After discussions with the leaders of the Congress and the Muslim League, Mountbatten understood that the partition of India was inevitable. Pakistan must be given to Muslims. Otherwise the Congress and the Muslim League will continue to fight with each other for eternity. Therefore, he prepared a plan for the partition of India and sent it to the Attlee government of England.
With this plan, Mountbatten also wrote a letter - 'Partition is just madness. If these unbelievable national riots had not made every individual savage, if there had been a situation to find a single alternative to Partition, then no man in the world could tempt me to accept this madness. It should be clear to the world that the entire responsibility of such a crazy decision rests on Indian shoulders, because a day will surely come when Indians themselves will regret their decision badly.'
It was a very strange thing that the Indian leaders whom Mountbatten had prepared with great difficulty for the partition of India, the same Indian leaders were accused of partition by Mountbatten. 'Indians' in his report to Mountbatten 'Leggie leaders' by not using the word Words should have been used.
Gandhiji met Mountbatten on 31 March 1947 and Gandhiji was saddened to learn that Patel and Nehru had also become supporters of Partition. After meeting Gandhiji with the Viceroy, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad came to meet Gandhiji. He has written the memoirs of this meeting in his book India Wins Freedom - 'I immediately went to meet him and his first sarcasm was - Partition is now a threat. Vallabhbhai and even Jawaharlal seem to have succumbed. What will you do now? Will you support me or have you changed too?'
I replied- 'I have been against partition and still am. I was never against partition as much as I am today, but I regret to see that even Jawaharlal and Sardar Patel have accepted defeat and laid down their weapons in your words. My hope now rests only on you. If you stand against partition, we can still stop it. If you also agree, I am afraid that India will be doomed.'
Gandhiji said- 'What kind of question do you also ask? If Congress accepts partition, it will have to do it over my dead body. As long as I am alive I will never agree to the partition of India. And if I am under my control, I will not even allow Congress to approve it.
…….. Later on the same day Gandhiji met Lord Mountbatten. He also met her on the second day and again on April 2. As soon as he came back to meet Lord Mountbatten for the first time, Sardar Patel approached him and kept on talking secretly for two hours. What happened in this meeting, I do not know. But when I met Gandhiji again, I was shocked as I had never felt before, because I saw that he too had changed.'
Why did Gandhiji also change and be in favor of Partition? Throwing light on this, Azad said that in order to preserve the unity of the country, Gandhiji had suggested to Lord Mountbatten that Jinnah should be allowed to form the government and he should be allowed to choose the members of his cabinet. Mountbatten liked this, but this suggestion was strongly opposed by both Nehru and Patel and forced Gandhi to withdraw it.
Azad wrote- 'Gandhiji reminded me of this and said that the circumstances are such that partition seems inevitable.' Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was of the view that Gandhiji could not resist partition due to the influence of Sardar Patel and became his supporter.