The freedom struggle from the British Raj commenced in 1947 by Ghandi and the independence of India was declared,  however there was a heavy price to pay. Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim League, demanded that a separate state for the Muslim minority was now necessary. In 1937 there had been an election in India. Jinnah’s Muslim League could not obtain enough majority to get into power and so he needed alternative strategy to obtain a significant political opinion on behalf of the Muslims in India. He had previously supported Hindu-Muslim unity, but after the election his thinking changed and he started to be in favour of a separate Muslim state. In March 1940, he declared to the All-Indian Muslim League:
 

“…..If the British Government are really earnest and sincere to secure peace and happiness of the people of this sub-continent, the only course open to us all is to allow the major nations separate homelands by dividing India into autonomous national states”.

This meant the division of India which deeply distressed Gandhi.
 
    The Lahore Resolution stated that if any province of India had a Muslim majority, that province would be declared Muslim land. This was the reason why Sindhis left Sind. Sind had a Muslim majority and so was taken over completely by Muslims. Gandhi’s response was:
 

    In 1942, Cripps, who was sent by Sir Winston Churchill to act as a mediator for the dispute, agreed with the statement of the Lahore Resolution and Jinnah that Muslims should have their own country which would be made up of the whole of Sind, half of Bengal and half of Punjab.
    In 1942, both Jinnah and Gandhi were locked into their respective positions. Gandhi initially desired that the British leave India before they were to go any further with the creation of Pakistan. Churchill imprisoned Gandhi and the Congress Party as a result of them opposing the Raj and desiring that India should become a free state not under British Rule. This imprisonment meant that they were unable to express themselves politically. Jinnah collaborated with the British in order to aid them to win the Second World War, after which they were promised by the British to give them a homeland of their own, Pakistan.
    After this war had ended, the Congress members were released. The expectations of the people in India towards the new socialist Labour government in Britain were high, it was believed that the new government was going to result in the ending of the Raj. However, this did not happen immediately. In Sind, as the majority of the population were Muslims, the priority was not concerned with the method of taking over Sind. Nevertheless, it was believed that it would be a complicated matter to decide what other provinces would also make up Pakistan. Jinnah made a major flaw in his plans while deciding on which provinces would be claimed as Pakistan, he decided that the provinces would be on the East and West of India which would mean that Pakistan would not be united by land. Much of the predominantly Muslim areas were swampland and therefore would not be of benefit agriculturally to the Muslims. He also resolved to go further and claim more land on the opposite side of India.

    Wavell, the Viceroy of India, made two recommendations: Muslims should be allowed to govern themselves in Muslim-majority areas and non Muslims should not be forced to live in Pakistan against their will. Jinnah was asking for a large amount of land which he expressed as nothing too big, he wanted a sea connection between Karachi and Calcutta to be under the control of Muslims. The Secretary of State, Pethick Lawrence, was not convinced that this plan was practically a good idea
for economic reasons. The two states, he thought, would be in poverty and therefore would not be able to support their people with their economy. Jinnah was afraid that after the election, he would not obtain Pakistan and so he organized Direct Action Day in  order to make his voice heard by the Government of India. Jinnah accepted a limited Pakistan,  but also said that he was prepared for war if it was necessary.  The Interim government was formed by the Congress Party, after which there was a lot of bloodshed. Some of Jinnah’s party joined the Government of India to attemp to resolve the situation, but this was unsucessful. The violence continued and Jinnah and the Congress were invited to London to negotiate a settlement, but the talks failed.

    The state of India in the early part of 1947 caused Congress to again consider Partition. India was in the midst of rioting and bloodshed. Gandhi, a man of non-violence, could see no other alternative to stop the mass killings and so it was decided that the Partition of India in 1947 was the only solution for a non-voilent India. He despised this notion, but in his opinion it was the better of the two evils. In March 1947 the Congress decided on the Partition of Punjab and Bengal. Mountbatten entered the negotiations and talked through logically Jinnah’s proposals and their consequences. Mountbatten told Gandhi about the Cabinet Mission Plan, which gave India a weak centre and a lot of smaller regions which would govern themselves and leave major decisions to the central government. Gandhi was in favour of this notion. Mountbatten and Jinnah were in talks, but
the leader of the Muslim League was obstinate and did not move from the idea of a new Pakistan. He refused the Cabinet Mission Plan outright. On April 8th, 1947 Mountbatten asked Jinnah what he would do if he were in the Viceroys place, Jinnah replied that he would give the Muslims Pakistan as soon as possible. Mountbatten used Jinnah’s argument against
him. He said if India was to divide into India and Pakistan, the same principle would apply to Bengal and Punjab. Therefore the land of Pakistan would be a lot smaller than the original plan. Mountbatten went on to explain that if we had a lot of small states, such as Bengal, Punjab and Pakistan their power in the world would not be significant enough to influence decisions on a global scale. After two hours of this meeting, Mountbatten felt Jinnah bending under the weight of his arguments and he was pleased with himself.
    Mountbatten found it easier to deal with Jinnah than the Congress Party as the Congress were divided in their views and Jinnah was a person who had only one goal. After much negotiation, Jinnah agreed to take half of Punjab and Bengal and the whole of Sind along with the North-West Frontier Province. The partition of Assam was also agreed. Mountbatten was convinced that the people would not blame the British for the division of India, and Pakistan would be safe from the Indian people rebuking the British government. Instead, the responsibility would lie on the Indian government.
   In a public announcement by Nehru in April 1947, he said that Jinnah would have Pakistan which would be made up of Sind, half of Punjab and half of Bengal. Mountbatten knew that the Cabinet Mission Plan had failed and was not worth pursuing. Jinnah told Mountbatten:

“ In fact the leaders of Congress are so dishonest, so crooked, and so obsessed with the idea of smashing the Muslim League, that there are no lengths to which they will not go to do so; and the only way of giving Pakistan a chance is to make it an independent nation of the British Commonwealth, with its own army, and the right to argue cases at any Central Council on this basis.”
 
