Thirty-six years later: the mixed legacies of Mountbatten's transfer of power.

Legacies are unavoidable in the histories of states, as in the history of families or of our bodies. Always we make our futures in the presence of our pasts. Legacies are peculiarly substantial and durable in those states which emerge from partitions. In this respect the subcontinent of South Asia is not a case on its own; the partitions of Palestine, of Ireland, of Germany are also events which seem never to die, nor even smoothly to fade away.
The purpose of this essay is to try to disentangle the elements, positive and negative, of the British contribution to the legacies of 1947 as transmitted to the subcontinent. The task has been made practicable by the opening up to public inspection of the records a few years ago. What is more extraordinary is that in principle the task can be undertaken even by those who have not the time nor the patience nor the practical possibility of burrowing into the heaps of files. For this we have to thank the Harold Wilson government which took the bold decision to publish a vast selection of the papers which record the process of Britain's first and largest decolonization operation. We have also to thank Professor Nicholas Mansergh and his staff who undertook with exquisite care and judgment the giant task of editing the twelve massive volumes of the Transfer of power series. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]