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Unlock This CourseThe elections of 1945-46 left India split between two winners. Congress wanted one united India. The Muslim League had fought the election on a single issue, Pakistan. In April 1946 the League's newly elected members met in Delhi and demanded one independent state of Pakistan made up of six provinces: the Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan in the north-west, and Bengal and Assam in the north-east.
Attlee's government wanted to hand over power quickly, to a united India if possible. So it sent three senior ministers to find a settlement: Lord Pethick-Lawrence, Sir Stafford Cripps and A. V. Alexander. They reached Delhi on 24 March 1946 and stayed until the end of June. Talks between Congress and the League at Simla in May got nowhere, so on 16 May 1946 the ministers published a plan of their own.
Key terms:
The Mission turned down a fully separate Pakistan. Its reason was simple. The six provinces the League claimed held many millions of Hindus and Sikhs. A smaller Pakistan would mean cutting the Punjab and Bengal in two. Either way, large minorities would be left on the wrong side of a border. Instead the plan offered something to each party.
India would stay united. A central government, the Union, would control only foreign affairs, defence and communications. A Constituent Assembly, chosen by the members of the provincial law-making bodies, would write the constitution. Meanwhile an interim government of Indian leaders would take office.
All other powers went to the provinces, which would be placed in three sections. Section A was the Hindu-majority provinces. Section B was the Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province and Sind. Section C was Bengal and Assam. Sections B and C had Muslim majorities and could form groups with their own governments.
The Muslim League accepted the plan on 6 June 1946. Jinnah had not won Pakistan, but the League said the basis of Pakistan lay in the grouping of the Muslim provinces. Congress accepted the plan for the constitution on 25 June, but it disliked grouping. It argued that each province should be free to stay out of its group. Assam did not have a Muslim majority, and the North-West Frontier Province had a Congress government. The two parties also failed to agree on who should sit in the interim government.
Then came the breakdown. On 10 July 1946 Nehru, the new Congress president, told journalists in Bombay that Congress had agreed to join the Constituent Assembly and was bound by nothing else. He added that grouping would probably never happen. To Jinnah this proved that a Hindu majority would tear up any promise once the British had gone.
The League felt cheated by Nehru's words and by Britain's failure to hold Congress to the plan. Meeting in Bombay on 29 July 1946, its council withdrew its acceptance of the plan, called for Direct Action to win Pakistan and asked Muslims to give up their British titles. Jinnah declared that the League was saying goodbye to constitutional methods.
Friday 16 August 1946 was named Direct Action Day. Muslims were asked to close their shops and hold meetings. In most of India the day passed peacefully. In Calcutta it did not. The League government of Bengal, led by H. S. Suhrawardy, made the day a public holiday, and a huge rally was held.
After the rally, mobs attacked Hindu shops and homes. Hindus and Sikhs hit back. In about four days at least 4,000 people were killed and around 100,000 left homeless. Troops were called in late, and Suhrawardy's government was widely blamed. These days became known as the Great Calcutta Killing.
The violence spread. In October 1946 Hindus were attacked in Noakhali in east Bengal. Within weeks several thousand Muslims were killed in revenge attacks in Bihar. Gandhi, now 77, went to Noakhali and walked from village to village asking for peace.
Politics went on, but without trust. Nehru led an interim government from 2 September 1946. The League joined it in October but did not work with Congress, and it boycotted the Constituent Assembly when it met on 9 December 1946.
Hindus and Muslims differed in religion, but the political difference mattered more in 1946. Congress wanted a strong central government chosen by the majority. The League feared that majority rule meant permanent Hindu rule, so it wanted a weak centre or a separate state. The Cabinet Mission plan tried to give each side half of what it wanted, and it failed because neither trusted the other.
How Britain reacted, and how partition was decided, is covered in Mountbatten and the Decision to Partition.
Do not say the Cabinet Mission offered Pakistan. It rejected a separate Pakistan and offered grouping inside a united India. Do not write that Jinnah ordered the killings in Calcutta. The League called for a day of protest, and violence broke out in one city. And remember that both parties accepted the plan in June 1946 before it fell apart in July.
Extract A (a practice extract written for this lesson, in the style of a modern history textbook)
The Cabinet Mission was the last and best chance of a united India. For three exhausting months, in the fierce heat of an Indian summer, three British ministers listened patiently to every side. Their plan was ingenious: one India for Congress, and groups of Muslim provinces for the League. Remarkably, by the end of June both parties had accepted it. No earlier British offer had come so close to success. The ministers had done all that honest men could do.
What impression does the author give about the Cabinet Mission? You must use Extract A to explain your answer. [6 marks]
The author gives the impression that the Cabinet Mission was a sincere and skilful effort that very nearly worked. The language is full of praise. The plan is called 'ingenious', which suggests it was a clever answer to a very hard problem, and the Mission is 'the last and best chance', which makes it sound precious. The ministers are shown as hard-working and fair: they spent 'three exhausting months' in 'fierce heat' and 'listened patiently to every side'. The closing words, 'all that honest men could do', suggest that no blame for what followed belongs to them. The author has also selected carefully. The extract stresses that both parties accepted the plan, but it leaves out Congress's objections to grouping and the plan's collapse in July, so the reader sees only effort and near success.
What lifts it to the top level: it names one clear impression, proves it with short quotations and what they suggest, and then explains what the author chose to stress and to leave out.
An impression can be positive. Here the loaded words are words of praise, such as 'ingenious' and 'patiently'. Quote them, say what each suggests about the Mission, then add one sentence on what the author has left out, such as the plan's collapse.