An Autobiography (Nehru)

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Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964), Indian nationalist leader and statesman who was the first prime minister of independent India (1947-1964) and a leader of the Nonaligned Movement during the Cold War has been a talking point of many thinkers and philosophers for over 50 years. His politics and policies still are praised as well as criticized at a great and vast level. One of Indian Parliamentarian Mohit Sen comments:

“It is wrong to brand Nehru as a representative of the national bourgeoisie … One need not question the subjective sincerity of Nehru. He did want to make India a modern, socialist society”

Not surprisingly, Jawaharlal Nehru’s character and politics have attracted the attention of historians and other social scientists. Most of the works on Jawaharlal have, however, tended to be biographical in nature. The best example of this trend is Stanley Wolperts masterpiece named NEHRU and another authentic work is S. Gopal’s three-volume masterpiece. Nehru is often criticized for his political mistakes during British period, even though not many historians challenge his sincerity towards his nation but still he is often blamed by Thinkers for Formation of Pakistan. As one Historian has superbly quoted

“It is not Jinnah but Nehru who is the founder of Pakistan, because he made Jinnah find it when he had given it all up”.

This statement is truly and magnificently balanced as it openly criticizes the mistakes made by Nehru. Nehru made vital mistakes providing open ground for Pakistan as he was the one to present Nehru report which led to what Quaid quoted as PARTING OF WAYS, a total disaster for Hindu mind of Joint India with Hindu Rule. But Nehru’s main contribution to India was that he laid the foundations of Strong Hindu Democracy or even what you can call Mock-racy for Muslims. But his laid foundations are still visible as no Martial Law has taken over Indian Politics and government has always remained with people. Even though the Indian governments claimed and claims that it is the best democracy in the world but still minorities are crushed by strong and evil policies. Nehru is often criticized for laying these Evil foundations. A strong reading will surely prove his fatal mistakes but his sincerity towards his nation and religious party can never be questioned. While assertive in his Indianness, Nehru never exuded the Hindu aura and atmosphere clinging to Gandhi's personality. Because of his modern political and economic outlook, he was able to attract the younger intelligentsia of India to Gandhi's movement of nonviolent resistance against the British and later to rally them around him after independence had been gained. Nehru's Western upbringing and his visits to Europe before independence had acclimatized him to Western ways of thinking. Throughout his 17 years in office, he held up democratic socialism as the guiding star. With the help of the overwhelming majority that the Congress Party maintained in Parliament during his term of office, he advanced toward that goal. The four pillars of his domestic policies were democracy, socialism, unity, and secularism. He succeeded to a large extent in maintaining the edifice supported by these four pillars during his lifetime.

Nehru was born on Nov. 14, 1889 at Allahabad to a rich and prominent Brahmin family of Motilal Nehru, a wealthy Brahman lawyer whose family had originally come from Kashmir, and Swarup Rani Nehru. Motilal Nehru caught the eyes of people when he visited England and did not participate in the ceremonial purification bath as it was a custom at that time that a person became cast less after he visited any country other than India itself.

This was a strange point for a Hindu Brahmin and led a violent move of disgust against Nehru family. But at this harsh time their wealth came to rescue as Motilal purchased a state-of-the-art house at a new place and many people came to support his point of view. These were mainly young people and wanted to visit Europe for studies. Nehru came of a family of Kashmiri Brahmans, noted for their administrative ability and scholarship that had migrated to India early in the 18th century. Jawaharlal was the eldest of four children, two of whom were daughters. A sister, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, later became the first woman president of the U.N. General Assembly. Jawaharlal even though was the first and favourite child of family and had to wait for years before a sister was born to his parents, he remained an obedient and nice child. He was well entertained and was never a irritated person. Wealth was no problem to him, and he was a mediocre at studies. Nor he was too intelligent nor he was too weak but later he proved himself to be one of the top-ranked politicians in Indian sub-continent under British peak and later Independence. Until the age of 16, Nehru was educated at home by a series of English governesses and tutors. Only one of these, a part-Irish, part-Belgian theosophist, Ferdinand Brooks, appears to have made any impression on him. Jawaharlal also had a venerable Indian tutor who taught him Hindi and Sanskrit. These tutors laid English foundations of young Nehru’s mind; this too was the goad of his father who was also educated on the same lines in Europe. This also became the main cause for Nehru's travel to Europe. In 1905 he went to Harrow, a leading English school, where he stayed for two years, Nehru in his biography writes that he didn’t think that he was going to be selected for it but he made it. Nehru's academic career was in no way outstanding, he failed to show good results which were a clear view of his mental and physical efforts. From Harrow he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he spent three years earning an honors degree in natural science, at Trinity College he was greatly impressed by a student that he left his favourite subject Botany to change it into natural sciences. On leaving Cambridge he qualified as a barrister after two years at the Inner Temple, London, where in his own words he passed his examinations “with neither glory nor ignominy.” Nehru's educational background is nowhere a proud stat for any of his supporter as he failed to impress by his talents. He can be rated as a simple student with nothing special about which would predict a forecast of his glorious future. Nehru was not a very hard working person towards his profession and after returning to India he showed little Interest in Lawyer practice and never became a full time lawyer. Nehru returned to India in 1916 and was back with his father after partition of four years.

