Partition of any country is always contentious. I have been a student of Pakistan/Indian history for the last 40 years. IMO, as soon as Nehru rejected Quaid as PM of united India, partition was inevitable.
Dear Sir,
I am not sure that the fault line lay in this rejection, which, if I remember correctly, was Gandhi's suggestion to the INC. If I further remember correctly, it was not intended to be much of a long-term position, but was intended to be one that would tide over the impasse over the Cabinet Mission Plan.
Therefore, I tend to disagree on this point being the point at which Partition became inevitable.
That should be put at the point when Nehru, in a news conference, more or less made it clear that the Congress did not accept the concept of three grand units in which the constituent states of India were to be grouped. This completely broke up the consensus which was sought to be built around the Cabinet Mission Plan and its modifications and variants proposed essentially by Jinnah. From this point onwards, Jinnah realised that a compromise at that point of time was impossible, and that the Congress would in its given state of mind force through Partition if it could not have its federal union. From this point, he accepted the inevitable, and took Partition as a given.
There is evidence that he hoped against hope that Congress would not remain in its intransigent state of mind and would accept some compromises. He had in mind, it would appear from one reading of the literature, a hope that immediately after Independence Day, there could be a discussion and dialogue leading to a reversal of some of the more extreme separating steps.
This was completely destroyed by the savagery and barbaric behaviour of all the communities during Partition; it was also destroyed, in Jinnah's mind at least, by the failure of the two states to agree over Kashmir.
Please note that the evidence cited above, and the information supplied above, should not be misunderstood to mean that in any way, an opinion is being expressed about the desirability or otherwise of Partition.
Can anyone be truly certain as to who is to blame for starting it?
This is completely impossible to do. There were so many riots, at so many places, at so many different points of time, some in continuation of earlier riots on Direct Action Day, that any such evaluation is completely beyond the judgement of mere human beings!