Supporters of Nathuram Godse in India still cling to the belief that the creation of Pakistan from the Indian territory in 1947 was engineered by Mahatma Gandhi. This argument stems from the fact that the Mahatma was always inhibiting a pro-Muslim attitude and conceded in the long run to Jinnah?s demands of a Muslim state on religious ground. That was why Godse said he decided ?to remove him from this world.? Was Gandhi a party to the partitioning of India? According to the late Indian scholar, Dr Rafiq Zakaria, who witnessed and studied the political events unfolding during the pre-partitioning days, Gandhi?s hands were not dipped in the break-up of India. The commitment given to Lord Mountbatten, the Viceroy of India, of dividing India came as a shocking news to the Mahatma. Who then agreed to the partitioning of India behind Gandhi?s back and how it came about?

For one thing, Gandhi wanted Hindus and Muslims to form a common front and as one people show the exit door to the British. It was in this line that he gave his support to the Khilafat movement in order to preserve the sanctity of the holy places in Mecca and Medina, the control of which the British threatened to take over after the fall of Turkey in the First World War. This attempt at desecration stirred up passion in India and Gandhi?s support endeared him to the Muslims.

But that Muslim effervescence around Gandhi began to fade gradually, for the All India Muslim League set in orbit with the help of Lord Curzon in 1906 to launch counter offensives against the Congress reared up its head under a new leadership, that of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. While he was in the Congress, Jinnah, was all for Hindu-Muslim unity and championed the cause of independence. But he did not subscribe to Gandhi?s approach. That difference signaled the first of many clashes between Gandhi and Jinnah, the two men from Gujarat, both Barristers from England. Gandhi was religion inspired; Jinnah, on the other hand, swore by constitutional methods.

Having abandoned the Congress bandwagon and donned the mantle of the Muslim League?s leadership, Jinnah changed track and his abiding principle and opted for communal politics. Above all, 70 million Muslims or so viewed as a force was not negligible and the League wanted to make its voice heard. It began to give hard times to the Congress by its demands and resorting to obstructive tactics. in the movement for independence. For example, the League demanded separate electorates and guaranteed safeguards for Muslims which the Congress, more specifically Gandhi, rejected. In a provocative move and also to deal a blow to Gandhi?s dream of a united India, the British Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, in 1932 awarded what he called a ?Communal plan? for separate electorates not only to Muslims but also to Sikhs and to the Untouchables. It was in a way a flat attempt to scuttle the independence movement and destroy India by a balkanization method. This move was beaten back.

In 1937, Jinnah, however, wanted to come to some understanding with the Congress. He reviewed some of his demands and accepted even joint electorate. But Nehru, it is said, turned down Jinnah?s extended hands of cooperation. The Congress boosted up by electoral success in Provincial Assemblies hoped to be able to rely on Maulana Azad and some other Muslim intellectuals like Dr Ansari to reduce the Muslim League and Jinnah to shreds.

But neither Azad despite his intellectual brilliance nor Ansari known for his organizational skills could prove a match to Jinnah, whom Lord Pethick- Lawrence, Secretary of state for India, described as ?one of the cleverest men India has produced.? In trying to write prematurely the political obituary of Jinnah, Nehru, it is argued, caused a ?national disaster.? That rebuff and ill consideration of Jinnah by Nehru was going to be the turning point in the history of India and the Asian continent.

How could have this misjudgment happened? It was possible that Nehru believed that Jinnah could not go far. Indeed, Jinnah had swings of mind ? vacillating between holding to his lucrative legal practice, his desire of fixing residence in London and the next moment doing active politics in India. Jinnah?s zest for western lifestyle was known to all, ? his manners, he was usually dressed in smart Saville Row suits, sipped whisky, spoke English and addressed political gatherings in English, ?the only language in which I can make no mistake,? he said and above all he was not a man of the masses and commanded no large followers, ? all these factors might have misguided Nehru.

Nehru might have also thought that Gandhi and the Muslim supporters of the Congress had done the spade work by identifying themselves with the masses and that Jinnah was left with not much green pasture to graze. He might have thought as well that the Muslims still owed a debt of gratitude to Gandhi for the support he gave to the Khilafat movement, so Jinnah?s influence on Muslims could be minimal. Writing off Jinnah, the man who, it is said, so brilliantly defended Hindu militants like Bhagat Singh and Bal Gangadhar Tilak against charges of sedition, simply on the basis of his lifestyle and small political base, was a monumental mistake or as some Historians put it a ?national disaster.?

Instead, Jinnah flexed his muscle. Realising that religion- based politics for which he was a bitter critic in the early days paid dividends, he said ?goodbye to constitutional methods? and set in full gear the catchy slogan ? ?Islam in Danger? ? to whip up communal frenzy. As Muslims thronged to him, he demanded that the League be recognized by the Congress as the only representative organization of Muslims in India. Next, he pushed forward his ?Two Nation theory? arguing that the Hindus and Muslims were two distinct populations, differing in many more ways than one and therefore the Muslims needed a separate homeland. The strident call for separatism created severe cracks and in time kept widening the gulf between Hindus and Muslims.

