Mountbatten Plan 1947: 3 June Plan, Balkan Plan and Independence Act

3 June Plan: Meaning, Date and Dominion Status

Freedom with Partition: Who Decided Each Area's Future

The formula of freedom with partition was already widely accepted before Mountbatten arrived. His own contribution was to divide India while keeping as much unity as possible.

Different units decided their future in different ways:

• Punjab and Bengal: The provincial legislative assemblies voted, sitting in two groups by area.
• North-West Frontier Province and Sylhet: The voters decided in referendums.
• Sindh and Baluchistan: Each took its own decision.
• Princely states: The plan dealt with British India; the states were left to their own choice under the lapse of paramountcy.
• The boundary: A boundary commission was to be set up if partition took effect.

The Road to the Mountbatten Plan, 1946 to 1947

Cabinet Mission, Direct Action and the Interim Government

The Cabinet Mission of 1946 was the last serious attempt to keep India united. Its plan of 16 May 1946 divided the provinces into three groups, each with complete autonomy except in defence, foreign affairs and communications. The Muslim League accepted it on 6 June 1946. Deep divisions between the Congress and the League then led to deadlock. Nehru's speech of 10 July 1946 rejected grouping, and the plan never recovered.

The League's response was to abandon constitutional methods. Jinnah called for Direct Action Day on 16 August 1946. In Calcutta more than 4,000 people died within 72 hours, and the violence spread to rural Bengal, Bihar, the United Provinces and Punjab. In some places Muslims were the main sufferers and in others Hindus.

An Interim Government led by Jawaharlal Nehru was sworn in on 2 September 1946. Wavell brought the League into it on 26 October 1946, and the League joined without giving up direct action. The League stayed away from the Constituent Assembly, which met for the first time on 9 December 1946. The League then obstructed the working of the government, so that by early 1947 the coalition could not function.

The Cabinet Mission plan came after the Cripps offer of 1942, the Rajagopalachari formula of 1944 and the Wavell plan of 1945, and it was the last of these schemes to try to keep India whole.

Attlee's Statement of 20 February 1947

On 20 February 1947 the British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, announced that power would be transferred by 30 June 1948 even if the Indian parties had not agreed on a constitution by then. The statement also announced that Mountbatten would replace Wavell as Viceroy. It said that Britain would hand power either to some form of central government or, in some areas, to the existing provincial governments if the Constituent Assembly was not fully representative, that is, if the Muslim-majority provinces did not join. British powers and obligations towards the princely states would lapse with the transfer and would not pass to any successor government.

The statement hinted at partition and even at the fragmentation of the country into many states. Several reasons lay behind a fixed date:

• The government hoped that a deadline would shock the parties into agreement on the main question.
• It was keen to avert a developing constitutional crisis.
• It hoped to convince Indians of British sincerity.
• It could not deny Wavell's assessment that British authority had declined irreversibly.

The provision for transferring power to more than one centre was acceptable to the Congress, because the existing Assembly could go ahead and frame a constitution for the areas it represented. The League, emboldened, launched a civil disobedience movement against the coalition government in Punjab. The hopes of a settlement were soon shattered.

Mountbatten's Mandate and the Move Towards Partition

Mountbatten arrived in India on 22 March 1947 and took the viceregal oath two days later. His instructions were to avoid partition and preserve a united India as the outcome of the transfer of power, but he was authorised to adapt to a changing situation so as to secure Britain's prompt withdrawal. He was also informally given more powers to decide matters on the spot than his predecessors had. The British government had firmly decided to leave as early as possible. He soon found that the broad outline of the outcome was visible even before he came. The Cabinet Mission plan was dead, and Jinnah would settle for nothing less than a sovereign state.

Indian opinion was already moving. On 10 March 1947 Nehru said that the Cabinet Mission plan was the best solution if carried out, and that the only real alternative was the partition of Punjab and Bengal. In April 1947 the Congress President, J. B. Kripalani, wrote to the Viceroy that rather than have a battle the Congress would let the League have its Pakistan, provided Bengal and Punjab were partitioned in a fair manner. The strongest demand for partition now came from Hindu and Sikh groups in Bengal and Punjab, who feared that compulsory grouping might place them inside Pakistan.

