Spirals of Contention

This study examines the social and psychological processes that led to the Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. It recognizes the long-term continuities in the idiom of conflict (as well as cooperation), and shows that, by 1900, the conflicts and animosities were gathering a self-aggravating momentum. The book moves back and forth between evidence and general, or theoretical, understanding. Separateness between Hindus and Muslims grew reciprocally, with hardening religious identities an