India's Partition: The Forgotten Story (2017) - full transcript

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I'm Gurinder Chadha.

I'm a British film director.

And in my films like Bend It Like
Beckham, and Bhaji on the Beach,

I've explored and celebrated what
it's like to be Asian

growing up in this country.

Now I'm delving into my own
family story.

Growing up in an Indian
or Pakistani family,

there's one piece of history that we
all know about.

It's an event that's had a huge
impact on all our lives.

The partition of India.

In 1947, the British divided
India in two...



..creating a newly independent
India, and a new country, Pakistan.

People of different faiths turned
on each other.

17 million people became
refugees overnight.

And over a million lost their lives.

It was a seismic event that tore
apart millions of lives

including my own family's.

But why did this happen?

Like so much of history, the answer
depends on who gets to tell it.

When I was growing up,
I was taught at school

that the partition of India
happened because

we as Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs,
couldn't get along.

In fact, we hated each other.

So the British had no choice
but to divide the country

and it was our fault.



But my mum says the opposite.

She says that everybody got along
before partition.

So there's a major
discrepancy here.

In this film, I want to explore what
really happened 70 years ago.

Was partition inevitable?

Was it really about
religious intolerance?

Or were there other reasons why
India was divided, 70 years ago?

You'll have tea, coffee?

Oh, that looks nice.

It's dhokra, but made small.

I'm starting my journey
close to home,

by visiting my mum and my aunties
in west London.

They were young girls in 1947

and rarely talk about how they
survived partition.

As Sikhs they found themselves
living in the new state of Pakistan

which was created as a homeland
for India's Muslims.

They were forced to flee to India
when partition was announced.

What do you remember in 1947,
what happened?

So there was your mother,
there was you two

and another little sister,
baby sister?

My family had lived in Jhelum and
Rawalpindi for generations.

When India was divided in two,

they ended up on the wrong side
of the border

and were no longer welcome.

That's why, along with millions of
others, they were forced to flee.

I always thought that before these
troubles and before partition,

everybody used to get on?

What was it like before partition,
with Hindus and Muslims and Sikhs?

So how did that feel, living there,
when you were all together?

It's clear that the events of 1947
in India has affected my family

until today, and I think it's fair
to say that all of us

who have been affected by partition
still live under that shadow.

I'd like to find out what happened
to the world

that my mum talked about, where
everybody lived side by side

as brother and sister.

I'd like to find out where the seeds
of partition started.

If everyone got along
as my mum says,

why did anyone think Muslims needed
a separate homeland?

I want to find out where, and why,
the idea of Pakistan

was first dreamed up.

I've arranged to meet Oxford
historian Yasmin Khan,

who's studied the roots
of partition.

Hello, Yasmin.

Hello. Nice to see you.

So I thought that I was going to get
on a plane to hot, sunny India.

But I'm here in suburban Cambridge.

And this is the house where the word
Pakistan was coined

and where it was first written down
in 1933 by a student in Cambridge.

So it kind of all originates
from here.

So this is the very place... This is
the birthplace of Pakistan.

So it's not exactly what
you associate with Pakistan.

What's this? Chaudhry Rehmat Ali.

He was a Cambridge student.

Yeah. He wasn't exactly
a young thing,

he was already in his late 30s,

he'd already done one law degree
and was doing another law degree.

And he was living here.
He got increasingly interested

in the rights of Muslims.

He wrote this, 'Now or Never - are
we to live or perish forever?'

Very sort of rousing
polemical tract.

And he was committed to the idea of
Muslims living separately to Indians

and the idea that India couldn't be
a plural, sort of, mixed place.

And where did the word Pakistan,

did he just come up with that
in his head?

Well, some people say he thought of
it on the top of a London bus!

But actually the first time it was
written down was in this house.

The thing that made it distinctive
is because each letter stands

for a different part of Pakistan.

Ah, OK. So P is Punjab.

A is Afghanistan.

But he meant it to mean
the North-West Frontier.

K is Kashmir.

S Sind.

And then the 'stan' bit
is Baluchistan.

And then Pakistan itself means
land of the pure.

Right. So it had this resonance.

