Thread by @Criticastery

@tanjil_rashid_ @ZareerMasani @saliltripathi 1. #Partition1947 counterfactuals aren't counterintuitive. #Partition ended a zero sum game among the same stale set of interlocutors conducting a dialogue of the deaf #Simla, June '45 onwards. #CabinetMissionPlan's devolution did NOT solve #India's impasse.

@tanjil_rashid_ @ZareerMasani @saliltripathi 2. #Jinnah accepted the #CabinetMissionPlan for an embryonic #Pakistan was assured, and permitted to secede, come 1957, if the #confederation was not to the #MuslimLeague's liking. Routinely overlooked by #Nehru's #Indian and #Pakistani baiters.

@tanjil_rashid_ @ZareerMasani @saliltripathi 3. To iterate: #CabinetMissionPlan was a pilot project to be reviewed decadally. Just how was #India and #Nehru to embark on #economic #planning and consolidate a #democratic #union of disparate elements riven by #regionalism, #casteism and #sectarianism?

@tanjil_rashid_ @ZareerMasani @saliltripathi 4. Was #India going to expend itself perpetually on humouring and appeasing the #MuslimLeague? An entire #subcontinent held in thrall to the Damoclean demands of a putative '#minority' running into millions who could stymie whatever displeased it?

@tanjil_rashid_ @ZareerMasani @saliltripathi 5. #Indians oft overlook, actually downright unwilling, to concede the critical mass which coalesced the #PakistanMovement after the '46 #elections. The quantum of its appeal and promise was impressive notwithstanding #Muslim oppositionists to #Pakistan.

@tanjil_rashid_ @ZareerMasani @saliltripathi 6. Much maligned #Mountbatten correctly inferred #partition had to be NOW since #India, true to his predecessor's prognosis, #Wavell's #BreakdownPlan, was fast becoming ungovernable: #communal #killings, #communist insurrectionists, #naval #mutineers...

@tanjil_rashid_ @ZareerMasani @saliltripathi 7. 1946-47 #GreatBritain too exhausted and mired in salvaging itself: #AngloAmericanLoan, #Greece, #occupiedGermany and #Berlin's future, #Palestine. All goodwill had been sapped by bickering #Indians who, as #Churchill always reminded, agreed on nothing.

@tanjil_rashid_ @ZareerMasani @saliltripathi 8. #Ambedkar and #Rajagopalachari, two astute #Indians whose likes we shall never see again, on the ball about #Pakistan. Former foresaw no modus vivendi; latter presciently outlined, in '44 again '46, contours of a very #Pakistan disdained by #Jinnah.

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