Britain's precipitous and ill-planned disengagement from India in
1947-condemned as a "shameful flight" by Winston Churchill-had a
truly catastrophic effect on South Asia, leaving hundreds of
thousands of people dead in its wake and creating a legacy of
chaos, hatred, and war that has lasted over half a century. Ranging
from the fall of Singapore in 1942 to the assassination of Mahatma
Gandhi in 1948, Shameful Flight provides a vivid behind-the-scenes
look at Britain's decision to divest itself from the crown jewel of
its empire. Stanley Wolpert, a leading authority on Indian history,
paints memorable portraits of all the key participants, including
Gandhi, Churchill, Attlee, Nehru, and Jinnah, with special focus on
British viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten. Wolpert places the blame
for the catastrophe largely on Mountbatten, the flamboyant cousin
of the king, who rushed the process of nationhood along at an
absurd pace. The viceroy's worst blunder was the impetuous drawing
of new border lines through the middle of Punjab and Bengal.
Virtually everyone involved advised Mountbatten that to partition
those provinces was a calamitous mistake that would unleash
uncontrollable violence. Indeed, as Wolpert shows, civil unrest
among Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs escalated as Independence Day
approached, and when the new boundary lines were announced, arson,
murder, and mayhem erupted. Partition uprooted over ten million
people, 500,000 to a million of whom died in the ensuing inferno.
Here then is the dramatic story of a truly pivotal moment in the
history of India, Pakistan, and Britain, an event that ignited
fires of continuing political unrest that still burn in South Asia.
"In this engrossing, but very controversial, book, Wolpert
considers the responsibility of the leaders, both British and
Indian, for the immediate consequences of the partition in 1947 of
British India into India and Pakistan when hundreds of thousands
were killed in riots and millions became homeless refugees.
Shameful Flight is sobering reading for anyone interested in the
rise and fall of Western imperialism." -Ainslee Embree, Columbia
University "Wolpert's book is a delightful read and will shine for
its stellar quality of scholarship among the growing body of
partition literature that has surfaced in the last two decades. It
will be of great interest to anyone curious about whatever happened
to the great British Empire and those who often wonder why Indians
and Pakistanis endlessly fight with each other." -Dilip Basu,
University of California, Santa Cruz
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