India's Constitutional Question - The Cabinet Mission Plan 1946

It is worthwhile for those interested in India's constitutional question in the pre-independence era to read for themselves primary sources on the Cabinet Mission Plan and related materials.

I have typed out full text and excerpts of discussions, letters, statements and speeches of the primary actors of that period- Congress, Muslim League and the British, and uploaded these to this website to make them accessible to a larger audience..

The main sources I have drawn from are

1. 'The Transfer of Power 1942-7' Ed. Nicholas Mansergh, E.W.Lumby and Penderel Moon.

2. 'Speeches and Documents on the Indian Constitution 1921-47'. Selected by Sir Maurice Gwyer and A. Appadorai, 1957

3. 'Speeches, 'Statements and Messages of the Quaid-e-Azam', Ed.Khurshid Yusufi, Bazm-i-Iqbal, Lahore.

My own thesis is that the Congress Party had to accept Partition of India as the best of only two bad choices offered by the Plan- a truncated sovereign Pakistan right then or a larger sovereign Pakistan after the British left, whose boundaries would pass through the outskirts of Delhi.

This is borne out by the British and Jinnah's insistence that Congress accept those provisions of the Cabinet Mission Plan which specified the compulsory grouping of provinces into separate sections and those which specified that the proposed Indian Union have not one but two or more separate Constitution making bodies for all subjects except only three Union subjects defence, foreign affairs and communications.

These provisions meant that under the Cabinet Mission Plan, the Pakistan sections B and C would for all practical purposes constitute an independent state, with Hindustan/section A unable to prevent its secession at any point of time. The only way for Congress to prevent such a larger sovereign Pakistan from coming into being was to stress that grouping of provinces should not be compulsory. When that position was not accepted by the British or Jinnah, the Congress settled for the lesser evil, the smaller truncated Pakistan.

I believe the primary material supports my thesis of these being essentially the only two choices before the Congress and of Congress leaders including Gandhi, Maulana Azad, Nehru and Patel's being collectively aware of such.

The primary material is linked in the right half of this page.

New since 07/13:

ForwardPolicy(1): Religious incitement in British Forward Policy 1830s-1898

ForwardPolicy(2): Religious incitement in British Forward Policy 1899-1947

New since 05/12:

Extra(12)-Jinnah, Linlithgow, Sikander Hayat, Pakistan rumblings, 1942-3

Some Secondary Sources

Historians' secondary or interpretative narrations can be illuminating for their delineations of the broader historical picture, despite often propagating misleading biases. The interested reader also often finds in these accounts, valuable quotes and references for further investigation.

Durga Das's India from Curzon to Nehru and after offers his witness's account of Indian political history from the mid-1910s onward till many years past independence. He observed firsthand and reported on the great diversity of Indians participating in many disparate events which together constituted the Indian independence movement. His book is a great starting place and worth reading in entirety. Some parts are quoted here.

Durga Das (1) 1919-1931, Jallianwala Bagh to Bhagat Singh

Durga Das (2) 1931-1936, Crescent Card: Jinnah in London to Fazli Husain in Punjab

Durga Das(3) 1937-1940, Provincial Autonomy to Jinnah gets the veto

Durga Das(4) 1940-1945, The War Years: India's War Effort-Pakistan on a platter

Durga Das(5) 1945-1947, The Cabinet Mission to Divide and Quit

Many historians consider that the period 1937-1940 was a decisive one for India's future; as during this period Congress-Jinnah differences over elected provincial governments evolved rapidly into an unbridgeable political rift between many Muslims and other Indians. Ayesha Jalal's The Sole Spokesman, Sarvepalli Gopal's Jawaharlal Nehru and Stanley Wolpert's Jinnah of Pakistan are quoted here on the events of that period.

1937-1940(2): Congress and Jinnah fall out in U.P., Jinnah's anti-Congress campaign and the Viceroy gives Jinnah a Veto: Ayesha Jalal, Sarvepalli Gopal and Stanley Wolpert

M.J. Akbar provides invaluable perspective and a wealth of facts and quotes on the same period in Nehru, The Making of India.

1937: Congress-Jinnah tussle over coalition government in U. P., M.J. Akbar

Bimal Prasad's essay, Jawaharlal Nehru and Partition in The Partition in Retrospect Ed. Amrik Singh offers interesting perspectives and quotes on the political events in 1937, a key year in Congress-Jinnah relations.

1937: Nehru, Jinnah and Coalition Governments, Bimal Prasad

Anita Inder Singh's The Origins of the Partition of India 1936-1947 is a copiously-referenced clearsighted narrative of a critical period of pre-independence history. The first portion excerpted corresponds to the months following the British declaration of war in September 1939 and highlights the British reliance on Jinnah's demands to deny any concessions, minor or major, to the Congress. The second excerpt covers the 1945-46 provincial election campaigns, particularly in Punjab. The Muslim League fought this election on the sole platform of Pakistan.

1939-1940: India and the War, Anita Inder Singh

1945-1946: The Elections of 1945-46, Anita Inder Singh

Religious incitement to violence was a recurring feature of British forward policy in Afghanistan and the North West Frontier over a span of at least 120 years from the 1820s-1947. These pages quote both primary sources and a number of historians[Rajendra Prasad, Andrew M. Roe, Arnold Fletcher, Rhea Stewart, Leon Poullada, Stephen Rittenburg, Sayed Wiqar Ali Shah, Wali Khan], on the subject. Excerpts cover the Barelvi jihad against the Sikh king Ranjit Singh, Indian, Liberal and Tory politicians' discussions on forward policy in the 1890s, the downfall of the Afghan king Amanullah Khan in 1928-1929 and the British Indian government funding of religious propaganda in the North West Frontier during 1939-1945.

ForwardPolicy(1): Religious incitement in British Forward Policy 1830s-1898

ForwardPolicy(2): Religious incitement in British Forward Policy 1899-1947

Note: This collation would not have been possible without the help of my brother. Without his patient guidance and steady involvement it might have been impossible for me to navigate the oceans of material on this subject. The beautiful picture above was shot by him.

07/09

sadna_guptaATyahooDOTcom