Why Congress left Bacha Khan alone?

If Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan had not made a historical mistake, he might not have been able to complete his mission so soon for Lord Mountbatten and the Frontier Province would have turned into a conflict that might have led to the collapse of the two-state ideology of the British Crown. . If the border was given the status of an independent state, many of India’s more than 580 states and Rajwadas would also get this option, making India akin to the smaller states of the Balkans.

Narendra Singh Srila, who held important posts in the Ministry of External Affairs of India from 1948 to 1985 and wrote several books, one of his books, ‘The Untold Story of Indian Partition’ was published in 2005, in which he discussed many historical facts related to partition. The facts have been revealed. On page 299 of the book he writes:

On June 3, 1947, just two days before the British withdrawal from India, Lord Mountbatten arrives in Delhi with final instructions from Prime Minister Attlee. Their biggest headache is what will be the future of Frontier Province because the process of partition will not go ahead until this issue is resolved. Gandhi, on the other hand, has been speaking out against the partition ever since he returned from the May 24 riots in eastern India. Lord Mountbatten met Gandhi on June 2, just one day before announcing the partition plan.

Lord Mountbatten writes that as soon as he saw Gandhi enter, he put his finger on his lips, which means that today he has observed a fast of silence. I was relieved to see this. He wrote on a paper that I am sorry that I cannot speak today but I am sure you will not force me to speak.

“He wrote on another chit that ‘Abdul Ghaffar Khan has told me that you should dismiss Sir Olaf Carew, Governor of the Frontier, I do not know whether Khan is right or wrong, but he is a true man. The sooner you do it the better.’

Before leaving for London, Mountbatt had convinced Nehru that the border issue would be dealt with finally after all outstanding issues had been settled, although the Congress had demanded that the referendum on the border be announced before June 3. will be done

However, Lord Mountbatten was still in London when Abdul Ghaffar Khan started demanding an independent state of Pakhtunistan instead of a national province of Pathans. The Muslim League was of the opinion that Abdul Ghaffar Khan was planning this along with Hindu leaders so that he could also get the support of tribal leaders like Faqir Appi. Therefore, as soon as Lord Mountbatten arrived in Delhi, the Congress leaders demanded that a third priority should be given to independence in addition to joining Pakistan and India in the border referendum.

Lord Mountbatten met Nehru before announcing the June 3 plan and said that the Muslim League would not accept it under any circumstances and if it was accepted, the policy was adopted at Nehru’s own request that a state should be given a third party. The option will not be given because they don’t want to make India a Balkan. Although many states including Bengal were demanding this.

Lord Mountbatten played two more cards to convince Nehru: firstly that the governorship would be abolished and secondly that he would help in the process of integration of Indian states into India. This second point was so impressive that Nehru sent VP Menon to Sardar Patel to convey its importance.

Nehru convinced his party leaders that Mountbatten had not been authorized by the British Cabinet to include a third option and that he would resign if he did not comply, leading to one of the most critical moments in history. We will lose our main supporter and friend. So we have to convince Dr. Khan Sahib before announcing the plan of partition of India.

Lord Mountbatten met Dr. Khan on June 5, 1947 and said that he could not help at all on the independence option as it was the Congress’s demand that India should not be partitioned like the Balkan states. The center (Pakistan) will not ignore the province which consists of 3 million people. You will not be alone. The referendum will be under the supervision of me and the army. If you want the border to join India, it can only be done through a referendum.

Dr. Khan Sahib did not reply and decided to tell his supporters that voting for his party in the referendum would mean voting for Pakhtoonistan, but this bull could not be trampled because the border Gandhi Abdul Ghaffar. Khan had boycotted the referendum. One reason for this was that he did not believe in the transparency of the referendum and secondly he feared that in this case the Pathans would riot among themselves and being a follower of Gandhi, he wanted to avoid bloodshed. Therefore, the followers of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan did not interfere in the referendum.

Lord Mountbatten changed the governor as promised and replaced him with Governor Robert Lockhart. Congress instructed its voters not to participate in the referendum. When the results of the referendum came in on July 20, according to him, 289,244 of the registered voters voted in favor of Pakistan. That is, about 99 percent of the votes polled voted in favor of joining Pakistan.

On the other hand, Khan Abdul Ghaffar said that this rate is 51.49 percent of all registered votes and if they had not boycotted, Frontier Province would have been a part of India. Governor Lockhart also wrote in the report he sent to Mountbatten before the referendum that tribal leaders are also divided over the referendum. Afridi tribes of Khyber Agency are with Muslim League while many tribes are still with Dr. Khan Sahib.

Professor Dr. Waqar Shah of the Pakistan Studies Department at the National University of Modern Languages ​​has written several books and research papers on the subject. Talking to Independent Urdu, he said that the Congress had accepted the referendum in the then Frontier Province because if they had supported Dr. Khan here, they would have had to lose West Bengal, because at that time United Bengal was. All three important leaders of Bengal including Chief Minister Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy, Bengal Congress chief Shankar Rao and Subhash Chandra Bose’s brother Sard Chandra Bose were against the partition of Bengal. Hence, Jawaharlal Nehru accepted the border referendum to take West Bengal and Calcutta even though under the Indian Act 1935, later renamed the Independence Act, when the 1946 elections were held, there were only two options viz. Pakistan or India.

On this, Congress won 31 out of 50 seats while two members of Jamiat Ulema Hind also joined the Congress. 17 seats were won by Muslim League. This means that the border decision was in favor of India, but later when the Muslim League started protests against Dr. Khan Sahib’s government and started civil disobedience movement, Lord Mountbatten came to the border and said that now The facts on the ground have changed, so the future of the border will not be decided by the provincial assembly, but by a referendum.

Bacha Khan boycotted the referendum as it was a violation of the Independence Act. He believed that the Congress would stand with him, but Nehru settled on West Bengal instead of the border. Then the Crown Britain was also against balkanization in India under the pressure of Congress, so there was a majority of Muslims in the border, geographically it was also with Pakistan, so the border was kept with Pakistan.