IN 1960, Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last viceroy to British India who oversaw Partition, said that had he known “all this at the time”, the course of history would have been different. “I would have delayed the granting of independence for several months. There would have been no Pakistan.” The secret Mountbatten was talking about has often been described as the most protected secret of the 20th century. Had it not been protected so well, Pakistan would not have emerged as an independent state. Even Nehru was shocked to know about it. So, what was the secret? The Quaid-i-Azam’s battle against tuberculosis (TB).

The Cabinet Mission Plan in 1946 envisaged the grouping scheme that was to last till 1958. The Muslim League agreed, but the Congress rejected it, assuming that it might be a trap laid by Jinnah. The June 3, 1947, Partition Plan envisioned carrying out the process within a year, but Mountbatten overturned it and reduced the period to only two months, with mala fide intentions working behind his decision.

Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s health deteriorated in 1948 and it worsened in August. He was shifted to Ziarat and was then flown to Karachi on Sept 11, 1948, where he passed away on his way to hospital.

Mountbatten was right in his observation, as after the Quaid there was no other leader who had the tenacity to face the Hindu-British intrigues as well as infighting among the Muslims. Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, in their book Freedom at Midnight, argue that Partition could have been bypassed if “the most closely guarded secret in India” had become known, that is, Jinnah was suffering from TB and that he did not have much time to live. Here is an excerpt from the book:

“If Jinnah had been just an unfortunate victim of tuberculosis, he would have been confined in a sanatorium for the rest of his life. Jinnah, however, was not a normal patient. When he was released from hospital, [Dr Jal Ratanji] Patel brought him to his office. Sadly, he revealed to his friend and patient the fatal illness which was stalking him. He was, he told Jinnah, reaching the end of his physical resources. Unless he severely reduced his workload … and eased the pressures on his system, he did not have more than one or two years to live.

“The knowledge of one’s own slow demise would have broken the will of most people, but Jinnah remained a man unmoved … Nothing except the grave was going to turn him from the task … of leading India’s Muslims at this critical juncture in their history.”

Syed Tahir Rashdi
Shahdadpur

Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2021