…Nehru bought this line of thought in totality. ‘Let Jinnah have Pakistan’, he declared: ‘By cutting off the head we will get rid of the headache.’ It was a moment in history when circumspection and discretion in making public utterances should have been the order of the day. A leader who was reckoned to be the future prime minister of India should have known that there was much to be gained by silence or at least in not making speeches that could easily be construed as a deliberate effort to renege. The fortunes of the country were in the balance, and one false or indiscreet move could upset them. Nehru chose this moment to launch into what his biographer, Michael Brecher, has described as ‘one of his more fiery and provocative statements in his forty years of public life’. Nehru certainly did not realize that he was telling the world that once in power the Congress would use its strength at the Centre to alter the Cabinet Mission Plan as it thought fit, not withstanding the fact that both the Congress and the League had accepted the Plan as a cut and dried scheme not open to alternations by either party. In one stroke Nehru had set in motion wheels that would destroy India. To conclude, it can be asserted that every human in this Universe has as amalgamation of positive and negative characteristic, including our great leaders like, Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah… The way these leaders and the country acquired freedom by overcoming narrow communalism, racial and linguistic separation is a commendable feat. But seeing the other side of the coin, one is strained to feel that ‘Did Partition emanate with Freedom?’ Or was it the shortcoming of our great leaders. The book answers this and many other questions which are still unanswered.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jagdish Mitter Sarin
Jagdish Mitter Sarin (1915-1971), an M.A. in History from the Punjab University Lahore was working on a book at the time of his death entitled 'History of Freedom Movement from 1909 to 1920'. During the course of his research in addition to going through papers and documents held in various archives and libraries, he also interacted with some of those veterans who were actually involved in some of the epoch-making events. His son, Brigadier Parmodh Sarin undertook the task of giving shape to the unfinished work of his father, but taking the subject to the logical conclusion-up to the year 1947.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Parmodh Sarin
Brigadier Parmodh Sarin retired from the Army on 1st April 1997 after approximately 34 years of service. He served in the Army Ordinance Corps where, in addition to officers and men in uniform, almost 1 lakh industrial and non-industrial workforce is employed. At the time of his retirement, he was heading a Rs. 70 crore Ministry off Defence project on Inventory Automation. He qualified on the “long Defence Management Course†(LDMC) at the “College of Defence Management Secunderabad†in 1989. He also holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Material Management. His book, “Military Logistics-The Third Dimension†(A Manas Publications) has been universally accepted as an exhaustive treatise of the subject. The Government of India procured this book for almost one hundred universities in the country. After writing the third volume of the “History of Army Ordinance Corpsâ€, he undertook the present work on the intricacies and challenges of leadership in the modern world. His focus has been training and grooming of junior leaders (both in Military and Industry) who find the present environment not conducive to the ‘Values Structure’ they are expected to live up to with the seniors not always setting appropriate example. Brigadier Sarin conducts HRD, Logistics and Project Management capsules for a wide spectrum of Management Institutions.
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