So here he is, writing
his pamphlets,

coming up with these ideas.

Was there anyone in India
listening to him?

Not really. In India,

nobody was really thinking
about a separate homeland

for Indian Muslims, at that point.

And so his ideas were
pretty marginal.

Leafy suburban Cambridge is the last
place where I would have expected

Pakistan to be born.

But what is interesting
about what Yasmin says

is that nobody was interested
in a separate homeland

for Muslims at this point.

So what happened, what changed?

How in less than 15 years did the
whimsical dream

of a Cambridge student become
a nation of 31 million people?

To find out, I need to go to India's
capital where the idea of partition

first took hold.

It's road rage, road rage!

In the 1930s, Delhi was the beating
heart of the largest empire

in the history of the world.

The British had ruled India
for almost 200 years.

A few thousand white Christians
governing over 400 million Indians

of all creeds and religions.

English. Hindi.

This is old Delhi and here you have
Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs,

all working together,

living on top of each other still
just like my aunts and my mum were

talking about. You've got Sikh
temples and Hindu temples, mosques,

that have been here for centuries.

So here you have a thriving
kind of bustling,

very mixed community still.

Back in the '30s, the majority
of Indians were Hindus.

But a quarter of the population
was Muslim.

And there was also a significant
Sikh minority.

But for the most part,
the different religions

did live together in peace.

So how did the divide
between them begin?

Indian MP and historian Shashi
Tharoor has recently written a book

about the British rule of India.

If the communities in India
are living side-by-side,

what made things change?

Well, I think principally it was
a very deliberate and conscious

British decision to separate.

Because in Indian unity would lie
the biggest threat

to the British Empire.

So are you saying the British
started instigating a new form

of rule and approach to India?

What was that called?
It was called divide and rule.

It was called divide and rule
by the British themselves.

Systematic efforts were made

to foment a separate Muslim
consciousness,

whether it was in creating
Muslim institutions,

including educational institutions,

in specifically favouring people
on the basis of community.

To the extent that when Indians
were allowed to vote,

the British created separate
electorates in which Muslims

could only vote for Muslim
candidates to represent them.

Something they would have never
countenanced back home in England.

One can't imagine the Jews of
Golders Green having a separate list

to vote only for
Jewish representatives.

But the British did that in India
very deliberately

as part of divide and rule.

And so it went all the way right
through the '30s and '40s.

Was anybody calling for
a separate state of Pakistan?

Oh, only a few cranks, really.

And in fact the vast majority
of Indian Muslims

did not subscribe to this.

It was still very much
a minority view.

So, according to Shashi, the British
policy of divide and rule

was a deliberate attempt to weaken
the Indian people

and stop them from challenging
British rule.

They encouraged Hindus, Muslims and
Sikhs to view themselves

as different from each other.

And in some parts of India, Muslims
were increasingly seen

as inferior by some Hindus.

But nobody was yet calling
for Pakistan.

Instead, since the 1920s, most
Indians had been fighting

for one thing - an independent
India, free from British rule.

The problem was that few could agree
on what shape it would take.

Three men drove the fight
for independence.

Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru

led India's largest
political party, Congress.

This was an alliance of Hindus,
Muslims and Sikhs

who campaigned
for an independent India

where all religions would live
side by side.

Mohammed Ali Jinnah
led the Muslim League

which was concerned with protecting
Muslim minority rights.

To find out more about
these three men,

I've come to see writer William
Dalrymple, who lives in Delhi.

So, William, it's lovely to see you
here in India,

in your natural habitat.

Can you tell me something
about the leading characters,

the players of the time?

When historians talk about the great
events of history,

they often draw on great historical
forces, changes in economies,

changes in climate.

But with partition, a lot of it is
simply due to the personalities

of the three principal players

and the way that two of them
get on very well,

Nehru and Gandhi, despite being
very different men.

And the fact that neither of them
like, personally, Jinnah.

And yet they should've got on.

They were all Anglicised lawyers,

all went to London and studied
in London, studied at the bar.

All of them returned to India
wanting to free India.

And as a personality?

If you had a dinner party today,

Nehru was the one of the three you
would have wanted as the guest.

Enormously handsome,
enormously charming.

