Prasad - India Divided

The question of partition of India into Muslim and Hindu zones has assumed importance since the All-India Muslim League passed a resolution in its favour at Lahore in March 1940. Much has been written on it and a literature has grown round it. But I believe there is room for another book which tries to discuss the question in all its aspects. In India Divided I have made an attempt to collect in a compact form information and material likely to help the reader in forming an opinion of his own. I have expressed my own opinion on the basis of the material so collected but I believe I have placed the material apart from any conclusions I have drawn therefrom and it is open to the reader to ignore my conclusions and draw his own inferences, if he can.

The book is divided into six parts. Part I deals with the theory of Hindus and Muslims of India being two nations. While showing that the theory is as unsupported by history and facts of everyday life, as by the opinion of distinguished and representative Musalmans, it points out that even if it be assumed that the Musalmans are a separate nation, the solution of the HinduMuslim problem in India should, on the basis of experience of other countries and on the strength of the latest and most authoritative writers of international repute on the subject, be sought in the formation of a multinational State in which a powerful political union guarantees cultural autonomy to different national groups; and not in the creation of national States which will not only leave the problem of national minorities unsolved but will also create more new problems relating to questionsfinancial, economic, industrial and political, and military defence and strategythan it will solve.

Part II discusses at length how the HinduMuslim problem has arisen and grown to its present proportions and how with the lengthening of the base of the communal triangle, the angle of difference between the communities has become wider and wider.

Part III gives the summary of a number of schemes of partition which have appeared.

Part IV points out the vagueness and ambiguity of the Lahore Resolution of the All-India Muslim League and the difficulty which faces anyone trying to consider it on its merits. It analyses the Resolution and, giving their natural meaning to the words used in the Resolution, it fixes the boundaries of Pakistan.