The book is concerned with the theme of the meaning and relevance of ‘independence’ for the people of India and Pakistan in the two decades following 1947. It thus examines the transformation from colonial to postcolonial rule in the two countries focusing on how ordinary people experienced the independence rather than adopting a perspective focused on politics and policy making in the new States. The essays probe issues of personal law, migration and citizenship, governance, development and modernity, corruption and refugees’ rehabilitation among other themes. Examining narratives on partition, newspaper reports and scholarly writings, they highlight the extreme display of state power, violence in the context of displacement of people, and the notion of citizenship that was coloured by the intense social polarisation that accompanied the partition of the subcontinent.
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