Since 1997, the year in which India celebrated 50^th anniversary of her Independence, a plethora of books has been published recounting the drama and the trauma of the Partition, but none so eminently readable as this account by Narendra Singh Sarila, especially so because the obvious has been restated and re-instated as a fact of imperial policy. When the enterprise called The Raj became untenable, the ‘perfidious Albion changed his policy from ‘Divide and Rule’ to ‘Divide and Quit’.

 Many a political historian has blamed the British of cynically exacerbating and exploiting the Hindu-Muslim divide. Fact is that they did so exploit the divide, but they had not invented it. Jinnah’s demand for a separate national entity for the Muslims of the subcontinent just came handy in that chess game. The author was an ADC to Lord Mountbatten—the last Viceroy of British India and the first Governor General of the Independent India. He also later became a member of the India Foreign Service.

In writing this book the author has undertaken some painstaking research and digging into the background of the event. In addition to all the papers and maps published in the HMO’s mlti-volume publication titled Transfer of Power, he has also scanned through more recently “unsealed” and “de-classified” Wavell-papers and American documents. Armed with this research, he comes out challenging the conventional wisdom of our historians, blaming the British cynicism in exacerbating and exploiting the Hindu-Muslim enmity and late M.A. Jinnah alone for the eventual vivisection of India.

 According to him, greater considerations went into play in partitioning India. Planning for this had commenced under Lord Wavell’s tutelage. It was he, long before Mountbatten’s arrival on the scene, who laid foundations of the Partition plan. It was his plan which was followed to the letter by Lord Radcliffe in drawing the line across Punjab because Winston Churchill had specifically told the ‘dashing sailor’ not to launch ay new initiatives while on his tour of duty for The Raj.

 According to Sarila, the resignation of Congress ministries from the provisional government just two months after the end of WW2 and the launching of the Quit India Movement were two major mistakes made by the Indian leadership. These events left the field open to the scheme, hatched by Lord Wavell and the wily Winston, to be put into operation. British oil-interests in the wider Middle-East were at stake. In the Cold War scenario, the Russian desire to expand southward was well-known and the Western powers, especially Britain and the US were too intensely aware of the independent-minded Congress leadership, already groomed to inherit the throne in Delhi. The Partition of Punjab was essential I order to ensure a strategic military base in the North-West of the Indian subcontinent. Jinnah’s Muslim homeland was to be that base.  

A plethora of books have appeared, in and after 1997 when India celebrated 50^th anniversary of her Independence, almost all blaming the Hindu-Muslim divide and Brain’s cynical exploitation thereof for the Partition of India. The truth is that this ‘divide; had always been there; British exploited it; they did not invent it. Fact is that the idealistic and somewhat naïve Indian, and specifically the Congress, leadership, negotiating with the Raj-runners had had no tradition or experience of strategic thinking, or of the global vision of the future. They fell for the Partition-plan, blaming late Mr Jinnah for all the trauma this nation suffered. Tragedy is, even today, 58 years after the Independence, Indian leadership has not acquired that strategic vision.

—Dronãcãrya