Quit India and its

Aftermath UNIT 23 TOWARDS FREEDOM-I*

Structure
23.1 Introduction
23.2 Simla Conference, 1945
23.3 Elections of 1945-6
23.4 Election Results
23.5 British Decision to wind up their Rule
23.6 Unite and Quit
23.7 Interim Government
23.8 Pakistan Demand and its Consequences
23.9 Summary
23.10 Exercises

23.1 INTRODUCTION
This Unit traces the main political and constitutional developments following
upon the termination of hostilities in 1945 to the end of 1946. Some of these
milestones are the Simla Conference, the elections of 1945-46, the formation of
popular provincial ministries, the ministerial level Cabinet Mission, the Interim
Government, Direct Action by the Muslim League and Gandhiji in Noakhali
and Bihar.

23.2 SIMLA CONFERENCE, 1945

The Viceroy, Lord Wavell, had been laying the ground for a political settlement
which would be in place before the War ended. The end of the War was expected
to bring with it a host of intractable problems, including pent up economic
discontent and a standoff between the two principal parties, Congress and the
Muslim League. He was of the view that a successful settlement of the Indian
question would strengthen the future security of the Empire, ensure British prestige
in the East, and even lead to India remaining within the Commonwealth. The
specific steps of the settlement were to secure representation of the Congress
and Muslim League on the Executive Council, to put in place elected coalition
ministries in the provinces and elect representatives to the Constituent Assembly.
Soon after being released from prison in June 1945, important Congress leaders
headed towards Simla, the summer capital of the Raj, to participate in the
Conference convened by the Viceroy. Gandhiji took the line that he did not hold
any official position in the Congress and that Maulana Azad, the Congress
President, would be the Congress representative. However, he, Gandhi, would
be present in Simla to advise the Viceroy during the Conference, should he so
desire. The Simla Conference was held at the Viceregal Lodge, the summer
residence of the Viceroy, in June-July 1945. The Muslim League was represented,
among others, by its pre-eminent leader, Mahomed Ali Jinnah.

* Resource Person: Prof. Sucheta Mahajan

42
The crucial point at issue at the Simla Conference was Jinnah’s contention that Towards Freedom-I
the Muslim League was the sole spokesman for Muslims. Congress insisted on
its right to represent Muslims, including nationalist Muslims, a venerable one
being Maulana Azad, the President of the Congress. The British also found it
difficult to ignore the claims of the Unionist Party of the Punjab, which represented
Muslim landlords of West Punjab and Hindu smallholders of South East Punjab,
and had contributed handsomely to the War effort in men and money. To
underscore their point of not being a mere Hindu party, Congress included in its
list of members for the Executive Council, representatives from non-Hindu
communities. Jinnah insisted on his position as sole spokesman of Muslims being
upheld and the Viceroy chose to ditch the Unionist allies of the British in favour
of Jinnah and the League, whom they had helped during the War to make quick
strides. Failure of the offer did not really put out the government: what was
important was that the offer was shown to have been made.

The Simla Conference demonstrated, if a public avowal was still needed, given
the government’s overt espousal of the League during the War years, which the
government considered its ally in the scenario that was to unfold in the post war
period. However, the challenge posed by the Congress, indeed by the nationalist
forces, continued to be formidable and the situation the government found itself
in increasingly precarious with the rapidly eroding pillars of the state.

23.3 ELECTIONS OF 1945-6

The hopes for some political advance, dashed by the failure of the Simla
Conference, once again revived with the coming to power of the Labour Party in
Britain. An important initiative taken by the Labour Government was the
declaration that elections to the central and provincial assemblies would be held
in the winter of 1945 and spring of 1946.

The main parties in the contest were the Congress and the Muslim League. The
elections were particularly important for the League in its quest for Pakistan. If it
could gain a majority in the Muslim majority provinces, which could comprise
the future Pakistan, this would strengthen its case for Pakistan. Its main weakness
was organisational, but it was balanced by the active role played by the religious
leaders, the ulema, pirs and sajjada nashins, especially in the Punjab. Some
religious leaders gave fatwas in favour of the League while others portrayed the
vote for Pakistan as a vote for the Koran. Another factor, which contributed to
the success of the League in the elections in Punjab, was the local patronage
network in which the landlords and pirs worked together.

