The Road to Nehru-Liaquat Pact and the aftermath: The choices and decisions

In the lives of nations there are events that’ll continue to echo and shape destinies continuously. For Germany it is Nazism, for America it is the Civil War, for Russia it is the Revolution and for India it is the partition of the sub-continent along religious lines. 

The Nehru-Liaquat pact, signed nearly 70 years ago by Jawaharlal Nehru and Liaquat Ali Khan, was cited by India’s home minister Amit Shah while piloting a controversial amendment to how India awards citizenship to refugees, has attracted attention. The pact, Nehru justly claimed, pulled India and Pakistan from a precipice of war that was sure to bring widespread destruction. What drove the countries to such brinkmanship, what were the choices, why did these two leaders compromise and what did the pact accomplish?

Nehru lamented then that little do many Indians realize how close India came to imploding and disintegrating. It is true even today. Distance of time and paucity of good academic writing for popular consumption on the subject of partition has masked the complexity of that tumultuous era and in many ways even minimized the impact of the human toll reducing it some dramatic pictures depicting mile long caravans of impoverished refugees and vultures feeding off carcasses. The tragedy ran deeper and brief recounting of some lesser known aspects will help us understand the Nehru-Liaquat pact better.

The Greatest Migration

Nearly 12 million Hindus and Muslims crossed the borders and nearly a million perished in riots and the migration itself. The two countries “had to resettle, feed and house a group as large as the total population of Australia”. “This was not simply an ‘exchange’ of population or a straightforward swap. In the months following Independence, Pakistan lost its bankers, merchants, shopkeepers, entrepreneurs”. In Indian cities Muslim craftsmen and shop owners, now ostracized by Hindus, migrated. Cash outflow from banks across borders in an already impoverished economy plunged the countries into poverty. 

The plan to partition the assets was based on 80-20 basis with 80% going to India. Across colonial India in government offices trays, chairs, paper weights were split. In libraries books were torn to adhere to 80-20. But that was not all. “India had found it necessary to jump civil servants perhaps three grades to fill secretariat vacancies” and “Pakistan had to advance them five grades”. Post partition Pakistan, compared to India, had “fewer bankers, fewer traders, fewer mechanics”. Pakistan “inherited less than 10% of the sub-continent’s steel output and manufacturing capability”.

Refugees crossing borders carried stories of massacres to their new homelands and inflamed local population. “Partition was a modern event, the technology of the press was fully utilized to promote killing and pressmen and propagandists played their part in partition violence behind typewriters as bureaucratic killers in word if not in deed.”

All this carnage was unfolding as Europe and the West were barely coming out of a World War that laid waste large parts of several continents and tens of millions had died. The tragedy in India barely registered in the conscience of the world. The International Red Cross had left India already and a UN covenant to protect refugees would not come about until 1951. Pimps, brothel owners and pedophiles plagued refugee camps even as governments, with scarce resources, struggled to cope with the scale of efforts. 

Refugees, in any era, destabilize local economy, governments and treasuries are taxed, labor market gets skewed and it never matters that the person who arrives speaks the same language and worships the same God. India’s largest state Uttar Pradesh refused to take in refugees from Pakistan, presumably HIndus. When non-Muslim Sindhis landed in Mumbai the local government was not thrilled. 

A constant criticism of Nehru was the centralization of the economy. A key determinant factor was the role government had to play in rehabilitating the lives of refugees. Creation of jobs, welfare centers for women and children and orphanages were all organized by governments touching the lives of many millions. This is often forgotten in analyzing the economics of the Nehru era.

The complexity of the era is best exemplified by the decision of India, in September 1949, to devalue its currency to be in lock step with the Pound Sterling while Pakistan did not do so and to Pakistanis it was the most popular decision when the country demonstrated strength against India. “Indians need to give Rs 144 for Rs 100 in Pakistani currency” was a popular retry. Currency devaluation and halting of trade brought conferences related to evacuee properties also to a halt. A labyrinthine set of events if there ever was one. 

Ever since Gandhi’s ‘Calcutta Miracle’ the violence during partition was largely in the western front in the Punjab region. Military historian Steven Wilkinson identified a causal relationship between high incidence of riots and presence of military ex-servicemen in a region and Punjab had lots of them. 

On 20th December 1949 policemen, reportedly in search of communists, entered Khulna, a village in East Pakistan and killed a Hindu, triggering violence against Hindus. Now, the East started exploding.

‘The Forgotten Conflagration’

Military historian Srinath Raghavan called the violence in Bengal ‘The Forgotten Conflagration’ because of its relative lack of significance compared to Kashmir, the integration of Hyderabad and violence in Punjab.

Following the Khulna episode reprisals began in West Bengal and Muslims left for East Pakistan by the thousands. A cycle of violent reprisals set in as Hindus were in turn massacred in the East and they started streaming into West Bengal. Refugees, both sides claimed, numbered in tens of thousands. 