Gandhi opposed partition to the end. He asked Mountbatten to invite Jinnah to form a new central government as an alternative, but Mountbatten never conveyed the proposal to Jinnah. When Mountbatten met Jinnah on 5 April 1947 he argued for a united India, citing the difficulty of dividing the mixed provinces of Punjab and Bengal, and Jinnah remained unyielding.

Balkan Plan (Dickie Bird Plan) 1947: Why Mountbatten's First Scheme Was Dropped

Power to the Provinces: What Mountbatten First Proposed

Between March and May 1947 Mountbatten decided that the Cabinet Mission plan had become untenable and drew up an alternative, Plan Balkan, also called the Balkan Plan. The name comes from Balkanisation, the breaking up of a region into many small units. Mountbatten's nickname among family and friends was Dickie, so the scheme is also known as the Dickie Bird Plan.

The plan envisaged the transfer of power to separate provinces, or to a confederation if one was formed before the transfer, with Punjab and Bengal given the option to vote for the partition of their provinces. The various units so formed, together with the princely states rendered independent by the lapse of paramountcy, would have the option of joining India or Pakistan or of remaining separate.

The scheme matters because it shows the shape of British thinking in the first weeks of the Viceroyalty. A plan that handed power to many units, and not to two successors, would have left the Congress with a country that could break into pieces.

Why Nehru Rejected the Balkan Plan

Mountbatten offered the plan to Nehru, proposing that the regions of India become autonomous provinces. Nehru rejected it strongly, because it risked breaking the country into many pieces, and the plan was quickly abandoned.

The abandoned scheme was replaced by the 3 June Plan, in which power passed to two dominions at once.

Provisions of the Mountbatten Plan and Why It Was Accepted

Main Provisions of the 3 June Plan

The plan had seven main provisions:

• Punjab and Bengal: The members of each legislative assembly would meet in two groups, one from the Muslim-majority districts and one from the rest of the province, to vote on partition. If a simple majority of either group voted for partition, the province would be divided.
• Two dominions: In case of partition, two dominions and two constituent assemblies would be created.
• Sindh and Baluchistan: Each would take its own decision.
• Referendums: In the North-West Frontier Province and the Sylhet district of Assam, a referendum would decide the future of the area.
• Independence ruled out: Separate independence for Bengal was ruled out.
• Boundary commission: A boundary commission would be set up if partition was to be effected.
• Date: Power would be transferred on 15 August 1947.

The plan could not deal with the princely states, which were not British possessions, but on 3 June Mountbatten advised them against remaining independent and urged them to join one of the two new dominions.

The plan was a compromise in a precise sense. The League's demand for a separate country was conceded, and the Congress position on unity was taken into account in making Pakistan as small as possible.

Why the Congress Accepted Partition: Riots, Deadlock and Dominion Status

The Congress had never accepted the two-nation theory, and it was forced against its will to accept partition. Its leaders agreed because the alternative looked worse. The communal riots since August 1946 and the deadlock in the Interim Government left no workable alternative, as Kripalani's letter of April 1947 had already admitted. Vallabhbhai Patel told the All India Congress Committee that the choice was between one division and many divisions, and that de facto Pakistan already existed in Punjab and Bengal. An All India Congress Committee resolution of 14 June 1947 spoke of the unity of India as a geographical fact that no human agency could change.

Dominion status helped the Congress in three ways:

• It ensured a peaceful and very quick transfer of power.
• It let the Congress assume authority at once and check the explosive situation.
• It allowed continuity in the bureaucracy and the army.

Britain too gained from the early date of 15 August 1947. By offering it, Britain secured Congress agreement to dominion status and escaped responsibility for the communal situation.

The leaders who accepted the June agreement acted against Gandhi's wishes. He was in Calcutta on 15 August 1947 and marked the day with a 24-hour fast instead of attending any function; for him the freedom he had struggled for had come at an unacceptable price.

