Apex-level political developments that eventually led to Partition, or the various specific moves-mainly by Mahatma Gandhi and Maulana Azad – to prevent that tragic end, or general reflections on the question of self-determination in comprehending not only the over-arching Hindu-Muslim problem which hung heavy over the political scene for so many decades, but also the ethnic movements of the smaller nationalities in the extreme north and west of the subcontinent, the Pathans and the Baluchis, their long-sustained struggle for autonomy, self-rule and modernization, and their subsequent suppression and frustration, etc., are all dealt with in the nine researched essays in this collection. These historiographical essays cumulatively present an altogether new and alternate interpretation of the factors and causes that not onlky made Partition inevitable but even the subsequent developments in the two successor States so bitter and unfortunate. The swing in constitutional thinking away from a federative approach with the Centre to control only a limited number of subjects with guarantees of autonomy for all, with all the residuary powers remaining with the units, which had been the running theme of all the future schemes made during the crucial two decades when the Indian Independence movements were coming of age, to its polar opposite, towards the concept of a unitary state-both in India and in Pakistan-during the penultimate year from July 1946 till when the chips were down next year, became simultaneously both the cause and effect of Partition and all its consequences. At the end have been appended a few shorter items on such issues as of language, pluralism, autonomy, regional Cooperation and India-Pakistan relations which extend the main theme upto the present. An important addition to the historiography of Partition to mark the entrance to the twentyfirst century.
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