Introduction

Abstract

This book is a study of the collapse of British power in India and of the rise of the Indian National Congress, which has dominated the government and politics of independent India since 1947. The winding up of the British empire is one of the most significant events of modern history. India was once the jewel in Britain’s imperial crown and the ending of the Raj removed the coping-stone of the largest empire that the world has known. The primary aim of this book is to provide a documented and analytical account both of imperial policy and of nationalist politics during the penultimate phase of British rule in India. This account will also investigate the reasons that dictated the timing and manner of the collapse of British control and of the rise of the forces that successfully challenged and replaced it. In this process, several different strands of policy-making and political action were at work. The three major participants were imperial planners in London, the Government of India in New Delhi and the central leaders of the Indian National Congress. All three did have certain concepts and problems in common, and at times the paths of their activities crossed, but each was pursuing separate aims along separate roads and each was affected by different constraints. Taken together, their tripartite meanderings comprise a major part of the political history of British India.