Based on the original scenario by Mark C. Carnes
As the Second World War draws to a close, Britain invites the leaders of India's competing political factions to a conference at Simla to determine the future of the subcontinent. Each faction arrives with a different vision of what India should become, and a different strategy for making it happen.
Participants take on the roles of these historical figures. Your task is not simply to hold a position but to advocate for it: to build coalitions with unlikely allies, to persuade hostile audiences, and to navigate the gap between principled stands and pragmatic compromise. At Simla, factions must build coalitions despite fundamental disagreements, persuade the British to leave on their terms, adapt their message to different audiences, and decide when to compromise and when to confront.
It is late June 1945. The world is transforming.
Germany surrendered last month. The war in Europe is over. Japan's empire in the Pacific has collapsed, and its surrender appears imminent. The Soviet Union has filled the vacuum in Eastern Europe. Britain, though victorious, is exhausted: its economy shattered, its people weary, its treasury depleted.
On June 14, Viceroy Wavell made a radio broadcast announcing his plans to convene a conference at Simla, the summer capital of British India. He has invited the leaders of India's major political groups to form an executive council and work out the future governance of the subcontinent.
The next day, imprisoned Congress leaders were released. For three years, Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Azad, and nearly every leader of the Indian National Congress have languished in British prisons, arrested in 1942 after the Congress passed the "Quit India" resolution demanding Britain's immediate withdrawal. Now they are free, and they are angry.
The Gandhi-Jinnah talks of 1944 failed. While Congress leaders sat in prison, Gandhi met with Muhammad Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League, to discuss India's future. Gandhi insisted India must remain one nation. Jinnah declared it contained two, one Hindu and one Muslim, and demanded the creation of Pakistan. The talks collapsed. The question of India's future remains unresolved.
Britain can no longer sustain the Raj. The war has bankrupted the empire. Over a million Indian soldiers fought for Britain, and they are coming home to a country demanding freedom. The Atlantic Charter, which Britain signed, promises colonial peoples the right to self-determination. Whether Britain will honor that promise, and how, is the question that brings everyone to Simla.
The leaders are arriving by train, by car, by caravan. The stakes could not be higher. If they succeed, a new nation, or nations, will be born. If they fail, India may descend into the communal violence that has been smoldering for decades.
The scenario unfolds in three scenes across multiple class sessions:
The British Governors General preside over the conference, control the army and bureaucracy, and may arrest leaders or impose martial law.
Victory depends on your confidential role sheet objectives. Even delegates on the winning side can lose if they compromise too far from their core identity.
What will India become?
Every faction arriving at Simla carries a vision, not just of where the borders should fall, but of what life inside those borders should look like. The question "Will India be one nation, two, or many?" cannot be separated from a cascade of equally consequential choices: Who will hold power, a strong central government, autonomous provinces, or self-governing villages? Will the state be secular, or will religious law shape legislation? Will India industrialize, or will it preserve the village economy? Will there be an army? Will women vote? Will Untouchables have guaranteed representation, or will they remain subordinate within the Hindu social order? Will feudal princes keep their thrones?
These are not secondary questions that follow from the partition debate. They are the debate. Factions that agree on unity may disagree on everything else. The Indian National Congress and Gandhi's adherents both want one India, but Congress envisions a modern industrial state run from Delhi while Gandhi's followers want power dispersed to 700,000 villages. The Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha both define nationhood through religion, but one demands separation and the other demands dominance. Ambedkar and the Communists both fight for the oppressed, but one seeks constitutional guarantees within the system and the other seeks to overthrow it.
Every faction's position is a bundle of interlocking choices:
No faction can win by answering only one of these questions. The challenge at Simla is to assemble a vision coherent enough to inspire, practical enough to govern, and persuasive enough to build a coalition among people who share some of your answers but not all of them.
The following summaries describe what is publicly known about each faction. Individual delegates may hold additional objectives outlined in their confidential role sheets.
The British preside over the Simla conference. Their stated mission is to accomplish Indian independence and broker an agreement acceptable to all major parties. In practice, the British have competing pressures: Prime Minister Churchill favors retaining India within the British Commonwealth; the Atlantic Charter commits Britain to self-determination for colonial peoples; and the economic reality is that Britain can no longer afford the Raj.
The British control the civil and military bureaucracies that run India. They can order arrests, outlaw organizations, direct military forces, and issue orders to all government agencies. They can act publicly through announcements or privately through communications to the Scenario Director (who functions as the colonial bureaucracy and the Prime Minister in London). The Scenario Director retains the power to override or replace the British representatives.
