At his first tribal Jirga, four hundred long-bearded elders stood up from the hard, rocky ground and stalked off before Nehru had a chance to speak Descending from the Khyber Pass, the blood-stained gate to the subcontinent, Nehru’s convoy passed through a narrow defile. Nehru’s Khyber Rifles escort had to open fire to drive off the attackers. This time the Muslim dignitaries roared in approval — one “with such vehemence”, an observer recalled, “that his dentures parted from his gums and found a resting place in the palm of his right hand. “On his five-day October visit to the tribal areas, the Congressman met with hostility nearly everywhere he went.

The Muslim League and the Congress had become opposing political and ideological foes and personal animosities were not wholesale Aluminum Sliding Window the only forces at play. One turbaned fighter picked up a heavy stone and hurled it, smashing a car window. “The breaking of glass seems to send people mad,” NWFP governor Sir Olaf Caroe later wrote to Wavell. Midnight’s Furies makes for compelling reading but its scholarly lustre is diminished in parts by the author’s occasional personal assertions that lurk between purely historical accounts of what transpired in those dreadful months.

In 1946 the Muslim League had, for all practical purposes, said they would precipitate bloodshed if their demand for Pakistan was not met.Nisid Hajari’s storytelling conjures the spirit and urgency of a complex chapter in our historyJournalist Nisid Hajari’s Midnight’s Furies, a brilliantly written, fast-paced account of how the Partition took place, will rank as one of the best written histories penned in recent times. How does one counter that This issue of what the Congress could or should have done in the months and years leading to Partition have been discussed endlessly and suffice it to say that the author’s assertion blaming the subcontinent’s leadership for failing to bring about a compromise is at best debatable. This is the same sort of mindset that leads the Pakistani establishment to threaten nuclear annihilation if India does not relinquish control of Kashmir.

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