Partition is the only way
Edwina, wife of Viceroy Lord Mountbatten, visited the riot-hit areas of Punjab in the summer of 1947. In hospitals and riot-ravaged villages, he saw scenes of communal brutality – hand-cut children, pregnant women with stomach-cuts, the only child left in the family! ..... she firmly believes that as her husband and partner are right, partition is the only way.
Agreeing with Edwina's reasoning, Mountbatten prepared Gandhi, Nehru and Patel for the partition of India. Gandhi refused to accept partition but Nehru and Patel agreed. When Maulana saw Nehru supporting Partition, he was stunned. He wrote- 'The biggest opponent of Partition Jawaharlal Nehru agreed to the need of partition of India within a month of Mountbatten's arrival in India.
While holding Mountbatten responsible for the change in Nehru's thoughts, Maulana Azad has also indicated the role of Edwina- 'Jawaharlal Nehru was influenced by Mountbatten but Nehru was more influenced by Edwina than Mountbatten. She was not only extremely intelligent but was a very charming and friendly woman. She was a deep admirer of her husband and in many cases even forced her husband to change his mind.'
Maulana has also considered Nehru's friend Krishna Menon as possible responsible for the change in Nehru's views. He writes- 'Nehru often listened to the advice of Krishna Menon. I was not very pleased to see that Menon had given wrong advice to Nehru in this matter.'
Patel was already prepared for India-Partition It would be wrong to say that Sardar Patel was persuaded or prepared by Mountbatten for the partition of India. Sardar was already in favor of partition, but he was not only a prominent Congress leader but was the biggest assistant of Gandhiji in the politics of that period, so he apparently supported Gandhiji's policy that the country should not be divided. But he knew that this was not possible under the circumstances of the time.
Abul Kalam's grief
Abul Kalam has written- 'I was surprised and sad when Petal said whether we like it or not but there are two nations in India. Patel agreed that Muslims and Hindus could no longer be integrated into one country.'
There was a lot of similarity in the views of Maulana and Gandhi, but there was so much difference between the views of Patel and Maulana that Maulana and Patel never talked with each other's eyes. What was the meaning of this? In the opinion of the author, this simply meant that there was a lot of opposition between the views of Patel and Gandhi, but Patel did not oppose Gandhiji. Maulana and Gandhi did not want Partition but Patel wanted it, and they were seeing it as the only way to end India's political and communal problems.