EMB-101: Emergence of Bangladesh

Lecture-5

Towards Nationhood and the Trauma of Partition

Topic to be covered
• The Lahore Resolution of 1940
• Proposals of Cripps Mission
• Quit India Movement as an aftermath of Cripps Mission
• Subhas Chandra Bose and the Azad Hind Fauj
• Reasons behind the Bengal Famine of 1943
• Proposals of Wavell Plan in Simla Conference
• Results of General and Provincial Elections of 1945-46
• Proposals of Cabinet Mission Plan
• Great Calcutta Killing
• Proposal of United Bengal
• Proposals of the Partition Plan and creation of Radcliffe Line
• Refugee
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Lahore Resolution

All India Muslim League held a conference

on 22-24 March 1940 in Lahore

Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan drafted Lahore

Resolution that was presented by A. K.
Fazlul Huq

Two Nation Theory:

sovereign states for Muslims
From extreme left are Sher-e-Bengal A.K. Fazlul Huq and
Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Muslim League Council Meeting in Bombay
in the early 1940s. Photo: Dawn
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 Lahore Resolution “…with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary
that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a
majority as in the North Western and Eastern Zones of
(British) India should be grouped to constitute ‘independent
states’ in which the constituent units should be autonomous
and sovereign.”

A line from Lahore Resolution

Draft Lahore Resolution- with proposed

changes by Jinnah and Barkat Ali Working committee of the Lahore session of All India Muslim League
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 Cripps Mission & Quit India Movement

• In April 1942 Sir Stafford Cripps was sent to Delhi

• Offered independence of India; a constituent assembly

and more seats in Viceroy’s executive council

• Emphasized not to pressurize any part of the country to

join independent India

• Congress and British PM Churchill opposed the mission’s

proposal

• Failed mission led to ‘Quit India’ movement in August

1942

Sir Stafford Cripps enjoys a joke with Mr. Gandhi on his

diplomatic mission in India, surrounded by Indian journalists
and photographers

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 Quit India Movement

Police lathi-charge demonstrators during the Quit India

movement
Mahatma Gandhi giving the Quit India speech on August 8,
1942, on the eve of the Quit India movement

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 Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose & the Azad Hind Fauj

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, 1938 Netaji inspects the Rani of Jhansi regiment of the Azad Hind Fauj with
Captain Lakshmi
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 Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose & the Azad Hind Fauj
Azad Hind Fauj or Indian
National Army (INA)

• First formed in 17 February 1942; initiatives by Imperial Japanese

Army

• Subhas Chandra Bose arrived in Singapore in 1943 and revived the

Army

• Netaji allied with the Axis powers in WWII

• INA gave hope for the freedom and self-governing rights in India

Subhas Chandra Bose with Japanese Prime Minister Hideki

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Tojo at a parade for Indian national independence at 8
Singapore
 Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose & the Azad Hind Fauj

Subhas Chandra Bose reviewing

soldiers of the Indian National
Army in 1944

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 Bengal Famine of 1943
Causes of famine

• Man-made famine
• Natural disaster aggravated by administrative
failure when rice export to Bengal from Japanese
occupied Burma dried up
• Rice taken for British army
• Boats were confiscated by the British and
inland waterways trade stopped
• Market prices, widespread corruption and
shortages

Sketches of the Famine of 1943 by Zainul Abedin

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 Wavell Plan and Simla Conference
 Viceroy Lord Wavell called a conference at Simla on 25
June 1945

 Aimed to discuss the future of India with the British

administration

Lord Wavell greeting Indian leaders who have

come to attend the Simla Conference in 1945
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 Wavell Plan and Simla Conference

Proposals • Differences on the

• An all-Indian executive representation of Muslim
council to form interim community
government
• The Muslim League
• It restricted viceroy itself as only Muslim
and commander-in- representative
chief positions from
• Congress presented the
Indians
leader of their delegation
• It preserved seats for leader to prove their all
‘Caste Hindus’ and communities’
Muslims representation

Mahatma Gandhi in Shimla to attend the Simla Conference in

1945 called by the Viceroy, Lord Wavell

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 Elections of 1945-46

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 Cabinet Mission, 1946
Three-man cabinet deputation to New Delhi

Transfer of British power to a single Indian

administration

Proposed a three-tier federation for India

Local provincial governments can opt out

Primarily both ML and Congress agreed

Nehru- no Constituent Assembly could be

“bound” by any prearranged constitutional
formula
Muslim League withdrew its support British Cabinet commission members A. V. Alexander (L) Frederick
William Pethick-Lawrence (R) & Sir Stafford Cripps (2R) discussing plan
for India's Independence w. Moslem League ldr. Mohammed Ali Jinnah
(2L) during meetings at the vice-regal lodge
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 Direct Action Day and the Great Calcutta Killings

• Muslim League announced a general

strike on 16 August 1946

• Widespread communal rioting between

Muslims and Hindus

• An estimated 4,000 people lost their lives

• These events sowed the seeds for the

eventual Partition

Rioters armed with lathis on the streets

of Calcutta in 1946

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 Direct Action Day and the Great Calcutta Killings

Vultures feeding on corpses lying abandoned in

alleyway after bloody rioting between Hindus and
Muslims
Men adding wood & straw to funeral pyres in preparation for
cremation of many corpses after bloody rioting between Hindus and
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 Proposal of United Bengal
Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, the Premier of
the province of Bengal, formally launched this
idea

Sarat Chandra Bose proposed for a Sovereign

Socialist Republic of Bengal

Most provincial Congress and Hindu

Mahasabha leaders wanted Bengal partition

The Direct Action Day aggravated communal

tension

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy

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 Partition Plan & the Radcliffe Boundary Commission

• Boundary Commission created in

July 1947
• The commission was appointed by
the British Government
• Chaired by Sir Cyril Radcliffe
• To recommend how the divide
Bengal and Punjab between India
and Pakistan
• Sparked mass migrations
• When there was a country I
searched for freedom. Now I am During an historic conference in New Delhi, Lord Mountbatten and the
free, but have to search for a main Indian leaders agree upon the partition of India according to a
country British plan. At the conference, from left to right: Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru,
Lord Ismay, councilor to Lord Mountbatten and India's viceroy; and M. A.
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 Partition Plan & of Radcliffe Line

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 Refugee Crisis

Indian refugees crowd onto to trains as a result of the creation

Convoy of Sikhs migrating to East Punjab after the of two independent states, India and Pakistan. Muslims fled to
division of India Pakistan and Hindus fled to India in one of the largest transfers
of population in history.

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Suggested readings
• Metcalf, B. & Metcalf, T. R., A Concise History of Modern India (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2006), (Chapter 07, pp. 203-223).
• Sarker, Sumit, Modern India: 1885-1947 (New Delhi: Pearson, 2014),
(Chapter 7, pp. 321- 353 & Chapter 8, pp. 355-389).
• Bose, Sugata& Jalal, Ayesha, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political
Economy (New York and London: Routledge, 2004), (Chapters 16 & 17).
• Schendel, Willem Van, A History of Bangladesh (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2009), (Chapters 09 & 10).
• Butalia, Urvashi, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of
India (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1998).

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 Topic for Next Class

Colonial Attacks on Language and

Culture

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