Thoughts on Pakistan (1940) — Ambedkar on Partition पाकिस्तान अथवा भारत का विभाजन

Who was B. R. Ambedkar?

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (14 April 1891 – 6 December 1956) was an economist, lawyer and the foremost leader of India's depressed classes, later known as the Scheduled Castes. Born into the Mahar community at Mhow, he earned doctorates from Columbia University and the London School of Economics. In 1936 he founded the Independent Labour Party in the Bombay Presidency, and in 1942 the Scheduled Castes Federation. He served on the Viceroy's Executive Council from 1942 to 1946, chaired the drafting committee of the Constitution of India, and was independent India's first Law Minister. Late in life he embraced Buddhism.

When and why it was written

In March 1940 the All-India Muslim League, meeting at Lahore, resolved that the Muslim-majority areas in the north-west and east of India should be grouped into independent states. According to the book's prologue, the Executive Council of Ambedkar's Independent Labour Party then appointed a committee, with Ambedkar as chairman, to study the question; the committee asked him to write a report, which he submitted in August 1940 and which the party resolved to publish.

The report appeared as Thoughts on Pakistan, published by Thacker and Company, Bombay; its prologue is dated 28 December 1940, and some copies carry 1941 on the title page. It had four parts, twelve chapters, an epilogue, fourteen appendices and three maps. A second edition, retitled Pakistan or the Partition of India, followed in February 1945, adding a fifth part setting out Ambedkar's own views, many more appendices and an index; a third edition followed in 1946. The third-edition text is the one reprinted in volume 8 of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches (Government of Maharashtra, 1990).

In his preface to the second edition, Ambedkar noted that Gandhi and Jinnah had cited the book in their talks of 1944, and complained that politicians and editors had borrowed its arguments, and even its language, without acknowledgement.

The book part by part

• Introduction and prologue. Ambedkar refuses either to dismiss the Pakistan demand as a passing fever or to rage against it. He treats it as a settled development in Muslim politics that must be studied seriously, insists that Hindus and Muslims must settle it themselves, and explains the book's origin as a party report.
• Part I — Muslim Case for Pakistan (chapters I–III). 'What does the League Demand?' reproduces and analyses the Lahore Resolution, traces the idea of a north-western Muslim state back to Muhammad Iqbal's 1930 presidential address and Rahmat Ali's later scheme, and compares it with the Congress's own plan for linguistic provinces. 'A Nation Calling for a Home' asks what makes a nation and argues that what matters is a shared consciousness of being one people. 'Escape from Degradation' sets out Muslim grievances against the Congress provincial ministries of 1937–39.
• Part II — Hindu Case against Pakistan (chapters IV–VI). 'Break-up of Unity' weighs the claim that India has always been one, using an account of medieval invasions that later historians regard as outdated. 'Weakening of the Defences' examines frontiers, revenues and the army in turn. 'Pakistan and Communal Peace' argues that Pakistan as drawn by the League would still leave large minorities on both sides, so that boundaries would have to be redrawn and the transfer of populations considered, citing the exchanges between Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria after the First World War.
• Part III — What if not Pakistan? (chapters VII–IX). 'Hindu Alternative to Pakistan' reviews Lala Har Dayal's ideas, the position of V. D. Savarkar and the Hindu Mahasabha, Gandhi's long pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity, and a grim record of riots from 1920 to 1940. 'Muslim Alternative to Pakistan' looks at a proposed reform scheme in Hyderabad and the views of the Azad Muslim Conference. 'Lessons from Abroad' studies the break-up of the Ottoman Empire and of Czechoslovakia to show how hard it is to hold rival nationalisms in one state.
• Part IV — Pakistan and the Malaise (chapters X–XII). 'Social Stagnation' criticises social evils in Muslim society, such as purdah and child marriage, and argues that both communities neglect social reform because politics absorbs them. 'Communal Aggression' traces how Muslim political demands grew under separate electorates and British encouragement, from the Minto address of 1906 through the Lucknow Pact of 1916. 'National Frustration' asks whether a common national loyalty exists and concludes that the 'two-nation' idea has created a dualism in the body politic.
• Part V — Ambedkar's own views (chapters XIII–XV, added in 1945). 'Must There be Pakistan?' lists the weaknesses of the Muslim case, but concludes that if Muslims are truly determined to have Pakistan, the principle should be conceded. 'The Problems of Pakistan' argues that Punjab and Bengal would have to be divided so that non-Muslim majority districts were not forced into Pakistan, and treats population transfer as a solvable administrative task. 'Who Can Decide?' offers a draft 'Government of India (Preliminary Provisions) Act' providing for separate polls of Muslim and non-Muslim voters and a boundary commission.
• Epilogue. Ambedkar sets out the issues Hindus and Muslims must decide, criticises the statesmanship of both Gandhi and Jinnah, and suggests that the communal question, including Pakistan, be referred to an international board of arbitration drawn from outside the British Empire.