The Mountbatten Plan was leaked to the newspapers and contained the following statements:
 
1. Both the Congress and the League consider division of India inevitable.

2. The division will involve district wise partition of the Punjab and Bengal, and the appointment of a boundary commission.

4. If the M.L.A.s decide in favour of partition then they will be asked to elect new representatives to a Constituent Assembly or Constituent Assemblies for their joint or separate areas on the basis of one representative for each million. The present Constituent Assembly for the Indian Union will remain intact. Only the members representing the partitioned areas will cease to be its members.

5. If partition is to take place, the N.W.F.P. should have fresh elections to decide whether its people would desire to remain in the Indian Union or join Pakistan or become an independent territory.

    It was realized that Jinnah wanted to claim 40% of Indian territory. This was not representative of the population of India, (i.e. there were not 40% Muslims in India, but 25%). However, it was thought that India would be stronger without the Muslims and their conflicts.

    On 10th May, Mountbatten received the approval from the home authorities. However, this plan to divide India was altered by the British Cabinet. The new plan indicated that the British Cabinet wanted to break up India into smaller provinces. Nehru’s reaction to this was not positive. He said that the plan was biased towards the Muslim League and would not be acceptable to the people of India. He went on to say that:

“It appears to me that the inevitable and obvious consequences of the proposals and the approach in them are:

(a) to invite the Balkanisation of India,
(b) to provoke certain civil conflict and to add to violence and disorder,
(c) to a further breakdown of the Central Authority which alone can prevent the chaos that is growing,
(d) to demoralize the army, the police, and the central services.”

    Mountbatten, who respected Nehru, came up with another plan which was to minimize Pakistan and a united India. Jinnah proposed a corridor running through the heart of India to link East Pakistan with West Pakistan. This demand was made on 22nd May 1947 while Mountbatten was briefing the Cabinet in London about his plan. The plan of the corridor was rejected
by Nehru, and the Congress Party thought that Jinnah was trying to use this corridor plan as a bargaining point in the attempt to obtain more land.
    When Mountbatten returned to India, he said that the matter of partition should be resolved as soon as possible in order not to make the situation more complicated than it already was. He also wanted to speed up the negotiations in order to minimize bloodshed, which took 48 hours to complete.
    After Mountbatten negotiated, he thought it would be wise to divide Punjab, as most of the Muslims were in one half of this state in any case. The Sikhs were evenly spread over the province and so the division would affect them in a major way. The British were coming to the end of their Raj. They wanted to hand over power as soon as possible. Jinnah did not approve of the plan and much to the surprise of the Viceroy he said that he wanted to discuss his situation with the Muslim population in a democratic way.
 

    The Plan was approved by all parties by midnight on 2nd June 1947.  On 3rd June 1947 Mountbatten and the parties involved began sorting out the practical issues involved in the partition of India. He was convinced that once the decision of partition had been taken, Gandhi would appeal to the nation for non-violence. However, violence was possible as a lot of Gandhi’s ideas would be rejected by the population. On the same day, Nehru, Jinnah and Baldev Singh announced the partition of India on the radio. Mountbatten announced this decision first. Jinnah did not follow the radio script in the announcement, he instead made a political announcement which encouraged people to vote for his party.
 
    The news of the partition was also announced in the House of Commons in the U.K. All this time, Gandhi was silent. He did not show approval or disapproval of the plan. So Mountbatten interpreted his silence as a sign of assent. Mountbatten made out
that he had followed Gandhi’s advice in the making of the plan. However, Gandhi did not react one way or another.
 
    Discussion took place about the Interim Government which was basically to establish who would govern India while the hand over of power from the British to the Indian and Pakistan governments was taking place. Jinnah had argued that the Congress was made up of too many Hindus and therefore would not have the best interests of Pakistan. In order to do away with confusion and misunderstanding, the Viceroy proposed that:

“My advice therefore is (a) that so far as HMG is concerned, India minus Pakistan should inherit the entity of India internationally;
(b) that Hindustan will take over all the international obligations of the present government of India; and (c) that agreement should
be reached between the governments of Hindustan and Pakistan as regards division of assets and liabilities on an equitable basis.”

    On 20th June the Bengal Legislative Assembly voted in favour of partition, on 23rd June the Punjab Legislative Assembly also voted the same way and three days later the Sind Legislative Assembly voted to be completely taken over by the new Pakistan government.

    As the time grew nearer to partition, there was an increase in misunderstanding between Gandhi and Mountbatten. Mountbatten was aiming to push the partition through as soon as possible in order that Jinnah would not find any excuse to ridicule him or his procedure and negotiations in public.

    The Indian Independence Bill on 4th July went to Parliament, the second reading was on the 10th and on 18th the Royal assent was given. The bill stated that:

“ As from the fifteenth day of August, nineteen hundred and forty-seven, two independent Dominions shall be set up in India, to be known respectively as India and Pakistan.”

     Jinnah, the grandson of a Hindu, left Delhi on 7th August for his new duties in Karachi. His dream of an Islamic state had been realized. This resulted in Gandhi feeling an enormous amount of grief and despair.