That is a reasonable question and the
reality answer would be, ‘no one.’ Who in the right sense of their mind would
let go of a valuable and beautiful jewel in the crown? No one really.
What if the jewel was India as a
country, with all its natural wealth, its potential as a market for
manufactured goods and the given geopolitical strategic position in the world
map? And what if the crown were to belong to the Queen of England? Would they
let it go? Not if they can help it! That is what they did over decades and
decades.
Having got a strong foothold in
India politically in 1757 after the Battle of Plassey, there was a steady
consolidation of power over the subcontinent, until by 1857, the Sepoy Mutiny,
when almost the whole of India was within the ambit of British Raj.
In 1857, the rule of the subjugated
India passed on to the Crown of England and the Parliament of England. Indians
quietened down to the inevitable and accepting the foreign rule as a fate,
started to make the best of the options available before them. They took to
English education, introduced by Lord Macaulay, became employable by the
British Raj.
Those who could afford, mainly the
Zamindars and the successful advocates and the business men sent their sons and
sometimes daughters too, to England for higher studies and generally a tour in
Europe, giving them an advantage over the others, at the start of their
careers.
It was these who became the torch
bearers of freedom movement in India, and fought the British, first by
petitioning them, and later by violent or peaceful movements. British kept
promising them first that they would be given self-governance, then Dominion
status, then Dominion status within the Commonwealth, when they had absolutely
no intentions of giving up India. To this end they played the Muslims against
the Hindus and the Princes against the pauper, the people of India.
For more than three decades the
British dilly dallied, and wasted precious years, which they could have
utilized in preparing the leaders and people of India in self-governance, which
would have left India prepared for her self-rule and most probably, India would
have been one country today, instead of being a ‘moth-eaten’ subcontinent.
To trace the events,[1]
of the last thirty or forty years, from the time Indians were demanding
self-rule and were given to believe that it is in the offing, let’s start with
the Minto-Marley Reforms of 1909. It assured progress towards a responsible
government and increased the participation of Indians in the provincial and
central legislative councils, subject to a from British control.
By the Great War, the World War I,
Indians increasingly wanted only independence. The British officials like Sir
Edmund Barrow in 1916 thought it would take generations for Indians to really
start governing themselves. The Indian National Congress, formed in 1885,
through the initiatives of a retired British ICS officer, was mainly into
petitioning the government.
India sent millions of people to
fight overseas for Britain in the First World War and some 54,000 died. Gandhi
who had joined Indian politics by 1914, expected the British to extend at least
Dominion status for India as a reward. This proved elusive.
Montagu declaration of 1917 assured
to increase Indians in every branch of administration. The landmark
declaration laid down, “the gradual development of self-governing institutions
with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government of India
as an integral part of the British Empire.”
So, it was never to be presumed that
India will be fully independent, but always be an integral part of the British
Empire! Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms followed in 1919, as Government of India
Act. Elections were held on limited franchise of about three and a half
percentage of the population.
A Diarchy came into being with
Indians taking care of the safe responsibilities like Pubic Health, Education
and Agriculture, while irrigation, police, finance and justice were in the
hands of the British. But the Viceroy could always veto anything that the
Indian selected representatives had passed. Communal divisions were encouraged
to keep the Indians embroiled in petty quarrels.
In the same year, 1919, Rowlatt Act
was passed giving power to the government to deport or imprison activists
without trial up to two years. Gandhi unleashed Satyagraha on the British.
Though non-violent, the move led to riot, disorder and violence.
It also led to the Jallianwala Bagh
massacre of the innocent civilians who had gathered for a peaceful
demonstration against the government. That was the end of a beginning. Gandhi
started to agitate for full independence and declared civil disobedience. In
1922, he was imprisoned for six years, but released after two years. Jinnah,
Nehru were all in the fry.
Simon Commission came in 1928, and
were asked to ‘go back.’ Irwin declaration of 1929 indicated a dominion status
within British Commonwealth, but nothing concrete came out of it. A Round-table
conference was convened in 1929, but since it was not prepared to discuss the
Dominion status, Congress boycotted it. Gandhi called upon its members to
resign from provincial legislatures and launched civil disobedience, which
concluded in the Salt March in 1930. Gandhi was arrested, so also the other
leaders.
The Second Round-table conference was
held in 1931, with Gandhi in attendance, as he had a pact with Irwin, the then
Viceroy. Nothing came out of it. Satyagraha started once again. Churchill, then
an MP, was totally against even Dominion status to India, because he feared the
Hindu majority would crush the untouchables and the minority Muslims.
