A Triangular Drama:

To give the essays in this collection a unifying theme, the editor raises what is perhaps the most interesting question about the historical experience of India in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: How did the British manage to stay so long? For they did stay a long time in comparison with the record of most im­perial rulers in India and elsewhere. The Indian Empire in the full extent of its territoria1 control lasted longer, after all, than that of the Mauryas, or the Guptas, or the Mughals. From the conquest of the Punjab to August 15, 1947 is over a hund­red years; among the great historic em­pires only the Romans have done much better. Against this fact, the authors-or at least their editor, by way of interpre­tation—asks questions about the endu­rance of the British: who supported them, and, in the end, what made their position untenable? Was it a universal tide of history, sweeping away the past to make way for new political forms, or was the end determined by the patterns of relationship that had created and sus­tained the Indian Empire? These ques­tions are seldom asked in modern historical studies, partly because attent­ion has been focused upon the nation­alist movement or the drama of partition.