For some years before his death the veteran India hand Sir Penderel Moon was engaged in what was to be the culmination of his life’s work: a large-scale history of the two centuries of British involvement in India – from the battle of Plassey to the final independence of India and Pakistan some forty years ago. It is a masterly account of men and events. Part One describes the conquests of the East India Company in the wake of the disintegrating Moghul empire, and the gradual development of an administrative system. A major theme is the haphazard nature of the growth of British rule and the general ineffectiveness of the home authorities. Another is the conflict of attitudes between those who wish to replace Indian with English ways and those concerned to preserve what was best in India’s ancient civilization. The watershed was the disastrous Mutiny of 1857. Part Two describes the eighty-nine years during which India was ruled directly from Whitehall and the growing demand by Indians for self-government (fed by literal ideas from the British themselves). The more far-sighted has long recognized this as inevitable, though few if any had foreseen that the end of British rule would mean the loss of Indian unity.
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