UNIT 34 INDIAN NATIONALISM DURING

THE WORLD WAR 11: QUIT

INDIA MOVEMENT AND INA

Structure
34.0 Objectives
34.1 Introduction
34.2 1939 to 1941
34.2.1 Attitude Towards War
34.2.2 Indlvldual Satyagrah
34.3 Towards Quit India Movement
34.4 The Movement
34.4.1 Spread of the Movement
34.4.2 Responses and Trends
34.4.3 Repression
34.5 Indian National Army
34 5 . 1 Formation of INA
34.5 2 Actions of INA
34.5.3 Impact
34.6 Let Us Sum Up
34.7 Key Words
34.8 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises

I
I 34.0 OBJECTIVES
1 After reading this Unit you will be able to:
know about the circumstances leading to the beginning of the Quit India Movement,
explain the attitude of the various sections of Indian people towards this movement,
learn about the response to this movement in different regions of the country,
know about the repressive methods adopted by the British to crush the movement,
understand the characteristics and the significance of this movement, and
learn about the formation of the Indian National Army and the role it played in India's
struggle for independence.

.34.1 INTRODUCTION

In this Unit an attempt is made to familiarise you with the main political currents in the
freedom struggle during 1939-1945. The emphasis in this Unit is on the Quit India
Movement (QIM) and the role played by the Indian National Army (INA) during the
struggle.
We discuss here the chain of events which led to the launching of the QIM. The
Congress had hardly planned for directing or organising the movement when the
Government unleashed repression to nip it in the bud. However, the calculations of the
Government were falsified because the people, after the arrest of the Congress leadership,
decided their own course of action and challenged the British in a way which to an extent
I'
could be compared to the struggle of 1857. New leadership emerged at local levels and
their role was at variance with the Gandhian form of struggle. Non-violence was no
more a guiding principle and all over there were attacks on Government property.
Though the Government was able to crush the movement, its intensity had made it clear
that the British would not be able to rule over India for much longer. This was also
demonstrated through the formation and actions of the Indian National Army under the
commandership of Subhas Chandra Bose. The Indians were not only capable of, but had
:ictually confronted the British in armed struggle and formed the Azad Hind
Government.
Towards A Sovereign State

"ti
1. "Re ove.dirt fro e country" - A Cartoon on.Quit India.

I
You would be uence of events and the circumstances durihg the

34.2.1 Attitude ~ # v a r d sg r
Generally speaking the towards the World War can be categorised as
follows:
i) Since Britain was i shbuld seize the opportunity to gain freedom. This
was to be done by:
iliie India's resources for the war.

The prime concern of

were not concerned ab
ii) India should not
t m the int
propon#
of this view was to achieve India's freedom and they
tiorlal situation.
qritaids problems. It should cooperate with the '
tipnally. Those who suppdrted this view hoped that
pt a lenient view towards India in the light of her

Fqscism as a greater threat to mankind, and wanted

s help was to be conditional. The conditions were
d i n interim government of Indians for the
moment.
e attitude changed according to the changing war
o maintained a neutral position.
tdation? Practically all of attitudes mentioned above
id was a difficult task to steer towards a definite line
of action. The Co rk, offered full cooperation in the war, provided
bas established at the centre immediately. As for
onstituent Assembly to frame the constitution of
n which was in favour of launching a movement
ard by the Gandhian leadership. Gandhi
ain have an unwilling India dragged into the War
 or a willing ally co-operating with her in the prosecution of a defence of true democracy?" Indian Nationalism During
World War-11: Quit India
He further stated, "The Congress support will mean the greatest morale asset in favour of Movement and INA
England and France".
I
.
Though Gandhi supported the Congress Working Committee Resolution of conditional
support he himself was not for it as he stated later '1 was sorry to find myself alone in
thinking that whatever support was to be given to the British should be given
unconditionally." Gandhi, in his personal capacity, was repeating his attitude towards the
British of the First World War days i.e. cvoperation. But now things were different and
one had to come above one's personal views. Gandhi realised that his silence might turn
out to be a "distinct disservice to both India and England" and he stated:
If the British are fighting for the freedom of all, then their representatives have to
state in the clearest possible terms that the freedom of India is necessarily included in
the war aim. The content of such freedom can only be decided by Indians and them
alone.
How did the Government react? Well, the British were not prepared either to make any
concessions immediately or make promises about the future - except a vague talk of
dominion status. Defence of India Rules were promulgated in order to check defiance of .
British authority and exploit Indian resources for the War effort.

34.2.2 Individual Satyagarh

There were two opinions in Congress about the launching of civil disobedience. Gandhi .
felt that the atmosphere was not in favour of civil disobedience as there were differences
and indiscipline within the Congress. Those advocating Civil disobedience were attempting
to convince Gandhi that once a movement was launched differences would disappear and
all would work for its success. But Gandhi would not agree. The Congress Socialists and
the All India Kisan Sabha were in favour of immediate struggle. N.G. Ranga even
suggested that the AIKS should sever links with Congress and launch and independent
movement. He was, however, checked by P. Sundarayya from doing so. It was in such an
atmosphere that the Congress met at Ramgarh in March 1940 under the presidentship of
Maulana Azad who declared:
India cannot endure the prospect of Nazism and Fascism,
but she is even more tired of British imperialism.
The Ramgarh Congress called upon the people to prepare themselves for participating in a
Satyagrah to be launched under Gandhi's leadership. But the Socialists, Communists,
I Kisan Sabhaites and those belonging to the Forward Bloc were not happy with the
i resolution. They held an anti-compromise conference at Ramgarh and Subhas Chandra
I Bose urged the people to resist compromise with imperialism and be ready for action.
t
In August 1940 the Viceroy announced an offer which proposed:
expansion of Governor-General's Council with representation of the Indians,
establishing a War Advisory Council.
In this offer he promised the Muslim League and other minorities that the British
Government would never agree to a constitution or government in India which did not
enjoy their support (we should remember here that the Muslim League had demanded
I
Pakistan in its Lahore session of 1940). The Congress rejected this offer because:
i) There was no suggestion for a national government.
ii) It encouraged anti-Congress forces like the Muslim League.
The government was systematically putting under preventive arrest many Congress
1 workers - particularly those with Socialist or Left leanings. All local leaders were under
observation, while many labour leaders and youngmen were taken into custody.
i
1 Convinced that the Brit~shwould not modify their policy in India (Gandhi had long
-
I1 meetings with the Viceroy at Simla in September 1940), dandhi decided to start the
Individual Satyagrah. The very reason for confining the movement to individual
participation was that neither Ganhhi nor the Congress wished to hamper the War effort
and this could not' have been the case in a mass movement. Even the aim of the Satyagrah
was a limited one i.e. to disprove the British claim of India supporting the War effort
whole hearted1y.
Towards A Sovereign State
anti-war speech at gr Wardha. Bhave had been personally selected by
Gandhi for this. H Vallabhbhai and Nehru were arrested before they

suspend the movement. By this time the war had

taken a new turn. The defeat after defeat and the Japanese forces had

Government released rs. After the fall of Rangoan to the Japanese

Check Your Progress

only one who wanted to give unconditional

the British for the War effort.

3 Fill in the blanks:

pposing) ....................................the war effort.
 seek an amicable settlement with India and obtain her active support in the War. Sir Indian Nationalism During
World War-11: Quit India
Strafford Cripps landed in India with a set of proposals and negotiated with leaders of Movement and I N A
various political parties.

2. A cartoon by Shankar on Negotiations (1942).

34.3.1 Cripps Proposals

Some of the Cripps proposals, embodied in a Draft Declaration were:
Dominion Status would be granted to India immediately after the War with the right to
secede.
Immediately after the cessation of hostilities, a constitution - making body would be
set up. It will consist of members from British India as well as Native States.
The constitution so framed after the War would be accepted by the British Government
on the condition that any Indian province could, if so desired, remain outside the Indian
Union and negotiate directly with Britain.
The actual control of defence and military operations would be retained by the British
Government.
This Declaration was rejected by almost all the Indian parties. The Congress did not want
to rely on future promises. It wanted a responsible Government with full powers and also a
control over the country's defence. Gandhi termed the proposal "as a post-dated cheque on
a crashing bank." The Muslim League demanded a definite declaration by the British in
favour of the creation of a separate state for the Muslims, and also seats for the Muslim
League on a 5050 basis with the Congress in the Interim Government. The Depressed
Classes, the Sikhs, the Indian Christians and the ~ n ~ l o - ~ n ddemanded
iks more safeguards
for their communities.

I Thus, the Cripps Mission failed to pacify the Indians. The British had merely taken up this
exercise to demonstrate to the world that they cared about Indian sentiments, rather than to
actually do something concrete.

34.3.2 Background to the Quit India Movement

The Congress had to decide its course of action in the wake of:

I the failure of the Cripps Mission;

the arrival of Japanese armies on Indian borders;
the rising prices and shortages in food supplies, and
the different opinions within the Congress.
Towards A Sovereign State The Congress Worki ng for complete non-violent
non-cooperation wit invading India (in May 1942). Rajagopalachari
ras attempted to get a resolution passed which
rhent invited them the Congress should form a
ted, but the very proposal demonstrated that there
to cooperate with the government. Rajagop!achari
had favoured the Pakistan demand, and was urging

f congressmen at Bombay that he had made up his

an orderly. fashion. If they did not agree, he would

ations about the launching of a movement. Nehru

ipe between fighting imperialist Britain and

India demand did not tish and the allied anrties had to withdraw from

Committee adopted
y AICC meeting in

On 8 August 1942 th Quit India Resolution. After deliberating at great

length on the intemati situation the Congress appealed to the people of

I
le ce is the basis of this movement. A time may
to issue instructions or for instructions to reach
Committee can function. When this happens every
ng in this movement must function for himself or
the general instructions issued.
Gandhi told the British India in God's hand". He exhorted all sections to
participate in the Mov "every Indian who desires freedom and strives for
it must be his own gui as 'do or die.'. Thus, started Quit India
Movement.

I 3. Gandhi
IRil
ftinp the Quit India Resolution.
 Indian Nationalism During
THE MOVEMENT World War-11: Quit India
Movement and INA

The Congress gave the call for ousting British but it did not give any concrete line of
action to be adopted by the people. The Government had been making preparations to
crush the Movement. On the morning of 9 August all prominent Congress leaders
including Gandhi were arrested. The news of leaders' arrest shook the people and they
came to streets protesting against it. K.G. Mashruwala, who had taken over as editor of
Harijan published his personal opinion as to the shape the protest should take:
In my opinion looting or burning of offices, bank, granaries etc., is not permissible.
Dislocation of traffic communications is permissible in a non-violent manner -
without endangering life. The organisation of strikes is best .... Cutting wires,
removing rails, destroying small bridges, cannot be objected to in a struggle like this
provided ample precautions are taken to safeguard life.
Mashruwala maintained that "Gandhiji and the Congress have not lost all hope of goodwill
being re-established between the British and the Indian nations, and so provided the effort
is strong enough to demonstrate the nations will, self-restraint will never go against us".
Let us have a look at the spread of the movement and the response it evoked from various
sections.

34.4.1 Spread of the Movement

Before his arrest on 9 August 1942 Gandhi had given the following message to the
country:
Every one is free to go the fullest length under Ahimisa to complete deadlock by
strikes and other non-violent means. Satyagrahis must go out to die not to live. They
must seek and face death. It is only when individuals go out to die that the nation
will survive, Karenge Ya/Marenge (do or die).
But while giving this call Gandhi had once again stressed on non-violence:
Let every non-violent soldier of freedom write out the slogan 'do or die' on a piece
of paper or cloth and stick it on his clothes, so that in case he died in the course of
offering, Satyagraha, he might be distinguished by that sign from other elements who
do not subscribe to non-violence.
The news of his arrest alongwith other Congress leaders led to unprecedented popular
outbursts in different parts of the country. There were, hartals, demonstrations and
processions in cities and towns. The Congress leadership gave the call, but it was the
people who launched the Movement. Since all the recognised leaders-central, provincial
or local-had been arrested, the young and more militant caders-particularly students-
with socialist leanings took over as leaders at local levels in their areas.
In the initial stages, the Movement was based on non-violent lines. It was the repressive
policy of the government which provoked the people to violence. The Gandhian message
of non-violent struggle was pushed into the background and people devised their own
methods of struggle. These included:
attacks on government buildings, police stations and post offices,
attacks on railway stations, and sabotaging rail lines,
cutting off the telegraph wires, telephones and electric power lines,
disrupting road traffic by destroying bridges, and
workers going on strike, etc.
Most of these attacks were to check the movement of the military and the police, which
were being used by the government to crush the Movement. .In many areas, the
government lost all control and the people established Swaraj. We cite a few such cases:
In Maharashtra, a parallel government was established in Satara which continued to
function for a long time.
In Bengal, Tamluk Jatiya Sarkar functioned for a long time in Midnapore district. This
national government had various departments like Law and Order, Health, Education,
Agriculture, etc., along with a postal system of its own and arbitration courts.
People established Swaraj in Talacher in Orissa.
Towards A Sovereign State rl(Azamgarh, Ballia, Ghazipur, Monghyr,

authority uprooted.

rural areas which kept oft for a longer time. The Movement got a
massive response from y, Andhra, U.P,, Bihar, Gujarat, Orissa,
nses in Punjab, Sindh, NWFP, etc. were ,

weak.

