Source B, from the autobiography of Jawaharlal Nehru. He probably wrote it in 1939, the year WW2 started because he is referring to how Indians are sent to war without the slightest reference to them. He is saying that how could a foreigner put the lives of four hundred million Indians in danger as fast as blinking an eye. ‘ The idea of a great country like India being treated as a mere possession’. In conclusion the evidence of all the sources come down to one point, which is British rule and what could be gained from freedom.
- How useful are sources D and E in Helping you to understand why the policy of the British Government towards independence for India changed after the Second World War?
Source D is very useful as it is a statement from a member of the Labour government sent to India on a mission to make India independent. Source D shows us that after WW2 Britain could no longer keep control of a large country like India as it was fought to a standstill during the war and needed to think more about Britain’s recovery than any other country. It shows that Britain wanted to get out of India as soon as possible ‘quite obviously impossible was to decide to continue our responsibility indefinitely’, stated Cripps. He says he has two alternatives; the first one, ‘strengthen British control in India’ could not possibly happen because at the same time he says ‘ we were demobilising the British armed forces’ from India and the East.
Source E is also very useful as it is an eyewitness account of Direct Action Day by a Briton who presumably is not biased. It tells us that the situation in India was well out of the control of the British and the situation was deteriorating by the minute. If from one protest and one place people from one religion can kill people from another, you could imagine what would happen all over India if Britain did not do anything. Source E shows communal violence was escalating. ‘You could see a crop of one religion or another’ ‘being laid on their faces’ ‘ and being beheaded into the river’ ‘ the river was literally choked with dead bodies’. The British knew they had to give India independence but the question that was delaying this was how to give independence.
- Use sources F and G, and your own knowledge, to help you explain why India was partitioned in 1947.
India was partitioned in 1947 as a last alternative. After years of talks and the failure of the Cripps mission it was quite obvious that there was no way you could get the Muslims and Hindus to live to together peacefully. The two people had nothing in common but their nationality. Their religion, language, writing and their way of life were different. For example, the slaughtering of cows by Muslims was offensive to Hindus who consider the cow a sacred animal. The situation in India in the 1940s was just chaos, it had turned into a civil war which the Viceroy’s government was powerless to stop. When it appeared the Congress had no desire to share power with the Muslim League at the central government, Jinnah declared August 16 1946, Direct Action Day, which was meant to be a peaceful demonstration but it bought about communal violence, rioting and massacres in many paces in the north. Source F, a photograph taken in Calcutta on Direct Action Day shows, a Hindu temple set on fire presumably by Muslims and in response you can see the police using tear gas to drive the protesters back. This Direct Action Day made people aware of the vast differences between Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi was horrified by Direct Action Day because that was completely against his aim, he had wanted to achieve a united India but without any violence. Earlier in 1920 he said that by self-rule he meant two things, self-government for India and self-control. He believed the second was the way to achieve the first. So he accepted Jinnah’s idea of Pakistan reluctantly.
Source G is a report written by the commander-in-chief of the Indian Army, on the independence day of Pakistan. He says the army and police are powerless to stop the violence as the police were defecting and joining in the violence thus making it impossible to get it under control. ‘The most disturbing feature here is the defection of the police who are mostly Muslim’. Communal violence in Calcutta and other cities still remained because people were furious that they had to leave their life’s work behind, so they took up arms against the ‘other’ religion. To try and stop this violence, Gandhi, instead of going to the independence ceremony of India, stayed in Calcutta, where he predicted the most violence would be and attempted to stop it. The area that was going to be hard to partition was Punjab as there were three inhabitants of that area, Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus. The Sikhs as well as the Hindus didn’t like the Muslims so they started armed rebellion against the Muslims. Source G says ‘the strife here was started by Sikhs’ ‘ which are carrying out raids on Muslim villages’ ‘ one band is reputed to have killed 200 Muslims in one village’. The British had to partition India for they could no longer stop the communal violence, the police were defecting and joining in the violence, the army was powerless to stop this, it was madness and chaos everywhere, there was no stability and no law and order.
- ‘The partition of India in 1947 could not have been avoided.’
Use the sources and your own knowledge to explain whether you agree with this view.
There are two answers Yes or No. I’m going to explain both points and come up with a conclusion, which will be my own view.
The idea of partitioning India was a really late development and there had been some hope of an undivided India, with a government consisting of three tiers along basically the same lines as the borders of India and Pakistan at the time of Partition. However, Congress' rejection of the interim government set up under this Cabinet Mission Plan in 1942 convinced the leaders of the Muslim League that compromise was impossible and partition was the only course to take.
Therefore the partitioning of India could have been avoided, had Jawaharlal Nehru accepted the interim government's cabinet mission. It became inevitable only after Nehru rejected the interim government’s cabinet mission plan after winning majority seats in the provincial elections of 1937.
The British had followed a divide-and-rule policy in India. They categorised people according to religion and viewed and treated them as separate from each other. The government laws passed in 1909, 1919 and 1935 had reserved representatives for Muslims thus creating an idea that Muslims were different from Hindus. In 1935 the British government passed the India Act that proposed the transformation of India into eleven provincial states. The legislation also gave greater authority to the provincial assemblies to establish governments for questions falling within their own region. After the 1937 elections Jinnah expected Congress to co-operate with the League by giving it a share of government posts in some provinces. However, the League had won less than 5 per cent of the total Muslim vote, Congress therefore refused to give the League anything. Jinnah felt betrayed and went back to transforming the League into a stronger position to bargain with Congress. The Muslim League gained power also due to the Congress. The Congress banned any support for the British during the Second World War. However the Muslim League pledged its full support. The Civil Disobedience Movement and the consequent withdrawal of the Congress party from politics also helped the League gain power, as they formed strong ministries in the provinces that had large Muslim populations. At the same time, the League actively campaigned to gain more support from the Muslims in India especially under the guidance of dynamic leaders like Jinnah. With the Congress out of the way and the full support of the British, Jinnah in 1940 went for the extreme demand to bargain with congress, which was a new state carved out of India for the Muslims to be known as Pakistan. Even the viceroy at that time supported this idea to some extent.
He didn’t really think he would get it but it was a strong position to bargain from. He himself favoured a united India with strong provincial government so that Muslims would have more say whereas the congress wanted Strong central government, that was the only thing making Jinnah more determined to get Pakistan. So from this point of view India could have stayed as one if only M.L and I.N.C accepted the Cripps mission. And maybe Gandhi might never have been assassinated.
From another and more moral point of view the partitioning of India at all costs could not have been avoided. Tension between Muslims and Hindus was unbearable as you can see from the sources I mentioned earlier.
In source H, a book about events in the Punjab in September 1947, it describes a train journey from India to Pakistan. ‘Hundreds of Sikhs attacked the train’ and ‘My wife, who was seven months pregnant, was pressed on the belly resulting in an abortion a few hours later’. ‘The train started only when nobody was left to kill’. This describes just one train journey from India to Pakistan so you could imagine what would have happened in residential areas of India.
In source F you can see in the photograph that from one protest in one area in one day caused this much riot and bloodshed then you would have to keep these two people apart which in the long term would have to lead to partition. On the same day we have an eye-witness (Source E) account of what happened and to furthermore prove my point that India should have been partition, you should read the following statements from an unbiased Briton.
"You could see a crop of one religion or another" "being beheaded into the river." "After the riot the river was literally choked with dead bodies."
So coming to a conclusion I say the British did the right thing in partitioning India. They left India divided in two. The two countries were founded on the basis of religion, with Pakistan as an Islamic state and India as a secular one. India should have been partitioned because that would have been in the interests of both people.
