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The Road to Disunion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

W. H. Morris-Jones
Affiliation:
University of London, Institute of Commonwealth Studies
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Abstract

The present is a suitable moment to reconsider the 1947 partition of the Indian sub-continent: on the one hand South Asia has experienced a fresh partition with the creation of Bangladesh; on the other, there is a pause before the recent opening of the London war-time records leads to a series of studies drawing out the significance of the documents on the Transfer of Power currently appearing. For this interim review two volumes are selected: The Partition of India edited by C. H. Philips and Mary Wainwright and H. V. Hodson's The Great Divide. The former book contains several useful studies along with other pieces which are disappointingly thin; the latter is especially true of some written by men intimately associated with the events. There is also an interesting unevenness in the editorial introduction: while the British role is treated rather blandly and diat of the League is approached in quizzical vein, that of Congress is handled severely. Hodson's work is an elegant and rounded composition. If it is centered on Mountbatten—to whose archive he had access—t is yet not uncritical. It presents a coherent and consistent picture. It probably shows the British more continuously helpless than they were. It at least conveys something of the tragic quality of the political triangle.

Type
Review Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1972

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