. .

glogans of the day, and yet there were varied

i ~ l gClass in many industrial centres went on strike.

about 3 moriths.
red of the areas as a result of mass actions and on the

. .
 Indian Nationalism During
World War-11: Quit India
Movement and INA

5. Pamphlets on Quit India in Maharashtra.

I Towards A Sovereign State

Station in Azamgar
by the rural people and the constraints of Gandhian
directing the Movement. A similar situation existed
Nibblet of what happened at Madhuban Police
fury of the revolt in that area. Nibblet has
mentioned how the ttacked in an organised manner from three sides.
r, waited at a distance for the people to reach
from the other sid 19 rounds to check the attack which lasted about
two hours.
ned to check the advance of peasant guerillas
the battles were long drawn in the Satara region.
Besides mass action ther trend in the movement. This was the trend of
underground rev01 9 November 1942, Jaiprakash Narain and
Ramnandan Misra bagh Jail. They organised an underground
movement and operate s bordering Nepal.

1 6. of Congress Radio.

establishment of Cong U ~ h aMehta as its announcer. This radio carried

eriilla campaign should be a two-fold one. Firstly, to

and, secondly, to paralyze the British administration
ects in view, every section of the community should

There was massive e students who spread to the countryside and played a
role in guiding the
The Movement did n nse from the merchant community. In fact most
ed heavily during the War. In certain cases, the
Capitalists did appe hrough FICCI) to release Gandhi and other
e could check attacks on government
continued they may get converted into
im League kept aloof from the Movement and no
indu Mahasabha condemned the Movement. The
 Indian Nationalism During
World War-11: Quit India
Movement and INA

7. Bose speaking over Berlin Radio.

Communist Party of India due to its "people's war" line did not support the movement.
The princes and the landlords were supporting the War effort and did not sympathise with
the movement. There were also Congress leaders like Rajagoplachari who didnot
participate in the movement and supported the War effort.
However, the intensity of the Movement can be gauged from the following figures:
In U.P. 104 railway stations were attacked and damaged according to a government
report. About 100 railway tracks were 'sabotaged' and the number in case of telephone
and telegraph wires was 425. The number of post offices damaged was 119.
In Midnapore 43 government buildings were burnt.
In Bihar 72 police stations were attacked; 332 railway stations and 945 post offices
damaged.
Throughout the country there had been 664 bomb explosions.
How did the government react to this massive upsurge? This is the question which we shall
deal in the following section.

34.4.3 Repression
The Government had geared all its forces to suppress the popular upsurage. .Arrests,
I detentions, police firings, burning of Congress offices, etc. were the methods adopted by
the Government. .

By the end of 1942 in U.P. alone 16,089 persons were arrested. Throughout India the
official figures for arrests stood at 91,836 by end of 1943.
 Towards A Sovereign State The number of firings was 658 till September 1942, and by 1943
, dres. Many more had died and innumerable I
1
wounded.
ices had burnt 31 Congress camps and 164
, out of which 46 were committed by the

The Government

1 dmount involved in such fines was Rs.

It was through such rep Give act e British were able to re-establish themselves.
The War situation help$em in
i) They had at their disp $a1 a mas ilitary force which was stationed here to face the
Japanese, but was proit6tly use sh the Movement.
d the upsurge in a ruthless manner. They did
ntemal criticism of their methods, or
s were busy fighting the Axis powers, and had
the British were doing in India.

if A Pamphe
# ing people to Boycott Traitors.
The ,QIM collapsed, but not without demonstrating the determination of the masses to do Indian Nationalism During
World War-11: Quit India
away with British rule. The Congress leadership did not condemn the deviation by the Movement and INA
people from the principle of non-violence, but at the same time disowned any
responsibility for the violent acts of the people.

Check Your Progress 2

1 Which of the following statements are right ( v" ) or wrong (x).
i) Gandhi wanted only a limited section of the people to participate in the QIM.
ii) The leadership of the QIM was taken over by militant youth and socialists.
iii) No parallel governments were formed during the QIM.
iv) The sober section of the Congress attempted to control the movement, but failed.
V) There was no underground activity during the QIM.
vi) Capitalists and merchants participated in great numbers in the QIM.

2 Discuss in about ten lines the measures adopted by the people to uproot the British
authority during the QIM.

3 Discuss in about ten lines the measures adopted by the British to crush the popular
upsurge.

34.5 INDIAN NATIONAL ARMY

The QIM was a struggle fought against the British in India. B i t equally important is the
role of the Indian National Army which waged battles against the British from foreign
soil.

30.5.1 Formation of INA

There were many Indian revolutionaries working abroad for the country's cause. Among
these was Rasbehari Bose, living as a fugitive from the British since 1915 in Japan. He
Towards A Sovereign State

9jphari flp Yohan Singh Inspecting INA.

seized the opportunit

against the British.

Fujiwara a Japanese army Officer persuaded

of War) - to work in collaboration with the

and they formed the I e k a g u e . This was followed by a conference in

Bangkok (June 1942) Bose was elected president of the League and a
decision was taken
the Commander of had about 40,000 Indian soldiers. This conference

f t
10. he House i cut@ from where Bose Escaped.
Bose had escaped from India in 1941 to Berlin. In June, 1943 he came to Tokyo and then Indian Nationalism During
World War-11: Quit India
joined the INA at Singapore in July. Rashbehari Bose handed over the leadership to Subhas Movement and INA
Bose, and an Azad Hind Sarkar was formed. In November, 1943 the Japanese announced
their decision to hand over the administration of Andamans and Nicobar islands to the INA
Thus, started the heroic struggle of the INA for India's independence.

11. INA in Action.

34.5.2 Actions of INA

The INA in a few months time had three fighting brigades named after Gandhi, Azad and
Nehru. Soon other brigades were raised, namely the Subhas brigade and the Rani Jhansi
brigade. The overseas Indians contributed heavily in terms of money and material for the
army. The slogans of the INA were 'Jai Hind' and 'Delhi Chalo'. The most famous was
Subhas's declaration that "Tum Mujhe Khoon Do Mein Tumhe Azadi Dunga" (you give
me blood I will give you freedom).

12. Bose Inspecting Rani Jhansi Rrigade.

 I

Towards A Sovereign State Fighting side by side with d forces the INA crossed the Indian frontier
on 18th March, 1944. The ted on Indian soil. However the INA failed to
capture Imphal due to two
i) The Japanese failed to sary material and air cover to the INA.
ii) The Monsoon
In the meantime the Brit p their forces and made counter attacks.
The INA fought heroically loss of manpower, but the course of war was
changing. With the collaps set backs to the Japanese armies, the INA too
could not stand on its own. eared. Some belleved he died in an air
crash, while others refus

34.5.3 Impact

struggle:
could no longer depend on the loyalty of Indian
soldiers and treat th
ii) The struggles o f t

g armed struggle against the British.

iv) The INA had als iasm and concern of overseas Indians for the
freedom of their

4
In dealing with the role of bhas Bo
that what he did was not du to his su
for India's freedom. He wa determin
ring this period, we have to take note of the fact
to Fascist Germany or expansionist Japan, but
maintain the independent existence of INA

o
l
.,
.
* - . _-:r 35).
t
from the Japanese, and whil in Berli
use of Indian Legion again USSR.
officers asd ssldiers and put lthem on
problems with the Gernlans regarding the
sh Government court martialed the INA
r conspiring against the King (you will read

Check Your Progress 3

1 Discuss in about five of the formation of the INA.

.....................................
.....................................
.....................................
.....................................

ii) Subhas Bose compl

iii) The British could n onthe loyalty of Indian troops.

3 What was the impact of lia'$ freedom struggle? Answer in about ten
lines.

.....................................
....................................................................................
...................................................................................
 Indian Nationalism Durinec,
....................................................................................................................................................... World War-11: Quit India
Movement and INA

34.6 LET US SUM UP

The various sections of Indian people had different attitude towards the War, and these
were reflected within the Congress. The Individual Satyagraha launched by Galidhi? due to
its limited nature of participation, did not get widespread response. It took the Congress
almost three years after India was dragged into the War to reach a decision about launching
the Quit India Movement. With the declaration for starting the Movement, the British
adopted a policy of ruthless repression. All prominent Congress leaders were arrested
overnight and the Congress could get no time to plan the line of action to be adopted.
However, the Movement took its own course with the people.directing their own actions.
The youth and Socialists were at the forefront in directing the Movement. In its initial
phase it were the people in the urban centres who were involved but soon the Movement
spread to the country side. In many regions the Brilish authority was uprooted and parallel
governments established. The methods of strugglz adopted by the people surpassed the
confines of Gandhian non-violence and the "sober sections" among Congressmen could not
control them.
The British were able to crush the Movement, but underground activities continued for a
long time. The Movement had made it clear to the British that it will be difficult for them
to retain their hold on India for a long time, and the heroic struggles waged by the INA
further demonstrated this.

13. INA Soldiers.

34.7 KEY WORDS

Collecting Punitive Fines: Fines imposed by the government on the residents of an area
where 'riots' etc. have taken place.
Towards A Sovereign State

attacked USSR.

Check Your Progress 1

r views mentioned in Sub-sec. 34.2.1.

d France, iii) felt, Civil Disobedience, iv) unhappy,

Sub-secs. 34.4.1 and 34.4.2. It should take into

governments, etc.
 UNIT 35 TOWARDS INDEPENDENCE

Structure
35.0 Objectives
35.1 Introduction
35.2 Background: India and the Raj
35.2.1 Second World War: Impact on the Indians
35.2.2 Second World War: Impact on the British Government
35.2.3 End of the War: The British Policy
35.2.4 Congress and the Muslim League
35.3 Attempts at a Negotiated Settlement
35.3.1 The Simla Conference
35.3.2 The Labour in Power
35.3.3 Elections and the Cabinet Mission
35.3.4 The Communal Carnage and Interim Government
35.4 The Popular Urges
35.4.1 Direct Confrontations
35.4.2 Indirect Confrontations

I
35.5 Let Us Sum Up
35.6 Key Words
35.7 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises

35.0 OBJECTIVES

This Unit deals with a brief but a very crucial period of Indian Nationalism. After reading
this unit you will:
become familiar with the impact of the World War on the British rulers and the Indian
. people,
be able to link up the various kinds of political activities undertaken during this period,
to narrate the popular struggles which break out in this period , and
evaluate their role in weakening and ultimately throwing out the Raj.

INTRODUCTION
In the earlier unit you have been familiarised with the various constitutional processes at
r work, political developments and their crystallization, the political maturing of certain
sections of Indian society and finally the break out of the second World War and its
consequences. As a result of all this the 1940s witnessed a vastly different political
scenario. New tensions and conflicts emerged. The relationship, mainly conflictual,
between the rulers and the ruled acquired new dimensions, and the range of political
i activities became much wider as the possibility of independence began taking shape. 'lhere
I were now on the one hand, new attempts being made for a negotiated settlement, for a
peaceful transfer of power-a politics of the negotiating chamber. On the other hand, the
popular urges for freedom, dissatisfied with the methods of negotiation, looked for
different outlets. These outlets were found in various confrontations with the British and
were different from the politics of the negotating chamber. During this period the
separatist politics also raised its head and the movement for Pakistan gathered greater
momentum.
The situation thus, was very complex. All streams of politics - nationalist as well as
communalist-were attempting for a peaceful transfer of power. But the popular
struggles, direct anti-British fights as well as the anti-feudal struggles challenged the
British authority on a different plank. In this unit we attempt to unfold some of the
complex characteristics and the different dimensions of India's struggle for freedom during
1945-47.
Towards A Sovereign State

litical events of the preceding decades. It

the background to the developments which took
r it was the Second World War and its impact on
ch shaped the course of some of the
the Government, its policies and various
sections of the India

35.2.1 Second Wo att on the Indians

Popular distress was d

products (agricultural,

Year 1 Wheat Cotton Manufactures Kerosene

1939 100 100
1941 196 140

large scale hoarding ket" at very exorbitant prices. Artificial,

qilitary - "the war contractors" - the hoarders

the climate turned

nndent bungled their work and those for the army

vements of food grains from one place to another;

As the cumulative disorders, a gruesome tragedy in fact took place

in Bengal in the la devastating famine-suspected largely to be
"man-made" or th etic officialdom-starved more than 3 million
ed by famines, the condition of the rest of India
1 and presented more or less a uniform picture of
n centres. Clearly, the suffering people had
and the so-called all powerful Raj could do

35.2.2 Second W pact on the British Government

Qere also not really in a position to deal efficiently
fig fixed wholly on the prosecution of the fight,
to bother about the plight of the Indians, or to
the war came to a close, the Raj was too
r exhausted, too much in need for a respite, to start setting its Tndian house in order afresh. Towards Independence
I
! The situation had changed considerably:
@ The European element in its armed forces was already hankering for demobilisatiori -
for an opportunity to go home - rather than staying on indefinitely in India;
@ To many Britons. India did no more appear to be an ideal place for their civil and
military careers or an easy field for their protected expatriate entrepreneurship.
@ It was no longer convenient, even possible - in the face of obvious Indian hostility -
to make use of India's economy for furthering Britain's global trade interests, except by
forcibly silencing all opposition.
@ The extent of force that Britain had to use upon India in its desperate bid tor survival in
1942 was extremely difficult to repeat at the end of the war in 1945, and that, too, on
an anticipated massive scale. The Raj was not as conditioned mentally and materially
for bulldozing another "Quit India" movement - lurking in the horizon - as it had
been in 1942.
Financially, India was no more a debtor to Britain for meeting the expenses of her
t "governance". and Britain - on the contrary-had become indebted to India to the tune
of above f 3,3000 million (the Sterling Balance).
@ Administratively, the Indian Civil Service - the famed "steel frame" of the empire -
was reduced during the war to a wholly run-down state.
Harassed by such crisis-management duties as holding the prices. ensuring the supplies,
tackling the famines or famine-like conditions, hunting the "fifth-columnists", sounding
air-raid signals, enforcing "black-outs", and burdened with the ever increasing weight of
the daily executive and judicial chores, the capabilities of a meagre number of men in the
ICS were stretched so further that they did not seem to be able to carry on for long without
being broken down completely. To make matters worse, the enlistment of the Britons for
the war took precedence over their recruitment in the ICS, and the British entry into the
cadre practically stopped at the height of the war in 1943. Irrespective of its putting up a
brave face, the Raj, had little reason to feel very secure with a minority of loyal Europeans
in the ranks in the mid-1940 (587 in number) along side an Indian majority (614 in total)
of uncertain proclivities in a rapidly changing circumstance. The days of classical
imperialism had come apparently to an end with the termination of the World War. No
body could sum up the British predicament in India better than the penultimate Viceroy,
Lord Wavell eventually did : "Our time in India is limited, and our power to control
events almost gone".

