Towards Divided India From Tilak To Mahatma Gandhi

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

J.B.P.More (also known as JB. Prashant More) is an impartial versatile scholar of international repute. He obtained his doctorate in history in Paris. He later taught there. He is the author of more than 26 books and 50 articles in French, Tamil and English. He specializes on Indian colonial history and south Indian history. He had written extensively on south Indian Muslims and Dravidians and also about the freedom movement in the French territories of India. His biographical works on Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Subhas Chandra Bose and Subramania Bharati are acclaimed internationally.

In this book, J.B.P.More explores the role of the Congress leaders from Bal Gangadhar Tilak to Mahatma Gandhi in the struggle for freedom from British colonial rule. The author has established in this work the ways by which the Congress leaders estranged the Muslims. It also explores how Jinnah had shot himself on his foot when it was least necessary by demanding Pakistan, so ill-suited to the interests of the Muslims. The top Congress leaders including Mahatma Gandhi and C. Rajagopalachari exploited to the hilt the flaw in the wordings of the Lahore resolution, which made them concede an area-wise Pakistan. Jinnah realizing what Rajaji and Gandhi were willing to concede tried by all means including violence to obtain a bigger province-wise Pakistan, with the help of the British, who kept dragging their feet, until they were left with no other option except to offer a 'truncated' Pakistan to Jinnah, the same that Rajaji and Gandhi had offered since 1942.

British rule is India lasted for more than two centuries. When Britain finally decided to quit India, they split it into two countries on religious lines for various reasons. This gave birth to India and Pakistan, with the Hindus predominating in India and the Muslims predominating in Pakistan. Much has been written on how this division came about.

The Indian National Congress, the All India Muslim League and the British were the three main stake-holders involved in the division of India. Generally in Pakistan, it is believed that the All India Muslim League and Muhammad Ali Jinnah were responsible for the division of India. It is also believed that Jinnah made use of his extraordinary political experience, skills, tactics and intelligence in order to outwit a formidable array of top Congress party leaders as well as the British in his quest for Pakistan. They thought that Jinnah all alone snatched Pakistan from the Congress and cut India to size. In what remained of India too, it was generally believed that Jinnah was solely responsible for the division of India. Some others accused the British for their 'Divide and Rule' policy, which ended up in the splitting of India.

Generally British administrators, political leaders and scholars hold the position that partition became inevitable because Jinnah and the Congress leaders or rather the Hindus and Muslims could not get along together and were unable to evolve a common Indian nationality. Some British scholars and officials even held that Jinnah raised the demand for Pakistan, not with the objective of achieving it, but as a bargaining manoeuvre to extract more concessions for the Indian Muslims from the Congress leaders and the British.

They including Ayesha Jalal hold that the Congress leadership pushed Jinnah to radicalise his position.