How Modern India Was Built on the Legacy of British Institutions
Indians Have Drawn From a Dark Colonial Past to Create a More Liberal and Open Society
In the years after India’s independence in 1947, Britons tended to congratulate themselves on their legacy to the subcontinent.
Although the empire’s successor states, India and Pakistan, had been born amid the confusion and tragedy of Partition, the British relationship with both countries remained good. Most of the British departed, peaceably, marching to their ships in Bombay harbor, but a sizeable minority “stayed on,” as the phrase went, more than 2,000 of them remaining in the armies and administrations of the new states.
When Pakistan’s leader, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, appointed new governors …