Back in India, Nehru began to practice law with his father. It was not until 1917 that Nehru was stirred by a political issue, the imprisonment of Annie Besant, an Irish theosophist devoted to Indian freedom. As a result, Nehru became active in the Home Rule League. His involvement in the nationalist movement gradually replaced his legal practice. In 1916 Nehru was married to Kamala Kaul, of an orthodox Kashmiri Brahmin family. They had one daughter (later Indira Gandhi, third prime minister of independent India). His father Motilal Nehru was already a prominent figure in the Indian National Congress and had served as its president. Thus when a young and glamorous Jawaharlal entered the Congress, much was expected of him. It soon became clear that the younger Nehru did not share his father's moderate-liberal line. He began to grow closer to the rising leadership of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a former barrister who had won battles for equality and political rights for Indians in South Africa, and had emerged a national hero with the successful struggles in Champaran, Bihar and Kheda in Gujarat. Nehru was instantly attracted to Gandhi's commitment to active, but peaceful, civil disobedience. Gandhi himself saw promise in the young man. The Nehru family transformed their lifestyle according to Gandhi's teachings. Jawaharlal and Motilal Nehru both abandoned western clothes and tastes for expensive possessions and pastimes, and adopted Hindustani as their common language of use. Young Jawaharlal now wore a khadi kurta and a Gandhi cap, all in white - the new uniform of the Indian nationalist. A second issue which fired Nehru's nationalism and led him to join Gandhi was the Amritsar massacre of 1919, in which some 400 Indians were shot on orders of a British officer. Now Nehru was more and more involved in Indian affairs than ever before. The year 1920 marked Nehru's first contact with the Indian kisan, the peasant majority. Nehru was "filled with shame and sorrow ... at the degradation and overwhelming poverty of India." This experience aroused sympathy for the underdog which characterized many of Nehru's later political moves. The plight of the peasant was a challenge to his socialist convictions, and he attempted to persuade the peasants to organize. From this time on Nehru's concern was Indian. He began to read the Bhagavad Gita and practiced vegetarianism briefly. Most of his life he practiced yoga daily.

The year 1921 witnessed the first of Nehru's many imprisonments. In prison his political philosophy matured, and he said that he learned patience and adaptability. Imprisonment was also a principle of political success. This gave Nehru some tough experiences and was for the first time forced to think seriously about his upcoming future. He was released only after few months of prison.

In 1921 Nehru followed Gandhi in sympathy with the Khilafat cause of the Muslims. This flourished the Hindu-Muslim Unity from a short period of 1916-21, this also invoked Jinnah to have a better chance to support his point that Muslims and Hindus were a single community and could live together without any problem. But it was to be Nehru who broke this confidence later on, a mistake Hindus still curse to this day.

Nehru was drawn into the first civil disobedience campaign as general secretary of the United Provinces Congress Committee. Nehru remarked, "I took to the crowd, and the crowd took to me, and yet I never lost myself in it." Nehru here articulated two of his most distinctive traits throughout his career: his involvement with the people and his aloof and lonely detachment.

