The 1940s in Indian history have usually been studied in terms of three frameworks: the transfer of power by the British government; the achievement of independence by the Indian nationalists; and the partition of the territory into the new nation-states of India and Pakistan. But it is possible to provide a fourth framework, sketching a picture which the standard interpretations have overshadowed so far. A new interpretation emerges, which enables us to understand some crucial aspects of Indian history in the forty years after independence. If stretched beyond a narrow timeframe to the twentieth century, this fourth framework also allows us to assemble aspects of Indian history, politics, economic planning, and public administration, under a single conceptual roof.

Dr Indivar Kamtekar is a historian of modern India, specializing on the social, economic and political changes of the 1940s, about which he has offered new interpretations. He researches colonial state power more generally, and has also written on historical photographs. He has supervised PhD dissertations on a range of themes, and has taught and lectured at a variety of educational institutions in India and abroad.