Key arguments

Take the demand seriously. Ambedkar's starting point is that a demand backed, as he put it, by the great majority of Indian Muslims cannot be wished away by slogans and metaphors. The book is built as a set of pleadings so that readers can weigh both sides and reach their own verdict.

Nationhood is a matter of feeling. In chapter II, drawing on Ernest Renan and Lord Acton, he argues that neither race, language nor territory makes a nation; what matters is a consciousness of kinship and, for that to become nationalism, a will to live as a nation. Within the Muslim case he concludes that Muslims had developed such a will, whatever the shared history of the two communities.

Boundaries and minorities. Pakistan as claimed would contain large Hindu and Sikh populations, and India would still contain many Muslims. Ambedkar therefore insists that Punjab and Bengal be divided on the basis of district majorities, which is broadly what happened in 1947.

Population transfer as an option, not a command. In the Hindu case of Part II, transfer is presented as the lasting remedy for communal conflict. In his own Part V he is more cautious: compulsory transfer, he writes, is prima facie wrong, and transfer should be state-aided and open to those minorities who choose to move.

Defence and the army. Ambedkar devotes much space to the composition of the British Indian army, which recruited heavily from the Punjab and the North-West Frontier. In chapter V he argues that a modern state's security depends less on natural frontiers than on the loyalty of its forces, ending with the line that a safe army is better than a safe border; in Part V he returns to the defence question as a chief reason for preferring a smaller but cohesive India if Muslims insist on Pakistan.

A judicial separation, not a divorce. His draft scheme, based on community-wise polls, is designed to be flexible: he presents it as a separation that would leave open the possibility of later reunion if the Pakistan demand proved to be a passing mood.

In the author's words

I am not staggered by Pakistan; I am not indignant about it; nor do I believe that it can be smashed by shooting into it similes and metaphors.

That it is disowned by the Hindus and unowned by the Muslims is to me the best evidence that it has the vices of neither, and that from the point of view of independence of thought and fearless presentation of facts the book is not a party production.

Reception and criticism

On publication the book pleased neither camp. Ambedkar himself remarked that it had been disowned by Hindus and unowned by Muslims. Many in the Congress resented its sympathetic hearing for the League's case, while League supporters disliked its insistence on partitioning Punjab and Bengal and its criticism of Muslim society. It was nonetheless widely read and, by Ambedkar's account, consulted by Gandhi and Jinnah during their talks in 1944.

Historians value the book as a rich contemporary analysis of communal politics, with extensive tables and appendices on population, representation and army recruitment. They also note its limits. Frances Pritchett of Columbia University, in her introduction to the online edition, observes that some of the historical accounts Ambedkar relied on, especially for medieval India, have been superseded by later research. Its forecasts proved partly accurate: partition did divide Punjab and Bengal along district lines, but the violent, largely unplanned migrations of 1947 bore little resemblance to the orderly, treaty-based transfers he described.

Today the book is often quoted in fragments. Hindu nationalist writers cite its criticism of Muslim social practice, its doubts about the loyalty of an army shaped by the two-nation idea, and its discussion of population exchange, sometimes in debates over citizenship and migration. Critics of Hindu nationalism cite its observation that Savarkar and Jinnah, far from being opposed, agreed that India contained two nations, and its warning in chapter XIII that Hindu Raj, if it came about, would be a great calamity. Each of these readings rests on real passages, but the book's method of stating opposing cases at full strength means that a line from the Hindu case or the Muslim case in Parts I and II is not necessarily Ambedkar's own conclusion, which he gives separately in Part V. Readers are best served by reading quoted passages in their place in the argument.

Where to read it

The book is in the public domain in India. The third-edition text is volume 8 of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches (Education Department, Government of Maharashtra, 1990), also distributed by the Dr. Ambedkar Foundation of the Government of India. Frances W. Pritchett of Columbia University maintains a complete online edition based on that volume, with its tables, appendices and maps. Scans of the 1940–41 first edition (Thoughts on Pakistan) and of the 1945 and 1946 editions are available on archive.org through the Digital Library of India.

Read more on this site

• B. R. AmbedkarGreat Lives
• Annihilation of Caste (1936)Books & Ideas
• Hindutva (1923) by V. D. SavarkarBooks & Ideas
• Mahatma GandhiGreat Lives

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