This is an excerpt from A Man for All Seasons: The Life of K.M. Panikkar, authored by Narayani Basu and published by Context, an imprint of Westland Books.
The second session of the Constituent Assembly opened on 28 April 1947 to galleries crammed with spectators. Sixteen princely states had arrived to sit in the Assembly. Collectively, they were but a fraction of their total number, but as Panikkar said, ‘the significance of the event lay in the importance of the states we represented’. Rajendra Prasad welcomed the states, pointing out the ‘tremendous task’ of nation-building in which they were all involved. B.L. Mitter, the new Dewan of Baroda, spoke next. ‘We, the states, are an integral part of India and we shall share the freedom with British India. We, therefore, want to share the responsibility of framing the Constitution.’
He emphasised significantly though that nobody had coerced the princes into joining the Assembly. ‘We are here by right of being Indians, not by sufferance.’
Panikkar wasn’t expecting to speak during this session, and so was startled when Prasad signalled to him to speak next. Arising from his seat next to Vijayalakshmi Pandit, Panikkar spoke extempore. ‘It is a dream which has come true, for at no time in India’s history has a representative gathering of people who can speak on behalf of the whole of India met and has taken counsel,’ he told the assembly. ‘Are we less patriotic in matters connected with India? We are not here as a matter of favour. We have a right to be here for the purpose of cooperating in the great task of organising India’s freedom.’
He sat down to thunderous applause. It was a speech very much in Panikkar’s forthright, elegant style. It drove home the fact that despite their initial reluctance, the princes would not allow themselves to be sidelined.
If they had known what was afoot in the viceregal mind, the princes would have been appalled. Mountbatten had drawn up a first draft of a plan to transfer power. Known to history as Plan Balkan, it proposed to divide India into around twelve autonomous provinces. Both provinces and princely states would then be made independent and given the choice to join India or Pakistan.
None of this would come to light until much later, of course, and in blissful ignorance of what was being planned, Bikaner wrote to the viceroy in April 1947, suggesting that Mountbatten meet Panikkar. ‘He is one of the most experienced ministers of the states who has been acquainted with all constitutional discussions, ever since the appointment of the Butler Committee in 1927,’ Sadul Singh wrote. ‘It is no exaggeration to say that there are not many ministers who have got such a grasp of the states’ problem or who are in possession of such complete knowledge of the states and their problems. I have complete confidence in him.’
With Campbell-Johnson endorsing this view, Mountbatten sent for Panikkar nearly a month later. On 5 May 1947, at half-past five in the evening, Panikkar was ushered into the warm viceregal study. The interview lasted for an hour. If Mountbatten’s minutes after the meeting are anything to go by, Panikkar seems to have ‘positively embraced’ the idea of Pakistan on the grounds that it would enable a strong centre to be established in Delhi, which the inclusion of Muslim majority provinces would render impossible. He was sure that Jinnah intended to set up an equally strong centre for Pakistan. If that came to pass, India and Pakistan could maintain treaty relations.
A little more problematically, Mountbatten recorded that Panikkar endorsed his (Mountbatten’s) original plan for the transfer of power, saying that it was both greatly superior and for the greater good of India in the long run. Now, since this was Plan Balkan—which would cause Nehru to implode with rage and V.P. Menon to threaten to resign in protest—it is quite the assertion to make, and one that is unlikely to be true. Not only was Mountbatten skilled at embroidering his version of the past but Panikkar had also always been a staunch nationalist.
Still, the viceroy reminded Panikkar that any plan that failed to include India within the larger British Commonwealth would be ‘no good’ for the country. ‘You can’t have your cake and eat it too,’ said Mountbatten. It was a thinly disguised hint, and Panikkar nodded. ‘You have put the case more clearly to me than you have before,’ He rose. ‘I will take the earliest opportunity to speak with Sardar Patel.’
‘Well, I hope you will not mention my views to him,’ Mountbatten said briskly. ‘I’m not prepared to discuss this matter with any member of Congress unless they raise it first.’
‘I entirely understand.’
What Panikkar would have done with the substance of this conversation, we shall never know. Because V.P. Menon, on a hot May afternoon in Simla, stepped in to draft a plan (within four hours!) for the transfer of power and Partition, which would irrevocably change the face and fate of South Asia.
On 2 June 1947, the leaders of India’s independence movement began arriving in the North Court of Viceroy House to go over a document titled ‘Immediate Transfer of Power’.
This was followed by a more theatrical event on 3 June, where the viceroy banged thirty-odd pages of foolscap on the table: a detailed plan, laying out the administrative costs of Partition. The birth of Pakistan would not only be a question of demarcated boundaries and a division of armed forces but it would also be a division of personnel, pens, pins, liabilities and assets and, in one extraordinary case, ducks. It was the first time that the enormity of Partition dawned on Indian political leaders. To the representatives of the states, the viceroy said that demission of the empire’s power would proceed along the lines of the Cabinet Mission Plan.
On the evening of 4 June, from the headquarters of All India Radio, Mountbatten spoke to the country. Indians had wanted both independence and Partition. They now had both and it was their duty to make it work.
Nehru spoke next. ‘We are little men, serving great causes. But because the cause is great, something of that greatness falls upon us also.’
It was but one of the many unforgettable moments that summer and it was followed by Mountbatten’s breezy announcement in front of a battery of national and international media and flashing cameras that transfer of power would take place on 15 August 1947.
This casual way of pronouncing history caused a sensation. Nehru was reported to have exclaimed, ‘I can’t believe it!’ when he heard it himself.
Whether he believed it or not, the deed was done. The Menon Plan delineated the path to India’s independence and the birth of Pakistan, but peace hung precariously in the balance. ‘There was such little time,’ Menon recalled, ‘and there was so much to do.’ It came down to the fact that the country’s administrative machine and law and order had to keep one country running even as it helped another to stand on its own feet, all in a matter of ten weeks.