The Cabinet of groupings

The Cabinet Mission led by British ministers arrives in India, today in 1946, to discuss the transfer of power to an independent government. This would fail on grounds of religious groupings of provinces.

A meeting of the Cabinet mission; Source: Alamy

Clement Attlee, the new British Prime Minister, was eager to deal with the problems of Indian independence as soon as possible - benefitting Britain at the end of the bargain, and yet giving India the independence which was too much for the British to contain by the mid-1940s.

Therefore, he formulated a mission - with Lord Pethick-Lawrence, the Secretary of State for India, Sir Stafford Cripps, president of the Board of Trade, and AV Alexander, the First Lord of Admiralty. This would be the Cabinet mission, arriving in India on the 24th of March, 1946, to discuss the transfer of power from Britain to Indian leadership.

The British had a significant belief that Pakistan as an idea could not survive - a theocratic base for a state with significant cultural differences seemed like a recipe for disaster.

Strategically as well, their interests in keeping India as a united nation with autonomy to the regions would serve British interests against the upcoming rivalries with the Soviet Union.

The Mission suggested a weak central government, with only communications, foreign affairs, defence and communication in its hands. There would be provinces, and provinces would be grouped into certain units which would be divided along religious lines.

Group A was most of present-day India, B being most of present-day Pakistan, and C being Bengal and Assam. These groups would have great power in their internal affairs.

This grouping was unacceptable to both parties - the Congress did not want a clause that groupings could leave the nation at a later stage, and Jinnah fiercely argued for these groupings in order to give the Muslim League an equal standing in the electorates.

Both would come to a deadlock, and the government would break down. The Cabinet Mission failed, and there could be scarcely anything preventing a full-blown confrontation later down the line.