Midnight's
Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition by Nisid Hajari
recounts the division of India and Pakistan in 1947 as Britain ended its
centuries-long control over Indian affairs. "The Partition" as it is
known was driven by many factors, which Hajari recounts in chronological
detail.
This historical account details the seeds of Partition on
a number of fronts: first, the history of the relationship between Muslims and
Hindus in Indian history and how, despite occasional religious-oriented
violence, the two communities had co-existed and co-contributed to a developing
regional power prior to the nationalism movement that developed within India in
the early 20th century. Between religion, culture, and ego among leaders in
both the Muslim-led League and the Hindu-dominated Congress, Hajari accounts
how people of both faiths, plus the Sikhs of Northern India, rioted against the
other and how the British Empire, financially decimated by World War II, was
looking for a quick exit and not a lasting peaceable solution. The result was the
Partition of India and Pakistan, hastily done along roughly religious lines,
which led to further conflict in parts of Kashmir and in cities near both
borders as Hindus in a Muslim-dominated Pakistan and Muslims in Hindu-dominated
India were targeted and killed by the other side. The result of Partition was the largest
mass-migration of people in world history, with millions of Muslims and Hindus
moving into safer territory in order to flee the prospect of religious
violence.
Hajari takes the 1947 Partition and broadbrushes 70 years
of following history, pointing out how Pakistan's history has been full of
military rule combined with interference in Afghanistan for the better part of
the past forty plus years. The India-Pakistan conflict has occasionally flared
up since 1947, with three separate conflicts through their histories as
countries. The author focuses on how tensions between the two nations remain
strong despite occasional, gradual, attempts to resolve the two side's
differences in recent years over disputed Kashmir. More attention could have
been given to recent events and a future outlook to where things could head in
this region; however, Hajari does a brilliant job of telling how the seeds of
division in South Asia were originally sewn. Midnight's Furies is a fast, well-sourced read.
MY RATING - 4