The election campaign of the Congress, in contrast, was anti-British in its thrust.
Congress slogans were “Release the misguided patriots” of the INA and “punish
the guilty” officials who committed excesses in 1942. It was not anti-League in
its tenor despite the elections being fought by the League on the issue of Pakistan.
Given the primacy of the issue of Pakistan, it is surprising that the Congress
leaders dismissed Pakistan as a slogan of imaginary fears. However, the Congress
leaders increasingly conceded that if Muslims spoke out in favour of Pakistan,
“it will not deny it to them”.

For the League, the elections were extremely important, as they would give
legitimacy to its claim to be the sole spokesman for the Muslims, who were, in
43
Quit India and its turn, decisively for Pakistan. The results in the Muslim seats did vindicate the
Aftermath
stand of the League to represent Muslims, winning as they did all Muslim seats
at the centre and gathering most of the Muslim vote. The same story appeared to
be repeated in the provinces.

When it came to Muslim seats, Congress found it difficult to find Muslim

candidates in the provincial elections. Many of those who contested appeared
unlikely to win. This was a change from the optimism of Jawaharlal Nehru in
November 1945 when he declared that Congress would put up candidates for
every seat and that they would do well. In some provinces, Congress supported
nationalist Muslim candidates, who often wanted the upper hand in the
partnership, had big demands for funds and workers, and whose perspective was
at times different from that of the Congress. While Congress preferred the
straightforward Congress appeal in reaching out to the Muslim voter, nationalist
Muslim organisations stressed cultural and religious rights. The worst blow was
when those who promised an alliance with the Congress joined the Muslim League
after being nominated or even after winning. This was the case with some
candidates in Bengal and with the Ahrar Party in Punjab.

Congress leaders were divided on the issue of how to best contest Muslim seats.
Maulana Azad felt there was an advantage in going along with nationalist Muslim
organisations. Jawaharlal Nehru went along with Vallabhbhai Patel who felt the
Congress should go it alone. In practice, the Congress joined Nationalist Muslim
Boards and worked out sharing of seats with Ahrars, Jamiat-ul-Ulema and
Momins, etc.

The case of Bihar showed that campaigning for Muslim seats involved large
funds, amounting to three fourths of the total sum spent on the election campaign.
As nationalist Muslim organisations generally took up the issue of religious rights
of Muslims, they could hardly question the manner in which the Muslim League
brought religion into politics. They could only pit ulemas inclined to their point
of view against the ulemas and pirs fielded by the League. Nationalist Muslim
propagandists ended up being no match for the sharper propaganda of the
Leaguers. Early optimism on the part of the Congress leaders about winning
many Muslim seats was replaced soon by the expectation that the League was
likely to do well in the Muslim seats.

Some Congress leaders rued that they had not sharply targeted Pakistan as
unworkable and injurious to the Indian Muslims. The Congress attempt to win
over Muslims was ill timed, as Muslim voters saw the party as only interested in
their votes, not in addressing their concerns. In Punjab, Congress leader Bhim
Sen Sachar had predicted only two Muslim seats for the Congress. The election
results returned the League as the single largest party in the Punjab.

Even after this disastrous showing in the Muslim seats, the Congress did not
experience any profound realisation. It continued to interpret the political attitude
of the Muslims in the old grooves. Congress leaders spoke of the need to improve
the economic conditions of Muslims and ensure their representation in the
Congress. It was as late as 6 October 1946, many months after the election results
were known, that Jawaharlal Nehru accepted that the Muslim League was the
authoritative representative organisation of an overwhelming majority of the
Muslims of India. Here, too, a caveat was introduced, which the League was
44
unlikely to accept. This was that the League in turn should recognise the Congress Towards Freedom-I
as the authoritative representative organisation of the non-Muslims and such
Muslims as have thrown in their lot with the Congress. The last clause negated
the claim of the League to be the sole spokesman of the Muslims.

