M K Gandhi And The Gandhian Legacy

[Guest]

Shaurya,The emphatic manner in which you reject the thesis of the book and all that it contains without a shadow of a doubt within the space of a few hours,tells me you have obviously not read the book(or at least the first 4 chapters - about 200 pages) which is well documented with extensive footnotes,or if you have read it you must have done so in a cursory manner, because otherwise you would not make the statement that we did not provide proofs. It is clear from Chandrasekhar Das Gupta's (IFS cadre) book that Mountbatten moved heaven and earth to prevent Kashmir from falling into India's hands. That Britain took such an emphatic anti Indian stand all of a sudden in 1947 in what was regarded then as the most peaceful transfer of power in all of history is not easily explainable, especially with a labor government at the helm,ostensiby sympathetic to demands of Indian independence All this was from documentation released by Britain's India office only in the last five years , so it is not reflected in the conventional wisdom which prevailed during the first fifty years of independence.

One does not have to believe that the British ruling class (or the Americans for that matter) were an especially devious people to believe them capable of doing what i have painstakingly l laid out. After all it was Britains Lord Acton who emphasized that 'Nations do not have permanent friends or permanent enemies only permanent interests' . An aphorism we as Indians should recall more than any other but conveniently forget in the emotion of the moment , resulting in inanities like 'hindi Chini Bhai Bhai'.

The governing dispensation in Britain believed strongly in maintiainiing the Imperial majesty of Britain (" I will not preside over the dissolution of the British empire' thundered Winston Churchill while reacting to the plans for indian independence)and failing that it became an article of faith that it was (perceived to be) in the permanent interest of Britain that the subcontinent should not be left intact should they have to leave. IOW, they wanted to establish an alternate center of sunni power to encircle and contain a resurgent India should it ever achieve independence. The notion that Indian and Muslim league leaders were instrumental in creating partition misses the whole crux of the issue that the foundations of such a policy were laid in the aftermath of the 1857 uprising when the Brits were stunned at the extent of the unity between Hindus and Muslims and thereby worked systematically to destroy the cohesiveness of Indian society using myriad means at their disposal during the ensuing decades.

Oh well we are left with at least one agreement -to agree to disagree. so be it