Writes beautifully, is in many
ways a wunderkind.

Jinnah, he was a staunch secularist,
he was a rationalist,

quite a dry character
with a brilliant academic mind.

Gandhi sheds his suits and becomes,
wears homespun, becomes the Mahatma.

And brings his ideas of spiritual
regeneration into politics.

And Jinnah thought this was hogwash.

He thought that Gandhi was bringing
religion, Hinduism, into politics,

by having prayers at prayer meetings
and in political rallies.

He eventually, reluctantly,
takes the view that Muslims

have to look after themselves. And
that's a long and important journey.

And one that leads him to personally
falling out with Gandhi and Nehru.

William told me that in the 1930s
Nehru and Gandhi began to scorn

Jinnah and relations between
the three men deteriorated.

They reached a new low in 1937 after
elections for provincial government

were held across India.

Congress sweeps the board, the
Muslim League does very badly.

But Jinnah believes that it has been
established between him and Congress

that they would be sharing power.

Whatever the results, there would be
some Muslim League representation

and he is not given it. Buoyed up
with the confidence

of their victory, Congress sweeps
him aside as a minor irrelevance.

Jinnah feels he has been
double-crossed

and it's at this point
that the bitterness

between the principal players
becomes, in a way, irreconcilable.

According to William,

Jinnah saw his treatment by Congress
as a warning that in future

Muslim religion and culture
would be ignored.

And the growing suspicion between
these three politicians

would now unwittingly propel them
along the path to partition.

But Jinnah wasn't yet calling
for a separate Muslim homeland.

All that was about to change.

With the outbreak of the
Second World War in 1939,

India was dragged into the conflict.

Britain needed soldiers, so she
turned to the colonies

to provide them.

Congress refused to support
the imperialist rulers' war

and resigned in protest.

Its leaders were then thrown
in jail.

For Congress, this was
a fatal mistake.

Locked away, they created
a power vacuum.

Jinnah filled it by declaring his
support for the British war effort.

Then in March 1940, in Lahore,

Jinnah made a speech
that would change history.

So at this point, I really wanted
to go to Pakistan to learn more

about Jinnah and his speech
in Lahore.

But I've been denied a visa.

This is probably because of the
tension between India and Pakistan

right now, and it's a real tragedy
for me because my ancestral homeland

is there in Pakistan. And since
I can't go to Pakistan,

I've come back to my adopted
homeland of Southall.

I've asked Yasmin Khan
to meet me again

to explain the significance of
what happened in Lahore.

So, Yasmin, tell me about Jinnah's
speech in 1940 in Lahore?

So Jinnah, in 1940, gives a speech
which really revolutionises

the Muslim League, it really changes
everything for him.

What's important about it is that he
talks about a Muslim homeland

or Muslim states for the first time.
I've got a bit here.

He says Muslims are a nation

according to any definition
of a nation.

And they must have their homelands,
their territory, and their state.

So he's starting to really
articulate something different

and new, which is grabbing
the attention of people

who, in the past, hadn't supported
the Muslim League.

So that was a turning point.

It's a huge turning point,
it's a pivotal moment, really.

Because people suddenly think
the Muslim League

isn't just campaigning
for Muslim rights in India,

they may also be campaigning
for a separate state or states.

So suddenly this idea
of a separate country...

Yeah. It's quite radical, right?

It is radical.

Why do you think he chose
this particular moment

to make this speech?

It's March 1940, so the Second World
War is just a few months old.

It's thrown Congress into disarray,

so Jinnah uses that to seize
the moment.

As these calls for separatism
started to gain popularity

with ordinary people,

what were the other signs of
divisions that you saw happening?

Yeah, there are little things
that start to creep in.

People being very wary
about their neighbours perhaps,

starting to have economic ideas
of nationalism.

So they would just buy from a Hindu
or buy from a Muslim shopkeeper

rather than going to the market
before and buying from everybody.

There's more and more, kind of,
unpleasant, kind of,

characterisation
of the other happening

in newspapers and popular pamphlets.

Using inflammatory language and who
were trying to, on all sides,

trying to, sort of, rally
their supporters.