35.2.3 End of the War : The British Policy

Evidently after the war. it was no longer convenient for a metropolitan country - and far
less profitable - to rule directly over a colony for the systematised reaping of all the
economic advantages from it. However, the Second World War by no stretch of
imagination marked the collapse of imperialism, rather it had heralded its survival, and
opened up the possibility of rejuvenation on new lines - neo-colonialism.
A land and its people could still be effectively colonised, satellecticalIy placed,
economically subjugated and militarily utilised, even after conceding to them
political independence, if their integrity and solidarity were disrupted and their
weaknesses perpetrated through the setting up of separate, ineffectual, puppet
regimes.
That the Indian nationalists would not be willing to play into the hands of the puppeteers,
and that a battle-weary and an internally wrecked Britain could not again be in a position
to dominate the world market, did hardly discourage the British to dream on the wild neo-
colonialist lines. After all, Britain had little alternative but to hope against all hopes, and to
try to ensure its future of some kind in India by diverting the Indians from their goal of
sub-continental liberation, at any rate, and by disuniting and dividing them if at all
possible. The road for diversion it may be recalled, had already been painstakingly laid,
only the traffic had now to be successfully guided into it.
Playing up the divergences of a pluralist people was expected by the British to be as useful
in their tactical retreat from India as it certainly had been throughout in fostering the Raj's
advance. Of all the distinctions among Indians that the imperial authorities tried to
magnify, and make use of (such as between the British Indians and the states' peoples, the
"martials" and the "non-martials", the urbanites and the non-urbanities and the brahmins
Towards A sovereign State and the non Brahmins llowers of two co-existing religions, Hinduism
and Islam, or betwee d the substantial Muslim minority, proved to

gainst the other, by acknowledging the

Muslim League as t y of the Indian Muslims, by casting doubts
on the nationalist c dian National Congress, and by using the

ress from the legislative scene on

r some of the provincial ministries. and
1s noted the spreading of the League's sphere of
of intrigues and dispersal of official patronages

us little to counter the Pakistan

do away with communalism merely through

lim masses for wining them away from

ande Martram, Ramrajya, etc. were used by the

view point - and contrary to all their great

hdd been benefiting from the exercise of some
y way in North West Frontier

ad gradually been attracting a

the Muslim business interests started welcoming

ub-Continent where they would not suffer from
-standing and overbearing Hindu business houses

y over jobs and business in a region, was being

s in Punjab and Bengal for freedom in a future

dnstrating sporadically the urges the Indian masses

26 and their indigenous collaborators.
 Although the two lines did hardly ever converge, they nevertheless attracted and distracted Towards Independence
each other and constituted together the history of the three fateful years that culminated in
the partition and independence of India.

Check Yopr Progress 1

I Read the following statements and mark right ( \/ ) or wrong (x).
i) The World War was followed by a rapid increase in the prices of various
commodities.
ii) Owing to the World War, the British could not deal w ~ t hthe Indian political
situation very effectively.
iii) The proportion of British officers in the ICS increased after 1940.
iv) The British tried to bridge the gap between the Hindus and the Muslims.
v) Muslim business groups supported the demand for Pakistan.
vi) In Punjab and Bengal the Muslim peasants were exploited by hatiios and zumin~/aar..

2 How did the British perpetuate the political hostility between the Hindus and the
Muslims? Answer in five lines.

35.3 ATTEMPTS AT A NEGOTIATED SETTLEMENTS

Once the tide of the war turned in their favour, the British started realising by the end of
1944 generally that the Indian situation should not be allowed to remain where it stood
after the Quit India Movement. They realised that it would be impossible to hold India by
force for long. A dialogue therefore, had to begin with the imprisoned Congress leaders, if
not for anything else, at least for preventing them in future from taking advantage bf an
explosive post-war situation of economic hardships and unemployment. According to
Wavell the energies of the Congress and its fellow-travellers were required to be directed
from the path of agitation into "some more profitable channel, i.e. into dealing with the
I
administrative problems of India and into trying to solve the constitutional problems".
Churchill and his men stubbornly-resisted this line of thinking till the termination of the
war came in full view (With the surrender of Germany in May 1945) and the war-t,ime
Coalition Government in Britain was scheduled to make room for a freshly elected one.

35.3.1 The Simla Conference

Eventually permitted by the home authorities to set the ball of negotiations rolling, the
Viceroy, Wavell, ordered on 14 June 1945 the release of all the Congress Working
Committee members, and invited them along with others, notably the League leaders, to
join in a Conference in Simla (24 June - 14 July 1945) for setting up a new Execur~ve
Council at the Centre - practically Indian in cornposition+rcepting the Commander in
Chief and of course, the Viceroy, presiding over its deliberations. 'The Council would have
equal representation from the so-called (jointly by the British and the League) "Caste
Hindus" and Muslims, and it should function within the existingconstitutional arrangement
without its being responsible to the legislature.
The British in fact were lukewarmly agreeable to discuss the making of a new constitution
only at the actual end of the war. While attending the confereflce, the Congress naturally
I
I refused to be treated as a "Caste Hindu" body, and, asserting its secular nationalist
character staked the right to select the representatives of any community, including
I
Muslims (of whom Abul Kalam Azad and Abuda! Ghaffar Khan presented themselves in
! Simla in the capacities of the leaders and distinguished members respectively, of the
Congress delegation), as the Congress nominees to the council. The league, which insisted
1 -more obdurately than with reason - on its.having the sole agency to speak for every
/
Towards A Sovereign State

I
Indian Muslim, objected t the Co
choosing all the Muslim embers

deserved some rep

anidhi at Sirnla.

d claimed an absolute jurisdiction for

ceroy who felt that the loyal Unionist Muslims, or

ompromising themselves with the League,
' I

Not satisfied with this, demanded a communal veto by asking for a

two-third majority in t il, instead of a simple one, on any decision I

opposed by the Musli own nominees) and related to the Muslim

interests. In his anxie the League's intransigent postire, and brushing
aside the Congress o 1 by keeping it open for the League to step in
d to abandon the British proposals and dissolve
ent developments, his action implied not
e's monopoly to speak for all Muslims, and
eyes, but he also seemed to have conceded to the
future Negotiation that did not suit its own
e League became a pre-requisite to any major
settlement.

35.3.2 The Labour i

Following a massive vi 1 elections, the British Labour Party came into
thereby hopes for an early settlement of the
hies with the nationalist cause in India, the Labour
freeing India,'if and when they were voted to
Labour Party leaders (including Clement
Attlee, Aneurin Bev and Harold Laski) met Jawaharlal Nehru and V.K.
Krishna Menon at F d agreed - in the case of their forming a C

Government in Britain ture constitution of India as decided by an Indian

1 suffrage". They had also agreed to grant India ,
e British to the Indian hands. So unequivocal
appeared to be the rty on the issue of Indian independence, and
n the Viceroy of India shuddered at the
 possibility of the new British rulers' handing over India "to their Congress friends as soon Towards Independence,
as possible". What Wavell did not know initially, but came to understand soon with some
satisfaction, was that the Labourite enthusiasm for making a promise, without being in
orfice, could not be the same for keeping it when in office. If the Whigs and the Tories in
Britain, or for that matter the Tories an the Liberals there, did not drastically differ in the
past in their attitudes towards the maintenance of the Indian Empire, despite the difference
in ideology. why should the Labours not agree - in spite of their socialist affectation -,

with many of the Conservatives, bureaucrats and vested interests on the most advantageous
ways of dismantling it? After ail, the act of freeing an uncontrollable colony would by no
stretch of imagination be termed as imperialistic, howsoever much the disuniting and
dividing of its people in the process exposed it ever so weakeningly to fresh neo-colonialist
exploitations. Apparently, the Labours had no particular qualms about it, for they were as
willing as the conservatives and the British officials to :
let the Communalists, holding all others in India to ransom,
silence popular out-bursts in the country by the use of brute force,
become obsessed with the defence of British overseas interests, and
actually employ British-Indian troops in Indo-China and Java to prop up the French
and the Dutch imperialists, respectively.
Consistent with the tenor of its over-all approach, the first moves that the Attlee
Government made in India were hardly path-breaking, or which a non-Labour
Government could not make. It asked the Viceroy to announce on 21 August 1945, the
holding of new elections for the Indian Legislatures in the approaching winter of 1945-46.
The elections were not only overdue for the centre (last elected in 1934), as well as for the
provinces (last elected in 1937), but also essential for reopening the constitutional game -
the wrangles and squabbles in the name of negotiations. Viceroy was prompted further to
renew on 19 September 1945 the promises of "early full self government" for India
(refusing carefully to use the term "independence"), discussions with the elected legislators
and the representatives of the Indian princes on the formation of a Constituent Assembly
for undertaking fresh constitutional arrangements (by-passing conveniently the previous
Labourite assurance to elect a Constitutent Assembly on "universal suffrage") and efforts
to be made once again for setting up the Viceroy's Executive Council with nominees from
the main Indian parties. No body observed the Attlee Ministry's reactionary Indian policy
better, and more ruefully, than its own ideologue, Harold Laski:
"In all British policy, whether it is the policy of the Coalition Government (.under
Attlee), there is still a marked and notable absence of a real will to help in making
~ndia'freein the full sense of the term. There is too much exploitation of a partly
real and partly unreal communal difference in India, partly made and partly
exploited by ourselves .... there is the immensely overrated hero-worship of princes,
for whom we are supposed to have sacred responsibility".

35.3.3 Elections and the Cabinet Mission

The elections were duly held in the winter of 1945-46. By the time the elections took
place, the League - following the congenial aftermath of the Simla Conference. and
dangling the carrot of Pakistan - was in a favourable situation to deal with its separate
Muqlim electorate. To the Muslim traders and middle classes the dream of Musalmanon-ki-
Hukumat and the Indian Muslim's special right of self-determination was added the fervent
religious cry of "Islam in danger". Although the Congress was at the crest of its popularity,
especially wlth the people's anticipations of the coming of independence, it was
nevertheless not in a position in such religiously frenzied atmosphere to carry the bulk of
the Muslim voters with it. The outcome of the elections, particularly the respective
positions of the Congress and the League, clearly brough! all these out.
The Congress won overwhelmingly in the General (non-Muslim) constituencies, securing
91.3 per cent votes, winning 57 out of 102 seats in the Central Legislative Assembly and
obtaining majorities in all the provinces except Sind, Punjab and Bengal. The spectacular
, Congress victories, however, could not diminish the significance that the Government had
already thrust upon the Muslim electorate. From the British point of view, and at the
negotiation table to be presided by them what mattered more in 1946 than the massive
national mandate for the Congress was the League's ability to goad the Muslim voters to
its side -- by hook or by crook. Apparently in this the League attained remarkable
successes by polling 86.6 per cent of the Muslim votes, winning all the 30 Muslim seats in
Towards A Sovereign State the Central Legislati g 442 out of 509 Muslim seats in the

s demanding for Pakistan. It lost NWFP and

/.
the Unionists from Punjab. Even the League
ministries that were set hinged precariously on official and

separate electorates, w keep the Muslims away from the national

erely restricted franchise - barely 10 per cent
een contested on the adult franchise, it is

Lawrence, Secretar Cripps, President of the Board of Trade;

and A.V. Alexander, F
means of a negotiated,
the British circles, itish hands for all practical purposes, and
India had reached
intermittent expres
the disquietude of
of the Congress to start, and which, the Viceroy
rol". The Cabinet Mission, therefore, arrived in
India to wrest the ~niti
leaders till June 194
an interim Indian G

innah's brinkmanship over Pakistan and the

on eventua!ly came up with a complicated,

er) had been sympathetic towards Jinnah, the

s demand for a full-fledged Pakistan (comprising

surmountable economic and administrative

League (for Jinnah at this stage was unequivocally
moth-eaten Pakistan"). Having thus rejected

existing provincial le incial legislatures would then elect a Constituent

ctions" - Section A for the non-Muslim majority

ces, Bihar, the Central Provinces, Orissa and

vincial constitutions and, if necessary,

cia1 and sectional legislatures and

ort of the major political parties, and

autonomous MusIim n some proximity. At the outset, therefore, both the

Congress and the Le ed to accept the plan. But soon a difficulty surfaced
 over the,provisions for forming sections or groups of provinces. The League interpreted TowardsIndependence
the groupings to be compulsory, for that might brighten up the possibility of a future full-
fledged Pakistan by bulldozing the Congress-administered Muslim-majority provinces of
NWFP (in section B) and Assam (in section C) into it (intheir respective sections the
Congress majorities from NWFP and Assam would be reduced to helpless minorities). It
was precisely because of the opposition of NWF'P and Assam to their being dragged into
Sections B and C that the Congress wanted the grouping to be optional. The Congress was
also critical of the absence of any provision for the elected members from the princely
states in the proposed Constituent Assembly, though it appeared to be willing to swallow
the limited and indirect nature of electing the Constituent Assembly - blatantly contrary
to its past demand for such an election on adult franchise. By the end of July 1946, the
Congress and the League decided against trying out the Cabinet Mission plan any further,
mainly on account of their difference over the grouping system, but partly because of the
Mission's inability to clarify its intensions. In its anxiety for putting up a disarranged India
under some nominal centre, and with the communally segregated autonomous units almost
+T
as a prelude to "Balkanisation" (on the sole plea, of course, of pampered Indian
disunity)the Mission failed to take note of all the important details. Still, the Cabinet
Mission plan was the most that the British - in their haste to leave the ground to the neo-
, colonialists--could really offer. After July 1946, they had not even talked seriously of the
necessity for maintaining the pretence of a weak Indian Union.

