Page 3 Secondary sources

Cabinet Mission Plan documents - Page 3

Some Secondary Sources

Historians' secondary or interpretative narrations can be illuminating for their delineations of the broader historical picture, despite often propagating misleading biases. The interested reader also often finds in these accounts, valuable quotes and references for further investigation.

Durga Das's India from Curzon to Nehru and after offers his witness's account of Indian political history from the mid-1910s onward till many years past independence. He observed firsthand and reported on the great diversity of Indians participating in many disparate events which together constituted the Indian independence movement. His book is a great starting place and worth reading in entirety. Some parts are quoted here.

Durga Das (1) 1919-1931, Jallianwala Bagh to Bhagat Singh

Durga Das (2) 1931-1936, Crescent Card: Jinnah in London to Fazli Husain in Punjab

Durga Das(3) 1937-1940, Provincial Autonomy to Jinnah gets the veto

Durga Das(4) 1940-1945, The War Years: India's War Effort-Pakistan on a platter

Durga Das(5) 1945-1947, The Cabinet Mission to Divide and Quit

Many historians consider that the period 1937-1940 was a decisive one for India's future; as during this period Congress-Jinnah differences over elected provincial governments evolved rapidly into an unbridgeable political rift between many Muslims and other Indians. Ayesha Jalal's The Sole Spokesman, Sarvepalli Gopal's Jawaharlal Nehru and Stanley Wolpert's Jinnah of Pakistan are quoted here on the events of that period.

M.J. Akbar provides invaluable perspective and a wealth of facts and quotes on the same period in Nehru, The Making of India.

Bimal Prasad's essay, Jawaharlal Nehru and Partition in The Partition in Retrospect Ed. Amrik Singh offers interesting perspectives and quotes on the political events in 1937, a key year in Congress-Jinnah relations.

1937 Nehru, Jinnah and Coalition Governments, Bimal Prasad

The British dependence on Punjab for military manpower after the 1857 mutiny heavily influenced British policies towards land, administration, franchise and demands for self-rule in that province. These quotes from Ian Talbot's Khizr Tiwana and David Page's Prelude to Partition provide glimpses of the particularity exercised towards Punjab by the British.

1857-1938 Glimpses of British policy in Punjab: Ian Talbot and David Page

The Marquess of Linlithgow was Viceroy of India from 1936 to 1943.   His son John Glendevon's book The Viceroy at Bay presents a view of the Viceroy and his tenure which some may not agree with. However, the book exemplifies a particular British viewpoint of that period and also contains a number of illuminating quotes of various major players of the time, including Gandhi, Jinnah and Viceroy Linlithgow and Secretary of State Zetland themselves.

The excerpts from the book presented here cover three episodes: firstly, the tussle between Congress and the Viceroy in 1937 when Congress refused to accept office after winning majorities in six provinces in provincial elections; secondly, Viceroy Linlithgow's efforts to bring into force the Federation part of the Government of India Act 1935 and his various interactions with Congress, Jinnah and the Princes which reveal their respective views on the Indian constitutional question; and thirdly, the wartime positions of all major players from 1939-1942, including the remarkably rapid increase in Jinnah's power to veto Indian constitutional advance.

Glendevon (1) 1937 Congress's Office Acceptance Saga over Governor's Powers, John Glendevon

Glendevon (2) 1937-1940 Federation, Jinnah, Congress activism in Princely States, John Glendevon

Glendevon (3) 1939-1942 Linlithgow, Congress, Jinnah,War-time Realignments, John Glendevon

Anita Inder Singh's The Origins of the Partition of India 1936-1947 is a copiously-referenced clearsighted narrative of a critical period of pre-independence history. The first portion excerpted corresponds to the months following the British declaration of war in September 1939 and highlights the British reliance on Jinnah's demands to deny any concessions, minor or major, to the Congress. The second excerpt covers the 1945-46 provincial election campaigns, particularly in Punjab. The Muslim League fought this election on the sole platform of Pakistan.

1939-1940: India and the War, Anita Inder Singh

1945-1946: The Elections of 1945-46, Anita Inder Singh

John Gallagher in a Modern Asian Studies journal paper Congress in Decline: Bengal, 1930 to 1939 provides a neat precis of Congress decline in Bengal in the 1930s. Excerpts include his discussion of the causes of loss of political power of educated, wealthy and propertied Hindus over the Muslim-majority province; the effect of the Communal Award 1932 on Bengali Hindus and an attempt by Congress to reach an all-India communal settlement with Jinnah in early 1935.

1930-1939 Congress Decline in Bengal, John Gallagher

Narendra Singh Sarila in The Shadow of the Great Game combines well-researched primary sources with his comprehensive strategic viewpoint on Congress-British relations, Jinnah-British relations and the American connection. The portions excerpted here are explicitly related to Jinnah-British relations in the war and post-war periods. Excerpts related to the Gurdaspur boundary award from Patrick French's Liberty or Death are also included.

1939-1947 Jinnah and the Anglo-Muslim League Alliance, Narendra Singh Sarila