Strategic situation: The British hold formal power but diminishing legitimacy. Their challenge is to broker an agreement that prevents chaos without appearing to dictate terms. They must persuade Indian leaders to accept a framework while managing pressure from London.
The Indian National Congress has spearheaded the independence movement since 1885. Congress claims to represent all Indians, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and Untouchable, and demands a unified, independent India with a strong central government. The Congress delegation includes Maulana Azad, a prominent Muslim, as evidence that Congress is not merely a Hindu organization.
Congress envisions inheriting the existing British administrative structure: a powerful central government with provincial administrations beneath it. Its power base is the Hindi-speaking heartland (United Provinces, Bihar, Central Provinces), overwhelmingly Hindu with significant Muslim minorities. Congress leaders point out that with the collapse of Japan and China embroiled in civil war, a united India could become one of the strongest nations in the world.
However, Congress is not fully united. Jawaharlal Nehru favors a secular, modernizing, socialist-leaning state. Others within Congress lean toward Hindu cultural priorities. All agree on one thing: the British must leave.
Strategic situation: Congress commands the largest following but must hold together a coalition that ranges from socialists to Hindu traditionalists. Their biggest rhetorical challenge is convincing Muslims and Untouchables that Congress truly represents all Indians, not just caste Hindus.
The Muslim League, founded in 1906, contends that the overwhelming Hindu majority poses a permanent danger to India's 100 million Muslims. If the British withdraw and Congress gains power, the Hindu majority will dominate every democratic institution. The League points to the 1937 provincial elections, when Congress governments promoted Hindu symbols, sang the Vande Mataram, and endorsed Hindu cultural policies, confirming Muslim fears.
In 1940, at Lahore, Jinnah declared: "Islam and Hinduism are not religions in the strict sense of the word, but in fact are different and distinct social orders... To yoke together two such nations under a single state must lead to growing discontent and final destruction." The League demands the creation of Pakistan, a separate Muslim state carved from the Muslim-majority provinces of northwest India and Bengal. But partition would not be clean. Bengal presents an agonizing problem: Calcutta, India's largest city and commercial capital, is predominantly Hindu, but the surrounding countryside is largely Muslim. Any partition of India would also partition Bengal.
The League may not be unified on whether Pakistan should be secular or governed by Islamic law (shariat). This internal tension may surface at Simla.
Strategic situation: The League must persuade the British and wavering Muslims that partition is inevitable while preventing Congress from peeling away moderate Muslims. Their strongest argument is fear; their greatest vulnerability is that many Muslims, including some within Congress, reject the two-nation theory.
Gandhi is the most recognized figure in India, and one of the most complex. He rejects Western modernity, industrialization, and parliamentary democracy in favor of a unified India built on village self-governance, nonviolence, and traditional religious values. He wears handspun khadi, reads the Bhagavad Gita daily, and champions the rights of Untouchables (whom he calls harijans).
Gandhi has announced he will not personally attend the Simla sessions, as he holds no official Congress position. However, his followers will attend and present his views. Gandhi retains enormous influence among Indians, especially within Congress. He may choose to appear at the conference or make public statements that reshape the proceedings.
The Gandhi faction consists of two distinct groups that share fundamental values but differ in emphasis:
Ahimsa Pathiks (Proponents of Nonviolence) hold that nonviolence is the absolute, non-negotiable foundation of any future India. For them, the process of achieving independence matters as much as the outcome. They seek constitutional guarantees that India will renounce standing armies and offensive warfare. Independence achieved through violence is no victory at all.
Gram Swaraj Sangh (Proponents of Traditional India) prioritize the preservation of India's spiritual and cultural traditions rooted in village life. They adamantly oppose industrialization and modernization, seeing the traditional village-based economy, with its emphasis on handicrafts, self-sufficiency, and communal harmony, as the true heart of India. While they share the commitment to nonviolence, their primary concern is ensuring that the new India does not sacrifice its soul to Western-style development.
Both groups agree that the British must leave immediately, that India must remain unified, that power should rest with local communities rather than a strong central government, and that separate electorates artificially divide the nation. Their philosophical commitments translate into constitutional demands: nonviolence shapes military policy, and villageism shapes federal structure. But their differing priorities may lead to different strategic choices as the conference unfolds.
Strategic situation: The Gandhi faction wields moral authority rather than political organization. Their challenge is to translate Gandhi's enormous popular following into concrete policy outcomes, especially against Congress allies who share their goal of unity but reject their vision of a decentralized, village-based India. The hunger strike is their ultimate weapon, but it can only be used once.
