THE END OF BRITISH RULE IN INDIA varied questions: why certain parties propounded the banner of 'Hindutva', why many have found this rather exclusionist ideology attractive, the differences between the social make-up of the parties at various levels of society, and, not least, the impact of this in fashioning political stances in selected localities.5 For example, Christophe Jaffrelot's work has focused on key issues affecting and promoting the scope of Hindu nationalist parties like the Hindu Mahasabha, Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, Jan Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party/ in which he has investigated the creation of an overtly Hindu identity through a variety of agencies.7 However, existing works on the Hindu Mahasabha have ignored its role in the ministerial period of 1937-39 and the wartime years.8 Indeed, most of these studies have tended to concentrate primarily on the party's formative years and its activities in Northern India, where the Mahasabha's first local branch was established.9 The resultant emphasis on the growth of the organisational network of the party in the Punjab and parts of the United Provinces in the 1920s has lent a distinct North Indian flavour to the historiography dealing with it. Moreover, it has caused colonial Western India, chiefly those parts of the Bombay Presidency and the Marathi speaking areas of Central Provinces, where the Mahasabha carved out a powerful base among upper caste Hindus, to be almost completely ignored. This article hopes to correct this oversight. In addition, Jaffrelot's characterisation of the 'Hindu Sabha movement' as a result of the internalisation of foreign literature and ideologies by Hindu leaders is questioned, and the significance of political factors at the local level in shaping Mahasabha policies and political decisions will be underlined. This approach will also allow us to query the findings of yet another influential work: Bengal Divided by Joya Chatterji. Her generalisation that the Mahasabha had agreed to assist the British war-effort in order to be 'on the right side of the Raj' is a mite simplistic in the light of the conceptual frameworks utilised in a recent article dealing with nationalist politics during the Pacific war.10 The tendency to depict the party as a 'communalist' and/or 'opportunist' body has caused Chatterji to neglect some of the other important issues: the attitude of the party rank and file to the Mahasabha Working Committee's wartime decisions. Moreover, the assumption that a 'grouping' of 'communal minded Hindus' in the Bengal Congress and the Bengal Hindu Mahasabha could dictate a national-level decision to endorse partition is very problematic,11 especially as it