After Gandhi suspended civil resistance in 1922 as a result of the killing of policemen in Chauri Chaura, thousands of Congressmen were disillusioned. When Gandhi opposed participation in the newly created legislative councils, many followed Chittaranjan Das and Motilal Nehru into the Swaraj Party, which advocated entry but only to sabotage government from within, as a tool to extracting concessions from the British to ensure stability. But Nehru did not join his father and stayed with Gandhi and the Congress, this was one of the biggest decisions the young blood of Nehru made in his political career which by no means was an easy decision as he had to leave his father to join Gandhi and his policies. What ever were the consequences it proved that the fame Nehru got in the Gandhi line would never ever had been available in the moderate line of his father. Jawaharlal was elected President of the Allahabad Municipal Corporation in 1924, and served for two years as the city's chief executive. This would be valuable but the only administrative experience Nehru would have before taking on India's whole government in 1947, but this too helped him to understand politics better and much closer than ever before. He used his occupancy to expand public education, health care and sanitation. He resigned citing lack of cooperation from civil servants and obstruction from British authorities. This was a very strong decision for a person to take but this made him a more prominent figure in Congress lines. From 1926 to 1928, Jawaharlal served as the General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee, an important step in his rise to Congress national leadership.

In 1926-1927 Nehru took his wife to Europe for her health. This experience became a turning point for Nehru. It was an intellectual sojourn, highlighted by an anti-imperialist conference in Brussels. Here Nehru first encountered Communists, Socialists, and radical nationalists from Asia and Africa. The goals of independence and social reform became firmly linked in Nehru's mind. Nehru spoke expressively against imperialism and became convinced of the need for a socialist structure of society. He was impressed with the Soviet example during a visit to Moscow. Back in India Nehru was immediately engrossed in party conferences and was elected president of the All-India Trades Union Congress. In speeches he linked the goals of independence and socialism. In 1928 he joined the fundamental opposition to proposals for dominion status by his father and Gandhi. In 1930 Gandhi threw his weight to Nehru as Congress president, attempting to divert radicalism from communism to the Congress.

Nehru Report Nehru Report was headed by father of Jawaharlal Nehru Motilal Nehru and Jawaharlal was one of the members. This was one of the biggest mistakes Congress made in their timeline. The Government of India Act 1919 was essentially transitional in character. Under Section 84 of the said Act, a statutory Commission was to be appointed at the end of ten years to determine the next stage in the realization of self-rule in India. Accordingly, the Simon Commission was sent to the Sub-continent under the command of Sir John Simon. All members of the commission were British. This was regarded as highly insulting to the Indians and immediate protest was raised from all the important political parties. When the Simon Commission arrived, the local masses welcomed it by with slogans of "Go back Simon!” All the major political parties of Sub-continent, except the Shafi League of Punjab, boycotted the Simon Commission. After the failure of Simon Commission, there was no alternative for the British government but to ask the local people to frame a constitution for themselves. They knew that the Congress and Muslim League were the two main parties and that they both had serious difference of opinions. Birkenhead, Secretary of Sate for Indian Affairs, threw the ball in the Indian politicians' court, and asked them to draw a draft of the forthcoming Act on which both Hindus and Muslims could agree. The Indian leaders accepted the challenge and for this purpose, the All Parties Conference was held at Delhi in January 1928. More than a hundred delegates of almost all the parties of the Sub-continent assembled and participated in the conference. Unfortunately, the leaders were not able to come to any conclusion. The biggest hindrance was the issue of the rights of minorities. The second meeting of the All Parties Conference was held in March the same year, but the leaders still had their differences and again were not able to reach a conclusion. The only work done in this conference was the appointment of two subcommittees. But due to the mutual differences between Muslims and Hindus, the committees failed to produce any positive result.

When the All Parties Conference met for the third time in Bombay on May 19 1928, there was hardly any prospect of an agreed constitution. It was then decided that a small committee should be appointed to work out the details of the constitution. Motilal Nehru headed this committee. There were nine other members in this committee including two Muslims, Syed Ali Imam and Shoaib Qureshi. The following were the recommendations advanced by the Nehru Report:

1. India should be given the status of a dominion.

2. There should be federal form of government with residuary powers vested in the center.

3. India should have a parliamentary form of government headed by a Prime Minister and six ministers appointed by the Governor General.