The Sikhs constitute less than 2% of India's population but possess considerable economic and military influence in the Punjab. Sikh farmers transformed the Punjab into India's breadbasket. Sikh soldiers account for roughly one-fifth of Britain's Indian armed forces, despite being less than 2% of the population.
The Punjab is the most dangerous flashpoint of any partition. It is home to Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs in roughly equal measure. The five rivers of the Punjab irrigate some of India's richest farmland, largely developed by Sikh labor. Lahore, the cultural capital, is claimed by all three communities. If India is partitioned, the Punjab will have to be divided, and no line can be drawn without leaving millions on the wrong side.
The Akali Dal fears that either a Hindu-dominated India or a Muslim Pakistan will swallow the Sikh community. They may propose an independent Sikh state (Khalistan) in the Punjab, demand guaranteed political representation far exceeding their population share, or seek alliance with whichever larger faction offers the best protections for Sikh autonomy. The partition of the Punjab is an existential threat to the Sikhs, as their holy city of Amritsar and their richest farmlands could end up on the wrong side of any border.
Strategic situation: The Sikhs are too small to win alone but too important to ignore. Their military reputation and economic weight in the Punjab give them leverage far beyond their numbers. The challenge is deciding whom to ally with, and extracting the maximum price for that alliance.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, himself an Untouchable who earned a PhD from Columbia University, leads the fight for political power for India's 70 million Untouchables (Dalits). Ambedkar argues that constitutional promises of equality are worthless without the political power to enforce them. He demands reserved seats and separate electorates for Untouchables in all future legislatures, ensuring that Untouchable representatives are chosen by Untouchable voters, not by the Hindu majority.
This demand puts the SCF in direct conflict with Gandhi, who in 1932 nearly fasted to death to prevent separate electorates for Untouchables. Gandhi views separate electorates as a British strategy of "divide and rule" that permanently fractures Indian society. Ambedkar views Gandhi's opposition as a power grab that keeps Untouchables subordinate to caste Hindu control.
The Untouchable vote is potentially decisive: at 16% of the population, Untouchables are nearly as numerous as Muslims. Which side they support, or whether they chart an independent course, could determine the outcome at Simla.
Strategic situation: The SCF holds a swing vote that every major faction needs. Their challenge is converting that leverage into guaranteed political power, not just promises. Every ally comes with strings: Congress offers unity but resists separate electorates; the League offers an alliance of minorities but may not deliver; the British offer protection but are leaving.
The Hindu Mahasabha is a Hindu nationalist organization whose guiding force is V. D. Savarkar, a former political prisoner convicted of terrorism against the British. The Mahasabha demands a strong, modern, industrialized Hindu nation, Hindustan, that centers Hindu civilization, values, and culture. They champion cow protection, Hindi as the national language, and instruction in classical Hindu texts.
Unlike Gandhi, the Mahasabha rejects nonviolence and embraces militant strategies in defense of Hindu interests. Unlike Congress secularists like Nehru, the Mahasabha insists that India's identity is fundamentally Hindu. The Mahasabha's paramilitary wing, the RSS, can mobilize large numbers of militant followers on short notice, a capability that gives the Mahasabha influence far beyond its representation at Simla.
Strategic situation: The Mahasabha competes with Congress for Hindu loyalty, arguing that Congress's secularism betrays Hindu interests. Their challenge is pulling Hindu delegates away from Congress without appearing so extreme that they drive moderates toward compromise with the League.
The Communists view India's independence struggle as a mask for class exploitation. They argue that the British, Indian capitalists, feudal landlords, and religious leaders all conspire to keep India's workers and peasants in subjugation. The CPI seeks revolutionary transformation: the elimination of feudal landlords, worker control of industry, and the replacement of religious divisions with class consciousness.
The CPI's relationship with other factions is complicated. During the war, the CPI supported Britain (following Stalin's orders, since Britain was allied with the Soviet Union against Hitler), earning the contempt of Congress and the nationalists. The CPI may follow Marx and Lenin's revolutionary strategy, Stalin's directives, or Mao Zedong's model of peasant revolution. Whether the party's members agree on doctrine and strategy is an open question.
Strategic situation: The Communists must overcome the stigma of wartime collaboration with the British. Their potential allies are workers, peasants, and anyone disillusioned with both Congress and the League, but their revolutionary rhetoric alienates moderates. The question is whether to work within the conference or use it as a platform to call for revolution outside it.
