The Cabinet Mission and the Interim Government

With the war over and a sympathetic Labour government in Britain, the Cabinet Mission of 1946 made a last serious attempt to transfer power to a united India. Its complex plan rejected Pakistan but proposed a loose federation with "grouping" of provinces. The plan foundered on the rival interpretations of that grouping by the Congress and the League. The League's withdrawal and its call for "Direct Action" plunged the country into a communal holocaust, even as a Nehru-led Interim Government took office. This is a very high-yield topic.

The wartime offers had failed. The Cripps Mission of 1942 collapsed, the Quit India Movement of August 1942 was crushed, and a constitutional deadlock set in. Meanwhile Subhas Chandra Bose had carried the struggle abroad. In Europe he raised the Free Indian Legion (also called the Indian Legion) from Indian prisoners of war, to fight alongside the Axis powers against Britain. As the war ended, Viceroy Lord Wavell, who had succeeded Linlithgow in 1943, made one more attempt to break the deadlock. The Wavell Plan of June 1945 proposed the reconstitution of the Viceroy's Executive Council. All portfolios, including that of the War Member, were to be held by Indian leaders. Only the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief would remain British. The plan also proposed parity: equal numbers of caste Hindus and Muslims in the Council. The Council would govern under the existing constitutional framework until Indians agreed on a new constitution. Wavell's aim was to break the political deadlock and secure Congress-League cooperation, not specifically to prevent partition.

Wavell convened the Simla Conference in June and July 1945 to discuss the plan, and released the Congress leaders jailed since the Quit India movement. It collapsed on a single issue: Jinnah insisted that the Muslim League alone could nominate all the Muslim members of the Council. The Congress, which had Muslim members of its own including its president Azad, could not accept this claim. Wavell refused to proceed without the League's consent, which in effect gave Jinnah a veto. He announced the failure of the conference in July 1945, and the initiative passed to the new Labour government and its Cabinet Mission. The failure strengthened the League's bargaining position. Note the sequence of viceroys: the Simla Conference was convened by Wavell, not Mountbatten, who arrived only in March 1947.

Post-war India was in ferment, and the unrest reached the armed forces themselves. In the Royal Indian Navy Revolt of February 1946, Indian sailors (ratings) at Bombay rose against the government, and the revolt spread to Karachi. Britain could no longer count on the loyalty of its Indian forces. This pressure pushed the Attlee government to act. It sent a mission of three cabinet members: Pethick-Lawrence (Secretary of State, chairman), Stafford Cripps and A.V. Alexander. They reached Delhi on 24 March 1946 to find a peaceful way to transfer power. The Congress and League could not agree on unity or partition. So the Mission put forward its own plan on 16 May 1946:

• Rejection of a full-fledged Pakistan, because such a Pakistan would include a large non-Muslim population, would disturb regional ties, and would create defence and communication problems.
• Grouping of existing provincial assemblies into three sections: Section A (the Hindu-majority provinces: Madras, Bombay, CP, UP, Bihar, Orissa), Section B (Punjab, NWFP, Sindh, Muslim-majority) and Section C (Bengal and Assam, Muslim-majority). Each section was free to frame its own group constitution.
• A three-tier structure: provinces, sections (groups) and the union.
• A constituent assembly of 389 members, elected by the provincial assemblies by proportional representation with the single transferable vote. Voting was in three groups (General, Muslims, Sikhs), a democratic method not based on weightage. The members were elected, not nominated; only the princely states' representatives were nominated by their rulers.
• A common centre controlling only defence, communications and external affairs. Provinces would have full autonomy and residuary powers. Princely states were free to make their own arrangements.
• After the first elections, a province could come out of a group. After ten years, it could call for a reconsideration of the group or union constitution.
• An Interim Government to be formed from the constituent assembly.

Rival interpretations of the grouping clause. Each side read the plan to suit itself. To the Congress, grouping was optional, one constituent assembly was envisaged, and the League had no veto. To the Muslim League, Pakistan was implied in compulsory grouping. The Mission later clarified that grouping was compulsory, in the League's favour. The plan was the last opportunity to avoid partition: its failure ended the final scheme for a united India, and every plan after it assumed division.

The Muslim League accepted the plan on 6 June and the Congress on 24 June 1946. But the truce was illusory:

• On 10 July 1946, Nehru stated that the Congress was "not bound by a single thing" beyond entering the Constituent Assembly. He implied it was sovereign and might alter the grouping. The League seized upon this statement.
• On 29 July 1946, the League withdrew its acceptance and gave a call for "Direct Action" from 16 August to achieve Pakistan.

From 16 August 1946 the country was convulsed by communal riots on an unprecedented scale. They began with the Great Calcutta Killing and spread to Noakhali, Bihar and Garhmukteshwar, leaving thousands dead. Wavell's secret "Breakdown Plan" had earlier envisaged withdrawal to the Muslim provinces. This was evidence that the British recognised they could not suppress a future Congress rebellion.

Fearing mass action by the Congress, Wavell invited it to form a government. A Congress-dominated Interim Government headed by Nehru was sworn in on 2 September 1946, with Nehru as Vice-President of the Executive Council. The fourteen members included Patel, Rajendra Prasad, Rajagopalachari, Asaf Ali, Jagjivan Ram and Baldev Singh. The key portfolios are tested often:

• Jawaharlal Nehru: External Affairs and Commonwealth Relations.
• Vallabhbhai Patel: Home.
• Rajendra Prasad: Food and Agriculture.
• Baldev Singh: Defence.

This was a real Indian government at the centre, not a mere promise. Contrast it with the Cripps Mission of 1942, whose central offer was an Indian Union with Dominion status to be created soon after the Second World War. Under that offer, provinces were free to opt out of the Union and frame their own constitutions. India had rejected the post-dated promise; now Indians held office.

Wavell then quietly brought the Muslim League into the Interim Government on 26 October 1946. This was done without the League giving up "Direct Action," and despite its rejection of the plans. The League's intent was obstruction:

• it did not attend the Constituent Assembly (which first met on 9 December 1946, passing only an "Objectives Resolution" drafted by Nehru);
• it questioned Congress decisions, and Liaquat Ali Khan as Finance Minister hamstrung the other ministries; and
• it had sought only "a foothold to fight for Pakistan", a continuation of "civil war by other means."

The Constituent Assembly held its first sitting on 9 December 1946 despite the League's boycott. At that first sitting, Dr. Sachchidananda Sinha, the oldest member, presided as the provisional (temporary) President. The Assembly then elected Dr. Rajendra Prasad as its permanent President. Its early membership and the wider political stage carried several figures worth fixing:

• K.C. Neogy: a member of the Constituent Assembly.
• Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru: leader of the All India Liberal Federation, the party of the moderate constitutionalists.
• P.C. Joshi: General Secretary of the Communist Party of India.

By February 1947, the government was paralysed. The League was demanding the Constituent Assembly's dissolution. A crisis was rushing towards the final showdown, which came with the Mountbatten Plan of 3 June 1947 and the partition of the country.