4. There should be bi-cameral legislature.

5. There should be no separate electorate for any community.

6. System of weightage for minorities was as bad as that of separate electorates.

7. Reservation of Muslim seats could be possible in the provinces where Muslim population was at least ten percent, but this was to be in strict proportion to the size of the community.

8. Muslims should enjoy one-fourth representation in the Central Legislature.

9. Sindh should be separated from Bombay only if the Committee certified that it was financially self-sufficient.

10. The N. W. F. P. should be given full provincial status.

11. A new Kanarese-speaking province Karnatic should be established in South India.

12. Hindi should be made the official language of India.

This was not the first attempt by Indians to draft a new constitution  ”A nonofficial effort to … (to draft a new constitution was) made by Mrs. Besant and a few of her Indian friends. Most of the leaders were rather cool toward her project, but it was somewhat revised by a so-called All-Parties Conference which met at Delhi in January-February, 1925, and was formally approved by a convention held at Cawnpore in April. It was drafted as a statute and introduced in the House of Commons by Mr. George Lansbury, December 9, 1925, under the title, "The Commonwealth of India Bill." The bill proposed to confer upon India at once the full status of a Dominion, subject to certain temporary reservations. The Viceroy, as the representative of the King-Emperor, was to have complete charge of military and naval forces and foreign relations until the Indian Parliament by its own act should signify its readiness to assume control. Any step taken by the Indian Parliament concerning the Indian States must have the previous approval of the Viceroy. There was a Bill of Rights which included, among other things, guarantees of personal liberty, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, and equality of sex. This scheme did not arouse any popular enthusiasm, partly perhaps because it was not really an Indian product, but mainly because of the negative character of the Nationalist movement. The leaders were more interested in opposing the existing system than they were in preparing a constructive alternative.” (Smith pp. 372 ff)

 The rejection by Indian leaders of the all-white Simon Commission led Lord Birkenhead, the Secretary of State for India to make a speech in the House of Lords in which he challenged the Indians to draft a Constitution implying that they could not produce one that would be widely acceptable among the leaders of the various Indian communities. In the words of Campbell (Campbell Pp. 753-4) -  “I am entirely in favor [he (Birkenhead) wrote to Irwin] of inducing the malcontents to produce their own proposals, for in the first place I believe them to be quite incapable of surmounting the constitutional and constructive difficulties involved; in the second, if these were overcome, I believe that a unity which can only survive in an atmosphere of generalization would disappear at once.”

The recommendations of the Nehru Report went against the interests of the Muslim community. It was an attempt to serve Hindu predominance over Muslims. The Nehru Committee's greatest blow was the rejection of separate electorates. If the report had taken into account the Delhi Proposals, the Muslims might have accepted it. But the Nehru Committee did not consider the Delhi Proposals at all while formulating their report. The Muslims were asking for one-third representation in the center while Nehru Committee gave them only one-fourth representation. It is true that two demands of Muslims were considered in the Nehru Report but both of them incomplete. It was said that Sindh should be separated from Bombay but the condition of self-economy was also put forward. It demanded constitutional reforms in N. W. F. P. but Baluchistan was overlooked in the report.

Of the two Muslim members of the Nehru Committee, Syed Ali Imam could attend only one meeting due to his illness and Shoaib Qureshi did not endorse views of the Committee on the issue of Muslim representation in legislature. Thus the Nehru Report was nothing else than a Congress document and thus totally opposed by Muslims of the Sub-continent. The Hindus under Congress threatened the government with a disobedience movement if the Nehru report was not implemented into the Act by December 31, 1929. This Hindu attitude proved to be a milestone in the freedom movement of the Muslims. It also proved to be a turning point in the life of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. After reading the Nehru Report, Jinnah announced a 'parting of the ways'. The Nehru Report reflected the inner prejudice and narrow-minded approach of the Hindus.