Reactions of the League, the Sikhs and Other Groups

The Muslim League gained the principle of Pakistan but not the Pakistan it had asked for. Jinnah complained bitterly that cutting Punjab and Bengal in half would give him a "moth-eaten" Pakistan. In June 1947 Jinnah, Liaquat Ali Khan and Abdul Rab Nishtar represented the League in the agreement on partition.

The Sikhs faced the hardest choice. Master Tara Singh opposed the partition of India, and he saw that any division of Punjab would leave the Sikhs divided between the two countries. Jinnah offered the Sikhs a place in Pakistan with safeguards for their rights, but they refused because they opposed the concept of Pakistan and did not wish to become a small minority in a Muslim-majority state. In June 1947 Master Tara Singh represented the Sikhs in the agreement on partition.

The Hindu and Sikh groups of Bengal and Punjab got the division of the two provinces that they had pressed for. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the Frontier Gandhi, who led the Khudai Khidmatgars in the North-West Frontier Province, opposed the two-nation theory; his objection was ignored.

How the Mountbatten Plan Was Carried Out

Provincial Votes in Punjab, Bengal, Sindh and Baluchistan

The plan was put into effect without delay. The legislative assemblies of Bengal and Punjab decided in favour of the partition of both provinces.

Bengal shows how the rule worked. On 20 June 1947 the members of the Bengal Legislative Assembly met jointly and voted 126 to 90 for joining a new and separate Constituent Assembly. Meeting separately, the members from the Muslim-majority districts voted 106 to 35 against partition, while the members from the other districts voted for it. Because one group had chosen partition, the province was divided into West Bengal and East Bengal.

East Bengal and West Punjab joined Pakistan, while West Bengal and East Punjab stayed with India. Baluchistan and Sindh threw in their lot with Pakistan.

Under this rule the members from the non-Muslim-majority districts could divide their province by their own vote, without the consent of the other group.

A Partition Committee was formed on 7 June 1947, with two representatives from each side and the Viceroy in the chair; among its tasks was the division of the armed forces. It was to be replaced by a Partition Council as soon as the process of partition began.

North-West Frontier Province and Sylhet Referendums

The plan left two areas to the voters.

In the North-West Frontier Province the referendum was held from 6 to 20 July 1947. The result was 2,89,244 votes (99.02 per cent) for joining Pakistan and 2,874 votes (0.98 per cent) for joining India. The registered voters numbered 5,72,798 and the turnout was 51 per cent. The Khudai Khidmatgars, the movement of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, boycotted the referendum because it offered no option of independence or of joining Afghanistan.

In the Sylhet district of Assam the British announced on 3 July 1947 that a referendum would be held on 6 July. The majority voted to join Pakistan, and Section 3 of the Indian Independence Act, 1947, gave effect to the result. The Radcliffe Line later gave some areas of Sylhet, chiefly Karimganj, to India.

Radcliffe Line and the Boundary Commissions

Two boundary commissions, one for Punjab and one for Bengal, drew the new borders. Each had five members: Sir Cyril Radcliffe as chairman, two members nominated by the Congress and two nominated by the Muslim League. Radcliffe had never visited India and knew no one there. He arrived on 8 July 1947 and was given just five weeks to decide on a border.

The equal representation of the Congress and the League appeared to provide balance but created deadlock. The final awards were ready on 9 and 12 August but were not published until 17 August, two days after independence. Mountbatten decided to publish only after 15 August so that the responsibility would not fall on the British. As a result two nations became independent before there was a defined boundary between them, and a large number of people did not know on the day of independence whether they lived in India or in Pakistan.

Several areas were disputed. Radcliffe gave the three eastern tehsils of Gurdaspur district, which had a bare Muslim majority, to India, and Pakistani officials later alleged that Mountbatten influenced the award. The Chittagong Hill Tracts, with a non-Muslim population of 97 per cent, went to Pakistan. The Khulna district, with a marginal Hindu majority, went to East Bengal in place of Murshidabad, which had a 70 per cent Muslim majority and went to India.