35.3.4 The Communal Carnage and Interim Government

The set back over the Cabinet Mission plan so exaspereated the League that it wanted forth
with to force the situation through "Direct Action", or give concrete expression to its post-
election slogan, Ladke Lenge Pakistan ("we shall have Pakistan by force"). The outcome
was the communal carnage that began first on the Direct Action Day (16 August 1946) in
Calcutta, and then in a chain of reactions spread over other areas of the country, notably in
Bombay, eastern Bengal and Bihar, a certain part of the U.P., NWFP and Punjab. In
Culcutta the League rowdies, encouraged by the League Premier of Bengal, Suhrawardy,
had a field day on 16 August by suddenly resorting to large scale violent attacks on the
non-Muslims. Once the element of surprise was over, the Hindus and Sikh toughs also hit
back. The army, stationed at the very heart of the city, took its own time to react, and
when it did sluggishly move to restore order 4,000 had already been killed in three days,
and 10,000 injured.
Riots erupted in Bombay in September 1946, but not so frenziedly as in Calcutta. Even
then, more than 300 persons lost their lives in stray incidents there. In October 1946,
communal riots broke out furiously in Noakhali and Tippera, leaving 400 dead and
resulting in widspread violation of women, loot and arson. Noakhali was promptly
avenged in Bihar towards the end of October with unsurpassed brutality, massacring more
than 7,000. U.P. was not lagging far behind, and at Garhamukhteswar alone approximately
1,000 people were slaughtered. The Bihar and the U.P. butchery called for retaliatory
actions in NWFP (Hazara district mainly) and led eventually to furious communal riots,
encompassing the Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs of Punjab, especially in Lahore, Amritsar,
Multan, Attock and Rawalpindi, and killing about 5,000 by the middle of 1947. These
were, however, the mere beginnings, for the communal riots continued to blaze very high
throughout 1947 and the earlier part of 1948, resulting in deaths and injuries to several
lakhs of people, abduction and rape of countless women, immense destruction of personal
properties and innumerable desecration of religious placess. Millions had to become
refugees, and whereas in some localities (like Punjab) a wholesale exchange of population
took place, in others (like Bengal) people continued to leave their places in waves for a
long time to come. In the sheer extent of human suffering and dehumanization, and in the
total upsetting of the country's social and economic fabric, the fratricide in the Indian sub
continent between 1946 and 1948, and intermittently always thereafter, perhaps had only a
few parallels in the annals of civilisation.
It was coinciding practically with the outbreak of the communal carnage that an Interim
Government at the centre - the one which ?he Cabinet Mission proposed as a short-term
measure in its plan - came into existence in September 1946. To begin with, the
Viceroy's attempts at its formation met almost with the same difficulty they faced in the
Simla Coaference, namely Jinnah's insistence on a parity between 5 Hindu nominees of the
Congress and 5 Muslim nominees of the League in such.a Government, apart from 1 Sikh
and one Scheduled Caste in it. As anticipated, the Congress rejected such a proposal of
xards A Sovereign State umber of Hindus, Muslims and others in its,list.
mment to function like a cabinet, and not like a
11 would have called off his endeavours on the

1945, had he not been thoroughly alarmed by

iately before and soon after the sojourn of the

ahead with the plan of

by the Congress - the the greatest influence over the public mind.
11 realise that firm control of unruly elements
is necessary, and they ma munists and try to end their own left-wing",
hem (the Congress leaders) so busy with

re of giving them precedence over their League

of the Interim Government to be to their

leaders opted on 2nd Se of a cabinet under the leadership of

Jawaharlal Nehru. As th r on. the Congress-dominated functioning
whole an exercise in misadventures. Despite all
n the face of the communal holocaust - to move
ander in Chief, into the riot-afflicted areas. Being

"Direct Action", and by ongress-nominated scheduled Caste

League camps, backed up by their warring

dced for all practical purposes to a figure head.
If the Government of a hus tom asunder, and the major

1947-were no longer too keen to come out of the labyrinth at

The alternative for

to refuse to Government,
o the, saner sentiments,
hind the rioters,

communalists, and

The alternative, of c
difficult, but not imp
of the people.
4
to make an effort to rganis

to simultaneously g all out

to attempt at achiev' g pop
nce against both the Muslim and the Hindu

nching the final anti-imperialist mass movement and

on the battle lines.
to be long-drawn, hazardous and, indeed, very
w h could
~ rely ultimately on the urges and uqsurges
-
Check Your Progress
1 Read the following right ( 4 ) or wrong (x).
i) Simla Conferen Congress did not want to represent the

proposal of an interim government.

the Muslim League led to communal rioting at a

iv) The position o emment improved after the Muslim League joined
2 Why did the British make attempts for a settlement !' Write in ten lines. Towards Independence

3 What was the impact of the victory of the Labour Party in England, on the Indian
political situation ? Write in five lines.

35.4 THE POPULAR URGES

The symptomatic expressions of the popular urges between 1945 and 1947 were broadly of
two varieties:
i) those which led to direct confrontations with the colonial administration,
ii) and those which indirectly underminded colonialism through their opposition to its
indigenous u-pholders4ertain capitalists and princelings, most landlords and mahajans.
The occurrences on both these lines had on the whole been so numerous that one is left
with little alternative but to highlight only the major ones.

35.4.1 Direct Confrontations

Here we discuss some of the major direct confrontations with the colonial administration:
i) INA Trials: The initial explosion took place over the INA trials, or the prosecutions
against the imprisoned members of the Indian National Army (you have read about the
role of INA in Unit 34). By the time first trials began in November 1945, the heroic
exploits of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and his army had already been revealed to the
Indian public, catching their imagination and swaying their emotions. There was
countrywide protest when the three INA heroes (Sehgal, Shah Nawaz and Dhillon)
belonging to the Hindu, Muslim and Sikh communities, and symbolizing the unity of the
people, were put on the docks in the historic Red Fort of Delhi. There were meetings and
processions, angry outbursts and agitated speeches almost everywhere, calling for the
immediate release of the INA prisoners.
The developments in Calcutta, however, surpassed all other places and turned the city into
a storm centre. On 21 November, 1945 students marched at the call of the Forward Bloc,
towards the administrative quarters in Dalhousie Square. The processionists were joined on
the way by the members of the Students Federation (Communist student wing) and the ,
League students' organisation. Combined, these students tied the nationalist, the League
and the red flags together to symbolise the need for anti-imperialist people's solidarity.
The demonstrators were halted by the a m i d police on Dharamtolla Street for the night
and fired upon the following day, killing a Hindu and a Muslim student. The firing
; " c t ~ n t l s r ; n f l a m . o A the . o n t i r e ritv and the npnnle nf r a l r ~ ~ t twent
a intn artinn h~ dicnintino
Towards A Sover State

1
1 15. News
3
Report on INA Trials.

arricades on the streets. The Sikh taxi-

23 November, the enraged groups of

ice in different parts of the city, faced firings

7
The Calcutta turmoil in pa ular, a
issue, did not go altogetheri n vain.

I I
nation-wide agitation in general over the INA
thorities decided to climb down, first by

1
I
16. on INA Trials.
 announcing in December 1945 to try only those INA members who could be accused of Towards Independence
murder and brutalities, and then by remitting in January 1946, the sentences passed against
the first batch of the accused. After some initial insensitivity, the Government in fact was
quick to read the significance of the INA agitation, in relation to Indian nationalism. It
understood that the agitation "cuts across communal barriers" that the civil disturbances
accompanying it could produce disastrous results for the Raj.
Curiously enough, the Indian publicmen, whether of nationalist or of communa!ist type,
refused to see in the agitation what the British had already seen, and they decided to brand
mass actions as "frittering away" of energies in "trifling quarrels" with the police. As an
antidote to the unified enthusiasm of the people, the Congress Working Committee chose
(in its meeting of 7-1 1 December 1945) to remind everyone of the need for observing
strict non-violence. The Congress and the League leaders' restraint over popular outbursts
could only be explained by their pre-determination in favour of a negotiated settlement
with the British, or by their opting for political bargaining rather than for fighting to the
finish. They were willing to take up the INA question, or any such issue, only so far as to
derive advantages from it in the coming elections, and no further. For example the
Congressmen made a promise during Punjab elections that all INA personnel will be
absorbed in the army of free India. Mentally they had already preferred at that point the
electoral politics of the ten per cent of Indians to the desperations of the rest - the ninety
per cent.
The INA agitation was by no means over by the end of 1945, it stnlck again in February
1946, and at the same epicentre-the volatile Calcutta. The league students of the city gave
a strike call to protest on 11 February 1946 against the sentence of 7 years' imprisohment,
passed on A. Rashid Ali of the INA. Other students organisations including the
Communist-led students Federation, joined in amidst spontaneous display of inter-
communal solidarity. The protestations were transformed into fierce fights when the
militant working class youth united with the students. A massite rally (addressed by the
League. the nationalist and Communist spokesmen) and general strike on 12 February
paralysed Calcutta and its industrial suburbs, leading eventually to clashes with the police
and the army, the erection of barricades on the roads and street skirmishes in various parts.
After two days of bloody encounters, resulting in the deaths of 84 and injuries to 300, the
authorities were able' finally to restore "order". The tension, however, continued to linger
on, not only in Calcutta and Bengal, but also in other parts.

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17. Newspaper Report on RIN 'Revolt7.
Towards A Sovereign State d Calcutta outburst in February 1946 came the
ist confrontations of the post war phase - the
revolt of the Royal lnd p e d abroad, and being familiar with the ways
of the world outside, t e resentful of the racist behaviour of their
English superiors. Besi gregation from the people at large, they were
aware on the whole of up in the country, especially over the H\IA trials.
over the poor quality of food, they were served
"Talwar" in Bombay harbour went into hunger-
a1 arrongance. Others in 22 ships in the
ay, and it soon spread to the Castle and the

Y
The strikers raised t e Nationa
They elected a Naval
i~i e League and the Red flags together.
headed by M.S. Khan and drew up their
demands, ones as their own. They elected:
release of the LNA
freedom of all other
withdrawal of Indian
better food,
more civilised trea
equal' pay for Euro
On 20 Felbruary the ratin$ in the s were surrounded by armed guards, while their

i
Comrades in the ships foy d Briti ers threatening them with destruction. Figlhting
started nt:xt day when the1 eleagu s tried to break out of the Barracks and SIome o
the ships (already taken o er by t from their European superiors) preferredI gun-
battles to surrenders. The were frontations, too, in Karachi, spearheaded by th

1 18. Indian #I Revolt -cenes i" Bombay.

rebels in "Hindusthan". By 22 February, the revolt had spread to all the naval bases in the Towards Independence
country, involving 78 ships, 20 shore establishments and 20,000 ratings.
As natural in the electrifying circumstances of 1946, the mutineers evoked unprecedented
popular response. In Karachi, the Hindu and Muslim students and workers demonstrated in
support of the ratings, and engaged the army and police in violent clashes. Bombay
witnessed emotional expressions of public sympathy-people hailing the ratings, rushing in
food for them and shopkeepers insisting on their taking whatever articles they liked. The
Communists, with the support of the Congress Socialists, gave a call for a general strike on
22 February. Defying the Congress and the League directives to the contrary, 300,000
workers came out of the factories and mills and took to the streets on that day. Thereafter
it was Calcutta all the way in Bombay w i t h clenched fists, barricades and street
fightings. but with more suffering, bloodshed, and greater - almost exclusive
involvement of the working class. Several hundreds died in the delirious two days, and
thousand suffered injuries. The r j h g in Bombay, however, could not make any further
headway on account of two reasons:
The overwhelming military might of the Raj which was put in action.
Vallabhbhai Pate1 and Jinnah jointly persuaded the ratings to surrender on 23rd
February. An undertaking was given by the Congress and the League that they would
prevent any victimisation of the ratings. But soon this assurance was forgotten. Thus,
ended the Revolt of the RIN.
Others: Similar direct anti-imperialist confrontations though not of the same magnitude
and significance as those of the INA ad the RIN agitations-also continued to take
place contemporaneously in different parts of the country. Some of these were:
The popular outcry against the government decision to cut down the rational supplies
to the civilian population was one such example, over which 80,000 demonstrated in
Allahabad in mid-~ebruary1946.
Another was the widespread police strike in April 1946 under the aegis of the gftists in
Malabar, Bihar, eastern Bengal (in Dacca in particular), the Andamans and even in
Delhi.
In July 1946 the postal employees decided to defy the authorities and actually struck
work for a time. Sympathising with their cause, and at the call of the Communists, the
people in Calcutta observed a total and peaceful general strike on 29 July 1946.
Excitement also ran very high in July 1946 throughout the country over the threat of
an all-India Railway employees' strike.
Strikes and industrial actions had in fact become in 1946 the order of the day.

