Who was/were Responsible for "Partition"???

[Sukla Sen]

*Who was/were Responsible for "Partition"???*

Why?
Gandhi and Nehru, obviously.
The Congress had refused to share power either with Muslims or Dalits.
That's how.
(From somewhere else.)

So, it's not Jinnah, leading the Muslim League, who demanded Partition back in 1940 and made it unavoidable via his call for the 'Direct Action Day' in August 1946 triggering a bloodbath to compel the unwilling Congress to accede to it!
Btw, Dr. Ambedkar backed the demand for Pakistan, in tandem with Jinnah's logic but considering that it'd be a good riddance.

The Congress had Maulana Abul Kalam Azad as the Congress President for long years, just preceding Independence.
The longest tenure for any, pre-Independence.
Would be the Education Minister, post-Independence.
Died in harness.
Dr. Ambedkar would be coopted by the Congress as the Chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee and the Law Minister after getting him elected from a seat from the then Bombay Province specially vacated by a Congress member.

Coming back to Jinnah, this is what Jinnah had said:
<<[[23]] It is extremely difficult to appreciate why our Hindu friends fail to understand the real nature of Islam and Hinduism. They are not religions in the strict sense of the word, but are, in fact, different and distinct social orders; and it is a dream that the Hindus and Muslims can ever evolve a common nationality; and this misconception of one Indian nation has gone far beyond the limits and is the cause of more of our troubles and will lead India to destruction if we fail to revise our notions in time. The Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs, and literature[s]. They neither intermarry nor interdine together, and indeed they belong to two different civilisations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their aspects [=perspectives?] on life, and of life, are different. It is quite clear that Hindus and Mussalmans derive their inspiration from different sources of history. They have different epics, their heroes are different, and different episode[s]. Very often the hero of one is a foe of the other, and likewise their victories and defeats overlap. To yoke together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority, must lead to growing discontent, and final. destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the government of such a state.
...
[[25]] Muslim India cannot accept any constitution which must necessarily result in a Hindu majority government. Hindus and Muslims brought together under a democratic system forced upon the minorities can only mean Hindu Raj. Democracy of the kind with which the Congress High Command is enamoured would mean the complete destruction of what is most precious in Islam. We have had ample experience of the working of the provincial constitutions during the last two and a half years, and any repetItion of such a government must lead to civil war and [the] raising of private armies, as recommended by Mr. Gandhi to [the] Hindus of Sukkur when he said that they must defend themselves violently or non-violently, blow for blow, and if they could not they must emigrate. ...>>
(Ref.: <http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_jinnah_lahore_1940.html?fbclid=IwAR1P6wtbXGshENS9WDXqLCxuLSNJb8CzlqUQoTXuRAyPt871MYwJAodNaUs>.)

And Jinnah was no mere individual leader - even of towering proportions.
He converted himself into the (most eloquent and effective) flag-bearer of a deep-seated tradition of strong misgivings entertained by (vast sections of) the Muslim elite - who had looked upon themselves as the legatees of a race(!) of (erstwhile) rulers, as regards the prospects of "Hindu" dominance in a "democratic" set-up.

Here's Sir Syed's tirade, back in 1888, against Muslims joining the Congress - just three years after its birth, and, interestingly, against Bengalis.
<<{7} ... you must remember that although the number of Mahomedans is less than that of the Hindus, and although they contain far fewer people who have received a high English education, yet they must not be thought insignificant or weak. Probably they would be by themselves enough to maintain their own position. But suppose they were not. [[38]] Then our Mussalman brothers, the Pathans, would come out as a swarm of locusts from their mountain valleys, and make rivers of blood to flow from their frontier in the north to the extreme end of Bengal. This thing — who, after the departure of the English, would be conquerors — would rest on the will of God. But until one nation had conquered the other and made it obedient, peace could not reign in the land. This conclusion is based on proofs so absolute that no one can deny it.>>
(Ref.: <http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_sir_sayyid_meerut_1888.html?fbclid=IwAR1O7lJmn2cLtNUyn0tsi0KysFU_QpzWSYUWmfWW20wGTwf7RxYwNDdNn5I>.)

As I had repeatedly underlined in my various posts and notes - which others are not supposed to be too aware of, let me reiterate that, like so many other nations, India too was an imagined one - imagined and stitched up by the (Indian) "nationalist" movement taking off from the (quasi)unified state - created, for the first time, by the British colonial rule, out of the loosely interconnected and yet disparate elements in terms of ethnicity, language, religion, caste, culture etc.
Even on the morrow of Independence, the task of nation - composite, inclusive and egalitarian, building was very much a work in progress.
To be taken further ahead by the newborn state.
That's how the (Indian) "nationalist" leaders acknowledged.
That's how the insistence on a "centralised" state.
To hold and fuse the various parts - with inherent centrifugal tendencies, together.

To illustrate, that explains their *initial* aversion towards linguistic states and preferene for anti-democratic and anti-federal legal provisions - quite contrary to public proclamations, even after creation of Pakistan.

As far as Jinnah is concerned, he did himself quite elaborately put his views on record:
<<We have had ample experience of the working of the provincial constitutions during the last two and a half years, and any repetition of such a government must lead to civil war and [the] raising of private armies, as recommended by Mr. Gandhi to [the] Hindus of Sukkur when he said that they must defend themselves violently or non-violently, blow for blow, and if they could not they must emigrate.>>
That's Jinnah's very own assessment of the potentials of a loosely federated state.
Any comment is superfluous.

Not to be missed that Jinnah, here, is putting forward cold "realist" arguments.
No emotion stirring rhetorics here.
Dr. Ambedkar has done likewise, elsewhere (ref.: <http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00ambedkar/ambedkar_partition/index.html#contents> and CHAPTER XII, in particular).

What have been presented above are, in the main, "hard" primary evidences (with sources duly indicated).
The inferences flowed therefrom.
Of course, one may still contest.

If my memory serves me right the proposal of 'loose federation" that had once been on the table envisaged a central government with powers over (only) (i) foreign affairs, (ii) (central) armed forces and (iii) the currency.
There's no way, given the tentative nature of "Indian nationhood", the (Indian) "nationalists" could have accepted that.
Eventually, driven to the wall, they accepted, which they deemed, the lesser of the "two evils" forced upon them - the Partition.
In fact, the other "option" was no longer available.

The Partition resulted in unspeakable bestial brutalities of huge proportions suffered and perpetrated by all the three involved religious communities.
One of the darkest patches of modern human history.

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Peace Is Doable