Churchill’s opposition in the British
Parliament to any compromise on India delayed the passing of the India Act, to
1935, when the Second World War had started. The Act in its spirit meant to
preserve British India for another generation (30 years).
On paper, it proposed an All India
Federation of the princely states, Muslims and Hindus, who will all have an
equal representation. It would not allow Congress to become a majority
government. Moreover, control of foreign policy and defence would still be with
the British.
Princes, the Congress party, all
rejected the Act. In 1937, the first provincial elections were held under the
Act. Congress won majority in six of eleven provinces. It refused to consider
sharing of power with the Muslim League. The prospect of a Hindu-dominated Raj
loomed large.[2]
Muslims started to harp on Pakistan by 1940, encouraged by the then Viceroy Linlithgow,
who adopted the policy of divide and
rule.
Churchill became the Prime minister
of England in 1940 during the War. He steered the country to victory in the
war, but was a constant barrier to giving India freedom. He was not prepared to
give up the ‘Jewel in the Crown.’
Cripps Mission came to India in 1942
promising Dominion status and an Indian constitution to be prepared in India by
a Constituent Assembly, but all after the war and support of India to the war.
Partition of India was promised for the first time. The intention of Churchill
was not to honour the promises given during war time. The Mission failed, as
Congress wanted full independence and nothing less. Gandhi launched ‘Quit India’
movement in its wake.
American President Roosevelt was
pressurising Churchill to give independence to India. British government tried
a draft keeping the capital Delhi within its powers within the British
Commonwealth of nations. Churchill made his famous remark, “I have not become
the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the
British Empire.”
While millions died in 1943-44 famine
in Bengal, Churchill still wanted the grains to be diverted to wartime destinations
and Indian merchants hoarded stocks to inflate the prices and make a killing.
In 1945 after the war, Attlee, of
Labour party, who was favourable to Indian independence became the Prime
Minister in Britain. After the war, there was an economic collapse in England
with a national debt of 238% of GDP. Pound was weak and the capacity to hold on
to India by police or military power became less.
Indian soldiers of INA[3]
who fought with Japanese army and were returning after the war were put on
trial for treason. Three were tried at Red Fort and hanged. India erupted into
riots. Further trials were stopped. But it was becoming increasingly difficult
for the British to hold on to the Jewel. Wavell, the Viceroy began the
withdrawal of military personnel from India.
Attlee appointed Mountbatten as the
last Viceroy on 20th February 1947 with a mandate to pack up and
leave India by June 1948. But sensing the situation in India, Mountbatten
preponed the date to 15th August 1947, the anniversary of Japanese
surrender and pushed the matters hard. Communal violence was erupting almost
every day.
Sir Cyril Radcliffe, was asked just
38 days before independence, to go to India and demarcate the boundaries
between the new countries-to-be, India and Pakistan. What could have been done
in a peaceful manner was done in a mad-hat hurry and Radcliffe sat on maps
produced before him and dissected the country. He flew out of the country on 15th
August itself. It is said that he was haunted by the experience for the rest of
his life.
The award was not given till after
the independent celebrations. Once it became known, the country erupted in
communal violence that took millions of lives, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. The
single British achievement of creating a united India from fragments of myriads
of rulers, castes and communities, utterly failed on the last day. The country
was left divided into two and people died and suffered with the hastily drawn
boundaries. That is how the British left India, in blood shed, hatred and
confusion.
Well, one wishes it would have been
otherwise. But given the near death-wish of the British to hang on to the jewel
in the crown until the very last by dubious means, and also the adamant principle
of the Congress, not to adjust with the Muslim minorities, all ended in a
carnage. People paid with their lives for the folly of their leaders.
[1]
Walter Reid beautifully traces these events in his book, “Keeping the Jewel in the Crown: The British Betrayal of India,” Penguin
Random House, India, 2017, starting from 1916 to 1947, some three decades
before independence.
[2]
May be this Hindu Dominated majority rule had been just postponed by some 70
years in the independent India. Today BJP under the leadership of Modi are
almost inching towards such a rule, which would mean, suppression of Muslim and
Christian minorities, Dalits and even women. The apprehensions of the then
rulers of India were not imaginary, but very real.
[3]
INA – Indian National Army under the leadership of Subash Chandra Bosh.
