Gandhi opposed Partition-Blaming Gandhi for Partition and by implication lionising his assassin is the worst form of historical revisionism
- Godse assassined Gandhi blaming for abetting Partition convincing, thus implying that Gandhi’s assassination was a legitimate act of retribution carried out by a true Indian nationalist.
- It is very disturbing to hear of this revisionist version of Gandhi’s assassination that by implication justifies Godse’s action.
- It not only tarnishes Gandhi’s reputation, but also flies in the face of recorded facts.
- In reality, Gandhi opposed Partition until the very end.
- However, the Congress leadership had increasingly sidelined him by the end of 1946.
- By that time, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel had come to accept the idea of Partition without even the courtesy of consulting Gandhi.
- Eventually, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) accepted the Mountbatten plan to divide the country.
- It is a matter of record that Patel, on the advice of States Secretary V.P. Menon, had accepted the inevitability of Partition by December 1946 and had signalled this to Nehru.
- Nehru was also eventually convinced that Partition was a necessary evil in order to neutralise Jinnah’s nuisance value and to establish a strong and centralised Indian state which would not have been possible with Muslim League ministries in office in undivided Punjab and Bengal.
- It is instructive to note that at the CWC meeting that accepted the Partition plan there were only two dissenters, both Muslim-Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan & Maulana Azad, fervently opposed to Partition, remained silent in deference to his friend Nehru who had moved the Partition resolution.
- Blaming Gandhi for Partition and by implication lionising his assassin is the worst form of historical revisionism.
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