The breakup of India and Palestine: The causes and legacies of partition [Hardcover]

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.GBThese chapters provide deeply researched narratives of the links between partition in India and Palestine in 1947. It focuses on the shared dynamics that shaped both regions, such as violence, the role of religion in politics, majoritarian politics, and the persistence of imperial modes of power.

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

'This fascinating 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

'This is 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 demonstrate how the seeds were sown for the illiberal majoritarian democraciesló¡