A bitter pill

India has had too many dates with destiny to be excited over a fresh one. She was duly prepared, through reliable press forecasts, for the actual announcement of the British government’s latest plan. Neither the prospect of British withdrawal earlier than June 1948 nor the contents of the Mountbatten Plan have therefore any novelty. If anything, patriotic Indians have every reason to feel ashamed of the circumstances leading to the intervention of the British in the matter of even ascertaining the wishes of certain areas in regard to the authority framing their future constitution, namely whether it should be the existing Constituent Assembly or a separate one of their own. Since, however, the actual transfer of power from British to Indian hands can take place only after the choice is made, and since the Congress is reconciled to the painful eventuality, if only to restore peace in the country, little would be gained by ruminating over might-have-beens. No doubt, Congress must be unhappy indeed at the virtual dismemberment of the country visualised by the procedure laid down in the State Paper. But the Congress has not by its acceptance surrendered to Pakistan; it has only attempted a compromise, at the same time, taking care to minimise the evil and even ensure its elimination…

To Mr Jinnah, however, it must be a bitter pill indeed. He has been virtually compelled to accept the same arrangement which he rejected in 1944 as “moth-eaten” … In any case, Mr Jinnah must be congratulated on having seen enough cause to order the withdrawal of a most ugly demonstration in the N-W Frontier Province and preservation of peace generally in the country…

Excerpts from an editorial of June 5, 1947

A province for the Sikhs

AFTER insisting on the partition of India being finally forced to accept a shadow Pakistan, the Muslim League is now frantically engaged in salvaging whatever it can out of the dismal wreck. The concerted peace drive launched against the Sikhs in the Punjab has no other explanation. But having prepared the bed, the League must now lie on it even if it be a bed of thorns as it now realises. There is little justification in expecting the Sikhs who have had a foretaste of the Pakistan-to-be to abandon their claim for a separate homeland or at least a contiguous territory wherein their numbers will not be sundered. If they have accepted the Mountbatten plan, it is with great reservation that the Boundary Commission that is to ultimately settle the area of the Western and Eastern Punjab will take into consideration all the relevant factors before it final ordains the frontiers of the two. They have ample reason to demand a revision of the provisional limitation contained in the plan itself. Unlike Muslims and the Hindus they have no other province to which they can lay claim and even according to the highly questionable figures of the 1941 census, the Sikhs constitute 37.5 lakh of population…

Excerpts from an editorial of June 11, 1947