HISTORY
Nothing `untold' about this story
SUCHETA MAHAJAN
|
Perhaps the most discordant note in the book is the attempt to place Partition within the context of current day `terrorism'.
|
This story of Partition is well told but it has been told before.
The Shadow of the Great Game: The Untold Story of India's Partition, Narinder Singh Sarila, HarperCollins Publishers, 2005, p.436, price not stated.
THIS "untold story" of Partition, penned by an ADC to Mountbatten, who also belongs to a princely family, is well told, but it has been told before. The author would have it that historians and political analysts do not take defence and security issues seriously and have ignored the strategic aspect of Partition. It is difficult to agree with this, given that two well-known historians of modern India, Partha Sarathi Gupta and Anita Inder Singh, have written on this subject.
In any case, while the British had defence interests in India after transfer of power, it is quite another thing to argue that these strategic interests explain Partition. It was not only the case that Attlee's government swung around to support Partition to ensure the defence of Britain's vital interests after the War or that Wavell came out with a blueprint detailing areas that should go to Pakistan. He forgets to tell us that Wavell also had a blueprint for a united India. These were plans on the anvil, not final policy, as we are led to believe. In fact, if strategy had ruled, united India would have prevailed, as that was the best bet strategically. However, politics intervened to ensure division. The Chiefs of Staff make it clear that the decision to partition was a political one but Attlee presented it as a military necessity to push it through.
Complex phenomenon
Partition, as we know, was the result of many complex factors. In other chapters, the author himself alludes to two factors other than strategic concerns: the Anglo-Muslim alliance which evolved during World War II and prepared the ground for partition and "fears about the loyalty of this Army, [which] perhaps more than any other factor, shook the foundations of the Raj". In the last paragraph he sums up — global politics, British insecurity and errors of judgement of Indian leaders were responsible for Partition. So the primacy of strategy is merely an assertion.
There are many other assertions which are questionable. The first is that India was of value as a base for accessing West Asia and South East Asia. Britain could even threaten the Soviet Union from North West India. This is arguable. When Ernest Bevin said the division of India "would help to consolidate Britain in the Middle East" he meant now more troops would be available there. He did not mean that the Indian theatre would continue to be operational or that Pakistan would be a base to stop Soviet ambitions towards the South. Moreover, Britain's ambitions as a strategic world player were illusory; it did not have the economic strength.
A second contention, again incorrect, is that the role of the United States in the run-up to Indian independence has not been highlighted. There is little new in this book about the role of the U.S. representatives, Johnson and Phillips, during the Second World War. Thorne, Roger Louis, Venkataramani and Srivastava, among others, have written about these diplomatic manoeuvres, which made amusing copy, but were largely ineffective. The author would have it that the Americans were against the division of India as it might help the Communists. However, no evidence is given.
The third assertion is that Jinnah was a puppet in British hands. Jinnah refused to let Mountbatten be Governor General, insisting on assuming the position himself, much to Mountbatten's chagrin. He rejected Mountbatten's appeal to accept the essence of Pakistan within a loosely federated structure and stuck to his demand for a sovereign Pakistan, however moth-eaten it may be. Jinnah was quizzed on the two-nation theory by a well-known foreign journalist: "Mr Jinnah, two nations in every village?" Jinnah refused to respond to the charge of illogicality implied and replied, deadpan, "Yes, two nations in every village." Again, the 25-30 million Muslims who stayed behind in India were a giant question mark on the logicality of the Pakistan demand. Yet the demand was made and realised.
Assertions without evidence
A fourth assertion, with little evidence, is that Congressmen were impatient to be in the saddle. The author falls for the popular shibboleth about their desire for power being behind acceptance of Partition. He describes Nehru as a runner at the start of a race waiting breathlessly to enter office and win laurels for India in the international arena.
There are many "ifs" of history in the book. Partition could have been prevented if the Congress ministries had not resigned in 1939, if NWFP had been under Congress rule from 1940 to 1946, if Congress had taken up the Cripps Offer, if Quit India movement had not been launched at an hour of British peril, if Jinnah had been made head of the Congress in the 1920s... the impression left is of a party which lacked strategic vision, pragmatism and even consistency.
Perhaps the most discordant note in the book is the attempt to place Partition within the context of current day "terrorism". This would have been a good selling point if it had clicked but it remains a farfetched connection. Pakistan is central to the terrorist threat in India today but to argue that "the roots of Islamic terrorism lie buried in the partition of India' is taking it too far. Even the use of Afghanistan and Pakistan against the Soviet Union in the Cold War by the U.S. was very different from the strategic role cut out for Pakistan by the United Kingdom after independence. To describe Muslim communalism as jihadi forces is a jarring anachronism. The phenomenon of jihadi forces as understood today did not exist then.
Lastly, too much is made of seeing unused material. The Mountbatten Papers, which the author consulted in the U.K., can be seen on microfilm at the Nehru Memorial Library in New Delhi. For a book which sets itself out as a serious, scholarly tome, it is odd that the reference to Anita Inder Singh should be from a popular book by Patrick French.
Sucheta Mahajan is Associate Professor at the Centre for Historical Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Literary Review
