An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India

by Shashi Tharoor

Even before its nominees were sworn in on the 26th, they had made speeches declaring their real intention to be to work for the creation of Pakistan. The League’s members met by themselves separately prior to each Cabinet meeting and functioned in Cabinet as an opposition group rather than as part of a governing coalition. On every issue, from the most trivial to the most important, the League members sought to obstruct the government’s functioning, opposing every Congress initiative or proposal. Meanwhile, the party continued to instigate violence across the country; as riots broke out in Bihar in early November (with Gandhi walking through the strife-torn province single-handedly restoring calm), Jinnah declared on 14 November that the killing would not stop unless Pakistan was created. The British convened talks in London in December to press the Congress to make further concessions to the League in order to persuade it to attend the Constituent Assembly. Nehru, still burned by the reaction to his Bombay press conference, was at his most conciliatory, but Jinnah saw in the British position confirmation that his party’s fortunes were in the ascendant, and escalated his demands. To Nehru it seemed the British had learned nothing from the failure of the policy of appeasement in Europe in the 1930s.