Thread by @shrikanth_krish

This thread is cringe-worthy

If Congress sought a democratic stamp for Partition, why did they not push for the CR Formula, where a referendum was proposed in every Muslim majority province?

Eventual division of the country was on the basis of religion. Plain n simple

https://twitter.com/srinathraghava3/status/1203983907252621312

There was no democratic basis for partition. At least none that baked in Hindu aspirations or the Hindu view on the same in Muslim majority areas

Partition happened because Muslims of the subcontinent backed it strongly

Boundaries were based on the math of religious demography

If a democratic stamp was sought, you should have had a referendum in EVERY muslim majority district, involving BOTH Muslim and Hindu populations

If you had done that, regions like Lahore and Karachi would have acceded to India

Take a town like Karachi.

Which was 46-47% HIndu back in 1945

In the event of a referendum, it would have acceded to India, even with 10% of Muslims backing a united India

Large parts of SIndh, as well as the urban areas of Punjab (particularly Lahore) and maybe large parts of "western" East Bengal would have remained with India, if you had pushed for a referendum as suggested by CR

Congress accepted a crude partition of the land which made little to no attempt to factor in Hindu opinion in Punjab, Sindh and Bengal.

It was pretty simple. If a district is even 50.1% Muslim, it goes to Pakistan

Sure, you had exceptions like Gurdaspur which Radcliffe granted to India

And exceptions like Khulna in East Bengal which went to Pakistan despite being Hindu majority

But those were exceptions not the rule

And if Congress was that strongly opposed to Two-nation theory, then why did they not accept the accession of Kalat (present Baluchistan) - a princely state that did approach Patel / Menon

Here's what VP Menon said on the same

Clearly this "contiguity" principle was a cop-out

If the faith in a secular, multi-religious India was that strong, then you should've accepted Kalat's overtures!

And also pushed your case much harder in North West Frontier Province, where Congress had considerable mass support

The reason the Congress leadership was so pusillanimous in its attitudes towards Kalat, and the Frontier province was because deep down, they were not very confident of "managing" Muslim majority regions in the long run

They did in fact subliminally buy the two-nation theory

Now the natural question to all this would be -

What about the Hindu-Right? They didn't accept CR Formula either.

Would they have dealt with Kalat / NWFP differently?

Maybe. Maybe not.

But then H-Right wasn't that influential in 1947

Instead of dissecting what the H-Right would or would not have done, we need to focus on the Congress Party

The party that did wield power.

Their actions clearly suggest their resistance to the terms dictated by Jinnah was minimal