The Balkan Plan for fragmentation of India was the brain-child of

The so‑called “Balkan Plan” (Plan Balkan) — a proposal that would have fragmented British India into many small successor units rather than just two dominions — is associated with Lord Louis Mountbatten. Contemporary accounts describe Mountbatten’s revised Plan Balkan and Nehru’s alarm on seeing it, while historians note that this idea contrasted with alternative schemes (such as V.P. Menon’s) and formed part of the broader set of proposals around the Mountbatten Plan for transfer of power in 1947. The Mountbatten Plan itself, accepted as the basis for independence and partition, dealt with the division of provinces and the status of princely states, linking Mountbatten directly to the Balkan/partition discussions [1].

Sources

1. [1] History , class XII (Tamilnadu state board 2024 ed.) > Chapter 8: Reconstruction of Post-colonial India > Introduction > p. 101
2. [2] Politics in India since Independence, Textbook in political science for Class XII (NCERT 2025 ed.) > Chapter 1: Challenges of Nation Building > Government's approach > p. 16