The Congress was now compelled to take Jinnah on board for whatever negotiations that were to be carried out on the future of India. Thus, several attempts for a settlement between the Congress and the League ended up in a stalemate owing largely to the deep seated mistrust that had developed between the Congress and Jinnah. Right from Jinnah?s 14 points formulated plan to the Nehru?s plan, then the Cripps? plan, and the Cabinet Mission?s plan etc to find an acceptable solutions to both parties all ended up in fiasco. The intransigencies in not making concessions on either side kept communal passion at boiling point. The failure of the Cabinet Mission in 1946 caused an angry Jinnah to prove that he was not to be taken for granted. He launched his ?Direct Action? calling Muslims to react ?en masse? in a strong way. What happened was that excited mobs took laws in their own hands and went on a killing, rape and looting spree perpetrated as Churchill mockingly said with the ?ferocity of cannibals.? ?This is only a foretaste of what may come?, he warned.

From then on, things moved very fast. The British demoralized by the reversal of fortunes in the second World War and with the civil war in India spinning out of control decided at long last to quit India. As a first move, Lord Wavell was replaced by Lord Mountbatten as he was slow in taking action. In the House of Commons, the British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, announced that the British withdrawal from India would take place not later than June 1948.

But Mountbatten who received a clear brief from Churchill to ?divide India between Hindustan, Pakistan and Princestan? before he left London at first told journalists that he would be able to save India from partitioning. In fact, he was coming to do the contrary. Known for his charm and affable manners, he rolled out his famous ?Balkan Plan? in front of Jinnah. Pakistan was to be formed in two separate lots separated by hundreds of miles of Hindu dominated territory. Jinnah grumbled and protested asking for some more time to consider the offer as he was not pleased with being given what he said a ?moth- eaten Pakistan.? He wanted Calcutta also to be included in Pakistan. Mountbatten told him politely but firmly that he could not waste time with him: ?either you take it or leave it. This plan or nothing else? was his reply. A puzzled Jinnah found that his game of procrastination was up.

Mountbatten then turned on Nehru and Vallabhai Patel, two of Gandhi?s most trusted lieutenants and told them that the creation of Pakistan was inevitable in order to prevent a holocaust. He assured them that ?a truncated Pakistan will be politically insecure, economically so weak and militarily so unsafe that it will pose no threat to India.? The viceroy told them that ?it (Pakistan) might even rejoin the Indian Union.? The viceroy got Krishna Menon and V.P Menon, to persuade Nehru and Patel, to throw off their hard posture and accept partition. Mountbatten?s charm proved very effective for Nehru succumbed to it, despite having stood like a rock against Jinnah?s demands all the time. Patel whose nerves seemed to be made of steel in opposing the Muslim League and who was reputed for his iron determination, ( probably, that?s why he was called the Iron Man) melted away like wax. As one Indian journalist, quoted by Rafiq Zakaria in his book ?The Price of Partition,? wrote at that time, ?Mountbatten?s charm has been our undoing.? But how could one also discount Lady Mountbatten in what was described as a Machiavellian game? ?It is the lady who is more dangerous,? wrote the journalist alluding perhaps to the intimate relationship Nehru entertained with Lady Mountbatten.

But the die was cast. Nehru and Patel kept Gandhi in the dark during their secret meetings with the viceroy. They probably knew Gandhi?s fulmination when partition was evoked. When Gandhi was informed that the deal for partition was finalized, it was like a chill cast on him. ?Vivisect me before you vivisect India,? was his immediate reaction. He asked Maulana Azad whether he would stand by him or let him down as Nehru and Patel had done. Azad with tears in his eyes told Gandhi, ?You are the only hope left to save India?? Gandhi having got wind that the Congress was to meet in Delhi to ratify partition on a motion proposed by Govind Ballah Pant said, ?If the Congress wishes to accept partition, it will be over my dead body. So long as I am alive, I will never agree??

To Mounbatten who later went to see Gandhi to seek his blessing, Gandhi bluntly said that partition was for him like a ?wooden loaf difficult to eat and impossible to digest? and that he would have rather accepted a civil war in India if that was the price to pay to keep India intact.

Gandhi felt helpless to carry on any more. Giving vent to his feeling of anguish, he said, ?My life?s work seems to be over. I hope God will spare me further humiliation.? The patience and motivation inhibited so far to build a united India evaporated in the thin air. How could he now denounce his own trusted and right-hand men-Nehru and Patel? Would he go against the current prevailing in the Congress which was now accepting partition behind his back? As Ram Manohar Lohia, a contemporary of Gandhi explained, the Congress leaders seemed to be ?ageing, tired, power-hungry, so impatient to get hold of the reins of office that they agreed to partition, to rule the country?s dismembered parts.? This was exactly what happened. Nehru and Patel secured the prime space in the new governmental chessboard, one becoming prime minister and the other, Deputy prime minister.

The end result of Mounbatten?s ?operation charm? was that Jinnah walked away triumphantly with a parcel of the Indian territory to be hailed as the founder of Pakistan. He also got a cash transfer of Rs 550 million from the Indian coffer to the Pakistani treasury.

While for Gandhi, he was badly affected by losing face and encountering ?humiliation? as a result of the ?own goal? , so to say, conceded by two of his stoutest defenders in the dying minute of the 20 year hard fought struggle. A crest-fallen Gandhi was even then not spared; he had three bullets pumped in his chest and awarded a consolation honorific title of ?Father of the nation.?

Anand MOHEERPUTH