Historian Pallavi Raghavan adds an interesting backdrop to the Nehru-Liaquat pact. By January 1950 Nehru started floating the idea of a ‘non-war pact’ with Pakistan and started, with Liaquat, a flurry of communications totaling over 200 telegrams in one year. The surprising part is that while the attempt for a non-war pact eventually floundered the Nehru-Liaquat pact for Bengal crises happened. 

Popular understanding of that era is that the two nations were implacable foes but Pallavi establishes that the idea for a non-war pact was actually seriously considered in both countries and not dismissed outright. This amidst a time when hostility towards the other country ran high amongst the public and even policy circles. 

Even as he pursued a non-war pact Nehru, disappointed with the sanguine approach of Liaquat to escalating tensions in Bengal, issued orders to mobilize the army and refused to accede to a request to disallow refugees from East Pakistan into India. 

Nehru proposed that Liaquat and he jointly tour afflicted areas but was turned down. His call for a declaration to condemn the atrocities was also met with silence from Liaquat. Both Liaquat and Nehru were increasingly facing domestic pressures to go to war. Nehru steadfastly refused to consider that the only choices were war or population exchange. By now many in India, including Sardar Patel, were demanding that India, in retaliation to Hindus being chased from East Pakistan, send Muslims from Bengal. A ‘population exchange’. The very idea was abhorrent to Nehru. Nehru resisted the choice of war or population exchange as false choices and pursued the diplomatic track.

Sardar Patel and others also pushed the idea of demanding territory from Pakistan in response to the tens of thousands that were streaming into India. To Nehru this was fantasy because, as he correctly cautioned, it would mean all out war in Eastern and Western fronts with Pakistan. No one other than Nehru worried about the cost of war. But Nehru had his limits too. 

Addressing the nation on 3rd March 1950 Nehru said, “Anyone who knows me should know that i hate war…But to talk complacently of peace, when there is no peace and when something worse than war is possible is to be blind to facts”. He also added that the crisis was “outcome of the very nature of Pakistan: minorities in a religious state were bound to lack full sense of citizenship and security”. Concerns that echo eerily in today’s situation in India. Later Nehru in a letter to Rajagopalachari wrote, “Even I, with all my abhorrence of war and my appreciation of its consequences cannot rule it out completely”. 

Even as Nehru was signaling the seriousness of military action by moving troops the press in Bengal fueled war mongering. The Amrita Bazaar Patrika led the charge in editorials and even conducting an opinion poll asking if readers favored war, 82.7 % responded yes. Nehru fumed and asked the administration to clamp down on press reports. The crises continued to spiral and pressure Nehru. 

On 17th March 1950 Nehru addressed the parliament and was roundly criticized. Opposition to Nehru mounted within Congress party led by Sardar Patel. Nehru had earlier offered to resign and go to Pakistan as an individual akin to Gandhi’s idea before he was assassinated. Now, Nehru renewed his threat to resign. An aging and sick Patel turned him down and, once again, became an ally. Nehru had a competitive spirit of standing up to challengers and knew well that the party would not countenance his resignation. Second only to Gandhi the most popular pan-Indian leader was Nehru. There was a time when India loved Nehru.

Though Liaquat exuded confidence in public about meeting India’s military challenge the reality of India’s military superiority compelled him to negotiate and he took up yet another offer from Nehru to negotiate a pact. Liaquat arrived in New Delhi and on 8th April 1950, after a week of negotiations and 11 drafts later, the Nehru-Liaquat pact was signed. 

The Pact and After-Effects

The key provisions of the pact were that minorities commission will be setup in each country, cabinets in East & West Bengal and Assam to include representatives from minorities, evacuees returning back by December 30th would get the homes they left behind, forced conversions will not be recognized, adult refugees can carry cash up to Rs 150 each and a child could carry Rs 75 each.

Hindu fundamentalist leader Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and Bengali K.C. Neogy resigned from Nehru’s cabinet expressing dissatisfaction towards the pact. Nehru’s biographer Sarvepalli Gopal pays glorious tribute to Sardar Patel for returning to the role Gandhi had asked of him, supporting Nehru. Patel championed the pact to skeptics in West Bengal. Nehru returned the courtesy and acknowledged, “Vallabhai has been a brick during these days”.

Nehru himself was aware that the pact would not satisfy all or solve the problems completely. Nehru’s letter, on 15th April, to chief ministers, a tradition he created and maintained, recounted the dangers of war and how war was almost a possibility. Rejecting the charge of appeasement he wrote, “If anything that is not war is appeasement, then perhaps we have appeased. It would be equally true to say that Pakistan has tried to appease us. If an attempt to prevent a reversion to barbarism is appeasement, then perhaps the charge is true”. 

Writing again to chief ministers, on 2nd May, Nehru spoke candidly of how the exodus had fallen and then risen since migration was more streamlined now. He also highlighted that while minorities felt safer than before to stay back in the countries of residence they also feared for the future. Of the 3.64 million Hindu migrants who had entered India in 1950, some 1.77 million felt encouraged enough to return.