The princely states cover roughly one-third of India's territory. Two of the most important princes attend Simla. The Nizam of Hyderabad is a Muslim ruler governing a predominantly Hindu state of 15 million people. Maharaja Hari Singh of Kashmir is the mirror image: a Hindu ruler governing a predominantly Muslim state. Both claim their British treaties guarantee their independence regardless of what happens in the rest of India.
Strategic situation: The princes want independence or autonomy and will bargain with whoever preserves it. They can play Congress and the League against each other, but if India unifies under a strong central government, their independence ends.
India has some 70,000 villages, most with 1,500 to 2,500 people. Village leaders, zamindars, council heads, and local notables, represent the real India: a country where most people have never seen a British official, a Congress pamphlet, or a Muslim League broadside. The vast majority of Indians are rural, Hindu, and illiterate. Their concerns center on land, water, taxes, and the local power structures that govern daily life, not the grand constitutional questions debated at Simla.
No mechanism exists for village leaders to participate in elite conferences like Simla. But any democratic settlement ultimately rests on village support. If there is a national referendum or election, the village vote will prove decisive. Village leaders may present to the conference during Scene 2, offering a perspective that no other faction can provide: the voice of the vast, largely silent majority of Indians whose fate is being decided by others.
Strategic situation: Village leaders represent the people every faction claims to speak for but rarely listens to. Their power is that every faction needs their support in any democratic outcome. Their challenge is making elite leaders take rural concerns seriously when the conference agenda is dominated by constitutional abstractions.
The Simla conference is not a seminar. It is a negotiation among factions with incompatible goals and unequal power. Success requires more than holding the right position. It requires strategic advocacy: the ability to define problems, frame arguments, identify audiences, and build coalitions.
Framing: How you define the problem determines who agrees with you. Calling India "one nation" or "two nations" is not a neutral description but a strategic move that includes some people and excludes others. Every faction frames the problem in a way that makes its preferred solution seem natural and inevitable.
Audience: The argument you make to the Governors General is not the argument you make to your followers, and neither is the argument you make to a potential ally. Effective advocates tailor their message to the audience they need to persuade, appealing to different values, interests, and fears depending on who is listening.
Coalition-building: No faction at Simla can win alone. Even Congress, with its claim to represent all Indians, needs allies to secure the kind of independence it wants. Building a coalition means finding common ground with people who disagree with you on important things, and deciding what you are willing to concede. The strongest coalitions are built on shared interests, not just shared enemies.
Leverage: Power at Simla is not distributed equally. The British control the army; Congress has the largest popular following; the League can threaten partition; Gandhi can threaten a hunger strike; the Communists can call for revolution. Understanding what leverage each faction holds, and when to use it, is essential to effective advocacy.
BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement): Before entering any negotiation, ask: What happens if these talks fail? Your BATNA is your best walkaway option. A faction with a strong BATNA can afford to hold firm; a faction whose alternatives are worse than a bad deal must be flexible. Measure every proposal against your BATNA, not your ideal outcome, and try to assess the BATNAs of those across the table.
The scenario is organized into three scenes, each spanning multiple class sessions. Before the scenario begins, pre-scenario workshops introduce participants to their roles, factions, and the mechanics of the scenario. The number of sessions devoted to each scene may vary depending on class size and schedule.
Before Scene 1, you will learn the relevant historical information and organize in faction meetings.
All factions present their positions to the full conference. This is the only scene where every group is guaranteed time at the podium. Depending on class size, this scene typically spans two to three sessions.
The presentation order groups factions thematically: - Congress (INC) and Muslim League lay out their competing visions for India's future. - Akali Dal, Gandhi's Adherents, and Hindu Mahasabha bring Sikh demands for autonomy, Gandhi's vision of village India, and Hindu nationalist aspirations into the debate. - Scheduled Caste Federation, Communist Party, and Princely States present the remaining positions. The full range of views is now on the table.
Scene 1 culminates in: All positions are publicly declared. Every faction knows what every other faction demands. The real negotiations can begin.
Faction responsibilities in Scene 1: Each delegate must deliver their presentation and submit their Argument & Evidence outline (see Delegate Responsibilities below).
The Governors General distribute their draft recommendations for India's future government. Factions respond, negotiate, form alliances, and contest the proposal. This scene typically spans two to three sessions.
Key activities during Scene 2: - Governors General issue draft recommendations; open discussion begins. The British proposal frames the remainder of the scenario. - Debates continue; Village Leaders present their perspective. Alliances form and fracture. Backroom deals and public confrontations. - Revised proposals circulate; continued negotiation and primary reading sharing. The draft is contested and revised. Tensions mount.
Scene 2 culminates in: The British draft has been debated, revised, and possibly rejected. Factions have staked out negotiating positions. The question is whether any compromise can hold.