A positive aspect of Nehru Report was that it resulted in the unity of divided Muslim groups. In a meeting of the council of All India Muslim League on March 28, 1929, members of both the Shafi League and Jinnah League participated. Quaid-i-Azam termed the Nehru Report as a Hindu document, but considered simply rejecting the report as insufficient. He decided to give an alternative Muslim agenda. It was in this meeting that Quaid-i-Azam presented his famous Fourteen Points. These points were as follows: 1. The form of the future constitution should be federal with the residuary powers vested in the provinces.

2. A uniform measure of autonomy shall be granted to all provinces.

3. All legislatures in the country and other elected bodies shall be constituted on the definite principle of adequate and effective representation of minorities in every province without reducing the majority in any province to a minority or even equality.

4. In the Central Legislative, Muslim representation shall not be less than one-third.

5. Representation of communal groups shall continue to be by means of separate electorate as at present, provided it shall be open to any community at any time to abandon its separate electorate in favor of a joint electorate.

6. Any territorial distribution that might at any time be necessary shall not in any way affect the Muslim majority in the Punjab, Bengal and the North West Frontier Province.

7. Full religious liberty, i.e. liberty of belief, worship and observance, propaganda, association and education, shall be guaranteed to all communities. 8. No bill or any resolution or any part thereof shall be passed in any legislature or any other elected body if three-fourth of the members of any community in that particular body oppose such a bill resolution or part thereof on the ground that it would be injurious to the interests of that community or in the alternative, such other method is devised as may be found feasible and practicable to deal with such cases.

9. Sindh should be separated from the Bombay presidency.

10. Reforms should be introduced in the North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan on the same footing as in the other provinces.

11. Provision should be made in the constitution giving Muslims an adequate share, along with the other Indians, in all the services of the state and in local self-governing bodies having due regard to the requirements of efficiency.

12. The constitution should embody adequate safeguards for the protection of Muslim culture and for the protection and promotion of Muslim education, language, religion, personal laws and Muslim charitable institution and for their due share in the grants-in-aid given by the state and by local self-governing bodies.

13. No cabinet, either central or provincial, should be formed without there being a proportion of at least one-third Muslim ministers.

14. No change shall be made in the constitution by the Central Legislature except with the concurrence of the State's contribution of the Indian Federation.

The council of the All India Muslim League accepted fourteen points of the Quaid. A resolution was passed according to which no scheme for the future constitution of the Government of India would be acceptable to the Muslims unless and until it included the demands of the Quaid presented in the fourteen points.

Salt March Imprisonment

The Salt Satyagraha, also known as the Salt March to Dandi, was an act of protest against the British salt tax in Colonial India. Mahatma Gandhi along with his followers, walked from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi, Gujarat to make salt, large numbers of Indians following him of their own accord. The British could do nothing because Gandhi did not actually incite others to follow him. The march lasted from March 12 to April 6, 1930. At midnight on December 31, 1929, the Indian National Congress unfurled the flag of independence on the banks of Ravi at Lahore. The Indian National Congress, led by Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, issued the Declaration of Independence on January 26, 1930. The Congress placed the responsibility of initiating civil disobedience on the All India Congress Committee. This campaign also had to achieve the secularization of India, uniting Hindus and Muslims. This movement was against tax on salt imposed by government which was a major source of generating revenues, and after it Gandhi and Nehru both were imprisoned under the Act of 1829. Nehru remained imprisoned with his family from 1930-35 with only four months in exception in which he was released shortly but was arrested again.

Politics until Independence

Nehru was released by the British and he travelled with his family once again to Europe in 1935, where Kamala his ailing wife, would remain bed-ridden. Torn between the freedom struggle and tending to his wife, Nehru would travel back and forth between India and Europe. Kamala Nehru died in 1938. Deeply saddened, Nehru nevertheless continued to maintain a hectic schedule. He would always wear a fresh rose in his coat for the remainder of his life to remember Kamala, who had also become a national heroine. The Government of India Act of 1935 was practically implemented in 1937. The provincial elections were held in the winter of 1936-37. There were two major political parties in the Sub-continent at that time, the Congress and the Muslim League. Both parties did their best to persuade the masses before these elections and put before them their manifesto. The political manifestos of both parties were almost identical, although there were two major differences. Congress stood for joint electorate and the League for separate electorates; Congress wanted Hindi as official language with Deva Nagri script of writing while the League wanted Urdu with Persian script.