Evaluating Nehru and the Pact

It is a common refrain today to characterize Sardar Patel as some strongman who’d have taken the battle to the enemy, that is Pakistan, whereas Nehru was effete and a dreamy idealist. While Nehru was no war monger it is a complete mistake to cast him like an idealist peacenik. Whether it was crushing Communist led insurgency within India or accepting war as an option to be exercised Nehru had a hawkish side too. On the contrary Patel lacked Nehru’s vision and moral compass.

From dictators to democratic leaders across history pursuing a peace pact is often considered a braver course of action. It is wrong to suppose that a diplomatic course is a sign of weakness or misguided idealism. A conservative hawk like Ronald Reagan pursued eliminating nuclear weapons with arch enemy Soviet Russia. Harry Truman fired a legendary general to control the spiraling Korean crises. Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat signed peace treaties when no one thought that those warring parties would even meet in the same room. Signing treaties for cessation of hostilities is more a western tradition from antiquity and not quite prevalent in Indian history and this is probably also why Indians fail to appreciate what Nehru achieved.

During peace pacts compromises are made and no statesman will gloat that he forced the other side to capitulate. During the Cuban Missile Crisis while John F. Kennedy postured in public about standing up the Soviet regime in private his brother Robert Kennedy was bartering missiles located in Turkey as a price for Khrushchev to remove the missiles. 

Military strategist George Kennan, the architect of the containment strategy, disillusioned during the Korean war, wrote, “Only the diplomatic historian, it seems to me, working from the leisure and detachment of a later day, will be able to unravel the incredible tangle and reveal the true aspect of the various factors and issues involved”. Srinath Raghavan’s “War and Peace in Modern India” is one such attempt that does justice to Nehru and the complexity of that entanglement. 

The decline of Hindu population in today’s Pakistan and Bangladesh and especially the massacre of thousands of Hindus during the riots preceding the liberation of Bangladesh are often cited as a failure of the pact and Nehru is blamed for, yet again, his idealism. The failure is Pakistan’s not that of India’s or Nehru’s.

Pakistan was cursed by the untimely and early demise of Jinnah and the short lived leadership of Liaquat Ali Khan who was assassinated just a year after the pact with Nehru. Liaquat who was not a popular leader “used executive powers to impose central rule on recalcitrant provinces” and such acts created a climate of alienation in Pakistan. Nehru’s relative youth, physical fitness and longevity coupled with his unmatched intellect and idealism provided invaluable stability to India while Pakistan stumbled into a morass of dictatorship. 

Steven Wilkinson’s masterful study of how India and Pakistan took different approaches to the role of army vis-a-vis the state portrays Nehru, in particular, as sagacious and forward looking while his counterparts who spared no thought let the country slip into the grip of the army. 

Nehru had a whirlwind trip to US in 1949, before the crises, when he was feted across the cities and Eisenhower, as President of Columbia University, honored him with a honorary Ph.D but the visit was also a disaster because America expected Nehru and India to be a meek suppliant which Nehru refused to be. Post-Crises, stung by his inability to stand up to India’s military superiority, Liaquat too visited the US but unlike Nehru he was clear that the US can hold Pakistan almost as a vassal state. 

Why would Nehru even try to have a pact with Pakistan? One should study geo-political history, notably the Cold War history of US-Soviet relationship to understand how fixed perceptions and prejudices can stifle possibilities for cooperation or peace.

When we contextualize the trajectory of Pakistan’s history and it’s failure to standby the pact it is clear that the failure was neither Nehru’s nor India’s. Even today discussions of how minorities are treated in Pakistan are often juxtaposed with how Muslims are treated in India and Muslims are reminded that they should be grateful to Hindus. 

To Nehru how India treated its minorities had nothing, whatsoever, to do with how Hindus were treated elsewhere. He wrote to Patel, “The belief that retaliation is a suitable method to deal with Pakistan, or what happens in Pakistan is growing. That is the surest way to ruin…That is surely not the way to protect minorities”. 

That Nehru’s philosophy about protecting minorities was the governing philosophy of his cabinet and his successor is evident in the reply that Sardar Swaran Singh, one time member of Nehru’s cabinet too, gave as External Affairs minister to a query raised in the Rajya Sabha in 1966 about whether Pakistan has, unlike India, failed protect minorities. Swaran Singh replied, “ The hon. Member would no doubt be aware that in our Constitution we gave equality of treatment to every person, whether of the majority community or minority community, whatever may be his religion, and we are wedded to pursue this policy according to our Constitution— equality of every Indian irrespective of religion or caste or creed—and it is our determination to pursue this policy whatever Pakistan does”. Nehru would’ve been proud of Swaran Singh.

The no-war pact proposal failed because Pakistan insisted on identifying mediatory organizations and India balked at it for valid reasons and some extraneous reasons too. However since the pact was discussed publicly both governments decided to publish the correspondence, that too simultaneously, to avoid one side or the other making incorrect claims. While India rejected mediations on topics outside Kashmir the World Bank did mediate the Indus Waters Agreement. The no-war pact idea kept resurfacing twice by Nehru and twice, in later years, by Pakistan. Palace Raghavan makes the case that we should look beyond habitual hostility in understanding the Indo-Pak relationship. 

