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experiences and how population transfers led to major demographic shifts in
cities such as Delhi and Calcutta. The fifth and sixth chapters, exploring the
long-term effects of Partition on state policies and interstate relations,
respectively, are singular for seeing beyond 1947 as a discrete historical
terminus. Singh and Talbot discuss how Partition encouraged unitary
governments that have marginalized minorities in both states and how the
Kashmir conflict has resulted in a seemingly intractable antagonism.
The main strength of Singh‟s and Talbot‟s synthesis is its authoritative grasp
of historiography and their effort, largely successful, to encompass a wide range
of Partition narratives. By giving due attention to different levels of politics,
regional and local accounts, interstate relations, and long-term effects, the
authors are able to offer valuable insights into the many facets of Partition. This
breadth is what allows for their significant revision of our basic understandings
of the period and the important extension of the narrative beyond 1947 to include
postcolonial state formation, diplomacy, and fissures within the construction of
national identities.
The other recent study of Partition, Yasmin Khan‟s excellent The Great
Partition (2007), differs in its use of continuous narrative; Khan‟s prose,
peppered with contemporary quotations and anecdotes, is appealing and includes
glimpses into the mentalities of historical actors that are valuable not only to the
non-specialist reader. Though Singh‟s and Talbot‟s work boasts a wider
chronological scope and is more comprehensive in its fuller treatment of Bengal
and Partition historiography, Khan‟s narrative is chronological and she is not
forced to skip neatly between discrete thematic headings, so allowing for a
nuance that sometimes falls between the cracks of Singh‟s and Talbot‟s work
(such as the opening anecdote of Malcolm Darling‟s ride).
Thus, the main weakness of the book stems from this predilection for
thoroughness of historiographic detail that seems to foreclose broader questions
beyond the prior scholarship. For example, in the vast literature on the causes of
Partition, the grail of the roots of “Muslim separatism” has elicited fervent
pursuit and though the authors mention in passing the tension between
primordialist and instrumentalist definitions of Muslim identity, their judgement
in favor of a golden-ageism of communal fluidity prior to colonialism fails to
interrogate the converse innovation of a pan-subcontinental national identity.
How did a land mass nearly the size of Europe come to comprise a single nation?
What historical processes have made this political assertion appear natural? Yet
they are perhaps less blameworthy for such oversight than the historians they
diligently summarize.
Notwithstanding, this book is an important contribution and will be useful as
an introductory text for advanced undergraduates or as a reference for
postgraduates. Its valuable review of the many approaches to the study of
Partition, as well as its imaginative perspective on the totality of Partition beyond
1947, ensure that it will be considered a significant contribution. As more oral
histories, especially lacking from the Sikh and Muslim perspectives, are