Do you agree with the view that the threat of popular violence was primarily responsible for the partition of India in July 1947?

Jinnah was horrified by what he heard and felt betrayed by Nehru and Congress. Consequently he called for Muslim India to prepare for Direct Action. This attitude of Nehru led Jinnah finally to conclude that India would be run by Hindus and that I was not possible for Muslims to have a share in power. The call for Direct Action led to chaos all over India. In Calcutta where police were ordered a special holiday, rioting broke out. Within 3 days 5000 lay dead, 20,000 were seriously injured and 1000,000 were homeless. Muslims and Hindus murdered each other in an orgy of killings, looting and arson that spread across India.

The Muslim League came to the idea of Pakistan as their only hope that they were determined to fight for, as they came to realise there was no hope of Muslims sharing power in a Hindu dominated India. They felt betrayed by the cabinet mission for leaving them to deal with the collapse of what they had so carefully built up, and congress who they cooperated with when they needed their support. “Throughout the negotiations the parties with whom we bargained held a pistol at us” (source 1). Jinnah states in source 1 that the League had tried to settle issues through dialogue “the League done anything except constitutional methods”. However this method did not seem to wok in their favour, as their proposals were never taken seriously by Congress which continued to reject separate electorates for minority groups to be part of the Indian constitution. For example in the 2nd Round Table Conference held in London in 1931, which Gandhi attended as the sole representative of congress,  refused to accept separate electorates as a way to protect the voice of minority groups. As a result, the RTC collapsed and reached no definite conclusions for a workable constitution. Therefore the British government was left to decide for them. Thus partition was a consequence of the “age-old Hindu Muslim rift” (source 3).

As the situation unfurled, Viceroy Lord Wavell decided that he could not cope with the increasing violence. Therefore a new viceroy was appointed to lead India to independence without partition. However as viceroy Mountbatten travelled India and talked to all types of Indian politicians including the leaders of Congress and the Muslim League, it became clear to him that partition was unavoidable. The league was prepared to fight until they got Pakistan “we also have a pistol” (source 1). By 1947 the violence was out of control. Riots broke out in Punjab against the Muslim League by a shaky alliance of Sikhs, Hindus, and non-league Muslims. In the areas where the League was hoping to make Pakistan there was carnage such as in Amritsar and Lahore. As a result the “nation paid the price of partition” (source 3).

However the threat of popular violence was not the only reason why India was partitioned, but also because the British government “was on the verge of collapse” (source 2). Britain had just come out of a war in which they were in millions of pounds in debt to India. It no longer could afford enough man power to bring the chaos under control as it had done in the past. In addition Britain’s priorities had changed. The government was now trying to focus on rebuilding wore torn Britain and it economy. However the violence in India was getting out of control and the only way to stop it and speed up independence and leave India before they lost total control was to partition India. Although source 2 insists that “British withdrawal form India (was) not because of overwhelming nationalist pressure “, it was one of the reasons that led Mountbatten to conclude that partition was inevitable, as “Congress and the League were in political deadlock” (source 2).

Moreover it was not only the Muslim League that had considered a separate state. For example the Cripps mission of 1942 proposed that any province or princely state that wanted to disassociate itself from the new India was free to do so. This clearly indicated that Pakistan was possible. Furthermore the Cabinet Missions proposal of 1946 that divided India into 3 clusters, where two of them would be Muslim dominated areas indicated that Muslims could have their Pakistan within India.

In conclusion the threat of popular violence was not primarily responsible for the partition of India, as for a long time before violence broke out, it was clear that Muslims and Hindus would not be able to co-exist within a Hindu dominated India due to their lack of cooperation with each other. This can be seen in their attitudes to the proposals made by the British government in previous missions. The mass murders of Hindus and Muslims became a physical symbol of the Hindu-Muslim division that could not be repaired. Therefore violence only reinforced the idea that partition was inevitable.