So what's interesting
about what Yasmin says

is that the genie was finally
out of the bottle.

Here was a politician standing up

and saying India needed
to be divided,

Muslims wanted their own separate
homeland called Pakistan.

But partition was still not
inevitable at this point.

Most Muslims didn't want a separate
homeland, so what changed?

To find out how partition came
a step closer,

I need to travel back to India

and head to the foothills
of the Himalayas.

In June 1945, the war was over.

During the past five years,
most Indian people

had supported
the British war effort,

providing thousands of troops
and nurses.

In return, the British had promised
them self-rule

at the end of the war.

Now they had to deliver.

They announced a conference to be
held in the summer retreat

of the Raj.

Simla.

This was where the British rulers
of India moved every summer

to avoid the heat of Delhi.

This is my mum's favourite.

It was a little England
in the Indian hills.

The aim of the conference

was to decide the political future
of India.

With the Congress leaders
released from jail,

India's politicians came here
to meet with Viceroy Wavell,

the British government's
representative in India.

If successful, the conference
would pave the way

for a united, independent India.

But could all sides ever see
eye to eye?

NEWSREEL: Clouds gather over Simla
for the opening

of Lord Wavell's conference
with the Indian leaders...

To find out what happened,

I'm meeting local historian
Raaja Bhasin,

who's written about
the conference.

How did Jinnah react
to this conference?

Wavell found Jinnah argumentative.

He simply wouldn't budge from
whatever stand he had taken,

on anything.

He remained aloof, distant.

He is the man who is standing away

with his back towards
everyone else.

He remained adamant that the Muslim
League will represent all Muslims

in the Indian subcontinent,

and no-one else has the right
to do so.

Not the other Muslim parties,
not the Congress.

So Jinnah took quite an audacious
position, some might say,

by not willing to negotiate with
anybody, not Wavell, not Congress.

Do you think he was trying to derail
the conference?

Yes. Even Wavell went on record
to say that it had failed.

That the Simla conference
had failed.

But from Jinnah's point of view,
it was a great success.

For one, he emerged
as the undisputed leader

of the Muslim community,

he came away from the conference
having got what he wanted.

Raaja explained that the conference
catapulted Jinnah

to political stardom.

It showed India's Muslims that
Jinnah was the man to stand up

for their rights against the
Hindu majority.

He convinced them that
Pakistan was better

than being second-class citizens
in a Hindu dominated India.

So after talking to Raaja,

it's clear that here in Simla,
in June 1945,

Jinnah knew exactly what he wanted
to come out of this conference,

and he was going for it.

He was intransigent and very firm
in fighting for what he wanted.

Jinnah was the star now,
Jinnah had the power

and it seems partition was getting
closer and closer.

NEWSREEL: Labour will now have
a majority over all parties

in a house of 640...

Just one month later, in July 1945,

Clement Attlee's new
Labour government

meant a new future for India.

Attlee's priority was to get Britain
out as quickly as possible.

After six years of war,
Britain was bankrupt

and India was a massive drain
on British resources.

So the British announced elections
for an Indian national government,

to help them run the country in the
lead up to independence.

But these elections would divide
the Indian people even further

along religious lines.

While Congress campaigned
for a united India,

the Muslim League declared
that a vote for them

was a vote for Pakistan.

But Hindu hardliners dismissed
Pakistan as an absurd concept.

These were the elections that really
brought religion into politics.

By taking up the slogan of a vote
for Pakistan is a vote for Islam,

Jinnah changed everything.

Once he started that kind
of sloganeering,

other communities started
questioning themselves.

You had the Sikhs calling for their
own separate homeland.

This was not what Congress
had been fighting for.

Religious identity was being used
by all parties

to turn the Indian people
against each other.

I want to know how the British
rulers of India

now proposed to deal
with the rising tension

between the different communities.

And to find that out,
I need to go back to Delhi.

By early 1946, anti-British feeling
was on the rise.

Attlee was under pressure to come up
with an exit strategy.

So in March, the British formulated
a plan for Indian independence

that they felt might be acceptable
to both sides.

The Cabinet mission plan proposed
the united India

demanded by Congress.

