Two Histories

The Raj At War: A People’s History of India’s second world war by Yasmin Khan bodley head; Price: Rs.2,022; Pages: 432 The Raj at War: People’s History of India’s Second World War by Yasmin Khan, associate professor of history at Oxford University and winner of the Royal Historical Society’s Gladstone Prize, 2007, is another magnum opus after her The Great Partition (2007). History from below was the project of subaltern historians during the 1980s, which was a paradigm shift in the study of history itself, by giving due attention to excluded and marginalised voices and recognising their important contribution to our society. The Raj at War does not claim to be one such text but it is written on similar lines. The Second World War changed the dynamics of international politics, toppling hegemonic colonisers from power and weakening their influence everywhere. It had equal consequences on the domestic politics of many would-be independent nations. The British Raj was at war from 1939 to 1945. Its colonies provided foot soldiers, princes provided financial support and all of British India was at war. The heartwrenching narratives in The Raj at War suggests that the war brought misery to the Indian subcontinent, and innocent civilians suffered for the cause of liberation of Europeans from the Axis Powers. Khan’s claim that “Britain did not fight the Second World War, the British Empire did”, is on scrutiny throughout the book, consistently documented by the contribution non-expert civilians made to win the war for the Empire. Khan has highlighted the contribution of nurses, road builders, seamen, schoolgirls, Bengal famine victims, Nepalese, Burmese and Gorkhas. Khan’s earlier book The Great Partition, which was about the creation of India and Pakistan, led her to probe the way war changed the fate of the Indian subcontinent. Before 1939, it wasn’t clear whether the mission of the Muslim League would be fulfilled, or even whether India would get her independence. For Jinnah, the war came as a “blessing in disguise”. It shaped the debate and paved the way for partition. Midnight’s Furies: the deadly legacy of India’s partition by Nisid Hajari houghton mifflin; Price: Rs.1,419; Pages: 304 Midnight Furies by Nisid Hajari is a detailed account of India’s partition analysing the historicity of the event on both sides of the cartographic divide. Hajari gives a vivid account of how leaders of the Congress as well as Muslim League manoeuvred for their share in the power structure as well as for territorial division. Today’s communal politics, the unresolved Kashmir issue and the role of the RSS then and now, are all the fallout of partition.  The demarcation of boundaries by Sir Cyrill Radcliffe was short sighted, and certainly not impartial. Sardar Patel’s role in the unification of the princely states through carrot-and-stick diplomacy was marred by the recalcitrancy of the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Nawab of Junagadh, and indecisiveness of the Maharajah of Kashmir. Patel’s soft attitude towards the RSS which was on the rampage in Punjab, Delhi, Bengal and Jammu showed their militant…