The legislature representatives of the Indian National Congress, the Muslim League, and the Sikh community came to an agreement with Lord Mountbatten on what has come to be known as the 3 June Plan or Mountbatten Plan. This plan was the last plan for independence.
In February, 1947, Lord Mountbatten was sent as the Viceroy to India to ensure early transfer of power. He put up his plan on June 3, 1947 which included partition of India. Following the Mountbatten Plan, June 3, 1947, India was made free, but by partitioning India the new state of Pakistan was created.
Seeing the kind of communal tension created in the name of religion, the Congress leaders thought it beneficial for the larger interest of humanity to accept the decision of partition. On 15 August 1947, India attained freedom.
To perform this job, George VI, King of the United Kingdom and the Emperor of British India, sent his cousin Lord Louis Francis Albert Victor “Dickie” Mountbatten to India as his last viceroy.
Earl Louis Mountbatten, the last British Viceroy and the Governor-General of India, who arrived in India on March 22, 1947, had his task cut out – to liquidate the British empire and quit India as soon as possible. Initially, he was given time until June 1948 – not 1947 – to complete his mission. But, in a hurry to get back to Britain to advance his naval career, Dickey decided to prepone the transfer of power by ten months, to August 1947. To achieve this, he worked out a plan after having long discussions with Congress and the Muslim League leaders.
As Mountbatten’s efforts to keep India united failed and with increasing communal riots in the country, he asked Ismay, his Chief of Staff, to prepare a plan for the transfer of power to responsible hands and the division of the country. It was discussed that the entire plan was to be kept secretive, and none of the parties in India should have any information before the plan was finalised.
However, even before the announcement of the plan, Jawaharlal Nehru, who was staying with Mountbatten as a guest at his residence at Simla, had a look at the plan, who rejected the plan in totality. Mountbatten then asked VP Menon, the only Indian working in his personal staff, to present a new plan for transferring power.
Later, Mountbatten went to London, where he got it approved without any alteration. Attlee and his cabinet approved in a meeting that lasted not more than five minutes. On May 31, Mountbatten returned to India and met the Indian leaders, including Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Acharya Kripalani, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Liaqat Ali, and Baldev Singh. After both Congress and Muslim League leaders approved the plan without raising any objections. Later, Mountbatten discussed it with Gandhi and convinced him saying partition was the best plan under the circumstances.
Credit : OpIndia
Picture Credit : Google
