Partition of India - Legend and Reality

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Description
The first impression of Partition of India: Legend and Reality with a new Introduction (1990) has been sold out. Due to a demand for this book in India and Pakistan, I decided to bring out a second edition with a full Index There has been a revival of interest in Lord Mountbatten's part in the partition of India. Two biographies of Mountbatten have appeared in 1904, which are not available as this Preface is going to the Press. The first is Mountbatten - The Private Story by Brian Hoey. Mr. Andrew Roberts in his Eminent Churchillians has written 6 "debunking" biographies, including that of Mountbatten Roberts is sharply critical of Mountbatten's part in partitioning India. The Sunday Times (London) published on 26 July, 1994 extracts containing his criticisms. The P.T.I., London, put out a long message dealing with those extracts; and they were published in the Indian Express. Mr. Roberts' account is full of inaccuracies which cannot be exposed in a brief Preface. But he rightly condemns (0) Mountbatten's blatant bias towards Hindus which alienated Muslims; (ii) the haste with which Mountbatten partitioned India; and (ii) his unpardonable decision not to disclose Radcliffe's Punjab Award as soon as it was ready, for, had he done so, the Governor of Punjab and his officials, aided by the Army, could have saved thousands of lives and ensured an orderly migration of people from India to Pakistan and vice-versa.

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Contents
Chapter I   : Partition of India: A Fresh Appraisal
Chapter II  : Introductory
Chapter III : 1937-1942: Elections to Provincial Legislatures - their Aftermath
Chapter IV : The Transfer of Power
Chapter V  : The Cabinet Mission
Chapter VI : The Cabinet Mission Plan
Chapter VII : The Dismissal of Lord Wavell and the Appointment of Lord Mountabtten
Chapter VIII : LordMountbatten's Viceroyalty: 24 March 1947 - 15 August 1947
Chapter IX   : Radcliffe's Boundary Award on the Punjab
Chapter X     : Mountbatten's Responsibility for the Massacres and the Migrations in Punjab
Chapter XI    :  Retrospect
(a) General
(b) The Viceroyalty of Wavell in retrospect
(c) The Viceroyalty of Mountbatten in retrospect
Note
Post Script I: Building Bridges
Post Script II: Shattered Dreams
Index
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Author Details
H.M. Seervai, a scion of the famous Wadia Master Builders, was born in Bombay on 5 Dec. 1906. He was educated in the New High School, Bombay, and joined the Elphinstone College, Bombay, in 1922, graduating in 1926 with a first class in Philosophy. In 1932 he was appointed for a term as a Lecturer in English at the Elphinstone College.
Having graduated in Law, he started practice on the Original side of the Bombay High Court in 1932 and Joined the Chamber of Sir Jamshedji Kanga, Who had been Adv. General from 1923-1935. Seervai was appointed Adv. General of Maharashtra in 1957 and was Adv. General for 17 years. In 1967, he published constitutional Law of India, a Critical Commentary (now in its 4th edition) which was acclaimed as a classic and won for him the award of Padma Vibhushan in 1972, and led in 1981 to his being elected a corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, the highest academic honour in Britain. In March 1994 he received from the International Bar Association a “Living Legends of Law Award of Recognition”.
Seervai’s Interest in civil liberties found expression in his book, emergency, future Safeguards and the Habeas Corpus Case (1978). He has been the Present, People’s Union Liberties, Bombay Unit, Since 1983.
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