Americans to get them off his back.

So he was trying to please Roosevelt more than anything else?

I think that, as far as Churchill was concerned, it was his perceptual objective that there should be no offer to India for freedom especially in the war situation. Cripps was entirely in a false position. He thought it would work. He did not know that Amery (the Secretary of Sate for India) was hand in glove with Churchill!

There is an interesting incident not known to many. Sir C. P. Ramaswamy Aiyer, then the Dewan of Travancore State, met Sardar Patel in Bombay. Both were on their way to meet Sir Stafford Cripps. Patel told Sir C. P. that nothing would come out of the Cripps Plan. The whole thing was a front engineered by Nehru to become the Prime Minister of India and it would not happen for he (Patel) was putting it down and going to kill it! He had already told Gandhi and he had agreed that it should be done! Sir C. P. was taken aback at this revelation. So he wrote a secret communication to Lord Linlithgow who was equally surprised! He narrated it all in a secret letter to Amery in London, which I read in the " Transfer of Power" Documents.

In 1942 Nehru was genuinely anxious that the Cripps proposals should work, though on Congress terms. He was a genuine democrat — anti-fascist. He was anxious to get the Congress to agree to some arrangement with the Raj, He felt that it would help to avert in the future the partition of India.

Talking of Jinnah, do you think that his role on Indian politics was much bigger than Gandhi's?

In terms of their moral presence Gandhi was by far a greater man. Jinnah had two moments of dominance in the Indian story. One was during the First World War (1914-1918), which the Congress just frittered away. Here was a man who could be a very powerful and useful ally but they alienated him and allowed him to drift into negative relationship with the Congress. And he comes back in 1935 with a new proposition, he has to work extremely hard to build up his position as the all India Muslim leader, and by 1945 he is a key player. But Jinnah was an impossible man to negotiate with.

Was it part of his psyche or a mere put-on?

He was naturally reserved, he had so many human setbacks, his marriage, the importance that Gandhi got from the "Khilafat Movement", he never really recovered from the serious hurt of the series of injuries he had in life. He was a very secretive man, kept his ideas well in control, a loner. I recognise him as master tactician of real politique. You may not like him but you have to recognise his political talents and manoeuvring skills. In the beginning he didn't want Pakistan but some all-India settlement for Muslims. He allowed the Pakistan Movement to become the vehicle to manoeuvre the politics of the Indian sub-continent. It was a case of the means becoming the end. Perhaps the means was Pakistan and the end was the Prime Ministership of India. He very much hoped in 1946 and was shattered when Lord Wavell (then Viceroy of India) didn't allow him and Nehru became the Prime Minister of the Interim Government. Gandhi did invite him to take over but it did not happen. We do not know when the tuberculosis he suffered from became rampant — he kept it a closely guarded secret but he knew he had not long to live. That's why he chose to become the President of Pakistan, and not Prime Minister.