Partition was an error, and on a smaller scale, so was the 1961 Indus Water Treaty negotiated between India and Pakistan. Nehru knew it was one-sided.
In 1947, the Partition of India was an avoidable tragedy. Although M.A. Jinnah was called the “father of Pakistan”, he was only so as a formality. The actual creators of Pakistan were senior officials in Whitehall, the seat of power in the then British Empire, who sought as truncated a country as was possible to be handed over to the Congress and other freedom fighters.
The drive for Partition gained speed in 1942, when Mahatma Gandhi called on the British to “Quit India”. At that point in time, it looked as though the Allies (Britain, the US and the Soviet Union) were losing the war, while the Axis powers (Germany, Japan and Italy) were winning. In the east, Japan had conquered territories previously held by the British, French, Dutch and Portuguese colonists. In the west, the Nazi armies were at the gates of Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad (since renamed St Petersburg for Leningrad and Volgograd for Stalingrad). It seemed as though it was only a matter of time before the Nazis occupied the whole of Europe barring friendly states such as Spain and Portugal.
The Mahatma described the Cripps Mission considering granting Dominion Status to India after the war as a “post-dated cheque on a failing bank” i.e. the Allied powers. The Mahatma had never travelled to the US and seen the immense industrial and weapons capability of that country. In actual fact, the war was lost by the Axis once Japan attacked Pearl Harbour in 1941 and Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union that same year. The manpower reserves of the Soviet Union were as impressive as the manufacturing capability of the US, and even though millions of Soviet troops were killed or captured, millions more took their place in the Great Patriotic War against Germany. The resilience and determination of the Russian people was unknown to the Mahatma, who had never been to the Soviet Union.
The capstone of the British colonial resolve to divide India was the advice of the Mahatma to the Viceroy, Lord Halifax, to “surrender your arms and allow the Germans into your (British) homes peacefully”. The Mahatma, saint that he was, tried to convince Lord Halifax that the “soul force” of the British would change Nazi behaviour and convert their warmongering and cruelty into an embrace of peace with Britain. Not surprisingly, Halifax reported the conversation to Whitehall, which became convinced that the Mahatma was anti-British, even though he was not, and that he favoured the Nazis, which he did not.
Had the Congress Party followed the example of Abraham Lincoln and refused to accept the breakup of India, eventually it would have prevailed, as the drive for Partition was spearheaded by the elite of Muslims in India and not by the rest of that community. The Hindu elite was either killed or driven out of Pakistan, while in India, the Muslim elite was allowed to stay. Had there been no Partition, more than half the Muslims of the world would have been citizens of India, an immense geopolitical factor. Of course, Hindus would still remain the majority, as they did even during the Mughal and British conquests. Kashmir is a state in India despite being Muslim-majority because Muslims are equal citizens of India, which rejects the Two-Nation Theory. Muslims in India have excelled in many fields and have brought credit to the country, which is why India is so far ahead of Pakistan, a country built on the falsehood of the Two-Nation Theory. We are a single nation, no matter what our faith is—Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist or Jain.
Partition was an error, and on a smaller scale, so was the 1961 Indus Waters Treaty negotiated between India and Pakistan. Prime Minister Nehru knew it was one-sided, with 80% of the Indus waters going to Pakistan, but conceded so as to (in his words) “buy peace with Pakistan”. As it turned out, India got neither peace nor water that it merited.
What was left of undivided India saw an influx of Sikhs and Hindus driven out of Pakistan or facing death at the hands of mobs. An influx of Muslims from India also reached Pakistan, but in much lesser numbers, given the protection of the saintly Mahatma. After such a history, it was surprising that Nehru believed he could “buy peace” with a neighbour born out of colonial trickery and communal hatred.
It is time to revise the Indus Waters Treaty and divide the waters on the basis of population. What comes to India ought to be its share of the total population of India and Pakistan, not less. Equity mandates such a division rather than the topsy-turvy split envisioned in the Indus Waters Treaty.
The recent statements by senior ministers in Pakistan that “the tap (of Indus waters) is in the hands of the Prime Minister of a neighbouring country” and threatening to “cut off that hand” are indicative of the continuing hatred for India despite a slew of unilateral concessions.
Allowing Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to remain in the hands of Pakistan under Nehru, giving up the Haji Pir Pass under Shastri, giving up the gains of the 1971 war after the liberation of Bangladesh, and giving Pakistan Army Chief Pervez Musharraf an audience at Agra despite his illegal overthrow of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif are a few of the many examples of generosity by India going unreciprocated by Pakistan.
Warning India that “there will be war” if the Indus Waters Treaty is altered in a fair manner is an empty threat. The Pakistan Army is in no condition to fight India, given the insurgencies raging in Balochistan and Pashtunistan (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) and the hostility of Afghanistan.
The Indus Waters Treaty should be renegotiated, as is permitted by the treaty itself. The pause ordered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also permitted under the 1961 treaty. India has done nothing wrong. On the contrary, the country has supported the principle of giving people precedence over vain hopes for “buying peace” with a country whose ministers call for the chopping off of the hands of select Indian leaders.
As for China, India should stick to the Population Principle in future discussions on the division of the waters of the Brahmaputra (Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibetan) between India and China.
Since it was signed, the Indus Waters Treaty has shown the futility of unilateral concessions. It needs to be renegotiated on the Population Principle. In case Pakistan does not agree, waters from the Indus should be programmed to flow on the basis of relative population rather than illusions of generating goodwill through concessions.
People count, and the people of India count when any treaty is negotiated and concluded. So must the Indus Waters Treaty.