23.4 ELECTION RESULTS

In the elections to the central assembly in December 1945, out of 102 seats,
Congress won 57, League 30, Independents 5, Akalis 2 and Europeans 8. In the
elections to the provincial assemblies, Congress won 923 of 1585 seats, 23 of 38
labour seats but was defeated by the Muslim League in the Muslim seats. In
NWFP, the League contested all 33 Muslim seats and won 15 of them. 19 Muslim
seats were won by the Congress and 58.75 per cent of the Muslim vote went to
the non-League parties. In Punjab, the League gained 73 seats, with its share of
the Muslim vote being 65.10 per cent. The League gained 83.6 per cent of the
Muslim vote in Bengal. It won 76 per cent of the total Muslim vote in India. This
was a sharp rise from the 4.8 per cent vote in its tally in 1937. Elections of 1946
were a watershed. The results made it clear that the Congress represented the
large masses of the country. It was equally clear, however, that the Muslim League
spoke for most Muslims.

The Congress was to go on to form governments in the provinces of Madras,

Bombay, United Provinces, Bihar, Orissa, Central Provinces and Berar and NWFP.
The League formed ministries in Bengal and Sind. In Punjab, after the elections
of 1946, some negotiations between Muslim League and Akalis were carried out
with a possible coalition in mind. This had been unsuccessful and Akalis joined
with Unionists and Congress to form a coalition ministry.

23.5 BRITISH DECISION TO WIND UP THEIR

RULE
As we saw in the last Unit, the hegemony of the national movement over the
Indian people was substantial by the time the war was over. Correspondingly,
the influence of the colonial state was on the wane. The ideological instruments
on which the state had relied to buttress its rule no longer served the purpose.
The pillars of the colonial state, the army and bureaucracy, had been eroded.
Diminishing numbers of British recruits had become a problem, which reached
a head during wartime. By 1945 Indian recruits outnumbered British ones. Dealing
with nationalist protest and long years of service without leave during the War
had undermined the morale of the British officials. This erosion of colonial
hegemony was apparent not only to colonial officials but also to the mass of
people.

Bipan Chandra has described the strategy adopted by the Congress against the
colonial state as struggle-truce-struggle. Colonial officials found this combination
of phases of struggle alternating with phases of non-struggle extremely impossible
to deal with. Policy moved between the two opposite poles of repression and
conciliation. When non-violent movements were met with repression, the power
behind the government stood exposed. Conversely, the government was seen to
be too weak when it went in for a truce or appeared helpless in the face of open
challenges. When the ship was seen as sinking, sections loyal to the government
45
Quit India and its deserted. Many who had stood by the government over the years no longer
Aftermath
believed in its capacity to govern with prudence. They were shocked by the
brutal repression of the 1942 movement and the callous attitude of the government
to Gandhi’s condition during his 21-day fast in detention in 1943. This led the
services to wonder whether to take action against nationalist forces or not. Part
of the difficulty was that the same set of officials had to carry out the opposite
policies of repression and conciliation, often against the same political activist.

By the end of 1945 the government had reached a situation of responsibility

without power. The prospect of a revolt by the Congress a few months down the
line was considered formidable as Congress governments, by then likely to be in
power in the provinces, would be on the side of the revolt. Here again it is
significant to note that the assessment of the Viceroy was that “We could still
probably suppress such a revolt” but “have nothing to put in its place and should
be driven to an almost entirely official rule, for which the necessary numbers of
efficient officials do not exist.”

In late 1946, the British Prime Minister, Attlee, rejected the option of changing
the nature of British rule to coercion and staying on in India, citing the following
grounds: inadequate administrative machinery to implement a policy of rule by
coercion; armed forces pledged elsewhere in line with international commitments;
adverse opinion in the Labour Party; questionable loyalty of the Indian troops
and the unwillingness of British troops to serve; adverse world opinion and an
uncomfortable position in UNO. As colonial rule could not survive on the old
basis for long, a graceful withdrawal from India became the overarching aim of
policy makers. Of course, the digits of the post-imperial relationship had to be
negotiated and modalities of transfer of power worked out.

But we have gone too far ahead and need to retrace our steps to New Year Day
1946. It was in keeping with his government’s understanding of imminent
departure that the Secretary of State in his New Year’s Day speech on 1 January
1946 made it clear that Britain would be leaving in the near future. On 19 February
1946 Prime Minister Attlee announced in Parliament that a three-member Cabinet
Mission would go out to India to set up the constitutional machinery for transfer
of power. The decision to send a mission was taken on 22 January 1946. The
announcement about a statement to be made in Parliament on 19 February was
made a week earlier. A time limit to British rule was proposed but not accepted
by His Majesty’s Government as was the plan for the British to withdraw in
phases to the provinces which would make up Pakistan. The apprehension of the
Viceroy was that the government might not be in a position to wield power after
March 1948. Hence a time limit was proposed as a way of giving time to reorganise
and manage with limited powers.

