Partition Reporting by Johnson
13-14-15 August 1947 and the Politics behind it
Mountbatten had arrived Karachi at 13th August 1947 and it was his last official duty as Viceroy of British India. He had to went back next day till 02.00 pm noon, to repeat same duty in Delhi at 14 August. He followed the time table but the party at Delhi delayed for 12 hours, till 12.00 night after the intervention of a Jotashi and that story is narrated by Alex Von Tunzeleman in his famous book Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire. Had Nehru courage to stop it , there will be no question of 15 August. Was it the first mutual arrangement in newly founded States? i cannot say any thing. Here I will concentrate on the account of Johnson only. It is printed in this book at page 02 that this edition is specially revised and abridged so i don't know what is missing in it. That book is available on line and you can download a Pdf from following link
https://ia601402.us.archive.org/21/items/MissionWithMountbatten/Mission%20with%20Mountbatten.pdfThe narrative of 13-14-15 August 1947 started from Page 179 and end at 193 so here I will comment on this only. It is important to read a book with little care.
13-8-1947
Although in our media there is unnecessary debate regarding date of independence day but facts are contrary to claims of 15th August. Mountbatten Arrived in Karachi at 13th August 1947. Mr Ghulam Hussain Hadyatullah, Governor of Sindh welcomed him. Colonel Birnie was military secretary of Jinnah and he told Mountbatten that he had been given an information of a plot to throw a bomb at Jinnah during tomorrow's state procession. it was beginning of the story. Basically it was a trap but Jinnah duck it smartly. So you can imagine what william Birnie had in mind and what he want to achieve from that rumor cum action. Few days back, Col asked Jinnah to cancel the drive or change the route but he replied that I donot want to change it but if Mountbatten has reservations then we will discuss. So when Col informed Mountbatten about the information and Jinnah's reply , Mountbatten at once agreed to follow same route. Jinnah had smartly thrown the ball in his court but Johnson could not mention it in that way. It means that playing with security was there even before creation of Pakistan. I can narrate story of bold and visionary Lord Mayo who was killed in the safest prison in 1872 because he had openly criticized Anti-Czarist (Anti Russian) policy but i restrict myself to the book only. When they all arrived at Governor House they met Jinnah. Mountbatten was expecting Jinnah at Airport but in vain.
Same day Johnson met Principal Information Officer Colonel Majid Malik ( A learned man, friend of Pitras, Faiz, Taseer, worked with Reuters as first local correspondent in India before joining Army and first Indian full colonel in British Indian Army) at Palace Hotel. There he met with many foreign correspondents and some mentioned absence of Jinnah at Air Port as insult. Johnson recorded his displeasure with Col Majid Malik and that proved a malice among Raj officers. But Johnson was not alone in that campaign but later on a journalist Inam Aziz too tried his best and in his book Stop Press he had claimed charges against Malik. He wrote that Malik called Mr Brown (First editor of Dawn, an Englishmen especially came on assignment) and tried to stop August 11 Speech of Jinnah. Malik was principal information officer at that time. He was progressive and his choice of friends is a proof. When i check facts, i found the complete speech was published in three newspapers i-e Inqalab, Pakistan Times and Eastern Times at August 13 editions. I failed to find newspapers of 12 August 1947 in all the three files. Was there a holiday of Newspapers at August 12, a fact that needs further research. As par narrative of Aziz Dawn had published it and ignored the first press advice. I donot check Dawn so I cannot say when it was published but I knew the speech was Published in three papers other than Dawn for sure. The narrative of Aziz looks tricky when he even praised infamous Altaf Hussain who wrote many tricky and misleading editorial in the same newspaper and was a minister of General Ayub Khan in 1960s. He was power broker that laid foundations of power hungry journalism in Pakistan. He and Mollana Madodi were two out of assembly supporters of infamous Objective Resolution. In a recent book '' Purifying the land of the pure'' Farah Naz Isphani cited many editorials of that time written in favor of religious nationalism by Altaf 1. Mr Inam Aziz worked with Ummat, a pro-Jamat e Islami paper. His bias against Malik is obvious yet his praise for Altaf exposed his various claims.
14-08-1947
At 14 August morning both M A Jinnah & Mountbatten arrived in the Assembly and proceedings started at 9.10 am Mountbatten was in a hurry because he had to attend a similar meeting at Delhi after 4 hours. Johnson reported the event with certain biases but avoided to reproduce historic speeches. However it is important to read both speeches and fortunately our National Assembly uploaded all assembly proceedings (except few including debate on second amendment in 1973 constitution) so you can read both speeches by clicking HERE
A fare analysis of both speeches is still missing in all narratives and books published till today.
It was an hour session and when both leaders reached Government House Jinnah said " Thank God, I have brought you back alive". Without mentioning false threat report Jinnah reminded Mountbatten the flip side of security threat well. Psychotic editorial efforts in the book made it an interesting study especially in 21st century yet Johnson failed to maintained such tricky editorial efforts while mentioning Mountbatten.
Will share more details soon
A review of the book by Johnson
The Legacy of Col Majid Malik
With the Quaid-i-Azam During His Last Days by Col Ellahi Baksh
urdu version of Ellahi Baksh and Dr Riaz Ali Shah regarding last days of Jinnah
Mr and Mrs Col Majid Malik and his legacy (Some useful links)
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