Author: Narendra Singh Sarila
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 2005
Language: English
Pages: 436
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8172235690
Description
A saga of power and betrayals revealing the true motives of the British at the time of partition and how Indian leaders were outmanoeuvred by them. Historians and political analysts have not paid enough attention to the crucial link between India’s partition and British fears about the USSR gaining control of the oil wells of the Middle East-the wells of power. Once the British leaders realized that the Indian nationalists would not join them to play the Great Game against the Soviet Union, they settled for those willing to do so.
In the process, they did not hesitate to use Islam as a political tool to fulfil their objectives. How this operation was conceived and carried out, behind a thick smoke screen, forms the theme of this untold story of India’s partition. The topsecret documentary evidence unearthed by the author throws new light on several prominent figures such as Mahatma Gandhi, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Winston Churchill, clement Attlee, Lord Archibald Wavell, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhash Chandra Bose, Sardar Patel and the two Menons (V P and Krishna).
The contents also bring out little known facts abut the unobtrusive pressure that the USA exerted on Britain in favour of India’s independence as well as unity in the hope of evolving a new post-colonial world order. The author also traces the roots of the present Kashmir imbroglio and how the matter was dealt with in the UN.
This timely volume sends out a cautionary signal to present-day Indian: to avoid misplaced idealism, superciliousness and escapism, to which some of their ancestors fell prey.
REVIEWS
An impressive range of documentary sources illuminates a controversial era with skill and conviction. Historians and general readers alike will learn much from the sweep and drama of the narrative.
-Sir Martin Gilbert, OBE, FRSL (British Historian)
The book is a basic challenge to the conventional wisdom on the partition of India, The purpose was to create a Muslim state in northwest India to serve as a base in the cold War, this is a path-breaking contribution.
-K Subrahmanyam (columnist and defence analyst)
The outcome of original research this book is unique in several ways, this is not a revisionist book; it is revelatory of new facts, highly readable.
-Jaswant Singh (former Union minister for external affairs and finance)
This book discerns the deeper causations of partition, stresses the role which the USA played in furthering the cause of India’s independence.
-J N Dixit (former foreign secretary and national security adviser to the Government of India)
This book deals in a most interesting manner with the traumatic events in my home state of Jammu and Kashmir, particularly the usually neglected Northern Areas and the Gilgit Agencey.
-Dr Karan Singh (MP and former Union minister)
In this dramatic historical account, the Great Game of Asia reaches its climax in the partition of India in 1947, Extensive examination of archival sources and insights drawn from conversations with Lord Louis Mountbatten and other participants in the Process of Partition.
-Professor Wm Roger Luis, USA (an authority on the British Commonwealth)
Contents
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Great Game
The Anglo-Muslim League Alliance
The Pakistan Scheme and Jinnah
The Churchill-Roosevelt Clash over India
The Mahatma’s Fury
India, the UK and the USA
Wavell Plays the Great Game
Attlee’s Smoke Screens
Nehru in the Saddle
Mountbatten’s Counsellor
The End Game of Empire
The Kashmir Imbroglio I: Gilgit and Poonch
The Kashmir Imbroglio II: At the UN
Postscript
INDEX