If only it were that simple. A personal disagreement between two individuals wouldn't have been enough to divide a subcontinent.
These weren't just two individuals on the street, even if i do joke that India got partitioned because two Gujarati Lawyers got in a fight. They were two figures who are central to the later phase of the struggle for independence in the sub-continent.
Especially as one of them was a minor figure with almost no electoral support until quite late in the process. It was the idea of partition that made him popular at least as much as the other way around, although his ability to inspire helped.
OK, first off, you're right. The ML did not have a lot of electoral support until quite late in the process. But this electoral support was not as single issue as people devolve it into. Congress had been given a huge mandate in the 1937 elections, which actually took place in the winter of 1936 and 1937. They had made the right connections and political alliance. Bear in mind that while the INC was a titan on the nascent Indian electoral scene, there were still a lot of smaller but influential parties, like the Hindu Mahasabha, Unionist Party, etc.
Anyways, so what did the INC do with their mandate? Nothing. Not a thing. They were dead set on being belligerent to a fault with the British overlords and did not even try to push for any serious achievable reforms. Instead they seemed to be content to push reforms until after independence. Now bear in mind that this was a time when the Raj economy was not doing great the Recession of 1937-1938. People were eagre to embrace independence and move on with their lives. Instead by the time 1938 rolled around the INC was busy with it's own infighting with Bose being elected president and Gandhi opposing him at every turn and in every way possible. Which was no surprise, the fools were handed the keys to the kingdom and yet they bickered away at who would get to be the first to step inside.
This isn't the first time Gandhi had pushed for maintaining his control over the independence movement at the cost of the cause itself. Remember the personal disagreement between Jinnah and Gandhi? That emerged because Gandhi had alienated Jinnah from the INC. Jinnah was with the INC for years before Gandhi was anywhere on the scene and had worked really hard to achieve independence through his strategy. And his strategy was to win over the British government. Jinnah was educated in England and lived in the West, and after returning to India rubbed shoulders with the British elite in India. He knew how the British thought and worked and he figured out a strategy that he thought would work with the British. And frankly it was giving results and maybe could've worked if WW1 hadn't broken out. But that is mere speculation at this point. Truth is by 1919 the British had completely alienated the Indians, and they could've salvaged things but the radicals in India were in charge, led by Gandhi.
If someone takes away from you everything you've worked towards for the past almost 15 years of your life, you don't call that a personal disagreement, it is a humiliation. A humiliation that someone with a sense of self-worth like Jinnah had cannot take. He was basically in the political wilderness for the next decade, getting a minor seat as a Muslim candidate in Bombay's Central Legislative assembly.
So in 1933 when he was given a chance by Liaquat Ali Khan and the Muslim League to enact revenge on his nemesis Gandhi, he took it. The idea of partition was nowhere near being mainstream at this point and wouldn't be until Jinnah made it so around 1942. He was instrumental to popularizing that idea as he was instrumental in the building up of the INC in the lead up to WW1. To reduce the role of his feud with Gandhi to a simple personal and political disagreement is in my humble opinion losing out on a world of context.
The basic issue was that Congress desired to run a centralized state, partly for developmental reasons, and that Muslims desired a substantial degree of devolution in order to give muslim areas autonomy. When elected into regional government before WW2 the congress party demonstrated a striking unwillingness to cooperate with muslim parties (or other parties more generally) as it saw itself representing all Indians, with substantial implications for Muslims in a centralized state, where Congress would inevitably be in power.
This is the part where i agree with you. Congress was colored by socialist ideas, and which independence movement at that time wasn't. The socialist ideals of equality, compared to the hypocritical equality espoused by the liberal capitalists of the West, appealed to the oppressed masses. Back then everyone believed that the Soviet Union was some economic miracle, and even the Americans were flirting with socialism. On a side note the Soviets had in the span of 2 decades pulled entire nations from the 18th to the 20th century overnight. Their literacy rate went from 40% in 1917 to 90% by 1937. Their economy expanded massively even in the midst of the greatest economic depression the world had seen until that point, and the likes of which we haven't seen since. To us it all of that is distant historical context, but to the people living there back then it was their daily news.
Now it was clear then that the INC favored a centralized approach to pulling the country out of poverty. And for obvious reasons it was not appealing to the Muslims. Again, however, context is king and it should be noted that devolution was most appealing to the Muslim Land-holding class who had most to lose from the Land-reforms proposed by a potentially socialist and all-powerful centralized state. Much like always in history the land-holding class wanted a weaker central government, whether it be medieval barons in England or the Plantation owners in the American South. The Muslims in India were not some unified super-bloc voting on a single issue of devolution, in fact the poorer Muslims, primarily farmers and tradesmen, had far more in common with their Hindu neighbors than the Zamindar in his palatial estate.
Since this relatively small voter base of rich Muslims was unwilling to compromise on devolution the INC never sought to court them much, and mostly ignored the middling parties representing them. But that is again not all there is to the story. Under Gandhi and Nehru the INC had ambitions of becoming a sole representative of the ambitions of the entire India populace. It has always had this kind of an ambition since. To them the Muslim parties were irritants and pests who wooed away Muslim voters from them. They prevented the INC from turning into a sole representative for the voice of the Indian people, and prevented 'unity' towards the common cause of independence. The fact that many of the Muslim parties were in bed with the British further inflamed passions in the INC against them. And since the electoral math of 1937 elections worked without having to court the minor Muslim parties the INC decided to ignore them. [/QUOTE]
To answer the original question, I think it was a fluke, but only in the same way that every historical event is the consequence of a particular set of circumstances and if things had been different a different outcome might have happened. So what is necessary to avoid partition? I think the only way to avoid partition (or civil war) by the outbreak of WW2 is a much more devolved structure, hence Congress is the party responsible for partition. Possibly because its leadership had been locked up and had lost touch with some of the wartime changes in India, especially in the Muslim community, meaning it didn't realize the Muslim league wasn't bluffing until it was too late.