From the side of the Congress, too, negotiations were generally tried out before
going in for a confrontation. When independence seemed to be on the cards,
Congressmen were willing to wait to see the substance of the offers being made.
As Gandhiji said, a great nation has declared its intention to quit, what would be
lost by waiting? Congress kept up preparedness for a mass movement, however,
in the eventuality that agreement was elusive.

46
 Towards Freedom-I
23.6 UNITE AND QUIT
By early 1946 the British had moved to the position that when they left India it
was better to leave it united. The old stance of propping up communal forces
was given up once it was decided that British rule was no longer to be continued.
Post imperial strategic interests, which envisaged India as a partner in
Commonwealth defence, implied reworking of their relationship with Congress.
Moreover, Pakistan was not seen as workable by the governors of the crucial
provinces, Punjab, U.P., Sind and Assam. Hence a policy change was warranted
by both long term and short term considerations. Whereas a pro-Muslim League
stance had been adopted at the Simla Conference in 1945, Attlee stated in the
House of Commons on 15 March 1946 that a minority would not be allowed to
veto the progress of the majority.

However, the Viceroy and some of his officials continued to believe that Jinnah
would deliver better than the Congress. The Secretary of State on the other hand
believed that Congress could create more trouble than the League. So did the
Home Member of the Government of India, whose assessment was that a
challenge from the League could be met, whereas a Congress rebellion would be
difficult to suppress. So unity was preferred, both from the point of view of
getting out of the political impasse and from the long run strategic perspective.
One must not forget, however, that there were voices in the government who
spoke out for Pakistan being a natural ally. This included the powerful voice of
the Viceroy, who trusted Jinnah more than the Congress, which he dubbed as
totalitarian.

The Cabinet Mission Plan was spelt out in two statements dated May 16th and
June 16th, 1946. Whereas the latter statement hinted at the partition of the
subcontinent and was rejected out of hand by the Congress, it found great favour
with the Muslim League. Both parties accepted the 16th May statement in a manner
of speaking, albeit with varying interpretations.

The Mission Plan envisaged three sections: A: comprising Madras, Bombay,

United Provinces, Bihar, Central Provinces and Berar and Orissa, B: consisting
of Punjab, Sind and NWFP, and C: made up of Bengal and Assam. The centre
would look after foreign affairs, defence and communications. Constitutions
would be framed at the group and union level. Provinces could leave the group
after the first general elections. A province or a group could ask for reconsideration
of the group or union constitutions after ten years.

The difference of opinion between the League and the Congress was primarily
over whether grouping was optional or compulsory. The Congress said it was
assured by members of the Mission that provinces need not join if they did not
wish to. It recommended this interpretation to Assam and NWFP, which did not
want to be part of the League dominant Sections B and C. It challenged grouping
and worked towards a strong centre, rather than a weak one. Patel discerned a
shift from the earlier policy of the government of giving the League a veto and
saw the Plan as a clear authoritative pronouncement against Pakistan. On the
other hand, the League wanted to be able to question the constitution at the very
start, rather than wait for ten years. The League accepted the Mission Plan to the
extent Pakistan was implied in the compulsory grouping clause.

47
Quit India and its Clearly there was some doublespeak involved here on the part of the Mission. It
Aftermath
said that sections were compulsory but grouping was optional. Members of the
Mission, influenced by their personal predilections, gave contrary assurances to
both parties, Congress and the League, in an attempt to bring them together
despite their seemingly irreconcilable standpoints. The Viceroy thought he was
trying to tease out the ambivalences but could not do so as he was partial to the
League.

Nehru declared on 7 July 1946 that Congress reserved the right to give shape to
the Constituent Assembly as it wished. This invited the League’s charge of
insincerity on the part of the Congress in working the plan. The League withdrew
its acceptance of the plan on 29 July 1946 on the ground that Nehru’s statement
made Congress intentions not to play the game evident.

