Author: Ajit Bhattacharjea
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 1998
Language: English
Pages: 112
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8172233167
Description
A detailed and insightful analysis of the politics behind partition, the book also takes into account the price paid by the common people of India for the freedom for which they had fought.
August 14, 1947, was the day a free nation was born - and a country stood divided. Spanning the last three months before that fateful day, this book reveals the behind-the-scenes activities that went on at the time: how the Congress functioned independently of Gandhi; how Jinnah was told by Mountbatten to perform a charade in. public, and how India's leaders were given only 73 days to sort out the administrative measures to be taken after partition.
Speed and acceleration, contends the author, was the strategy that enabled Mountbatten to confuse terms to the Indian leaders. The pace had to be maintained lest the British run administration collapse before the responsibility of governance was transferred to Indian and Pakistani hands.