Faction responsibilities in Scene 2: Each delegate must submit their written response to the Governors General's proposal (see Delegate Responsibilities below). Factions may also call for nonviolent protests or direct action if they believe negotiations have failed them.
The Governors General issue their final recommendation. The conference reaches its conclusion: through a vote, a referendum, a unilateral British declaration, or a collapse into chaos. This scene is typically one session.
Scene 3 culminates in: The scenario's outcome is determined: final proposals, votes, referenda, or last-ditch negotiations.
Every delegate at the Simla conference is responsible for two major submissions.
1. Presentation to the Conference (Scene 1)
Each delegate must deliver a formal presentation to the full conference during Scene 1. Before presenting, you must submit a written Argument & Evidence outline that structures your remarks. Your presentation should:
This is advocacy directed upward and outward, persuading decision-makers and rivals in a formal setting where evidence, logic, and rhetorical skill matter.
2. Response to the Governors General's Proposal (Scene 2)
After the Governors General issue their draft recommendations in Scene 2, each delegate must submit a written response. This response should take the form of a tract, pamphlet, open letter, or broadside addressed to your constituency, the people you represent, not the other leaders at Simla. Imagine this document being printed and distributed in the streets of Lahore, Calcutta, Bombay, or in the villages of your province. It should:
This is advocacy directed downward and inward, mobilizing a constituency, framing a complex policy in accessible terms, and rallying support. The audience, tone, and strategy differ fundamentally from the conference presentation. Effective advocates must do both.
Each delegate has different victory objectives, outlined in their confidential role sheet. Even within factions, objectives may differ. Delegates who compromise too far from their core identity and constituency will lose, even if the overall outcome appears favorable. Determining when a delegate has strayed too far from their role is the prerogative of the Scenario Director, whose judgment is rendered after the scenario concludes.
All delegates have the right to stand at the podium and be heard. The Scenario Director may intervene to ensure this right is respected. If the Governors General persistently ignore requests to speak, the Scenario Director may report their behavior to the Prime Minister in London, who may order their recall. Conversely, the Governors General may use the Scenario Director as a police force to maintain order.
Any faction, including the Muslim League, INC, Hindu Mahasabha, Sikhs, Communists, or Scheduled Caste Federation, may at any time call upon their followers to take action. Such calls must be made publicly, at the podium.
The effectiveness of any action depends on: - How many leaders within the faction support it - The number of that faction's followers - Whether other factions join or oppose the action - The actions of groups (especially the Gandhians) who may work to defuse tensions
No one can predict the outcome of any protest or direct action in advance. The Scenario Director will assess all relevant factors and announce the result.
In the event of a referendum or vote, these percentages provide a rough approximation of the religious distribution of British India:
| Group | Approximate Share |
|---|---|
| Muslims | 22% |
| Caste Hindus | 58% |
| Untouchables | 16% |
| Sikhs | 2% |
| Christians, Jews | 1% |
| Other | 1% |
These figures do not include the princely states. It is wrong to assume all Hindus or Muslims will vote the same way. Religion is not the sole determinant of political allegiance. The Communist Party regards religion as an "opiate of the masses," and leaders of both Congress and the Muslim League include secularists.
Many Untouchables consider themselves Hindu. Whether they vote with caste Hindus or as an independent bloc is one of the scenario's most consequential variables.
Delegates will be drawn into technical questions of constitution-making. But those who succeed will engage the deepest question: What does it mean to be a nation? A coherent answer to that question, consistent with one's victory objectives and persuasive to others, is the key to winning. The technical details will follow if the argument is compelling.
The scenario seeks to replicate the political dynamics of India in June 1945, but it includes several departures from the historical record to create a more complete and playable scenario.
The historical Simla conference did not include the princely states (called to separate meetings), the Hindu Mahasabha (a cultural organization, not a political party), the Communist Party (monitored and excluded by Churchill), or village leaders and indeterminates (no mechanism existed for their participation). The scenario seats all of them at the conference table because each represented forces that shaped the outcome: the princes controlled a third of India's territory, the Mahasabha could mobilize militant followers through the RSS, the CPI voiced a significant ideological current among workers and peasants, and village leaders represented the vast majority of Indians whose support any democratic settlement required.
The historical Simla conference lasted only one month (June–July 1945) before collapsing over the question of Muslim representation. The scenario extends the conference to allow more thorough exploration of the issues and a broader range of possible outcomes. The Governors General will address whatever developments transpire during the scenario and may, or may not, choose to bring the conference to a close.