As British initiative and authority declined, a popular government appeared to

be on the cards. Both the Viceroy and the Secretary of State agreed on the need
for one, with the difference that the Viceroy did not want only a Congress
government. He had feared this would happen given that the Congress held out
the threat of launching a movement to pressurise the government to accept its
demands. Admittedly, the possibility of this threat being put into practice had
receded after the Cabinet Mission begun its deliberations. The British government
feared a Congress government could adversely influence foreign policy in
Indonesia, take up uncomfortable issues like that of the official excesses in 1942,
retention of Gurkhas in the British Army etc. What is worth noting is that the
government in London did not want a break with Congress and hence was willing
to go far to accommodate the positions of the Congress on many of these issues.

23.7 INTERIM GOVERNMENT

So a pure Congress Interim Government was formed on 2 September 1946.
Jawaharlal Nehru was sworn in as Vice-President of the Executive Council. This
marked an important milestone in achieving independence and the inauguration
was marked by festivities. The League, however, declared civil war and warned
that Pakistan could no longer be prevented. No Muslim League members joined
at this point, making the government inherently unstable, especially as the Viceroy
was convinced that their presence was vital. He even put the blame for Direct
Action on the Congress and the stances it took. He lost no opportunity to bring
them in even though the League had withdrawn its acceptance of the Cabinet
Mission Plan. In this he was supported by Attlee and his ministers who felt the
danger from the Congress was now over. This was on 25 October 1946, within
fifteen days of communal trouble breaking out in Noakhali. The League’s capacity
to foment communal violence had brought them into the government. The British
were afraid that civil war would result if the League continued on the path of
direct action.

The hope of the government was, of course, that the principal parties would
adopt a stance of moderation once they became involved in running the
administration. This did not ensue. The League did not forsake direct action. It
did not send its best men to the Interim Government, except Liaqat Ali Khan,
indicating its attitude that the real task lay outside. Ghazanfar Ali Khan, one of
the five League ministers in the government, publicly declared that the Interim
Government was merely another front of direct action for the League. This
48
prompted protest by Vallabhbhai Patel who demanded the speech be withdrawn Towards Freedom-I
before Khan took the oath of office. This had no effect on the Viceroy and Khan
went on to invoke Mohammed bin Kassim and Mahmud of Ghazni and threaten
that a few lakhs of Muslims will overwhelm crores of Hindus. A month later,
another League minister declared at the New York Herald Forum that the struggle
for Pakistan will now be carried on within as well as outside the government.
Speeches were followed up by action in the Punjab, where League members of
the Interim Government took part in the civil disobedience movement against
the coalition ministry headed by Khizr Hayat Khan, the leader of the Unionists.
Again Nehru protested to the Viceroy about this improper behaviour but to no
avail. Elsewhere, to a colleague, he described “members of the Central
Government being leaders of revolt in the provinces” as “fantastic”.

Non-cooperation was the policy adopted by the League in its functioning in the
Interim Government. Attempts by the Congress to lessen the powers of the Viceroy
by meeting informally before the Council meeting were stymied by the League.
Decisions by the Congress ministers, especially regarding appointments, were
questioned as partial. Liaqat Ali Khan’s budget was designed to upset the capitalist
class, some of whom were supporters of the Congress. In later years Congress
leaders were to describe the complete non-cooperation by the League in the
running of the Interim Government as the factor that convinced them that there
was little alternative to accepting the division of the country.

Gandhi’s stand was different. He had told the British government from the
beginning that there cannot be a coalition government between two incompatibles.
They had to choose one of them. About the Constituent Assembly, he believed
Congress should go ahead and form a Constituent Assembly when they had the
strength to do so and frame a constitution for the areas it represented. An assembly
under British auspices was a non-starter.

What Congress finally found impossible to accept was the League’s refusal to
join the Constituent Assembly. This amounted to rejection of the long-term aspect
of the Cabinet Mission Plan. Elections to the Assembly had been held and the
Congress had sent its representatives, while keeping the door open for the League.
This was despite His Majesty’s Government clarification on the grouping clause
(in the 6th December 1946 statement) upholding the League’s interpretation and
the Congress accepting this. The League later demanded dissolution of the
Constituent Assembly, indeed, scrapping of the entire Cabinet Mission plan, at
the Karachi session of its Working Committee on 31 January 1947. But such
was British propping up of the League that it continued to be in the Interim
Government till 19 July 1947.

