Why Sardar Patel supported Partition

• On June 2, 1947, Congress leaders Nehru, Sardar Patel and president Kripalani, Muslim League leaders Jinnah (president), Liaqat and Nishtar, and Akali representative Baldev Singh gave their assent to Mountbatten’s plan for independence and partition.
• On July 18, King George VI signed the Indian Independence Act, which embodied the plan’s far-reaching features.
• Following this Act, power descended to two Constituent Assemblies already activated by this time, one for an area comprising today’s Pakistan and Bangladesh, the other for post-Partition India.

Sardar Patel and Partition of India

• The story of Patel’s shift from opposing Partition to enthusiastic acceptance has been told in more than one account, including in my large 1990 biography of the Sardar.
• There is solid evidence that by December of 1946 — nine months before the 1947 Partition — Patel had swung round in favour of separating Pakistan.
• In his view, separation would enable the vast India that remained to have a strong central government; it would also remove the League’s capacity to obstruct.
• On March 8, 1947, following violence against Sikhs and Hindus in western Punjab, the Congress Working Committee passed a resolution (with Kripalani in the chair) urging the division of Punjab into two halves, a West Punjab where Muslims predominated, and an East Punjab where Hindus and Sikhs outnumbered Muslims.
• This was the first public signal that the Congress was willing to accept Pakistan if Muslim-minority areas demanded for Pakistan by the Muslim League, namely East Punjab, West Bengal and Assam, remained in India.
• This signal was offered before the Mountbattens arrived in India.
• Previously, Dismissing the idea of Pakistan as Jinnah's 'mad dream', Sardar Patel reacted with indignation at the suggestion that the Congress might help Jinnah in realising those dreams.
• To him the idea of seeing India divided was unacceptable.
• However, once it dawned upon him that Partition was going to be a reality, he came around and decided to use his influence to see that the Congress accepted it.
• He did not wished the nation to break out in a civil war.