Pathway to India\'s Partition, Vol. III: The March to Pakistan 1937-1947

Contents: Preface. Introduction. 1. Preparing the ground 1937-1939 (I): War on Congress and intensified stress on Muslim nationhood. 2. Preparing the ground 1937-1939 (II): Search for a new polity based on the Two-Nation Theory. 3. The war crisis and the Pakistan Resolution, 1939-1940. 4. Legitimation of the Pakistan demand, 1940-1942. 5. Growth of the Pakistan Movement and Massive Electoral Mandate, 1942-1946 (1). 6. Growth of the Pakistan Movement and Massive Electoral Mandate, 1942-1946 (2). 7. The Cabinet Mission, direct action and Interim Government, March to October 1946. 8. Interim Government to the Mountbatten Plan and Partition, October 1946-August 1947. Epilogue. Appendices. Bibliography. Index.

“This volume, the third in the trilogy on the Pathway to India’s Partition, shows the key role played by Jinnah in the last phase of the journey to that goal.

It also proves the hollowness of the so-called revisionist thesis, that although claiming to work for the creation of Pakistan, Jinnah actually did not believe in that demand and was really working for a compromise which might succeed in bringing about a strong Central Government for a united India and that this had indeed been the real objective of the Pakistan Resolution of 1940 -- an absurd proposition. The contents of this volume also reveal the absurdity of the view propounded by the revisionists and others that if, in spite of Jinnah’s efforts to the contrary, India had to be divided and Pakistan created, this was due to the mistakes of the Congress leaders.

Finally, the volume illustrates the acute agony experienced by Gandhi who looked upon the prospect of partition with extreme pain and abhorrence and still felt compelled to go along with the proposal for partition as accepted by the Congress Working Committee and asked the members of the All India Congress Committee to do the same, on the ground that in the communally surcharged atmosphere in India in 1947 there was really no other alternative.” (jacket)