Number of words: 416 Where does the ‘centre of gravity’ of India’s partition lie? Was it the Quit India Movement of 1942–45, and its visible lack of success that so demoralised Congress leaders that they had neither any more wish nor much stamina left to carry on with this fight for India’s unity? Annie Besant, … Read more

Number of words: 717 Mohammed Ali Jinnah was, to my mind, fundamentally in error proposing ‘Muslims as a separate nation’, which is why he was so profoundly wrong when he simultaneously spoke of ‘lasting peace, amity and accord with India after the emergence of Pakistan’; that simply could not be. Perhaps, late General Zia-ul- Haq … Read more

Number of words: 476 M.J. Akbar, in an erudite and magisterial essay analyses the challenge of it convincingly, in a yet to be published work The Major Minority: ‘At what point in the story of the last thousand years did Indian Muslims become a minority? The question is, clearly, rhetorical. Muslims have never been in … Read more

Number of words: 450 Rajendra Prasad’s motive in accepting Partition may be understood from the following passage: ‘It is necessary to mention here that it was the Working Committee, and particularly such of its members as were represented on the Central Cabinet, which had agreed to the scheme of partition. … (They) did so because … Read more

Number of words: 520 It was not the massacres alone but the response to it of the Indian politicians, of all those who were then engaged in fighting this ‘war of succession’ in India, that was so inexpressibly tragic, also so unforgivable. Nehru was too preoccupied by this idea of forming the fi rst independent, … Read more

Number of words: 199 The total immobilisation of the Congress leadership, by being jailed and their consequent political subjection for three years, without doubt affected the functioning of the Congress party during that period, throughout the country, but much more significantly it also greatly distorted the future course of India’s politics, contributing markedly to enhancing … Read more

Number of words: 375 The League’s propaganda, on the other hand, routinely underscored the negative. It refused to define the nature of Pakistan that was to be, and also never attempted to place the full picture of Pakistan either before the Muslims or those who were to concede it; it refused to define what Pakistan … Read more

Number of words: 826 After the 1937 elections, where it had contested very few Muslim seats and had been routed even in these, the Congress still continued to see itself as a national party because it now switched emphasis on to its assumed ‘secularism’, this then became a substitute for Muslim support. This was really … Read more

Number of words: 448 In the elections that followed the cultivating tenants of United Provinces, for the first time, decided to record a protest against prevailing conditions. In all the earlier elections (before 1937) they had consistently voted for their zamindar’s candidates, but on this occasion they refused to be so influenced. The zamindars remained … Read more

Number of words: 393 ‘The first public clash between Gandhi and his political heir-to-be, Jawaharlal Nehru, occurred in December 1927, at the Congress’ annual session in Madras. The issue that divided them was whether the Indian National Congress should keep dominion status as its political goal or abandon it and adopt a new goal, “complete … Read more