As a concession to the Muslim
League, it also proposed

giving them almost complete power
over the areas they governed.

They would run everything apart
from defence and foreign affairs

which would be controlled centrally.

Although the plan didn't give Jinnah
his Pakistan, he accepted it.

I've come back to see
William Dalrymple,

to find out why Jinnah said yes.

Everyone expects Jinnah
to reject it.

Because he has been very strong on
the idea of Pakistan

as an entirely separate country.

But the offer put on the table
by the Cabinet mission

is so strong, with such powers given
to the regions,

that Jinnah, to everyone's
amazement, actually accepts it.

And then, to everyone's
equal surprise,

it's Congress that rejects it.

And the person who's militating most
strongly against it, is Nehru.

So why did Nehru in particular
and Congress reject this plan?

Congress rejected the Cabinet
mission plan

for exactly the same reason
that Jinnah accepted it.

Because there was very strong powers
given to the regions.

And to the different states.

And for Nehru, this meant there
would be a Balkanised India,

one strung out, weak,
without any central authority.

And at this point, Nehru is looking
admiringly at Soviet Russia.

He likes central planning
and he wants a country

which can hold together.

And he rejects the Cabinet mission
plan and at that point,

for the first time, partition
seems inevitable.

Pakistan, an idea which had only
been dreamt up 13 years earlier,

was now closer than ever.

India's politicians
were in deadlock.

And violence between Hindus, Sikhs
and Muslims

was breaking out in many places.

To understand why this
was happening,

I have to travel to India's old
colonial capital...

..Kolkata.

Look at this monument here.

Looks like I could be in the City
right now, in London.

But, of course, I'm not.

I'm here in Kolkata,
a city I've never visited.

This was the home of the British
for over 200 years.

We're here because in 1946,
this is where

the independence struggle,
for a free India,

which up till now had been
incredibly peaceful,

led by Gandhi as a
nonviolent movement,

it was here that things suddenly
changed and became the opposite.

This is the Maidan, a huge park
in the centre of Kolkata.

Following Nehru's rejection
of the Cabinet mission,

Jinnah called for a direct
action day,

a Muslim general strike
across India,

that was to be held on the
16th of August 1946.

In Kolkata, thousands of Muslims
gathered here to demand Pakistan.

The city was divided almost equally
between Hindus and Muslims

and religious tensions had been
growing for months.

When the meeting ended, some Muslims
attacked Hindu areas of the city.

Hindus retaliated, and the
violence quickly escalated.

Ashok Choudhury and Abid Mollah were
children when the riots broke out.

They watched as the
violence unfolded.

Abid is Muslim, Ashok is Hindu.

In August 1946...

The main feeling was that of panic.

Everybody was panicking.

Nobody moved alone.

Everybody tried to move
with a companion.

Some four or five together.

And with some sort of material
for his defence.

Maybe a knife, maybe bricks.

Something for his defence.

The killing continued for
three days.

At least 5,000 people were killed.

Historian Suranjan Das is the
world's leading authority

on the Kolkata riots.

I want to know why the violence
was so extreme.

The fight for Pakistan was actually
projected as a holy war.

There were new newspapers coming in
from the Muslim side.

There were pamphlets coming in from
the Muslim side.

There were
large-scale demonstrations

that were organised in support
of Pakistan.

How did the Hindu leaders react to
the Muslim League's call

for a day of action? The Hindus
were not less prepared.

The Hindus had realised that there
would be troubles.

Just as the Muslim League were
organising themselves,

they had also organised themselves.

Suranjan explained how the violence
was allowed to go on unchecked.

The British governor of Kolkata
refused to bring up the troops,

until it was too late.

If the British Governor had
intervened at the right time,

in the right way, I feel the
violence would not have taken

the proportion that it did.

I wonder why the British governor
was not that forthcoming

in introducing troops.

It was evident that they would have
to leave India.

When and how, it was only a matter
of time.

So that acted as a factor
in psychology.

So they didn't want to get involved?

They didn't want to get involved.

As a result there was the worst
communal hysteria.

It showed that partition
was on the way out.

So, as I leave Kolkata, I really
believe that these sad events

of August 1946 were a real victory
for divide and rule.

