The Role of South India in the Freedom Movement

V. P. Menon

In this chapter we present the contribution of V. P. Menon to the Freedom Movement. To describe V. P. Menon as a freedom fighter would be somewhat far-fetched, for he was a civil servant serving the British government in India. Yet as a civil servant he played a key role firstly in the integration of the princely states into India, thus saving India from balkanisation and, secondly, he helped tide over the difficulties of Partition once the leaders of the Congress had agreed to the creation of Pakistan.

Who Was V.P. Menon?

Vappala Pangunni Menon, known as V. P. Menon, was an Indian Civil Servant who played a vital role during the partition of India and the integration of the princely states into Independent India, during the period 1945-1950.

V. P. Menon who hailed from the erstwhile princely state of Cochin, now in Kerala, was the son of a school headmaster in Kerala. Menon began as a clerk in the Indian Civil Service, but was never a member of the Indian Civil Service. Working assiduously hard, Menon rose through the ranks to become the highest serving Indian officer in British India. In 1946, he was appointed Political Reforms Commissioner to the British viceroy. Menon was the political adviser of the last viceroy of India, Lord Louis Mountbatten.

It was in mid-August 1942 that Menon was made adviser to the viceroy, Lord Linlithgow. Harry Hodson who was till then the adviser to the viceroy writes in his autobiography: 'When, in mid-August 1942, I asked to be permitted to resign, Lord Linlithgow was wholly understanding. The announcement of my resignation was delayed, by mutual agreement, to a moment when it would not be interpreted as marking a rift between the Viceroy and his constitutional adviser on policy, especially towards the Congress, after the Cripps Mission and the Quit India campaign. In the interval I was able to put in a strong word on behalf of VP Menon, whom Lord Linlithgow was already thinking of appointing as my successor.'

He continued assisting Lord Wavell who became Viceroy after Lord Linlithgow. Menon's resourcefulness during this period caught the eye of Sardar Vallabhai Patel, who later became the Deputy Prime Minister of India in 1947.

Background to the Formation of Pakistan

When the Second World War broke out in 1939, it became clear to political observers that Britain would be forced to take steps towards granting India its independence, sooner or later. Consequently, the Cripps proposal was mooted in 1942. We have already seen that it was rejected by the leaders of the Congress Party. In 1942, Lord Linlithgow was the viceroy in India. He was replaced by Lord Wavell. After the end of the War, the Congress leaders were released from jail and in 1946 a Cabinet Mission was sent to India to work out the modalities of granting independence to India. During that time a plan known as the Wavell Plan was prepared and given to the leaders of the Congress and the Muslim League for discussion. This time too, the plan was not acceptable to the different parties. It became evident by the end of 1946 and early 1947 that the Partition of India was inevitable.

Lord Wavell was replaced by Lord Mountbatten as Viceroy in March 1947.

On Mountbatten's appointment in March 1947, he decided to take on some of the senior members of Wavell's staff. Quite expectedly V. P. Menon continued as the Reforms

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Commissioner. By then, Menon had become close to Sardar Patel and it did not take long for him to get close to Mountbatten too.

When the interim Government, run by the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League, collapsed due to their mutual rivalry, it was Menon who put forward the formula used as the basis for India's constitutional independence. He proposed this formula to Mountbatten, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel. It was the plan to partition India into two independent nations - India and Pakistan.

Mountbatten trusted V. P; they worked closely. Soon after his arrival V. P. writes of Mountbatten on 28 March, 1947: 'Even that early, only four days after his arrival, I got the feeling that he had decided which way he was going, what solution he had in mind. I told him on this occasion that in my view, Jinnah and the Muslim League would be willing to accept even a truncated Pakistan rather than go into a central Government. He seized upon the point right away. I left him feeling that he had come to India armed with plenipotentiary powers and if the parties were not able to come together, the decision would ultimately have to be given by His Excellency. The decision, I think, will not be palatable to either party.'

By 11 April 1947, Mountbatten had a plan ready. Lord Ismay, who was assisting Lord Mountbatten, wrote to V. P. Menon:

'My dear Menon,

I send you herewith the bare bones of a possible plan for the transfer of power. The Viceroy would be glad if you would a. amend the draft in any way you think right and put some flesh on it; consider what the procedure would be immediately after HMG had made their announcement. For example, would a general election in India be necessary? How would we set about the partition of the Punjab, Bengal and Assam? Presumably, the decision will be left to HE and will not be open to argument. What will be the machinery...

