Author Description

"The partition of India was perhaps the one significant event in the modern history of South Asia that not only rewrote the fixture of the subcontinent by redefining religious, cultural and territorial boundaries, but also unleashed a series of forces that continue to vex South Asian politics even today. The Partition Omnibus brings together, for the first time, four authoritative readings on the genesis and development of the idea of Partition, its inevitability, the upheaval that followed the creation of Pakistan, and the attendant problems of nationalism and decolonization." "In the first book, Prelude to Partition, David Page explores, with an eye on Indian Muslim politics in the 1920s, the various forces that set the scene for the emergence of the Pakistan movement.^ In a significant line of enquiry, he discusses how Muslim rule in Punjab and Bengal became a real possibility with the Communal Award, which in turn was an outcome of the constitutional reforms of 1920." "The second book, The Origins of the Partition of India 1936-1947, investigates the act of decolonization by the British and its far-reaching consequences for their international status. In this work, Anita Inder Singh demonstrates how the long-term strategic interests of the British counseled them against the Partition, but their short-term tactics contributed to its fruition." "A vivid account of the growth of the idea of partition of India and its inevitability is given in the third book, Divide and Quit. Penderel Moon gives a first-hand account of the manifestations of communal frenzy and the efforts made to prevent the breakdown of civil government.^ This book includes contributions from Mark Tully and Tapan Raychaudhuri." "Finally, and as a first-hand account based on personal observation and the reports of a government fact-finding organization, Stern Reckoning documents in great detail the riots, massacres, casualties, and political occurrences that led to the Partition. The narrative carries an immediacy, a documentary predilection, and biases that are both interesting and unavailable in later works on the same period."--BOOK JACKET.