35.4.2 Indirect Confrontations

The strike wave of 1940 created problems not only for the governmental authorities4ut
also for the capitalists and planters of all hues-European as well as Indian. Surpassirfg all
previous records, it resulted in 1,629 stoppages of work, affecting 1,941,948 workers and
leading to the loss of 12,717,762 man-days. Committed basically to their economic
demands, the strikes nevertheless generated a defiant and self-confident mood all around,
and created an environment for secular, collective action in most of the cities and towns. If
the prospect for a popular liberation movement against colonialism seemed good in the
urban centres, its possibility appeared to be even better in the rural sector-where startling
developments.were taking place between 1945 and 1947. The way the peasantry, more
specifically the poor section of it, stood up to resist its immediate exploiters, and thereby
weaken the hands of their colonial masters, should be apparent if some of the major
happenings in the countryside are briefly recounted here.
i) Worlis
One of the earliest, and most intense, of the post-war peasant agitations was that of the
Worlis in Thana district, Bombay. The Worlis - the tribal or adivasi peasants-were in
majority in the villages of Umbergaon, Dananu, Palghar and Jawahar Taluks of Thana.
Being poverty-stricken, most of their lands had passed into the hands of moneylenders and.
landlords for their failure to re-pay loans (usually in grains) they had incurred at exorbitant
rates of interest (50 to 200 per cent). Some of them were eventually. reduced to the status
of tenants-at-will who were settled in their previously held lands on paying half the
produce as rent. Others had to become landless agricultural labourers, working either as
f m - h a n d s in the landlords' cultivable lands, or as wage-earners cutting grass on their
fallow lands, or as workers for the contractors on the forest lands on paltry payments. In
Towards A Sovereign State e Khwari or grain loans from the money
lenders and landlords, to pay back, they were forced to give Veth-
Bigar, or to labour for payment. Consequently, many of the Worlis
rs-had to turn life-long serfs for all
practical purposes.
It was in 1945 that th ganised by the Maharashtra Kisan Sabha, and
L
led subsequently by davari Purulekar to refuse to give Veth-Bigar.
In the autumn of 19 emanded a wage increase for cutting grass,
and struck work. terrorising them with the help of hirelings and
October 1945 on an assembly of the strikers
. The sufferings, however, bolstered up the spirit
in course of time the landlords had
gitation continued in 1946 for an
landing logs for the forest
r months, and in the face of
eded in forcing the Maharashtra Timber
e. Their success so enraged the local
externing all their leaders, arresting a large
I cases against many of them. The worst
ts died in the police firing in Palghar
taluk. The Worli move tered out thereafter, though many of the
agitators-who fled to heroically to re-group themselves.

the Bakasht peasants' agitation of 1946-47 in

more desperate. the agitation had grown for a
were managed, directly by the Zamindars.

lands which they kept got cultivated by agricultural labourers, the

Zamindars rented the tenants-at-will at varying rates. Having no legal
sgd to continuous ejectments, firstly because it
w incumbent had invariably to pay fresh salami

nancy Act of 1885 which gave the Bakasht

n in that position for 12 years at a stretch on
spun in ejectments in the latter half of the
1930s when the auth conferring some tenancy rights to the helpless

banner of the Kisan Sabha, and fought furiously

' agents, the Government officials and the
police.
Hostilities, however, onset of the second world war, and
tained between the battle lines through unreliable
arbitrations and un came to the forefront in 1946 when
sing to abolish the Zamindari
ing their Zamindaris, the Zamindars thought that
r personal lands if they clear the Bakasht lands of

abad districts. Armed with court

r the leadership of the Kisan Sabha, refused to

Bhagalpur. The conflict became

e effect on the ensuing battle," .

iii) Travancore Agitation Towards Independence
Unlike the occurrences in Maharashtra and Bihar, those in the state of Travancore in the
south were neither wholly rural nor exclusively agrarian in their content. Nevertheless the
agrarian issues (like the economic exploitation and social oppression of the Jenmis or
landlords) and the agricultural classes (like the exploited and oppressed poor peasants,
village artisans and agricultural labourers) contributed richly to what had happened there in
1946. The scene of happenings was the Shertalai-Aleppy region of north-western
Travancore, where a strong trade-union-cum agrarian movement developed under the
leadership of the Communists. The movement criss-crossed between the overlapping
villages and small towns, and included in its fold poor peasants, agricultural labourers,
fishermen, tody-tappers, and coir factory workers-most of whom came from the
depressed agricultural ranks and flocked around towns to eke out precarious existence.
The coir factory workers had already won through their trade-union not only some
economic gains, but also such important concessions as having their say in the recruitment
in the factories, and a right to run their own ration shops. Being politically articulate, they
and their mentors-the Communists-launched a massive campaign against the "American
model" constitution which C.P. Ramaswamy Iyer, the Dewan, wanted to impose upon the
state people. Through this device the Dewan and the Maharaja were in fact preparing
clandestinely for the establishment of an independent Travancore state at the time of the
foreseeable British departure from India. It was to provide for an irresponsible government
in Travancore, with a legislature elected on universal suffrage, but without having any
effective control over the executive, under a Dewan to be appointed by the Maharaja. The
Communist furore against the plan so enraged the state authorities that they unleashed the
forces of terror on their opponents in the Aleppy region. Police camps were set up, and
indiscriminate arrests, detentions and tortures began. Persecutions eventually forced the
workers to take shelter in places protected by their own volunteer force. To counteract the
state violence, they called a general strike on 22 October 1946 in the Aleppy-Shertalai
area, and initiated a rising by attacking the police camp at Punnapra (near Aleppy). The
authorities promptly clamped martial law on 25 October and ordered the army to attack the
workers' sheltered position at Vayalar (near Shertalai) on 27th. What followed was a
ghastly massacre of 800, whose martyrdom not only swayed the public opinion against the
state's independence move, and thereby in favour of its integration with the nationalist
India, but also inspired a local tradition of anti-fedual radicalism.
iv) Tebhaga Movement
The most extensive of all the post-war agrarian agitations, however, was the Tebhaga
movement, which swept 19 districts of Bengal and drew about 6 million peasants into it,
including a high percentage of Muslims. The tumult originated in the sharecropping system
that prevailed in most parts of Bengal and the exploitative pattern that it sustained. In
course of time in the Bengal countryside, especially in those areas where large hilly,
marshy and forest tracts were brought under cultivation, a relatively new class of rural
exploiters emerged between the landlords (Zamindars) and the tenants (rayats), known as
the Jotedars. The Jotedars (owners of jotes or considerable chunks of land) accumulated
big estates for which they paid rent in cash, and which they-in their turn-rented out to
landless peasants on the basis of sharing the crops in equal halves, or 50 per cent produce
rent. In actual practice, the tillers' share of crops used to be much less than one-half as he
had initially to take advance from the Jotedar for procuring implements, seeds and cattle,
and then pay it back at the time of sharing the crops. The sharecropper (Adhiar or
Bhagchashi) had also to meet from his share a number of Jotedars' illegal exactions,
including nazarana (Presentation) and salami (charges for contract) and perform begar in
Jotedars' own land. The sharecropping its arrangement being renewable orally every year,
the Jotedar could, and invariably did, throw out one sharecropper for another on
consideration for higher nazarana and salami. Sharecropping was found in course of time
to be practised not only by the Jotedars, but also by those absentee landholders who lived
in towns as professionals and white collar employees. The rank of the sharecroppers
swelled by the mid- 1930s when many poor peasants lost their lands in the depressionary
economic conditions, and were forced to take to sharecropping. Within a span of another 5
years, the sharecroppers were struck again by the inflationary war-time situation of the
early 1940s, and then devastatingly by the great famine.
Visibly tense by the end of the war, the sharecroppers started viewing the customary
division of crop to be wholly disadvantageous to their well-being. They, therefore, had no
hesitation in responding to the call of the Bengal Provincial Kisan Sabha in September
1946, demanding three-fourth of the produce for the tillers instead of the one-half. The
*
Towards A Sovereign State slogan "Tebhaga rth share) rent the sky, while the sharecroppers
i
wn yards in place of depositing these with the
offered one-third crop share to the Jotedars,
se cases where the Jotedars managed some how

nsingh, Medinipur and 24-Parganas were also not

a1 carnage in Calcutta and Noakhali, the Muslim
p militant leaders of the movement. Peasant
often came to its forefront. The movement,

in Calcutta towards the end of March 1947 and

to the suspension of the movement.
v) Telengana Moveme
he Tebhaga movement, the outburst in the
Telugu-speaking Telen
the most militant of all the most enduring and militant movement
because:

sants-the destitute, the poor and not as

lands (sarf-e-khas), but they behaved

ttichakiri) from the peoplev9

ntrolled lands (Diwani) where new
dars or the so called peasant
ukhs) and tax-collectors (Patel-

as revenue officials, by
g settlement operations, the Deshmukhs and Patel-
Patwaris went on

Vettichakiri and illegal levies in the districts of

By 1945 the opposition to the landed maghates'

ionp and peaceful marches were foiled by the

 Towards Independence
landlords' hired goons and the pro-landlord state police, the peasants of Telengana,
particularly of Nalgonda, were forced to resort to arms. Although skirmishes of some sort C,

were already taking place between the peasants and the landlords' men from the beginning
of 1946, actual fighting really commenced on 4 July 1946 when the armed retainers of the
Visunuri Deshmukh of Janagaon (Nalgonda) fired upon a protesting mob of peasants and
killed Doddi Komaryya. Komaryya's martyrdom was a signal for widespread armed
peasants' resistance, which the police could not cope with.
The Nizam's Government declared the Communist Party and the Andhra Sabha unlawful
in Hyderabad state, and undertook ful-scale military operations against the rising
peasantry. Following some bloodshed, and a lot of torture and destruction, the military
seemed at the beginning of 1947 to have gained an upper-hand over the rebels. But the
escalation of the rebellion in the middle of 1947, and the full-fledged peasant's guerilla
actions thereafter, wholly belied the impression. The Telengana peasants' armed struggle
continued unabated till 1951, involving at its height about 300 villages, over 16,000 square
miles, and covering a population of nearly 3 million - a saga essentially of the post-
independence Indian history.

Check Your Progress 3

1 List the various demands put forward by the ratings of the RIN.

.......................................................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................................................
2 What was the major difference between the direct and indirect confrontations?

Read the following statements and mark right ( '-") or wrong (x).
i ) The agitation over INA trials got divided between the Hindus and the Muslims.
i i ) The peasant agitation in Bihar was related to the question of tenancy.
iii) The Travancore agitation was purely agrarian in nature.
iv) The Telangana Movement continued even after independence.
v) Patel and Jinnah urged the ratings to surrender.
vi) Communists organised the Telangana Movement.

- - -

35.5 LET US SUM UP

The survey of the popular actions between 1945 and 1947 does reveal on the whole the
anti-colonial consciousness of the common men and women in India-a requisite inner
strength to match any neo-colonial design. They also displayed, and more importantly so
in the communally devised, divisive circumstances, the enormous capacity of the Indian
people to rise above their differences, and stand and act unitedly. These were the silver
linings in the clouds over India-the rare rays of hope in an otherwise gloomy, over cast
condition. The Muslim League leaders were too engrossed in playing the power-game, as
conducted by the British, and too involved in their own demand to observe these positive
traits. It was left only to the nationalists, es'becially those who had sworn all their lives by
mass mobilisation and an united India, to take note of the possibilities that the turbulent
days offered. However, given to despair, and therefore, to anxiety for a negotiated
settlement, even if it meant a religiously based partition of India, they had neither the
Towards A Sovereign State
utbursts of 1945-47, and to obstruct and condemn
lines. What it also overlooked in its obsession for a

activities.

became 'Non-Martial'.

Check Your Progress 1

constitutional negotiations among the Indian;

Check Your Progress

ss; a desire to start a dialogue with the

UNIT 36 COMMUNALISM AND THE
PARTITION OF INDIA

Structure
36.0 Objectives
36.1 Introduction
36.2 Background to Pakistan
36.2.1 Transformation of the Muslim League
36.2.2 Extremist Phase of Hindu Communalism
36.2.3 The Brit~shPolicy
36.3 Post-War Developments
36.3.1 Simla Conference and Elections
36.3.2 The Cahinet Mission
36.3.3 Formation of Interim Government
36.3.4 Fixing of a Time Limit for British Withdrawal
36.3.5 The Third June Plan and its Outcome
36.4 Congress and Partition
36.5 Congress's Handling of the Communal Problems
36.5.1 Pitfalls of Conciliation
36.5.2 The Basic Failure
36.6 Let Us Sum Up
36.7 Key Words
36.8 Answer to Check Your Progress Exercises

36.0 OBJECTIVES
After reading this Unit you will be able to:
explain the nature of communalism in the last decade of British rule,
get an idea of the background to the demand for Pakistan,
trace the political developments leading upto the partition of India,
assess the role played by Muslim League, the British and the Congress in the creation of
Pakistan.

36.1 INTRODUCTION
In Unit 14 of Block IV you learnt about the various forces which led to the emergence and
growth of communalism in modem India. You have already become familiar with the
major developments related to communalism upto 1940. However, the 1940s represent the
most crucial and decisive phase of communalism. It was in this period that the biggest
communal demand - the demand for Pakistan-was put forward, and popularised by the
Muslim League. This period also witnessed the actual coming into being of Pakistan in
1947. This Unit attempts to explain the process of the formation of Pakistan, and gives you
a summary of the major events which led to it.

36.2 BACKGROUND TO PAKISTAN

The demand for Pakistan did not arise in a vacuum. It was a product of certain political
developments which took place after 1937. The period after 1937 witnessed serious
changes in the politics of both the Hindu communal and the Muslim communal forces. In
the popularisation of the Pakistan demand the British Policy also played a very active role,
by giving it acknowledgement and credibility. Let us look at their role separately.