Conclusion

It is specious to use Nehru-Liaquat pact to justify the Citizenship Amendment Bill that imposes a religion as a criteria to selectively confer citizenship on refugees. The very idea would’ve been abhorrent to Jawaharlal Nehru. There was a time when a bill was moved in the Constituent Assembly by a member of stature, Anathasayanam Ayyangar, to “for the separation of religion from politics and for India becoming a secular state”. Replying on the bill Nehru said, “we must have it clearly in our minds and in the mind of the country that the alliance of religion and politics in the shape of communalism is a most dangerous alliance”.

Alas we now live in an age when members of the ruling party chant “Jai Shri Ram” when a Muslim member of parliament rises to take oath. The Prime Minister says that some Indians fear the chant “Jai Shri Ram”. No, Mr. Prime Minister, Indians hailed as Mahatma a man who died calling out to Rama. 

India needs to be reclaimed in the name of Nehru, Gandhi and Ambedkar and be home to all as equal citizens. 

References:

1. War and Peace in Modern India - Srinath Raghavan
2. The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan — Yasmin Khan
3. An American Witness to India’s Partition — Phillips Talbot
4. Nehru: A Political Biography — Michael Brecher
5. Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography (Volume 2) — Sarvepalli Gopal
6. Patel: A Life — Rajmohan Gandhi
7. Army and Nation — Steven Wilkinson
8. The Cold War in South Asia: Britain, the United States and the Indian Subcontinent, 1945-1965 — Paul M. McGarr
9. Nehru’s India — ed. Mushirul Hasan
10. Letters for a Nation: Jawaharlal Nehru — ed. Madhav Kosla
11. Geirge F. Kennan: An American Life — John Lewis Gaddis
12. Text of Nehru-Liaquat Pact https://mea.gov.in/Portal/LegalTreatiesDoc/PA50B1228.pdf 
13. Sardar Swaran Singh reply in Rajya Sabha http://rsdebate.nic.in/rsdebate56/bitstream/123456789/527138/1/PQ_57_16081966_S454_p2636_p2640.pdf 
14. The Making of the India-Pakistan Dynamic: Nehru, Liaquat, and the No War Pact Correspondence of 1950 —- Pallavi Raghavan https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/091C9228053BF0028CD13DB7B75F2C1B/S0026749X15000554a.pdf/making_of_the_indiapakistan_dynamic_nehru_liaquat_and_the_no_war_pact_correspondence_of_1950.pdf 

'Janab' Vajpayee: From Kargil to Agra via Kandahar

"The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I shall better the instructions" says Shylock in a poignant monologue. How would Vajpayee's 6 year reign look like in the eyes of Aravindan Neelakandan? Let's do a Shylock on Neelakandan.

Aravindan Neelakandan labeled Nehru as 'Janab' Jawaharlal Nehru for the sin of having dialogues with Liaquat Ali Khan and for signing the much maligned 'Nehru-Liaquat' pact. Neelakandan wrongly claimed that Nehru and Liaquat wined and dined while thousands (counting only the Hindus as Neelakandan would do) died. Nehru clearly wrote that he met the refugees all through the days of discussions. So lets take a measure of Vajpayee using Neelakandan's rhetoric and frame of analyses.

Just the fact that Nehru was the father and grandfather of Indira and Rajiv, Neelakandan ascribed their failures, weaknesses and wrongs to Nehru but he failed to credit Nehru for the war that Indira won. Where Nehru would have waffled Indira showed steely resolve. The dramatic liberation of Bangladesh, achieved against Nixon-Kissinger opposition, earned Indira the sobriquet 'Durga' from A.B.Vajpayee himself.

Vajpayee started his term with Pokharan II which paved the way, not just for India but for Pakistan too, to be 'declared nuclear powers'. In case Neelakandan slept through the Indira era Pokharan I refers to the nuclear blast test carried out by Indira. Wisely she and her son did not go any further. But our fearless Vajpayee rushed were angels would fear to tread. Headed by a Muslim scientist (actually just project manager without a PhD) India's nuclear bomb was born. The Muslim was rewarded with the highest office, the Presidency, by pseudo-secular Janab Vajpayee.

Armed with the nuclear bomb Vajpayee then, Nehru like, decided to make peace and rode a bus to Lahore declaring open a new era in Indo-Pak relationship forgetting that Pakistan had made no concrete actions meriting a peace offer. Janab Vajpayee thought he could win the Nobel peace prize, perhaps.

The bus to Lahore went nowhere and Kargil happened. The intelligence failure leading to Kargil is pardonable and is of lesser relevance here. The only reason that India lost so many precious soldiers, that now Modi vows to protect, was because Vajpayee restrained the army from crossing the LoC (Line of Control). Pakistan was the aggressor and India had every right to retaliate in full force in any means it could have chosen. Vajpayee, like Janab Nehru, sought to stake the high moral ground in international forum by not crossing the LoC even if that meant fewer Indian lives. The patriotic BJP regime then bought over priced coffins from America.(Hint:Christian America that dreams of breaking India every day. Refer Neelakandan and Rajiv Malhotra :-)). By the way why does not Shastri, who humiliatingly defeated Pakistan, and who gave back all that India won by sacrificing blood, earn the sobriquet 'Janab'?