23.8 PAKISTAN DEMAND AND ITS

CONSEQUENCES
The demand for Pakistan, raised in Lahore in March 1940, acquired stridency by
the summer of 1946. At the convention of Muslim League legislators at Delhi
from 7 to 9 April 1946 it was clarified that Pakistan would be one nation though
geographically spread across two regions. Unity of India was to be opposed by
the sword if need be. Interestingly, Firoz Khan Noon threatened that if British
impose unity, Muslims will be forced to wreak devastation worse than the deeds
of Halaku Khan did. Jinnah made an appeal to Prime Minister, Attlee, to “avoid 49
Quit India and its compelling the Muslims to shed their blood” (6 July 1946). The League went
Aftermath
one step further and withdrew its acceptance of the 16 May 1946 statement.
Direct Action was declared to achieve Pakistan and to end domination by the
British in the present and Caste Hindus in the future. Jinnah declared, “Today
we have said goodbye to constitutions and constitutional methods.” And he ended
with “We also have a pistol”.

The Council of the Muslim League had removed doubts, if there were any, about
the sovereignty and integrity of the contemplated nation. (In later years, some
scholars were to argue that Jinnah did not contemplate Pakistan as one nation or
a sovereign one, it was only a bargaining counter.) The two parts in the north-
west and east would comprise one nation, Pakistan, which would be a sovereign
nation. Around this time Jinnah gave up constitutional methods and adopted the
technique of Direct Action to reach his goal. This was based on his understanding
of the clout of the Congress over the British and that the British government
generally listened to troublemakers. It is worth noting that neither the British nor
the Congress took Jinnah’s threat of bloodshed and rioting very seriously. Nehru
misjudged the League’s ability to take to Direct Action, in his belief that
reactionary landlords opposed to social change could hardly be expected to make
revolution. Nehru challenged Jinnah to go in for civil disobedience, mockingly
concluding: “I would like to see a revolution in India called by Mr. Jinnah. It is
one thing to call for a revolution and another to carry out a revolution.” This
was underlined by Jayakar who reported Patel’s conversation with some members
of the Cabinet Mission in which he said that “the Congress could create more
trouble than Jinnah’s 100 mullahs”.

16 August 1946 was declared as Direct Action Day. Trouble first broke out in
Calcutta where a Muslim League government, headed by H. S. Suhrawardy,
abetted the rioters. The slogans in Calcutta were Larke lenge Pakistan, Lekar
rahenge Pakistan. Early Muslim initiative was met by Hindu retaliation and in
the end 5000 people were killed. While Gandhi saw the Calcutta violence as
bordering on civil war, Vallabhbhai Patel spoke of the “black and inexcusable
crimes” which went beyond riots. Jawaharlal Nehru compared the League’s
government in Bengal with that of Hitler. Patel added that such a government
would not exist for a day in a civilized country. Latter day scholars like Ayesha
Jalal shifted responsibility for the violence in Calcutta on to the mullahs and pirs
who were brought in to make Direct Action effective.

The effect of the happenings in Calcutta on the Viceroy was predictably to buttress
his view that the Muslim League must immediately be brought into the Interim
Government. Nehru in turn characterised this as “shaking hands with murder”
and said they would have nothing to do with it. Far from revoking Direct Action
after the tragedy in Calcutta, some League leaders went on to speak of “Jehad to
achieve freedom for Islam in India”. Jinnah himself warned that the impending
installation of a Congress Interim Government would result in unprecedented
and disastrous consequences.

The communal trouble in Noakhali and Tippera in East Bengal began on 10

October 1946. Apart from killings, which had been witnessed in Calcutta,
abduction of women and forced marriages and conversion by force were
distinctive features. The topography of the region made communication difficult
and assisted the troublemakers while making the task of the officials out to contain
50
the violence difficult. In any case, the government showed little interest in Towards Freedom-I
controlling the situation. The Governor mistrusted the Premier, Suhrawardy and
top civilian and army officials admitted to inaction and communal bias. The
Secretary of State contributed to condoning the government by charging the
Hindus with exaggerating what had happened.

This was a cruel reality for the Congress leaders in the Interim Government to
accept; that they were powerless to stop the reign of terror that prevailed in East
Bengal. Nehru was so upset by this situation of responsibility without power
that he contemplated retirement. It was precisely this sense of helplessness and
the situation of an impasse that the League intended to create. Fortunately for
the Congress, there was Gandhiji.