Yours very sincerely,

Ismay.'

Later on the Viceroy revised his tentative plan 'in the light of his discussions with the Governors and party leaders and sent this revised plan to London with Lord Ismay and George Abell on 2 May 1947. In all his discussions with party leaders and others, he was faced with the extremely divergent views of the parties; he was forced to adjust and reconcile these different views and this was reflected in the plan presented to London. However, on 10 May 1947 at Simla, Nehru rejected the plans proposed by Mountbatten and approved by the British Government for the transfer of power; it was then that V. P. Menon got into the act.

It took Menon less than six hours to pen a new plan for partition, which ultimately became the basis of the creation of the two Dominions of India and Pakistan. Nehru accepted it within twenty-four hours.

It is evident that a great deal of liberty was given to Menon and he was left free to change and chop the plan as he thought fit. Menon's draft was circulated a few days later to the Governors of India's eleven provinces who had been summoned to Delhi for a conference with the viceroy. The moment they read it, they realised that their days were numbered. 'The blighter's pulled it off', one of them said. 'What is he - a swami or something?'

On 3rd June 1947 Lord Mountbatten, having decided that the partition of India was inevitable, sought to effect the transfer of power without any delay. He accepted the plan of V.P. Menon, which involved the partition of India into two states, dividing Punjab and Bengal between India and Pakistan, with the predominantly non-Muslim areas in the Punjab and Bengal being excluded from Pakistan. On 3rd June 1947, Mountbatten announced the British plan to the nation.

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It will be relevant to see the Mother's reaction to this announcement.

Mother wrote this note on 3 June after hearing on the radio the declaration of the viceroy to Indian leaders, announcing Britain's final transfer of power to a partitioned India:

A proposal has been made for the solution of our difficulties in organising Indian independence and it is being accepted with whatever bitterness or regret and searchings of the heart by the Indian leaders.

But do you know why this proposal has been made to us? It is to prove to us the absurdity of our quarrels.

And do you know why we have to accept these proposals? It is to prove to ourselves the absurdity of these proposals.

Clearly, this is not a solution; it is a test, an ordeal which, if we live it out in all sincerity, will prove to us that it is not by cutting a country into small bits that we shall bring about its unity and greatness; it is not by opposing interests against each other that we can win for it prosperity; it is not by setting one dogma against another that we can serve the spirit of Truth. In spite of all, India has a single soul and while we have to wait till we can speak of an India one and indivisible, our cry must be:

LET THE SOUL OF INDIA LIVE FOR EVER ¹

Integration of the Princely States

During the early part of the nineteenth century, the policy of the British tended towards annexation, but the Indian Rebellion of 1857 forced a change in this approach, by demonstrating both the difficulty of absorbing and subduing annexed states, and the usefulness of princely states as a source of support. In 1858, the policy of annexation was formally renounced, and British relations with the princely states thereafter were based on indirect rule, whereby the British exercised paramountcy over all princely states with the British crown as ultimate suzerain, but at the same time respected and protected them as allies. The exact relations between the British and each princely state were regulated by individual treaties, and varied widely, with some states having significant autonomy, some being subject to significant control in internal affairs, and some being in effect the owners of a few acres of land with little autonomy.

During the twentieth century, the British made several attempts to integrate the princely states more closely with British India, creating the Chamber of Princes in 1921 as a consultative and advisory body, transferring the responsibility for supervision of smaller states from the provinces to the centre in 1936, and creating direct relations between the Government of India and the larger princely states superseding political agents. The most ambitious was a scheme of federation in the Government of India Act 1935, which envisaged the princely states and British India being united under a federal government. This scheme came close to success, but was abandoned in 1939 as a result of the outbreak of the Second World War. As a result, in the 1940s, the relationship between the princely states and the crown remained regulated by the principle of paramountcy and the various treaties between the British crown and the states.

