The new labour government voted into power in Britain in May 1945 was determined to press ahead with political reform in India and there was optimism among nationalist leaders that progress towards independence would quicken. Viceroy Wavell was worried that Labour was too eager to hand over power to congress, which would further raise the anxieties of the Muslim League. In January 1946, the British MPs made a small visit to India without announcing there conclusions, but in private some stated that Pakistan must be conceded to avoid Muslim unrest. Viceroy Wavell was keenly interested in making practical preparations for the eventual unpleasantness of announcing the actual boundary lines. This shows that some of the British leaders did foreshadow the horrific consequences of the partition but they went ahead with it anyway, perhaps believing that it was a better solution than keeping India united. This contrasts with popular writings which claimed that 'the country’s division was a colossal tragedy, a man-made catastrophe brought about by hot-headed and cynical politicians who failed to grasp the implications of division along religious line's '[14]. The writings criticise the politicians for not being perceptive and aware of what the outcome of the partition could be. It places the partition solely in the hands of the clueless politicians, so the partition was not inevitable and the leaders should be blamed for making such a disastrous decision and not thinking about the consequences of separating the country based on religious differences. Neither the congress nor the Muslim League anticipated the human tragedy that accompanied partition. With hindsight, this seems remarkable, given the warning signs of politically motivated violence and driving out of minority populations from the time of the August 1946 Great Calcutta Killings onwards.

Wavell did take a