Just when every Neelakandan was walking with their nose in the air and a chip on their shoulder after the victory at Kargil (what victory? just reclaimed what was lost) an Indian airlines flight was hijacked and taken to Kandahar. Vajpayee and the effete administration he headed (and a weak state) did not have the courage to mount an Entebbe. Given the pathetic performance of Indian commandos in Nov 2008 when Mumbai was surrendered to a handful of terrorists for nearly 2 days I am glad that Vajpayee decided to become a Janab rather than indulge in any bravado. Janab Jr Jaswant Singh accompanied a dreaded terrorist to deliver to hijackers in exchange for the hapless passengers.

BJP likes to portray itself the Republican party of India when it comes to defense. Not satisfied with sacrificing Indian lives thanks to their pusillanimity in crossing LoC during a war BJP regime was plagued by scandals related to defense purchases. The famous Tehelka sting exposed the rot within the BJP administration. I am aware that Tehelka's Tejpal is discredited today for a different offense unrelated to that sting operation.

The December 2001 attack by Pakistan funded terrorist on the Indian Parliament was the most brazen and till date the most direct attack on the very foundations of Indian nationhood (dare I say 'manhood'). Vajpayee bristled and mobilized over half a million soldiers in an act of brinkmanship mano-mano at the Pakistan border facing of 400,000 Pakistan soldiers. The standoff resulted in nearly 1800 Indian soldiers dead and loss of $3 billion. Pakistan lost $1.3billion, half that of India's losses. The end gain for India was a trip by Bill Clinton. When Clinton gave an address to the joint session of the Indian parliament he was greeted like Amitabh Bachchan and MP's fell head over heels trying to touch Clinton.

The coup-de-grace was when Vajpayee invited Pervez Musharraf to Agra to literally wine and dine, unlike Janab Nehru, for a peace summit. Musharraf, the architect of Kargil, strutted about visiting the Taj with his wife, taking a photo on the lovers bench and later visiting his ancestral home in Delhi. The summit collapsed and Musharraf gleefully blamed Janab Vajpayee. The disaster was compounded by the PR offensive of Pakistanis led by Musharraf himself while the secretive Indian side led by Vajpayee, a poet, made it easy for Pakistani versions of the collapse do the rounds. Looks like Vajpayee, just like Nehru, renowned for words and knowledge of foreign policy, floundered, like Nehru, where it counted.

Dawood Ibrahim is blamed by India for the Bombay blasts of 1993. Janab Vajpayee in his 6 years of reign never once moved anything to apprehend Ibrahim or kill him a la USA did to Osama bin Laden. After having shamefully sent a very senior minister to accompany a terrorist for hostage exchange Vajpayee did not even bother to do a hot pursuit or kill him.

On lesser serious count is Vajpayee's aligning with notoriously anti-Hindu DMK just to enjoy addressing Bharat Mata on August 15th from the ramparts of Red Fort. By continuing to use Red Fort, a symbol of the invader, as venue for addressing our beloved Bharat Mata Vajpayee proved that he is a Janab indeed. It'd be rich with irony if Modi took Jaya's support. She of the Shankaracharya arrest fame.

I am no Neelakandan so I'll disavow some of what I said above.

Not crossing the LoC was a strategic restraint that, though it cost Indian lives, saved more Indian lives. Imagine the thousands of soldiers who would have died in an all out war. Saddam Hussein lobbed patriot missiles into Tel Aviv seeking to provoke Israel to attack and this splitter the US led alliance in the 1991 Gulf War. The Arab nations, which pleaded USA to stop Saddam Hussein and to liberate Kuwait, had hypocritically insisted that at no stage should Israel enter the war. Though Israel, under international law, could have defended itself after a missile attack on its major city the nation observed restraint in the larger interest.

Anwar Sadat came close to almost destroying Israel in the Yom Kippur war. Yet, Israel pursued a peace accord with Sadat. Arafat was the sworn enemy of Israel yet Israel signed a treaty with him. Yitzhak Rabin, prodded by Bill Clinton, signed an accord with Arafat and even shook his hand. However, Rabin refused to hug Arafat. After Germany brought the world to the brink of ruin under Hitler the US poured money, by the billions, into Germany to stave of Stalin. Japan bombed Pearl Harbor even as the peace talks were underway. Later USA dropped two atom bombs and incinerated Japan. A defeated Japan was under US occupation and compelled to adopt a constitution. Today Japan and US are allies. Khrushchev said he would 'bury' America. When USSR imploded USA helped secure the Soviet nuclear arsenal in global and self interest. America carpet bombed Vietnam and today they are trading partners. This is how the world has to function. Vajpayee's attempts to forge peace with Pakistan were courageous and he should be commended for that.

