The Indian subcontinent had spent roughly 200 years under British rule when World War II approached and the desires for independence began to emerge with great vigor (the British East India company had ruled from about 1757 to 1858, followed by the British Raj where the British Crown ruled the subcontinent, from 1858 until the independence of Pakistan and India).
As the conflicts in Europe flared into full-scale war, the British Army made use of Indian troops (India at this time referring to the entire country as then defined). Those troops fought alongside Britains own soldiers in battle, while on the subcontinent the two movements that would develop into the driving forces behind independence - the Indian National Congress, and the Muslim League - gained strength. Britain needed that support from India, but also saw that independence was inevitable as soon as the war ended.
The Muslim league was led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and the Indian National Congress was led by Jawaharlal Nehru with support and spiritual backing from Mahatma Gandhi. A great number of other leaders and key personalities also played major roles in the development of the independence movements and the subsequent partition and fighting that took place, but the personalities of Jinnah and Nehru decided many of the key positions their respective parties took during this time.
And this is what I found most interesting about this book. It seems clear, according to the author, Nisid Hajari, that the stubbornness of both Jinnah and Nehru, and the inability of those two leaders to work together for the benefit of their peoples, was perhaps the most significant single element in how the early history of these two independent countries developed.
In fact he suggests more than once that it could have been possible for a united India to have emerged at this time, if different leaders had been in place, ones who could have compromised and worked together with a much greater degree of trust and respect than what Jinnah and Nehru had for each other. This is a great shame given how history has developed in the subsequent 60+ years, particularly (I would say) for Pakistan which has been far less successful economically and politically than has India.
Another strong impression that I receive from this book is that, once Britain decided that India should be given it's independence, the involvement of Britain in helping to provide some guidance to that process, so that it could proceed peacefully and with respect to both the Hindu and Muslim peoples of India, was slim and decreased to the point where Britain essentially withdrew and simply left the people of India to their own devices.
Instead of a united and independent India, what happened was a series of violent and horrific ethnic killings, provoked by sometimes almost trivial events on both sides, that began and then escalated and finally led to such mistrust and hatred that any hope of the peoples staying together in one country were lost as a result. The descriptions of how formerly peaceful neighbors would suddenly turn on one another, simply because one was Muslim and the other Hindu, are striking and chilling. It brings to mind other similar circumstances this world has seen in other areas in subsequent years.
In interviews recently, when Hajari has been discussing this book, he has also expressed his view that the foundations for much of the current behavior of Pakistan - it's support of insurgent groups in Afghanistan for example - can be found in this early history. He suggests that Pakistan's principal preoccupation since this time has been it's historic enemy India, and that just about all of it's decisions regarding involvement in conflicts outside of Pakistan can be connected to this distrust and fear of India.
I'm not convinced about that, but in reading the book it's not at all the main point anyway. I felt that I took away from this book a much greater understanding of the events of the period of roughly 1946 through 1948 or 49. Gandhi was assassinated on January 30, 1948. Jinnah had been very ill and finally died on September 11, 1948. Nehru was the only leader of those top three to still be healthy and in power. Pakistan was running out of money and from a practical standpoint really unable to continue to pursue any aggression against India. The countries began to settle into the divided condition that persists today, with the Kashmir region still unresolved and with the area of Eastern Pakistan later splitting off in 1971 and forming the current country of Bangladesh.
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Top reviews from other countries
Amazon Customer
An objective view
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 3, 2021KumarSS-Manitoba
A visceral description about the events surrounding the partition of India
Reviewed in Canada on August 12, 2019Klaus
Very informative, lively and immediate account of the Partition
Reviewed in Germany on January 20, 2017Oliver Chandler
Best book I've read on partition.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 21, 2020