A video clip of Nehru’s interview is shared with misleading claims on India’s partition.
Claim
The below last interview given by Jawaharlal Nehru in May 1964 shows who decided the partition of the country. One can hear clearly that it was JN who decided to partition the country. This is a piece of evidence.
Rating
Explanation
A short video clip of Jawaharlal Nehru’s interview from May 1964 with Arnold Michaelis, an American TV host is viral with the claim that Nehru mentioned that he was the one who decided to partition the country. Some of the tweets with such a claim can be seen here and here.
Explosive Proof
The below last interview given by Jawaharlal Nehru in May 1964 shows who decided the partition of the country. One can hear clearly that it was JN who decided to partition the country. This is a piece of evidence. pic.twitter.com/iFd9yjFcum
— Kumar Bhanu (@KBSharm63460260) July 3, 2023
This 1:15-minute interview video clip is viral at least since 2019 with the same claim that in Nehru’s last interview given in May 1964, he admitted that he had taken the decision of partition. The posts in Hindi are captioned “मई 1964 में दिए गए अपने अंतिम साक्षात्कार में नेहरु ने स्वीकारा कि विभाजन का निर्णय उन्होंने ही लिया था।देख लो अपनी आंखों से चमचो”. This video was extremely viral in 2019 and since then it is being resurfaced now and then.
What is the truth?
When searching for the interview we found a 45:32-minute full-length video of the interview uploaded on the ‘Prasar Bharati Archives’ Youtube channel.
The description part of the video reads “Full video recording of what was perhaps Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s last significant interview to American TV Host Arnold Michaelis before his death. From book by HY Sharada Prasad we are told the interview a few weeks before his death. Another book by Chandrika Prasad provides a date of 18th May 1964 when the interview was aired in New York, this is barely a few days before the death of Pandit Nehru on 27th May 1964”.
The viral video is found from the 14:30-minute timestamp of the Youtube video. The audio in the viral video is not clear whereas the Youtube video has audio with better clarity. The conversation between Arnold Michaelis and Nehru can be heard as below.
Arnold Michaelis: Are you and Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Jinnah, you were all involved at that point and before the point of independence and then partition, in the fight for the independence of India from British domination?
Nehru: Mr. Jinnah was not involved in the fight for independence at all, in fact, he opposed it. The Muslim League was started about 1911, I think. It was started really by the British, encouraged by them so as to recreate factions and they did succeed to some extent. Well, ultimately there came the partition.
Arnold Michaelis: Had you and Mr. Gandhi been in favour of that?
Nehru: Mr. Gandhi was not in favour of it right to the end. Even when it came, he was not in favour of it. I was not in favour of it either but ultimately I decided like others did, as many others did, it is better to have partition than this constant trouble. And you see, the leaders of the Muslim league were big landlords the like who did not like land reform. We were very anxious to have land reform which we did have afterwards and that was one reason we agreed to partition because we thought that if they remained with us apart from this trouble continuing, they would oppose our measures, many of our measures. And we said it is better to have a part of India and go ahead with our program of reforms etc. than to be tied up with those leaders who would be coming in the way of these reforms.
This clip of the interview is shared with misleading claims that Nehru decided India’s partition.
Conclusion
The claim that Nehru is the one who decided India’s partition is found to be misleading as he is heard saying in the video that he was not in favour of the partition but later decided as many others did.