36.2.1 Transformation of the Muslim League

The year 1937 was a turning point in the history of Muslim communalism. In the elections
held for the Provincial Legislative Assemblies that year, the League won only 109 out of
Towards A Sovereign State 492 reserved Muslim s pf the total Muslim votes. The poor ekction
results showed the Lea d its popular base among different sections of
g the urban lower middle classes. A radical

in danger" and threat from the impending

' "Hindu Raj". T o a from the threats being forced upon it soon
turned into a cam llowers of other religions. According to
full of "fervour. fear, contempt and bitter
hatred". Jinnah and othe t the real aim of the Congress was not
ble them to fulfil their basic motive - the
ir faith. Once the prospect of a Hindu Raj

ign state for the Muslims on the ground that

36.2.2 Extremist P H of~ a d u Communalism

sanhe choice faced them, they had either to obtain
ction. Their predicament was aggravated in 1938
sts from working withill the Congress organisation.
ogramme and resorted to appeals to religion a ~ tile~ d
t. Muslim League llad done

wtaken by leaders who were willing to take their

Mahasabha, and M.S.
vak Sangh. Golwalkar's book. We, became the
Muslims were vilified and Congressmen were
Aerate enemies". The Muslims were told that they
y ceased to be foreigners. i.e:become Hindus.
any privileges or special
nly nation living in India
itizens was the Hindu
communalists' version n qheory and the demand for a "separate
homeland".
The language of Hi came extremely vicious by 1946-47. As communal
itall them, or stem the drift towards ~ a k i s t a n ,
saviours of Hindus. They

tetaliate and teach a lesson to the Muslims. Their

partition as the communalised atmosphere
demand was raised that since Pakistan was an
Hindu Raj. When their hope of overthrowing the

at R.S.S. and Mahasabha meetings and Mahatma

1948. The killing of Gandhi clearly showed that

le rlirnate for the creation of Pakistan.

at that particular juncture. Earlier the colonial

the backward and schedule castes against the
e Congress into Right and Left wings, but without
success. The elections of 1937 showed that the only weapon left in the armoury of the Communalism and the
Partition of India
British to devide Indian nationalism was communalism.
After the outbreak of the Second World War the Muslim League was assiduously fostered
by Viceroy Linlithgow. The Pakistan demand was used to counter the demand of the
Congress that the British should promise that India would be free after the War and as
proof of their sincerity, transfer actual control of the government to Indians immediately.
The British pointed out that Hindus and Muslims must come to an agreement on how
polver was to be transferred before the process could begin. The League was officially
recognised as the representative voice of Muslims (even though its performance in the last
elections hardly substantiated this claim) arid promised that no political settlement would
be made unless it was acceptable to the League. This was a blanket power of veto, which
Jinnah was to use to good effect after the War had ended.
T h e Cripps Mission: March-April 1942
In March 1942 Stafford Cripps, (a Labour Party leader with friendly links with many
leaders of the Congress) headed a mission to India whose declared intention was "the
earliest possible realisation of self-government in India". However, the actual provisions of
the offer belied this declaration by Cripps. Dominion status, not full independence was
promised and that too after the War, and the people of the princely states were to be
represented in the proposed Constituent Assembly by nominees of the princes.
It was clear that the British would retain control over defence in the new Executive
Council. The Congress could hardly have accepted what was, according to the Secretary of
State, Amery, a conservative, reactionary and limited offer. But above all the Cripps;
proposals brought in 'Pakistan' through the backdoor via the "local option" clause.
Provinces were given the right to sign individual agreements with Britain about their
future status should they choose to reject the new constitution that would be framed.
Though the Cripps Mission failed, Cripps' proposals gave a fillip to the activities of the
Muslim League and provided legitimacy to the Pakistan demand by accommodating it in
their provision for provincial autonomy. At a time when the demand had hardly been taken
seriously by Indians, its sympathetic consideration by officialdom was a great service to
the cause of Pakistan.

Check Your Progress 1

1) Why did the Muslim League raise the cry of Islam in danger? Answer in ten lines.

2) Read the following statements and mark right ( 4 ) or wrong (x)

i) Hindu communalism took a 'fascist' turn after 1937-38.
ii) The Cripps proposals were a milestone on the pathway to Pakistan.
....
111) The British Government tried to check the growth of Muslim communalism after
1940.

36.3 POST-WAR DEVELOPMENTS

In this section we will give you a sequence of events from the end of the war till the
Towards A Sovereign State rtition and the ultimate shape of Pakistan
in these two years.

Viceroy, Wavell, the Congress leaders

and invited to Simla to work out an interim
political agreemen

government as this deni ta the Muslims of the Unionist Party of Punjab,

i! 19. M u add Jinaah at Simla.

i
Elections - The water4 ed
The elections held in the inter of 6 to the Central and Provincial Legislative
Assemblies were fought the Le a straight forward communal slogan- "A
vote for the League and kistan for Islam". Mosques were used for election
ssue farwas (directives) that Muslims must vote

i
meetings and pirs (holy n) per
for the League. The choi betwee s and the League was portrayed as a choice
between the Gita and the oran. It 811 wonder then, that the League made a clean
sweep of the Muslim seat .
36.3.2 The Cabinet Mission Communalism and the
Partition of India
By early 1946 the British authorities had come to the conclusion that a graceful withdrawal
from India was the best option for them. The Cabinet Mission was sent to India in March
1946 to establish a national government and work out a constitutional arrangement for
transfer of power. Now when the British had decided to leave it was believed that the old
policy of divide and rule would no longer be suitable. British strategies in the Indian
subcontinent after independence, it could be argued, would be better served if India was
united. It was believed that a united India, which was friendly with Britain, could be an
active partner in the defence of the Commonwealth, whereas a divided India's defence
potential would be weak and conflict between India and Pakistan would frustrate the joint
defence plans.
The change, in the British attitude towards the Congress and the League around this time
reflects this understanding. The British Prime Minister, Attlee, declared on 15th March
1946 that "a minority will not be allowed to place a veto on the progress of the majority".
This was in sharp contrast to the Viceroy Wavell's attitude during the Simla Conference in
June-July 1945 when Jinnah had been allowed to wreck the Conference by his insistence on
nominating all Muslims. The Cabinet Mission also believed that Pakistan would not be
viable as a separate entity. Therefore the plan that was drawn up by the Mission was to
safeguard the interests of the Muslim minority within the overall framework of unity of
the country. Three sections were planned which would have separate meetings to work out
their constitutions. The Congress provinces like Madras, Bombay, U.P., Bihar, Central
Provinces and Orissa, would form group A; Punjab, N.W.F.P and Sind would go into
Group B and Bengal and Assam would make up Group C. The common centre would look
after defence, foreign affairs and communications. A province could leave the group to
which it was assigned after the first general elections and after ten years it could demand
modification of both the group and union constitutions.
Ambivalence over Grouping
Disagreement arose between the Congress and the League over the issue of grouping. The
Congress demand was that provinces should have the option not to join a group at a very
beginning, rather than wait till general elections were held. The. Congress raised this
objection keeping in mind the Congress ruled provinces of Assam and N.W.F.P., which
had been placed in sections C and B. The League demanded that provinces be given the
right to modify the Union Constitution immediately and not wait for ten years. Thus, the
basic problem was that the Cabinet Mission Plan was not clear about whether grouping was
compulsory or optional. In fact the Cabinet Mission deliberately refused to clarify its
stand, even when asked to do so. This was because of the hope that their ambivalence
might reconcile the irreconcilable position of the Congress and the League, but in effect, it
only complicated matters.
Soon it was obvious that the League and the Congress were at cross-purposes in their
interpretation of the Mission Plan. Both parties saw it as a confirmation of their stand.
Sardar Pate1 drew satisfaction from the fact that Pakistan was now out of the picture and
the League's power of veto had been withdrawn. The League made it clear (in the 6th June
1946 statement) that it accepted the Plan in so far as the basis of Pakistan was implied by
the clause of compulsory grouping. Nehru explained in his speech to the A.I.C.C. (on 7th
June 1946) that the Congress Working Committee had only decided that the Congress
would participate in the Constituent Assembly. Since the Assembly was a sovereign body,
it would formulate the rules of procedure. The implication was that the rules laid down by
the Mission could be amended. The League, whose acceptance of the Plan had in any case,
been qualified, quickly took advantage of Nehru's speech to withdraw its acceptance of the
Mission Plan on 29th July 1946.

36.3.3 Formation of Interim Government

The British Government was now placed in a dilemma - should it wait till the League
came around or should it implement the short-term aspect of the plan, and set up an
Interim Government with the Congress alone? Wavell's preference was for the first oition
but His Majesty's Covernment was of the opinion that Congress cooperation was
absolutely necessary for their long-term interests. Accordingly the Congress was invited to
form an Interim Government which came into being on 2nd September 1946 with
Jawaharlal Nehru functioning as its de facto head. This was a sharp departure from earlier
British practice, as, for this first time, the British were willing to defy Jinnah's stand that
no constitutional settlement be made unless it was acceptable to the League.
Towards A Sovereign State

,) 20. ~ e of Interim
w Government.

He warned the British

British would compel
league had already ac
and the new slogan was Larke Lenge Pakistan

dements retaliated, perhaps with equal brutality,

and 5000 people we
The trouble broke o st Bengal in early October 1946 and Noakhali
sparked off widespread in Bihar in late October 1946. The following
months saw riots every ay, Punjab and N.W.F.P. The tide could not be
stemmed.

placating the Musli ugh the league was their creation, it had now
assumed the shape hich could not tamed". Wave11 had kept up

Interim Governme

Government witho e plan of Direct Action.

Furthermore, it di

s not in the League's interest and

e had no intention to share with Congress the

 responsibility for running the Government. On the other hand, the intention apparently was Communalism and the
Partition of India
to demonstrate that cooperation between the two was impossible. The League ministers
made it a point to disagree with actions taken by their Congress colleagues. They refused
to attend the parties at which Congress members would arrive at decisions before the
formal meeting of the Executive Council so as to sideline Wavell.
Interim Government-Threat of Breakdown
The Congress leaders had raised the objection (right after the League members were sworn
in) that the League could not join the Interim Government without accepting the Cabinet
Mission Plan.
Later, when non-cooperation of the League both inside and outside the Government
became clear, the Congress members demanded that the League either give up Direct
Action or leave the government. Further, the League refused to participate in the
Constituent Assembly which met on 9th December 1946 even though the statement made
by His Majesty's Government (on 6th December 1946) upheld the League's stand on
grouping. The breaking point came when the League demanded that the Constituent
Assembly be dissolved because it was unrepresentative. On 5th February 1947 the
Congress members of the Interiin Government sent a letter to Wa:lell with the demand that
the League members should be asked to resign. A crisis was imminent.

36.3.4 Fixing of a Time-Limit for British Withdrawal

The situation was saved by Attlee's announcement in Parliament on 20the February 1947
that the British would withdraw from India by 30th June 1948 and that lord Mountbatten
would replace Wavell as Viceroy. This was no answer to the constitutional crisis that was
at hand but it showed that the British decision about leaving India remained unchanged.
The Congress responded with a gesture of cooperation to the League. Nehru appealed to
Liaqat Ali Khan:
The British are fading out of the picture and the burden of this decision must rest on
all of us here. It seems desirable that we shouid face this question squarely and not
speak to each other from a distance.
But Jinnah's reaction to Attlee's statement was entirely different. He was confident that
now he oiily needed to stick firmly to his position in order to achieve his goal of Pakistan.
After all, the declaration made it clear that power would be transferred to more than one
authority if the Constituent Assembly did not become a fully representative body, i.e. if
the Muslim majority provinces did not join it.

i The Governor of Punjab had warned in this regard that "the statement will be regarded as
the prelude to the final showdown", with every one out to "seize as such power as they
can, if necessary by force". He was soon proved right. The League began a civil
disobedience campaign in Punjab which brought about the collapse of the coalition
ministry headed by Khizr Hayat Khan of the Unionist Party.

I Thus the situation which Mountbatten found on his amval in India was a fairly intractable
one. The League was on the war path, as Punjab showed, and Jinnah was obdurate that he
would accept nothing less than a sovereign Pakistan. The Cabinet Mission Plan had clearly
become defunct and there was no point in persisting with it. The only way the British
could maintain unity was by throwing all their weight behind it. The role of mediators
i between the Congress and League had to be discarded. Those who opposed unity had to be
put down firmly and those who wanted unity had to be openly supported. Despite Attlee's
claim years later - we would have preferred a united India. We couldn't get it, though
"

we tried hard", the truth was that the British chose to play safe and take both sides along
1 without exercising any check or restraint even when the situation demanded this type of
assertion of authority.

36.3.5 The 3rd June Plan and its Outcome

This was done by making concessions to both the Congress and the League. India would be
d i v i d ~ dbut in a manner that maximum unity was retained. The League's demand would be
~ ~ c o m r n o d a t ebyd creating Pakistan, but it would be made as small as possible in order to
accomnlodate the Congress stand on unity. Since Congress was making the bigger
concession i.e. it was giving up its ideal of a united India, all its other stands were to be
j upheld by the British. For example, Mountbatlen supported the Congress stand that

I princely states must not be given the option of independence. Mountbatten realised that it
Towards A Sovereign State

was vital to retain th ngress if he hoped to persuade India to remain in

the Commonwealth. red a chance of keeping India in the
Commonwealth, even hence the 3rd June Plan declared that power
would be handed over 47 on the basis of dominion status to India and
Pakistan.

nd taking the communally explosive situation in

about preventing the communal situation from
p the situation in his statement to the Viceroy:
't let us govern". The British had abdicated
e for withdrawal to 15th August 1947 made this
more apparent.

raflsfer of power and division of the country, equally

eneral of India and Pakistan. There was no

g from division could be referred and even
wn in December 1947 as a fall-out of the hostilities in
Kashmir.

y in announcing the awards of the

e trbgedy of partition. These were Mountbatten's
 decisions. Mountbatten delayed the announcement of the Boundary Commission Award Communalism and the
Partition of India
(even though it was ready by 12th August 1947) to disown responsibility for further
complications. This created confusion for ordinary citizens as well as the officials. People
living in the villages between Lahore and Amritsar stayed on in their homes in the belief
I that they were on the right side of the border. Migrations necessarily became a frenzied
I
affair. often culminating in massacres.
i

I
The officials were busy arranging their own transfers rather than using their authority to
maintain law and order. This was conceded by none other than Lackhart, who was
Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army from 15th August to 3rd December 1947:
Had officials in every grade in the civil services, and all the personnel of the armed
services, been in position in their respective new countries before independence Day,
1 it seems there would have been a better chance of preventing widespread disorder.