Gandhiji went to Noakhali on 6 November 1946, after having sent the Congress
President, Kripalani and his wife Sucheta, ahead to report on the situation.
Gandhi’s way was different from his colleagues in the Interim Government. His
first priority was to bring the Hindus and Muslims together, inspire confidence
among Hindus and get the Muslims to repent for their deeds. At a wider level, he
wanted his experiment with building non-violent communal unity to be such
that it could be made to work across the country. His understanding was that
ahimsa, which had worked well against the British, had not worked satisfactorily
in Hindu-Muslim relations and needed to be refurbished. Predictably, he saw
this as his personal failure and vowed to subject himself to purification to root
out the imperfection.

During his stay in Noakhali he held prayer meetings and visited Hindus and
Muslims in their homes. He exhorted Hindus to return home. For him, living in
clusters with other Hindus was a worse fate than death as it implied accepting
the two-nation theory. Similarly he opposed the demand that Hindu officials be
posted in Hindu dominated areas, pointing out this was showed a communal
mentality. Both these stances have enormous importance for us today when
dealing with communal violence today in India. After the initial period of
surveying the area and assessing the problem, Gandhiji settled in a village and
gave up all conveniences, including the company of his associates. The intention
was to remove the flaw in society by searching for the imperfection in himself.
This flowed from his belief, “as in the microcosm, so in the macrocosm”. While
his efforts to get Muslims to repent and Hindus to return to their homes and
practise their faith met with some response, Noakhali was so strife torn and
polarised that even Gandhiji had to accept that his mission was only a partial
success. Hostility from Muslims continued, Hindus could not pick up confidence
to return to their homes and colleagues in the Congress party were keen to have
him back in Delhi and guide the negotiations at a crucial period in the country’s
history. The Governor of Bengal said somewhat dramatically, “It would take a
dozen Gandhis to make the Muslim leopard and Hindu kid lie down together
again in that part of the world.”

Noakhali was followed soon by communal trouble in Bihar, especially Patna,

Gaya and Monghyr districts. Here Hindus attacked Muslims and around 5000
lost their lives. The Viceroy accepted the League figure of 10 to 20,000 dead and
described the Bihar riots as the worst ever during British rule, surely an
exaggeration. The League encouraged Muslims to migrate to Bengal in large
numbers. Nehru led from the front in suppressing the rioters, even threatening
51
Quit India and its use of machine guns and bombs. In some instances, those Hindus who defended
Aftermath
the actions of the Bihar peasants as righting the wrongs of Calcutta and Noakhali,
interpreted Gandhi’s actions as anti-Hindu.

Gandhiji could only go to Bihar on 2 March 1947, though he had been disturbed
by what had happened since the day he heard about it when en route to Noakhali
in November 1946. He was in favour of an enquiry into what happened even
though some of his colleagues opposed it as it may discredit the Congress ministry
at the helm. In Bihar, he saw his task as getting the Hindu peasants to repent for
their deeds and create an environment conducive for Muslim victims to return to
their homes. Never one to hesitate to harness the positive aspects of faith, he
referred to the doings as paap (sin) and sought to invoke pashchaataap
(repentance) for them.

However horrific the violence in Calcutta, Noakhali and Bihar, it paled in

comparison with the happenings in Punjab, beginning with Rawalpindi and
engulfing the province thereafter. Tragically, the country was now thrown into
the vortex of civil war, a qualitatively new phase and type of violence. This will
be taken up in the next Unit.

23.9 SUMMARY
Various factors – exhaustion in the War, unavailability of suitable British persons
to serve in army and administration in India, and the growing protests in India
against the colonial rule convinced the British government that it would not be
possible to hold India for long. However, they wanted to retain connections with
India by keeping it within the Commonwealth. Initially, they wanted to keep
India unified. The Congress also sincerely wanted a unified country. But the
violence unleashed by the Muslim League in its demand for Pakistan made it
difficult for the Congress to force the unity solution. A series of communal riots
in Bengal and Bihar and growing communalisation made the situation in 1946
extremely volatile.

23.10 EXERCISES
1) Write a short note on the Simla Conference.
2) What were the results of elections in 1945-46? What did they prove?
3) Discuss the political situation in the country in the wake of the ‘Direct Action’
call given by Jinnah and the Muslim League.

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