Prelude to War and Partition

Abstract

Abstract The 1935 Government of India Act that had emerged from London’ s three Round Table Conferences enfranchised some thirty-five million Indians, more than half of whom trekked to polling places throughout British India in February of 1937. Congress candidates won 716 seats, capturing majorities in six of British India’ s eleven provincial legislative assemblies. Nehru, whose electrifying air-borne campaign, had led the euphoric Congress party to its stunning victory, ordered all minority parties to “line up!” saying there were only two parties left in India, Congress and the British. Jinnah rejected that argument, insisting that the Muslims represented by his Muslim League, were a “third party.” Then Lord Zetland, the new Tory secretary of state for India, insisted that British provincial governors would all be “obliged,” under the new Constitution, to “safeguard the legitimate interests of the minorities.”