Hatred and violence entered the
political arena here in India,

in a big way.

A precedent had been set.

And where were the British
during all this?

They were still the rulers
of this country.

They could have stopped the
rioting like that...

SHE CLICKS HER FINGERS
But they chose not to.

And was it because they couldn't
be bothered?

Was it because they didn't care
about Hindus and Muslims

killing each other?

Or was there something else going on
behind-the-scenes?

Back in London, Attlee was appalled
by the violence in Kolkata.

He summoned the Indian politicians
to yet another conference.

This time, in Downing Street,

to knock heads together
and find a solution.

Predictably, they couldn't come to
an agreement.

Nehru flew straight home,

but Jinnah didn't.

Jinnah stayed behind for two weeks
in London,

meeting various dignitaries,

and members of the British
establishment.

One of which was Winston Churchill.

And you don't get more
establishment than him.

So why did Jinnah stay behind
to meet Churchill,

now leader of the opposition?

Thank you.

What was going on here?

Historian Alex von Tunzelmann has
written about Jinnah's relationship

with Churchill.

Why was Churchill
cosying up to Jinnah?

Well, Churchill had had an interest
in the idea of Pakistan

for quite a long time.

He'd always had quite a negative
attitude towards India.

He famously had said, "I hate
Indians, they are a beastly people,

"with a beastly religion."

Really though, he was talking
about Hindus.

Certainly, people of
Churchill's generation,

there's a perception that Muslims
are much more like us.

Like British people.

They have one God.

They were seen as much more natural
allies of the West,

whereas Hindus,
a lot of British people

found very hard to understand.

Lots of gods, a confusing religion,
a very different feel and culture.

So a lot of people of Churchill's
generation discovered

that they felt closer
to Muslims than Hindus.

So tell me what happened in 1946,
when the leaders came to England?

Churchill invited Jinnah to
Chartwell, his country house,

on the 7th of December.

We don't have a record of what
happened during that lunch,

but we know that it went very well,

because afterwards there was this
extraordinary letter that Churchill

wrote to Jinnah.

I've got a copy of the letter here.

It says, "My dear Mister Jinnah,

"I should greatly like to accept
your kind invitation

"to luncheon on December 12th.

"I feel, however, that it would
perhaps be wiser

"for us not to be associated
publicly at this juncture.

"I greatly valued our talk
the other day,

"and I now enclose the address
to which any telegrams

"you may wish to send me,
can be sent

"without attracting
attention in India."

So this is a fascinating letter,
which implies the two men

probably had a secret
correspondence afterwards.

It's clearly very warm.

Clearly they got on well,

but Churchill realised that it would
be bad to be seen publicly with

Jinnah. So there was this idea of
having a secret correspondence.

Was it only Churchill
that he was seeing?

What was the feeling of the British
establishment at that time?

Actually, it wasn't just Churchill.

We know that he also met the King
and Queen at that time.

He went to Buckingham Palace
and met them.

Jinnah was very impressed
when he met the King and Queen,

because he found, in his words,
that they were 100% Pakistan.

They fully supported his idea.

Already, I've had the opportunity
of meeting some friends,

and I might yet find more friends.

No one knows whether the King and
Queen really supported Pakistan,

as Jinnah claimed.

But as Alex explained,

there were some people
in the British establishment,

like Churchill, who did support
the creation of Pakistan.

Why was that?

I recently made a feature film,
Viceroy's House,

which relives what happened in the
dramatic weeks

immediately before partition.

It looks at what the British
were thinking

as they prepared to leave India.

While I was writing the film,

I came across documents which
I believe helped to explain

why some in the British
establishment supported partition.

In the archives
of the British library,

is a document marked 'Most Secret'.

It was written by the military
chiefs of staff for Churchill

when he was still prime minister.

Yasmin Khan has studied it.

So, what do we have here?

This document was produced just
before the very end of the war,

in May 1945.

What it shows us is just how nervous
and worried the military,

the British military, were about
the prospect of Indian independence.

India had always been a linchpin.

It was the pivotal place between the
Middle East and Southeast Asia.

And they are very worried about
the, sort of,

future security of South Asia
if Britain aren't there.

