Major Events Pre-1950

Another report

A newspaper report

Minutes of the Meeting of the Viceroy with the Indian Leaders, 3 June 1947.

(Extract)

Speeches of Recrimination

His Excellency The Viceroy asked those present at the meeting to request their subordinate leaders to refrain, from now on, from speeches of recrimination which were likely to produce violent reactions. If the past could now be buried, the prospect of building a fine future would be opened up.
All those present at the meeting signified concurrence.

Mr. Gandhi

Mr Liaquat Ali Khan said that he fully agreed that it might be possible to control the speeches of subordinate leaders. In addition, however, there should be a request for restraint on the part of "super leaders" - for example Mr. Gandhi at his prayer meetings. It was true that Mr. Gandhi preached "nonviolence", but that many of his speeches could be taken as an incitement to violence.

In the photograph, at the table, from left to right: Abdul Rab Nishtar, Sardar Baldev Singh, Acharya Kriplani, Sardar Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru, Lord Mountbatten, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and Liaqat Ali Khan.

This photograph shows seven Indian leaders sitting around a round table in the Viceroy's study in Viceroy's House (now Rashtrapati Bhawan) in New Delhi in the forenoon of June 2, 1947, along with Lord Mountbatten, the Viceroy of India. Several of the Indian leaders were members of the Interim Government that had been formed on 2^nd September 1946 in anticipation of India's Independence. Lord Mountbatten was the President of the Executive Council, and the Indian leaders were Members of this Council, which functioned as a Council of Ministers. Three of the India leaders represent the Indian National Congress (Congress), another three represent the Muslim League (League), and the seventh one represents the Sikh community.

The three leaders representing the Congress are:

R P Bhatla is an AMIE (India) Engineer in Civil Engineering. He retired in 1994 as Deputy General Manager from Engineers India Ltd. He continued to work as General Manager, Triune Projects Ltd., General Manager Enron India, General Manager, PLL/Simon Carves India Ltd, and Advisor L&amp\;T Faridabad.

Editor's notes:

This is the second of several stories related to the life of the Bhatla family before and after the Partition of India in 1947. The first story is available here.

From Meghiana to Hoshiarpur, 1947 by Pran Bhatla is an independent story of another family in a similar situation.

India and Pakistan got their Independence in August 1947. My parents and their four children - three sons and one daughter - were living in a village called Kot Khan in District Jhang in west Punjab. We were Hindus, and this area became a part of Muslim-dominated Pakistan.

Choudhary Rahmat Ali, born in 1895, obtained his MA and LLB with honours degrees from the universities of Cambridge and Dublin. It was during the years 1930 through 1933, that he established the Pakistan National Movement, with its headquarters at Cambridge, and produced the pamphlet that is reproduced below. In 1948, he visited Pakistan, and then returned to England. He died in February 1951, and was buried in the U.K.

Editor's note: Wikipedia states, while noting that a citation is needed to support this statement:

After the creation of Pakistan he returned to Pakistan in April 1948, planning to stay in this country, but he was ordered by the then Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan to leave the country. His belongings were confiscated, and he left empty-handed for England in October 1948.

This is the full text of the pamphlet as published in 1933. It is said that this is the first time the word PAKISTAN was used in print. Note that the words PAKSTAN and PAKISTAN are both used in the pamphlet. A scanned copy of the original pamphlet is available in this pdf file.

3, Mumberstone Road,
Cambridge, England. 
28th January. 1933

Dear Sir,

Bina (1911-19??), daughter of Beni Madhab Das (one Netaji Subhas Bose's teachers) and social worker Sarala Devi, was an Indian revolutionary and nationalist from Bengal. She was a member of Chhatri Sangha, a semi-revolutionary outfit for women in Kolkata. On 6 February 1932, she fired five shots at Bengal Governor Stanley Jackson, but failed to kill him. She was imprisoned and released in 1939, after which she joined the Congress party. In 1947, she married Jatish Chandra Bhaumik, an Indian independence movement activist belonging to the Jugantar group. After the death of her husband, she led a lonely life in Rishikesh and died in anonymity.

Editor's note: This article is reproduced from http://subhaschandrabose.org.

STATEMENT BEFORE THE SPECIAL TRIBUNAL OF CALCUTTA HIGH COURT, 1932

Sir Muhammad Iqbal (November 9, 1877 - April 21, 1938), also known as Allama Iqbal, was an Indian philosopher, poet and politician who is widely regarded as having inspired the Pakistan Movement. He is considered one of the most important figures in Urdu literature, with literary work in both the Urdu and Persian languages. He wrote Sare Jahan se Accha, which is one of India's national songs. In 1930, in one of his most famous speeches, Iqbal pushed for the creation of a Muslim state in Northwest India.

Editor's note: The text of the speech is from the website of Dr. Francis W. Pritchett, Columbia University, NewYork. http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_iqbal_1930.html

Sir Muhammad Iqbal's 1930 Presidential Address to the 25th Session of the All-India Muslim League, Allahabad, 29 December 1930.

Source: Speeches, Writings, and Statements of Iqbal, compiled and edited by Latif Ahmed Sherwani (Lahore: Iqbal Academy, 1977 [1944], 2nd ed., revisedandenlarged), pp. 3-26. This version has been slightly edited by FWP for classroom use. Some extremely long paragraphs have been broken into shorter ones\;small errors of punctuation, etc., have been corrected. All italics are those of the original text. Annotations in square brackets, and paragraph numbers in double brackets, have been added by FWP.

Editor's note: The Indian National Congress met in Lahore in December 1929. The following pledge was  approved by the Congress  just before midnight on December 31, 1929. The pledge was taken by the public on January 26, 1930. One option before the Congress was to demand Dominion Status, under which India would have still remained at least nominally under British rule. The Congress rejected this option, and instead asked for Purna Swaraj, which means Full Independence.

Bimla Goulatia got her doctor’s degree (MBBS) from Government Medical College, Amritsar, and then joined the Indian government's Employees' State Insurance Corporation, India (ESIC). She rose to the rank of Director in their Headquarter at Delhi when She took voluntary retirement from this organisation.

Editor's note: A related story written by her oldest brother, Pran Bhatla is available here. Mr. M. P. V. Shenoi has faciliated the writing and publication of this story.

In the 1940s, my parents were living at House No.7, Galli (Street) No.7, Guru Nanak Pura Lyallpur (now Faisalabad), which is now in Pakistan. I was five years old. I had two older brothers, who were 13 and 7 years old, and a younger sister, who was 2.5 years old.

Editor's note: The All India Muslim League met in Lahore in March 1940. The League adopted a resolution that has become known as the Lahore Resolution. March 23, the date on which this Resolution was adopted, is celebrated in Pakistan every year. The resolution was moved in the general session by A.K. Fazlul Huq, the chief minister of undivided Bengal, and was seconded by Choudhury Khaliquzzaman, a leader from what was United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh). The full, unedited text of the resolution is reproduced below.

A silent black-and-white video is available here.