According to the results of the elections, Congress, as the oldest, richest and best-organized political party, emerged as the single largest representative in the Legislative Assembles. Yet it failed to secure even 40 percent of the total number of seats. Out of the 1,771 total seats in the 11 provinces, Congress was only able to win slightly more then 750. Thus the results clearly disapproved Gandhi's claim that his party represented 95 percent of the population of India. Its success, moreover, was mainly confined to the Hindu constituencies. Out of the 491 Muslim seats, Congress could only capture 26. Muslim Leagues' condition was also bad as it could only win 106 Muslim seats. The party only managed to win two seats from the Muslim majority province of Punjab. The final results of the elections were declared in February 1937. The Indian National Congress had a clear majority in Madras, U. P., C. P., Bihar and Orrisa. It was also able to form a coalition government in Bombay and N. W. F. P. Congress was also able to secure political importance in Sindh and Assam, where they joined the ruling coalition. Thus directly or indirectly, Congress was in power in nine out of eleven provinces. The Unionist Party of Sir Fazl-i-Hussain and Praja Krishak Party of Maulvi Fazl-i-Haq were able to form governments in Punjab and Bengal respectively, without the interference of Congress. Muslim League failed to form government in any province. Quaid-i-Azam offered Congress to form a coalition government with the League but the Congress rejected his offer. The Congress refused to set up its government until the British agreed to their demand that the Governor would not use his powers in legislative affairs. Many discussions took place between the Congress and the British Government and at last the British Government consented, although it was only a verbal commitment and no amendment was made in the Act of 1935. Eventually, after a four-month delay, Congress formed their ministries in July 1937. Nehru had been re-elected Congress President in 1936, and had presided over its session in Lucknow. Here he participated in a fierce debate with Gandhi, Patel and other Congress leaders over the adoption of socialism as the official goal of the party. Younger socialists such as Jaya Prakash Narayan, Mridula Sarabhai, Narendra Dev and Asoka Mehta began to see Nehru as leader of Congress socialists. Under their pressure, the Congress passed the Avadi Resolution proclaiming socialism as the model for India's future government. Nehru was re-elected the following year, and oversaw the Congress national campaign for the 1937 elections. The Congress proved to be a pure Hindu party and worked during its reign only for the betterment of the Hindus. Twenty-seven months of the Congress rule were like a nightmare for the Muslims of South Asia. Some of the Congress leaders even stated that they would take revenge from the Muslims for the last 700 years of their slavery. Even before the formation of government, the Congress started a Muslim Mass Contact Movement, with the aim to convince Muslims that there were only two political parties in India, i.e. the British and the Congress. The aim was to decrease the importance of the Muslim League for the Muslims. After taking charge in July 1937, Congress declared Hindi as the national language and Deva Nagri as the official script. The Congress flag was given the status of national flag, slaughtering of cows was prohibited and it was made compulsory for the children to worship the picture of Gandhi at school. Band-i-Mataram, an anti-Muslim song taken from Bankim Chandra Chatterji's novel Ananda Math, was made the national anthem of the country. Religious intolerance was the order of the day. Muslims were not allowed to construct new mosques. Hindus would play drums in front of mosques when Muslims were praying. The Congress government introduced a new educational policy in the provinces under their rule known as the Warda Taleemi Scheme. The main plan was to sway Muslim children against their ideology and to tell them that all the people living in India were Indian and thus belonged to one nation. In Bihar and C. P. the Vidya Mandar Scheme was introduced according to which Mandar education was made compulsory at elementary level. The purpose of the scheme was to obliterate the cultural traditions of the Muslims and to inculcate into the minds of Muslim children the superiority of the Hindu culture. The Congress ministries did their best to weaken the economy of Muslims. They closed the doors of government offices for them, which was one of the main sources of income for the Muslims in the region. They also harmed Muslim trade and agriculture. When Hindu-Muslim riots broke out due to these biased policies of the Congress ministries, the government pressured the judges; decisions were made in favor of Hindus and Muslims were sent behind bars. At the outbreak of the World War II, the Viceroy proclaimed India's involvement without prior consultations with the main political parties. When Congress demanded an immediate transfer of power in return for cooperation of the war efforts, the British government refused. As a result Congress resigned from power. Quaid-e-Azam asked the Muslims to celebrate December 22, 1939 as a day of deliverance and thanksgiving in token of relief from the tyranny and oppression of the Congress rule. This led to a great problem for Hindus as Jinnah described it as “parting of ways” and left Hindu-Muslim unity platform. 1940 resolution became a serious blow as Nehru stated that no common ground could be settled after that. This mistake of Congress exposed their narrow interior and awakening Muslims of the situation.