Indian Independence Act, 1947: Provisions and Features

Passage of the Indian Independence Act and Its Main Provisions

The House of Commons passed the bill on 15 July 1947 and the House of Lords the next day. The Indian Independence Act, 1947, received royal assent on 18 July 1947, and India and Pakistan came into being on 15 August. The Act gave the Mountbatten Plan legal effect. Its main provisions were:

• The division of British India into the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan from 15 August 1947.
• The partition of the provinces of Bengal and Punjab between the two new countries.
• A Governor-General for each dominion, as the representative of the Crown.
• Complete legislative authority for the Constituent Assembly of each dominion.
• The end of British suzerainty over the princely states from 15 August 1947, with the states free to join either dominion.
• The end of the use of the title Emperor of India by the British monarch.
• The division of joint property and of the armed forces between the two countries.

Under the Act the province of Bengal ceased to exist and two new provinces, East Bengal and West Bengal, took its place. The province of Punjab similarly gave way to West Punjab and East Punjab. The fate of the North-West Frontier Province and of the Sylhet district was left to the referendums.

Transitional Rules, the Two Dominions and Article 395

Until a new constitution was framed, each dominion was governed under the Government of India Act, 1935, which the Governor-General could adapt until 31 March 1948. The Constituent Assembly of each dominion also served as its central legislature.

The Act also removed the old limits on Indian lawmaking. The legislature of each dominion had full power to make laws for that dominion, including laws having effect outside its territory. No Act of the British Parliament passed after the appointed day was to extend to the dominions, and no law of a dominion legislature was void merely because it conflicted with the law of England. The office of Secretary of State for India was abolished, and civil servants appointed on or before 15 August 1947 continued in service under the new governments with full benefits.

The Act allowed the same person to be Governor-General of both dominions. Mountbatten hoped to be the common Governor-General, which would have given the two countries a link, but Jinnah wanted the post in Pakistan for himself. Jinnah became the first Governor-General of Pakistan, and India requested Mountbatten to continue as its Governor-General.

Article 395 of the Constitution of India repealed the Indian Independence Act, 1947, and the Government of India Act, 1935. Article 394 names 26 January 1950 as the day on which most of the Constitution came into force.

Princely States After the Mountbatten Plan

Lapse of Paramountcy and the Choice Before the States

Colonial India was made up of British India, the provinces the British government ruled directly, and the princely states, whose rulers enjoyed control over internal affairs as long as they accepted British supremacy, called paramountcy. The princely states covered one-third of the land area of the British Indian empire and one out of four Indians lived under princely rule. Just before independence the British announced that paramountcy would lapse when British rule ended, which meant that as many as 565 states would become legally independent.

Accounts differ on what the 3 June Plan itself said about the states. Some treat the plan as ruling out independence for them, on the ground that they had to join India or Pakistan. Others hold that the British government took the view that the states were free to join either country or to remain independent, and that the choice was left to the rulers, not the people. The Congress position was that the states were not sovereign entities and could not opt for independence. Mountbatten, addressing the Chamber of Princes on 25 July 1947, urged them to accede to the appropriate dominion, recognising that geographical compulsions would limit their choice.

The problem began at once. The ruler of Travancore announced that his state had decided on independence, and the Nizam of Hyderabad made a similar announcement the next day. Such announcements posed a real danger of the country dividing into many small states.

Accession and Integration of the Princely States

In July 1947 Vallabhbhai Patel took charge of the new States Department. The integration took place in two phases.

In the first phase, before 15 August 1947, nearly all the states whose territories were contiguous to the new boundaries of India signed the Instrument of Accession. It gave the central government authority over defence, external affairs and communications. The princes agreed fairly easily. These three functions had belonged to British paramountcy, so they gave up nothing they had held, and their internal rule did not change.

The second phase was the integration of the states with neighbouring provinces or into new units, together with internal constitutional changes in states that kept their old boundaries for some years. It was completed within about a year, and the principal inducement offered was a generous privy purse.

The accession of Junagadh, Hyderabad, Manipur and Kashmir proved more difficult:

• Junagadh: Its ruler acceded to Pakistan, but a plebiscite confirmed the people's wish to join India.
• Hyderabad: The Nizam signed a Standstill Agreement with India in November 1947 for a year; a popular movement against his rule gathered force, the razakars targeted non-Muslims, and in September 1948 the Indian army moved in and the Nizam surrendered.
• Manipur: The Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession on the assurance that internal autonomy would be maintained, elections were held in June 1948, and a Merger Agreement was signed in September 1949.
• Kashmir: Its ruler hesitated, and after a tribal invasion he acceded to India.

