Direct Action Day
Hindu communalism and Muslim communalism fed on each other
throughout the early 1940s. Muslim League openly boycotted the Quit India movement of 1942. In the elections held in 1946 to the Constituent Assembly, Muslim
League won all 30 seats reserved for Muslims in the Central Legislative
Assembly and most of the reserved provincial seats as well. The Congress Party
was successful in gathering most of the general electorate seats, but it could
no longer effectively insist that it spoke for the entire population of British
India.
In 1946
Secretary of State Pethick-Lawrence led a three-member Cabinet Mission to New
Delhi with the hope of resolving the Congress–Muslim League deadlock and, thus,
of transferring British power to a single Indian administration. Cripps was
primarily responsible for drafting the Cabinet Mission Plan. The plan proposed
a three-tier federation for India, integrated by a central government in Delhi,
which would be limited to handling foreign affairs, communications, defence,
and only those finances required to take care of union matters. The
subcontinent was to be divided into three major groups of provinces: Group A,
to include the Hindu-majority provinces of the Bombay Presidency, Madras
Presidency, the United Provinces, Bihar, Orissa, and the Central Provinces;
Group B, to contain the Muslim-majority provinces of the Punjab, Sind, the
North-West Frontier, and Baluchistan; and Group C, to include the
Muslim-majority Bengal and the Hindu-majority Assam. The group governments were
to be autonomous in everything excepting in matters reserved to the centre. The
princely states within each group were to be integrated later into their
neighbouring provinces. Local provincial governments were to have the choice of
opting out of the group in which they found themselves, should a majority of
their people desire to do so.
Jinnah
accepted the Cabinet Mission’s proposal, as did the Congress leaders. But after
several weeks of behind-the-scene negotiations, on July 29, 1946, the Muslim
League adopted a resolution rejecting the Cabinet Mission Plan and called upon
the Muslims throughout India to observe a ‘Direct Action Day’ in protest on
August 16. The rioting and killing that took place for four days in Calcutta led to a terrible violence
resulting in thousands of deaths. Gandhi who was until
then resisting any effort to vivisect the country had to accede to the demand
of the Muslim League for creation of Pakistan.
Mountbatten who succeeded Wavell
came to India as Viceroy to effect the partition plan and transfer of power.
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