In particular, the idea that Russia
will push down

and bring Communist influence
from the north.

So, you're talking about
the Cold War?

We're talking about the Cold
War, definitely.

This is all about the threat
of Soviet influence in Asia.

And of the Russian threat
to India, in particular.

So, they're really concerned
to be able to keep that presence,

or to keep that influence,
that military influence.

There's a very interesting
sentence here, it says,

"It is of paramount importance
that India

"should not secede from the Empire
or remain neutral in war."

Which is, you know, really saying,

that they want to be able to dictate
Indian foreign policy in the future.

So what are the conclusions?

What they know they want is a
strategic reserve in India,

that's centrally placed, with
airfields that they can control

and with a reserve
which could operate in war,

and be used outside of India
in the region.

The problem they have
is they know full well

the Congress party and the
Indian nationalists

are unlikely to allow that
to happen.

So one of the solutions they suggest
is that Baluchistan,

which is now part of Pakistan,
could be, perhaps,

not included in the Dominion.

And therefore, used as a place
to station reserves.

So it's basically saying, if we
carve off a little bit of India,

a place that exists at the moment
as India, but if we carve it off,

we can make that a military base.

Yeah. So were there, then, people
in the British camp,

who saw a particular role for
Pakistan based on this document?

There would have been people
who would have seen it

as potentially a way of maintaining
British influence in the region

in a way that they couldn't
with a united India.

This wasn't the official
government line.

Attlee always stated that he wanted
to leave behind a united India.

But, as Yasmin says, there were some
people in the British establishment

who favoured strategic
considerations over Indian unity.

So, clearly, there was a much bigger
global agenda here,

and I believe that Nehru and Gandhi
never realised

how significant India was in this
new, post-war map of the world.

On the other hand, I think Jinnah,
with his friends in England, did.

And I believe he knew that if he
could give them politically,

and strategically, what they wanted,
he would get his Pakistan.

With Nehru and Jinnah in deadlock,

the British government finally took
decisive action.

On 20th February 1947,

Attlee told parliament that Britain
would leave India

no later than June 1948,

with or without any agreement
between Nehru and Jinnah.

When Clement Attlee made his
announcement here 70 years ago,

the news was received with
great relief in India.

The British Raj would
finally be over.

But what was that independent
India going to look like?

With so many agendas at play,
who was going to win out?

Back in Delhi, the endgame of
independence was about to begin.

To carry out the final negotiations,

Attlee sent a big hitter
to be the new viceroy.

NEWSREEL: At Delhi, Lord Louis
Mountbatten arrives

to take up his appointment
as India's viceroy

and governor general.

At a crucial moment in India's
history, the 47-year-old grandson

of Queen Victoria becomes the 29th,
and last, Viceroy.

In March 1947, Mountbatten arrived
here in viceroy's house.

This magnificent palace had been
built and completed

only a decade earlier, to house
the British rulers of India.

And here, in these corridors
of power,

Mountbatten oversaw the negotiations
for the final end of British rule.

Mountbatten was chosen because,
as a decorated war hero,

and relation of the King,

it was hoped the Indian leaders
would see him as an honest broker.

Officially, at least, a united India
was still on the cards

and Mountbatten was seen as the
man who could deliver it.

But was it really still
a possibility?

As I was growing up, I had always
been told that Mountbatten arrived

in India hoping to give India back,
as a unified country.

I find that, honestly,
somewhat implausible.

By the time Mountbatten arrived
in March '47,

you had seen not only Wavell's
failure, the previous viceroy,

but you'd seen the violence
having begun.

Particularly with Direct Action Day
in August 1946, in Kolkata.

So I think he came as a credible
face of, sort of,

well-meaning British attempts to
find a solution acceptable to all.

But, very clearly, the British
establishment behind him had,

in my view, decided that partition
was the only way out.

The first few weeks of negotiating
convinced Mountbatten,

I think, there was no way forward.

With all sides at loggerheads,
Mountbatten quickly realised

that partition was the only
workable solution.

Nehru reluctantly accepted

that if he wanted to keep control
over most of India,

then he would have to give
Jinnah Pakistan.