!
Check Your progress 2
1 ) Read the following statements and mark right ( 4)
or wrong (x).
j ,
i) Muslim League contested the elections on the basis of a socio-economic programme.
ii) The Interim Government could not work because the Congress workers were
unwilling to cooperate.
iii) Jinnah wanted Mountbatten to became the Common Governor Genera1 of India and
Pakistan.

I 2) What were the basic merits and flaws in the Cabinet Mission Plan? Write in five lines.

36.4 CONGRESS AND PARTITION

I
Why did the Congress accept Partition? It was one thing for the League to demand
1 Pakistan and the British to concede it because it was in harmony with the politics they had

1 pursued in the part. But why did the Congress, which had fought for unity for long years,
-
give uo its ideal of an united India. One view is that the
~ -~ -Coneress
~. .--
- " - - -
- ~ ~leaders succumbed to the
- ~ ~

temptation of power and struck a deal with the British by which they got quick power
~
~~ - - - --
- ~ ~ ~ - -

while the nation paid the price of partition. This view is both simplistic and incorrect.
What was involved was not the personal failings - of the top leaders but a basic failbre of the
entire organisation.
The Congress acceptance of Partition was the consequence of its failure over the years to
I
bring the Muslim masses into the nationalist mainstream and since 1937, to stem the
I advancing tide of Muslim communalism. By 1946 it was dear to the Congress leaders that
the Muslims were behind the League as it had won 80 per cent Muslim seats in the
elections. However, the point of no return was reached a year later when the battle for
Pakistan was no longer confined to the ballot box but came to be fought on the streets.
I
communal riots engulfed the country and the Congress leaders concluded that Partition was
1 a lesser evil than a civil war.
I
1 The breakdown of the Interim Government only confirmed the inevitability of Pakistan.

1
1
I
Nehru remarked that the Interim Government was an arena of struggle and Sardar Patel, in
his speech at the AICC meeting on 14th June 1947. drew attention to the fact that Pakistan
was actually fucctioning not only in Punjab and Bengal but also in the Interim
i Government! Mureover, the Interim Government had no power to intervene in the
i provinces (even when the League ministry in Bengal was guilty not only of inaction but
complicity in the riots in Calcutta and Noakhali ). Nehru realised that there was no point in
1 holding office when "murder stalks the streets and the most amazing cruelties are indulged
in by both the individual and the mob." Immediate transfer of power would at least bring
I about a government that would have the power to fulfil its responsibilities.
Towards A Sovereign State

22. Millions, Upr{ed--Pbotog#s od Partition days.

52
 Another consideration in accepting partition was that it firmly ruled out the specter of the Communalism and the
Partition of India '
'balkanisation' of the country. The Congress had the support of the Viceroy, and behind
him His Majesty's Government, in refusing the option of independence to the princely
states. Through persuasion or force, they were made to join either the Union of India or
Pakistan.
I Gandhi and Partition
It is common knowledge that Gandhi was so distressed when partition became an imminent
reality that he no longer wished to live for 125 years, as he had stated earlier. One popular
I interpretation is that Gandhi's advice was ignored by his disciples, Nehru and Patel, who
L
I
wanted power at any cost and though he felt this betrayal acutely, he did not wish to
condemn them publicly because they had been his faithful followers.
Gandhi's own statements, however, suggest that the main reason for his helplessness lay in
the communalisation of the masses. The Muslims began distrusting the Hindus and then the
Hindu and Sikhs also got convinced that mutual co-existence was impossible. It was the
HIndus' and Sikhs' desire for Partition that made him a mass leader without any masses
behind him in his struggle for unity. The Muslims had already declared him to be their
I
enemy. When different segments of people wanted partition, what could be or the
Congress do but to accept it? At his daily prayer meeting on 4th June 1947 Gandhi said:
I
"The demand has been granted because you asked for it. The Congress never asked
for it .... But the Congress can feel the pulse of the people. It realised that the Khalsa
as also the Hindus desired it".
Socialists and Gandhians appealed to Gandhi to launch a struggle for unity bypassing the
Congress leaders. Gandhi pointed out that the problem was not that he was unwilling to go
ahead without the Congress leaders. After all, few had agreed with his assessment in 1942
that the time was right for a struggle of the Quit India type, and yet he had defied their
counsels and he had been proved right. The crucial lacuna in 1947 was that there were no
"forces of good" upon which he could "build up a programme". He confessed - "Today I
see no sign of such a healthy feeling. And, therefore, I shall have to wait until the time
conies".
The time never came, for political developments were moving at too fast a pace. Partition
was announced on 3rd June and implemented on 15th August 1947. Gandhi's advice to
Congressmen, conveyed in his speech to the AICC meeting on 14th June 1947, was to
accept Partition as an unavoidable necessity for the present, but not accept it in their hearts
a i ~ afight to reverse it later, when passions would subside.

36.5 CONGRESS' HANDLING OF THE COMMUNAL

PROBLEMS
It is often argued that partition could have been avoided if the Congress had been willing
to conciliate Jinnah, not only before he came up with the demand for a separate state in
1940, but also in 1942 at the time of the Cripps Mission or even in 1946 when the Cabinet
Mission Plan was put forward. Maulana Azad in his autobiography Indla Wins Freedom
has supported this position. This view ignores the fact that Jinnah laid down the impossible
condition that he was willing to negotiate with the Congress only if it declared itself a
Hindu body and accepted the Muslim League as the sole representative of the Muslims.
Had the Congress accepted this demand, it would have had to give up its secular character.
This would not only have meant betrayal of the nationalist Muslims who had resolutely
stood behind the Congress at great personal cost, but betrayal of the Indian people and
their future. The logical culmination of accepting Jinnah's demand would have been the
; creation of a Hindu fascist state, from a Hindu body to a Hindu state being a logical next
1 step. In Rajendra Prasad's words, the Congress "would be denying its own past, falsifying
its history, and betraying its future".

36.5.1 Pitfalls of Conciliation

In fact, though the Congress refused to negotiate with Jinnah on his terms, it made
unilateral concessions to Muslim demands despite Jinnah's intransigence. The Congress
accepted the autonomy of Muslim majority provinces during the negotiations with the
Towards A Sovereign State

nnah in 1944 Gandhi recognised that Muslim

self-determination. When the Cabinet Mission
Plan proposed that Musli es (groups B and C) would set up a separate
Constituent Assembly if ongress did not oppose this. Congress opposed

not wish to join) but by ehru declared that his party would accept the
interpretation of the Fe

quitely accepted the><w interpretation. As

1947. So when the

e's demand. It was the culmination of a process

Muslim majority state.

assertive "Muslims nat

every round of conc

was betraying in th

This lack of under ism in the 1940s was only

 Communalism and the
Though the Congress was committed to securalism and though Gandhi staked his life for Partition of India
Hindu Muslim unity, the Congress was not able to formulate a long term strategy to fight
communalism in its different forms at the level of both politics and ideology. The
Congress leaders naively believed that reassurances, generous concessions and willingness
to reach a compromise would solve the communal problem. As Prof. Bipan Chandra has
said:
"The fact is that communalism is basically an ideology which could not have been,
and cannot be, appeared; it had to be confronted and opposed ... The failure to do so
was the real weakness of the Congress and the national movement. (India's Struggle
for Independence).

Cneck Your Progress 3

1) Read the following statements and mark right ( d ) or wrong (X).
i) Congress accepted partition because the congress leaders succumbed to the
temptation of power.
ii) British Government accepted partition because it was in keeping with its policies
pursued. in the past.
iii) The Congress policies of concessions and concilations contributed in the making of
Pakistan.
iv) The real failure of the Congress lay in not being able to evolve a long term strategy
to fight communalism.

- 2) Why did Gandhi feel so helpless regarding the partition of India'? Write in five lines.

LET US SUM UP
The partition of India was primarily the result of the persistent efforts o i the Muslim
League from 1940 onwards to obtain a separate homeland for the Muslims. Through an
astute combination of constitutional methods and direct actions, the League, under Jinnah's
stewardship, consolidated its position and forced the political situation into a deadlock,
from which partition was the only escape. But Pakistan could not have been created
without the help given by the British. British authorities used the communal card in their
moves to counter the national movement which was growing from strength to strength.
They gave credibility to the Pakistan demand, recognised the League as the sole
representative of Muslims and gave the League the power to veto progress in political
settlements. Even when their own interests inclined them towards leaving behind a United
India, they proved incapable of standing up to Jinnah and tamely surrendered to the
blackmail of direct action. Official inaction in checking the rapidly deteriorating
communal situation reached a point from which partition appeared preferable to civil war.
The Congress for its part, failed to prevent the partition despite its long-standing
commitment to a United India. Its weakness lay on two fronts. It failed to draw the
Muslim masses into the national movement and was not able to evolve a strategy to
successfully fight communalism.

36.7 KEY WORDS

Divide and Rule : a term which refers to the British policy of creating divisions in the
Indian society so as to perpetuate their rule in India.
'Local Option' Clause: a clause in the Cripps Proposal, which recognised the right of any
part of the Indian Dominion, to refuse to join it. This clause provided the much needed
legitimacy to the demand for Pakistan.
Towards A Sovereign State

1 24. ~ e h r w w l i Partition
n ~ Victims.
I

36.8 ANSWERS f 0 CH K YOUR PROGRESS

of 1937, ii) the need the utility of religious slogans in

unds and turning them against Hindus; and
iv) to drive home t meland for Muslims.
See Sub-sec. 36.2.1
2 i ) ( v ' ) ii) ( v '

Check Your Progress 2 ~

36.3.2
UNIT 37 THE ESTABLISHMENT OF
DEMOCRATIC POLITY IN INDIA

Structure
37.0 objectives
37.1 Introduction
37.2 The Concept of Democracy: A History
37.2.1 The Early Liberals
37.2.2 Limits of Liberal Democracy
37.3 The Evolution of Democratic Ideas and Institutions in India
37.3.1 The Impact of the British Rule
37.3.2 The Perception of the Constituent Assembly
37.4 The Question of Fundamental'Rights and Directive Principles
37.5 Towards a Democratic State Structure
37.5.1 Parliamentary System at the Centre
37.5.2 The State
37.6 The Electoral System
37.6.1 Towaids a Democratic Representation
37.6.2 Limits -
37.7 Federal Polity Vs. Centralism: Options of a Democratic State
37.7.1 Historical Background to Federalism
37.7.2 The Partition and Federalism
37.7:3 The Constraints of the Administrative and Financial Structure
37.8 Let Us Sum Up
--37.9 Keywords
37.10 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises

37.0 OBJECTIVES
After reading this Unit you will learn about:
the evolution of the concept of democracy, .
the evolution of democratic ideas and institutions in India,
the limits within which these ideas and institutions function.

37.1 INTRODUCTION
Democracy is the watchword of the developing nations today. All shades of political
opinions equally proclaim their adherence to it. However, in practice, it might mean quite
different things to different classes, groups and parties. Thus, there is no one agreed
definition of democracy. In .India too the ideas and institutions of democracy grew up in
the context of different perceptions of different classes, groups and parties. The context of
anti-colonial struggle and the post-independence developments gave these perceptions a
definite direction.

37.2 THE CONCEPT OF DEMOCRACY: A HISTORY

As a concept, the word democracy originated probably in the fifth century B.C. to describe
the system of government found among few of the Greek City States. The translation of
Greek word provides us with a basic definition of democracy as 'rule by' or 'of the
people'.
In the modem context, these views were first revived and articulated in the early modem
Europe as a critique of precapitalist ideology and rule. Seventeenth and eighteenth century
Europe witnessed the emergence of capitalism and the erosion of the existing feudal order.
It was during this period that revived democratic ideas acquired their conceptual apparatus
and practical social meaning in the principles of liberalism.
Towards A Sovereign State

n Locke and later Rousseau, Mill and others,

society constituted natural hierarchy. They
nd government based on the principle of the
ated the ultimate source of authority in the consent
and property were considered fundamental for
vide any blue-print for a society in which these
. The right to equality was to be only an abstract
of formal equality before law. Most liberals,
the right to estate and property was of
of the individual personality and social prosperity.
phy, consent based authority could be interpreted as
Rousseau's thought it implied the Utopian notion of
popular sovereignty der a small state system.

37.2.2 Limits of
Liberal democracy in ations. It does not provide us with a
democratic model w e equally the right to vote. One of the
staunch protagonists Mill, for example, advocated the system of
'
plural voting for les his was intended to maintain a proper

a house-hold word to be defined (or actua1ized)in

s essentially identified today with a
free and fair elections.

is context, when we study the

g), we find that their actual operation

in modem politics is p ed by the nature of the prevalent party-
system. The growth of the last two hundred years or so has been the
of modem democracies. It is only
for political power by the mechanism

ased on the principle of

power. This inevitably breeds

Joseph Schumpeter d
political decisions in uire the power to decide by means of
e people's vote takes place not

alternately or regularly &e actual nature of democracy or its

 According to them, the real essence of democracy can be captured only if there exists an The Establishment of
Democratic Polity in India
institutional arrangement of decision-making, based upon various levels of people's
participation. Such political framework of democracy is possible, only if the people realize
that they are equally enjoying the fruit of socio-economic development. In other words the
actual democracy can exist only under a participatory socialist polity, where people
become their own political master or genuine sovereign voters.

