Indias Lost Frontiers

The North West Frontier Province (Nwfp), Now Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, Has Always Remained Tactically Important. In The Years Leading Up To IndiaS Partition And Independence, It Significantly Engaged The Attention Of British And Indian Political Figures. This Province Negated JinnahS Two Nation Theory, For The Nwfp Was Overwhelmingly Muslim And Yet Elected A Congress Government In 1946. This Upset Calculations, Primarily Of The British. It Became Imperative To Snatch The Province Away From The Congress. A Referendum Was Ordered And The Elected Congress Government Dismissed On 22 August 1947, Within A Week Of IndiaS Partition. The Congress Leadership Had Allowed Nwfp To Be Lost To India. Only Mahatma Gandhi And The Khan BrothersKhan Abdul Ghaffar Khan And Dr Khan SahebHad Resisted Surrendering This Claim Over Nwfp. It Was In BritainS Strategic Interest To Partition India. It Was Also In BritainS Interest That Nwfp And Baluchistan, The Two Frontier Provinces Of Undivided India, Join Pakistan. Why Then, Even After More Than Seven Decades Of IndiaS Independence, Do We Still Question The Inevitability Of Partition? In This Exhaustive Study Of The Nwfp And Its Adjoining Area Of Afghanistan, Raghvendra Singh Argues That With An Increasingly Powerful China Knocking On IndiaS Door, It Is Imperative To Recognize That The Docile Acceptance Of NwfpS Loss In 1947 May Have Serious Consequences For IndiaS Security In Times To Come.