Yes, indeed every historical event is the offspring of a particular set of circumstances. Most certainly if Gandhi was out of the picture by the early 1930s and Nehru's star thus never rose, then partition could've certainly been avoided. Or if anti-Gandhi elements within the INC took back the party after 1937 election under Bose and sought
detente and alliance with Jinnah and his followers on the issue of Devolution, then again partition could've been avoided. Even as late as 1944 if Gandhi died and Nehru personally chose to pursue consensus with Jinnah instead of opposition the Partition could've been completely avoided, with a strong federalized structure being put in place instead. The INC under Gandhi and Nehru are as much to blame as anyone else during this time for the Partition. Much as the Hindu Mahasabha spooked the poorer Muslims, the communist party of India spooked the rich Muslims and the Muslims League pushed the agenda towards a 'two-nation' solution, and the INC despite being best placed to ease tension and avoid the Partition, because of how out of touch they had become with the will of the people and where the real interests of the nation lay in the future.
The real reason the ML exploded in membership after 1940 was not on the issue of partition per se but because of how it was presented and by whom. Jinnah was a phenomenal communicator, much like Gandhi, and he had the money of the Muslim landlords funding his party. Those funds from wealthy landlords went a long way to organizing the ML and building up support for the Partition agenda in the wartime years, as did innovative new approaches to boosting membership of the ML, like charging only a nominal sum for lifetime membership, the merging of different Muslim parties into the Muslim league. Another factor that helped expand the ML was the death of the Unionist Party head Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan in 1942. The Unionist party comprised of the Landlords of Punjab province and under Sir Skiandar Hayat Khan they pushed the ML out of Punjab. But with his death the party splintered under communal lines and ML gained the most from that collapse.
Avoiding partition through devolution implies India is a less active player on the world stage, although this is offset by Indian foreign policy not being driven by the conflict with Pakistan. A substantial degree of devolution also makes a break up at some later date conceivable and possibly even inevitable.
In any case, is a better managed partition without a conflict over Kashmir such a bad thing? Obviously it would be great for everyone to get along and have the same identities, priorities and desires, but they don't, which is one reason we have multiple countries. There is very little evidence that a single state is the natural or optimal organization of the subcontinent.
Actually a lack of Partition due to increased devolution, will have so many different effects. As you rightly pointed out the foreign policy will no longer be driven by conflict with Pakistan. But there are other effects also.
For one, there aren't 14.5 million refugees on both sides who have lost all they had. The economies of the two most prosperous provinces in the sub-continent, Bengal and Punjab, aren't destroyed. Side note the economic impact of Partition is often ignored in discussions of the Partition. For example, jute was mostly produced in modern day West Bengal and transported to modern day Bangladesh to be worked in mills and sold throughout the sub-continent. That whole industry basically died in the immediate aftermath of the Partition and took a while to recover.
On the other hand your argument that increased federalization and devolution of powers will make civil war likely is probably incorrect. Post-independence, in India it did seem like India will break apart because of the separatist movements which emerged with calls for separate states in the South, East, West, etc. The Indian government actually conceed to many of their demands and devolved more powers to the states. Throughout India's post independence history we have not really expanded (glances at Portugal) but we have added 11 states, further devolving power.
If India does have a more federalized structure with more devolution of power, we might not see as much instability as post-independence India saw in early 1950s, and even less going forwards.
What does that increased stability translate into, when combined with a lack of economic devastation post-Partition as it was IOTL? A better economy. Which in turn means less instability. Additionally, no partition means a party representing the interests of the rich land owning class is preserved. So while land reform might go ahead, it won't be as radical as OTL and you'll have business and capitalist friendly parties in India, they will be in power in at least some provinces. Again that translates to greater economic growth. Without the threat of a Pakistan the Indian military will be smaller in the years leading up to the 1960s and more money can be spent on public welfare, boosting standards of living. These pro-west parties will have a moderating influence on the United Indian government, particularly as ML will be so big that no one can form a government in the center without having them on board. We might even see the US court India in it's efforts to contain communism and if the Indian government is receptive to the Americans they could even invest in building up India to be a market for American goods (manufactured in India due to distances involved and lack of modern 21st century logistics in the mid-20th century).
And after China falls to Mao, the US will definitely push to build up India to be a counterweight to the PRC in Asia. In that case we could see economic growth comparable to or higher than what India had in the years between 1900 and 1914, which were arguably some of the best years economy wise until the 1980s. Closer ties with the west and business community will mean that there wont be the kind of capital and capitalist flight we saw in post-independence India, with some more of the rich Anglo-Indian community choosing to stay behind, instead of immigrating to post-war Britain.
A single state is not the natural organization of the sub-continent, but it could be very beneficial. I cannot say it is optimal, but the consequences will certainly be more positive than OTL, at least until the turbulent 70s.