The Indian subcontinent had been subjected to be conquered and plundered by the outsiders for centuries. The last of those tragic episodes of looting and humiliating the Indians was most troubling and devastating not only during its British rule but even after its departure because it left behind a legacy of hatred, resentment, looting, feudality and repression. That episode was of the British rule in India.
The most staggering fact given by Walter Reid in this book is not how the British came to India and stole its treasury, which is undoubtedly an interesting story, but it is about how they left India. The writer sketches the political picture of the last thirty years of British India and tries to elaborate his point: how the British betrayed Indian, in a chronicle manner from 1917 to 1947.
Today, being a Pakistani, when I look at the institutional and political structure of the country, it looks me the same as it was under the British, with some exceptions. Suppressing voices of the people by using security forces, making ruses, dividing people for personal interests and destroying valuables of poor masses or looting them are a few examples of that horrible mindset the Pakistani premier/ruling class inherited from their predecessors.
However, this book is only up to 1947 and doesn’t contain the events that happened after the British bade farewell. It is interesting reading for the people who want to know the political policies of the British in India. It also describes how the political parties – Congress and Muslim League – and some stalwart politicians like Gandhi, Jinnah, and the two Nehrus reacted over the British policies and how they contributed to the freedom of India from the British dominance and then its partition into two separate countries, India and Pakistan.
To me, the most interesting question which is answered in this book is why the British, despite having a plan for their departure from India even before thirty years of the date they actually left, had failed in transferring powers to the two newly separated countries and why they left issues unresolved e.g., the distribution of assets and annexation of the princely states like Kashmir, which have become bone of contention between the two countries since then. And Who was responsible for the mass displacement and massacres at the time of the partition?
