Jaswant Singh's Book Review Page 27

Book Reference: Page 27 Line 9 to11
Author's View: The author after analysing the attitude of the British towards Muslims in the aftermath of 1857 Mutiny ,concludes, in effect  the following: ( I cannot quote verbatim due to Copyright restriction)
1. They were always apprehensive that they could be driven out of India if the two great fanaticisms of India combined.
2.The British believed that they  are needed as impartial umpires for the Indian Society in general and between Muslims and Hindus in particular.
3. Whenever they could do so, they exploited the division existing between Hindus , Muslims  in particular and in the society in general  which gave scope for own safety.
The author concludes that inspite of all this , he finds it difficult to put all the blame on the British for dividing the two communities.
My Comments:
It is well to recapitulate how the East India Company started, established itself, expanded and ultimately captured power over time by exploiting not only the divisions existing among Hindus and Muslims, but also among Muslims and Muslims, Hindus and Hindus. It was therefore inherent in the British scheme of things to perpetuate and enlarge the division between the masses, once they had made all the Princes impotent.  Later they enlarged the scope to include the depressed classes and other minorities like Anglo-Indians, Parsees etc As we will see later by detailed analysis , how  and why the Round Table Conference failed and other events in the History of  our Freedom Struggle ; how the British promoted the division in our society for their advantage. It is therefore surprising why the author finds it difficult to place the blame on the British. As per the author , it was the Indian National Congress  which should shoulder the blame to the maximum extent  as the author concludes elsewhere that they "engineered" the division of the country.
The reader will see in subsequect posts, my analysis of the recorded events to refute the author's theory.