The Mahatma and the Muslims. Gandhi's role in making India's partition inevitable

Abstract

In his dealing with the Muslim community, Gandhi was led by two principles. The first was the idea that the tensions between Hindus and Muslims could be solved less through an equitable sharing of political power than through the acknowledgment of the religious differences between the two communities. The second principle, which became evident in the late 1920s and the early 1930s, was the idea that the only legitimate representative of the Indian people was the Indian National Congress. Gandhi, by moving in accordance with these two principles, played a crucially important role in making impossible any political entente between the Congress and the Muslim League, based on an equitable sharing of power. It was only very late, namely after the failure of the Cabinet Mission Plan – which Gandhi actively sabotaged – that the reality of the situation dawned on him, made evident by India’s sinking into mass violence and communal massacres. At that point in time, the Mahatma desperately tried to prevent partition by sponsoring a new agreement between the Congress and the Muslim League, the so-called Gandhi Plan of April 1947. By that time, however, it was too late. While acting morally when dealing with the Indian Muslims, the Mahatma piled political mistakes upon political mistakes and powerfully contributed to one of the most terrifying man-made tragedies in the history of modern and contemporary South Asia.