America can afford to do a hit pursuit of Osama Bin Laden but let's not forget that for over a year Americans, in full view of the world, were held hostage in an Iranian embassy. America, subscribing to international law, had to give visas to Castro, Gaddafi, Chavez to visit the UN. Chavez, standing in NY, called Bush, the sitting US President, a Satan.

Israel, after the stunning swift victory in 1967, expanded its borders well beyond what the UN gave to Israel when Israel was partitioned from Palestine. It begot Israel 4 decades of strife. Neelakandan conveniently blames the 1971 massacre of Hindus (forgetting that thousands of Muslims to were massacred) in Bangladesh on the Nehru-Liaquat pact forgetting that Lal Bahadur Shastri had Pakistan on its knees. Can we blame Shastri for not only failing to re-unify Akhand Bharat but this paving the way for 1971 massacres? No. Not at all. It was and is plainly inconceivable neither Shastri nor Indira though defeating Pakistan in a war could have prevented 1971.

Historian Ramachandra Guha, another person that Neelakandan loathes, wrote an interesting piece on how Vajpayee viewed Nehru. Delivering his eulogy on Nehru Vajpayee waxed eloquent  ‘a dream has remained half-fulfilled, a song has become silent, and a flame has banished into the Unknown. The dream was of a world free of fear and hunger; the song a great epic resonant with the spirit of the Gita and as fragrant as a rose, the flame a candle which burnt all night long, showing us the way’. Vajpayee, when he took over as foreign minister in the Janata regime, insisted on retaining Nehru's picture that was in the office allocated to him as minister.


References:

1. Vajpayee's Nehru - http://ramachandraguha.in/archives/vajpayee’s-nehru-the-hindu.html

The Great Partition: A Tragedy and A Festering Wound.

Of the many comments I received in response to my previous blog on Nehru the most shocking was "even Ambedkar suggested complete population exchange so that minorities in both countries will live in peace". I've read that Ambedkar's views about Muslims were controversial. He did indeed suggest 'population exchange' because he subscribed to Jinnah's 'two nation theory' and felt Hindus and Muslims, incompatible at the root, cannot live together. When he suggested that the horrors of Partition were yet to unfold. A human tragedy of biblical proportions was yet to consume the subcontinent. The person who left that comment on my blog blissfully refused to learn from the horrors. The words 'population exchange' are used with no idea of how it actually tore apart a subcontinent of one-fifth of humanity. People think such exchanges would have happened peacefully as if millions would pack their bags like going for a picnic, board a train, go some place they have not been to in generations, restart life, get new jobs etc. Yasmin Khan's well researched book "The Great Partition: The making of India and Pakistan" is a compelling read that will help us understand how close India came to exploding into chaos and anarchy. Khan traces how the subcontinent descended into bloodletting that was unprecedented in human history barring the holocaust.

Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre in an otherwise well written book "Freedom midnight" fawned over Mountbatten and made him appear as the knight in shining armor. Mountbatten and the colonial regime should be indicted for gross incompetence and shameful abandonment.

Stafford Cripps's cabinet mission floundered on a compromise of a loose federal structure. To the Muslim league it appeared as negation of the promise of 'Pakistan' the country. Let it also be noted that Patel and Ambedkar were not in favor of any loose federation but strongly pushed for a powerful center. That in turn raised the shackles of the Muslim league which feared that Muslim majority states will be under the thumb of Hindu ruled Delhi. Jinnah issued a call for 'direct action' to get Pakistan.

Jinnah's call for 'Direct action' between 16th-18th August 1946 plunged West Bengal into an orgy of violence. Khan quotes the Muslim Mayor, "Oh Kafir! Your doom is not far and the greater massacre will come". Suhrawardy, like Modi in 2000, did not incite personally but gave the distinct impression that the murderous gangs, Khan says, "could act with impunity".

Noakhali followed soon in October. The scale of violence unleashed by Muslims needed '1800 armed police and royal air force planes' to quell the mobs. Into this mayhem of blood lust Gandhi walked in. He would remain at Naokhali for 6 months till March 1947. It is strange that Hindutva people only cite Gandhi's fasts in Calcutta to protect Muslims but ignore that Gandhi stayed in Naokhali at great personal peril for 6 months to be with Hindus. Gandhi stayed in a burnt down hut and trekked miles every day. Collins and Lapierre record that Gandhi's path will be intuitionally soiled with human excreta but Gandhi would patiently wipe away each with a leaf and walk on. The chapter is suitably titled 'penitents progress'. Nirmal Bose in 'My days with Gandhi' records that Gandhi would spend the nights groaning 'kya karoon' (what can I do) trying to find light amidst an enveloping madness. It is easy to ask "well what good did it serve". Let's remember that there were few options available.

Later in November 1946 in Garmuhkteswar Hindu gangs murdered hundreds of Muslims. Khan quotes a Congress minister, an eye witness, "the RSS had carefully laid the plot, marked all Muslim shops which after dusk were burnt according to a plan without doing the least injury to the neighboring shops". When Nehru toured Bihar he was appalled to see Hindu homes painted with slogans like "Hindus, beware of Muslims".

