Hasty transfer of power
The lack of confidence in the Muslim League among the Muslim population was to be dramatically reversed in the 1946 elections.
The intervening years saw the rise of Jinnah and the League to political prominence through the successful exploitation of the wartime insecurities of the British, and the political vacuum created when the Congress ministries (which had unanimously come to power in 1937) resigned en masse to protest at the government's unilateral decision to enter India into the war without consultation.
'The creation of Pakistan as a land for Muslims nevertheless left a sizeable number of Muslims in an independent India.'
The rejuvenated League skilfully exploited the communal card. At its Lahore session in 1940, Jinnah made the demand for Pakistan into its rallying cry. The ensuing communal violence, especially after Jinnah declared 'Direct Action Day' in August 1946, put pressure on the British government and Congress to accede to his demands for a separate homeland for Muslims.
The arrival of Lord Louis Mountbatten as India's last viceroy in March 1947, brought with it an agenda to transfer power as quickly and efficiently as possible. The resulting negotiations saw the deadline for British withdrawal brought forward from June 1948 to August 1947.
Contemporaries and subsequent historians have criticised this haste as a major contributory factor in the chaos that accompanied partition. Mass migration occurred across the new boundaries as well as an estimated loss of a million lives in the communal bloodbaths involving Hindus, Muslims and also Sikhs in the Punjab.
The final irony must remain that the creation of Pakistan as a land for Muslims nevertheless left a sizeable number of Muslims in an independent India making it the largest minority in a non-Muslim state.
Published: 2007-07-09
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