Churchillian strategy for India, post-independence

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 14 November 2013 | 21.16

LK Advani
14 November 2013, 02:59 PM IST

In the year 1945, following a campaign unleashed by the Muslim League for the partition of India, and the creation of Pakistan, the then Prime Minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill, said that he favoured India's partition into Pakistan, Hindustan and Princestan.
 
Balraj Krishna whose book about Sardar Patel I have referred to in my last blog, has a special chapter titled "A Churchillian Plan" which he opens with this quotation from the Viceroy's Journal when Wavell was the Viceroy.

The book says that Churchill "had won the war but he was losing the empire." He adds: Britain had neither manpower nor money to rule over a restive India. Churchill saw in a complete withdrawal "serious implications for Britain's communications and bases between the Middle East and South-East Asia".
 
His plan, therefore, was to ensure continuation of British hold over India through a division of the sub-continent into three independent constituents under British hegemony in one form or other.
 
This was the essence of Churchill's imperial strategy. Even after Churchill's defeat in the elections that followed the war, and assumption of office by a Labour government headed by Clement Attlee, this continued to influence U.K.'s approach to India.
 
On February 20th, 1947, Prime Minister Attlee made a statement in the British Parliament whose two essential features were:
 
1. The British Government would grant full self-government to British India by June 1948 at the latest.
2. The future of Princely States would be decided after the date of final transfer is decided.

This Policy Statement made by Attlee was followed by the declaration of a 3rd June Plan, also known as Mountbatten Plan. This was announced on June 3, 1947 and included the following features :
 
1. The British Government had accepted the principle of partition
2. Successor governments would be given Dominion Status.
3. There would be for them an implicit right to secede from the British Commonwealth.
 
It was on the basis of this June 3 Plan that the U.K. Parliament passed its Indian Independence Act, 1947.
 
The Indian Independence Act with all its details did not say anything about the over 560 Princely States, which Churchill had talked about as the third constituent, Princestan. India's Foreign Secretary, K.P.S. Menon, wrote in his autobiography Many Worlds Revisited:
 
When the British left India, the unity even of divided India was in danger.  Some 560 Princely States had been left in the air. It was open to them to adhere to India, to accede to Pakistan, or to remain independent…It almost looked as if India was going to be Balkanised. But this danger was averted by the firm handling of the Princes by a man of iron, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

Sardar Patel's initial move to counter the implications of the passing of the Indian Independence Act which accepted the principle of partition was to have the Congress Party pass a resolution asking for "a division of Punjab into two provinces, so that the predominantly Muslim part may be separated from the predominantly non-Muslim part".
 
Gandhiji was taken aback by this move and felt 'as if an abyss had suddenly opened under his feet.'  Balraj Krishna writes: "Patel's was not a call for India's partition, but a forewarning to Punjabi Muslims (who were expecting entire Punjab to be part of Pakistan) of the consequences of League's demand for Pakistan." Balraj Krishna says: Even Nehru bluntly told Gandhi that the resolution was "the only answer to partition as demanded by Jinnah."  Mahatma Gandhi – The Last Phase by Pyarelal.
 
Balraj Krishna, the author of the book on which I have based my last two blogs had been a senior journalist who began his career with the Civil and Military Gazette, Lahore, in 1944. After partition he was in New Delhi with the Publicity Division of the External Affairs Ministry. Later still he was with the Hindustan Times. He kept writing for many leading dailies and journals like the Times of India, Economic Times, The Hindu and Illustrated Weekly of India.
 
On the very opening page of the book he has given three quotations about Sardar Patel from two Viceroys, Wavell and Mountbatten, and one top industrialist, J.R.D. Tata. These are as follows :
 
Viceroy Lord Wavell to Under Secretary of State Arthur Henderson: "Vallabhbhai Patel, India's Bismarck, the man of iron from Gujarat…"
 
Viceroy Lord Mountbatten to Sardar Patel: "You have for years been the 'strong man' of India… I do not believe there is one man in the country who would stand up to you when you make up your mind."
 