At the outbreak of World War II, the Assemblies were informed that the Viceroy had unilaterally declared war on the Axis on behalf of India, without consulting the people's representatives. Outraged at the viceroy's arbitrary decision, all elected Congressmen resigned from their offices at the instigation of Subhash Bose and Nehru. But even as Bose would call for an outright revolt and would proceed to seek the aid of Nazi Germany and Japan, Nehru remained sympathetic to the British cause. He joined Maulana Azad, Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari and Patel in offering Congress support for the war effort in return for a commitment from the British to grant independence after the war. In doing so, Nehru broke ranks with Gandhi, who had resisted in supporting war and remained suspicious of the British. The failure of negotiations and Britain's refusal to concede independence outraged the nationalist movement. Gandhi and Patel called for an all-out rebellion, a demand that was opposed by Rajagopalachari and resisted by Nehru and Azad. After intensive debates and heated discussions, the Congress leaders called for the British to Quit India — to transfer power to Indian hands immediately or face a mass rebellion. Despite his skepticism, Nehru travelled the country to exhort India's masses into rebellion. He was arrested with the entire Congress Working Committee on August 9, 1942 and transported to a maximum security prison at a fort in Ahmednagar. Here he would remain incarcerated with his colleagues till June 1945. His daughter Indira and her husband Feroze Gandhi would also be imprisoned for a few months. Nehru's first grandchild, Rajiv was born in 1944.

When all of Mountbatten's efforts to keep India united failed, he asked Ismay to chalk out a plan for the transfer of power and the division of the country. It was decided that none of the Indian parties would view it before the plan was finalized. The plan was finalized in the Governor's Conference in April 1947, and was then sent to Britain in May where the British Government approved it. However, before the announcement of the plan, Nehru who was staying with Mountbatten as a guest in his residence at Simla, had a look at the plan and rejected it. Mountbatten then asked V. P. Menon, the only Indian in his personal staff, to present a new plan for the transfer of power. Nehru edited Menon's formula and then Mountbatten himself took the new plan to London, where he got it approved without any alteration. Attlee and his cabinet gave the approval in a meeting that lasted not more than five minutes. In this way, the plan that was to decide the future of the Indo-Pak Sub-continent was actually authored by a Congress-minded Hindu and was approved by Nehru himself. Mountbatten came back from London on May 31, and on June 2 met seven Indian leaders. These were Nehru, Patel, Kriplalani, Quaid-i-Azam, Liaquat, Nishtar and Baldev Singh. After these leaders approved the plan, Mountbatten discussed it with Gandhi and convinced him that it was the best plan under the circumstances. The plan was made public on June 3, and is thus known as the June 3rd Plan. The following were the main clauses of this Plan: 1. The Provincial Legislative Assemblies of Punjab and Bengal were to meet in two groups, i.e., Muslim majority districts and non-Muslim majority districts. If any of the two decided in favor of the division of the province, then the Governor General would appoint a boundary commission to demarcate the boundaries of the province on the basis of ascertaining the contiguous majority areas of Muslims and non-Muslims. 2. The Legislative Assembly of Sindh (excluding its European Members) was to decide either to join the existing Constituent Assembly or the New Constituent Assembly. 3. In order to decide the future of the North West Frontier Province, a referendum was proposed. The Electoral College for the referendum was to be the same as the Electoral College for the provincial legislative assembly in 1946.

4. Balochistan was also to be given the option to express its opinion on the issue. 5. If Bengal decided in favor of partition, a referendum was to be held in the Sylhet District of Assam to decide whether it would continue as a part of Assam, or be merged with the new province of East Bengal.