Alex von Tunzelmann on Partition

Some 5 years ago Alex von Tunzelmann wrote of Partition in the NYT

Who was to blame? Many in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh (which was East Pakistan until 1971) and Britain have asked that question.

Why? The answer was obvious. The voters had spoken. The vast majority of Muslim votes, in 1946, went to the League. Hindu votes went to Congress. Muslims did not want to live under Hindu rule because Hindus were stupid and hypocritical. Hindus did not want to live under Mulslim rule because they didn't want to be killed. Sikhs had no choice but to plump for India because that was the least worst option. The Princes were useless and could offer no third way. That's it. That's the whole story. Why look for villains or knaves?  

There are plenty of candidates. Among the principal players, almost everyone in this story made a decision or misjudgment that contributed to the eventual disaster.

No. Everyone briefly stopped bullshitting and accepted the inevitable. 

Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy, was told by the British prime minister, Clement Attlee, in March 1947 to negotiate an exit deal with Indian leaders by October; if he could not, Britain would leave India with no deal by June 1948.

 Because Britain was bankrupt. America wasn't going to pick up the tab for what would have been a quagmire from which only the Commies would benefit. Atlee got the Brits a very good deal because Britain owed India a lot of money for war expenses. Thus the Indians and Pakistanis would have to play nice till their 'sterling balances' depleted- which for India only happened in 1956. But it still had a British Admiral till about 1958. 

The decision to speed this up and leave on Aug. 15 was Lord Mountbatten’s.

Why? Because the Army had become polarized. A clean break had to be made. The hope was that the British officers on both the Indian and Pakistani sides would prevent open war. The Provincial Governments could, if they wished, do an orderly transfer of populations. I'm kidding. They were useless. 

The decision to grant this power to Lord Mountbatten, a naval officer nicknamed the “master of disaster” in the admiralty for his propensity to damage warships by precipitate action, was Mr. Attlee’s.

A very sensible one. Mountbatten remained a very close friend of Nehru's to the latter's dying day. When India considered purchasing Soviet bombers in 1955 or their supersonic fighters in 1962, or appeared poised to scupper Indo-Pakistan talks on Kashmir in 1963, Mountbatten was dispatched to New Delhi to schmooze his old pal. After Nehru's death, the old buffer would still turn up but his attempted interventions were considered irksome. Still, it must be said, the Mountbattens were Britain's ace in the hole after Independence. 

Partition wasn't really a disaster for Congress. Its main leaders got what they wanted. They didn't greatly care about Hindu minorities because they were a small percentage of the total Hindu population. Jinnah and Liaquat, it turned out, didn't care about the one third of Muslims, like themselves, who would find themselves on the wrong side of the border. Still many 'muhajirs' did well in their new country and Urdu has now displaced Punjabi as the language of choice for the majority of Pakistanis.  

Neither Jawaharlal Nehru, the incoming prime minister of India, nor Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the first governor-general of Pakistan, foresaw the scale of the coming violence.

Nor did they foresee that the subcontinent would become unable to feed or defend itself. Under the Brits, India could project force not just in the Indian ocean but also onto European battlefields. Under Nehru & whichever bunch of jokers were running Pakistan, the subcontinent fell behind in its share of global trade and manufacturing industry and so forth. Smart people emigrated to White ruled countries.  

Mr. Nehru had told a journalist in 1946 that “when the British go, there will be no more communal trouble in India.”

Nehru, in his own way, was as stupid and doctrinaire as Gandhi.  Still, he was the big winner out of the deal. 

Mr. Jinnah had pushed for the partition to create Pakistan, a homeland for Muslims, who would otherwise be a minority in a Hindu-dominated superstate. He was backed by British imperialists, notably Winston Churchill, who believed Pakistan would prove a faithful friend to the West and a bulwark between the Soviet Union and a socialist India.

Churchill was irrelevant. The Americans thought he had lost the plot. His 'Iron Curtain' speech in March 1946 bombed. Of the 68 percent of Americans who had heard of it, forty percent disapproved of an Anglo-American alliance to combat the Reds. Eighteen percent favoured it. The rest had no opinion.   

