This book investigates the partition of India and in particular of Bengal: the rationale behind it, as well as its consequences. This has required a perspective which is sensitive to the continuities and changes in the sub-continent since 1947. In consequence, the book's approach has been deliberately and necessarily historical, and as far as possible the analysis has been grounded in primary sources.

In its turn, this approach has determined the scope of the analysis, both geographical and temporal. Sadly, in 1947 the archives and academies of India also were divided between the two successor states, and since that time scholars on one side have faced great obstacles in gaining access to sources on the other. Moreover, many key documents of the government of East Bengal were destroyed in the civil war of 1971, which has made comparing developments in India and Pakistan even more difficult. Hence the focus of the analysis has been on the Indian side of the border. The study ends in 1967, in part a consequence of the difficulties of gaining access to primary materials, whether public or private, for the period after that date. But there are other reasons why the book ends in 1967. Events in both West Bengal and India took a dramatically different turn in the late 1960s and early 1970s, so there is a logic, both for the narrative and for the analysis, to concluding the account with the elections of 1967.