Freedom at Midnight

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I am happy at the generation I am living in, but after reading this book, it made me wonder whether I have missed the most epoch making time of my country, well any country for that matter. On the back was the message: “This is what has been happening to our Sikh and Hindu brothers and sisters at the hands of the Moslems when they take over.

Because anything good that comes out of India, well it has to be influenced by the higher race, even in ancient times. However the author cleverly forgets how they flared the differences between religions in India when it suited them.

I bought this book in an airport in June 1976 when I was flying back to spend a summer with my father in the USA for the first time since I was 12 years old, utterly irrelevant information in terms of the book itself but it does explain some of the reasons I found it so compelling. The "rich indulgence of Indian kings" has been quoted in great detail, while the atrocities on Indian wealth and citizens by the British have been ignored.

The composition of this book is such that you won't find it difficult to read through the pages, and the authors have weaved it with simple, yet strong literature. By the time the Labor Government took office, the English were as tired of argument as the Indians, and Clement Attlee insisted on finishing up the whole epoch. Having been there most of the time in question and having assisted at must of the encounters (except, perhaps, serving the Maharaja his morning tea) I can vouch for the accuracy of its general mood. I was totally unaware of the painfully and heart-ripping things that the country and it’s people has to undergo.The writing style was very casual but it will take quite sometime to get into the book but once you are into it, you cannot stop reading it. Readers in Pakistan may find it particularly off-putting as it gives a very negative portrayal of Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah and essentially is an argument against partition.

It had epitomized the Victorian ideal of India better than anything else -dark, plucky soldiers staunchly loyal to their distant empress, led by doughty young Englishmen, straight arrows all, steady under the Pathans’ fire, good at games, stern but devoted fathers to their men, chaps who could hold their liquor in the mess.He also makes references to the 'Aryan Invasion Theory' which has been proven incorrect more than once. All this gives an especial poignancy, and perhaps even importance, to the hook in question, whose very title now has unintentionally sad undertones of mockery.

If you want to read something that really gets to the heart of the enormous complexities of British rule in India, the Indian liberation movement, the key characters on all sides, and the results of partition (including present day legacies): read Michael French's excellent 'Liberty or Death'.Every Sikh and Hindu officer spoke, often with tears in his eyes, to bid farewell to the Moslem Colonel Mohammed Idriss, who had led them through some of the bitterest fighting of World War II. While Winston Churchill, the arch‐imperialist, remained in power, he impeded every move and indeed betrayed his well‐intentioned Viceroy Wavell. Freedom at Midnight is the true story of the events surrounding Indian independence, beginning with the appointment of Lord Mountbatten of Burma as the last Viceroy of British India, and ending with the assassination and funeral of Mahatma Gandhi.