The problems of this process were of two kinds. The administrative issues included the narrow scope of the first accession, the task of merging many small units into larger ones (there were 26 small states in present-day Odisha and, in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, 14 big states, 119 small states and numerous other administrations), and the price of integration in privy purses. The socio-cultural problems arose from the gap between rulers and people, since in most states the governments ran in a non-democratic manner and the rulers were unwilling to give democratic rights, and from communal tension in states such as Hyderabad.

Consequences of the Mountbatten Plan: Partition and Its Human Cost

Speed of the Transfer, Punjab Violence and the Human Cost

Mountbatten brought forward the date of the transfer from June 1948 to 15 August 1947. The breakneck speed of events caused anomalies in the partition arrangements and failed to prevent the Punjab massacre. There were no transitional institutions within which partition problems could be tackled, not even a common Governor-General.

The uncertainty over the borders prompted Muslims and Hindus to move towards areas where they believed they would be in the majority. Mountbatten hastily arranged a Punjab Boundary Force of 50,000 men to keep the peace around Lahore, but it was not enough to prevent thousands of killings. Because independence came before the actual partition, keeping public order fell to the new governments of India and Pakistan.

Partition displaced between 12 and 20 million people along religious lines. Estimates of the deaths range from 0.2 million to 2 million, and most scholars accept about one million. Punjab saw the worst of the violence. Women were especially targeted, and many were abducted and assaulted. Gandhi worked to bring peace to Bengal and then moved to Delhi, from where he hoped to go on to the riot-torn districts of Punjab.

The Government of India declared 14 August as Partition Horrors Remembrance Day in 2021, to remind present and future generations of the pain and suffering of the people during Partition.

Significance of the Mountbatten Plan and British Responsibility

How British Imperial Power Complicated the Transfer of Power

British decisions shaped the way power was transferred in the 1940s. Britain wanted India and its army to remain united in its system of imperial defence, yet a series of its own choices worked against that aim.

• Shimla Conference, 1945: The Wavell plan proposed equal representation for caste Hindus and Muslims in a reconstructed executive council. The League insisted that all Muslim members be its nominees. When Wavell announced a breakdown of the talks, the League was given a virtual veto, which strengthened its position and boosted Jinnah's.
• The Interim Government, 1946: Wavell quietly brought the League into the Interim Government on 26 October 1946 without its giving up direct action, despite its rejection of the Cabinet Mission's plans.
• Attlee's statement, 20 February 1947: It fixed a date and hinted at partition and even at power passing to separate provinces.
• The early date: Mountbatten brought the transfer forward to 15 August 1947 and left no transitional institutions.
• The boundary: The Radcliffe award was held back until after independence.
• The princely states: Paramountcy lapsed, and the states were left to choose.

The result was a lawful transfer of power that left the violence and the boundaries to be dealt with by the two new governments.

Sources

• NCERT: Themes in Indian History III (Class XII), Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement
• NCERT: Politics in India since Independence (Class XII), Challenges of Nation Building
• NCERT: Exploring Society: India and Beyond (Class VIII), India's Long Road to Independence
• Wikipedia: 1946 Cabinet Mission to India
• Wikipedia: 1947 North-West Frontier Province referendum
• Wikipedia: 1947 Sylhet referendum
• Wikipedia: Direct Action Day
• Wikipedia: Indian Independence Act 1947
• Wikipedia: Indian nationalism
• Wikipedia: Lord Mountbatten
• Wikipedia: Partition of India
• Wikipedia: Political integration of India
• Wikipedia: Radcliffe Line
• West Bengal Legislative Assembly: Proceedings on the Partition of Bengal, 20 June 1947
• Legislative Department, Government of India: The Constitution of India, Articles 393 to 395
• Press Information Bureau: Partition Horrors Remembrance Day
• UPSC: Civil Services Examination question papers