Neither paramountcy nor these arrangements could continue after Indian independence. The British took the view that because they had been established directly between the British crown and the princely states, they could not be transferred to independent India. At the same time, they imposed obligations on Britain that it was not prepared to continue to carry out, such as the obligation to maintain troops in India for the defence of the princely states. The British government therefore decided that paramountcy, together

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with all treaties between them and the princely states, would come to an end upon the transfer of power.

The termination of paramountcy would have in principle meant that all rights that flowed from the states' relationship with the British crown would return to them, leaving them free to negotiate relationships with the new states of India and Pakistan 'on a basis of complete freedom'. Early British plans for the transfer of power, such as the offer produced by the Cripps Mission, recognised the possibility that some princely states might choose to stand out of Independent India. This was unacceptable to the Congress, which regarded the independence of princely states as a denial of the course of Indian history, and consequently regarded this scheme as a 'Balkanisation' of India. The Congress had traditionally been less active in the princely states because of their limited resources which restricted their ability to organise there and their focus on the goal of independence from the British, and because Congress leaders, in particular Gandhi, were sympathetic to the more progressive princes as examples of the capacity of Indians to rule themselves. This changed in the 1930s as a result of the federation scheme contained in the Government of India Act 1935 and the rise of socialist Congress leaders such as Jayaprakash Narayan, and the Congress began to actively engage with popular political and labour activity in the princely states. By 1939, the Congress' official stance was that the states must enter Independent India, on the same terms and with the same autonomy as the provinces of British India, and with their people granted responsible government. As a result, it insisted on the incorporation of the princely states into India in its negotiations with Mountbatten.

A few British leaders, particularly Lord Mountbatten, the last British viceroy in India, were also uncomfortable with breaking links between Independent India and the princely states. The development of trade, commerce and communications during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries had bound the princely states to British India through a complex network of interests. Agreements relating to railways, customs, irrigation, the use of ports, and other similar agreements would disappear, posing a serious threat to the economic life of the subcontinent. Mountbatten was also persuaded by the argument of Indian leaders such as V. P. Menon that the integration of the princely states into Independent India would to some extent assuage the wounds of partition. The result was that Mountbatten personally favoured and worked towards the accession of princely states to India following the transfer of power, as proposed by the Congress.

Faced with this situation, Lord Mountbatten created a department called Department of States.

On 27 June 1947 he announced that Sardar Patel would head the new department called Department of States and V. P. Menon was appointed its secretary. The importance of the creation of this department was great, as in July 1947 Jinnah stated that the Muslim League recognised 'the right of each state to choose its destiny'. His position was that the princely states were fully entitled to say that they would not accede to either dominion and remain independent. Had this been successful, India would have been totally balkanised.

On 25th July 1947, in the last address that he delivered to the Princes in Delhi, Mountbatten spelt out certain broad guidelines for them to follow in the determination of the future disposition of their States. He advised the Princes to accede to either of the two Dominions on the basis of the geographical contiguity of their States and the composition of their population. In this endeavour, he utilised V. P. Menon, who became Mountbatten's closest adviser and believed that all territorial issues and boundaries should be resolved before Independence to avoid instability and chaos after the handover. V. P. Menon raised this issue with Nehru in May 1947 and Nehru agreed. It is evident that Menon played a key role in the total absorption of the princely states into

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India. Lord Mountbatten who was ably assisted by V. P. Menon could persuade all the princes except three to sign the Instrument of Accession, allowing the Government of India to handle Defence, Foreign Affairs and Communications. This he achieved by 14 August 1947.

The three States that did not sign the Instrument of Accession were Junagadh, Hyderabad and Jammu and Kashmir.

The first two were absorbed in India within a year; the Jammu and Kashmir problem is still festering.

It is evident that Sardar Patel and V. P. Menon achieved one of the greatest successes of Independent India. The partnership between Patel and Menon was of a rare kind. Almost every Indian politician was allergic to civil servants, owing to their participation in the British Raj. Many Congressmen had demanded stripping the service of its privileges or disbanding it altogether, owing to the role of British-era officers in imprisoning Congress leaders. Nehru himself was reluctant to listen to the civil servants who worked under him.

Few know that just before 15 August 1947, India was not one monolithic entity, but one that comprised provinces of British India and over 554 Princely States. Forming a United Republic including all has to be one of the greatest - and unsung - successes of the twentieth century.

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