The Cabinet Mission

In the wake of the Second World War, power equations in the world had changed. U.K. was no longer the pre-eminent power, and both the newly emerged big powers USA and USSR, supported the Indian demand for freedom. Britain’s resources, both economic and military, were crippled with the war and the INA and Royal Indian Navy (RIN) mutiny made the Government realise that it could no longer rely upon the armed forces, which had been the chief instrument of suppressing the national movement. Dissatisfaction had been growing in the country all round. Industrial, postal and railway services were plagued by strikes and the peasants were also up in arms.

The change of Government in Britain from Conservative to Labour brought perceptible changes in Britain’s attitude to the Indian struggle for freedom. On 19 February 1946 the Secretary of State, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, announced that a Cabinet Mission consisting of himself, Sir Stafford Cripps (president of the Board of Trade), and A.V. Alexander (First Lord of the Admiralty) would be sent to negotiate with the Indian leaders the terms for the transfer of power to Indians. The Mission reached Delhi in 24 March 1946 and proposed its plan on 16 May, 1946.

Recommendations

Rejection of demand for pakistan

The Cabinet Mission rejected the demand for Pakistan for the following reasons:

Pakistan was not viable because of the large population of non-Muslims in the Northeast and Northwest zone.

There was no justification for including non-Muslim districts of Bengal, Assam and the Punjab in the proposed Pakistan.

Any attempt to create a new State would lead to disintegration of transportation and postal and telegraph system.

A new State would raise the question of division of armed forces, which would be not judicious.

Union of India

The Mission in turn recommended ‘union of India’. The basis of the constitution of India was suggested as follows:

Union of India out of both British India and the princely states to deal with defence, foreign affairs, communications, and financial power.

The Union was to constitute of both executive and legislative wings.

Communal issues to be decided in the legislature. The basis for decision would be majority vote of the members of both the communities present and voting, and majority of all the members present and voting.

Provinces would enjoy autonomy in subjects other than Union subjects. Residuary powers would be vested in the Provinces.

Provinces were free to form groups. The suggested grouping was:

Group A: six Hindu-dominated majority provinces viz., Madras, Bombay, Central Provinces, United Provinces, Bihar, Orissa.

Group B: Muslim-majority Provinces in the Northwest (Punjab, Sindh, NWFP).

Group C: Bengal Assam.

Three Chief Commissioners’ territories (Delhi, Ajmer-Merwar and Coorg) would join Group A and Baluchistan would join Group B.

Provinces had the option to come out of the groups.

Formation of the constituent assembly

A Constituent Assembly was to be elected by the Provincial Legislative Assemblies. Members of these assemblies would be divided into three groups: General, Muslims and Sikhs. Each group, would send its representatives in accordance with proportional representation through single transferable vote.

The number of members suggested was: 292 from Provinces, 4 from Chief Commissioners’ Provinces and 93 members to be elected by the Princely states.

The Constituent Assembly had the right to conclude a treaty with Britain on matters involving transfer of power.

With the passing of the Constitution, the Paramountcy of Britain over the states would lapse.

Interim government

The Cabinet Mission also suggested the setting up of an Interim Government.

Critique

The plan had both positive and negative points. Among the former were: (a) the constitution of the Constituent Assembly through elections, (b) the framing of the Constitution by the elected Constituent Assembly, and (c) rejection of the demand for partition. Its demerits were: (a) the grouping of states, which would prove inimical to the unity of India, and (b) neglect of the minorities except for the Muslims.

Reactions

The Congress accepted the plan. The Muslim League initially rejected it and did not join the Constituent Assembly; but the League joined the Interim Government. The Hindu Mahasabha objected to the compulsory grouping of states. CPI objected to the composition and powers of the Constituent Assembly.

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 “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 Patel 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.

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 option but His Majesty’s Government 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.

League launches direct action

Jinnah, however, was determined to ensure that the British continue with their old policy. He warned the British Prime Minister Attlee, that surrender to the Congress by the British would compel the Muslims to shed their blood. This was no empty threat as the league had already accepted the programme of Direct Action. The call for Direct Action was given in Calcutta on 16th August 1946 and the new slogan was Larke Lenge Pakistan (we will fight and get Pakistan). Communal frenzy was provoked by Muslim communal groups with the league’s Bengal ministry headed by Suhrawardy looking on passively, if not actively abetting it. Hindu communal elements retaliated, perhaps with equal brutality, and 5000 people were killed in what has come to be known as the ‘Great Calcutta killings’. The trouble broke out in Noakhali in East Bengal in early October 1946 and Noakhali sparked off widespread attacks on Muslims in Bihar in late October 1946. The following months saw riots everywhere in U.P. Bombay, Punjab and N.W.F.P. The tide could not be stemmed.

