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Guilty Men of India’s Partition AT the outset, it needs to be remembered that this book was written 12 years after Partition and has undergone many prints. Also, the author is not the only person to have been tormented by the inevitability of the partition of the country. This question comes alive for the common man, too, whenever the windows and doors of understanding and cooperation begin to open between India and Pakistan. Before the Mumbai terror strikes, this had begun to happen at a frequency that might have frightened those who stand to gain by mutual antagonism and isolation.
Guilty Men of India’s Partition was a response to Abu Kalam Azad autobiography that had, among other issues, dealt with the responsibility of Partition. In the process, Lohia analyses the various characters, including Mahatma Gandhi and finds even him wanting in the true spirit of revolution. Probably, he was one of first of Gandhi’s disciples to point out that barring the last years of his life, Gandhi only advocated reform of the caste system and not its abolition. To the question as to who were responsible for the partition of the country, he accuses those who championed the concept of Akhand Bharat of guilt in equal measure and adds that their opposition to it was the response of the murderer who recoils from the enormity of the deed that he has done. But largely the blame lay with the Congress leadership, which in his opinion, was "old and tired and had begun to look back on their life of struggle with a sense of hopeless struggle". He adds that some might have been ‘hungering’ for power and some might have wanted to change their country and leave their mark on history. Still, others might have been frightened at the prospect of being regarded mere failures of history. Thus, they greedily grabbed at freedom. Much of the blame is apportioned to Sardar Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru. In the process, Lohia also answers to the accusation that his criticism of Nehru is pathological by reminding his contemporaries of their equally obsessive fascination for the man! But the fact remains that every other page is an attempt to justify his accusations. So much so that even when he absolves Nehru of the general accusation of being influenced by Lady Mountbatten for furthering the Viceroy’s cause, he accuses him of lacking in chivalry and not having respect for friendship beyond its political value. For proof he cites his treatment of Madame Chiang Kai-Chek, who at one point of time was a close friend. In championing the cause of Indo-Pak unity, Lohia is an incorrigible romantic which explains his lamentation that Mahatma Gandhi was not firm enough in asking the Congress leaders to hand over the reins of the country to Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League. In his uncompromising opposition to Partition, he does not even wonder if this would have been desirable and practical in a democracy. Today, six decades after the creation of Pakistan and almost five decades since Lohia wrote this book, the country is still coming to terms with the basic issues that triggered the demand for Partition. But unknown to him, he made a prophetic warning while analysing history and Hindu-Muslim relationship. Invaders, who over a period of time have become natives, are always threatened by the latest invaders. Could he have known of the looming shadow of the Taliban and al-Qaeda from the northwestern borders?
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Secondly, the reader would
be doing grave injustice to the author, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia, if he was
to be judged by the fact that a number of contemporary politicians,
certainly not role models, often swear by him and not by what he has
written in the book. The reader will not fail to find during the course
of the reading that he would have been contemptuous of their politics
and would not have hesitated in washing his hands off them.