From Plassey to Partition

More than a survey, and much more than a thematically arranged narrative, From Plassey to Partition is an eminently readable account of the emergence of India as a nation. It maps a wide and often complicated terrain of historical happenings, their main players in groups and as individuals, and contexts that enable us to see the formation of a nation through documents of resistance and struggle, assimilation and rejection. This story of India’s nationhood and political coming-of-age is rich in empirical detail and accessible interpretation of facts therein. In its eight major divisions covering about two hundred years of political and socio-economic turbulence, the author retraces the steps of our nationalist longings. On the one hand, it converses with students of Indian history and on the other, it engages general and curious readers. Few books on this crucial period of history have captured the rhythms of India’s polyphonic nationalism as From Plassey to Partition.