Weakened States Seeking Renewal

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The volume documents four critical months in South Asia's post-partition history as recorded in the reports sent to London by British diplomats. It opens in January 1948 with both India and Pakistan suffering from the effects of Partition and communal upheavals manifested in weakened economies and administration and with the real possibility that all-out war over Kashmir might break out between them. Indeed the continued unity of the two states was in doubt. Gradually, particularly under the influence of Vallabhbhai Patel in India and Jinnah in Pakistan, increasingly determined and successful efforts were made to prevent disunity. By the end of April 1948 clear moves towards centralisation were apparent in both India and Pakistan to counter the growth of factions within the ruling parties, an increase in extremism, and the fragmentary agendas of provincialism and linguistic grouping. In India huge and extremely rapid steps had been taken to integrate the Princely States. Moderate Sikh leaders too had been induced to abandon the idea of a separate Sikhistan and instead accept continued participation in the Indian polity through membership of Congress. The central event in the volume is Gandhi's assassination at the end of January 1948 preceded by the Mahatma's last epic fast. The volume fully documents the responses to, and consequences of, these happenings and includes a lengthy and moving despatch by the British Acting High Commissioner in India on the last months of Gandhi's life and the circumstances of his death.