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       COPYRIGHT

      William Collins

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

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      This ebook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2017

      Copyright © Larry Collins and Pressinter S.A. 1975, 1997

      The Authors assert the moral right to

      be identified as the author of this work

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      available from the British Library

      Cover artwork: Pathé Productions Limited

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      Source ISBN: 9780008247782

       Ebook Edition © October 2016 ISBN: 9780007381296 Version: 2017-03-06

       EPIGRAPH

      ‘The responsibility for governing India has been placed by the inscrutable design of providence upon the shoulders of the British race.’

      RUDYARD KIPLING

      ‘The loss of India would be final and fatal to us. It could not fail to be part of a process that would reduce us to the scale of a minor power.’

      WINSTON CHURCHILL

      to the House of Commons,

      February 1931

      ‘Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge … At the stroke of the midnight hour, while the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance …’

      JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

      to the Indian Constituent Assembly,

      New Delhi, August 14, 1947

      CONTENTS

       COVER

       TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

EPIGRAPH

LIST OF MAPS

PREFACE

PROLOGUE

1 ‘A Race Destined to Govern and Subdue’

2 ‘Walk Alone, Walk Alone’

3 ‘Leave India to God’

4 A Last Tattoo for the Dying Raj

5 An Old Man and his Shattered Dream

       6 A Precious Little Place

       7 Palaces and Tigers, Elephants and Jewels

       8 A Day Cursed by the Stars

       9 The Most Complex Divorce in History

       10 ‘We Will Always Remain Brothers’

       11 While the World Slept

       12 ‘Oh Lovely Dawn of Freedom’

       13 ‘Our People Have Gone Mad’

       14 The Greatest Migration in History

       15 ‘Kashmir – only Kashmir!’

       16 Two Brahmins from Poona

       17 ‘Let Gandhi Die!’

       18 The Vengeance of Madanlal Pahwa

       19 ‘We Must Get Gandhi Before the Police Get Us’

       20 The Second Crucifixion

       EPILOGUE

       WHAT THEY BECAME

       BIBLIOGRAPHY

       INDEX

       ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

       ABOUT THE AUTHORS

       NOTES

       ALSO BY THE AUTHORS

       ABOUT THE PUBLISHER