In 1946, a British Cabinet Mission appointed by Mr. Attlee to negotiate the transfer of power had proposed a 10-year federation in India. This would have given the new Indian authorities a decade’s experience of governing before any partition and was probably the last real chance of avoiding it altogether. The plan was accepted by Mr. Jinnah but was wrecked by the revered Mahatma Gandhi.

It was wrecked by Liaquat Ali Khan and Suhrawardy. There was no point having a standstill agreement if the other side would not play ball. The League knew that they'd lose the next provincial elections to agriculturist parties  which is why West Pakistan had no proper elections till 1971.  They had a short window and thus were prepared to settle for a 'moth-eaten' Pakistan. The reason the Hindus were willing to do the deal was because the vast majority of Hindus were on the right side of the border. Furthermore, Hindu history was one of disunity in the face of aggressive Islam. The Hindus wanted a strong centre and needed to get rid of the Muslim majority areas for this to happen. Without the Brits around, non Muslims would not have been safe there in any case. 

Beyond the leaders, every ordinary person who picked up a weapon and used it against his neighbor bore responsibility for his own action. For every rape, there was a rapist; for every murder, there was a murderer.

Partition was on the basis of Religion. Killing infidels was considered a Religious duty. So was killing such killers for the other side.

Yet this catastrophe was caused not only by individuals, great or small, but also by the system that was failing around them: an unpopular and chaotic British Empire. Rived by political violence for its entire existence, the empire had long resisted democratization and had institutionalized differences based on identity between its subjects as a matter of policy.

It gave universal franchise to Ceylon in 1931. But the Muslim League was able to prevent any such outcome in India. Democratization means ethnic cleansing and partition. Empires may protect minorities. Islamic Republics don't unless the minorities are suitably servile or protected by a Great Power.  

The British presence in India was run by the East India Company from 1600 to 1858 and was subject directly to the British crown from 1858 until 1947 (the British Raj). British rule always faced fierce resistance.

It also faced even fiercer protestations of loyalty and very intensive arse licking. That's what happens if you can make compradors and sycophants rich.  

This was visible not only in its many wars and the major rebellion of 1857-8, but also in countless acts of revolt, sabotage and assassination.

But vastly more acts of taking money to kill fellow countrymen who were rebelling or sabotaging or assassinating.  

The British and their client princes frequently quelled dissent and imposed their will by force.

Or they just paid for stuff they wanted.  

Through Gandhi, India developed a tradition of political nonviolence

which failed because people would rather get a pensionable job beating protestors and acting as their jailer.  

— but the British authorities responded even to that with brutality and repression.

No. They used Gandhi because he didn't really want them to leave. As he said in 1939, if the Brits leave the Punjabis and Muslims will dominate the country. Obviously, this would not happen because the Hindu dominant castes- which were plenty martial and much more populous- would kill both. But that would mean saying goodbye to 'Ahimsa' and 'Satyagraha' and Khaddar and enemas for everybody. Gandhi would simply be shot or beaten to death by his own people.  As a matter of fact Gandhi was shot by a Chitpavan. Before Delhi came under the British, it was under the Peshwas who belonged to that sub-caste. 

In the 20th century, there were efforts to reform imperial rule and introduce elements of democracy. Mr. Attlee was a member of a commission that reported on constitutional reform in 1930.

It was boycotted by the Indians. For a brief moment it looked as though Hindus and Muslims could come together. They both remembered they hated each other more than they resented the Brits.  

“Halifax, who was viceroy, believed that there was a good chance that we might have got it accepted and had an all-Indian government but for Churchill and his die-hards,” Mr. Attlee recalled. “That is one of the things one has to chalk down against the old boy.”

Gandhi's greatness is that he gave Churchill a walk-over. But Churchill took a shilling off Income Tax rather than spend it on the Navy. This doomed the Empire.  

British politicians on all sides knew the imperial system was not working, but disagreed about what to change and how.

Because India needed to be partitioned. Muslim majority areas can't be stopped from doing ethnic cleansing if they are self-governed. Atlee was prepared to grasp this thistle because England had no choice. It was bankrupt and America wanted the Brits out of India.  

While they argued among themselves, the situation became more fraught and more divided. Indian leaders like Mr. Nehru, who was repeatedly imprisoned for his political activities, learned to view any British initiative, however well intended, with suspicion.

But he did trust the Brits to keep him comfy in jail. Indeed M.N Roy decided a British jail was safer than Stalin's Gulags or assassins. Basically, Congress gambled that it could inherit power by throwing tantrums from time to time and then waiting in jail to regain a reputation for 'fighting the British'. The problem was that once the British decided to quit India for good, Indians would have to do real fighting. There was no nice jail where cowards could wait things out. Even if they went on hunger strike, nobody would notice since millions of their fellows would be dying of starvation. 

The idea of Pakistan was first proposed by Indian Muslim students at Cambridge University as recently as 1930. Had India been granted home rule earlier, the question of partition might never have arisen.

How could India have been granted it? Gandhi called off Non Cooperation. He said in open court that he had acted like a mad man. India was not ready for Home Rule or even couch privileges. First everybody must give up sex and then take up spinning cotton and then give each other enemas and then give up transport and trade and education. But they must kill lots of puppy dogs. Not killing dogs is the worst type of violence.  

“Strict supervision and play them off one against the other,” says a character in an 1888 Rudyard Kipling story, “The Education of Otis Yeere.”. “That,” he explains, “is the secret of our government.”

Competition is a good thing when it comes to team sports. Strict supervision and pure competition between political parties is the secret of Democratic government.  But whatever it was Gandhi wanted it wasn't Government and it wasn't Democratic. But it did feature him talking endless bollocks. That was only possible while the Brits were around. If they left either he'd have no money and no followers or else hooligans would keep beating him and his people to find out how truly non-violent they were. Come to think of it there was a Japanese spy in Gandhi's Ashrams who'd go around provoking people into beating him up. He thought this would endear him to the maha-crackpot. But Gandhi was merely a hypocritical God botherer ; he wasn't Japanese level kray kray. 

Divide and rule was a deliberate strategy.

It was not a strategy. You have to unite to rule so as to get economies of scope and scale and thus gain a profit. Divisive people can't rule shit.  

Though the caste system had its roots in thousands of years of Indian history, it was codified as never before by the British.

Fuck off! It was codified far better by Manu. The Brits were responding to demands by Caste Associations for this or that ritual status. This is still happening. In those days everybody wanted to be classed as blue blooded. Now everybody wants to be classed as 'backward' or, better still, 'untouchable'.  

Throughout the 19th century and into the 20th, the British authorities partitioned Indians into categories, including “martial races” and “criminal tribes.”

That was already the case. Why not simply say that the Brits invented Hinduism? How could Sanskrit have existed before the Brits wrote books about it? 

From the 1870s, a census attempted to record every Indian subject’s caste, religion and language.

Very true. Indians had no gender prior to 1870. Also they were not readily differentiable from plants or birds.  

This information had consequences. It defined, for instance, whether particular groups would be allowed to join prestigious army regiments.

Sandhurst recruits mainly rent-boys. The Household Cavalry insists that applicants prove they are descended exclusively from the cheapest type of prostitute.  

When the British introduced a Legislative Assembly in India after World War I, specific seats were reserved for Europeans, Sikhs, Muslims, Christians, “depressed classes,” landholders, merchants and so on.

India still has reserved seats for Scheduled Castes and Tribes.  

Belonging to one group or another was crucial to an individual’s destiny.

No. Not being as poor as shit was crucial.  

Identity politics were not merely endorsed; they were mandated.

By the fact that people actually have identities. A politics which does not mandate identity won't feature any people. This clearly shows that human beings only exist due to evil politicians. 

By the time Lord Mountbatten was sent to India in March 1947, it was too late to undo these legacies of British rule.

Very true. By the time something happens it is too late to undo the stuff that has already happened. That's how Time works- worse luck.  

Communal division, mistrust of authority and violence were already mingling and combusting.

Also some peeps were putting their pee pee in chee chee place. Gandhi was against this. Sadly, the Brits failed to ban sex in a prompt and timely manner.  

In the week of Lord Mountbatten’s arrival alone, there was a police mutiny in Patna;

the police strike of '46, with backing of JP and the Congress Socialists had yielded some meagre results. The March '47 strike was brief and had to do with a constable being insulted by a superior officer. It wasn't serious.  

at least 70 dead and 1,000 injured in riots and bomb blasts in Calcutta; 160 people killed in rioting in Amritsar; 14 policemen injured in riots in Mardan; and daily stabbings and brickbattings in Delhi that left at least two dead and dozens injured. That was not an unusual week.

Because power had passed to Provincial Governments. Ethnic cleaning on a massive scale was round the corner. 

Lord Mountbatten did not have the men or means at his disposal to restore order. The government in London, dealing with severe domestic hardship after World War II, had no intention of sending more troops or resources to India. Indian leaders and ordinary people on all sides resisted Lord Mountbatten’s initiative to set up a peacekeeping Boundary Force to combat communal violence, viewing it as an extension of imperialism. What remained of British authority had lost both control and trust. All the last viceroy could hope to achieve — by hastening the end of imperial rule — was to save face for the empire.

No. He got India and Pakistan to stay in the sterling zone. Basically both sides gave the Brits all they wanted financially and with respect to defence and diplomacy. Nehru was the one man who might have upset the applecart. But the Mountbattens turned into his closest friends.  

The fact that this was his priority was reflected in his decision to delay announcement of the new borders between India and Pakistan until the day after independence, Aug. 16.

What was wrong with that? Neither Jinnah nor Nehru objected. Mountbatten observed the constitutional formalities. The Interim Government was responsible for what happened.  

“It had been obvious all along,” Lord Mountbatten reported, “that the later we postponed publication, the less would the inevitable odium react upon the British.”

This was a perfectly proper argument to make for an official answerable to the Crown in Parliament. He didn't pass the buck to Atlee. He didn't shilly shally. Thus he went on to hold the senior position he had always hankered for.  

Lord Mountbatten’s high-speed exit thus enabled a myth of “après nous, le déluge”: the notion that Britain’s rule of India was relatively functional and things fell apart only once the British left. But the blame for a disaster of this magnitude does not come down to a single man. While everyone involved bears some responsibility, they were all acting in a context of decades, even centuries, of chaotic, violent, unresponsive and willfully divisive rule. The truth is that the way the Raj ended was not so very different from the way it had existed.

The Raj existed to promote trade and commerce and extract rents in return for 'Pax Brittanica'. It came to an end when Britain lacked the capital and military power to provide this service. The fact that Partition occurred comes down to one thing and one thing only. Muslims considered Hindus to be infidels. Democracy means majority rule. The least the Muslims could do was to ensure that infidels would be expelled or kept in a servile position where they themselves were in the majority. As for minority Muslims, well, they must bide their time and trust in God that the infidels reign would be brief. 

Could there have been an orderly exchange of population? Yes. But Indian politicians didn't want to get involved in that messy business. They had speeches to make and chimeras to pursue. But then, Europe, at this time, saw much killing and rape and ethnic cleansing.  But, Europe recovered quickly- even in the Soviet sector. Fighting involves learning skills which have peacetime applications. Non-violence is mere stupidity. Sulking in a jail cell does not make you a fighter. If nobody can be bothered to lock you up, you are merely a public nuisance. You have fallen below the level of politics in the manner of a drunken hobo passed out in a pool of his own vomit and faeces. The only alternative to this fate is to lie your head off. Lying can be part of politics provided somebody pays money for those lies. But swindling charlatans exist in every field.