Animosity at Bay

In this groundbreaking book, Pallavi Raghavan uses previously untapped archival sources to weave together new stories about the experiences of post-Partition state-making in South Asia. Through meticulous research, she challenges the existing wisdom about the preponderance of animosity and the rhetoric of war. The book shows how amity and a spirit of cordiality governed relations between the states of India and Pakistan in the first five years after Partition. Arguing that a hitherto overlooked set of considerations have to be integrated more closely into the analysis of bilateral dialogue, this book examines the developments leading to the No War correspondence between Nehru and Liaquat Ali Khan: the signing of a ‘Minorities Pact’ between the two prime ministers; and the early stages of the Indus Waters negotiations. It also explores the calculations of Indian and Pakistani delegates at a series of interdominion conferences held in the years after Partition.