Could Partition have been avoided

On August 13, 1947, Cyril Radcliffe completed the task of amputating India. Lord Mountbatten disclosed the secret map to Nehru and Jinnah only two days later.

THERE is every reason to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of Independence but it was also the day of national disaster and mourning. In fact the joy of winning freedom gas been overshadowed by the partition that uprooted the millions and the bloodbath that claimed nearly 50,000 lives. More importantly, the wound inflicted 50 years ago has not yet healed. Could that disaster have been avoided?

On August 13, 1947, while Congress leaders were impatiently waiting for the long cherished moment of transfer of power and busy in giving final touches to the preparation for the celebration to be held in Delhi after two days, Cyril Radcliffe completed the task of amputating India according to his wild desire. He handed the final map over to Lord Mountbatten, who had kept it a secret and disclosed the same to Nehru and Jinnah only two days later, after the actual transfer of power. Still it is a mystery why British Parliament selected Shri Radcliffe, a man totally ignorant of India and her people, to carry out his final and critical job.

On August 15, Shri Radcliffe hurriedly left India at the first opportunity. He was afraid that he would be assassinated for his mischief and in fact, he was one of the first batches of Englishmen that left Delhi for London. The most glaring example of Radcliffe’s mischief was his gift of Lahore to Pakistan. With the fatal stroke of his pen, Lahore went to Pakistan, hardly 20 kilometers inside the border. Some also believe that he was anxious to gobble up £ 2000, the remuneration for his job and left India as soon as he could. It is not surprising that Shri Radcliffe was not shot by any Indian assassin. But it seems really surprising that the people of this country spared the lives of the traitors of their own country who conspired with the colonialists to cut up this country into three pieces and allowed those traitors to rule this country for the past 50 years.

Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, the authors of Freedom at Midnight, allege that the political ambitions of Nehru and Jinnah made them desperate for grabbing power and they urged Mount batten to transfer power as quickly as possible on any precondition. “These people had been agitating and preparing for the exercise of power for years”, the authors add.

The above authors have also disclosed a very vital as well as secret piece of information. The X-ray plates of Jinnah’s lungs, taken at the time of Independence, revealed that he was dying of tuberculosis and according to the attending doctor; he had less than 6 months to live. In fact, he died on September 11, 1948, roughly a year after Independence. Undoubtedly, Jinnah was most stubborn and unyielding for keeping India united and hence his death could have certainly provided a golden opportunity to arrest the process of carving out Pakistan. So it appears that Partition was an avoidable mistake and the tragedy could have been avoided had our leaders been less impatient and waited for another year.