Objectivity

[Brian]

This is an atrocious book, a complete abrogation of scholarship in favour of prejudiced argument. Even by the most generous interpretation of Wolpert's own arguments as laid out in the book, the only conclusion which can be drawn is that India, and Indians were poorly served by their political masters. Dare one say now that Ghandi himself is the most obvious candidate for censure? Nehru and Jinnah hardly come out of Wolpert's text smelling of roses either, but Ghandi struck me as the one most culpable for the subsequent debacle, and again, that is from a reading of Wolpert's own arguments in this book.

Had the obduracy and perfidiousness of Ghandi not got in the way during the 1942 and 1946 Cripps missions to India, it is plain (and even Wolpert writes this) that a settlement could have been reached which would have enabled a peaceful handover. No attempt at all is made to understand or censure Ghandi's behaviour. As far as Wolpert is concerned, effectively "it was all the fault of those damned Brits".

Yet had an agreement been reached in 1946, the entirety of what follows in Wolpert's book would have been irrelevant. There would likely have been no Mountbatten to "fuck things up" (Wolpert's use of language, not mine), as it is unlikely that the widely respected Wavell would have been in replaced. A peaceful handover of power was within the grasp of Indian politicians in 1946, but they fumbled and dropped the ball. There can be no doubt that the inter-communal violence of 1947 onwards had its roots in the failure of contemporary Indian political leadership, even accepting that India would have been a different place had it never been colonised.
It could easily be argued that, had an agreement been reached between Congress and the Muslim League, then Wavell's presence as a stabilising figure and soldier would have eased the subsequent transition.

Wolpert makes no mention at all of the quite improper relationship which took place between Lady Mountbatten and Nehru. None. How can a study of India 1942-1947 omit this? Are we to conclude that Wolpert either did not know of it (unlikely), or that he chose to omit it as irrelevant? If the latter, how we can read this book and treat its conclusions with any seriousness? Either way, the absence of any comment on it seriously undermines the books' credibility as an authoritative read.

No attempt was made by Wolpert to set the decision making of the British from 1945 onwards in any kind of context. No mention was made of the pressures on Attlee et al., or of British post-war weakness - military and financially. The fact that many of those pressures were coming directly from the United States seems to have passed Wolpert by. In focussing so narrowly on India, he loses sight of the bigger picture facing the UK, the USA and the world at that time, much of which is needed to understand and explain contemporary decision making.

I have no doubt mistakes were made on the British side, but I have never read any evidence of maliciousness on the part of anyone involved, either in London or the colonial administration in Simla and Delhi.

This book is quite simply an anti-colonial rant by a clearly Anglophobe American. If this is what passes for scholarship at the history faculty of UCLA, remind me never to employ anyone with a UCLA history degree!