J.R.D. Tata on the Gandhi-Nehru-Patel Troika: "While I usually came back from meeting Gandhiji elated and inspired but always a bit sceptical, and from talks with Jawaharlal fired with emotional zeal but often confused and unconvinced, meetings with Vallabhbhai were a joy from which I returned with renewed confidence in the future of our country. I have often thought that if fate had decreed that he, instead of Jawaharlal, would be younger of the two, India would have followed a very different path and would be in better economic shape than it is today."
 
Even though the author of this book may have thought of the title of this book because of Viceroy Wavell's quote, it is very appropriate that he has in the body of his book emphasized that "Patel's unification and consolidation of over 500 princely states, in a country of continental size and diverse people was epoch-making of greater importance than Bismarck's role in Germany."
 
In India, he adds, his creation can be comparable, though in contrast, with Lord Wellesley's that laid the foundations of Britain's Indian Empire.
 
"Wellesley's policy was aggressive imperialism, that reduced the once proud princes to mere puppets and sycophants. Patel didn't do that. His integration was a bloodless revolution, in the achievement of which the princes were his equal partners."
 
No wonder that when in 1956 Soviet leader Khruschev visited India, he felt overwhelmed by Sardar Patel's feat and observed: "You Indians are an amazing people! How on earth did you manage to liquidate the Princely rule without liquidating the Princes?
 
What is really remarkable about the integration of States that Sardar Patel achieved is that even those who for reasons of their own had a vested interest in seeing that total integration did not take place could not but unreservedly compliment Patel on what he accomplished. Lord Mountbatten himself was anxious that the army should not be sent to Hyderabad. He struggled hard to make the Nizam agree to some treaty of 'association', in stead of the Instrument of Accession which Sardar wanted all States to sign.

When ultimately, Patel had his way, Mountbatten remarked: "Nothing has so added to the prestige of the present government than the brilliant policy you have followed with the states".
 
Not only Lord Mountbatten, but even Gen. Bucher who was still the Chief of the Indian Army when Operation Polo was undertaken against the Nizam was opposed to the action. When after the success of the operation Patel formally complimented him, he candidly admitted: "I take no credit to myself for the success of the Hyderabad operation. In all the circumstances from beginning to end, I was not prepared to say 'Go' until every possible development had been thought out and guarded against. The Sardar is, in my opinion, a very great man indeed… Undoubtedly, he was right when he decided that either the Government of Hyderabad must accept the Indian Government's conditions, or else the State would have to be entered in order to eliminate the Razakars."
 
TAILPIECE
 
The last chapter in this remarkable book is captioned The Man Who Dared Churchill: But Won His Admiration.
 
This chapter describes Churchill as indomitable, "He towered over all around him. His fierce bulldog looks commanded immediate obedience."
 
In June 1948, while "bemoaning the disappearance of the title of Emperor of India from the Royal titles", he poured venom on India and Indians in these words: "Power will go into the hands of rascals, rogues and free booters… These are men of straw of whom no trace will be found after a few years".
 
From his sick-bed in Dehradun, Patel gave Churchill a blistering reply. The Sardar described the acclaimed victor of World War II as "an unashamed imperialist at a time when imperialism is on its last legs." Patel added that he (Churchill) was "the proverbial last ditcher for whom obstinacy and stupid consistency count more than reason, imagination or wisdom."
 
Balraj Krishna's last paragraph of this book reads as under :
 
"Churchill took Patel's counter-attack in good spirit – as between two great men – by conveying a message to him, through Anthony Eden, earlier his foreign secretary, who was visiting India, that he had "thoroughly enjoyed the retort" and that he had "nothing but admiration for the way the new Dominion had settled down to the tasks and responsibilities, particularly those involving relations with the Indian States". Churchill had specially said that the Sardar should "not confine himself within the limits of India, but the world was entitled to see and hear more of him".


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