PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
The problem of Pakistan has given a headache to everyone, more so to me than to anybody else. I cannot help recalling with regret how much of my time it has consumed when so much of my other literary work of greater importance to me than this is held up for want of it. I therefore hope that this second edition will also be the last. I trust that before it is exhausted either the question will be settled or withdrawn.
There are four respects in which this second edition differs from the first.
*The first edition contained many misprints which formed the subject of complaints from many readers as well as reviewers. In preparing this edition, I have taken as much care as is possible to leave no room for complaint on this score. The first edition consisted only of three parts. Part V is an addition. It contains my own views on the various issues involved in the problem of Pakistan. It has been added because of the criticism levelled against the first edition that while I wrote about Pakistan I did not state what views I held on the subject. The present edition differs from the first in another respect. The maps contained in the first edition are retained but the number of appendices have been enlarged. In the first edition there were only eleven appendices. The present edition has twenty-five. To this edition I have also added an index which did not find a place in the first edition.
The book appears to have supplied a real want. I have seen how the thoughts, ideas and arguments contained in it have been pillaged by authors, politicians and editors of newspapers to support their sides. I am sorry they did not observe the decency of acknowledging the source even when they lifted not merely the argument but also the language of the book. But that is a matter I do not mind. I am glad that the book has been of service to
- In the first edition there unfortunately occurred through oversight in proof correction a discrepancy between the population figures in the different districts of Bengal and the map showing the lay-out of Pakistan as applied to Bengal which had resulted in two districts which should have been included in the Pakistan area being excluded from it. In this edition, this error has been rectified and the map and the figures have been brought into conformity.