Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- 1 By way of introduction -- Questions of violence, nationhood and history -- 'Official' history and its other -- The history of 'history' -- A note on the term 'Partition' -- New nations, new histories -- What this book is (not) about -- 2 The three partitions of 1947 -- Elections, commissions, protest and strife -- The first 'partition' -- The second 'partition' -- The third 'partition' -- The uncertainty of it all -- 3 Historians' history -- National traditions and national pasts -- The acorn for the oak -- Violence and civilisation -- The 'ahistoricity' of violence -- The requirements of a history of Partition -- A final word -- 4 The evidence of the historian -- Primary discourse: the signature of rumour -- First Information Reports -- Secondary discourse: rumour politicised -- The genealogy of Thoa Khalsa -- The question of casualties: a note on tertiary discourse -- 5 Folding the local into the national: Garhmukhteshwar, November 1946 -- The 'bare facts' of a 'riot' -- Explanations and omissions -- The Congress's position -- The Muslim League's response -- The colonial account -- Nationalist historiography at work -- 6 Folding the national into the local: Delhi 1947-1948 -- Old and new inhabitants -- Two views of Partition and Independence -- The divided city -- Religious affiliation as national affiliation -- September 1947 -- Conceiving the new political community -- A leader refuses his consent -- Exile - at home or abroad -- 7 Disciplining difference -- The search for a one-nation nation -- The natural nation -- The needs of a modern state -- The return of the native -- The illusion of choice -- 8 Constructing community -- The morality of memory-history -- Violence 'out there'.

It did not matter in those days whether you had killed someone or not… -- A life that has gone -- The community lives on -- Escaping - 'somehow, anyhow' -- The ambiguous community -- Where is 'home' now? -- A final word -- Select bibliography -- CONTEMPORARY WRITINGS, DOCUMENTS, SPEECHES AND MEMOIRS -- FICTION RELATING TO PARTITION -- OTHER SECONDARY WORKS -- Index.