Check Your Progress 1

1 ) Liberal democracy's theorists (Locke, Rousseau etc.) said that:
i) society was divided into various classes and groups because one group or class was
biologically more fit than the others.
ii) authority to rule came from the consent of the people.
iii) authority to rule was given by God
iv) none of these

2) Politics in majority of the modem day democratic states

i) is determined by the nature of the prevalent party-system
ii) is determined by 'participatory democracy'
iii) is determined by divine right of the king
iv) None of the above

I
37.3 THE EVOLUTION OF DEMOCRATIC IDEAS AND
INSTITUTIONS IN INDIA
Democratic ideas and institutions grew up in the context of the impact of British rule, the
national movement and the development of post independence polity.

37.3.1 The Impact of the British Rule

In the evolution of the modem democratic ideas and institutions in India, the experience of
British Colonial rule and of the anti-colonial freedom struggle was decisive. It was only
when the pre-Colonial Indian Society was put into the melting pot of colonial rule that the
ideas of democracy ahd nationalism started to take shape, in the beginning of nineteenth
century. Colonial exploitation required a new economic and administrative infrastructurz,
which in turn set new social forces of production into motion. Out of these came a new
social mobility, which allowed the growth of reformist, nationalist, liberal and democratic
ideas.
Indian Renaissance and Democracy
The demand for the introduction of democratic and representative institutions in India
dates back to the days of Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Indian Renaissance. However
renaissance in India marked only a half-hearted advance towards a liberal democracy. It
lacked a radical self-critical appraisal of India's social structure and its value system. .
1
Even this half-hearted advance through Renaissance the movement lacked the support of
any prominent socik class. It was confined to a tiny section of educated people. Thus it
lacked a revolutionary will and the power for the social and ideological transformation of
Indian society. Unlike the social movements of antifeudal revolution in the west, and
transition to capitalism the democratic movement in India took place without any break
twith pre-capitalist ideologies. Thus democracy and capitalism in India always remained.
impregnated with a strong sense of revivalism and with local parochial traditions of caste,
language, region and religion.
The introduction of Western education in India was the most significant development in
the growth of liberalism, democracy and nationibuilding in the modern Indian context. It
provided the educated manpower to organise business and industry along scientific lines. It
produced the leadership of the national movement. The organization of the Congress-
nationalist platform was. achieved with the initiative of the educated elite. In fact,
according to the early nationalists, the unity of the educated elite signified Indian national
unity (Surendranath Banerjee).
Towards A Sovereign State The Early. Nationali
d of the message'of democracy and
nationalism among e , they demanded the introduction of
representative institu tish overlordship over India.
Even the political m and 'Swadeshi' did not go beyond

In the beginning, th gress lacked the militancy and

e and democracy in India. The
of the colonial ethos and its
value-system to se brelak with the British rule. In the process, early
e era, were hampered by its incapacity to seek mass
support for its pol tside the narrow circle of the English educated elite.
This limitation w ome by the extremist leadership.' They tried to
specific socio-economic policy of mass-mobilization
the help of the religious ideology of Hindu
ocratic consenses of all communities on the basis of
of nationalism, Hindu revivalism led to communal
tremists therefore strengthened the
ntially Hindu party. Thus the alienation of Muslims
f the movement of democracy and nationalism in

ionalism and democracy registered significant

9 permitted a minority of indirectly elected
cil and majority of directly elected members to
Act introduced the system of dyarchy in India. The
hilafat, the Non-cooperation and the Civil
ents large section of Indian people were
. This included a section of capitalist
asantry. The pafticipation of the working
e stature and strehgth ?f the nationalist
the Quit India Movement and post-
transferred to the Indians. ow ever, the
t communal holocaust and the partition of the
country.
 37.3.2 The Perception of the Constituent Assembly The Establishment of
Democratic Polity in India
The establishment of the 385 members Constituent Assembly by the colonial government
in 1946 was the culmination of the struggle for democratic government and independence
in India. It represented various shades of opinion including Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs.
' But this body of Constitution-makers was not fully representative in character. 292
members of it were chosen by the legislative assemblies of I I provinces (ruled directly by
British) elected on a restricted franchise of about one-fifth of the adult population. 93
members were nominated by the rulers of the native states under the overall hegemony of
the British. The partition of the country in August 1947 reduced the size of this body to
298 of which 208 owed their loyalty to the Congress party.
The Constituent Assembly gave direction to the establishment of democratic institutions in
India. It functioned, both as the Parliament as well as the Constitution making body until
January 1950. The Congress Party being the most influential section, naturally had a direct
impact on the philosophy of the Indian Constitution. 'The real shape of the Indian
Constitution was determined not by an autonomous body of legal experts, but by the
liberal creed of the Congress party. The Constitution was, above all, a legal form of the
political philosophy upheld by the Congress party. And, all the decisions about the
establishment of liberal-democratic institutions in India: The form of government,
federalism, securalism and democratic rights were taken at the level of the Congress party
and its high command. This was confessed in the floor of the Assembly by the Chairman
of the Drafting Committee of the Indian Constitution Dr. Ambedkar himself by saying
that: "They had to go to another place to obtain a decision and come to Assembly".
However, there was nothing wrong in such an overwhelming influence of the Congress per
se in the making of the Constitution. Constitutions are never made entirely within a
legalistic framework. Both the Philadelphia convention of 1787 and French National
Assembly of 1778-91 also went far beyond the legalistic terms and references. However,
there was a major difference between them and the Indian Constituent Assembly. They
marked a radical liberal revolutionary break in their social situation while this was not the
case in India. The independence of India highlights a compromise with the social situation
that has imposed the reality of Partition . This historical situation appeared beyond the
control of the Congress party and its leadership. The division of the country, however,
gave a free hand to the Congress party in the Constituent Assembly to evolve a
constitutional framework of its own choice. Earlier it had lacked this freedom while
negotiating with the Muslim League.

I 26. Nehru Signing the Constitution (24.1.1950).

i Towards A Sovereign State

individual citizens epitomized the liberal democratic

creed. The Congress ouhd to incorporate these promises in the Indian

background of a highly communal stnlcture

local-parochial particularistic ties and an inward-
t step forward in the direction .of bourgeois justice
and equality.
Further, the right to sion, religion and faith, assembly
isition, holding or disposing off property were
. In this context the process of judicial
regarded as sacred. A hierarchical ,

the Supreme Court of India standing at its

independence of judiciary was to
zens. The courts were vested with
absolute powers to i is context of bourgeois democracy in

es of the Constitution (as enunciated in the Part IV

d to be fundamental, but not enforceable by my
. Therefore, these directives have not been realized
y and programme of the Indian state point towards

Check Your Progress 1

Tick ( V ) the c 0 r r e c 4 ~ [
1) The early nationalil
i) were able to 4
democraH))deals and values to the people.
c ideals and values to the people.
to the people through the vehicle of religious

f Indian democracy in the post independence period

regarded as the basic legal units.

ized as the basic legal unit.
iii) both (i) & (ii) &e correct.^^^
iv) None of the a?.

The evolution of li y has a long history in India. It was not

nstituent Assembly. From the period of the
, the Indian political elite had become
governance. The influence of this
experience with the w el was naturallyoverwhelming in the choice
in the future. Therefore, when the Constituent
creating a formal institutional network of state-
the Parliamentary system of government p a t t e d
 The Establishment of
37.5.1 Parliamentary System at the Centre Democratic Polity in India
The Parliamentary system of governance envisages the collective responsibility of the
executive (i.e. the Council of Ministers) to the Legislature. The decision-making authority
here rests with the Council of ministers led by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is
not only the leader of the majority party or coalition of parties in the Parliament, but he is
also the spokesman of the nation and the state. His influence is overwhelming in shaping
the policy of the state and government. Therefore, it is argued by some that it is neither the
Parliamentary nor the Cabinet form of government that is in operation in the contemporary
period. According to many political scientists and commentators (in India and Britain),
what exists in reality is the Prime Ministerial form of Government. The institution of
presidency is merely nominal. It is created for five years by an electoral college consisting
of the members of both houses of the Union Parliament and the legislative assemblies of
the states. The President of India acts on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers led
by the Prime Minister.

37.5.2 The State

Like the Centre, at the state level also the real executive power is vested in the Chief
Minister by virtue of his position as the leader of the majority party in the state
legislature. The role of the Governor has been the major bone of contention from the .
beginning. It has become very controversial, as on the one hand he acts as the nominee of
the Centre by virtue of his being appointed by it, and on the other hand according to the
Constitution he is supposed to act in accordance with the will of the majority party and its
leadership in the state legislature. Thus, there always exists a conflict in his role as centre's
loyal nominee vis-a-vis his loyalty to the Constitution. This conflict becomes far more
prominent if the ruling party at the state level happens to be in political opposition to the
ruling party at the Centre.

37.6 THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM

The introduction of the representative system of government based on universal adult
franchise was one of the most significant advances towards the democratization of the
Indian political system. For this purpose, the Election Commission (Article 324) was
created to supervise the entire procedure and machinery for national and state elections.

37.6.1 Towards a democratic representation

India's experience with elections on the whole has been positive. They have become the
chief system by which the strength of any leadership or a party is tested. Although, the
introduction of universal suffrage strengthened the already established caste-class authority
in terms of economic power, social position and political authority, but it also gave a voice
to the hitherto disenfranchised sections of society. In this way the elections have become
central to the legitimacy of political authority in India. In case they cease to be the key
instruments of political legitimation the political system of India itself might be threatened.
Whenever electoral choices were seen as being critically important in the health of
democracy, the Indian voters have utilized their right to franchise with wisdom.
Elections, in this way, have become a part and parcel of India's political life. They are
more or less taken for granted for the solution of any crisis. This is evident in case of
Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, and Tamil Nadu. The functioning of the electoral system in ,
India then has been central for the continued health of its democratic system. According to
Moms Jones, therefore, miraculously the elections are "one of the things Indians - do
well".

37.6.2 Limits
However, within the context of Indian politics, we find that elections have not
revolurionized the situation. They were not introduced with any revolutionary aim either.
They were utilised as a vehicle for legitimizing the existent social and economic power of
the dominant castes and classes. Therefore, with few exceptions, they have not been
helpful to the toiling people as a weapon to diminish the socio-economic and political hold
of vested interests. For example a Survey of the Panchayat Samitis Andhra Pradesh in
the mid-1960s, for instance showed that "high caste, more land, more money and more
1 education" continued to be "the requisite for political shccess".
Towards A Sovereign State

h to the mass of the voters without adequate

ce mobilization and its allocation. This is a

ltural aspirations of its distinct communities. The

character of the future Indian state. However,

In the conflict between t

debated. While the Con

subsequent negotiatio
India between 1942- the Congress made compromise after
Muslim League stood finally for the

federal polity a strong case of a unitary

akers. Yet the need to organize India
along federal principles , what we have in India is a federal form
ution itself provided innumerable
g party at the centre could easily infringe
, the Constitution empowers the
dismiss the elected state governments.
The power of the cen te and its power to declare emergency

i
37.7.3 The Constrai s of ~loinistrativeand Financial Structure
The administrative and fin c of Indian state, its economy and its organization
also leads to the strengthe g of lized political structure in India. The resources
for various development p ns in re, industry, education and health had to come
through arrangements with the mission established in March 1950. In the
process the Planning Corn issio iased in favour of centralization and the
activities of socio-econom d ame central subjects.
Finally, bureaucracy in legacy of the colonial state. Of approximately,
independence, 453 were Indians and became the
policy makers of ne in the Constituent Assembly was convinced
about their overwhelming importance to the independent Indian state. Many democrats, The Establishment of
nemocratic Polity in India
reformers and the nationalists even wanted to get rid of them. But, the votaries of the
centralized state prevailed ultimately. Patel, for example, defended their utility by saying
that:
"I have worked with them during difficult period ... Remove them and I see nothing
but a picture of chaos all over the country". Even the radical Nehru concurred in
their continuance by saying that: "the old distinction and differences have gone... In
the difficult days ahead our service and experts have a vital role to play and we invite
them to do so as comrades in the service of India".
In addition to the bureaucracy, the role of para-military forces like the Central Reserve
Police Force (CRPF), the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Central Industrial Security
Force (CISF) is also instrumental in strengthening the centralized political power structure
in India.

Check Your Progress 3

Tick ( V' ) the correct statement:
1) The weakness of the electoral system in India is that
i) it has come to be manipulated by national and regional elite by using caste,
communal and regional chauvinism.
ii) it has no weakness at all.
iii) it has given effective representation to the toiling poor and depressed classes.
iv) None of the above.

2) What are the constraints in making India a truly federal structure?

37.8 LET US SUM UP

After reading this unit you were able to know:
8 about a brief history of the concept of democracy.
about the way in which the idea of democracy and its institutions have shaped up in
India.
about the limits of both the concept of liberal democracy as well its practise, mainly
through the Indian experience.

37.9 KEY WORDS

Plural Voting : A system of voting in which one person gets more than one vote.
Disenfranchised sections: Those sections of a society who do not have the franchise i.e.
right to vote and elect a representative.
Consensus: Complete agreement on an issue.
Universal Suffrage: right to vote and elect representative for every individual.
Political legitimation: Political recognisation that certain art or idea is legal.
Paternalistic theory of authority: a theory that gave the king, the authority to rule since
he had to look after his subjects as a father looks after his son.
Pre-capitalist ideologies: ideologies i.e. world views which existed prominently before
capitalism. In Indian context they can be identified as religion or caste. These world views
in contrast to capitalism's global spread were local in nature.
Towards A Sovereign State