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The only outstanding exception was socialistic Jawaharlal Nehru. Indian independence was certain to be followed by a struggle for economic power. For all these bewildering problems Gandhi had an answer: hurt no living thing; live simply, peacefully, purely. But fewer & fewer listened to that part of his advice. Just as Gandhi had outgrown the shell of the British Raj, so Indian nationalism, Hindu and Moslem, showed signs of outgrowing Gandhi's teachings.
Horse Trading. The India of New Delhi politicians was little concerned with soul force. Old (70), rabble-rousing Mohamed Ali Jinnah, head of the Moslem League, was greeted by followers with shouts of "Shah-en-Shah Zindabad" (Long live the King of Kings). His birthplace, Karachi, would probably be capital of the new Pakistan, possibly be renamed Jinnahabad.
Jinnah was already using his new power to disrupt India further. In the face of Jawaharlal Nehru's blunt warning to the Indian princes ("We will not recognize the independence of any state in India"), Jinnah began courting them. Most princes had already decided to join Hindu India (see map), but the Nizam of Hyderabad (a Moslem) and Maharaja of Travancore (a Hindu) had each said he would go it alone. Jinnah dangled alliance-bait before them: "If states wish to remain independent ... we shall be glad to discuss with them and come to a settlement." Big Kashmir, still on the fence, was ruled by a Hindu, but its 76% Moslem population would probably bring it into Pakistan sooner or later.
Last week Harry St. John B. Philby, Briton-turned-Moslem, familiar intriguer in the Arab world and intimate of Saudi Arabia's King Ibn Saud, arrived in India "to buy tents." He went into a huddle with Moslem Leaguers and Hyderabad officials. Delhi was sure Jinnah was angling for the support of Moslem states in the Middle East.
His Pakistan would be strong agriculturally (with a wheat surplus in the rich Punjab, 85% of the world's jute an eastern Bengal), but weak industrially.
Pakistan would begin its career with no cotton mills, jute mills, iron or steel works,† copper or iron mines. Jinnah hoped to compensate for this weakness with foreign support, might keep Pakistan a British dominion even if Hindu India declared complete independence.
What Will Happen? But these maneuverings were remote from the India of mud and dung and (endless toil, which wondered in bewilderment what was happening to it. The little man in India had never asked for Pakistan or Hindustan or even for independence, except when his leaders told him. He was scarcely aware who ruled him. Recently a tattered Hindu peasant helped to repair a blowout on a car in the Punjab. Asked what he thought of the Government in New Delhi (now a temporary, joint Hindu-Moslem Cabinet, operating under viceregal veto), he replied, "I never heard of it."