British revert to conciliating the league

Jinnah’s ability to unleash civil war sent the British authorities back to their old policy of placating the Muslims. They realised that though the league was their creation, it had now assumed the shape of a “communal monster which could not tamed”. Wavell had kept up his effort to bring the league into the Government and now the Secretary of State, Pethick-Lawrence, supported him on the ground that civil war would become inevitable if the league stayed out. On 26th October 1946 the league joined the Interim Government.

Interim government - arena of struggle

However, the League’s entry into the Interim Government did not end the conflict, it only opened up another arena of struggle. The League was allowed to join the Interim Government without forsaking the idea of Pakistan or the plan of Direct Action. Furthermore, it did not accept the short term or the long term aspects of the Cabinet Mission Plan. League leaders, including Jinnah, publicly said that the Interim Government was merely the continuation of civil war by other means. Jinnah’s assessment was that the exclusive control over administration by the Congress was not in the League’s interest and therefore he was keen that the League share power. The Interim Government was seen as a foothold which would help the League to advance towards its goal of Pakistan.

Conflict between Congress and League members in the Interim Government erupted very soon. The choice of second rung League leaders as League nominees (except Liaqat Ali Khan) clearly indicated that the League had no intention to share with Congress the responsibility for running the Government. On the other hand, the intention apparently was 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 Interim Government sent a letter to Wavell with the demand that the League members should be asked to resign. A crisis was imminent.

PERIOD BETWEEN 1946 AND 1947

The R.I.N. (Royal Indian Navy) mutiny began on 18 February 1946, with the ratings on HMS Talwar going on a hunger strike and refusing to cooperate with authorities. They were protesting against flagrant racial discrimination, unpalatable food and abuses and demanded equal pay for white and Indian sailors. It appeared that the nationalist sentiment that had been growing since 1942 had affected the naval ratings as well.

The RIN mutiny passed through three stages.

       Stage I: The ratings formed organisations and protested. B.C. Dutt was arrested for scrawling ‘Quit India’ on HMS Talwar. A Naval Central Strike Committee was elected, headed by M.S. Khan. Soon the strike spread to castle and fort barracks and 22 ships in Bombay harbour.

       Stage 2: The upsurge spread to cities resulting in flare-ups in Bombay and Calcutta.

       Stage 3: People in different parts of the country expressed solidarity with the movement. Karachi, Madras, Delhi, Calcutta, Cochin, Jamnagar, Andamans, Aden and Bahrain joined in, affecting 78 ships and 20 shore establishments in all.

Political response

The CSP and CPI supported the movement. The Congress leaders advised restraint on the part of the strikers and Patel urged them to surrender. The Muslim League also was in favour of ‘restoration of discipline’ in the army and appealed for calling off the strike.

The Government crushed the mutiny, but having realised that the movement was an expression of popular militancy against the British rule, started thinking of granting substantial political concessions to India.

Under popular pressure the British were forced to free the sailors arrested on charges of mutiny.

Time-limit for British withdrawal

The situation was saved by Attlee’s announcement in Parliament on 20th 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 should 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 only 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.

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.

Thus the situation which Mountbatten found on his arrival 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 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 without exercising any check or restraint even when the situation demanded this type of assertion of authority.

The 3^rd June plan and its outcome

This was done by making concessions to both the Congress and the League. India would be divided but in a manner that maximum unity was retained. The League’s demand would be accommodated by creating Pakistan, but it would be made as small as possible in order to accommodate 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 upheld by the British. For example, Mountbatten supported the Congress stand that princely states must not be given the option of independence. Mountbatten realised that it was vital to retain the goodwill of the congress if he hoped to persuade India to remain in the Commonwealth. Dominion status offered a chance of keeping India in the Commonwealth, even if for a while, and hence the 3rd June Plan declared that power would be handed over by 15th August 1947 on the basis of dominion status to India and Pakistan.

The Congress was willing to accept dominion status because it was the only way of assuming complete power immediately and taking the communally explosive situation in hand. British officials were half-hearted about preventing the communal situation from deteriorating further. Sardal Patel summed up the situation in his statement to the Viceroy: “You won’t govern yourself, and you won’t let us govern”. The British had abdicated responsibility and the advancing of the date for withdrawal to 15th August 1947 made this more apparent.

Indian independence act

The Act, introduced on 4 July, was enacted on 18 July. It formalized the Mountbatten plan.

1.    The Act provided for the partition of India to take effect from 5 August 1947.

2.    Pending the adoption of the new Constitution, every dominion and every province was to be governed by the provisions of the Government of India Act, 1935.

3.    Up to 31 March 1948 the dominions could modify the 1935 Act through the Governor-General and thereafter through their Constituent Assemblies.

4.    British Paramountcy was terminated.

5.    The King’s right to veto was given up.

The Indian Independence Act marked the end of colonial rule in India and the beginning of free India.