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As it revisits the partition-and indeed the long road to it-this book reveals some untold facts for a better understanding of our past, even as it holds a message for the future.

My ancestral roots are in Bengal, a region that was left bleeding by the Partition of 1947. This is a narrative about the painful division of a beloved part of undivided India, the partition of Bengal. I have often wondered if there can ever be closure to the Partition, not only in the generation who lived through the experience, but also the later generations who seem to subconsciously carry the burden of it. I wonder if we will ever be able to finally move on, leaving this painful national legacy behind. Yet, to know the answer to it, we must-like a time-traveller-go back into the past and look at history and historical events as they unfolded themselves to their final tragic conclusion.

Bengal and Its Partition tells the untold story of this province’s partition. In the process, it answers profoundly some deeply relevant questions:

Was this a tragedy waiting to happen?

Was Bengal’s partition inherent in its demographic and religious fault lines?

Or was it a man-made plot, maliciously conceived by the British; played out in Bengal in bloody acts of violence and slaughter?