The word 'insane' is often applied in the context of  what looked like mindless killing. Khan disagrees and dispels that myth. She says that the violence was not a random act but "designed purposefully to influence and shape its (constitutional decision making) outcome by enforcing a mono religious state and purging the land of the other'. Khan notes that Partition violence was made worse by modern technology. The press was factionalized and played a role in fanning the flames. Telegrams pleading for help exaggerated atrocities and couched the pleas in offending words of the perpetrators. Once information about a refugee train departing for Pakistan was announced on All India Radio. Information about such trains had to be kept top secret but they always leaked. 'Rations dealers were accused of copying their lists (of customers) and helping rioters to identify occupants of houses'

Clement Attlee presiding over a war weary Britain wanted to wash his hands of this mayhem. He shocked Indian by declaring on February 20th that India will be freed no later than June 1948. the flamboyant and arrogant new Viceroy Mountbatten announced the plan to partition India on 3rd June 1947. Collins and Lapierre have documented how Mountbatten pulled the date of liberation, Aug 15th, out of nowhere. In less than three months a large subcontinent was to be vivisected. Yet no one, not a single soul other than Gandhi, could even have a foreboding of the events to unfold. And, this is the Himalayan failure on all sides. Nobody predicted mass migration. What is worse nobody even foresaw the violence that would accompany any migration. A cursory googling of Margaret Bourke White's pictures of the horrors will send a chill down our spines even today. Khan's book has a picture of tens of vultures literally feasting on an entire street strewn with corpses.

                                                 Vultures waiting to swoop down on corpses. (courtesy BBC.com)

                                  A dying man and grand children - Margaret Bourke White records how pained she was just taking this photograph (Courtesy BBC.com. For more pictures visit http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/south_asia_india0s_partition/html/1.stm)

The British in a naked effort to cut their losses took back British soldiers from Indian army at a critical juncture. In an ill advised move, supported by Nehru and Jinnah, the Indian army was divided on communal lines and partitioned. Maulana Azad ruefully records the fatality of such a decision in his autobiography. The one institution that would have been of great support in restoring order was torn apart. Nobody had dissented except Azad. Even intelligence services, a crucial organ, was cut.

When Congress and Muslim League agreed to partition they thought that the minorities in each nation would stay put and a few thousand would migrate. By 1950 nearly 12 million had migrated with a million dead.

A professor wrote to Jinnah about which cities should be included in Pakistan with a 'back of the envelop calculation'. Khan bristled 'the logic of this was t o reduce individuals and communities to crass ratios and statistics which stripped bare the inner complexities of friendship, community and life itself'. The muslim professor and Ambedkar gave little thought to what it meant to rip apart people from societies they were embedded into for centuries. Imagine the horrors of a Muslim exodus from central and South India.

The partition happened just after the world war had ended. The newly minted super powers and erstwhile empires had no concern of this unfolding tragedy. There was no world body to lend help. Even the Red Cross expressed inability to be of any help. Pakistan and India, two nascent countries with fledgling economies, had to deal with this tragedy of a scale unprecedented in human history.

The economic impact, in my opinion, has not even been analyzed in any depth. Khan devotes a few paragraphs. It was the rich and the upper crust of politician in each party that desired for partition more than anybody. The common man was just a tool. G.DBirla favored partition and yearned for a strong center (not a feeble loose federation) that would launch economic schemes. Birla moved all his property out of Pakistan expecting riots and losses. 'Unharvested crops, closure of banks and shops disruption to trade' cost both governments in millions. A refugee tax, in force till 1950s, was enacted. Pakitsan levied a refugee surcharge on train tickets."This was not simply an 'exchange of population or straightforward swap". "Pakistan lost its bankers, merchants, shopkeepers, entrepreneurs and clerks - the wheels came off the machinery of the state". Seeing economic collapse due to fleeing Hindus Jinnah pleaded that 'knifing a Sikh is like knifing Pakistan in the back'. India lost "Muslim railway men, severs, craftsmen, agriculturists and administrators, brought gridlock to production". The  refugees destabilized the labor market in a seismic manner.

Jinnah told a packed audience "make it a matter of our prestige and honor to safeguard the lives of the minority communities". One wonders about the possibilities of Jinnah living longer. A blessing for India was Nehru's longevity, a factor in Gadnhi's decision to make Nehru the PM. Nehru wrote to his chief ministers "we have a Muslim minority who are so large in numbers that they cannot, even if they want to, go anywhere else".

Added to the boiling religious tension strikes were crippling the country. "In 1946 there were 1629 industrial disputes involving almost two million workers and a loss of over twelve million man-days". In Delhi and Bihar the police mutinied. Telangana erupted in peasant led riots covering 'three to four thousand villages' stretching well into 1951.

 Hindutva people love to lament on how Gandi, when he undertook his last fast unto death, included in his agenda giving Pakistan the money that was owed to it. Rich Hindus who promoted the idea of partition had bled Pakistan of much needed capital anyway. Refusing to pay Pakistan what was owed to it would only have pushed India into a war. Muslim smiths or craftsmen closed down their shops because Hindu lenders would refuse to lend any more money fearing that the debtors would flee to Pakistan anyway. Yet again, imagine the economic collapse of a thorough 'population exchange' across all of India.

