Book review: A new light and a fresh perspective

Partition of India:  A Sindh Perspective is an interesting book for the contemporary reader casting fresh light on a what might seem to be familiar history.

Any author embarked upon writing Indian History is confronted perhaps with a familiar problem best articulated by William Darlymple.  When he was researching for his work on 'The White Mughals' (which I recommend highly), he was aghast at the physical state of historical records in the national libraries.  Disorganized, carelessly strewn stacks of paper, perhaps even moisture ridden.  Such is the general care for preserving historical artifacts.

In such an environment, the author takes on the doubly difficult task of not only visiting Indian history, but a particularly unknown part of it - the Sindhi experience of the partition.  He hits upon the approach of both micro- and macro-.  He takes the micro- approach by talking to folks of Sindhi origin who grew up in the Sindh but now settled in India.  And then at the macro-level he paints the landscape from which not only Sindh emerged, but how partition happened.

The book is a worthy effort. It is an easy welcoming read, with analysis and commentary where relevant.  It is broken into three parts.

Part I is a history refresher.  Those of us who grew up with Discovery of India by Pandit Nehru, are familiar with how he traced the arc of Indian history from the Indus Valley civilization to Indian Independence.  One always, felt like it would be good to refresh that with a modern, post-Independence perspective.  Part I of the book provides that with felicity.

Part II takes the micro- approach that I mentioned earlier.  To this reviewer, this section felt, quite familiar.  Meaning that there were Sindhi families where I grew up as well, that we were friends with.  While we we did not know history in the level of detail depicted in the book, I could relate to the community being described.  Also there is a universality to the experience of displacement one has read about, that comes to life in this section of the book.

I have always wondered about the magic of memory.  We are each who we were in our childhood, in a different place and time.  Yet, all the cells and atoms in our bodies have been reconstituted several times over in the interim.  And we have learned and hopefully grown in the meantime.  So who is it that experienced the past?  

As the author conducted his exploration, his interview subjects perhaps felt something like this.   Nehru captured this feeling best, in his preface to the Discovery of India.  He said, talking of himself, now Prime Minister, but then a prisoner of Ahmadnagar Fort, "This book is mine and not wholly mine, as I am constituted today; it represents rather some past self of mine which has already joined that long succession of other selves that existed for a while and faded away, leaving only a memory behind"

Part III is a continual reminder the hash the British made of the subcontinent as they left.  Some of the points raised around what was NOT considered in acceding to partition is profound.  Modern day Iraq, I have learned after watching Lawrence of Arabia and reading about the relationship between Churchill and TE Lawrence, is another willful British concoction.  Clearly, neither did the British have a desire to unwind its empire, nor did they have an exit strategy!

As I completed the book, I felt that it could have used one additional flavor.  A section on the Sindhi community as a whole would have been valuable - something about their language, their cultural mores etc.  For example, speaking for myself, I sometimes struggle to understand the distinction between a Sindhi and a Punjabi.  

I recommend this book for throwing fresh light on a familiar subject in the history of the Indian sub-continent.