Making the New Commonwealth

Britain's transfer of power to India and Pakistan in August of 1947 instigated a holocaust in the Punjab, exacerbated hostilities over Kashmir, and left in question the relationship between South Asia, Britain, and the Commonwealth. The Attlee Government, hoping to avoid alienating either India or Pakistan, tried to devise a form of Commonwealth that would accommodate both. This book is an account of British diplomacy towards the subcontinent in the aftermath of the partition and a history of the 'London Declaration' of April 1949 that retained South Asia in the Commonwealth, an achievement regarded as the Labour Government's greatest contribution to civilization.