The British Imperial Establishment, Post Imperial Era, and the ‘Churchillian’ World View, 1945-2016. (Adjustments & Challenges in Contemporary British Diplomatic Strategy)

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demands that the British should leave at once, even if this meant leaving India to
havoc and the
Japanese. Gandhi’s demands obviously could not be complied with
by the British, and when widespread
disorder had followed the inauguration of a
‘Quit India’ campaign, by the middle of 1943, 36,000
were imprisoned, including
Gandhi.

As
the war ended it was clear that independence for India could not be
delayed, but there was an obstacle.
The unity that the British had bestowed on the
country was unlikely to be permanent. Since 1940, Mohammed
Ali Jinnah had
been contemplating a two-nation theory, and under his leadership the creation of
a
separate Pakistan had become the unrelenting policy of the Muslim League. The
Hindus, however, were
unwilling to contemplate partition. Gandhi and Nehru
believed that the communal rift was essentially a
domestic problem which Indians
would resolve once they had obtained self-govenment. Gandhi predicted
that
when freedom had been gained “an interim solution will be found to be easy.”32
Nehru, an agnostic, whose ideal was a secular state, never envisaged a
country
divided along religious boundaries. In general, Congress believed that conflict
was being
stimulated by the British with the conscious intention of dividing and
ruling.

In
March 1946, however, the British Labour Government sent a Cabinet
mission to India, consisting of Lord
Pethick-Lawrence, the secretary of State for
India, Sir Stafford Cripps, then President of the Board of
Trade, and A. V.
Alexander, the First Lord of the Admiralty, to try to get agreement between
the
Congress and the Muslim League, by suggesting the immediate establishment of
an interim
government as a preliminary to independence. This British scheme
was rejected by the Muslim League. The
proposal recommended that all positions
should be held by the Indians and, as a long-term solution, the
creation of a federal
government which, would have the central authority with control over
foreign
affairs, defence and communications, and would give other issues to the

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