This book is the first study of political and legal thinking about the partitions of India and Palestine in 1947. The chapters in the volume, authored by leading scholars of partition, draw attention to the pathways of peoples, geographic spaces, colonial policies, laws, and institutions that connect them from the vantage point of those most engaged by the process: political actors, party activists, jurists, diplomats, philosophers, and international representatives from the Middle East, South Asia, and beyond. Additionally, the volume investigates some of the underlying causes of partition in both places such as the hardening of religious fault-lines, majoritarian politics, and the failure to construct viable forms of government in deeply divided societies.

Reviews

'This fascinating essay collection offers systematic analysis of partition in India and Palestine as processes connected through supranational politics, international law, and transnational networks. Thought provoking, often harrowing and always original, the essays collected here make essential reading for anyone interested in where partitions fit within global decolonisation.' Martin Thomas, University of Exeter

'An expert team of authors assembled by Victor Kattan and Amit Rajan have produced an original book on the momentous years of 1947 and 1948 in the Indian subcontinent and Palestine. By showing how partition failed to resolve the nationality 'problems' it was designed to solve, the multi-scalar analyses in The breakup of India and Palestine demonstrate how the seeds were sown for the illiberal majoritarian democracies there today. A brilliant achievement.' A. Dirk Moses, Anne and Bernard Spitzer Professor of International Relations at the Colin Powell School for Civic and International Leadership at the City College of New York, CUNY

'This book is expertly planned, presented and written. Each chapter links into the next, enabling a seamless comparative account of colonial and postcolonial governance agendas through the prism of partition politics. The detailed investigation into the latter gives a balanced account and adds an analytical rigour to the academic literature on the topic, which is skewed towards colonial politics and limits the agency of the postcolonial societies.'
International Affairs 100: 2, 2024

Foreword by Lucy Chester
Acknowledgements

Introduction: Connecting the partitions of India and Palestine: institutions, policies, laws and people - Victor Kattan and Amit Ranjan

Part I The partition of British India
1 The Mountbatten Viceroyalty reconsidered: personality, prestige and strategic vision in the partition of India - Ian Talbot
2 The paradigmatic partition? The Pakistan demand revisited - Ayesha Jalal

Part II The partition of Palestine
3 Partition and the question of international governance: the 1947 United Nations Special Committee on Palestine - Laura Robson
4 Fighting for Palestine as a holy duty? The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and the partition of Palestine in 1947 - Mohamed-Ali Adraoui

Part III The partitions of India and Palestine compared
5 The communal question and partition in British India and mandate Palestine - Amrita Shodhan
6 India's dilemmas of pragmatism v. principles: Nehru's preference for a partitioned India but a federal Palestine - P. R. Kumaraswamy

Part IV The consequences of partition for South Asia, the Middle East and beyond
7 The partitions of India and Palestine and the dawn of majority rule in Africa and Asia - Victor Kattan
8 'Unfinished' partition: territorial disputes, unequal citizens and the rise of majoritarian nationalism in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh - Amit Ranjan
9 Civil war, total war or a war of partition? Reassessing the 1948 war in Palestine from a global perspective - Arie M. Dubnov
10 Partitioned identities? Regional, caste and national identity in Pakistan - Iqbal Singh Sevea

Afterword: Partition as imperial inheritance - Penny Sinanoglou

Editors

Victor Kattan is an Assistant Professor at the School of Law, University of Nottingham
Amit Ranjan is a Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore