1946 Cabinet Mission to India
Towards the end of their rule, the British found that their temporary patronage of the Muslim League conflicted with their longstanding need for Indian unity.
The desire for a united India was an outcome of both their pride in having politically unified the subcontinent and the doubts of most British authorities as to the feasibility of Pakistan.
[1] The desire for Indian unity was symbolised by the Cabinet Mission, which arrived in New Delhi on 24 March 1946,[2] which was sent by the British government,[3] in which the subject was the formation of a post-independent India.
The three men who constituted the mission, A.V Alexander, Stafford Cripps, Pethick-Lawrence favoured India's unity for strategic reasons.
[2] Upon arriving in the subcontinent the mission found both parties, the Indian National Congress and Muslim League, more unwilling than ever to reach a settlement.
[4] The mission made its own proposals, after inconclusive dialogue with the Indian leadership,[2] and saw that the Congress opposed Jinnah's demand for a Pakistan comprising six full provinces.
[8][9] Through the scheme, the British expected to maintain Indian unity, as both they and Congress wanted, and also to provide Jinnah the substance of Pakistan.
[11][12] Jinnah explained in a letter to Karachi mayor Hatim Alavi on 10 June 1946, that the acceptance of the Cabinet Mission Plan was only a first step.
[14] Congress also accepted the proposals and understood them to be a repudiation of the demand for Pakistan, and its position was that, in case a Group Constitution was framed by its Constituent Assembly, the Provinces should have one vote each.
[6] The groupings plan maintained India's unity, but the organisation's leadership, most of all Nehru, increasingly believed that the scheme would leave the centre without the strength to achieve the party's ambitions.
[11] Nehru's speech on 10 July 1946 rejected the idea that the provinces would be obliged to join a group[11] and stated that the Congress was neither bound nor committed to the plan.
[19] Britain tried to revive the Cabinet Mission's scheme by sending Nehru, Jinnah and Wavell in December to meet Attlee, Cripps and Pethick-Lawrence.
[18] On 15 December 1946, Mahatma Gandhi met the Assam Congress leaders and told them to refuse to join Group C in the Constituent Assembly.
Thus, he rejected the Grouping Scheme in Cabinet Mission Plan to prevent Muslim League from controlling Hindu-majority Assam.
Gandhi feared that League would use its power in a confederal arrangement, to continue large-scale Muslim infiltration into Assam, and make it a Muslim-majority province.