All parties now agreed to India
being split in two.

With violence spreading across
northern India,

Mountbatten now made
a dramatic announcement.

Partition would not take place
in June 1948 as planned

but ten months earlier,
in August 1947,

now just weeks away.

Why do you think he brought
the date forward?

I think there was a perception

that matters were spiralling out
of control.

The British felt that they didn't
want to be holding the reins

while this happened.
They didn't want to be blamed.

Therefore, they thought,
if they made their exit

sooner rather than later, the
Indians could kill themselves,

and it wouldn't be
the British's problem.

That seems a cynical way of putting
it, but I think, almost certainly,

that seems to have been
their thinking.

You think they were rats
leaving a sinking ship?

I am afraid so, yeah.
The British scuttled.

They actually sank the ship first.

And then they swam away from it.

The agreed plan gave Pakistan
the Muslim majority provinces

in the North.

Jinnah had also wanted the wealthy
provinces of Bengal and the Punjab.

But as these were religiously mixed,

the British decided to divide them
between India and Pakistan,

tearing them in two.

They would keep the precise details
of the new borders secret

until after independence, so as not
to overshadow the celebrations.

Nobody was happy with the
Mountbatten plan.

The Muslims ended up with a Pakistan
which they called "moth-eaten."

The Hindus ended up
with a divided India.

And the Sikhs lost huge tracts
of their religious and holy lands.

Everybody was unhappy,
except the British,

who couldn't wait to get out
fast enough.

Just two months later
on the 15th of August 1947,

the newly created countries
of Pakistan and India

were declared independent.

Nehru was sworn in as the first
Prime Minister of India.

Jinnah, as the first
Governor General of Pakistan.

But as millions celebrated,

parts of India and Pakistan were
about to explode in more violence.

The day after independence,

the precise details of the line

dividing the Punjab and Bengal
was announced.

Millions of people found themselves
on the wrong side of the border.

On the Indian side, gangs of
Sikhs and Hindus attacked Muslims.

On the Pakistan side, gangs of
Muslims attacked Hindus and Sikhs.

This was largely the work
of organised militia,

grabbing land and property.

As children, Tilak Raj Aneja and
Kuldeep Kaur witnessed attacks

on the villages where they lived.

Spears...

Wow.

Oh, my goodness.

Oh, my...

For every Sikh and Hindu woman
who was killed,

a Muslim woman was killed too.

The violence was on all sides.

Both Nehru and Jinnah expressed
their dismay at the violence.

But neither they, nor the British,

had planned for the scale
of the upheaval.

An estimated 17 million people
fled their homes.

And at least a million men, women
and children lost their lives.

It's just awful, and harrowing,
and it's hard,

because I imagine my own family
being caught up in all that

tragedy too, and my aunt who starved
to death at that time, you know,

would have been, you know,
my aunt living today.

But the other thing that I just
find very hard to deal with,

is just how explosive it was
on all sides.

As many Hindus, Muslims,
Sikhs died, you know,

everybody was a victim.

During the Cold War, Pakistan became
a loyal ally to the west,

just as Churchill had wanted.

But Pakistan's relations with India

have been beset by distrust
and conflict.

There have been three wars between
the two countries since 1947.

And today, they both have nuclear
weapons aimed at each other.

Yet, there was nothing inevitable
about partition.

It was politicians,
not ordinary Indians,

who were the driving force
behind it.

First the British,
with divide and rule,

and then some of India's leaders
encouraged religious difference

as a weapon to win power.

as India and Pakistan celebrate
their anniversaries,

I believe it's time to forge
a new relationship.

Both nations have committed
citizens, who love their countries,

along with thriving communities
all over the world.

And this is the community
that I'm now a big part of.

British Asians.

It's nice to see you!

It's been so long!

After 200 years of British rule,

all our history and cultures
are intertwined.

I grew up here in Southall with
Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs,

sharing and appreciating
each other's cultures.

We long left the divisions brought
about by partition behind us.

And what that tells me is that
although religion and culture

are important in defining
who we are,

that doesn't mean they need
to divide us.

Rather, I believe they
should enrich us,

and that's something worth
celebrating today,

and for future generations.