Pakistan without Calcutta would be like asking a man to live without his heart

It remains, however, to recount in brief the events in sequel of the June 3, 1947 Plan. Mountbatten had originally envisaged the division of British India into three dominions: Hindustan, Pakistan and the free state of Bengal, each of which was to be an independent member of the British Commonwealth of Nations.

The territories of Pakistan were to include provinces of the West Punjab, Sind and the NWFP. The state of Bengal was to have the province of Bengal and the chief commissioner's province of the Andaman and the Nicobar Islands. A united Greater Bengal was also championed by Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy, the chief minister of Bengal. Jinnah and the Muslim League wanted a united Bengal as a part of their new state. "Pakistan without Calcutta would be like asking a man to live without his heart," Jinnah had argued.

Mountbatten seems to have supported the idea of a united Bengal in order to have a united Indian army. Suhrawardy, however, emphasised upon Mountbatten to have a separate army of Bengal. Though the British seemed to have agreed in principle that the assets of India, including the armed forces, should be divided between the three states, the difficulties of creating two new armies for two Muslims successor states were immense. But since the Congress was not amenable to the idea of a united free state of Bengal, the proposal was dropped.

Nehru accepted the division of Bengal thinking that east Bengal would be so unlivable economically that it would come back into the Indian Union within a few years. Accordingly, the Muslim majority districts of the province of Bengal including the Chittagong Hill Tracts were separated from East Pakistan. However, a referendum in Sylhet district of Assam was agreed to and it gave its verdict in favour of Pakistan.

The freedom-loving Pathans considered the British Raj to be their natural enemy and they were happy to find an ally in the Congress, the other great enemy of the Raj. After World War II, when it appeared to them that the Congress was replacing the British Raj and assuming the control of the North-West Frontier Province, the alliance could not last.

The Muslim League slogans of "no Hindu Raj" and "Muslim unity" appealed to the Pathans. Since October, 1946, there was a definite swing of the people in favour of the Muslim League. By December 1946, the Muslim League had decided to extend its activities to the tribal areas as well. In March 1947, the Muslim League firmly planted its feet after it launched the Civil Disobedience Movement against the Congress government in the province.

The provincial government failed to suppress the movement in spite of assistance of the police and the armed forces. The increasing influence of the Muslim League was "causing exodus of large numbers of non-Muslims" from the province. Mountbatten confirmed to the British government that due to the Muslim League campaign, the situation in the province was "very explosive."

So far as the NWFP was concerned, the Mountbatten Plan proposed a referendum to ascertain if the province wished to join Pakistan or Hindustan. The option of Independence, as demanded by the Congress, was not agreed to by the British government for being in contravention of the June 3 Plan. Besides military authorities had felt that the NWFP, in order to withstand a possible adventure from the Soviet Union, should be under Muslim domination. The referendum, held in 2nd week of July 1947, was supervised by the British army officers of the Indian army.

To the satisfaction of Mountbatten, Gandhi had advised Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan to remain peaceful during the elections. The results were overwhelmingly in support of Pakistan. Of the total Muslim electorates, about 60 per cent votes were cast for Pakistan. The Congress vigorously advocated the idea of "Pathanistan", but Dr Khan Sahib was reported to be willing to "co-operate and accept Pakistan if Jinnah would agree to full provincial autonomy."

The province of Sind already had enjoyed the support of the Muslim League ministry and it voted for Pakistan. In June 1947, the British Baluchistan also decided unanimously to join the Pakistan Constituent Assembly at an extraordinary session of the Shahi Jirga.

The case of the Punjab was, however, more complicated. Under the Mountbatten Plan, the Punjab was to be partitioned like Bengal. But here, the Congress and the Sikhs demanded protection of their rights. Accordingly, a boundary commission was created to pacify the Sikhs. Jinnah and Liaquat violently protested against this to Mountbatten, but it had little effect. Thus a number of Muslim majority areas were handed over to the Indian Union.

The decision to do so was primarily based on military and political grounds. Nehru claimed a "simpler frontier based on some natural barrier" and not one with "numerous curves and enclaves," which would create many difficulties including the question of defence.

Baldev Singh, the defence member, also supported Nehru on grounds of defence. Of the Muslim majority areas handed over to the Indian Union, Gurdaspur and Ferozpur were prominent. It is a matter of record that initially the salient enclosing the whole of Ferozpur and areas adjacent to Zira tehsils were included in Pakistan. But on August 10 or 11, even Jenkins, the governor of the Punjab, received a secrophone message from Viceroy House ordering action to "eliminate salient."

As for Gurdaspur district, Justice Muhammad Munir, who was a member of the Boundary Commission, later observed about his British chairman that: 'Sir Cyril adopted a circuitous and disingenuous plan to link India with Kashmir by not drawing a line along any main physical feature but along an insignificant hill torrent having its origin in Kashmir.'

Excerpted from Making of Pakistan: The Military Perspective, by Dr Noor-ul Haq, Reliance Publishing House, 1997, Rs 395, with the publisher's permission. Readers who wish to buy a copy of this book may write to Reliance Publishing House, 3026/7H, Ranjit Nagar, New Delhi 11 00 08.