Hajari, Nisid Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition

Abstract

Partition, the division of the Indian subcontinent into two countries in 1947, will always be remembered as one of the 20th century's major tragedies, involving one of the greatest forced human migrations in history, displacing more than 10 million people. It led to more than a million deaths in the context of Britain's departure from the subcontinent and the independence of India and Pakistan. Finally, it was the opening chapter of one of the world's most complex and unresolved rivalries, producing a nuclear hot spot many regard as the most dangerous in the world. Nisid Hajari has written a very readable book about the politics of Partition, detailing the negotiations and power dynamics in the run-up to August 15, 1947. With journalistic skill, the author provides intimate portraits of the book's main characters, Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Gandhi, Vallabhbhai Patel (Sardar) and Lord Louis Mountbatten also appear frequently, but Hajari essentially depicts the drama of Partition as a two-man show. While Hajari excels at transforming a complex and unwieldy event into a page-turner, his account is India-centric and ultimately too biased towards Nehru's views to provide a balanced account. India's first Prime Minister, the reader is told on the first pages of the book, was "dashing", "famously handsome", had "high, aristocratic cheekbones and eyes that were deep pools-irresistible to his many female admirers". "Although disdainful of superficialities, he took great care with his appearance", the author marvels. Throughout the book, Hajari describes Nehru's supposedly superhuman qualities, for example when he offers risking his life to protect Muslims in Old Delhi. Jinnah, by contrast, is largely depicted as a power-hungry crook who lacked any principles, "irascible" and "criminally negligent" in his thinking