Jinnah’s wrong war

Why did the Partition of India take place? Was it the inevitable result of a Subcontinent divided by religion and facing a power vacuum at the end of the Raj? Or was it a chance occurrence, arising from a unique set of historical circumstances? Many believe that, in fact, nobody was particularly keen on Partition — yet it happened anyway. A confluence of complex socio-economic realities and political compulsions in the wake of an intense and troubled colonial encounter provided a setting for the simultaneous climax of Partition and Independence amidst the dying embers of the British Raj.

The dissolution of British imperial authority in 1947 was as remarkable an event of modern times as was the camel-in-the-tent entry of the empire into the Subcontinent in the first place. The epic that was Partition continues to be perhaps the most tragic and controversial event of our times. Some commentators plead for an erasure of the memory of Partition, rather than to remind each generation of this crucial but painful outcome of the struggle for freedom. Literary evidence is adduced to illustrate the public's disillusionment with the leadership for having accepted the dismemberment of the country, and several related theses remain strong in popular literature and opinion. First, that Partition was demanded by the Muslim League and its leader, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and that the Indian National Congress resisted it until nearly the end. Second, that the constituent assembly election of 1946 proved that the Muslim masses endorsed the Pakistan proposal by voting for the Muslim League. Third, that the bitter experience of the Calcutta killings of August 1946, in the wake of Jinnah's call for Direct Action, changed the nature of the entire political movement.