Was India's Partition Inevitable

Surely a united India would do good things for the region but due to the religious rivalries at the time was it impossible to keep the former colony together or could anything be done to either prevent the inevitable or allow the country to stay together?

I wouldn't say anything in history is inevitable, and the partition of India certainly wasn't. It was the easiest solution for the British to deal with the sectarian violence in the country, but had they simply ignored it and left India to its own devices, I imagine things could well have gone differently - not necessarily better, but different. It really depends on who has the authority over the situation. A lot of Indians still resent Britain for the partition.

Anyone else?

My understanding was the the early independence movement circa 1900-10 was not interested in partition and the ritish encouraged the division between the Hindu and Muslim communities as a technique of "divide and rule" to put off Indian independence. It was probably unavoidable after the Amritsar or Jallanwala Bagh massacre in 1919, especially after the British Commander was not disciplined for killing over 370 peaceful demonstrators.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_massacre

No, not inevitable. Much harder to avoid after WWII, but even then could have been forestalled by the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946, though it's an open question whether that plan would ultimately have survived.

No WWII could well result in no partition, as the Congress' boycott of government in opposition to the war, as well as their imprisonment, dramatically raised the profile of the Muslim League. Absent WWII, Britain would also have held onto India some years longer, and with Jinnah's death in 1948, the movement may well have dissipated.

You could also have had the Congress in the United Provinces agree to a coalition with the Muslim League after 1937, as the League had requested. You could have a Liberal or Labour government grant India dominion status in the 1930s, before the Partition movement really picked up steam. Or you could have Jinnah decide against returning from London in the mid-1930s. Or you could have the Khilafat/Noncooperation movement of the 1920s - a combined Hindu/Muslim nationalist agitation - continue, instead of ending acrimoniously.

On the ground, there was no real communal violence or serious tension before 1946 or so. There was a divide between the Hindu and Muslim political elites, but the bulk of Muslim politicians were pushing for power-sharing or at best a confederation, not a full-scale partition, given that most of the Muslim League leaders were landowners in areas that were Hindu majority.

Have Jinna did from his cancer a couple of years earlier, and there probably would have been no partition.

Or if you go way back, before colonization, you can keep it united.

Cosmedian said:

Or if you go way back, before colonization, you can keep it united.

Click to expand...

No you can't, the lands of the British Raj were never fully united to that extent prior to colonization. The Mughals came closest but they were doomed to fall apart, which they inevitably did.