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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

“I felt that if we did not accept partition, India would be split into many bits and would be completely ruined.”

  • UPSC 2006
  • Politics of Separatism

This reasoning, generally associated with Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, captures the pragmatic calculation that ultimately outweighed the Congress's decades-long commitment to a united India — the fear that refusing Partition in 1947 would not preserve unity but destroy it altogether through Balkanization.

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What the full answer covers

  • The Fear of Balkanization
  • Patel's Pragmatic Realism versus Gandhi's Resistance
  • The Mountbatten Plan and the Logic of Acceptance

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