Gopal Das Khosla

One of the four books combined into Oxford's Omnibus edition, 2002, it is an easier read than Page's "Prelude", as Khosla's is in the form of a straight narrative of the horrific events connected with the Partition and Hindu-Muslim relations in the subcontinent, and less of an effort at hypothesis-building. One gets the impression that it tends to ascribe much of the blame to the British 'divide and rule' strategies, which may lull us into a form of complacency by somewhat devaluing the strength of local, native, ethnic divisions, sentiments and aspirations. It is a dismal and chilling blow-by-blow enumeration of the atrocities committed during that period, but tends to focus on the pogroms done by the Muslims of the Pakistan parts of the subcontinent on a hapless non-Muslim minority, both in the years leading up to Independence and in the immediate post-Partition months. The last chapter retells briefly the "retaliatory" attacks by Sikhs and Hindus in East Punjab when the refugee trains started arriving with their dead and wounded. This account will probably evoke feelings of rage and a thirst for revenge, making it all the more difficult for the two communities, and more so the two countries, to get over the trauma of the partition. Perhaps the job of the historian would be to present both sides simultaneously, if this is possible. None of us, in the subcontinent or outside it, can remain complacent that it won't happen to 'us', as shown by recurrent violent events in recent times. We need to think about why such unspeakably brutal things happen, and how we should deal with such atavistic feelings in the larger society, if we are to achieve any sort of healing between the countries and the communities.… (más)