Being the Other: The Muslim in India

by Saeed Naqvi

A multicultural India had been a passionate article of faith with Maulana Azad, of course, and he thought this was true of Nehru, too. The Maulana was understandably disappointed at seeing his friend Nehru, whom he considered a man of principle, abandon the idea of a united India. He notes in his book that one of the factors responsible for Nehru being won over was the personality of Lady Edwina Mountbatten who ‘is not only extremely intelligent but has a most attractive and friendly temperament’. He adds that Lady Mountbatten admired her husband deeply and tried to ‘interpret his thoughts to those who would not at first agree with him’. Whatever the case, by now it was clear that despite Nehru’s initial repugnance and resistance to the idea of partition, he was growing used to the idea that there was no other alternative. The Maulana told historian K. M. Ashraf that Nehru was impatient and wanted to become prime minister while Mountbatten was still in India. For Nehru, one sequence of events was non-negotiable—British rule must be replaced by Congress rule in Delhi. If that entailed partition, so be it. And thus it was that the British Raj was replaced in this country by a Raj that was less than satisfactory—one that was billed as being secular was, in fact, what the Maulana described as, ‘undiluted Hindu Raj’. Partition would cast a long shadow upon independent India.