Asia editor of Bloomberg View, Nisid Hajari, tells ANANYA BORGOHAIN about his new book which studies the political tensions that led to the macabre Partition
For this Partition narrative, on what grounds did you finalise your timeline, 1946-1948IJ
Usually, when people talk about Partition, they generally talk about the political negotiations that went behind it or the unparalleled trauma it caused. What I wanted to do was to not talk about these aspects alone but study the development of the rivalry between India and Pakistan periodically. From 1946-1948, from the Calcutta riots to Jinnah’s death, the seeds of rivalry were planted by the actions of Nehru on one side and Jinnah on the other. Before August 1946, it was still possible to imagine a united India, the Cabinet Mission Plan had come with a workable compromise. But in 1948, after Jinnah’s death, this idea that these two countries hate each other and that Pakistan thinks that India is an enemy was firmly implanted. It separated us and I wanted to study what had happened in those years.
It was a time of laden with violence. The Calcutta riots, the Direct Action Day, the aggravating Hindu-Muslim divide, and so on. So the bloodbath that accompanied Partition was inevitableIJ
I don’t think it was inevitable but it was likely. Each riot made the next one worse. First Calcutta then Bihar and then Punjab in 1947. Everything looked like a death trap. But from March to August in 1947, they were good five months and there were things that could be done in that time to ease the tension.
Probably the political leaders in Delhi could have done more on the ground at Punjab to stop their followers from promoting a certain kind of agenda, because you know, it was the leaders who gave certain orders to the lower levels which could have been avoided. The British too could and should have done more for them. They made a big show of the Punjab boundary but there were never many troops there, it wasn’t fully staffed.
Besides the bloodbath, could the Partition have been stalledIJ Because the original date for Partition was in June 1948. Had that been retained and had Jinnah passed away a few months earlier than when he did (September 1948), do you think the Partition could have been avoidedIJ
Again, in 1946 you could have united India, but by 1947, the pressure had built up too much. I think there would have anyway been both pressure and desire for a degree of autonomy. I think it became inevitable after the Calcutta riots of 1946. And if Jinnah had died before Partition, whoever took over could have been more of a hardliner to establish their authority, so I believe what happened was coming anyway.
Why do we see Gandhi as an essentially Hindu figureIJ He read from the Quran in his meetings, for instance, but does his Hindu identity overshadow his more secular principlesIJ
Well, Gandhi did quote from the Quran too but he was a Hindu, and so naturally, his stories and figures were largely Hindu. He often talked about lord Ram and quoted from the Bhagavad Gita. This was his background after all and it was understandable. But as a leader of a political movement, using religion this way works because it appeals to the masses. It gives a great appeal to the uneducated people even if it was alienating for people who were not a part of that tradition, or say, were from the so-called intellectual classes. Even if you believe that Gandhi was unprejudiced, he still had followers and most of his imageries were still Hindu.
You have described the personalities and personal lives of Nehru and Jinnah in great detail. Do you see Nehru and Jinnah as alter egos of each otherIJ Were they two parallels personalitiesIJ
It was an interesting rivalry because in so many ways, they are very similar to each other, they were more similar to each other than either of them was to Gandhi. They were both very modern men, very Westernised, spoke English, were liberal and scientifically minded, and they were both very vain! Nehru was more of a ladies’ man because he was very handsome when he was younger. So under some circumstances you would think they would in fact be allies but personality wise, they were extremely different. Nehru was very philosophical and he was not a practical politician. Jinnah, on the other hand, was a very practical politician. He was also a good lawyer, whereas Nehru was a bad lawyer. Jinnah could make arguments and have days and days of negotiations which would drive Nehru crazy.
Jinnah was fighting for Muslim rights as he saw it whereas Nehru assumed that he too had so many Muslim friends and why should they need a separate state for themselves when they could follow him insteadIJ The idea of Pakistan was medieval to him and it wasn’t a part of the new world that Nehru was envisioning.
