REVIEW ARTICLE 99 V As an anthology, the book serves useful purpose to those working in the field. Its utility lies in the fact that not only has the exercise introduced us to the complexity of the process that led to the partition, it has also brought-out the intellectual imbroglio over the theme by drawing our attention to the prevalent debates. In his extensive introduction, Mushirul Hasan while summarising the broad trends in Indian historiography, refers to both the theoretical and practical problems which crop-up if one subscribes to one particular approach. Even without an adequate exposition of the contemporary theoretical literature on history and historical trends, it is obvious that the Indian reality can never be gauged properly due to its multifarious dimensions; it is more so, in the colonial context because of the existing socio-economic and political networks stemming from colonialism. So, the perception that a monocausal explanation of what had happened during the partition fails to capture the process in its complexity, is always welcome for it enables us to go beyond the formalised structure of politics. Hasan's India's Partition is intellectually stimulating too for having allowed access to the various types of writings on the theme drawing on different kinds of theories. Taking the articles together, one is inevitably drawn to the role of religion as an ideology. Whatever the nature, religion is a cementing factor irrespective of society. Similar to an ideology, religion, in a sense, comprises intellectual doctrines capturing both the consciousness of social actors and the institutionalised thought system and discourses of a given society. A thorough scan of the Indian reality on the eve of the Great Divide shows convincingly the extent to which religion was significant in bringing together a people, though divided along class, for a particular political cause. Such an argument explains plausibly the apparent homogeneity of Muslims in Punjab and Bengal despite obvious differences on various counts. So, in the two nation theory Jinnah found a carefully-devised device to project the unity among the Muslims as natural and the irreconcilable opposition between Hindus and Muslims. Despite the fragility of a religion-based bond, as was evinced in the dismemberment of Pakistan following the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, religion provided the Muslim League with a readymade structure for mobilizing support for the two nation theory which largely accounts for the rise of Pakistan. At the theoretical level, the book serves a useful purpose too by provoking a debate on the nature of nationalism in India. After having dwelled on the freedom struggle in its various manifestations, contributors to the compilation have demonstrated how difficult it is to conceptualise nationalism as derivative in essence in the context of a transitional society like India. Hence, nationalism as an ideological phenomenon, has to be located in the realm of political and cultural