Fearing reprisals and an outbreak of violence Mountbatten did not release the details of how Radcliffe had sliced and diced India until August 17th. Radcliffe, with no familiarity of India, completed his assigned task in just a few weeks. The objective of the secrecy became counterproductive as riots broke out to ensure the outcome was the desired result of the perpetrators. In Lahore Satish Gujral learned that  his city will be in Pakistan through posters on walls, not from radio or the government.

A perpetual grouse of the Hindutva loony bin is "why did not Nehru just accept every Hindu from East Bengal? It would have prevented the wholesale massacre of Hindus in 1971". Managing influx of refugees is an intractable socio-economic problem till today. Refugees gravitate to only cities. The population of Delhi almost doubled. Bombay government tried to refuse any further influx of refugees. Nehru had to tell them it was not an option. Welfare schemes for refugees raised the ire of local population. "The UP state government steadfastly resisted the arrival of refugees in 1947 and attempted to seal the border". The chief minister of Assam threatened 'separatism' if any more refugees from Bengal came into Assam. Add to all the above an acute shortage of food thanks to a devastating war.

In a compelling paragraph that sounds true of US's Iraq imbroglio and partition Khan writes "the idea of partitioning ancient home lands was barely contemplated or understood. as the power of the state to deliver law and order visibly collapsed, other regional aspirations came bubbling to the surface and all sorts of groups made violent bids for their own portion of the land and their own community's sovereignty". Khan quotes historian K.M.Panikkar who said "Hindustan is the elephant..and Pakistan the two ears. The elephant can live without ears". A Hindu school teacher said ""whatever our choice of words, the culture of this part of India could not be otherwise predominantly Hindu". 'Demagogue P.D.Tandon told the youth to arm and take back the lands sliced away'. Later Patel would, just to snub Nehru, make Tandon the president of congress over the objections of Nehru.

Coming to a very late realization that migration is a reality both governments reconciled to facilitating the migration. Ambedkar's 'population exchange' idea was now given sanction albeit limited to the border states. This acceptance of migration and attempt to facilitate fleeing populations inevitably led to 'ethnic cleansing'. "Local administrators now had the chance-either accidentally or explicitly- to help with ethnic cleansing agenda". Penderel Moon was 'shocked to hear that government officials were pushing Muslim out of East Punjab...acting under orders".

Even the idea of a 'passport' was alien to the people of both countries. Neither administration had given a thought of identifying a 'citizen'. But then the very definition of who is a 'citizen' itself was a very contentious one. Gandhi declared that he will walk to Lahore without a passport. Migrant populations did not even understand the need for 'permits'. When families separated many did not envisage that one day they may not even be able to visit the family on the 'other side'. A horror that Berlin will endure nearly two decades later. Pimps and pedophilies prowled refugee camps. In this context we can only imagine the law and order problems.

The only two people who come off looking decent in Khan's analysis are Nehru and Gandhi, the perpetual butt of Hindutva hatred. Nehru and Gandhi, Khan writes, strove to prevent 'the mass ejection of Muslims' from India. Patel was, in Maulana Azad's words, less than willing to be secular. Ambedkar has written extensively on Pakistan and framing a thesis that pretty much makes the same case as that of Hindutva brigade. Ambedkar rejects Golwalkar's solution of a Hindu state with Muslim minority living 'under them as nation within nation'. But Ambedkar accepts Golwalkar's premise that the Hindu and the Mussalman cannot live together as one nation. Yes India continues to have problems but given that India has a historically unique situation of accommodating diverse cultures and many religions, by and large, it has done well by all. Sure there is a long road to go before there is equality. Sure there are mistakes committed in the name of secularism. But India should continue the path of secularism as it is the moral thing to do.

Now, there are few more questions worth answering. Why did Ambedkar subscribe to two nation theory and argue in favor of homogeneity? Ambedkar forgot that in the eyes of many Hindus he and his people were seen pretty much how he saw the Mussalman, 'violent' and 'incompatible'. Secularism is not just a moral thing but a socio-economic necessity. Diversity benefits a society. Above all the biggest beef for Hindutva brigade is 'why should we behave any better than Pakistan'. Could India behave like Pakistan does towards its minorities? The word 'minority' is a misnomer when applied to 170 million people. Thats half of US population today. Strategically India cannot afford to be Pakistan. Nor should it. Thats immoral. The Khilafat agitation, Moplah (or Mapilla) revolt are the most cited controversies when it comes to discussing partition. Both have layers of myths about them. A Dalit like Ambedkar did not understand the economic dimensions behind the Moplah rebellion in which hundreds of Hindus were massacred. Khilafat agitation was not just Muslim appeasement. All of the above need to be studied separately and I shall write about them separately in the days to come.

References:

1. This blog is written almost exclusively based on Yasmin Khan's impressive and compact book 'The Great Partition:The Making of India and Pakistan'. It is a compelling must read.
2. "India wins freedom" by Maulana Azad