The 1946 Cabinet Mission Plan was a watershed moment in the history of the Subcontinent. Its failure wrote the obituary of a united India and paved the way for the birth of Pakistan.
The British presented the plan in an attempt to resolve the politico-constitutional problem of India. The two main parties of India, the Indian National Congress and the All India Muslim League, were offering different solutions to the problem. Where the Congress stood for a free, united India, the League called for a separate homeland for Muslims. ‘Quit India’ and ‘Divide and Quit’ pretty much sum up the stance of the Congress and the League, respectively.
The Cabinet Mission Plan sought to strike a compromise between the discordant positions. It proposed a loose federation verging on a confederation to be called the Union of India. The central government would control only three departments – foreign affairs, defence and communications – and the rest would be vested in the provinces.
The Union would consist of three units or groups. Group A would comprise Hindu majority provinces; Group B would consist of western Muslim majority provinces; and Group C would be made up of eastern Muslim majority provinces. A crucial clause in the plan authorised any of the provinces to demand reconsideration of the constitution after 10 years.
Thus, the plan sought to divide India into two autonomous regions on the basis of religion and geography and allowed each unit to quit the federation after the stipulated period. On the face of it, the plan ruled out the League’s demand for Pakistan as “not practicable”. The mission saw no justification in including non-Muslim majority regions of Punjab and Bengal, two of the largest provinces in British India, in Pakistan. In case those regions were not included in Pakistan, the proposed Muslim state would be too small and weak to remain independent. Later, in the 1947 partition scheme, each province was bifurcated on the basis of religion. Some 24 years later, East Bengal, which went to Pakistan, broke away to become the sovereign state of Bangladesh. The apprehensions of the authors of the plan weren’t wholly unfounded.
The League took everyone by surprise by acceding to the plan. The decision was occasioned by two factors in the main: One, when the plan was presented to the Congress, it sought to get the mission’s assurance that in the event the Congress accepted the plan while the League turned it down, power would be transferred to it (the Congress). Such an assurance would have given the Congress a free hand in dealing with the Muslims. The enormous political weight of the Congress prompted the mission to hold out assurance.
As the plan fell short of the demand for a separate state for Muslims, the Congress was absolutely confident the League would set it aside. However, as the 1937-39 Congress-led provincial governments had given Muslims a taste of Hindu rule, or Ramraj as Gandhi would call it; Jinnah was set against giving the Congress another bite at the cherry.
Two, being a first-rate constitutional expert, Jinnah saw in the plan the seeds for Pakistan. The proposed units, two of which were to comprise Muslim majority provinces, were to be given full autonomy. After 10 years, each region could opt out of the federation and proclaim independence. And, most significantly, the units were to be created in part on the basis of religion – the same basis on which the case for Pakistan rested.
The League’s acceptance of the Cabinet Plan threw cold water on Congress’s plans. The party was dead sure the League wouldn’t accede to the plan and that power would then be transferred to it. Now the ball was in the Congress’s court. But a weak centre and strong units were not acceptable to the Congress. What the party itched for was a strong centre and weak units, as embodied in the 1928 Nehru Report.
This also holds good for the constitution of independent India, which is federal in form but unitary in spirit, and is one of the few federal constitutions in the world that vests residuary powers in the central government. The August 5, 2019, change in the status of Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir shows how convenient it is for the central government in India to deprive a federating unit of its statehood.
Congress leadership therefore started putting its own interpretations on the Cabinet Plan, which was entirely out of kilter with its spirit. Jawaharlal Nehru maintained that the groupings as provided in the plan were not mandatory. He vowed to set up a strong centre at the expense of provincial autonomy after the British had left India. His views were so unwarranted that Sir Stafford Cripps, a member of the mission, had this to state: “I do not know myself how such a thing would be possible, but if anything of that kind were to be attempted, it would be a clear breach of the basic understanding of the Plan.”
The Cabinet Plan had two parts: the constitutional scheme and the provisions relating to the setting up of an interim government to run the affairs of the country until a new constitution was drawn up. The Congress accepted the constitutional scheme but only with its own rabid interpretation of the compulsory grouping clause. The party also initially refused to join the proposed interim government. The reason for the refusal was the viceroy’s acceptance of the League’s claim that it alone had the right to nominate all the Muslims in the interim administration.
The Cabinet Plan had to be accepted (or rejected) in full. In the wake of the Congress’s refusal to join the interim set-up, power should have been transferred to the League, which had acceded to the plan in toto. But the viceroy was reluctant to exclude the Congress, India’s largest political party, from the interim government. Therefore, he allowed the party to nominate one Muslim to the interim government, upon which the Congress joined the interim set-up. However, the viceroy’s decision caused the League to withdraw its acceptance of the Cabinet Plan.
Later, upon the viceroy’s persuasion, the League also joined the interim set-up. The Congress got the important departments of defence and interior, while the League secured the key portfolio of finance. From the very outset, it became clear that the two parties could not get along together. The council of ministers exhibited little unity and the two parties used their power to settle scores against each other.
Liaquat Ali Khan, as finance minister, shot down every Congress proposal and presented a budget which heavily taxed big industrialists, who pulled the Congress’ purse strings. Those events convinced both the British and the Congress that a smooth power sharing between the two political parties was a tall order.
Meanwhile, in a changing of the guard, Lord Mountbatten was appointed the new viceroy. The Cabinet Plan was thrown on the scrapheap and the stage was set for the partition of India, which was formally spelt out in the June 3, 1947 Plan. By that time, the Congress leadership had also accepted that there was no alternative to the partition of India.
In retrospect, the acceptance of the Cabinet Plan was the League’s last concession to the Congress, which advocated a united India. However, the Congress made a mess of that opportunity. The rest is history.
The writer is an Islamabad-based columnist. He tweets/posts hussainhzaidi and can be reached at: hussainhzaidigmail.com