Not many outside India know how close their ties were. Jinnah was friends and allies with Nehru’s father. He married a 16-year-old girl and I found these letters she wrote to another 16-year-old, Padmaja Naidu, an intimate friend of Nehru. During my research, I wondered why in 1937 after these elections which Jinnah lost, why the way Jinnah talked about Nehru became nasty and vitriolic. His way of using Nehru as a foil to build up his support among Muslims seemed too personal. That was the time when Nehru had that affair with Padmaja Naidu; imagine Jinnah as a 60-year-old man coming back from exile in london, hoping to make a comeback, which he loses and sees the rising popularity of a younger Nehru, who, on top of it all, is having an affair with his wife’s best friend. I think it is the combination of everything that made them dislike each other.
I won’t say that their personal lives had any consequence upon the political environment of India, but it was interesting to see their personal aspects; how they thought, why leaders make certain decisions, what their friends and social circle perceived of them.
Why have you not mentioned Muhammad Iqbal, the person who first brought up the concept of PakistanIJ
I actually had an earlier draft that mentioned him which got cut out for space. I didn’t mention Muhammad Iqbal partly because my focus was not on why Pakistan was created, but why the India-Pakistan rivalry was created and now that was a different story. Also, I could see in his poems and writings that some of the underpinnings were thinking about Pakistan, but back then in 1930 in a meeting when he raised this idea, there were less than 50 people in the room at that time. So these ideas were there at some level but it was Jinnah that built up Pakistan as a realistic demand and he fought for it. Besides, given the timeline of the book and the context, I didn’t think it was relevant for me to mention Muhammad Iqbal.
let’s talk about the part where you seem to indicate that India set Pakistan up to fail.
Even Mountbatten, when they were doing their final negotiations, said to his Governors that Pakistan needs to be set up as weak as possible so that they realise it’s a bad idea. This was the time when he thought Partition would happen in June 1948 and so he presumed many things to happen, for things to work out. The point I wanted to make was that Nehru and Gandhi were not the saints they were both made out to be. Jinnah though believed that if you create a weak, insecure state, it will always have instability and that has unfortunately come true. And the Congress leadership could have been more defensible; there were compromises that could have been made but weren’t.
The Sikhs were a minority and yet they had a major role to play in the Partition. Could you talk a little about thatIJ
There are certain Pakistani conspiracy theories that say that it was entirely the Sikhs’ plan along with the Congress’s help, but I don’t think that was it. If there had been no Sikhs in Punjab, there would not have been the riots to such an extent, rightIJ It was because the Sikhs were spread through Punjab and a line was cut through it, everyone knew this was bound to happen. There was a British report in 1939 that had said that Pakistan would never work because the Sikhs would fight till death rather than succumb to Muslim rule. Of course, Sikhs had a legitimate fear for their security and it became much more intense after the March riots (Rawalpindi, 1947).
Jinnah was foolish to not do more to reassure the Sikhs at that point. He and Nehru were both trying to get as much territory as possible and neither took the Sikhs seriously, and neither did the British. The Sikhs were, on the other hand, always open about their plan; they were the best organised and armed militarily. They were the best trained and they had the most fear, and therefore they caused the most damage; they accelerated the fire.
As a political commentator, where do you think the present situation in Kashmir is headed toIJ
That’s a big question. I think the workable solution is to give both sides more autonomy and they could make the line of Control (loC) the real border, but also have a soft border for free movement back and forth. We need to start with the smaller things; start with free trade, people-to-people exchanges. Interdependence would make them feel that they are invested in the stability of the status quo rather than trying to undermine it.
lastly, a few “inaccuracies” have been pointed about the book in The New York Times review. For instance, you refer to the RSS as RSSS throughout, you say that Edwina Mountbatten was King Edward VII’s financier’s granddaughter, not daughter, Churchill’s remark was against Ramsay MacDonald and not Clement Atlee, and so on. What do you have to say about thatIJ
I think I would rather not give in to that because I actually think he (the reviewer) is wrong about some of those. For instance, before 1947, all official documents, archives, Nehru’s letters etc called RSS, RSSS. So I am not wrong about it. Edwina indeed was the granddaughter and I stand corrected there, but then I don’t want to indulge in a conflict with reviewers.
Midnight's Furies, written by Nisid Hajari is published by Penguin Random House, Rs 599
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